SCHOOLS 



master, Usher, nor any Fellow of that house at any time extort, challenge, 

 or insert into his accompts, or anyways take or receive any sum of 

 money for chamber rent, or for being tutor to any of the schollars within 

 or without the said College.' The Visitor could hardly suppose that 

 while the warden and fellows were fattening themselves on fines and 

 making nice allowances for diet, the headmaster of what was still beyond 

 all doubt the most important school in the country could be got to live 

 upon his statutory stipend of 10 a year, increased only to i i los. in 

 1560 ; still less the usher on his miserable 3 6s. 8</., augmented at the 

 same time to 4 ^j. 4^. Light is thrown on this point by some bills of 

 John Hutton, son of Sir Timothy Hutton of Marske, Yorkshire, who was a 

 commoner in 1619, and admitted to College in i62O. 1 From them it 

 appears that he paid Mr. Phillips, in whose house he boarded, ' for his 

 dyet from August the i6th to September 3151 (sic) (i.e. when he went 

 into College) >Ti icxr.,' or at the rate of $s. a week. While he was a 

 commoner he paid 'for quarterage 2s. io<J.,' but this must have included 

 an entrance fee, as the quarterage for the three succeeding quarters is 

 only is. 6d. The fee had thus risen only zd. a term since 1561. When 

 he got into college no 'quarterage' or 'diet' was paid, but there was an 

 item ' for tutorage ' most unfortunately left blank. The only items 

 charged in the nature of school fees is the amazing one of 1 4^. ' for 

 learning to write ' in the ' Lady quarter,' as it is called in one of the bills, 

 after he got into college. As he had already been in the school a year 

 and a quarter, and was provided with ink, a psalter, a Nowell (i.e. Dean 

 Nowell's catechism) and grammar, a table-book and 'inkehorne' in his first 

 term, and was doing ' Terrence ' and Ovid, it cannot really mean that he 

 had not learned to write before ; the item must represent some customary 

 charge coming down from the days when a speaking acquaintance with 

 plainsong and old Donatus was really the extent of the attainment of the 

 new ' child,' and he had not yet learnt to write. Two other charges 

 may be regarded as in the nature of school fees, ' 2d. for sweeping the 

 school,' and ^d. ' for birche,' which are charged in the midsummer 

 quarter only in each year. It was customary even in free schools to make 

 charges of this kind. Candles of course he paid for, at the rate of \\d. a 

 pound. Colet for his ' free scole of Powles ' had prescribed that his 

 scholars should use wax candles only, at the cost of their friends. In lieu 

 of the diet paid for in ' commoners,' there were in college sums for 

 ' ballings ' or ' battlings ' varying from $s. 6d. or 6s. in midsummer 

 quarter, to 'for battlings on fastings days, with the Lent gs. 8</.' in the 

 Ladyday quarter. The warden, be it observed, was allowed by the 

 college i oo oysters for every Friday and fast-day, over and above twice a 

 fellow's fish allowance. The religious observance of the fasts by the 

 college was tempered to the scholars by private dispensation of ' dispars,' 

 at all events to those who could afford it. 



Hutton Correspondence, ed. J. Raine, Surtees Society, No. 17, 1844, pp. 237~44- The bills "f 

 not printed in the correct order, the latest, that for 1623, being put first instead of last. Walcott's 

 W, ill. of Wykeham and his Colleges, p. 1 66. 



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