Sir Thomas More to his daughter Margaret, The School of Sir Thomas More, in Foster Watson, Vives and the Renaisance education of women, 1912
The influence of the Renaissance on the education of woman was profound. It mainly reached England through Catherine of Aragon, the first wife of Henry VIII. She was the daughter of Queen Isabella of Spain. The famous European scholar Erasmus described Catherine as 'a miracle of her sex, nor is she less to be reverenced for her piety than for her education' (Foster Watson, Vives and the Renascence education of women, 1912)
Henry VIII and Catherine's court was, at this time, one to which many nobles aspired to send their daughters for training, and Queen Catherine's influence thus permeated a generation of aristocratic women.
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| Catherine of Aragon,( Lambeth Palace) |
Vives, Erasmus and Sir Thomas More all justify women's education by claiming that it strengthens their virtue. Vives says: 'All lewd and evil women are unlearned and... they which be learned are most desirous of honesty.
(Foster Watson, op. cit)
Vives wrote a very influential treatise on the education of women which stressed this point. He recommended for Princess Mary, daughter of Catherine of Aragon and Henry VIII,and later Queen Mary I, a plan of studies which included Erasmus, More, St. Jerome, the New Testament, the Christian Latin poets, Cicero, Seneca, Plutarch and some Plato, but not the Classical authors which might sully her ears with accounts of unsuitable classical vices. Nowhere in his plan of studies for boys does he mention religion, piety or chastity at all. Vives view, which may be taken as that of his fellow scholars, was that 'woman is a frail thing, and of weak discretion.' It is possibly because he spent a lot of time in the rigid propriety f the Spanish court that Vives is so concerned with the protection of girls' virtue. 'Avoid all mankind away from her, nor let her not learn to delight among men.' he says, and would include male tutors among those dangers to her virtue which must be guarded against: 'If there may be found any holy and well learned woman, I had rather have her teach them; if there be none, let us choose some man, either well aged, or else very good and virtuous, which hath a wife and that right fair enough, whom he loveth well, and so shall he not desire another'
Maybe Vives had read the famous medieval romance of Abelard and Heloise.
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| Princess Mary, 1554, Hans Emworth (Wikipedia) |
'Whereas I am wont always to counsel you to give place to your husband, now on the other side, I give you licence to strive to master him in the knowledge of the spheres. More saw girl's education as a way of increasing the bond between husband and wife and improving the quality of family life. Like the Roman author Martial, he believed that the husband would profit by educating his wife since she would then be a companion to him.
More converted his friend the famous scholar Erasmus to belief in classical education for girls with a dialogue between a rather poorly educated abbot and a learned lady. The lady turns all the abbot's arguments round to show that a well educated woman can run her household better, bring up her children better, and be more virtuous if she reads the classics rather than frivolous French novels.
(The Colloquies of Erasmus, translated by Craig R. Thompson, 1965)
More's friend Richard Hyrde was probably tutor to More's daughter Margaret for a time. He also defends women's study of classical languages in his preface to Margaret's translation of Erasmus' Treatise on the Lord's Prayer:
'The Latin and the Greek tongues, I see not but there is a little hurt in them as in books of English and French.'
(see Foster Watson, op. cit)
Hyrde also knew Vives well and translated his Instruction of a Christian Woman into English.
