Es Tu Scholaris?9
In the following pages I propose to offer a little picture of school-life four hundred years ago, culled from an old Latin dialogue book which was published anonymously in the fifteenth century under the title ‘Es tu scholaris?’ and went through many editions in different countries. All through the Middle Ages boys were supposed to speak Latin in school, and this with some reason, since if they meant to be scholars when they grew up, to be able to speak and write Latin fluently would be far more useful to them than the acquisition of any single modern language. But no doubt it did not come easily to them, and our anonymous author seems to have thought that it might not come quite easily to their masters to show them how to do it, since, as we shall see, he wrote his book for use in the humbler kind of schools, where the master himself might be a man of no great learning. In fact he begins by pointing out the inconvenience of a master not being able to answer his boys’ questions, and to obviate this offers some ready-made dialogues on what he considered suitable topics.
All the earlier dialogues begin with the words from which the book takes its title—Are you a scholar? ‘Es tu scholaris?’ says the master. ‘Sum,’ says the boy, (‘knowing the language’), and then begin the variations.
The cruellest of these is a kind of ‘fool’s mate’ (to borrow a term from chess), in which the master asks, ‘What gender is sum?’ and it is to be hoped used his victory mercifully if his victim fell into the trap. When the first variations are exhausted we come to a ‘Where are you a scholar?’ to which the correct answer is ‘Here and everywhere, and in all honest places,’ honest places being subsequently defined as of four kinds, that is to say, at church, at school, at home with one’s parents and in the company of able men (ecclesia, scola, domus propria circa parentes et convivium peritorum virorum). Of a sudden the master waxes humorous and demands ‘Es tu scutellavarius,’ a portentous word which apparently means a ‘washer-up,’ since the boy emphasises his denial by explaining that he does not wash plates in the kitchen (quod non lavo scutellas in coquina). On this there follows some talk about religion, and we then approach scholastic topics with the question, ‘Do you know Latin?’ ‘I do,’ answers the boy, with happy confidence, and then in reply to the further question, ‘What is Latin?’ is made to return the remarkable answer, that Latin is a very noble idiom taking its origin from the fountains of the Greeks (nobilissimum ideoma ex fontibus Graecorum ortum habens). Comparative philology was in its infancy in those days, and as even now there are worthy people who believe that English is derived from German, we need not throw stones.
The next pages contain some interesting talk on the four chief books in use in grammar schools, the ‘Tabula’ or horn-book on which was written the Lord’s Prayer, the moral sayings of ‘Cato,’ the accidence of Donatus, and the syntax and prosody of Alexander Gallus; but we must hurry on to the more human side of our text-book. There are ‘verba obedientiae’ helping the boy to assure his master that for the future he will be very careful not to anger him (de cetero vos10 commovere percavebo), suggestions for defence where a fault could be denied, and ready-made excuses where it was obvious. I regret to say that there are also ready-made ‘verba accusationis’: ‘Please Sir, Jones has torn my grammar’ (Joannes Donatum meum dilaniavit) or ‘That boy called me the son of a thief’ (Ille mihi dixit filium furis). These are evidently tips for whiners in the school itself, but we have a more awful picture in the demand, ‘Wherefore, honoured Sir, I earnestly beg you to take steps against evil-doings and punish these fellows scholastically.’ No doubt Brown minor had run into some dignity in the street, and this is the formula with which the dignity demanded that Brown should be ‘hoisted,’ which I take to be the meaning of ‘scolastice corrigatis.’
For invitation to dinner and the offering of gifts there are quite a bewildering set of forms, reminding us that school-fees in those days were often paid in kind. In the offering and acceptance of these there is much politeness on each side. The boy begs that the smallness of his present may be excused on account of his poverty and goodwill, or promises that if the master will honour his parents at dinner the best cheer they can provide shall be set before him. The master, on his side, replies that he is quite unworthy of these entertainments, but lest he should seem to despise them he will certainly come. (Nimium est non enim sum dignus cum parentibus tuis prandere. Ne autem me dicant eorum prandium spernere comparebo libenter.) There are also forms of invitation for boys to use to their friends, and Jones (using the polite plural) asks Brown to dinner to-morrow at his parents’ request.
Some of the shorter remarks seem to apply to a boarding school. ‘Dear master, with your permission, I should like to take a bath’ says one boy: another asks that he may go and lay the table, a third that he may take the clothes to the washerwoman! A boy whose mother has called for him addresses his petition for leave to the Precentor, and we may guess therefore that these boarding-schools were attached to churches or monasteries, and that the boys, like the monks themselves, had to do much of their own household work.
The boys are given plenty of tips for talk among themselves. ‘Why were you late to-day?’ asks one, and is reminded that bed is warm and sleep sweeter than honey. One boy sees a priest coming into the school and hopes he will ask for a holiday. His fellow says they have had several holidays lately and doubts if another will be granted. The gloomy side of medieval school-life is not left unrepresented. ‘How often have you been punished to-day?’ is one of the questions, and as if the alternative answers ‘semel—bis—ter—quater,’ were not enough, they are crowned with the cruel prophecy ‘et iterum cras corrigeris.’
The last paragraph of the book is concerned with the appointment, duties and behaviour of monitors. They are called ‘monitors’ nowadays because, I suppose, they jog memories as to what is the next day’s work, and in other ways prevent crime. In those days they were called ‘custodes,’ chiefly I am afraid because they kept the rods. ‘You’ve got to appoint monitors, Sir,’ says a boy. ‘You be monitor, then,’ ‘Please, Sir, I’ve only just been monitor, and it’s not my turn.’ ‘Who ought to be appointed then?’ ‘This is the boy, Sir, both because it’s his turn and because he knows how to get you long and nasty rods!’ That is one dialogue. Here is another, boy with boy. ‘Have you been putting down the boys who made a disturbance and ran as they came out of church?’ ‘I have.’ ‘Have you been putting me down?’ ‘I have; Jones saw you running in the street and gave me your name to be put down.’ ‘Dear monitor, take my name off, lest I be punished, and I’ll ask my mother to give you a big bun (magnum panem).’ ‘Hold your tongue, then, and I’ll take it off’—whereat the boy thanks heaven, and we gather that there was rather a bad tone in the schools in which ‘Es tu Scolaris?’ was in use. It must also be said that if the boys talked as they were taught, they talked very bad Latin.
The edition from which I have taken these notes has no ‘woodcuts.’ If it had had one it would probably have been something of the nature of this picture from an English grammar book, in which the master is shown armed with the usual birch. The grammars of those days were in fact so bad that it was held to be impossible for any one to learn them without the additional notes offered by a rod. But for my first illustration (p. 100), I have taken a more human and, I think, a more lifelike picture, from a ‘Flores Poetarum’ printed at Florence about 1500. No doubt by the time boys came to study poetry they had reached a more mature stage, and were treated better. But these young scholars look boyish and vivacious enough, and I would fain hope that this is a true picture of a Florentine classroom. A Venetian book goes even beyond this, anticipating the methods of the Newest Educators, for in a woodcut to it, while the elder students are shown as solemnly attending to a lecture, two little boys are studying their A B C on the floor, with a small dog to help them. But this picture is so plainly imaginative that I will not even show it.