ABSTRACT
Not only was the outward organisation and supervision of the grammar schools ecclesiastical, but the internal atmosphere of the schools throughout the Middle Ages had been predominantly religious. The schools were a constituent part of the organisation of Collegiate Churches and of Chantries. They were, in early times, often held inside the Church, and always in its precincts, and took part in the recognised religious observances which formed the very centre of the day’s life. It is only when we notice how the Collegiate Church provided for boys in the school, the college for the same boys as men in their prime, and the hospital for the old age of those who needed it, that we see how the Church kept in view the whole man in one institution at all points where it was necessary to rely upon the help of others, and the one persistent bond of union consisted in joining together in the constant religious services which dominated institutional life. This aspect of medieval life in the school will be made clear by citing the Statute of Eton College, bearing on this subject (1440): ‘The Provost, the Fellows, the Chaplains, the Clerks, the Scholars [i.e. the boys elected on the foundation of the grammar school of the College], and the Choristers shall on rising say a specified antiphon, versicle, and prayer, and, in the course of the day, a psalm, with certain adjuncts. Matins of the Blessed Virgin shall be said by the Choristers in Church, and by the Scholars in the dormitories while making their beds before five o’clock in the morning. Certain other prayers shall be said by the Usher and Scholars in School, and, on the ringing of a bell, Scholars and Choristers shall alike repair to the Church, to be present at the elevation of the Host. After High Mass, about nine o’clock, those present shall say prayers for the souls of King Henry the Fifth and Queen Katharine, during the life of the Founder, and afterwards for the Founder’s soul instead. Before leaving School in the afternoon, the Scholars shall sing an antiphon of the Blessed Virgin with certain specified versicles and prayers, and later they shall say the Vespers of the Blessed Virgin according to the ordinal of Sarum. The Choristers shall say the Vespers and Compline of the Blessed Virgin in the Church before the Vespers of the day. Towards evening they shall say the Lord’s Prayer, kneeling before the great crucifix in the Church, and sing an antiphon before the image of the Blessed Virgin. Further prayers shall be said by the Fellows, the Chaplains, the Clerks, the poor young men, the Scholars, and the Choristers, on retiring to bed.’ In addition, the canonical hours were to be said in the Church daily, ‘according to the use of Sarum,’ beginning with Matins about five o’clock in the morning. The grammar school boys were required to attend these services on the great festivals and on certain other specified days. The atmosphere, therefore, was distinctly cloistral. Dean Colet’s article on Religious Observance in his Statutes (1518) for St Paul’s School, was a very considerable modification of the Eton requirement. In providing for a Chaplain, Colet assigns to him the singing of mass in the Chapel of the school, where he is to pray for the children to prosper ‘in good life and in good literature.’ At this mass whenever the bell in the school’ shall knoll to sacring, then all the children in the school kneeling in their seats shall with lift-up hands, pray in the time of sacring. After the sacring when the bell knolleth again, they shall sit down again to their learning.’ The chaplain was to give his time entirely to the school, in which besides singing mass, he was to teach the children the Catechism, the Articles of the faith and the Ten Commandments, in English. Colet thus combined in his Statutes the obligation on the school of providing for religious observances and for religious instruction. This direction was continued at the Reformation. The Statutes of schools after the Reformation, amid all their varieties of language, agreed substantially in three of their articles, viz.:
Prayers and religious observance in the gram mar schools.
Religious instruction in the Catechism and the content of the Christian faith.
Attendance in a body, of the school-boys at Church, at any rate on Sundays.
St Paul's School in 1670 https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9781315862613/d168dd74-1203-4baa-a9f2-f292d75cf631/content/fig3_B.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/> Note.–The building in which John Milton was a school-boy was St Paul’s School, as originally founded by Dean Colet. Of this there is no known illustration extant, that given above is that of the second building in 1670, the original building having been destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666. Strype, however, in his edition of Stowe’s London, states that the second building was ‘much after the same manner and proportion as it was before.’