Spare the Rod, Spoil the Child: more on 16 and 17th century schooling

'My master peppered my arse with well good speed

it was worse than a fennel seed (hot)

he would not leave till it did bleed

much sorrow have he for this deed

what availeth it me though I say nay?

The birched schoolboy,c.1500  EETS original series vol. 32 ed. F.J. Furnival, 

Opinions differed on whether children were best sent to schools or kept at home with tutors.  While at school children might benefit from the society and competition of other children, they were also more exposed to bad examples.  Vives believed that boys were better off at school, but only when they were old enough to have formed good habits when, it was assumed, they would be safe from being corrupted.  Daughters, on the other hand, being 'frail things, and of weak discretion ' should rarely be allowed out of the house.  (Foster Watson,  Vives and the Renascence education of women, 1912)  Rabelais believed that children were best educated in a one-to-one relationship with a tutor, and he had considerable influence on French education.  After the restoration of the English monarchy French ideas were brought to England with the returning exiles.

In practise many parents seen to have combined the two systems, as Queen Elizabeth I's astrologer Dr. John Dee did.  In 1587 he 'covenanted with John Basset to teach the children the Latyn tong, and I do give him seven duckats by the quarter.'  His youngest son was then five.  In 1590 the children were at Mr. Lee's school in Mortlake where 'I gave him his house-rent and forty shillings yerely for my three sons and my daughter.'  (For comparison Shylock, in Merchant of Venice lends Antonio three thousand ducats for Bassanio to woo Portia so schooling must have been quite cheap)
  (The private diary of Dr. John Dee ed. J.O. Halliwell.  Camden Soc. ist series no. 19, 1842)
In 1596, however, John Dee engaged a governess for his younger daughters:  'Mary Goodwyn came to my servyce to govern and teach Medina and Margaret.'

Dame school. From Tuer, History of the Hornbook, 1896

If taught at home little children generally learned their first letters at the knee of some neighbour who taught a small group of children to read for a small sum; the traditional 'dame school', which continued to be common right into the 19th century.  William Stukeley, for example, says that:'  About 1690 I lernt the first Rudiments of Letters of Mrs. Collingwood, an old decay'd Gentlewoman at Holbeach who taught all the Children in the Parish.'
     (.Memorials of the Holles Family, 1493-1656, Camden Soc. 3rd series vol. 55, 1937)

Children were generally taught their letters with the hard-wearing hornbook.  These seem to have first appeared in the late 14th century (see Andrew Tuer, The history of the hornbook, 1897)

'Qan a chyld to scole shall set be

A bok hym is brout

Naylyd on a brede of tre,

That men callyt an abece'

   (Tuer, op.cit)

Miss Campion with her hornbook,. Tuer, History of the Hornbook

They were in use until the early 19th century.  Usually they were a rectangular piece of wood with a handle at the bottom on which was pasted a printed sheet of paper.  At the top this had the alphabet, then the numbers one to ten, followed by the Lord's Prayer, in English.  The paper was protected from wet and sticky little fingers by a thin transparent sheet of horn, then often used instead of expensive glass, and fastened down with strips of brass.  The backs were sometimes covered with leather, stamped with the figure of St. George, or carved.  Leather hornbooks are also known, while rich people's children sometimes had expensive and beautiful hornbooks of ivory with the letters painted on, or holders made of silver filigree.
There is a description of children learning to read with a hornbook in The Reading Lesson: a dialogue for children learning to read:
  'Tsake the table of the crosse-row in thy left hand, and festraw wherewith thou shalt touche the letters one by one.  Stand upright.  Hold thy cap under thy arme, attentively how I move my mouth.'
  ( M.St. Clare Byrne, The Elizabethan Home, discovered in two dialogues by Claudius Hollyband and Peter Erondell.  rev. ed. 1930 Hollyband and Erondell were French Huguenot refugees, arriving in England around 1564.)

Hornbooks (Wikipedia)

So after learning their basic letters children might be sent to school.  By the time of the English Civil War, 1642, and from then on into the 18th century, there were many small schools for the education of local children, run by groups of trustees. William Stukely went to one after his dame school, and this was probably common:
  'In 1692 I was put to the Free-School at the Church there, which was founded by the family of the Farmers...my Father being one of the trustees of that Charity.'
   (Stukely, op.cit)

These small schools were normally fee-paying with some free places provided for the poor, subsidised by charity and providing an elementary level of education.  They flourished until most of them were gradually incorporated into a state system in the 19th century.

The alternative was one of the small schools run by local clergymen to supplement their incomes, much as priest had done before the Reformation.  These inevitably varied in quality and probably did not provide as good a basic grounding as a proper school.  Sir John Bramstone remembers the Vicar of Blackmore, Andrew Walmsley, sending the pupils into the fields with their tasks  'to see that his catle trespassed noe bodie.' (Autobiography of Sir John Bramstone, K.B. Camden Soc. 1st series vol. 32)

The vicar was not all that a vicar should be as a moral guardian either: 'he suffered his boyes to rob ponds, and kill...the pidgons of his neighbours...He at first seemed angrie, but the pidgeons were baked and we eate them.'  Sir John contrasted this with the tuition he and his brother later received at Thomas Farnaby's school:' Oh Heuens! Where has thou binn bread?'  asked Farnaby on seeing their first Latin exercise.

