CHAPTER 1.

ORIGINS AND EARLY HISTORY.

The founder of Kibworth Beauchamp Grammar School was,
according to tradition, Warwick the King-Maker. The lords of
the manor of Kibworth Beauchamp in the later Middle Ages were
the Beauchamps, who were also the Earls of Warwick. Warwick
the King-Maker, however, was a member of the Beauchamp "family
not by birth but by marriage. He actually belonged to another
great baronial house, the Nevilles, but married Anne, the heiress
of the Beauchamps, and then took to himself the title of Earl of
Warwick. He was a typical feudal baron of the fifteenth century,
and was far more interested in war than education. According
to J. R. Green, "His genius was not so much military as diplo-
matic; what he excelled in was intrigue, treachery, the contrivance
of plots and sudden desertion."   Such is the rather shady
character who is claimed as the founder of the School, for the
prospectus used to state, " There are strong grounds for believing
that the School was founded by Warwick the King-Maker ".

There is usually an element of truth in a tradition, and we
should be unwise to dismiss this one as absolutely false. As I
hope to show later, however, there is evidence to prove that the
School was in existence before Warwick's time.   Thus, though
Warwick may not have been the actual founder, the tradition
connected with his name suggests that he did something for the
School of outstanding merit, so that later generations came to
regard him as the founder.

Long after the days of Warwick the King-Maker, in fact,
when England was once more in the throes of a Civil War, the
Governors drew up a long list of rules for the general conduct of
the School. One rule was that there should be for ever a strong
chest with three locks and keys for the use and safe keeping of
evidences, writings, orders, constitutions, furniture and other
things belonging to the School.   What happened to this first
chest and the three keys is not known, but there is now in the
School an iron chest with one very big key; and in that chest are
a large number of documents dealing with the history of the school
from its origins until 1877.

The earliest document in the chest, and one which is most
important for tracing the School's origins, is a charter dating from
1359. In it two men, Robert Chapman of Kibworth Harcourt and
Roger de Stanesby of Smeeton Westerby, joined together to hand
over to a body of trustees certain property in Smeeton which
brought in an annual rent.  The trustees to whom these lands
were conveyed were William Weston of Carlton Curlieu, William
Hayne and Roger the Clerk of Kibworth Harcourt, William Swan
and William Langton of Kibworth Beauchamp and Richard White
of Smeeton. No mention is made in the charter, however, either
of the person to whom, or of the purpose for which, the rent was
to be paid The main reason indeed for the charter is the naming
of the trustees who were to control the property.

This 1359 charter is the first of a series of land charters still
extant in the School chest. It is noticeable, however, that in the
succeeding charters reference is always made to the previous
trustees who had issued the charter.  Thus, in the next land
charter in the chest, dated 1417, the four trustees still surviving,
Robert Smyth and William Parker of Kibworth Harcourt, John
Russell of Kibworth Beauchamp and William Fox of Smeeton
referred to the trustees who had conferred the property on them--
in this case Richard Chapman and William Goode.  The 1359
charter, however, makes no reference to previous trustees; so it
would seem to be the very first of the series.

We have already mentioned the next land charter extant in
the School chest—the one dated 1417. According to a seventeenth
century document, this 1417 charter has definitely to do with
Kibworth School lands.   The document in question runs as
follows:--

    The plaintiff has many other deeds whereby the
    School lands have been from time to time granted by
    surviving feoffees [trustees] in all which deeds the lands
    are granted in general words, all relating to one another
    successively, as 4th. year of Henry 5th. Robert Smith
    and others grant to William Brown and others.

The seventeenth century lawyer who wrote the above docu-
ment clearly thought that the 1417 charter dealt with school lands.
The problem now arises, was there any connection between the
1417 charter and the original one of 1359? The 1417 feoffees
were enfeoffed by Richard Chapman and William Goode. These
two trustees, along with their fellow trustees, must have been en-
feoffed about 1380, presumably by survivers of the original trust
of 1359. The "1380" charter, however, is missing, and, there-
fore, we can only presume a link between the two charters of 1359
and 1417. Since, however, the 1417 charter referred to a school,
there is a possibility that the 1359 deed was appointing trustees to
control school lands; but no actual mention is made of a school.

Another source of evidence for the early history of the School
is a seventeenth century lawsuit in which the School was involved.
At the time of the Great Civil War, Kibworth had its own minor
civil war, for the tenants of the school lands suddenly refused to
pay their rents on the ground that the property they rented was
not school land but their own property, held direct from the lord
of the manor. The Governors were obliged to bring the matter
to the notice of Chancery, and in 1650 three commissioners were
appointed to investigate the quarrel between the School Governors
and their tenants. The commissioners naturally wanted to know
the history of the school lands, so they sought to get local opinion
on the subject. They found a suitable rendezvous—the Crown
Inn, at Great Glen—and asked several people well versed in
Kibworth affairs to give their answers on oath to a number of
questions. One question was:--

    What do you know concerning the foundation and
    beginning of the said Free School in Kibworth?

