merchants and guilds. In 1510, the founder and dean of St. Paul's School
placed its management in the hands of London "citizens of established
reputation" because he had lost confidence in the good faith of priests
and noblemen. The sons of the nobility, attorneys, and merchants were
starting to go to grammar school now instead of being taught at home by
a tutor. At school, they mingled with sons of yeomen, farmers, and
tradesmen, who were usually poor. The usual age of entry was six or
seven. Classical Latin and Greek were taught and the literature of the
best classical authors was read. Secondary education teachers were
expected to know Latin and have studied the ancient philosophers,
history, and geography. The method of teaching was for the teacher to
read textbooks to the class from a prepared curriculum. The students
were taught in Latin and expected not to speak English in school. They
learned how to read and to write Latin, to develop and amplify a theme
by logical analysis, and to essay on the same subject in the narrative,
persuasive, argumentative, commending, consoling, and inciting styles.
They had horn books with the alphabet and perhaps a Biblical verse on
them. This was a piece of wood with a paper on it held down by a sheet
of transparent horn. They also learned arithmetic (solving arithmetical
problems and casting accounts). Disobedience incurred flogging by
teacher as well as by parents. Spare the rod and spoil the child was the
philosophy. Schools now guarded the morals and behavior of students.
There were two week vacations at Christmas and at Easter. Royal grammar
books for English and Latin were proclaimed by Henry in 1543 to be the
only grammar book authorized for students. In 1545, he proclaimed a
certain primer of prayers in English to be the only one to be used by
students.
The first school of humanist studies arose in Oxford with the
Foundation of Corpus Christi College in 1516 by Bishop Richard Fox. It
had the first permanent Reader or Professor in Greek. The Professor of
Humanity was to extirpate all barbarisms by the study of Cicero,
Sallust, Valerius Maximus, and Quintilian. The Reader of Theology was to
read texts of the Holy Fathers but not those of their commentators.
Oxford University was granted a charter which put the greater part of
the town under control of the Chancellor and scholars. The mayor of
Oxford was required to take an oath at his election to maintain the
privileges and customs of the university. Roman law and other Regius
professorships were founded by the king at Oxford and Cambridge.
Teaching of undergraduates was the responsibility of the university
rather than of the colleges, though some colleges had live-in teachers.
Most colleges were exclusively for graduate fellows, though this was
beginning to change. The university took responsibility for the
student's morals and behavior and tutors sometimes whipped the
undergraduates. For young noblemen, a more important part of their
education than going to university was travel on the continent with a
tutor. This exposure to foreign fields was no longer readily available
through war or pilgrimage. The purpose was practical - to learn about
foreign people and their languages, countries, and courts. Knowledge of
the terrain, resources, prosperity, and stability of their countries was
particularly useful to a future diplomatic or political career.
Understanding of the celestial world began to change. Contemporary
thought was that the nature of all things was to remain at rest, so that
movement and motion had to be explained by causes. The earth was
stationary and the heavens were spherical and revolved around the earth
every twenty-four hours. The universe was finite. The firmament extended
outward in a series of rotating, crystalline, ethereal spheres to which
were attached the various points of celestial geography. First came the
circle of the moon. The sun orbited the earth. The fixed stars rotated
on an outer firmament. Finally, there was the abode of God and his
heavenly hosts. Different principles ruled the celestial world; it was
orderly, stable, ageless, and enduring. But the world of man changed
constantly due to its mixed four elements of air, earth, fire, and water
each trying to disentangle itself from the others and seeking to find
its natural location. The heavenly spheres could affect the destinies of
men, such as through fate, fortune, intelligence, cherubim, seraphim,
angels, and archangels. Astrologers read the celestial signs and
messages.
