A HISTORY OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE 



building outside the quadrangle, while the pro- 

 vision as to the master and usher having the 

 north-west corner for their chamber was also 

 omitted because they had separate chambers. 

 The fact that the provisions as to the boys' 

 chambers remained the same as at Winchester is 

 conclusive proof that at first the masters and the 

 boys were not in the outer but in the inner 

 quadrangle, and lived not in one but in seven 

 several chambers, the 16 choristers occupying 

 one, and the 70 scholars the other six. 



It should be observed that the cost of the com- 

 mons of the scholars was raised from 8d. a week 

 at Winchester to is. T>d. a week. As for livery, 

 while at Winchester white, black, russet, and 

 grey gowns were expressly prohibited, because 

 of the black, white, russet, and grey monks, 

 canons, and friars who swarmed there, at Eton 

 the gowns were ordered to be black or dark 

 grey, there being no regulars near for whom the 

 scholars could be mistaken. At first the cloth 

 for the gowns was bought at Winchester. 

 Tunics worn under the gown are mentioned. 



There is no direct evidence what the dress 

 was like. A portrait in brass of John Stonor, of 

 29 August 151 5, 26 at Wraysbury on the 

 Thames, is now commonly cited as that of a 

 scholar of Eton and as showing what the dress 

 was then. But it is quite certain that the brass 

 in question does not show the dress of an Eton 

 scholar, and it is almost certain that the subject 

 was not an Etonian at all. The Rev. Herbert 

 Haines, second master of Gloucester Cathedral 

 Grammar School, in his Monumental Brasses, 

 published in 1 86 1, 27 is responsible for saying, 

 without giving any reason, ' It probably exhibits 

 the dress of an Eton scholar.' Subsequent 

 writers on brasses, including the latest, 28 have 

 converted the ' probably ' into a positive assertion 

 that it is that of an Eton scholar. There is, 

 however, no evidence to show that John or any 

 other Stonor ever was an Eton scholar. His 

 name is not in any Eton list yet known, pub- 

 lished or otherwise. Even if he was, there is no 

 reason except the somewhat small dimensions of 

 the brass for supposing that the brass is that of a 

 boy. It is now well established from the cele- 

 brated brasses at Salisbury and Winchester, once 

 supposed to be those of boy-bishops, that the 

 small size of a figure is no indication of the 

 small size of the subject. Stonor's figure is 

 certainly not that of a person in statu pupillari. 

 It is clad in a long gown with a white fur border 

 down the middle and at the bottom. By 

 sumptuary laws, the latest of which, at Stonor's 



* The inscription is : ' Here lyeth John Stonor, the 

 sone of Walter Stoner, squyer, that departed this 

 world ye xxix day of August in yere of our lord 

 mdcxv.' 



" p. Ixxxvi. 



18 Herbert Drewitt, A Manual of Costume as Illus- 

 trated by Monumental Brasses (1906), 14.2. 



date, was I Henry VIII, cap. 14 (1509-10), no 

 schoolboy, certainly no pauper et indigent scolaris, 

 would have been allowed to wear fur, which was 

 restricted to the upper ranks of laymen and the 

 upper orders of clerics and academics. More- 

 over the figure portrayed has on the head a hood 

 close-fitting to the face, with liripips or streamers 

 behind, and above it a round cap, also of fur or 

 bound with fur, which are almost certainly the 

 hood and cap (pileuni) of a doctor of laws. 

 Schoolboys went bareheaded, as was still the 

 custom at Winchester 30 years ago in the 

 college precinct, and at Christ's Hospital still. 

 John Stonor's brass gives therefore no indication 

 of the dress of a scholar of Eton. 



In the absence of any other evidence we may 

 therefore assume that the scholars of Eton were 

 dressed like the scholars of Winchester, in a long 

 gown with a low collar 29 buttoned at the neck, 

 and closed in front and hanging down to the 

 heels, which may be seen in the brass in Head- 

 bourne Worthy, Hants, of 'John Kent once 

 scholar of the New college of Wynchestre and 

 son of Simon Kent of Reading,' who died in 

 1434. The present gown at Winchester only 

 differs from this in that the sleeve now does not 

 go down to the wrist, but is cut short up at the 

 elbow and puffed, and the gown is now worn 

 open, except by a junior when speaking to a 

 master, but when closed it is still held by only 

 one button at the neck. At Eton the sign of 

 superannuation used to be the cutting of the top 

 button, letting the two sides of the gown fall 

 open apart from each other. But the modern 

 Eton gown is, as at Oxford, a garment not worn 

 always, but only in school and chapel, and then 

 donned over ordinary modern dress. It is 

 strange to find that, in spite of the statutes, the 

 colour of the gowns was in 1446-7 30 blue ; in 

 1447-8 'mustre devillers,' which is striped blue 

 and yellow ; in 1458 partly plain, partly rayed 

 (stragulatam). In 1567-8 russet was bought in 

 London ' for schollars lyvyrye.' 



Besides scholars there were from the first at 

 Eton, as at Winchester, commoners in college 

 (commensales in collegia). By an almost casual 

 entry at the end of a statute forbidding strangers 

 to be lodged in college, except (and that for two 

 days at a time only) parents or friends of 

 scholars, Wykeham said : ' We allow however 

 that sons of noble and powerful persons, special 

 friends of the college, may, to the number of ten, 

 be instructed in grammar and educated in the 



19 In A. F. Leach, Hist, of Winchester Coll. this was 

 misdescribed, from the drawing given of it in Ann. of 

 Winchester Coll. as a high collar, the line of the chin 

 being mistaken for part of the collar. The illustra- 

 tion in the article by him on ' Schools ' in V.C.H. 

 Hants, ii, 274, shows clearly the collar the same 

 as in the present Winchester gowns. 



30 Eton Aud. R. 25 & 26 Hen. VI. This is the 

 second extant roll. 



160 



