A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK 



Ipswich Legacies, a book on the charities of Ipswich, 

 published in 1747. The actual entry 1 is: 



Ordinance. [And it is ordered] that the grammar 

 school master shall henceforth have jurisdiction and 

 governance of all scholars within the liberty and pre- 

 cinct of this town except only petties [little ones] 

 called Apesyes and Songe, taking for his salary from 

 each grammar scholar, psalter scholar and primer 

 scholar, according to the tariff fixed by the Bishop 

 of Norwich, viz. for each grammarian, lot/., psal- 

 terian, %<t., and primerian, 6<t. a quarter. 



This is an extremely interesting entry, the 

 interest of which is much diminished in Bacon's 

 version, as he only gives ' excepting little ones 

 called Apes eyes taking such salary as by the 

 Bishop of Norwich is appointed,' omitting the 

 reference to psalterians and primerians. The 

 original passage gives us no less than five different 

 classes of children undergoing instruction ; the 

 grammar boys, the psalterians, or boys learning 

 their psalter, the primerians, or boys learning 

 their primer, all of whom attended the grammar 

 school and were under the master of that school ; 

 and, besides these, the pettits (petties), the little boys 

 not old enough to go to the grammar school, 

 but, as we should say, at a preparatory school, 

 and the songsters, or those attending the song 

 school, who learnt only song and possibly read- 

 ing ; and, as the lowest class of these, the apsyes, 

 pronounced as absies, whom Bacon's mis-spelling 

 converted into ' Apes-eyes,' or Abecedarians as 

 they are elsewhere called those learning the 

 alphabet. 



As usual, the information we do get only whets 

 our appetite for more. Why was this order made, 

 and what authority had the borough court to 

 make it? Schools were a matter of ecclesiastical 

 not of civil cognizance, and it was for the eccle- 

 siastical not the civil authorities to regulate them, 

 their fees, and scholars. We can but conjecture 

 that the Bishop of Norwich, the ordinary of the 

 diocese, had decided some dispute between the 

 grammar schoolmaster, established under some 

 charter of the crown and the bishop, and some 

 chantry priests or parish clerks, as to the extent 

 of the monopoly of teaching enjoyed by the 

 authorized grammar schoolmaster ; and that 

 the town council gave effect to his decision by 

 ordering the townspeople over whom they exer- 

 cised jurisdiction to carry it out. The decision 

 was in strict accordance with ancient precedents ; 

 that all those who were advanced as far as the 

 primer i.e. Aelius Donatus' Elementary Latin 

 Grammar, must go to the grammar school ; but 



1 Ipswich Court Bk. B.M. MS. Add. 301 58, fol. 34. 

 Ordinacio : Et quod magister scole gramaticalis de 

 cetero habebit jurisdiccionem et gubernacionem 

 omnium scolarium infra libertatem et procinctum 

 istius ville, exceptis petytis vocatis Apesyes et Songe, 

 tantum capiendo pro suo salario de quolibet gramatico 

 saltario et primario secundum taxacionem Domini 

 Episcopi Norwicenis, videlicet pro gramatico x* 

 quarteragii, saltario viij'' et primario vj''. 



that the grammar school had no right to a monopoly 

 of instruction of those attending song schools, or 

 of infants under 7, merely learning their ABC. 

 The reason for this was that both song and 

 reading were taught by song schoolmasters, some- 

 times separately endowed chantry priests, but 

 more often the parish clerks, who were not, it 

 may be remembered, mere grave-diggers and 

 illiterates as they became in later days, but real 

 clerics and men of some, though it may be 

 humble, learning sufficient at all events to read 

 the lessons and help the priest to sing mass. In 

 Surrey, in Lincolnshire, in Essex, and in York- 

 shire 2 we have seen similar orders. A salient 

 instance may be found in the history of Warwick 

 School about 1315, when the Donatists, corre- 

 sponding to the ' primerians ' of this order, were 

 assigned to the grammar schoolmaster, as distinct 

 from the song schoolmaster. The distinction 

 drawn between grammarians, psalterians, and 

 primerians is almost unique. The only other 

 mentions of reading the psalter as a distinct 

 stage in education is in a diocesan constitution 

 of John of Pontoise, bishop of Winchester, in 

 1295 : 3 



Parents should be induced to let their boys learn 

 singing after they know how to read the psalter, so- 

 that after they have learnt higher subjects they may 

 not be obliged to go back to this (i.e. singing), or not 

 having learnt it be less fit for divine service ; 



and in orders made in the case of the Bury 

 St. Edmunds Song School 4 in 1290 and 1370. 



The tariff of lod. a quarter for grammarians- 

 was perhaps somewhat high ; for at Oxford the 

 tariff in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries- 

 was ?>d. a quarter, the sum paid by the psalterians. 

 at Ipswich. At all events, 5 years later, on 

 Tuesday before SS. Simon and Jude, 1482, the 

 tariff was lowered, 6 it being ordered that ' every 

 burgess living in Ipswich shall pay to the gram- 

 mar schoolmaster 8d. a quarter for his boy and 

 not above.' Apparently by way of consolation,, 

 it was also ordered that ' the said grammar master 

 shall celebrate for term of his life for the Corpus. 

 Christ! gild,' and presumably receive the stipend 

 for doing so. At an earlier court in the same 

 year every foreign burgess had been ordered to 

 pay is. J^d. a quarter to the gild. The school- 

 master was an appropriate person to act as the 

 gild chaplain, for the gild furnished the yearly 

 Corpus Christi play. In 1443-4 John Causton 

 had been admitted a burgess of Ipswich 'on con- 

 dition that for 7 years he would keep all the 



* V. C. H. Surrey, ii ; Line, ii ; Essex, ii ; Torks. L 



* V. C. H. Hants, ii, 253. 

 4 See under Bury, above. 



6 B.M. Add. MS. 30158. ' Et quod quilibet 

 burgensis infra villam Gippwici commorans solvat 

 Magistro Gramatico pro puero suo pro quarterio anni, 

 9><i, et non ultra ; et quod dictus Magister Gramaticus. 

 celebrabit ad totum terminum vite sue pro gilda 

 Corporis Christi. 



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