Then a seed of doubt was cast on this theory by Nicholaus Copernicus, a
timid monk in Poland, who found inconsistencies in Ptolemy's work, but
saw similarity in the movements of the earth and other planets. He
inferred from the "wandering" planetary movements with loops that their
motion could be explained simply if they were revolving in circular
paths around the sun, rather than around the earth. In his book of 1543,
he also expressed his belief that the earth also revolved around the
sun. This idea so shocked the world that the word "revolution" became
associated with radical change. He thought it more likely that the earth
rotated than that the stars moved with great speed in their large
orbits. He proposed that the earth spins on its own axis about once
every twenty-four hours, with a spin axis at about a 23 1/2 degree tilt
from the orbital axis, thus explaining a slow change in the overall
appearances of the fixed stars which had been observed since the time of
Ptolemy. He deduced from astronomical measurements that the correct
order of the planets from the Sun was: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars,
Jupiter, and Saturn. The church considered his ideas heretical because
contradictory to its dogma that man and the earth were the center of the
universe. A central sun evoked images of pagan practices of sun worship.
News of new ideas in science traveled quickly to English scholars and
professionals
The physicians of London were incorporated to oversee and govern the
practice of medicine. A faculty of physicians was established at Oxford
and Cambridge. A Royal College of Physicians was founded in London in
1518 by the King's physician. The College of Physicians taught more
practical medicine and anatomy than the universities. Only graduates of
the College of Physicians or of Oxford or Cambridge were allowed to
practice medicine or surgery.
Medical texts were Hippocrates and Galen. These viewed disease as only
part of the process of nature without anything divine. They stressed
empiricism, experience, collections of facts, evidences of the senses,
and avoidance of philosophical speculations. Some observations of
Hippocrates were: "When sleep puts an end to delirium, it is a
hopeful sign." "When on a starvation diet, the patient should not
be allowed to become fatigued." "Old men usually have less illness
than young ones, but such as they have last, as a rule, till death."
"Pleurisy, pneumonia, colds, sore throat, and headache are more likely
to occur during winter seasons." "When one oversleeps, or fails to
sleep, the condition suggests disease." Hippocrates had asserted that
madness was simply a disease of the brain and then Galen had agreed and
advocated merciful treatment of the insane. Galen's great remedies were
proper diet, exercise, massage, and bathing. He taught the importance of
a good water supply and good drainage. He advised that baking bread in a
large oven was superior to cooking in a small oven, over ashes, or in a
pan in wholesomeness, digestibility, and flavor. Greek medicinal
doctrines were assumed, such as that preservation of the health of the
body was dependent on air, food, drink, movement and repose, sleeping
and waking, excretion and retention, and the passions.
It was widely known that sleep was restorative and that bad news or
worry could spoil one's digestion. An Italian book of 1507 showed that
post-mortem examinations could show cause of death by gallstones, heart
disease, thrombosis of the veins, or abscesses. In 1540 began the
practice of giving bodies of hanged felons to surgeons to dissect. This
was to deter the commission of felony. There was some feeling that
dissection was a sacrilege, that the practice of medicine was a form of
sorcery, and that illness and disease should be dealt with by prayer
and/or atonement because caused by sin, the wrath of God, or by the
devil. Food that was digested was thought to turn into a vapor which
passed along the veins and was concreted as blood, flesh, and fat. After
1546, there was a book listing hundreds of drugs with preparation
directions, but their use and application was by trial and error.
Flemish physician Andreas Vesalius, secretly dissected human corpses,
finding them hanging on public gibbets or competing with dogs for those
incompletely buried in cemeteries. He begged doctors to allow him to
examine the bodies of their fatal cases. He ingratiated himself with
judges who determined the time and place of execution of criminals. In
1543 he published the first finely detailed description of human
anatomy. In it, there was no missing rib on one side of man, and this
challenged the theory of the woman Eve having been made from a rib of
the man Adam.
In the 1540s, Ambroise Pare from France, a barber-surgeon who was the
son of a servant, was an army surgeon. Wounds at this time were treated
with boiling oil and spurting vessels were closed by being seared with a
red-hot iron. After he ran out of boiling oil, he observed that the
soldiers without this treatment were healing better than those with this
treatment. So he advocated ceasing the practice of cauterizing wounds.