Sir John Bramstone also described the Vicar as 'of a temper very unfitt for a schoolmaster, very passionate, and being ouer angrie with any one, he was like a furie to wife, children, seruants, scholars, all the house.'  Sir John's younger brother, having the ill luck to encounter the Vicar in one of his passions, 'he gave 50 blows with the great rod...he sayd to me, 'Your brother hath binn a very naughtie boy, and I was forct to correct him a little'  (Bramstone, op.cit)

The schoolmaster and his pupils, note the birch.  Informatio Puerorum, c.1500
(Percy Muir, Early Children's books and their illustration, 1975)

Another survivor of the clergy-schools was the Rev. Richard Baxter, Puritan divine:
'In the village where I was born there was four readers successively in six years tyme, ignorant men, and two of them immoral in their lives, who were all my schoolmasters...they taught school and tippled on weekdays, and whipped the boys when they were drunk.'
    (Autobiography of Richard Baxter...abridged from the Folio (1696)  ed. J.M. Lloyd, 1925.)

Educational theorists had only limited success in restricting the use of beating in schools.  Even the colloquies of Erasmus describes masters as 'ready and generous as possible with floggings'
  (Colloquies of Erasmus, trans. Craig R. Thompson, 1965)
Some respected authorities such as Vives strongly recommended its use:  'Never have the rod off the boys' back; especially the daughters should be handled without any cherishing'
    (Vives, Instruction of Christian Women, op.cit)

The famous biographer John Aubrey(1626-1697), who was very interested in children's upbringing, disapproved of this, but perhaps it is fortunate that he never had the opportunity to put his own disciplinary methods into practise on children, for he recommended the use of thumb-screws rather than boxing the ears which, he thought, might injure the brain.  (John Aubrey, A Plan of Education, in  John Aubrey's Brief Lives, ed. Oliver Lawson, 1949)

All too many schoolmasters used the rod as an educational aid, or quite indiscrinately Some like Dr. Gill were well known for their 'whipping fitts'  (Aubrey, op.cit)  Whipping schoolmasters and over severe parents gradually come to be mentioned with general disapproval, however.  Sir Robert Burton (1577-1640)criticised over severity on  the Anatomy of Melancholy:  Parents and such as have the tuition of and oversight of children offend many times in that they are too stern, always threatening, chiding, brawling, whipping or striking; by means of which their poor children are so disheartened and cowed that they never after have any courage.' (Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, 1st ed. 1621)

so Sir Thomas Raymond (b. c.1610) blamed his father and masters for 'nipping in the bud of a tender masculyne spiritte' by their harsh treatment 'I being not soe quick at repeating without books as my younger brother was...not only harshly used by the pedagugui (teacher) but to my great shame and discouragement, placed in the form belowe my younger brother...It being indeed greate pitty that no better care is taken for choyce of able men to have the care of instructing and educateing of youth.'
    (Autobiography of Thomas Redmond and memoirs of the family of Guise of Elmore, Gloucestershire, ed. G. Davies, Camden Soc. 3rd series, vol. 28)

A schoolboy learning his letters from a hornbook.
  (Tuer, History of the Hornbook, 1896)

Sir Roger North's brother Dudley, although his spirit was not ruined by harsh treatment, nevertheless remembered his master's severity all his adult life.  Although his other brothers got on well at Mr. Stephens' school, 'The master took a great aversion to him, and most brutally abused him; correcting him at all turns, with or without a fault, till he was driven within an ace of despair, and(as I have often heard him declare) making away with himself'
   ( Roger North (1651-1734) Lives of the Right Hon. Francis North, Baron Guildford...The Hon. Dudley North...And the Hon. and Rev. Dr. John North...1st pub. 1744)

However, severe discipline tempered with kindness does not seem to have done more robust children hamr.  Thomas Ellwood was quite unaffected by attempts to disciplin him:
  'I could not easily conform my self to the grave and sover Rules and (as I then thought) severe Orders of the School; but was often playing one waggish Prank or another among my Fellow Schollars, which, subjected me to correction, so that I have come under the Discipline of the Rod twice in a Forenoon.  which yet brake no Bones.'
   Life of Thomas Ellwood, written by his own hand,  1714.

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Girls education in Renaissance and Tudor times

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 sphere.'
   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.

Catherine of Aragon,( Lambeth Palace)

The influence of the very pious Catherine of Aragon  and her Spanish tutor Vives partly account for the pious bias of Renaissance education for girls in England, and for the education they began to receive.

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.

Princess Mary, 1554, Hans Emworth (Wikipedia)

None of these scholars advocated the education of women so that they could take a greater part in affairs outside the home or questioned the innate superiority of man over woman.  Sir Thomas More wrote half jokingly to his favourite daughter:
'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.

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.

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)

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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A Puritan Education

'The end then of learning is to repair the ruins of our first Parents by repairing to know God aright, and out of that knowledge to love him, to imitate him, to be like him, as we may the nearest by possessing our souls of true virtue, which being united to the heavenly grace of faith makes up the highest perfection.'
   John Milton (1608-1674) Of Education, 1644

In the early 17th century educationalists, particularly the Puritans among them, began to favour including practical subjects in the curriculum.  Many of their ideas were pioneered in the works of the Czech educator John Amos Comenius, whose Orbis Sensualium Pictus was first published in Germany in 1658 and was translated into English in 1678 by his friend Charles Hoole.   His ideas were set out in Janua Linguarum Reserata or, the gate of tongues unlocked, 1631.  He believed in universal education, in the vernacular, until., about the age of twelve, combined with practical education in some skill. These ideas and his work on kindergartens and the value of play in learning  continue to inspire educators to the present day, especially in Germany,

The first educational book to successfully use illustrations as a teaching aid.