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| Sir Thomas More and his family (after Holbein, by R. Lockey, 1592, N.T.) |
The group which had been mainly responsible for the development of interest in classical education for girls was broken up by Henry VIII's divorce, his rejection of the authority of the Pope, and the English religious Reformation from Catholic to Protestant Christanity. Vives returned to Spain, More was beheaded for his opposition to Henry VIII. However, religious change did not much affect the climate of ideas as far as education for women was concerned. Two of Henry's later queens, Lady Jane Seymour and Catherine Parr, were also notable for their classical education. Catherine Parr was brought up after the example of Thomas More's daughters. All Henry VIII's children were educated in the new tradition. His son Edward, later Edward VI, founded the Edward VI grammar schools. His daughter, Princess Mary, translated Erasmus' Paraphrase of St. John's Gospel from Latin to English at Catherine Parr's request. Udall's preface to the 1548 edition of her translation gives an interesting picture of the effect the new ideas had in England. Speaking of the reign of Henry VIII, he says:
'The great number of noble women at that time in England not only given unto the study of humane sciences and strange tongues, but also so thoroughly expert in Holy Scriptures that they were able to compare with the best writers, as well as in enditeing and penning of godly and fruitful treatises...as also in translating good books out of Latin or Greek into English...It was now no news in England to see young damsels in noble houses and in the courts of princes, instead of cards and other instruments of idle trifling, to have continually on their hands either Psalms, homilies or other devout meditations...and as familiarly both to read and reason therof in Greek, Latin, French or Italian as in English. It was now a common thing to see young virgins so trained in the study of good letters that they willingly set all other vain pastimes at nought for learning's sake. It was now no news at all to see Queens and ladies of most high estate... instead of courtly dalliance, to embrace virtuous exercises of reading and writing, and with most earnest study, both early and late to apply themselves to the acquiring of knowledge, as well in all other liberal artes and disciplines as most especially of God and his holy word.'
(Quoted in Dorothy Gardiner, English girlhood at school, 1929)
Lady Jane Grey, that unfortunate nine day Queen (10-19 July 1553) was much admired by Roger Ascham for her learning; her parents gave her a classical education which conformed to the most advanced and liberal standards of the Renaissance. On the other hand her parents still expected her to give them complete obedience in both small and important issues, and this enabled them to arrange her marriage and involve her and her young husband like puppets in the bid for the throne which cost them their lives.
She left surely one of the saddest, because the least deserved, accounts of parental severity:
'One of the greatest benefits that God ever gave me is that he sent me so sharp and severe parents...For when I am in the presence of either father or mother, whether I speak, keep silence, sit, stand, or go, eat, drink, be merry or sad, be sewing, playing, dancing, or doing anything else, I must do it, as it were, in such weight, measure, and number, even so perfectly as God made the world, else I am so sharply taunted, so cruelly threatened, yea presently sometime with pinches, nippes, and bobs, and some ways which I will not name for the honour I bear them, so without measure misordered, that I think myself in hell.'
Quoted in Roger Ascham, The Scholemaster, 1570.
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| Lady Jane Grey in the Tower, W. F. Yeames, 1867 Sheffield Museums |
On the other hand, Princess Elizabeth, daughter of Henry VIII by Anne Boleyn, made use of the excellent education given her as the daughter of Henry VIII. for herself. She used her education to read, in Greek and Latin, books on statecraft which might be useful to her, but seems to have done so by her own choice.
Roger Ascham, who was her tutor, wrote a report on Princess Elizabeth in 1550 which describes her studies:
'The Lady Elizabeth has accomplished her sixteenth year. She has the most ardent love of true religion and of the best kind of literature. The constitution of her mind is exempt from female weakness, and she is endued with a masculine power of application...French and Italian she speaks like English; Latin with fluency, propriety and judgement; she also spoke Greek with me, frequently willingly and moderately well. Nothing can ve more elegant than her handwriting, whether in the Greek or Roman character. In music she is very skilful but does not greatly delight...The beginning of the day was always devoted by her to the New Testament in Greek, after which she read select orations of Isocrates and the tragedies of Sophocles....'
(Dorothy Gardner, op. cit)
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| Princess Elizabeth c. 1546. (Wikipedia) |
Although Queen Elizabeth was a good classical scholar, she took no interest in encouraging the ladies of her court, or in educating her wards along the same lines, and although she herself read the classics for pleasure until her death, her ladies were once again indulging in frivolous English and French romances. For the vogue for classical education for girls was relatively short-lived. For this the French were probably responsible; at a time when French culture was very much admired in England, works were translated which appeared to ridicule learned women for pedantry, or which implied that women were not capable of serious study. Probably the fear of ridicule carried weight with parents anxious that their daughters should appear to the best advantage in the marriage market. In addition, while classical education for sons might be an essential grounding for their entry into professions such as the Church or law, these professions were closed to women and classical education was less directly relevant to their lives.
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