He also began tying arteries with cord to stop their bleeding after
amputation many other surgical techniques.
In Switzerland, Theophrastus Paracelsus, an astrologer and alchemist
who later became a physician, did not believe that humor imbalance
caused disease nor in treatment by bloodletting or purging. He believed
that there were external causes of disease, e.g. toxic matter in food,
contagion, defective physical or mental constitution, cosmic influences
differing with climate and country, or affliction sent Providence. He
urged that wounds be kept clean rather than given poultices. In 1530, he
pioneered the application of chemistry to physiology, pathology, and the
treatment of disease by starting clinical diagnosis and treatment of
disease by highly specific medicines, instead of by cure-alls. For
instance, he used alkalis to treat disease, such as gout, indicated by
certain substances in the urine, which also started urinalysis. He
perceived that syphilis was caused by contagion and used mercury to cure
it. He found curative powers also in opium, sulphur, iron, and arsenic.
Opium was made by drying and cooking the capsule of the poppy and was
one of the few really effective early drugs. Paracelsus urged alchemists
to try to prepare drugs from minerals for the relief of suffering. He
claimed to acquire knowledge of cures through spiritual contacts to
occult wisdom. He believed that a human being has an invisible body as
well as a visible one and that it is closely attuned to imagination and
the spiritual aspect of an individual. He noticed that one's attitudes
and emotions, such as anger, could affect one's health. He sometimes
used suggestion and signs to help a patient form mental images, which
translated into cures. He saw insanity as illness instead of possession
by evil spirits.
Students were beginning to read for the bar by their own study of the
newly available printed texts, treatises, and collections of statute law
and of cases, instead of listening in court and talking with attorneys.
In 1523, Anthony Fitzherbert wrote "Boke of Husbandry", which set forth
the most current methods of arable farming, giving details of tools and
equipment, advice on capital outlay, methods of manuring, draining,
ploughing, and rick-building. It was used by many constantly, and was
often carried around in the pocket. This began a new way to disseminate
new methods in agriculture. He also wrote a "Boke of Surveying", which
relied on the perch rod and compass dial, and gave instruction on how to
set down the results of a survey. In 1533, Gemma Frisius laid down the
principles of topographical survey by triangulation. This improved the
quality of surveys and produced accurate plots.
Geoffrey Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" was a popular book. Through
Chaucer, London English became a national standard and the notion of
"correct pronunciation" came into being.The discoveries and adventures
of Amerigo Vespucci, a Portuguese explorer, were widely read. The North
and South American continents were named for him.
London merchant guilds began to be identified mainly with hospitality
and benevolence instead of being trading organizations. Twelve great
companies dominated city politics and effectively chose the mayor and
aldermen. They were, in order of precedence, Mercers, Grocers, Drapers,
Fishmongers, Goldsmiths, Skinners, Tailors, Haberdashers, Ironmongers,
Salters, Vintners, and the Clothworkers (composed from leading fullers
and shearmen). The leading men of these guilds were generally aldermen
and the guilds acted like municipal committees of trade and
manufactures. Then they superintended the trade and manufactures of
London much like a government department. They were called Livery
Companies and categorized their memberships in three grades: mere
membership, livery membership, and placement on the governing body.
Livery members were distinguished by having the clothing of the
brotherhood [its livery] and all privileges, and proprietary and
municipal rights, in the fullest degree. They generally had a right to a
place at the Company banquets. They were invited by the governing body,
as a matter of favor, to other entertainments. These liverymen were
usually those who had bought membership and paid higher fees because
they were richer. Their pensions were larger than those of mere members.
Those with mere membership were freemen who had only the simple freedom
of the trade. The masters were usually householders. The journeymen,
yeomanry, bachelors were simple freemen. Most of these companies had
almshouses attached to their halls for the impoverished, disabled, and
elderly members and their widows and children. For instance, many
members of the Goldsmiths had been blinded by the fire and smoke of
quicksilver and some members had been rendered crazed and infirm by
working in that trade. The freedom and rights of citizenship of the city
could only be obtained through membership in a livery company.
