A HISTORY OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE 



where in the summer the upper classes at least 

 were held in cloisters, and the summer term was 

 and is still called Cloister Time ; while the dis- 

 putation in grammar prevailed at Westminster 

 election till half way through the igth century. 

 A curious ' Memorandum ' on the Eton Election 

 Roll for I468, 33 that ' Kercy,' whose name ap- 

 pears in the body of the roll as Kersey, but with- 

 out the usual details of age and place of birth, 

 ' is not found in the examination papers,' appears 

 to show that the examination was really com- 

 petitive, and that written papers were set in it. 

 The use of the word ' examinations,' not ' elec- 

 tion,' and the plural number seems to negative 

 the idea that the missing papers were merely this 

 boy's application for election. 



But as to what subjects the examination was 

 in, besides Donatus or the accidence and plain 

 chant, we are left to guess. But there can be 

 little doubt that a very considerable amount of 

 real classics was done. The now well-known 

 letter of William Paston, written 23 February 

 1479, when an oppidan about nineteen years 

 old, living in a dame's house he calls her ' my 

 hostess ' under the tuition of a fellow, Thomas 

 Stevenson, concludes thus : ' And as for my 

 coming from Eton, I lack nothing but versifying, 

 which I trust to have with a little continuance. 



Quare u quo modo non valet hora valet mora ? 

 Unde di[citur] 



Arbore jam videas exemplum. Non die possunt 

 Omnia suppleri, sed tamen ilia mora. 



And these two verses aforesaid be of mine own 

 making.' 



The false quantity in making the e in ' die ' 

 short is shocking to the modern classical scholar; 

 but it must be remembered that Paston was only 

 an oppidan, and was already spending his time 

 attending weddings and falling in love with a 

 young lady from London, to whom the bulk of 

 the letter is devoted. The verses, however, on 

 the monument of William Westbury, the first 

 head master, who died in 1472, would perhaps 

 be equally startling to the modern master : 



Nate Dei patrls," anime miserere Wilhelmi 



Westburi cujns ossa sub hoc lapide 

 Condita sunt ; natus erat et nutritus in Alford, 



Wintonie juvenis grammaticam didicit. 

 Oxonie studuit, et in artibus ille magister 



Etone pueros grammaticam docuit. 

 Inde theologus est hie functus Prepositura, 



Tolle decem menses, lustra per integra sex. 



83 ' Memorandum, quod non inventus in papiris 

 examinacionum Kercy.' 



31 ' Why, when the hour does not avail, does delay 

 avail f ' This is the theme set by the master. The 

 words ' on which it is said ' usher in the boy's 

 answer : ' You may see an example in a tree. Every- 

 thing cannot be supplied in a day, but it is by 

 waiting.' 



" ' Son of God the Father, have mercy on the soul 

 of William Westbury, whose bones are buried under 

 this stone. He was born and bred at Alresford, at 



The lengthening of the syllables marked was 

 not done in the golden age of Latin elegiacs, 

 though it is probable that in the third line erat 

 had been misread for fait. But hexameters and 

 pentameters were a mere exotic in Latin. The 

 authors on whom Westbury was brought up were 

 probably largely the authors of the bronze age, or 

 of even baser metal, the Christian poets of the 

 4th and 5th centuries, Sedulius and Juvencus and 

 Prudentius, whom Colet even half a century I 

 later regarded as models of pure Latinity ; and 

 they exercised equal or even greater licence, 

 even making the o of the ablative short, as if it 

 was the modern Italian o. The practice in this 

 respect of some ten centuries was probably 

 nearer the real pronunciation than the narrower 

 rules which prevailed in the single century of 

 the golden age of Roman literature. 



We may now revert to a regular chrono- 

 logical order of history. The evidence already 

 given points to the school beginning, not in 

 October 1442, when Wayneflete left Winches- 

 ter, but at Midsummer 1443, when he was 

 already provost. Even then it began with a 

 very scanty number, which was increased at the 

 election of 1444 ; but the full complement was not 

 made up, as the Audit Roll of 14445 shows, 

 till the election of 1445. That roll records the 

 purchase of 370^ yds. of linen 'for sheets, 

 shirts and other necessaries for scholars and 

 choristers,' out of which thirty pairs of sheets were 

 made ; while fifteen canvases were bought and a 

 cart-load of straw to fill them, and 82 yds. of 

 woollen cloth for blankets (lodicibus), showing that 

 the scholars did not, as has been alleged, lie in 

 straw, but on straw mattresses with all the para- 

 phernalia of modern beds. In that year, too, 

 sixty-three gowns and hoods were made by two 

 tailors, the cloth for which was bought at 

 Winchester from Thomas Filde, draper, as it 

 was every year till 1476, after which it was 

 bought at St. Bartholomew's Fair, London. The 

 record of the weekly commons shows a sudden in- 

 crease from 46 in the third week, and 58 'scholars, 

 choristers, and servants,' the latter meaning the 

 12 pueri servientes, in the twelfth week, to 84 in 

 the thirteenth week. The cause of this accession 

 of numbers is to be found in the first regular elec- 

 tion of scholars on 26 September I444. 36 Then 

 seven scholars from Eton were elected to King's, 

 headed by the ex- Winchester scholar, Richard 

 Roche of Tawnton (Taunton in Somerset), who 

 was only fifteen, while three others were nineteen, 

 one eighteen, and Richard Fauley, the ex-Win- 

 Winchester as a youth he learnt grammar, he studied 

 at Oxford, and as a master in arts taught boys gram- 

 mar at Eton. Then, becoming a theologian (i.e. 

 D.D.), he discharged the office of provost here for 6 

 whole lustra (30 years), less ten months.' 



56 This and the following rolls, the existence of 

 which was previously unknown, were discovered by the 

 writer in searching for the Audit Rolls. 



162 