Charles Hoole recommended the pictures 'to entice witty children to it, that they may not conceit it a torment to be in the School, but dainty-fare.'
   The Usher's Duty, 1659, In A New Discovery in the old Art of Teaching Schoole, 1660, ed. E.T. Campagnac, 1917

Hoole was one of an influential group of mid 17th century Puritan educationalists which included Samuel Hartlib, John Milton and Sir William Petty, who gives a charming picture of the everyday pastimes of children at this time:
  'For we see children to delight in drums, pipes, fifes, guns made of elder sticks...painting flags and ensigns with elderberries and cornpoppy, making ships with paper, setting even nut shells a-swimming...making pictures in their writing books, making tops, gigs and whirligigs, gilting balls, practising divers juggling tricks upon the cards etc...And for the females they will be making pies with clay, making their babies (dolls) clothes and dressing them therewith, they will put leaves on sticks as if they were roasting meat; they will imitate all the talk and actions which they observe in their mother and her gossips...'
  Epistle to his honoured friend Master Samuel Hartlib, 1647

Samuel Hartlib was an agriculturalist and was keen to see practical agriculture more widely taught.  These educationalists gave more importance to science, and to its study through actual observation, weighing, measuring etc.  The Nonconformists began to found their own schools in the later 17th century, because the universities were closed to them because of their non-conforming religious beliefs, and their curriculum has a strong practical bias.  This made their schools popular with families who did not necessarily agree with their religious views but wanted a good general education for their sons.  Defoe attended Newington Green Academy in the late 17th century and describes the curriculum as including classical languages, French, Italian, maths, natural science, history, geography, logic and politics.
I. Pinchbeck, & M. Hewitt, Children in English Society, vol. 1, 1969

Comenius, the master and his pupil

Physical education for boys, continued to be considered very important. In the mid 16th century, Roger Ascham (1515-1568) had recommended that boys should  be able to: 'ride comely, to run fair at the tilt or ring, to play at all weapons, to shoot fair in bow and straigt in gun, to vault lustily; to run, to leap, to wrestle, to swim...to hawk, to hunt, to play at tennis, and all pastimes generally which will be joined with labour used in open space, and in the daylight, containing some ft exercise for war or some pleasant pastime for peace.
 The whole works of Roger Ascham, ed. Rv. Mr. Giles, 1864

In the turmoil of the Civil War, in the 17th century, people were still more inclined to link physical education with provision for an efficient army.  Oliver Cromwell's secretary, John Milton, drew up a detailed plan for the military training of students at the academy proposed in his tract Of Education, 1644:
'This institution of breeding which I here delineate, shall be equally good both for peace and war,'  He recommends that the pupils spend their exercise time learning swordsmanship, wrestling, riding and the arts of war so that, if necessary, they will be ready to act as captains in the army.  At a time when all able-bodied men and boys were supposed to be trained to the use of weapons for the possible defence of the kingdom, schools, where numbers of boys were gathered together, must haver seemed the obvious place for organise military training, and the pracise has continued right up to the present day.

Comenius,  Parents and children, Masters and servants.

Charles Hoole,(1610-1667) the translator of Comenius, was a practising schoolmaster, teaching in Rotherham when the town was attacked during the Civil War.  The town was defended by Col. Fairfax for Parliament and about thirty of the boys at the school 'undertook the management of a draje, which was placed at the entrance of the bridge, and did considerable execution.'  In Kings Norton, now on the edge of Birmingham, the boys attending the local school, run by the Puritan Rev. Thomas Hall (1610-1665) defended the school against the Cavaliers which must have been quite difficult as almost next to the school was a house owned by Charles I's Queen Henrietta.. After the Restoration, Thomas Hall lost his job.

Kings Norton Grammar School

'My counsel is that (children) learn the Greek and Latin tongues especially from Christians and so without the lies, fables, follies, vanities, whoredoms, lust, pride, revenge etc. of the heathens...and most necessary it is that Christians should forget the names of their gods and muses, which were but devils and damned creatures, and all their mythology and fabulous inventions and let them all go to Satan from whence they came.
   William Dell, quoted in Foster Watson The English Grammar Schools to 1660, 1968

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Schooling from Medieval to Tudor times.

'We children beg you, teacher, to show us how to speak Latin correctly...We would rather be flogged for the sake of learning than be ignorant...I am by profession a monk, and every day I sing seven hour services with the brethren and am occupied with reading and writing'
    Aelfric's Colloquy.  A.S. Cook and C.B. Tinker, Select translations from Old English prose, 1908.

This is a glimpse of an Anglo-Saxon schoolboy.  Until the Renaissance, monastic schools would have been the source of scholarly education.  The pattern of boys;' education was more or less the same all over Europe from the late Middle Ages to the Renaissance.  Most schools were run by the Church and varied considerably in size and standards.  A common expression of piety was the founding of chantries, small chapels with a resident priest paid to say prayers for the benefactor.  Such an endowment often included free schooling for poor scholars.  Many chantry priests also supplemented their generally small incomes by taking paying pupils. These small schools would teach basic reading and writing skills to children under the age of seven.  For many this was all the instruction they would receive, or need, to fit them for their working lives.
More advanced education was provided for boys by the grammar schools which cannon law required every cathedral to maintain after 1300 AD.

In addition to the Church schools, many secular schools were endowed both by individuals and by townsmen's guilds.  Some of these schools in England eventually becoming exclusive public schools.  A certain number of places were traditionally reserved for the free education of the poor. Some which continue to offer these scholarships today are  the King Edward VI grammar schools, founded by Edward VI, son of Henry VIII.

Edward VI, (1537-1553) Guillim Scrots, Guys & St.Thomas's Charity.

The grammar school curriculum and teaching methods were, before the invention of printing, largely dictated by lack of books.  There was an enormous emphasis on learning by heart and oral work, and also on the importance of rhetoric, logic and disputations.  This probably led to the students being very articulate. Even after the invention of printing books were scarce and precious and education remained mainly oral.

