school or not, is traceable before the Reformation; or, to take a more precise date, the dissolution of colleges and chantries in the second year of Edward VI., 1548. This will include not only such admittedly early foundations as Sedbergh and Pocklington, Hull and Rotherham, but such reputedly late foundations as Bradford and Beverley, and probably Leeds.

It is astonishing how on inquiry the history of schools, a comparatively recent date for which has been accepted without demur, tends to recede further and further into the past. The task of research in such matters is endless, and completeness is out of the question for any single inquirer. Wherever a grammar school now exists, ancient documents are likely to throw the history of the school back beyond the Reformation. The town clerks of ancient boroughs, the incumbents of ancient churches, particularly those which have been collegiate or in which there have been several chantries, are very likely to have, even without suspecting it, documents bearing on the ancient history of schools. In the muniment rooms of great families, whether in ancestral castles of feudal lords or in more recent manor houses of squires and others who hold lands once the possession of collegiate churches, or of the chantries scattered broadcast over the land, there probably lurk chapter act books and account rolls, deeds, and papers, sometimes in formal documents, more often in casual entries in documents having nothing to do directly with schools, which would throw floods of unexpected light on the early history of our schools.

I would venture to appeal to such owners or custodians of ancient documents to search them, or have them searched, or give facilities for search by competent persons, for references to the school, or a schoolmaster, or scholars, to payments for teaching or repair of school buildings, especially before the reign of Edward VI. I would also ask anyone who has or may come across any reference to schools or teaching before the Reformation, or who knows of any documents throwing light on the teaching, discipline, books used, or other internal economy of schools before the Reformation, or on the relations of schools, scholars, and schoolmasters to the world at large during that period, to communicate with me. It is only by the accretion of a large number of scattered facts and references, in themselves perhaps of no great interest or moment, that the lost history of English schools can be recovered.

It will perhaps be matter of surprise to some people to find that the present volume is taken up with documents bearing on the early history of three schools only, and those not the three schools which have hitherto ranked as the oldest

in Yorkshire. The three schools thus assigned the first place are those of S. Peter's School, York, commonly said to have been founded by Philip and Mary, Beverley Grammar School, put down to the 17th century, and Ripon Grammar School, also attributed to Philip and Mary.

In fact they are the three existing survivals in Yorkshire of the archetypal schools of England, and we may say of Europe; the schools which were conducted by and formed an integral and important part of the foundation of the collegiate churches of secular canons, whose beginnings are grounded on guessing or lost in legend. The three schools of York, Beverley, and Ripon, I do not hesitate to affirm, existed before the Norman Conquest.

S. PETER'S SCHOOL, YORK.

In the Fortnightly Review for November, 1892, I gave a summary of the early history of S. Peter's School, York, under the title of "Our Oldest School." “An institution," I then wrote, " which existed and flourished in England in the year 730, and still exists and flourishes in the year 1892, cannot but be an interesting object of study. Such an institution is older than the House of Commons, older than the Universities, older than the Lord Mayor, older than the House of Lords, older even than the throne or the nation itself. Such an institution exists in the 'School of the Cathedral Church of the Blessed St. Peter of York, commonly called St. Peter's School.""

It may seem a startling statement, but it is the fact that there are only two institutions in England which are older than this York Grammar School. They are the Archbishoprics of Canterbury and York. And it is perhaps doubtful whether even the Archbishopric of York is older, that is, whether its creation did not carry with it the creation of the school.

I am bound to confess, however, that the title of "Our Oldest School " was a misnomer. I fortunately guarded myself against a mistake, which I am now able to set right, by saying (p. 639): "There is indeed one school which might possibly claim an even higher antiquity than York, if it could prove its title, viz. the so-called King's School at Canterbury. At present it claims only to date from Henry VIII., who is, however, no more, and in some

respects perhaps less, of a true founder of that school than his daughter was of the School of York. But though the Archbishopric of Canterbury is more ancient than that of York, Canterbury Cathedral has not the same continuity of corporate existence as York Minster Canterbury, like Winchester and Worcester, has twice undergone a violent revolution, once when the married or marriageable canons were driven out to make way for the Black monks, and again when the Black monks were driven out by Henry VIII. to make way for married or marriageable canons. Whether its school carried on its existence continuously under the monks is doubtful. The subject of monastic schools, though some writers talk freely enough about them, is very obscure, particularly on the question whether in the earlier times, i.e. before the fourteenth century, they were open to any but inmates of the monastery. At Canterbury the evidence hitherto available is ambiguous. At all events, Canterbury School has not yet found its vates sacer, or proved its title. Until it has, it must yield the palm to the established antiquity of York, which has suffered no such violent revolutions, where the minster, with its college of secular canons, has gone on in unbroken continuity at least from the days of Archbishop Egbert, who died in 734, to the present day."

I have since, myself, proved the title of Canterbury School from 621, and, by fair inference, from the days of Augustine. Yet though York cannot be placed first as our oldest school, certainly its place cannot be far from second, while its history is better preserved and more continuous than that of Canterbury or S. Paul's.

