A HISTORY OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE 



very different spirit from that commonly imputed 

 to ourscholastic ancestors, the licence was coupled 

 with the proviso ' that they do not wet their feet.' 

 The windows of Long Chamber were then hung 

 with may and herbs. In writing verses at this 

 time they might write English ones on 'the 

 flowery sweetness of Spring time,' as long as they 

 included something adapted from Virgil, Ovid, 

 or Horace. ' St. John Lateran before the Latin 

 gate,' 6 May, * brings many advantages, for from 

 now after dinner they had a siesta in school, 

 until the prepostor of hall and the ostiarius " call 

 out " Get up " (Surgite) at 3 p.m., when they 

 have beavers or bever,' an interval for drinking 

 beer, the equivalent of the modern afternoon tea. 

 Malim recalls the line : ' Porta Latina pilam, 

 pulvinar, pocula prestat,' i.e. ' St. John Lateran's 

 day brings the cricket ball, the couch, the drink.' 

 Ascension Day began the summer holidays, 

 which lasted till the day before Corpus Christi 

 Day, the Thursday after Trinity Sunday, anyone 

 not present at evening chapel on that day being 

 flogged. On St. John the Baptist's birthday, 

 i.e. Midsummer Day, Malim records as extinct 

 the custom, which flourished no doubt under Cox, 

 for all the scholars to go after evening prayers to 

 a bonfire, made in the open space at the east end 

 of chapel, and then, after the choir had sung 

 their anthems, to a bever. On the eve of that 

 day the boys adorned their chambers with pic- 

 tures and verses on the ' life and gests of the 

 Forerunner,' which they wrote out with illumi- 

 nations and stuck at the foot of their beds. As 

 it was nearly nine before they went to bed, they 

 were allowed to lie in bed till six on the feast 

 itself instead of getting up at five. The same 

 custom was observed on 29 June, St. Peter and 

 St. Paul. Thecustom of the Eton and Winchester 

 match being always held on one of those two 

 feast days is perhaps ultimately due to this cus- 

 tom. On 7 July, the Translation of St. Thomas 

 (Becket), there was also a bonfire, but no verses. 

 The Feast of Relics in July was another whole 

 play day. Election time began then, and there 

 was a holiday if the provost or one of the posers 

 sent his hood into hall. On 29 August the 

 after-dinner siesta, and merenda or bevers, ceased. 

 The Nativity of the Virgin, 8 September, was a 

 great feast, on which day Long Chamber was 

 swept. On a day in September, fixed by the 

 master, on petition from the boys in Latin verses 

 on the joys of harvest and the pains of the hard 

 winter coming, the school went a-nutting, and 

 presents of the spoil were given to the master and 

 fellows. On All Souls Day (2 November) they 

 still in Malim's time said prayers in memory of 

 benefactors, and made vulguses (vulgaria) on 



99 ' Censor Aulae et Anagnostes.' I give the Win- 

 chester translation of ' Anagnostes.' The ' ostiarius ' 

 was the prefect ' in course ' for the day, who sat near 

 the door to supervise the going in and out of school. 

 Maxwell Lyte leaves the word unexplained. 



immortality substitutes for the prolonged ser- 

 vices and requiems of pre-Reformation days. 

 ' On St. Hugh the bishop's day,' says Malim, 

 ' there used at Eton to be an election of a bishop 

 Nicholas (episcopi Nihilensis} but the custom has 

 fallen into abeyance. Formerly the boy-bishop 

 was thought a noble person, and at his election a 

 learned and laudable exercise was celebrated at 

 Eton to give strength and agility to their wits.' 

 At Eton, as at Winchester, the boy-bishop was 

 directed by the statutes to perform divine service 

 on St. Nicholas's Day, 6 December, and not on 

 the usual day, that of the Holy Innocents. This 

 was probably to avoid clashing with the estab- 

 lished boy-bishop celebrations of the choristers of 

 the cathedral and of St. George's respectively. 

 At Eton, there being a chantry of St. Nicholas 

 already existing before the college was founded, 

 it is possible that the day was already in vogue 

 for the boy-bishop. It is noteworthy how Eton, 

 like other schools, as e.g. the Great Grammar 

 School at Lincoln, had turned an idle mummery 

 into a literary exercise, with verses in honour of 

 the boy-bishops, St. Hugh and St. Nicholas, 

 and also a sermon, much after the style of 

 the Terrae filius address at Oxford, for him to 

 preach. Originally mixed up with the boy- 

 bishop was the custom that on St. Andrew's Day 

 (30 November) the schoolmaster used to choose 

 the best and most appropriate stage plays, i.e. 

 plays of Terence or Plautus, ' which the boys 

 perform sometimes in public during the Christmas 

 holidays, not without the elegance of the games 

 (sc. of Rome), before a popular audience.' 

 ' Sometimes,' Malim adds, ' the master exhibits a 

 story written in English (Anglice itrmone contex- 

 tas fabulas) with wit and humour.' Apparently 

 in Malim's day the practice was already being 

 attacked by Puritans, as he thought it necessary 

 to put in the defence that ' The actor's art is 

 one of no moment, but it cultivates, as nothing 

 else can, the action and appropriate gestures and 

 movements of the body necessary to orators.'' 

 So that already at Eton the object of the school 

 had been developed from that of producing priests 

 and parsons into that of educating prospective 

 preachers, lawyers, and statesmen. 



As we saw, plays were performed at Eton by 

 or under Cox. In 1533 he wrote 101 a copy of 

 Latin verses for the coronation of Anne Boleyn.. 

 They do credit to his Latinity, but not to his 

 poetical faculty, being a string of dreary plati- 

 tudes and fulsome compliments on her beauty, 

 modesty, ability, and the like. In spite of his 

 successful career after leaving Eton, ending as it 

 did in a bishopric, Cox is now forgotten, while 

 his successor, less successful in the world, 

 Nicholas Udal, has become a name of fame in all 

 the classrooms, as ' the father of English comedy,* 



182 



100 See supra, p. 164. 

 I01 Harl. MS. 6148, fol. 117. 



