Tudor education and

Most families educated the boys for work and the girls for marriage and running a household.The wealthiest families hired a tutor to teach the boys at home or sent the children to live with families of similar or preferably greater wealth and status. This was important for helping the children make connections and contacts in a period when it was vital to know important people to make a career or find a suitable marriage partner.

Parents who were perhaps not wealthy enough to hire a private tutor, but could afford to pay for education, sent the boys to a grammar school or a school attached to a cathedral. These schools taught mathematics, Greek and Latin.

An important employer for men seeking a career with an intellectual dimension was the church. The church not only employed priests and bishops, but also canon lawyers, estate managers, scholars and lecturers. Until the Tudor period, and with the exception of medicine, universities primarily trained men for a career in the church. This career, however, came with a price. Until 1532 men in holy orders, and that included most clerics and scholars, were not allowed to marry. During the reformation this rule was changed, and priests could marry. (The Roman Catholic Church does onot allow its priests to marry.) This relaxation of the rules also applied to scholars, however, some Oxford and Cambridge colleges did not allow senior fellows to be married. (Some people think that the burdens of family life impinge on the thought processes of the philosopher!)

During the Middle Ages, a career in the church had allowed for a certain amount of social mobility in an otherwise static social system. Through patronage of a clergyman the son of a tradesman could eventually aspire to a place at university and forge a career for himself.

A good example of a "local boy made good" is Miles Smith, born in Hereford in 1550, who was the son of a fletcher (a person who makes bows and arrows). After studying at the Cathedral School, he went up to Corpus Christi College, Oxford. A talented linguist, he was employed by James I to work on a Bible translation. After several appointments within the church, he became Bishop of Gloucester in 1612.

Miles Smith

[Note: See "The Cathedral School before the Reformation", Nicholas Orme, and "The Cathedral School since the Reformation" in Hereford Cathedral : A History, ed. Gerald Aylmer and J. Tiller, 2000, for a detailed history of this educational establishment.]

An edict of the Lateran Council of 1179 directed that a school should be set up in every cathedral town and 13^th century deeds in the Hereford Cathedral Archives mention a property in the "Olde Schole Strete".

Several scholars, such as the astronomer Roger of Hereford (c.1178) and sometime poet Simon de Freine (c.1200), can be named in connection with Hereford Cathedral, and the earliest cathedral statutes (1246-1264) infer the existence of a school. However, the first direct reference alluding to the school itself is from 1384 when Bishop Gilbert appointed Richard Cornwaille as schoolmaster.

Originally, cathedrals did not educate the sons of laymen for professions outside the church. The earliest types of pupil would have been choristers and priests in training.

Later in the Middle Ages, the grammar school would have been separate from the song school. Young men from the town who were not choristers would have studied subjects such as Latin, Greek and maths at the school associated with the Cathedral.

During the reign of Henry VIII many schools attached to monasteries suffered, often being shut and refounded by the government with uniform primers and other textbooks. Hereford Cathedral School was left relatively unchanged. However, during the reign of Edward VI the school was obliged to become a free grammar school and take in non-fee paying students. Choristers, whose voices had broken, and who thereupon had to leave the song school, were also allowed to take up places at the grammar school.

With the increase of trade and the breakdown of feudal society, the demand for literacy and education grew, even in rural areas. According to one scholar, there were 17 grammar schools in Herefordshire during the period of the dissolution of the monasteries and the chantries

. Some of these schools took in boarders but most of them provided an education for pupils from the surrounding area.

There were also smaller schools for people of modest means that taught reading and writing. In the Survey of Chantries made under Edward VI in 1547, there is mention of a Richard Cooley (or Cowley) of Staunton "which doth teach many poor men's children."

Children would not usually board at these schools and farmer's children would probably miss chunks of time during the harvest or lambing periods. Sometimes wealthy people would give money for a school to be founded for poor children.

Teachers were very strict and beatings were frequent. At the old grammar school house in Eardisland, for example, you can still see the whipping post, which naughty children were tied to to receive a beating. Funds for the building of this school were bequeathed in a will in 1603, but the vicar kept the money for himself and the school was not built until 1652

During the later Middle Ages schools had not only been attached to monasteries, but also to chantry foundations, and these too suffered from the closures during the dissolution. The priest at the Trinity Chantry at Ledbury, for example, had taught local children. The townspeople had to petition the King's Council for the school to continue:

"…to graunte that the saide scole maye ther styll be kepte, and the said Stipendary (priest) to Remayn for the maynteynying therof to the erudicion of yough, a charytable dede, for the Inhabitaunces of the same Have nott only Hade profytt and advauntage by the kepyng of a gramer scole there…" .