The continuous history of Christianity in York begins with Wilfrid. The success of Paulinus' mission was ephemeral, and was followed by a reaction in favour of the old religion. Wilfrid himself was frequently ejected, and it was not till his return from Rome, about the year 700, that he was firmly seated. That he founded a school with the bishopric of York is in the highest degree probable. We have positive evidence of its existence in the time of Archbishop Egbert. The earliest document in this volume is the celebrated poem of the famous schoolmaster Alcuin, Of the Bishops and Saints of the Church of York. There is now no ancient MS. of this poem in existence, but Alcuin being a saint, dearer perhaps to Germany and France than to England, as the founder of Charlemagne's so-called Palace School at Aachen or Aix-laChapelle, his poem was found and copied by Mabillon before the French Revolution, which destroyed much English history

that had by exportation escaped the Reformation in England. It is printed in the Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain, published under the direction of the Master of the Rolls, commonly called the Rolls Series. It is written in very fair Latin hexameters. Great part of the poem is a mere versification of Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English. But after nearly 1,400 lines, Alcuin's "muse passes towards the end of the poem and to the deeds of his own master, the wise Albert, who took the insignia of the venerable seat (of Archbishop) after Egbert." Alcuin invites the youth of York to accompany him in his poetic walk on the subject of Albert, or Ethelbert, as his English name is written, "because he often drenched your senses with nectar, pouring forth sweet juices from his honey-flowing bosom." Albert" was born of ancestors of fame, by whose care he was soon sent to kindly school (studiis almis), and entered at the Minster in his early years that his tender age might grow up with holy understanding. Nor was his parents' hope in vain; even as a boy he grew as proficient in the understanding of books as he did in body." He became deacon (levita) when quite young (adolescens), and when still a youth (juvenis) a priest. "Then pious and wise, teacher (doctor) at once and priest, he was made a colleague of Bishop Egbert, to whom he was nearly allied by right of blood. By him he is made advocate of the clergy (defensor cleri), and at the same time is preferred as master in the city" (not be it noted in the church) "of York. There he moistened thirsty hearts with diverse streams of teaching and the varied dews of learning, giving to some the art of the science of grammar, pouring on others the rivers of the tongue of orators; these he polished on the whetstone of law, those he taught to sing together in Aeonian chant, making others play on the flute of Castaly, and run with the feet of lyric poets over the hills of Parnassus." But grammar, song, and rhetoric were not all. He taught the music of the spheres, the use of the globes, and natural history. "Others the said master made to know the harmony of heaven, the labours of sun and moon, the five belts of the sky, the seven planets, the laws of stars, the rising and falling of the wind, the movements of the sea, the earth's quake, the nature of men, cattle, birds, and beasts," "the divers kinds of numbers, and various shapes." He even taught arithmetic and Euclid. He was versed in the calendar and ecclesiastical arithmetic, a most important thing at a time when the Celtic method of computing Easter differed from the Roman method adopted by us. "He gave certainty to the solemnity of Easter's return."

"Above all" he taught theology, "opening the mysteries of holy writ" (the New Testament) "and disclosing the abysses of the rude and ancient law" (the Old Testament). Nor was his school merely a day-school. "Whatever youths he saw of eminent intelligence, those he joined to himself, he taught, he fed, he loved: and so, the teacher had many disciples in the sacred volumes, advanced in various arts." If we ask what kind of youth is referred to, the answer is, much the same kind as in the public school to-day. It was no mere choristers' school or ecclesiastical seminary. Alcuin's anonymous and almost contemporary biographer tells us (p. 234) that Helbercht, as he calls Albert, had round him "a flock of scholars from the sons of gentlemen (nobilium), some of whom were instructed in the rudiments of the art of grammar, others in the learning of the liberal arts, and some," but only some, "in the divine writings." He travelled abroad and went to Rome, and was everywhere received as a prince of doctors, and kings and princes tried to get him to stay and "irrigate their lands with learning." But he returned home, and at the request of the people became archbishop. "But his old fervent industry for reading the Scriptures diminished not for the weight of his cares, and he was made both a wise doctor and a pious priest." He built a great altar where King Edwin had received baptism, covered with silver, gold, and precious stones, and dedicated it to "Paul, the doctor of the world, whom as a doctor he especially loved." He rebuilt the cathedral, supported on lofty columns standing on curved arches, and all glorious within with ceilings and windows, and surrounded by 30 chapels (porticibus), holding many upper chambers under divers roofs, and containing 30 altars with their various ornaments." This building was erected by his two pupils, Eanbald and Alcuin, under Albert's directions, and was consecrated to the Holy Wisdom ten days before he died. Two years and two months before his death Albert retired into private life, handing on the archbishopric to Eanbald. "But he gave the dearer treasures of his books to the other son, who was always close to his father's side, thirsting to drink the floods of learning. His name, if you care to know it, these verses on the face of them will at once betray. Between them he divided his wealth of differing kinds: to the one the rule of the church, the ornaments (thesauros), the lands, the money (talenta); to the other the sphere of wisdom, the school (studium), the master's chair (sedem), the books, which the illustrious master had collected, piling up