charitable and educational in their aims, and then, as now, great schools belonged to the City Guilds. The Merchants' Guilds at York had as many as twenty-eight grammar schools.

But the largest class of humbler schools was that connected with the chantries. A chantry was an endowment for a priest to sing for the repose of the soul of some dead person, but we are not to think of the poor despised chantry priests as the poverty-stricken and greedy persons history has called them. There were chantries everywhere connected with cathedrals and parish churches, and the chantry priests, besides saying chantry masses and assisting in the other services, were engaged in charitable work for the poor and in providing free elementary education in most of the chief parishes. Latimer's Injunctions for Worcester Diocese (1537) say, "That ye and every one of you that be chantry priests do instruct and teach the children of your parish such as will come to you, at the least to read English." This was no new injunction, but a reminder of the duty belonging to the office of chantry priest.

In addition to all the above provision, England had also, though of more recent foundation, independent schools connected with neither cathedral nor monastery, and founded for the sole purpose of promoting education.

It is seen, then, how unjust is the statement which attributes all education in the Middle Ages to the monasteries. The monasteries were always more or less of an exotic in English Church life, the age-long opponents of the parish priest and the plunderers of his endowments. In government they were monarchical, and in marked contrast to the full and free corporate Church life of the parishes.2 They were self-centred and imperious, and the life of the parishes in both worship and education proceeded on its own way without any help from the monasteries, and generally with definite hindrance and opposition from them.

1 For further evidence see Visitation Articles and Injunctions, by Dr. Frere, vol. ii., pp. 17, 56, 63, 85, 129.

2 See Parish Priests and their People (S.P.C.K.).

In closing this lecture I pass no judgment in detail upon the suppression of the monasteries except this, that it followed almost inevitably from the breach with Rome, and it fell upon institutions which had largely outlived their social and religious value. The accumulation of wealth which thus passed into lay hands had much to do with the stability of the Reformation progress, for not even Queen Mary and her Roman Catholic Parliament dared to touch these possessions or claim them again for the Church. The Act for repealing all articles and provisions made against the see of Rome was also for the establishment of all spiritual and ecclesiastical possessions and hereditaments conveyed to the laity. Convocation petitioned the Crown, stating that the clergy resigned all rights to those possessions of which the clergy had been deprived, and their readiness to acquiesce in every arrangement made by Cardinal Pole. The Cardinal in reply decreed that "the possessors of Church property should not, either now or hereafter, be molested under pretence of any canons or councils, decreeing of popes or censures of the Church, for which purpose in virtue of the authority vested in him he took from all spiritual courts and judges the cognisance of these matters, and pronounced beforehand all such processes and judgments invalid and of no effect."

THOMAS CRANMER1

1489-1556 2

CRANMER was born at Aslacton in Nottinghamshire in 1489 of an honourable family which possessed some

1 Cranmer is a place-name and was originally spelt Cranemere, thus Hugh de Cranemere (1273), William Cranemere, Rector of Bawsey (1414). Next it is written Cranmere, and finally Cranmer. It was the name of a low, swampy country at Long Melford, Suffolk, and there was a manor called Cranmer at Sutterton in Lincolnshire ("an ancient mansion house of antiquity called Cranmer Hall"). The arms of the family contained three cranes, which were not so much a play on the name as evidence of its origin, which signifies a mere or lake abounding in cranes. Henry VIII changed the cranes to pelicans, which were fabled to feed their young with their own blood, saying to Cranmer, “You are like to be tested if you stand to your tackling." The family, like many others, had traditions of descent from the times of William the Conqueror, and whilst Cranmer entertained a visitor of the same name at Lambeth in token of a common origin, he recognised the comparatively obscure and humble history of his family, saying, "I take it that none of us all here, being gentlemen born, but had our beginnings that way from a low and base parentage." There was, or is, a stained glass window in Sutterton church in Lincolnshire to the memory of Hugh Cranmer in the fourteenth century. In the only extant letter written before his consecration and signed by his own hand, Cranmer writes "Thomas Cranmar." When he became Archbishop his signature was "Thomas Cantuar."

2 Born 1489. Entered at Jesus College, Cambridge, 1503. Fellow 1510. First marriage, 1511 (about). Elected Fellow a second time, 1512. Refused Wolsey's offer of a Canonry at Cardinal College, Oxford, 1524 (about). (Doubts have been cast upon this offer. The first Canon, who became Sub-Dean in 1527, was Thomas Canner. Foxe, author of the Book of Martyrs, and others make the statement, but they may have confused the two It is stated that Dr. Capon, Master of Jesus College, recommended him.) Pope's Penitentiary in England, 1529. Archdeacon of Taunton, 1531 (there is no entry in the register of

names.

landed property there. His father, who was very desirous to have him learned, died when his son was twelve years old, and seems to have left him a portion of the estate, for in 1529 a State Paper speaks of "Mr. Dr. Cranmer" as one who had corn to dispose of in the parish of Aslacton in a time of famine. He was taught by a rude parish clerk, who proved a "marvellous severe and cruel schoolmaster." Afterwards he attended a neighbouring school, probably Southwell Collegiate School, until he entered, at the age of fourteen, at the then newly founded Jesus College, Cambridge. He gives a lamentable account of his college tutor, who was so ignorant that he used to skip any hard chapter. For eight years he worked at logic and philosophy in the dark riddles of Duns Scotus, and then began to read good Latin authors. Afterwards he devoted many years to the study of the Holy Scriptures. He was a slow reader, but a diligent marker of what he read. With pen in hand he would write out passages for references, noting both the author and plac, and these were ready for reference afterwards. Greek was then only beginning to be studied at Cambridge, and Cranmer's chief studies were in Latin. In these years of study he must have laid the foundation of that knowledge of English for which he became famous, though there is not much trace in his official letters as Archbishop of that charm of style which marks his liturgical writings. He pursued his studies with unremitting assiduity for many years, and Erasmus speaks of him at the time of his appointment as Archbishop as "a professed theologian and a most upright man of spotless life."

Bath and Wells, but during his short tenure of the office Cranmer might easily draw the emoluments without being licensed by the Bishop). Married a second time, Margaret, niece of Osiander, Pastor of Nuremberg, 1532. Archbishop of Canterbury, 1533. Burnt at Oxford, 1556. There is no evidence that Cranmer was ever chaplain to Anne Boleyn or her father, though he lived in the house (at Durham Place) of the latter by order of Henry VIII to study the King's marriage question. He was a Royal Chaplain before he became Archbishop. After he became Archbishop his usual designation of himself in writing to the King was "Your Grace's most bounden Chaplain and Beadsman."