The schools of medieval England / by A.F. Leach ; with forty-three illustrations.

  • Arthur Francis Leach
Date:
[1915]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The schools of medieval England / by A.F. Leach ; with forty-three illustrations. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    their school in the Greek archbishop Theodore, of whom more hereafter. It is obvious that the school which was taken as the model, and which furnished the first masters to the school founded on its model, like Winchester to Eton 800 years later, must be older than the copy. Even if Dunwich School had not perished, the primary place among the schools, as among the churches, of England must be assigned to Canterbury. The vexed question of which is “ Our Oldest School ” is therefore settled in favour of the ancient Grammar School of the city or cathedral church of Canterbury—the terms are con- vertible—known, though only since the eighteenth century, as the King’s School, Canterbury. . RecentIy> the claim of Canterbury, generally accepted since its first assertion in The Tunes of 14 September, 1896, reinforced by detailed exposition in articles in the same paper of 7 September, 1897, and in The Guardian of 12 and 19 January, 1898, has been questioned, and the priority sought to be assigned to Rochester Cathedral School. The basis of the Rochester claim was eventually reduced in a letter to The Times of 4 January, 1911, to a statement in an old history of ochester,” that “ in the year 604 Justus endowed six secular priests for the instruction of youth ” there. This statement, involving a school with five assistant masters, a number unheard of and undreamt of in English schools before the eighteenth century, is absolutely incredible. Even if the “ old history ” —the date and provenance of which have been asked for but ave not been vouchsafed—were accepted as an authority com¬ parable to that of Bede, it could not make us accept Rochester as the older school. To do so would be to set the disciple above his master. For the See of Rochester was an offshoot of and subordinate to Canterbury. “ In 604,” says Bede, Augustme, Archbishop of Britain, ordained two bishops Mellitus and Justus, the first as bishop of the East Saxons wit his see at St. Paul’s, London, and the other as bishop at Rochester; in which the king built St. Andrew’s church, and e gave to the bishops of each of those churches many gifts as he had done at Canterbury ; and added lands and property for the use of those who were with the bishops ’’—their clerks or chapters.
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