264 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



founded and endowed with an eighth of his income a school mainly 

 for the children of his nobility. Possibly, however, even serfs could 

 attend this school. He also secured the freedom from tribute of the 

 Saxon school in Eome. From this time forward we find that steady 

 educational progress can be noted. King Ethelstan, by a law of 936 

 A. D., bestowed certain special benefits on learned clergy and thus 

 founded the doctrine of 'Privilege of Clergy' — the right of a person 

 (lay or clerical), who could read, to special rights in relation to the 

 criminal law. This privilege in the middle ages certainly aided the 

 spread of learning and though, when abolished in England in 1826, 

 it had long outgrown all meaning and even all harmfulness, its im- 

 portance as an educational factor must not be forgotten. * 



The development of education from the ninth century onwards was 

 in the hands of the national church for many generations. It was 

 the practice, both in England and in France, from the end of the 

 eighth century, for the mass-priests to hold at their houses schools for 

 young children and, at any rate from the tenth century, it was usual 

 for parents to pay school fees. The Church of England by thus cre- 

 ating an elaborate educational system rapidly established a new claim 

 to the possession of a national character. With the coming of the 

 Normans in 1066 and the sudden increase of papal influence, we might 

 expect to find, as we do find, the bishops speaking on educational 

 questions in an authoritative manner. Eome realized the importance 

 of exercising control over schools, and of fostering their increase, and 

 she developed this policy in spite of the stern anti-Roman position 

 eventually exhibited by William I. We must note here two canons on 

 the question of education which, though promulgated at national 

 synods sitting at Westminster, really emanated from Rome. Canon 

 XVII. of 1138 A. D. ordained that schoolmasters should not, under 

 penalty of ecclesiastical punishment, 'hire out' their schools. This 

 canon made for efficiency. The man who took the fees must teach 

 the school. Canon VIII. of the year 1200 ordained that nothing 

 should be exacted by the church from schoolmasters in return for the 

 license to teach. This canon shows how widespread was church con- 

 trol over education in the opening of the thirteenth century. This 

 power of granting licenses to teach created a valuable and valued 

 monopoly, and local records (such as the records of Beverley Min- 

 ster) prove that many a stern fight took place between licensed and 

 unlicensed schoolmasters for the lucrative right of instructing youth, 

 and that on occasions the secular and spiritual courts came into coi- 

 tion with decrees of the third Coiincil of Lateran (1179 A. D.), the fourth 

 Council of Lateran (1215 A. D.) and the Council of Vienna (1311 A. D.) . 



*I believe that benefit of clergy still nominally exists in some states of the 

 Union. 