A lesser guild, the Leathersellers, absorbed the Glovers, Pursers, and
Pouchmakers, some of whom became wage earners of the Leathersellers. But
others of these craftsmen remained independent. The Whittawyers, who
treated horse, deer, and sheep hides with alum and oil, had become wage
earners for the Skinners.
Londoners went to the fields outside the city for recreation and games.
When farmers enclosed some suburban common fields in 1514, a crowd of
young men marched out to them and, crying "shovels and spades", uprooted
the hedges and filled in the ditches, thus reclaiming the land for their
traditional games. The last major riot in London was aroused by a
speaker on May Day in 1517 when a thousand disorderly young men, mostly
apprentices, defied the curfew and looted shops and houses of aliens. A
duke with two thousand soldiers put it down in mid-afternoon, after
which the king executed fifteen of the rioters.
Many English migrated to London. There were ambitious young men and
women hopeful of betterment through employment, apprenticeship, higher
wages, or successful marriage. On the other hand, there were subsistence
migrants forced to leave their homes for food, work, or somewhere to
live. There was much social mobility. For instance, between 1551 and
1553, of 881 persons admitted as freemen of London, 46 were the sons of
gentlemen, 136 the sons of yeomen, and 289 the sons of farm workers.
London grew in population about twice as fast as the nation.
There are 26 wards of London as of 1550. This is the number for the
next four centuries. Each ward has an alderman, a clerk, and a chief
constable. There are also in each ward about 100 to 300 elected
officials including prickers, benchers, blackbootmen, fewellers [keepers
of greyhounds], scribes, a halter-cutter, introducers, upperspeakers,
under speakers, butlers, porters, inquestmen, scavengers, constables,
watchmen, a beadle, jurymen, and common councilmen. The wardmote had
inquest jurisdiction over immorality or bad behavior such as vagrancy,
delinquency, illegitimacy, and disputes. This contributed greatly to
social stability. In 1546, Henry ordered the London brothels closed. A
small gaol was established in the Clink district of Southwark, giving
the name "clink" to any small gaol. London ordinances required
journeymen to work from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. in winter, with a total of 90
minutes breaks for breakfast, dinner, and an afternoon drink, for 7d. In
the summer they had to work for two hours longer for 8d. At its peak in
the 1540s the court employed about 200 gentlemen, which was about half
the peerage and one-fifth of the greater gentry. Henry issued a
proclamation ordering noblemen and gentlemen in London not employed by
the court to return to their country homes to perform their service to
the king.
Though there was much agreement on the faults of the church and the
need to reform it, there were many disagreements on what philosophy of
life should take the place of church teachings. The humanist Thomas More
was a university trained intellectual. His book "Utopia", idealized an
imaginary society living according to the principles of natural virtue.
In it, everything is owned in common and there is no need for money. All
believe that there is a God who created the world and all good things
and who guides men, and that the soul is immortal. But otherwise people
choose their religious beliefs and their priests. From this perspective,
the practices of other Christians, scholastic theologians, priests and
monks, superstition, and ritual looked absurd. More encouraged a
religious revival. Aristotle's position that virtuous men would rule
best is successfully debated against Plato's position that intellectuals
and philosophers would be the ideal rulers.
More believed the new humanistic studies should be brought to women as
well as to men. He had tutors teach all his children Latin, Greek,
logic, theology, philosophy, mathematics, and astronomy from an early
age. His eldest daughter Margaret became a recognized scholar and
translated his treatise on the lord's prayer. Other high class women
became highly educated. They voiced their opinions on religious matters.
In the 1530s, the Duchess of Suffolk spoke out for reform of the clergy
and against images, relics, shrines, pilgrimages, and services in Latin.
She and the countess of Sussex supported ministers and established
seminaries for the spread of the reformed faith.