But the Renaissance had enormous and far-reaching effect on what was taught.  The re-discovery of classical texts led to a widening of the school curriculum to cover many new subjects.
Henry VIII and his first Queen, Catherine of Aragon, played an important part in attracting prominent scholars to England where they encouraged the spread of the new learning.  Catherine brought with her from Sapin Jan Luis Vives who had been her overseer of studies and her mother's educational advisor.  His friend Erasmus also worked in England for a time and maintained a correspondence with scholars here, and Sir Thomas More was a third scholar of international reputation.  More's  'best beloved children'  both girls and boys received an upbringing which embodied all that was best in the spirit of the Renaissance.  Their charming letters reveal that they studied not only Latin and Greek but philosophy, astronomy, physic, arithmetic, logic, rhetoric and music.
 
They formed part of the close-knit influential group of Renaissance scholars centred on the court of Henry VIII and encouraging the spread of Renaissance thought and the widening of the curriculum to include many new subjects.  They were, of course, all Catholic, and the King's divorce effectively broke up the group, sending Vives overseas again and Sir Thomas More to his death.  Other scholars chose to follow their king or the returning Puritans rather than the {ope, and after the English Reformation maintained the development of the new scholastic tratition.  Prominent members of this second generation of scholare were Roger Ascham, tutor to Princess Elizabeth, Henry Cheke and Richard Mulcaster.  They were all educated at Cambridge which had become noted for its scholars' puritan sympathies.


 Sir Humphrey Gilbert proposed the following scheme for the education of Queen Elizabeth's wards, mostly the sons of noblemen:
'Grammar, Latin and Greek, Hebrew, logic and rhetoric, moral philosophy, natural philosophy, arithmetic, geometry, riding, arms, geography, astronomy, the principles of navigation, science, modern languages, French, Spanish and Italian, dancing, music and heraldry.'
    Lansdowne MS 98, EETS extra series vol. 8 ed. F.J. Furnivall, 1869

In spite of the enormous widening of the curriculum Latin continued to be considered the most important subject studied.  The chief purpose of a classical education was the forming of character through the Classical authors, an idea which remained current right up to the 20th century.  So Dean Colet gave his reason for founding St. Paul's School in 1518 as:
  'by this school specially to increase knowledge and worshiping of God and our Lord Christ Jesus and good Christian life and manners in the children.
  F.  Watson The English grammar schools to 1660.  1968.

There were strong reasons for boys to study Latin. It was the common language of Europe, the language of politics, the Church, and the professions.  Some schools made the upper forms talk Latin at all times, the regulations for Harrow, written in 1580, stated that :
'None above the first form shall speak English in the school or when they are together at play'
   F. Watson op. cit.

As the colloquies of Magdalen School, Oxford, put it:
  'Here we may drynke of the pure well of latyne tongue and eloquence, which is nothynge fayrer, o gracious children that wetith ther lypps therin.'
    British Library MS 249 Arundel Collection. 
    Quoted in W. Nelson, ed. A fifteenth century school book, 1956

There was considerable controversy over the use of beating.  Although individual teachers had, from time to time, condemned the universal practise of beating children who could not learn their lessons, beating was pretty universal. However, the rediscovery of the Institute Oratoria of Quintillian in 1416 was very influential with Renaissance educationalists. This enlightened Roman (c.95CE) believed in the importance of the moral example of the teacher and the use of praise and reproof rather than floggings. These ideas were exploited by Erasmus:
   'Pupil: "The entire company of your pupils beg you to let them play."
   Master:  That's all you do even without permission."
  Pupil:'Your wisdom is aware that wits are stimulated by moderate play, as you have taught us from Quintillian."'
    Colloquies of Erasmus (original in Latin) translated by C.R. Thompson. U. Chicago Press, 1965

Erasmus, Hans Holbein the Younger,.  National Trust

In Europe the Jesuit Catholic schools also used the ideas of Quintillian, and were the first to systematically use competition.  Boys in lower forms were arranged as rivals, in pairs, while each class was divided into two camps, Rome and Carthage, to compete against each other, see the influence of Roman history.  Religion was no barrier to good teaching methods, and th ideas of the Jesuites were adopted by Protestant educators.  The Puritan John Brinsley took the system further, suggesting yearly examinations and an elaborate system of punishments which depended on the loss of place in the form, loss of privileges and use of tasks and detentions. (John Brinsley, Ludus Literarius or The Grammar Schoole, 1627, ed. E.T. Campagnac, Liverpool U.P. 1917, )

An enlightened humanist who had considerable influence on teaching methods in England was Roger Ascham, the Princess Elizabeth's tutor, a Puritan, appointed by her father Henry VIII who took great interest in education and the new Renaissance learning. Ascham's book on educational theory, The Scholemaster, 1570, is full of genuine understanding and love of children.  To judge from the performance of his royal charge, Ascham had a natural gift for teaching, and like all the best teachers he understood that not all children were suited to a classical education, and that they should study according to their abilities: 'Children who are quiet, steady, but slow to learn are not sent to school or driven to hate learning by beating.  Such a child, if he later becomes a student of the common law, or page in the court, or servingman, or bound apprentice to a merchant or to some handicraft, he proveth in the end, wiser, happier, and many times honester too, than many of these quick wits do by their learning.'

The Scholemaster was inspired by Sir William Cecil's reporting to Ascham that 'divers scholars of Eton be run away from the school for fear of beating'
   Ascham, The Scholmaster, 1570, ed. Rev. Giles, 1867

 Theme writing on a moral or political subject and composing Latin verse were methods of teaching which became popular with the English Puritans.  This led many scholars to reading English poetry which they would probably not have read otherwise, since scholars used English models and practised in English before attempting Latin.

Two children, artist unknown, National Museum of Wales.