One witness who went along to the Crown was Robert Raye.
He belonged to a family in Kibworth Harcourt which had a good
knowledge of school affairs, for members of the family are to be
found among the Governors of the School in the seventeenth
century. He was 65 years old, and so he could have talked with
men who had been alive at the Reformation. This is what Raye
swore on oath in answer to the above question:--

    He has heard one Thomas Parker, one of the ancient
    feoffees, say that the Earl of Northumberland, then lord
    of Kibworth Beauchamp, made claim to certain lands in
    Kibworth Beauchamp and being informed they was
    employed to so good a use as the maintenance of a School,
    said God forbid I should have them. And further says
    he never heard that any of the lands called School lands
    was ever employed to superstitious use.

Before we consider the light which this statement throws on
the early history of the School, it will be well to consider the
means by which many schools came into existence in the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries.   At that time many schools arose in
connection with chantries. A chantry was an endowment, either
of money or property, left by a person for the upkeep of a priest
who had to say Masses for his benefactor's soul. Often, however,
the chantry priest (or stipendiary priest, as he is sometimes called)
added to his duties the task of running a school. Thus, in 1509,
Harold Staunton founded at Castle Donnington a chantry whose
priest had (1) to sing Divine Service in the Chapel of Our Lord
in the parish church and to pray for the founder's soul, (2) to
teach a Grammar School there for the erudition of poor scholars.
Such a chantry foundation was the origin of many Grammar
Schools in the later Middle Ages.

Raye's evidence is mainly useful for indicating what happened
to the School at the time of the Reformation, when the Earl of
Northumberland was lord of the manor of Kibworth Beauchamp.
As for its origins, he states that the School lands were never
employed for the upkeep of a chantry (" Superstitious uses" is
the seventeenth-century expression for a chantry. What had in
the fifteenth century been an act of piety had become to the
Puritan a mere piece of superstition).

Another witness who travelled to the Crown to give his
answers was William Mitchell, a farm-labourer. He stated on
oath:--

    He remembers the building of the Schoolhouse and
    before the building of it it was kept in the Church and
    other houses but never knew the scholars taught by any
    laymen and that all the said moneys which were given
    were for the maintenance of the scholars and not for any
    superstitious uses.

Mitchell's evidence, then, agrees with Raye's in one important
particular. He, too, thought that the School did not originate in
a chantry foundation. Mitchell's evidence adds one more feature:
he says the scholars were not taught by laymen.   Hence, they
must have been taught by a priest, and it was a chantry priest who
usually taught boys in the period before the Reformation. Hence,
though the School was an independent foundation, it may well
have been kept by a chantry priest during the course of the
fifteenth century.

A third witness was Marie Taylor, who came from Wood
Newton in Northamptonshire to give evidence. She had evidently
spent most of her life in Kibworth, for she knew most of the
people concerned in the case. Her sworn evidence was:--

    She has heard there has been some money formerly
    paid by the free-holders to superstitious uses ..... and
    she has known the School has since been kept in the
    Church and in several houses and that the money formerly
    given to superstitious uses was by the advice of Attorney
    Griffin employed for the maintenance of a school, as she
    has heard her father say.
    
This evidence once more relates mainly to the Reformation
period and afterwards—the period within her own personal know-
ledge and that of her father.  It tells us little or nothing about
the origins of the School. It does, however, prove that a chantry
was founded at Kibworth in the later Middle Ages—" some money
formerly paid to superstitious uses "—but the rest of the evidence
refers to the Reformation period.

There is good evidence, indeed, that a stipendiary priest was
prominent in the affairs of the School in the period immediately
before the Reformation. A stipendiary priest was similar to a
chantry priest, but he drew his stipend from lands placed in the
hands of trustees. Dom Robert Mason is the first schoolmaster
of Kibworth about whom we have some details.   He flourished
in Kibworth from about 1520 to 1540, but he can hardly have set
a good example to his pupils because, from Bishop Langley's
Register of 1521, we learn that the Bishop had sent a commission
to Kibworth--

    ad reconciliandum ecclesiam de Kybworth per
    emissionem seminis inter Robertum Mason stipendiarium
    ibidem et Isabellam Greene uxorem Johannis Greene de
    eadem pollutam.

    [to allow the Church of Kibworth to be used again
    after adultery committed between Robert Mason stipen-
    diary priest in Kibworth and Isabella Green, John Green's
    wife, had defiled it].

Again, when Wolsey sent his tax-collectors to Kibworth in
1526, they found two stipendiary priests there, and no doubt one
of them was Dom Robert. Several documents still extant in the
school chest were written by him.   A charter of 1540 has the
following note on the back:-- " This charter was written by Sir
Robert the priest". In the same year two Kibworth farmers, John
Dan and John Marriott, bought a piece of land for £6 13s. 4d.,
and on the back of the deed recording the transaction there is this
note: " Possession of this land was given in the presence of Dom
Robert Mason, stipendiary priest at Kibworth ". Evidently Dom
Robert was a man much sought after by the townsfolk of Kibworth
just before the Reformation.

