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Bad Grammar: Teachers, Crime, and the Law in Late Medieval and Early Modern England
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 September 2025
Abstract
It has long been recognized that legal documents are invaluable for understanding the growth of pre-university teaching across fifteenth- and sixteenth-century England; when surveyed as a whole, they allow the general spread of schooling to be mapped with precision. However, smaller, more scattered legal proceedings involving teachers can be no less suggestive. Late medieval and early modern masters submitted legal pleas on a range of issues, and found themselves accused of a striking array of crimes, including murder, assault, fraud, incompetence, theft, adultery, and even high treason. Such episodes have more than anecdotal value—they throw into relief many of the conditions in which teachers of the period operated. In particular, they provide clear insight into the economic realities of medieval and early modern teaching, showing the pressures, rivalries, and anxieties that overshadowed the lives of masters, and demonstrating that instruction was not staged in a social or political vacuum.
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- © The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of History of Education Society.
References
1 See Wilhelm Ludwig Schreiber, Die deutschen “Accipies” und Magister cum Discipulis-Holz-Schnitte als Hilfsmittel zur Inkunabel-Bestimmung (Heitz & Mündel, 1908); Laura Cleaver, Education in Twelfth-Century Art and Architecture: Images of Learning in Europe, c.1100-1220 (Boydell Press, 2016), 110-29; Annemarieke Willemsen, Back to the Schoolyard: The Daily Practice of Medieval and Renaissance Education (Brepols, 2008), 45-52.
2 Nicholas Orme, Medieval Schools: From Roman Britain to Renaissance England (Yale University Press, 2006), 346-71; Jo Ann Hoeppner Moran, The Growth of English Schooling, 1340-1548: Learning, Literacy, and Laicization in Pre-Reformation York Diocese (Princeton University Press, 1985), 179-80; Sylvia L. Thrupp, The Merchant Class of Medieval London, 1300-1500 (University of Michigan Press, 1989), 156-57. On literary levels, see further Richard W. Kaeuper, “Two Early Lists of Literates in England: 1334, 1373,” English Historical Review 99, no. 391 (Apr. 1984), 363-69; Franz H. Bäuml, “Varieties and Consequences of Medieval Literacy and Illiteracy,” Speculum 55, no. 2 (Apr. 1980), 237-65; M. T. Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record: England 1066-1307, 3rd ed. (Wiley-Blackwell, 2013), 242-48; Joel T. Rosenthal, “English Medieval Education Since 1970: So Near and Yet So Far,” History of Education Quarterly 22, no. 4 (Winter 1982), 499-511; D. H. Green, “Orality and Reading: the State of Research in Medieval Studies,” Speculum 65, no. 2 (Apr. 1990), 267-80.
3 Thomas Elyot, The Boke Named the Gouernour, ed. Foster Watson (J. M. Dent, 1937), 70. On the social status of teachers, see Nicholas Orme, “Schoolmasters, 1307-1509,” in Profession, Vocation and Culture in Later Medieval England: Essays Dedicated to the Memory of A. R. Myers, ed. Cecil H. Clough (Liverpool University Press, 1982), 218-38. For the wider European picture, where similar conditions seemed to have prevailed, see Martin Kintzinger, “A Profession but Not a Career? Schoolmasters and the Artes in Late-Medieval Europe,” in Universities and Schooling in Medieval Society, ed. William J. Courtney and Jürgen Miethke (Brill, 2000), 167-81; Sarah B. Lynch, “Rich Master, Poor Master: The Economic Standing of School Teachers in Late Medieval France,” in Approaches to Poverty in Medieval Europe: Complexities, Contradictions, Transformations, c. 1100-1500, ed. Sharon Farmer (Brepols, 2015), 207-28.
4 Sylvette Guilbert, “Les écoles rurales en Champagne au XVe siècle: Enseignement et promotion sociale,” Actes des congrès de la Société des historiens médiévistes de l’enseignement supérieur public 12 (1982), 127-47; Paul F. Grendler, Schooling in Renaissance Italy: Literacy and Learning, 1300-1600 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989).
5 Wilbur Kitchener Jordan, The Charities of London, 1480-1660: The Aspirations and the Achievements of the Urban Society (Routledge, 1978), 221; Joan Simon, Education and Society in Tudor England (Cambridge University Press, 1979), 31-32.