All Protestants agreed, and differed from their Catholic predecessors, in making the Bible the centre of their religious teaching.  A direct result of the Reformation in England under Herny VIII was the imposition of a government approved English primer or prayerbook in place of the Catholic Latin prayers.  A standard English Bible was also introduced.  For Protestants religious instruction in the vernacular was an integral part of their doctrine and teachers placed greater importance on reading and writing English 'now that we are returned home to our English ABC as most natural to our soul and most proper to our faith.'
   Richard Mulcaster, Positions, 1581, quoted on F. Watson, op.cit

Further injunctions in the reign of Elizabeth I concerning the duty of parents to instruct and catechise their children according to the Church of England show that politicians as well as religious leaders recognised the importance of early training.  There was steady pressure to maintain religious conformity among teachers, culminating in their having, like preachers, to take the Oath of Uniformity.

Wen from the schoole ye shall take your waye
Or orderly then go ye, two in aray...
Not runnynge on heapes as a swarme of bees
As at this day Every man it nowe sees
Not usynge but refusynge Such foolyshe toyes
As commonly are used In these dayes of boyes
As hoopynge and halowynge as in hyntynge the foxe
That men it hearynge Deryde them with mockes'
         Seager, The Schoole of Vertue, 1557

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Child Marriages in Tudor and Jacobean times

'She had enticed him with two apples to go with her to Colne and to marry her.'
   (F.J. Furnivall ed. Child Marriages, Divorces and Ratifications etc. in the Dioces of Chester, AD 1561-66.    EETS original series Vol. 108, 1897)

Little child with an apple, c. 1600, Holbourne Museum

                                                                                                  

The way that marriages between children were frequently arranged is a clear indication that they were regarded like property, with few individual rights.  Very little regard seems to have been shown for their personal inclinations, and their marriages, particularly those of royalty, were often the cement to an important alliance, a gesture of goodwill from one politician to another, a kind of presentation of hostages.  Mary Queen of Scots was sent as a child bride to France, to cement an alliance with Scotland.  Richard II received a French bride of eight, who spoke very little English, when he was twenty-seven.  One of the prizes of Henry V's victories in France was the hand of the French princess Katherine.  Catherine of Aragon was famously married by proxy to Prince Arthur, heir to the English throne, to cement an alliance with Spain.  When he died, she was simply transferred to the new heir, the future Henry VIII.  In such cases it was, of course, always the girl who was sent to live in her husband's country.  The alliances might crumble as political interests changed, but the marriages were expected to be permanent.

Crown Prince Arthur aged 13, PD Art

Slightly lower down the social scale, such marriage alliances were often arranged between great nobles,
 to join estates, or to strengthen a political position.  A particularly iniquitous practise was the sale of the wardship, or guardianship, of the heirs of great estates whose fathers had died.  This was gradually developed by the Tudors from the rights which an overlord had over the property of a vassal who was still a minor in feudal times to a perquisite of the Crown.  Such wardships might be sold to the highest bidder, not necessarily taking into consideration the good of the child or the existence of close relatives.  Wardship, in fact, rarely went to the mother.  The buyer of the wardship acquired effective guardianship of the child.  The profit to the guardian generally came through arranging the ward's marriage, and was the reason the wardships of heiresses were more highly prized than those of males (one of the few occasions when girls were preferred) Her property would become her husband's whereas a male ward would eventually get control of his property on his coming of age.  Wards rejecting a marriage were fined a sum equivalent to that which the guardian could have gained through the marriage.  Buying a wardship could be a good way of providing for a younger son, and the practise was by no means confined to the aristocracy.  An account of such a marriage in the diocese of Chester in 1562 says regretfully on its dissolution:
    'She should have had by him a pretty bargain if they could have loved one the other.'
   (Child Marriages, Divorces and Ratifications etc. in the Diocese of Chester, 1561-66
     EETS original series Vol. 108. 1897)

 Sir Thomas and Lady Lucy with seven of their children, Cornelius Johnson, 1622, National Trust

Such wards would normally be brought up in the house of their guardian, not necessarily a disadvantage.  William Cecil, Lord Burghley, Elizabeth I's Secretary of State, made a practise of buying wardships, but provided his wards, and those of the Crown, with an unrivalled education and great political opportunities from their base at Cecil House on the Strand.
However, generally the practise of selling wardships was considered iniquitous by those who suffered under it, and the Court of Wards was abolished after the Civil War in 1646.

One effect of the threat to a child's marriage prospects posed by the Court of Wards was the arrangement of very early marriages, particularly among the aristocracy.  This was one way in which anxious parents could tie up their children's estates and futures in they way they felt was best.  It is also an instance of the absolute control which parents were considered to have over children.  Children were expected to follow the parents' wishes.
For instance, Peter Agee explained, when suing for dissolution to his child marriage, that he married Alice when he was thirteen and she nine 'because it was his mother's mind, he dursrt not displease her.'  John Bridge had to marry Elizabeth, he aged eleven, she thirteen, because, 'his father had been undone' owing to a bond he had signed.
    (Child Marriages, op. cit.  For an account of the Court of Wards and sale of wardships see Pinchbeck and Hewitt, Children in English Society, London, 1969, Vol. 1, chapter 3)

Some parents thoroughly abused their children's rights.  Robert Mann, dissolving his marriage to Margaret, contracted when he was nine and she ten, said 'he could never fancy her, nor her father because he kept the mother of the said Robert to paramour (mistress) afore he married her and consumed the said Robert's goods.'
(Child marriages..op cit)

Lady Arabella Stuart (1575-1615) National Trust

Resistance such as Margaret Paston's was rare., She held out against her entire family and was eventually allowed to marry the man of her own choice, although he was considered to be her social inferior.
    (Paston Letters,  various eds)
In fact, most arranged marriages seem to have been quite successful, certainly no worse than those where the partners are allowed to choose for themselves.  The practise still continues today in many cultures.

