CH. XIV. LEARNING IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 11 scurity of a dead language. Her symbols of salvation, her ceremonies, and even her furniture, are called by names unintelligible to the vulgar. Up to the time when Wickliffe and Luther proclaimed their mission, the learning still extant was almost monopolised by the clergy. The very term 'clerk,' which is still used to designate a person in holy orders, merely implied the knowledge of reading and writing. The Church of Rome, in the time of her ascendancy, claimed for her ministers exemption from the secular power; and it was considered sufficient to entitle an offender against the laws to this privilege, which was called 'benefit of clergy,' that he could read or write. This privilege was for the first time limited in its application to the laity by a statute passed in the reign of Henry the Seventh. sixteenth cen The amazing intellectual progress of the sixteenth century would have been merely impos- intellectual sible under the spiritual domination of progress in the Rome. Her thunder would have been tury. pointed at the spirit of free inquiry, which sought to establish standards of thought and action independent of her guidance and sanction. Milton would have been excommunicated, and Newton would have shared the fate of Galileo. A reformed religion was, therefore, necessary to the revival of the human mind; and the reaction was the more sudden and striking, from the pressure which had weighed down the springs of thought during ten centuries. It would be difficult to overstate the prodigious and immediate effects of the Revolution of the sixteenth century, in comparison with which all other revolutions, of which history has preserved any record, are but local changes of more or less importance and duration. The event of 1648, which occupies so great a space in the history of this country, was but a supplement to the Reformation, as the event of 1688 was a supplement to that of 1648. 12 Shakespeare and EDUCATION OF THE NOBLES. CH. XIV. The progress of the human mind, rapid and portentous as it was, could not keep pace with the transcendent exploits of the highest order of intellect. Shakespeare and Bacon were still in advance of their age. Several generations, indeed, elapsed before the author of Hamlet' and Lear' was recognised as the greatest master of human nature the world had yet seen; and the illustrious philosopher makes a touching allusion to the deficiency of the times, when he bequeaths the appreciation of his genius to a future age. Still this noble literature at once dispelled the grosser legends of the Dark Ages, and put to flight the giants and monsters of romance. In the higher classes, the change of manners was, of course, most conspicuous. Few of the great barons, who were summoned to the parliaments of the Plantagenets, could read or write; they subscribed legal documents either with a sign of the cross, or the heraldic cognisances of their families or rank.* Of the Tudor nobility none, perhaps, was destitute of the rudiments of education. Some of them were remarkable for learning, for Henry the eloquence and civil wisdom. Henry himEighth. self was not devoid of polemical talent, and indulged the ambition of engaging in controversy with the great heretic of the age. In the reign of Elizabeth, gross ignorance in a man of rank would have been as disgraceful as the least tincture of letters would have been a mark of distinction not, perhaps, The Tudors. Improved education of the lesser nobility. . highly honourable in his grandsire. The sons of the lesser nobility, instead of being sent to the castles of the great barons for such an education as the tilt-yard and the hall could furnish, were taught to be more useful members of society than knights-errant and squires of dames. The *Several facsimiles of these in the Appendix to the Paston curious signatures are to be found Letters. CH. XIV. MODES OF DOMESTIC LIFE. 13 practice became prevalent of sending youths to schools and universities both at home and abroad. Many young gentlemen applied themselves to the study of the law, which, after the Reformation, became exclusively the profession of the laity. Some were sent to learn the art of amassing fortunes in the booths and warehouses of the city; and for many a year the apprentices of London were famed for their high spirit and audacious bearing. It is hardly possible that society can attain a high standard, without the ordinary comforts Domestic archi Middle Ages. Condition of residences. and decencies of domestic life. Ecclesi- tecture of the astical and military architecture attained perfection during the Middle Ages. The magnificent temples still extant, as well as those abandoned to decay, the huge castles and baronial mouldering keeps, are striking monuments of superstitious and turbulent times. But