The evidence from the land charters and the seventeenth-
century witnesses gives us, then, some information upon which we
can base an account of the School's origins. The crucial question
is: Was the charter of 1359 the foundation deed of the School?
It was handing over property to the control of a body of feoffees
(or trustees) who in time were to pass on the property to another
set of trustees. Since, however, the charter makes no reference
to a school, it would be straining the evidence too much to claim
1359 as the year of the School's foundation. It may have begun
then; what we can claim with certainty is that the School was in
existence in 1417.  Thus, the exact date of the School's origins
remains doubtful, but it was definitely founded before Warwick
the King-Maker's time. Moreover, it owed its origins to one or
two local men, who gave their land and money for the express
purpose of founding a school. It did not start its career attached
to a chantry, although in the fifteenth century a chantry priest, no
doubt, acted as schoolmaster.

Both William Mitchell and Marie Taylor stated that the
School was kept in the church and private houses. This was in
accord with the usual custom of the Middle Ages, for most schools
then had no distinctive Schoolhouse, but were kept in the parish
church. At Wymondham, the Lady Chapel was used as the
schoolroom; and at Crediton, in Devon, the authorities had the
Lady Chapel walled off from the rest of the church so that it
could be used as a class-room.  In the same way, Kibworth
Beauchamp Grammar School started its long career in Kibworth
Church; and there it was to remain for many years.

The materials available for a study of mediaeval Grammar
Schools are scarce. We are left somewhat in the dark when we
wish to know what kind of an education a boy gained when the
School consisted of a handful of boys gathered together in the
Church under the supervision of the stipendiary priest. Naturally,
in a school of this type, everything depended upon the teacher,
and the talents of chantry priests differed considerably.  Some
were good scholars, who knew Latin well, but others were capable
of teaching only in the vernacular. In such circumstances it is
difficult to know precisely what did happen.  We know much
more about the School two centuries later, when the Constitutions
of the School were put down in writing, but how far conditions
in the mediavel School approximated to those in the seventeenth
century is a moot point.

One thing is certain: the curriculum consisted mainly of a
study of Latin. A knowledge of Latin, indeed, was the passport
to the church, the professions, politics and commerce. So the
mediaeval Grammar School concentrated on teaching Latin. The
method of teaching was mainly oral, as one might expect. Before
the days of printing, text-books were scarce: only the master
would possess one. Lessons, therefore, consisted of the master
dictating from his book material which the boys copied down in
their own books. Then thev memorised what they had written.
Translations of passages from Latin into English were also under-
taken.   The study of Latin Grammar was, then, the main
occupation of the mediaeval English schoolboy.

It is possible, however, that in such a school as Kibworth the
schoolmaster would have to give a certain amount of elementary
instruction, as well as teaching Latin. In fact, there is reference
in a seventeenth century document to the mediaeval School being
known as the English School. Indeed, it seems that a number of
mediaeval Grammar Schools undertook elementary teaching.
Only by making such a supposition as this can we account for the
fairly large number of people who could read in the fifteenth
century, according to the letters written by people of that period
which have survived. The largest collection of such letters is the
Paston letters, to which a considerable number of people contri-
buted.  Moreover, in the closing years of the fifteenth century,
Caxton's printing press produced a fair number of works in
English--Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Lydgate's The Troye Book,
Malory's Morte d'Arthur and Aesop's Fables. It is a fair assump-
tion, then, that Kibworth Grammar School was contributing to
this growth of a reading public by teaching its scholars how to
read and write English, while at the same time it was providing
a more advanced education.

Although Kibworth Grammar School was small in numbers
in the Middle Ages and the nature of the education given there is
rather nebulous, we should not under-estimate its influence on the
neighbourhood which it served. The growth of Grammar Schools
in the fifteenth century, with the rise of an educated laity, was an
event fraught with tremendous consequences. The letters of the
Fastens, Celys and Stonors indicate the extent to which education
was reaching lay people, and the result was that the laity were
becoming increasingly critical of the clergy.  This criticism was
directed mainly at two features of clerical life, namely their
privileges and their low morals. Thus, the reform of the Church
became the increasing concern of eminent laymen such as Erasmus
and Sir Thomas More, as well as of Dean Colet, the founder of
St. Paul's School, London.  Such men hoped that the Church
would reform itself from within.   The influence of Kibworth
Grammar School in the early days of its existence was to provide
the community with a number of laymen able to express their
opinion on the subject uppermost in the minds of the laity--the
state of the Church.   Thus, the rise of Grammar Schools in
England is one of the factors which accounts for the ease with
which the Reformation was brought about in this country. When
the Church in England broke with the Pope, and Henry VIII made
himself its Supreme Head, very few voices were raised in protest.