6 For an outline of Audley’s career, see Stanford E. Lehmberg, “Sir Thomas Audley: A Soul as Black as Marble?,” in Tudor Men and Institutions: Studies in English Law and Government, ed. Arthur J. Slavin (Louisiana State University Press, 1972), 3-31.
7 On plaintiffs to the common bench composing their own complaints, see P. Tucker, “The Early History of the Court of Chancery: A Comparative Study,” English Historical Review 115, no. 463 (Sept. 2000), 791-811.
8 C 1/845/38, Legh v. Shepherd, The National Archives, Kew (hereafter TNA).
9 C 1/845/39, Legh v. Shepherd, TNA.
10 For evidence of women educators in the period, see the list of 21 female teachers “who took their oaths of office before the cantor of Notre-Dame in 1380” noted by Bill Courtenay, “Parisian Grammar Schools and Teachers in the Long Fourteenth Century,” Viator 49, no. 2 (2018), 199-250 (201); for a visual depiction of mixed sex teaching, see Arthur B. Chamberlain, Hans Holbein the Younger, vol. 1 (Dodd and Mead, 1913), 51-52. For information on female instructors in general, see Megan H. Hall, “Women’s Education and Literacy in England, 1066-1540,” History of Education Quarterly 61, no. 2 (May 2021), 181-212.
11 E 134/36Eliz/Hil10, fol. 3r, Inhabitants of Blisworth v. Wiggington, TNA.
12 E 134/36Eliz/Hil10, fols. 8r, 3r, Inhabitants of Blisworth v. Wiggington, TNA.
13 Sarah B. Lynch, Medieval Pedagogical Writings: An Epitome (Kismet, 2018), 105-10.
14 E 134/36Eliz/Hil10, fol. 5r, Inhabitants of Blisworth v. Wiggington, TNA.
15 E 134/36Eliz/Hil10, fol. 3r, Inhabitants of Blisworth v. Wiggington, TNA.
16 “Quod ipse non inseret, nec inferri procurabit, per se nec per alios, damnum aliquod seu gravamen praefato se alicui de populo … de corporibus suis per insidias, insultus, seu aliquo alio modo, quod in laesionem seu perturbationem Pacis dictae Dominae Reginae”: CKS-QM/SRc/1597/87, Recognizance for Thomas Ballard of Benenden, to appear and to be of good behavior, Kent History and Library Centre, Maidstone (hereafter KHLC); CKS-QM/SRc/1597/88, Recognizance for Henry Willard of Benenden, to appear and to be of good behavior towards Thomas Ballard, KHLC; CKS-QM/SRc/1597/89, Recognizance for William Fagge of Benenden, to appear and to be of good behavior towards Thomas Ballard, KHLC.
17 CKS-QM/SB/232, Warrant from Thomas Baker and Henry Lyndley to the constable of Rolvenden hundred, KHLC.
18 CKS-QM/SI/1598/10, Indictment for Thos. Ballard of Benenden, schoolmaster, for assaulting Rich. Glover, KHLC.
19 CKS-QM/SI/1598/12, Indictment for Thos. Ballard et al. for riotously assembling at Benenden and assaulting Richard Glover, KHLC; CKS-QM/SI/1598/11, Indictment for Edw. Maplesden of Benenden et al. for refusing to assist Rich. Glover, KHLC.
20 CKS-QM/SI/1598/11, Indictment for Edw. Maplesden et al., KHLC.
21 CKS-QM/SI/1598/12, Indictment for Thos. Ballard et al., KHLC.
22 “Graviter verberaverunt et indignis modus tractarent”: CKS-QM/SI/1598/11, Indictment for Edw. Maplesden et al., KHLC.
23 CKS-QM/SB/232, Warrant from Thomas Baker and Henry Lyndley, KHLC.
24 Thrupp, Merchant Class of Medieval London, 15-17; Barbara A. Hanawalt, “Of Good and Ill Repute”: Gender and Social Control in Medieval England (Oxford University Press, 1998), 1-17. For further information on mercantile culture, see Christopher Dyer, A Country Merchant, 1495-1520: Trading and Farming at the End of the Middle Ages (Oxford University Press, 2012), 91-130.
