A HISTORY OF HAMPSHIRE 



salary of 10 a year and 3 6/. 8d. allowance for board. It was ordered 

 that he might charge fees of 6d. a quarter to town boys and is. ^d. a 

 quarter to country boys, ' after the order of Winchester.' I It will be 

 seenthat they probably came to an end in 1630. 



The age to which the scholars were to stay, eighteen, is somewhat 

 surprsing, in view of the common notion that degrees were taken at 

 Oxford at a very much earlier age than they are now. 2 It is probable 

 that the ordinary idea is founded on one or two striking but exceptional 

 instances, such as Wolsey, the ' boy-bachelor ' at fourteen, and so on. 



As " regards sleeping accommodation, the allegation that the boys 

 slept on straw, and had no beds or sheets, supported by the fact that 

 clean straw 'is still Wykehamical for clean sheets,' appears to be a mis- 

 take. Sixty-four beds were bought in the first year at a cost of a shil- 

 ling each, representing at least >Tr now. In 13979 the 'Expenses of 

 Founder's Kin,' which in accordance with the statutes were paid for by 

 the college for two sons of T. Warrener, are given in the accounts. They 

 include 12 ells of linen for sheets, shirts, and breeches, which with the 

 making cost js. i\\d. ; 5 ells of canvas for their bed, 23*. o\d. ; 4! 

 yards of blanket for the bed, q.s. 6d. ; a coverlet and pillow, 8s. ; and 

 straw for their beds, 2d. Therefore the straw must have been merely 

 the material sewn into the canvas to make a mattress. For the rest they 

 had sheets, blankets, and a pillow, exactly like the modern boy. But 

 founder's kin were not treated differently from any other scholars, except 

 that, while other scholars had to pay for their bedding and other cham- 

 ber furniture, founder's kin had theirs provided by college. The statutes 

 forbade them to sleep three in a bed (as at the Wells Choristers School 

 in 1460), or even two in a bed after they were fourteen. 



For the scholars' dress ; in chapel they and the masters wore sur- 

 plices such as are seen in Chandler's drawing. At other times the 

 rubric ' On Liveries ' tells us the master had a long cloth gown, 

 with 3-r. 4</. worth of fur on it. The gowns of the scholars and 

 the chapel clerks were to be a livery in one suit of cloth, those 

 of the choristers in another. Black, white, grey, russet, or brown was 

 forbidden ; white was presumably forbidden because of the neigh- 

 bouring Carmelites or White Friars ; black, because of the Black 

 Monks of St. Swithun's and Hyde Abbey, and the Black Friars ; 

 brown and grey, because of the Austin and Franciscan Friars. On the 

 other hand, their clothes were not to be striped, or spotted, or parti- 

 coloured, because no doubt that savoured of the fashionable laity. What 

 then was left ? The fellows at Queen's were to dine in scarlet gowns 

 (palliis purpureis], the chaplains in white ; and the grammar boys, as they 

 were also choristers, probably followed the chaplains. The inmates 

 of St. Elizabeth's College dressed in blue, as appears in one of their 

 Account Rolls. 



We get two indications of what colours were actually worn by the 



1 History of Southampton, by Rev. J. Sylvester Davies (Gilbart & Co., Southampton, 1883). 

 * The greater part of this section is taken from History, chap, xiv, 



274 