More pled for proportion between punishment and crime. He urged that
theft no longer be punished by death because this only encouraged the
thief to murder his victim to eliminate evidence of the theft. He opined
that the purpose of punishment was to reform offenders. He advocated
justice for the poor to the standard of justice received by the rich.
Erasmus, a former monk, visited the nation for a couple of years and
argued that reason should prevail over religious belief. He wrote the
book "In Praise of Folly", which noted man's elaborate pains in
misdirected efforts to gain the wrong thing. For instance, it questioned
what man would stick his head into the halter of marriage if he first
weighed the inconveniences of that life? Or what woman would ever
embrace her husband if she foresaw or considered the dangers of
childbirth and the drudgery of motherhood? Childhood and senility are
the most pleasant stages of life because ignorance is bliss. Old age
forgetfulness washes away the cares of the mind. A foolish and doting
old man is freed from the miseries that torment the wise and has the
chief joy of life: garrulousness. The seekers of wisdom are the farthest
from happiness; they forget the human station to which they were born
and use their arts as engines with which to attack nature. The least
unhappy are those who approximate the naiveness of the beasts and who
never attempt what is beyond men. As an example, is anyone happier than
a moron or fool? Their cheerful confusion of the mind frees the spirit
from care and gives it many-sided delights. Fools are free from the fear
of death and from the pangs of conscience. They are not filled with vain
worries and hopes. They are not troubled by the thousand cares to which
this life is subject. They experience no shame, fear, ambition, envy, or
love. In a world where men are mostly at odds, all agree in their
attitude towards these innocents. They are sought after and sheltered;
everyone permits them to do and say what they wish with impunity.
However, the usual opinion is that nothing is more lamentable than
madness. The Christian religion has some kinship with folly, while it
has none at all with wisdom. For proof of this, notice that children,
old people, women, and fools take more delight than anyone else in holy
and religious things, led no doubt solely by instinct. Next, notice that
the founders of religion have prized simplicity and have been the
bitterest foes of learning. Finally, no people act more foolishly than
those who have been truly possessed with Christian piety. They give away
whatever is theirs; they overlook injuries, allow themselves to be
cheated, make no distinction between friends and enemies, shun pleasure,
and feast on hunger, vigils, tears, labors, and scorn. They disdain
life, and utterly prefer death. In short, they have become altogether
indifferent to ordinary interests, as if their souls lived elsewhere and
not in their bodies. What is this, if not to be mad? The life of
Christians is run over with nonsense. They make elaborate funeral
arrangements, with candles, mourners, singers, and pallbearers. They
must think that their sight will be returned to them after they are
dead, or that their corpses will fall ashamed at not being buried
grandly. Christian theologians, in order to prove a point, will pluck
four or five words out from different places, even falsifying the sense
of them if necessary, and disregard the fact that their context was
relevant or even contradicted their points. They do this with such
brazen skill that our attorneys are often jealous of them.
Attorney Christopher St. German wrote the legal treatise "Doctor and
Student", in which he deems the law of natural reason to be supreme and
eternal. The law of God and the law of man, as enunciated by the church
and royalty, merely supplement the law of natural reason and may change
from time to time. Examples of the law of reason are: It is good to be
loved. Evil is to be avoided. Do onto others as you would have them do
unto you. Do nothing against the truth. Live peacefully with others.
Justice is to be done to every man. No one is to wrong another. A
trespasser should be punished. From these is deduced that a man should
love his benefactor. It is lawful to put away force with force. It is
lawful for every man to defend himself and his goods against an unlawful
power.
Like his father, Henry VIII dominated Parliament. He used this power to
reform the church of England in the 1530's. The Protestant reformation
cause, started in Germany in 1517 by Martin Luther posting his thesis,
had become identified with Henry's efforts to have his marriage of
eighteen years to the virtuous Catherine annulled so he could marry a
much younger woman: Anne and have a son. The end of his six successive
wives was: annulled, beheaded, died; annulled, beheaded, survived. Henry
VIII was egotistical, arrogant, and self- indulgent. This nature allowed
him to declare himself the head of the church of England instead of the
pope.