25 Sarah B. Lynch and Mark Lewis Tizzoni, “Teachers and Teaching,” in A Cultural History of Education in the Medieval Age, ed. Jo Ann Moran Cruz, vol. 2 (Bloomsbury, 2020), 125-44. Quote on p. 137.
26 On the role of reason in school punishment, see Ben Parsons, Punishment and Medieval Education (Boydell, 2018), 58-61.
27 Edith Rickert, Chaucer’s World, ed. Clair C. Olson and Martin M. Crow (Oxford University Press, 1948), 118.
28 Both cases are discussed briefly in Parsons, Punishment and Medieval Education, 67-68.
29 C 1/46/162, Robertson v. The Sheriffs of London, TNA.
30 C 1/61/390, Fosse v. The Mayor of Bristol, TNA.
31 Merridee L. Bailey, “‘Most Hevynesse and Sorowe’: The Presence of Emotions in the Late Medieval and Early Modern Court of Chancery,” Law and History Review 37, no. 1 (Feb. 2019), 1-28.
32 For a similar prosecution at Somme-Vesle in the thirteenth century, see Guilbert, “Les écoles rurales en Champagne,” 137.
33 See Lynch, Medieval Pedagogical Writings, 63-76.
34 A. F. Leach and F. Fletcher, “Schools,” in Victoria History of the County of Nottingham, ed. William Page, vol. 2 (Archibald Constable, 1910), 179-264. Quote on p. 225.
35 “Memorandum quod dominus Thomas Wolley presbiter, dominus Ricardus Wrixham de aula Georgii presbiter, Iohannes Martyn informator parvulorum in parochia sancti Michaelis ad portam borealem”; “Informator parvulorum in parochia sancti Michaelis ad portam borealem”: H. E. Salter, ed., Registrum Cancellarii Oxoniensis, 1434-1469, vol. 1 (Clarendon Press, 1932), 212, 324. On the boundary between elementary and grammar education, see Elizabeth Sears, The Ages of Man: Medieval Interpretations of the Life Cycle (Princeton University Press, 1986), 38-53; Grendler, Schooling in Renaissance Italy, 37-38; Lynch, Medieval Pedagogical Writings, 43-47.
36 “Memorandum quod nono die mensis Augusti, existente die dominico, anno domini millesimo ccccl Iohannes … sediciose congregavit multitudinem scolarium in ecclesiam parochialem dicti sancti Michaelis in tempore alte misse parochialis ad hunc finem, quod si magister Willelmus Strete tunc eidem ecclesie deserviens in divinis seu aliquis alius nomine suo sentenciam suspencionis seu excommunicacionis auctoritate ordinarii cuiuscumque fulminauerit vel executus fuerit contra eundem Iohannem Martyn, quod tunc ipsi sic congregati vel aliquis eorum extraherent vel extraheret mandatum de manibus suis ipsumque deponerent vel deponeret de pulpit; super qua re dicti scolares una cum Iohanne Martyn prefato coram nobis Iohanne Beek, commisario generali venerabilis viri Gilberti Kymer in medicinis doctoris cancellarii Universitate Oxonie, convicti fuere … propter quod quidam iuvenes scolares ei nequiter adherentes multitudine copiosa noctis principio insurrexerunt ad carceres domini regis infringendos; qua insurrectione nutu divino pacifice sopita, quosdam principales actores, factores ac fautores eiusdem insurrectionis incarceravimus, eudemque Iohannem ultra satisfactionem diversis personis in quos deliquerat factam fecimus summa centum solidorum de pace servanda Universitati obligari”: Salter, Registrum, 212.
37 Leach and Fletcher, “Schools,” 222.
38 “Et capitales presentant quod Willelmus Baker Scolemaister Abathie Westmonasteriensis insultum et effraiam fecit super Thomam Kyrkeham et extraxit sanguinem per plegium Roberti Raby et Willelmi Grocer. Ideo in misercordia iiis.iiiid. Et quod predictus Thomas Kyrkeham fecit insultum super predictum Willelmum Baker per plegium predictorum Roberti Raby et Willelmi Grocer. Ideo in misericordia xiid”: Lawrence E. Tanner, Westminster School, Its Buildings and Their Associations (P. Allen, 1923), 89.
