revolt that he was the son of a mason and ought therefore to side with the rebels.

The Paston Letters (1422–1509), in outlining the social origin of the "worshipful kin and ancestry of Paston, born in Paston in Gemyngham Soken," speak of Clement Paston, serf and husbandman of Norfolk, holding under unfree tenure of the lord of the manor of Gemyngham. Clement married a “bondwoman," and their son, William, was sent to school with the help of money borrowed by the father. Then, aided by his uncle, Geoffrey Somerton, pardoner and attorney, and also serf, William went to an inn of court and learned the law,* becoming a judge, buying much land in and around Paston, and attaining to the status of a "seignory in Paston, but no manor place." Later, we find Judge Paston engaged in a little financial transaction with the Prior of Bromholm, the consideration being the possession of one John Albon, the prior's bondman, “ a stiff churl and a thrifty man who would not obey him unto William." William Paston was knighted, married the heiress of a county family, and at his death his descendants were absorbed into the gentry of Norfolk.

We have to remember what biassed educational historians, such as the late Dr. A. F. Leach, do not or will not, that under the manorial system of land tenure, at the close of the fourteenth century, England had a large agricultural population, divided roughly into a free and unfree class, between neither of which existed a sharp line of demarcation. The lowest class, that of the villein, or serf,† was attached to the soil; its members had certain compulsory services to perform, and their title to the land appeared on the court roll of the manor. Hence, by the time of Henry V., they were known as "copyholders." Even in this class there were subordinate grades, the

This cost £800 a year, the fifteenth century law student being generally the son of a wealthy gentleman, who alone could bear the expense.

Adscripti glebæ.

lowest of which, technically styled villeins in gross, owned no land, were the personal slaves of their lord, and might be sold along with the farm stock in the event of the conveyance of the deeds of the manor. But the children of each of these grades, from those of the copyholders to those of the lowest grade of serfs or villeins in gross, went to the medieval grammar schools, as distinct from the merely monastic schools. Twenty-five of these secular grammar schools were founded in England between 1363-1400.

Of what class were "poor scholars" in the Middle Ages? It is illuminating to consider this question in relation to the life led by such scholars. The Prussian professor, Victor Aimé Hüber, in his History of the English Universities (written about 1843), speaks of the general and ordinary poverty of the Universities and their members, begging for alms on nearly every extraordinary occasion. The pupils were almost all of the poorer sortthe remuneration of the common clergy being scanty enough-so that few of the academic population could support themselves. 'Even respectable families," which here means distinctly aristocratic families, he says, sent a younger son into the Church did so to avoid dividing the family estate, and after sending him to the University grudgingly contributed anything to his maintenance, thinking he ought to be provided for by the University."

"who

There is extant a MS. of the sixteenth century, in which a scholar of St. John's College, Cambridge, gives a lively picture of famishing scholars, living on two scanty meals a day, and, having no hearth or stove, running about to get their feet warm before they went to bed in winter time.

Moreover, the Lollards, numbering one-half of the population, whose remarkable and secret organisation brought about simultaneous risings of peasants and artisans at the time of John Ball and Wat Tyler, in the fourteenth century, were very many of them types of the

poor scholars filling the grammar schools and Universities of that day.

Besides the indigent scholars, there were from the first at Eton, as at Winchester, commoners in college (commensales in collegio). By an entry at the end of a statute forbidding strangers to be lodged in college except (and that for only two days at a time) parents or friends of scholars, Wykeham said :

"We allow, however, the sons of noble and powerful persons, special friends of the college, may, to the number of 10, be instructed in grammar and educated in the college without burden to the college; so that it be without prejudice, damage, or scandal to the members of the college.'

The same formula occurs at Eton, save that twenty, double the number at Winchester, extranei commensales ("tabling" strangers) were admissible. The definition of noble, as given above, seems to signify all of " gentle birth," squires and county gentry, all who "bore arms."

Like the ordinary grammar school, Eton, in this one respect differing from Winchester, was a free grammar school to all coming to it from any part of England. It is worth noticing that in 1453, one of the pauperes et indigentes scholars was one Nicholas Wallop of Farleigh, a scion of an ancient Hampshire family, now represented by the Earl of Portsmouth!