Girl with a rattle.  Jan Claesz (Dutch, d. 1636)

There was a regular legal framework for child marriages which itself shows that the practise was considered quite usual.  Espousal could take place at seven, although there are cases of it having taken place at two or three.  The records of Child Marriages in the Diocese of Chester, 1561-6 (op cit) show that John Somerford married Jane when they were aged two and three.  They were carried in the arms of friends who spoke the words of marriage for them.  The witness adds: 'It was the youngest marriage that ever he was at'.  But still younger marriages were made.  In his Anatomie of Abuses in Ailgra (East Anglia) Philip Stubbes records that 'in Ailgra there is one great liberty permetted therein; for little infants in swaddling clouts are often married by their ambitious Parents and friends...'
    (Child marriages, op. cit.  preface, p.xxxiv)

Ludger Tom Ring the Younger, portrait of a small child in a fur lined cap and coral beads. National Trust 1583

Nevertheless the practise was frowned on/  Henry Swinburne, Judge of the Prerogative Court of York, defined the law in 1686 as 'Infants...are...children who have not as yet...the age of seven years...Spousals contracted during infancy are utterly void...as infants cannot contract spousals.'
   ( Treatise of Spousals or Matrimonial Contracts, 1686,  Child marriages, op. cit.
There were, however, a large number of exceptions to this general rule, based on the behaviour of the children, which could prevent the parties to the marriage from dissolving it, as they were entitled to do, at the 'ripe age' of twelve for girls, fourteen for boys, by suit in the Bishop's Court  Spousals were considered valid if the infants ratified the contract by word or deed at the age of seven, or cohabited together when one was nearly seven, or both were mature for their ages, or had indicated their liking for each other by kissing, giving of tokens or intercourse.

Provided intercourse had not taken place, there seems, in practise, to have been little difficulty in dissolving such marriages if they were unsuccessful.  About an equal number of boys and girls appear to have petitioned for dissolution, using the Chester diocesan records as a guide, the most common complaint being that 'she/he never fancied him/her.
   (Child marriages..op cit)

There are records of the system being abused.  Grace Boyes v. Robert Talbot, 1562, complained that 'the said Grace Boyes was taken away from her Grandfather;s house by a wile to come lie at Master Talbot's house...and when she was there, without the consent of her friends, was married to the said Robert in the night season.'  Sometimes the system was abused by the children themselves.  James Bullard complained that Anne Bullard 'had enticed him with two apples to go with her to Colne and to marry her.'  James repented the next morning.  The marriage was dissolved and the curate who married them punished.
    (Child marriages op. cit)

That child marriages were generally only intended as a formality is shown by accounts such as that of the marriage of Ellen Davenport and John Andrew, aged eight and ten.  They were put to bed together, as such 'married' children often were, but two of her sisters were put between them on their 'wedding night'.

Rafe Whittall, whose marriage to Joan was dissolved in 1562, was evidently sent to live with her, for he complained that
'he was ordered worse than any servant in her father's house...'
   (Child marriages op. cit)
However, at least among the middle classes, it seems to have been common for the two children to continue to be brought up separately until about the age of twelve to fourteen, when the marriage could be consummated without too much risk to the girl through early pregnancy.

That marriages were arranged like this is an indication of the power parents and guardians established over their children, and their expectations from them.  Perhaps the fact that parents have gradually come to expect less and less of their children in the way of obedience is an indication of the gradual growth, over the centuries, of child power.  At that time, however, the expectation was of total obedience fro the cradle right into adult life.  Adults made every attempt to get their children firmly under control as early as possible, and keep them there, a policy which must surely appeal to some modern parents battling with the problems of permissiveness.

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Spare the Rod, Spoil the Child

'Be thou to thy parents ever dutiful,
fair of speech, and let thy teachers
be dear to thee n thy heart and soul'
        A Father's Instruction: The Exeter Book, an anthology of Anglo-Saxon poetry, edited by I. Gollancz. EETS original series Vol. 104, 1895

A Father's Instruction was probably memorised by many little Anglo-Saxons before the Normans landed.  This extreme formality between parents and children is echoed in the later books of courtesy.  Hugh Rhodes describes how children should behave on meeting parents accidently:

Sir Walter Raleigh and his son, 1602. National Trust

'When that thy parents come in sight
do them reverence
Ask them blessing if they have been long out of presence.'
      Hugh Rhodes The boke of Nurture,1577,  ed. F.J. Furnivall, Roxburghe Club, 1867

Writers stress the very formal nature of the relationship:
'And, child worship thy father and thy mother
And look that thou grieve neither one nor other...'
    Symons Lesson of Wysedome for all Maner Chyldren.  MS Bod. 832 leaf 174 in EETS original series Vol. 32

Advice on how to behave with adults is similar:
'If any speak to you, look straight at them and listen well till they have finished, do not chatter or let your eyes wander round the house.  Stand till you are told to sit...bow to your lord when you answer.  If anyone better than yourself come in, retire and give place to him.  Turn your back on no man.  Be silent when your lord drinks, not laughing, whispering or joking.  If he tells you to sit down do so at once.
     The Babees Book.c.1475 ed. F.J. Furnival EETS original series Vol. 32

Letters which survive show a formal relationship between parents and children.There is a charming letter from Edward, Earl of March and Edmund, Earl of Rutland, sons of the Duke of York, aged eleven and twelve, written in 1454, in the middle of the Wars of the Roses, in which Edmund was killed.  This concerns their health and schooling.  They assure their father that they are both well, then go on:
'Ryght hiegh and myghty Prince, our most worschipfull and greately redoubted lorde and Fader, in as lowely wyse as any sonnes con or may we recomaunde us unto your good lordeschip...please hit youre heighnesse to witte that we have attended owre learnyng sith we come heder, and schall here aftur; by the which we trust to God youre gracious lordeschip and good Faturhode schall be plaised...'
     MS Cotton Vespian F xiii fol 35 reprinted in the Paston Letters