The school was allowed to continue, as were the former chantry schools in Bosbury and Bromyard. Under the reigns of both Mary Tudor and Elizabeth I there was a programme of re-foundation, and in fact a Charter of re-foundation was given to Bromyard school by Queen Elizabeth (after whom the school was then named) in 1566

The chantry school in Ross on Wye too was allowed to reopen after the suppression, changing its name from Churchyard School to Latin Grammar School

Many monks and chantry priests who became "unemployed" during the Dissolution of the Monasteries turned to teaching. Sir Thomas Nicolles of Dilwyn, for example, became a school-master, as did at least seven other men in the diocese of Herefordshire. The evidence for monks turned teachers comes from pension certificates issued by the Tudor administration which today are held in Hereford Cathedral library

. The following men were also listed as having a connection with a school:

Many parents could not afford to send their children to school at all. Without an education, youngsters usually had three options: domestic service, farm work or learning a trade. A completed apprenticeship generally provide the best means of making a living, often a very good living. Some of the wealthiest people in Hereford followed a trade and ran a business. A Richard Davies, fishmonger, for example, was a councillor until 1582, when he was disqualified for being a Catholic. In fact the trade guilds (of which there were 14 by the 15^th century) more or less controlled local government.

One way to find out which trades prospered in Hereford is to study the list of trades which participated in the annual Corpus Christi procession. In 1503, for example, following guilds joined in:

Glovers, Carpenters, Chandlers, Skinners, Fletchers, Vintners, Tailors, Drapers, Saddlers, Cordmakers, Tanners, Walkers, Butchers, Cappers, Dyers, Smiths, Barbers, Porters, Mercers, Bakers.

Carpenters, Corvisers, Goldsmiths, Saddlers, Fullers, Tailors, Butchers, Bowyers and Fletchers, Blacksmiths, Bakers, Drapers, Glovers, Barbers, Dyers, Tanners, Chandlers, Motley Weavers.

Indentures were legally binding on both the master and the apprentice and usually followed an excepted standard format. The following extracts of the indenture of Richard Jay to William Jay of Putley, Glover, spell out some of the rules governing the apprentice and some which govern the behaviour of the master:

Richard is to "serve his master well … fornication within the house of his said Master hee shall not commit, matrimony with any woman dureinge the said tearme hee shall not contract … he will not waste his master's goods, not lend them to anouther without license, he will not haunt taverns of custom unless about his master's business, nor play at cards or dice or absent himself by day or night."

William Jay was to teach him in the "arte, mistery and occupation of a glover, and find him meat, drink, lodging and boarding" (however, the boy's father was to buy his clothes)

Girls too could be apprenticed to a master to learn a trade. The Hereford Record Office also has the 1665 indenture of Elisabeth Badham of the City of Hereford to Thomas Amies, garter weaver. The wording of this document is very similar to William Jay's above.

"Thomas Amies as her Master well and faithfully (she) shall serve, his seecretts shall keepe, his comandments lawfull and honest eviewhere shall doe, Fornicacon in the house of her said Master nor without shee shall not comitt hurt unto her said Master shee shall not doe nor cause to be done to the value of twelve pence by the yeare…but as a true and faithfull Servant ought to behave herselfe aswell in works as in deedes.

He in turn is to teach her, give her "sufficient meate, drinke, lodgeinge, washinge and wringinge, and all other things necessary or belonging to an Apprentice of such a Trade to be found after the maner and Custome of the Citty of Hereford. In Wittness wherof the p(ar)ties to these p(re)sent Indentures have interchaingeably putt theire hands and Seales the six and twentieth day of Aprill in the yeare of the raigne of our Sov(er)aigne Lord Charles the second by the grace of God of England Scotland France and Ireland Kinge defender of the Faith &c the seaventeenth Anno Dm 1665."

For a young person to be indentured, a bond had to be paid, which was refunded at the end of the apprenticeship. Poor people often could not afford to pay this money and had to apply to the city which had a fund set up for such purposes. People often willed sums of money for this fund. Two such benefactors in Hereford were a Mr. Harper and a Mr. Woods. The following excerpts from the Mayor's Court Book for 1659 (Hereford Record Office) demonstrate that girls too benefited from the fund:

"Ordered Johan Harris daughter of David Harris and Joane his wife being an orphane to be allowed £3.00 of Harpers mony to be bound to Richard Lawford."

"Ordered Eliz. Thomas to be bound with £3.00 of Mr. Harpers mony bound to Anne Davies semster."

Apprentices too were sometimes charged with violent and unseemly behaviour. In 1627 John Addams of Hereford was accused by his master of disorderly and rebellious behaviour. This involved breaking his master's windows, overindulging in alcohol, fighting, gambling, beating the maid, hitting the master and staying out all night. Not surprisingly, the report concludes, "all are in dread of him"