the fortresses raised by the pride and grandeur of men who must be considered as petty princes rather than feudal barons, were designed for the accommodation of numerous military retainers, and for security against attack. The internal arrangements of these structures made little provision for domestic privacy. The great hall was the common resort for the whole household, and for visitors and wayfarers of every description. The small unglazed windows near the ceiling, while they let in rain and wind, hardly admitted the day. Without the ventilation, however, which such apertures afforded, the atmosphere of the apartment would have been insupportable. The accumulated odours of viands, of smoke half returned from the imperfect chimney, of human beings of every description, men-at-arms, footmen, serving-men, minstrels, wandering friars, devotees under vows against clean linen, and mendicants swarming with vermin, dogs and cats, and, beyond all, the stench arising from the untold abominations 14 DWELLINGS OF THE GENTRY. CH. XIV. of the floor, on which layers of rushes were spread, like the compost of a farm-yard, must frequently have bred pestilence, had it not been for the current of fresh air which continually circulated through the chamber. A bed was a luxury rarely found in the castles and mansions of the Plantagenet nobility; separate chambers were also rare; and, for the most part, knights and ladies, horseboys and scullions, littered down in one common dormitory, after a fashion which would hardly be tolerated now in a well-appointed Refuge for the Destitute.* Houses of the gentry. The dwellings of the inferior gentry, though not pretending to belong to the class of fortified houses, were constructed mainly with a view to defence against robbery and violence. A moat generally surrounded the building, and the access to the upper apartments was by an external staircase, which was drawn up like a portcullis. The interior arrangements, like those of the baronial castles, were deficient in almost every provision for comfort and decency. Few of the manor-houses built before the time of the Tudors, are now occupied by gentry; and those which are so inhabited, have undergone considerable alterations, both within and without; some of them are still used as farm-houses and dwellings for labourers. Elizabethan mansions. It was not until the reign of Elizabeth that any considerable progress was made in domestic architecture. Many of the most commodious and stately mansions, inhabited by the rural aristocracy, date from this period; and beyond some points of detail, it may be doubted whether any improvement has been made on the fine old English manor-house of the sixteenth century. The warlike and insolent nobility of the Middle Ages, having almost perished during the Wars of the * Domestic Architecture of the Middle Ages, 75. CH. XIV. ACCESSION OF HENRY THE SEVENTH. 15 Roses, the politic prince, whose accession terminated these conflicts, sought, by every means, to prevent the revival of an order, the ascendancy of which was incompatible, not only with monarchical power, but with all regular government. To mortify Repression of and impoverish the great barons was the the barons. avowed aim of the house of Tudor. Many of them, under frivolous pretexts, were subjected to heavy amercements; not a few were banished, or brought to the block. A new order of nobility replaced the knights and barons, who had perished under the rival standards of Plantagenet. Politicians and courtiers grew into importance, and occupied the seats of the Bohuns and the Cliffords. The high officers of state were no longer selected from the great Norman families; but new men were appointed, and raised over the heads of peers, whose proud names were inscribed in the roll of Battel, and whose emblazonry had dazzled the infidel on the fields of Palestine. Some of these adventurers, the first of the statesmen of modern times, by their wisdom and virtue, justified their elevation. Others were the mere creatures of royal caprice, such as, in days not long gone by, the insulted barons would have hurled from the steps of the throne and consigned to the hangman. Desperate attempts, indeed, were made by the barons, even at an advanced period of the reign of Elizabeth, to recover, by violence, their lost power; but these were promptly suppressed, and the insurgents suffered the extreme penalties of their treason. Once, also, in the fire of youth, Henry the Eighth essayed to revive the splendour of the old military games; but the Field of the Cloth of Gold was a failure hardly less signal than that of the Eglinton Tournament. The age of chivalry was gone in 1520, as surely as in 1840. Between the suppression of the old feudal aristocracy and the rise of the middle class, there was an interval, during which monarchy attained a vigour |