Mother and Child, c. 1650. Paulus van Somer, National Trust

In the Paston Letters, those most revealing records of everyday life in the 15th century, Elizabeth Paston, then a married woman, addressed her mother as:
  'Right worshipful and my most entirely beloved mother, in the most lowly manner I recommend me unto your good motherhood, beseeching you daily and nightly of your motherly blessing, evermore desiring to hear of your welfare and prosperity.'
    The Paston Letters, 1422-1509, various editions

The belief that parents should be strict with their children for the child's good is very old.  Sirach in the Apocrypha, writing around 180-175 BC, in the Middle East, says:

He that loveth his son will continue to lay strokes upon him,
That he may rejoice over him at the last...
Play with him and he will grieve thee,
Laugh not with him lest he vex thee...
Let him not have freedom in his youth
And overlook not his mischievous acts.
Bow down his neck in his youth
And smite his loins sore while he is little
Lest he become stubborn and rebel against thee...'
    Sirach in the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha ed. R.H.Charles, 1913

This text is interesting not only for the light it sheds on family life in Israel shortly before the birth of Christ but also because the text was highly regarded by the early Church Fathers, especially St. Jerome and St. Augustine, and consequently had considerable influence on early Christian teaching.

As children's bodies might be shaped with corsets and swaddling, so their characters might be trained:
   'Like to the growing plant
which young and tender thou mayst wry and bend
but once a tree and grown to height of strength
no force can make him bow or bend at length.'
   Francis Thynne,  Emblems and Epigrams c. 1600, ed. F.J. Furnivall, EETS original series Vol. 64, 1876

 Lady Dacre aged 6, Chrysogona Baker, 1579.  National Trust 

The old saying 'spare the rod and spoil the child' so often quoted by the Victorians was also a favourite maxim in the Middle Ages and Tudor period.  The anonymous author of the popular 15th century work The Book of Curtesy or Stans puer ad mensam  advises:

'To their plaints give no credence
A rod reformeth all their isnolence.
In their courage no Rancour doth abide
Who spareth the yard (rod) all virtue set aside.'
    The Booke of Curteisie that is Cleped Stans Puer ad Mensam, Lambeth MS 853, c. 1430 EETS original series Vol. 32

William Bulleyn made no pretence that punishment pained him as much as the person punished, nor that he had any hesitation in administering it:
  '....if you have any saucy lought or loitering lubber within your house...There is no prettier medecine for this, nor sooner prepared than boxing is.  Three or four times well set on, a span long on both cheeks...and every man may practise this, as occasion shall serve him in his family, to reform them.'
     William Bulleyn, The Booke of Compoundes, fol. lxviii, 1562, EETS original series vol. 32

It is only fair to add that corporeal punishment was by no means confined to children.  Within the family it was the accepted corrective for self-willed wives, as popular literature testifies.  Flogging has been a form of judicial punishment since time immemorial and has only recently become unacceptable in the West.  It is not in the least surprising that corporeal punishment should have been applied as a corrective to children equally with adults.

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Bringing up Girls: Plantagenets and Tudors

Now haue I thee taught, doughter, As my modir dide me
Thinke theron nyght and day, forgote that it not be
Haue mesur and lownes, as I haue thee taught,
And what man thee wedde schal, him dare care naught
Betere were a child unborn
Than untaught of wifje lore
Mi leue child'
       (How the Good Wijfe Taught hir Doughtir, Lambeth MS 853, c. 1430 ed. F.J. Furnivall, EETS original         series Vol. 32)

Like noblemen's sons, daughters were usually sent away to receive part of their education in another household, hopefully of superior status, where they could acquire social poise and make friendships which would be useful to them in later life.  The rise of Bess of Hardwick, one of the most notable Elizabethan success stories, for a woman,  began when this daughter of a good, but not very important Yorkshire family was sent to London as lady in waiting to Lady Zouch.  There she met and married Robert Barlow, a rich but sickly young man.  He soon died, leaving her with the first of the fortunes which she gained through her marriages.  She became the richest woman in England after the Queen.
Girl;s were sometimes even sent out of the country.  Mary Queen of Scots, sent to France as a child bride, took her four little Marys with her.  Anne Boleyn was also sent to France, with Mary Tudor.  Lord Lisle's wards Anne and Mary Bissett were both placed with good French families in 1533 and 15834 when they were about twelve.  They were able to perfect their French and meet French society. (The Lisle Letters ed. Muriel St. Clare Byrne, 1981)  Muriel St. Clare Byrne calls their education a combination of finishing school and European tour.

Imaginary portrait of Mary Queen of Scots as a child.  John Osterlund . Glasgow Museums

Alternatively girls might be sent for a convent education, like the Lisle's daughter Bridget.  In 1536 she was living at St. Mary's Convent Winchester with twenty-six 'children of lords, knights and gentlemen.'.  Bridget was sent there when she was six.

