A HISTORY OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE 



in penne and inke, brome and byrche 6d,' i.e. T,d. 

 each ; while in the summer quarter, on 24 June, 

 ' quarterydge, viz. byrch, brome and potacio 12 ' 

 also lyght,' cost icd., -id. a week extra being 

 charged for ' bever,' the afternoon drink of beer. 

 On 1 5 December they had ' 2 pond candell 6^.' 

 and 21 December '2 say gyrdells 4*/.' Each 

 quarter they had new shoes and a quire of white 

 paper. ' My lytel masters wesheng for the same 

 quarter,' i.e. that ending 24 June, was 2s. $d. 

 Two ' bunches of wax lights ' on 20 October 

 cost id. The only directly scholastic item is 

 ' a Tullius Attycum for Mr. Wm.' at $d. The 

 whole bill for a year and a month for the two 

 was 25 is. 5^., or about 12 10s. each, 

 which, to give a commensurate value now, must 

 be multiplied by between 12 and 20, i.e. 

 150 to 250 a year. So that a public school 

 education, at a boarding school, was no less a 

 luxury of the rich then than now. 



When Provost Bill died in 1561 the fellows 

 audaciously elected, without awaiting a royal 

 mandate, Richard Bruerne, an Etonian and 

 Kingsman, ' an excellent Hebraist,' but a Roman- 

 izer, and expelled from the Regius Professorship 

 of Hebrew at Oxford for scandalous immorality. 

 The consequence was a visitation by Archbishop 

 Parker and the commissioners, on 9 September 

 1561. The immediate result was that the pro- 

 vost resigned, and was allowed jC i o for costs ; 

 while three fellows were removed for non- 

 appearance, and a fourth for refusing the oath of 

 supremacy. William Day, an Etonian and 

 Kingsman, was soon after made provost. But 

 the most interesting product of the commission 

 was the Custumal (consuetudinarium) 128 of Eton 

 school, apparently prepared by Malim, the new 

 head master, for the information of the visitors. 

 The curriculum has the advantage over the 

 earlier ones given above in being, not only a 

 school, but a whole day time-table, with an 

 account of all holidays and holydays throughout 

 the year, which last we have already discussed. 



The day began at 5 a.m., when, by custom 

 imported from Winchester and made statutable 

 on the foundation of Westminster two years 

 after this, the wretched boys were got up by 

 one of the four chamber prepostors intoning 

 ' Surgite.' ' Thereupon they all get up at once ; 

 pouring out their prayers while they dress, each 

 one in his turn beginning and the others all 

 together following with the next verse. Prayers 

 finished, they make their beds. Each one puts 

 any dust or dirt from under his bed in the middle 

 of the chamber at various places ; and it is then 

 swept into a heap and carried away by four boys 



117 Printed ' potaticio ' ; ud quaere. 



188 Preserved among the Parker MSS. at C.C.C. 

 Camb. No. 118, 47789. Printed in Etoniana, 

 6 Dec. 1905, from the original. It was previously 

 known from ai inaccurate transcript by Baker in 

 B.M. Sloane MS. 4840. 



named by the prepostor for the purpose. Then 

 two by two in a long line they go down to wash 

 their hands.' The conduit at which they washed 

 was the 'children's pump' in the open air, 

 though probably, as at Winchester, it used to be 

 under some sort of roof. Coming back from 

 washing they go into school, and each takes his 

 place. 



At 6 a.m. enter the usher. He begins prayers 

 at the upper end of the school. Prayers fin- 

 ished, he goes to the first or lowest class, and 

 hears their repetition of the part of speech and 

 the verb which had been given them to conjugate 

 the day before. He goes through all the forms 

 up to the IVth, ' which sits in the usher's part 

 till 7 a.m. so as to get explanations of anything 

 obscure.' Meanwhile one of the two prepostors 

 of school gets from the prepostor of each form 

 the names of those absent from prayers, while 

 the other prepostor, who in Cox's account was 

 called the prepostor of the dirty (prepostor im- 

 mundorum), examines the hands and face of each 

 to see that they had washed, and presents them 

 to the schoolmaster on his entrance. This took 

 place at 7 a.m., when the IVth form went into 

 the master's end of the school. The prepostor 

 of school hands to him the names of all those 

 then absent, and also to him and the usher the 

 names of those absent in their respective forms 

 the evening before. Then all the classes (the 

 word ordo is used indiscriminately with classis for 

 a form) say their repetition, beginning with the 

 custos or lowest boy. That boy is made custos, it 

 is explained, for the week, ' who talks English, 

 or cannot say any rule he has learnt without 

 more than three mistakes, or has made three 

 mistakes in spelling in his exercises.' At 8 a.m. 

 the schoolmaster gives out a sentence to the 

 IVth form to translate, to the Vth form to vary 

 it (' varyings ' were done at Winchester till 

 1860), to the Vlth and Vllth to turn into verse. 

 The usher also gives out a sentence for forms 



III and II to translate, but a very short one. 

 ' Vulgars ' (Herman's Vulgand) are written out 

 then, to be said by heart next day. At 9 a.m. 

 the custos of each form recites by heart and ex- 

 pounds the lesson (lectionem] of the form next 

 below, the schoolmaster and usher going over it 

 again (prelegit) to their respective forms. On 

 Mondays and Wednesdays the four upper forms 

 write a theme in prose on a subject set them,, 

 while each boy in the three lower forms sets a 

 sentence to himself and translates it. On Tuesday 

 and Thursday this is done in verse by the upper 

 forms, the two lower forms writing the theme in 

 prose. The schoolmaster lectures (prelegit] on Mon- 

 day and Tuesday to VI and VII on Caesar's Com- 

 mentaries or Cicero's Offices, to V on Justin or Cicero 

 on Friendship, or other authors at discretion, and to 



IV on Terence ; on Wednesday and Thursday 

 to VI and VII on Vergil, to V on Ovid's Meta- 

 morphoses, and to IV on Ovid's Tristia. The 



190 