In 1444-1445, £2,150, of our money, was expended on the erection of the school, and at Michaelmas then the income of the college was £1,536 (nearly £20,000 to-day), the provost receiving £75 per year (£980 approximately).

According to John Blakman, a fellow (and author) of Eton at this epoch, and subsequently a Carthusian monk, Henry VI. selected the fellows more with respect to learning than to musical accomplishments. Whenever Henry met any of the Eton scholars in Windsor Castle he would exhort them to "Be good boys, meek and docile, and servants of the Lord," adding a small monetary present. But he did not encourage their presence at Court,

dreading the effect on their morals of the vicious example of his courtiers."

And by a declaration of "Uses of Trusts," mainly derived from the Duchy of Lancaster, and vested in feoffees, the King* charged his "feffees . . . to see that my colleges . . . have . . . yerely £2,000, that is to say, Eton £1,000, and Cambridge £1,000." (Equal to £26,000 to-day.)

By a patent, dated October 30th, 1448, the King conferred on Eton the Leper Hospital of St. James, now St. James's Palace. Connected with the hospital was an

endowment of some hundreds of acres of land in Westminster fields and suburbs, and with the exception of a portion taken by Henry VIII., the bulk was retained by the college. In fact, part of it-some 140 acres has quite recently been sold for £80,000, for the Garden City at Hampstead.

This grant of the Leper Hospital was very convenient to the Provost, who had to make frequent journeys to the capital in order to keep in touch with the founder on all difficult questions of finance, administration, or architecture.

On December 31st, 1467, the college income had decreased to £321 (contemporary value). In 1467 Edward IV., by way of Frankalmoign (charity), re-endowed the college on condition that "it prayed for the souls of King Edward IV. and his Queen," thus substituting himself as founder in place of Henry VI. From about 1467 till the days of Elizabeth (1558-1603) the headmaster's salary had been and continued reduced from £16 yearly (the statutable amount) to £10. There was a general reduction of wages, and subsequent to 1470 the almsfolk disappeared, actually making no reappearance until after

* Henry VI. ordered things so that Eton should hold property in its immediate neighbourhood. He purchased all the available houses, fields, and gardens in Eton village itself, and endowed the college with rights of fishery in the Thames, and by a series of successive yearly grants made these acquisitions over to his foundation.

1870, four hundred years later! It would be a work of supererogation to say more than this in reference to the conception of their statutable duties entertained by the successive provosts and fellows of Eton.

Several parliaments of the period, whilst sanctioning and confirming Henry's charters of endowment, also granted to the college various feudal rights in its own manors, as wardship, fines, escheat, treasure trove, and wreckage, and exempted its property from taxes and feudal dues, as also from the regular taxes granted by Parliament or ecclesiastical authorities to the English sovereigns. To prevent famine or dearth of food at Eton all the inhabitants were, as a precaution against such contingency, exempted from the jurisdiction of the king's purveyors, and from having any of his officers or servants quartered upon them. Three tuns of red Gascony wine were granted to Eton, to be delivered in London yearly without charge. As, however, England was driven out of Aquitaine shortly after this grant, the Crown in later times commuted the grant for a monetary payment (1702) of £15 per annum.

Relics, jewels, an alleged finger-joint and spinal fragment of John the Confessor, Prior of Bridlington, a portion of certain jewels purchased from the Abbey of St. Albans, and a tablet asserted to contain the blood of Christ, parts of his cross and relics of a host of martyrs, confessors and virgins were granted by the pious sovereign to his college. His uncle, Cardinal Beaufort, endowed it with £1,000 (contemporary money).

The Eton audit records the visit of Provost Westbury to London in 1471 on the eve of the murder of the unfortunate founder of his college: "In expensis Magistri Prepositi equitantis London in crastino Ascensionis Domini pro exequiis Regis Henrici VI., vij3. ix." (To the expenses of Master Provost riding to London on the morrow of Ascension day for the exequies of our King Henry VI.)

Fabyan in his Chronicle, vol. ii., p. 505, tells us that :