39 London Metropolitan Archives, MS DL/C/A/001/MS09065, fol. 107v, Liber Examinationum, Diocese of London.
40 See especially Kintzinger, “A Profession but Not a Career?,” 180-81.
41 Calendar of the Patent Rolls Preserved in the Public Record Office, vol. 25 (H. M. Stationery Office, 1909), 232.
42 Edgar Powell, The Rising in East Anglia in 1381 (Cambridge University Press, 1896), 62.
43 J. E. Thorold Rogers, Oxford City Documents Financial and Judicial, 1268-1665 (Oxford Historical Society, 1891), 161-62.
44 George Shuffleton, “John Carpenter, Lay Clerk,” Chaucer Review 48, no. 4 (Winter 2014), 434-56. Quote on p. 435.
45 Patricia H. Coulstock, The Collegiate Church of Wimborne Minster, Studies in the History of Medieval Religion 5 (Boydell Press, 1993), 185-86. For more information on the social ambitions of teachers, see Jo Hoeppner Moran Cruz, “Education, Economy, and Clerical Mobility in Late Medieval Northern England,” in Universities and Schooling in Medieval Society, ed. William J. Courtenay and Jürgen Miethke, Education and Society in the Middle Ages and Renaissance 10 (Brill, 2000), 182-209.
46 C 1/17/263, Mortymer v. Goldsmyth, TNA.
47 Athol L. Murray, “The Parish Clerk and Song School of Inverness, 1538-9,” Innes Review 58, no. 1 (Spring 2007), 107-15 (107); Foster Watson, The English Grammar Schools to 1660: Their Curriculum and Practice (Cambridge University Press, 1908), 142. On parish schools more generally, see Nicholas Orme, Going to Church in Medieval England (Yale University Press, 2022), 72-76.
48 “Malicia prognata ac instigacione diabolica … quibus suo debitam minime ponderanta”: KB 9/492/2, fol. 1r, Returned oyer and terminer commission, held at Westminster on Feb. 4-5, 1524, TNA.
49 Edward Hall, Chronicle, Containing the History of England during the Reign of Henry the Fourth, and the Succeeding Monarchs, to the End of the Reign of Henry the Eighth, gen. ed. Henry Ellis (J. Johnston, 1809), 673; Raphael Holinshed, Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland, vol. 3, gen. ed. Henry Ellis (J. Johnston, 1807), 693.
50 See J. A. H. Murray, “Henchman,” Notes and Queries 1, ser. 9 (Feb. 19, 1898), 154.
51 J. S. Brewer, ed., Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII, vol. 2, part 2 (Longman, Green, Roberts, Longman and Green, 1868), 1098.
52 Hermentrude, “Henchman,” Notes and Queries 3, ser. 8 (May 20, 1893), 389-90.
53 See S. M. Thorpe, “Digby,” in The History of Parliament: The House of Commons 1509-1558, vol. 2, ed. S. T. Bindoff (Boydell and Brewer, 1982), 46; Vivian Bird, A Short History of Warwickshire and Birmingham (Batsford, 1977), 66.
54 Hall, Chronicle, 673. Hall erroneously gives Pykeryng’s forename as “Christopher.”
55 “Deinde per medium civitatis Londoniae directe usque ad furcas de tyburn separatum trahantur et super furcas illas ibi suspendantur et quodlibit eorum vivens ad terram prosternantur et interiora sua extra ventres suos capiantur apud ventribus comburentur et capita eorum amputentur quodque corpus cuiuslibet eorum in quator partes dividatur et quod capita et quateria illa ponantur ubi rex eis assignare voluntatibus”: TNA, KB 9/492/2, fol. 2v, Returned oyer and terminer commission.
56 Nicholas Carlisle, The Concise Description of the Endowed Grammar Schools in England, vol. 1 (Baldwin, Cradock and Joy, 1818), 130.
57 William Nelson, ed., A Fifteenth Century School Book (Clarendon Press, 1956), 32. For a less idealistic assessment, see Lynn Thorndike, ed., University Records and Life in the Middle Ages (Columbia University Press, 1944), 219-21.
58 Lilian F. Field, An Introduction to the Study of the Renaissance (Smith, Elder and Co., 1898), 271. For a more nuanced version of this narrative, see Grendler, Schooling in Renaissance Italy, 3-41.