Until the Renaissance girls received even less formal education that boys.  Those who entered nunneries moight have opportunities for study but on the whole learned women were frowned on.  So, in the 13th century Romance of Floriz and Blauncheflour, when the king's son is old enough to begin his lessons his playmate Blauncheflour is excluded:

'Al wepying seid he
"Ne schal not Blancheflour lerne with me?
Ne can y in no scole syng ne rede
Without Blancheflour" he seide.'
    (The Romance of Florizel and Blauncheflour.  Trentham MS, now Egerton 2862 c. 1250 In Middle                English Metrical Romances ed. Walter Hoyt French and Charles Brockway Hale, New York, 1964,           Vol. 2..  Quoted in Dorothy Gardiner English girlhood at school, 1929)

Upper class girls studied English or French rather than Latin as this was considered a social grace.  They also studied dancing, some music, and were expected to acquire courtly manners, charm and good deportment.  However girls mostly learned domestic skills.  In an age when food for use during winter had to be preserved, and cloth had to be first spun and then woven manually before it could be made into clothes, such household skills were very important.  Even a noblewoman with large numbers of servants needed to have some knowledge of the processes involved in order to run the household.  All the making of preserves, salting, curing, butter and bread making, some spinning and weaving and the preparation of day to day herbal remedies were in the hands of the women and a man expected his wife to direct them.    So the 15th century romance Partonope of Blois describes how the daughter of Constantine learned:
   'To know of every herbe the vertue
And eke of Rothis (roots) where ever they grew
Whether they in kynde be colde or hote
The names of Spyces I know by rote
How in phisike they have her worching
The syke in to heele I canne wele bring.'
   (Partonope of Blois et. W.E. Buckley for the Roxburgh Club,quoted in Gardner op cit p,43)

Also, if a landowner was called away by his overlord to fight, his wife would be expected to take over the running of his estates, a serious business in an agricultural economy.  The knights and soldiers who went to fight in the Crusades were away for several years in some cases.  So while nobly born boys were trained for fighting, their sisters were trained for a domestic role.  So were the daughters of artisans, merchants and farmers.  The advice the Good Wijf gives her daughter on the running of her household gives some idea of the life of a middle class housewife at that time:

Unknown mother and child, Paulus van Somer National Trust collection

  'With your household don't be too sharp or too easy; set them to work at what most needs doing.  If your husband is away, make your people work, and treat them according to what they do.  When necessary set to work yourself, all will be better for it.  Look after your household when at work, and have faults put to rights at once.  See everything straight when they leave work; keep your keys yourself and beware who you trust.  Pay your people on wages day and be generous to them.'
    How the Good Wijf taught hir Doughter c. 1430 EETS Original series Vol. 32 ed. F.J. Furnivall)



There are records of women in business, particularly widows who inherited from their husbands, but far fewr girls were apprenticed to a skill than boys, those that were being mainly apprenticed to traditional female crafts such as the textile trade or became servants.  And always the women sewed.  The invention of the sewing machine, the great liberator, did not happen till the 19th century.  Meantime, from high to low, from childhood to the grave, they sewed, embroidered, ,knitted, darned and mended.  William the Conqueror defeated Harold, his wife Matilda iommortalised the battle in a tapestry to hang on the walls of a draughty castle.  Mary Quewen of Scots wiled away the long hours of captivity embroidering hangings with Bess of Hardwick.  Little princesses and less well born girls sat with for long hours labouring over trousseaux,  ready for marriage.  Most of what a girl was taught was to fit her for being a good wife, and the stress was on obediance:
  'Keep all that I have told you and your husband won't regret marrying you.'
said the Good Wijf.
  'Love your husband above all earthly things.  Answer him meekly and he'll love you.  Be cheerful and true and keep free from blame.'

Books of manners for girls stress the importance of guarding that virtue:
  'Sit not by him neither stand where sin might be wrought
For a scandal raised ill
Is evil forto still
My beloved child.'
   says the Good Wijf
'When any man speaks to you, greet him only, and then let him go on, as he might tempt you to do wrong. For all men are not true that speak fair.  Take no gifts, the're the ruin of many a true woman'.

In The good wyfe wold a pylyremage, c. 1460-70, the writer is more explicit and goes into some detail about the behaviour of flirtatious medieval women:
'Doughter, said the good wife,
hide thy legs white
And show not forth thy street hose (stockings)
To make men have delight....
Though it please them for a time
it shall be thy despite (shame)
And men will say
Of thy body thou carest but light.'
  ( The Good Wyfe Wold a Pylremage, EETS extra series Vol. 8 ed. F.J. Furnivall, )

Child with a rattle, 

Paulus van Somer (1576–1621 

Flemish)

The Good Wyfe is strongly in favour of early marriage:

'And look to thy daughters than none of them be lorn (lost)

From that same time that they be of thee born

Busy thee and gather fast towaqrds their marriage

And give them to spousing as soon as they be able

Maidens be fair and amiable

But of their love ful unstable

My beloved child'

'Gather fast towards their marriage' refers to the custom of giving a dowry with a daughter when she married.  This was intended originally as some kind of security for her.  It was not an outright payment to the husband or his family, and if the marriage broke up the dowry was supposed to return with the wife to her family.  Inevitably, dowries were not always returned and there were numerous lawsuits over disputed claims.  In the case of an heiress the dowry would probably consist mainly of land and money, but a wife normally also brought with her a good stock of household goods such as linen sheets, all made by her.

The Good Wijf continues with some more advice on behaviour her daughter is to avoid when married, which sheds revealing light on the life of a middle class housewife around the time of Chaucer:
  'Don't swear. In town don't gad about, or get drunk on your cloth money (ie money made by selling cloth the daughter has woven and sewn)

Furthermore:
   'Don't go to wrestling and shooting at targets like a strupet but stay at home.'
She gives general advice on conduct towards husband and neighbours:
'Don't be jealous of your neighbour's fine dress...Love your neighbours and do as you would be done by....Don't ruin your husband with your extravagance if he is poor.  Bleed a wren according to his viens.  Don't borrow or take your own dues first or show off with others' goods.
On bringing up children she takes the orthodox medieval line and advises severity:
'If your children are saucy and rebellious if any of them do wrong do not curse or hit them but take a smart rod and beat them in a row until they cry mercy and admit their guilt.'

Unlike the advice for boys, the Good Wijf books of manners are clearly directed to someone who will be occupying a subordinate position.  It is true daughters may carry carry considerable responsibilities, but they must make it their aim to please, and little medieval or Tudor girls learned this in early childhood.

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