Elfric, abundantly prove, that in the eighth and ninth centuries some considerable attainments had been made in literature. On a bad soil we must not expect a perfect harvest; but we should not say it bears nothing but weeds.

When Bede speaks of the school founded by Sigebert, king of the East Angles, he says nothing of the place, or discipline. But that the reader may possess all that is known upon the subject, he may take the whole passage, as it lies at length in Bede's History. I have my reasons for repeating it. I have quoted it before.

Sigebert, when he obtained the kingdom, desiring soon to imitate those things which he saw so well managed in France, established a school, in which boys might be instructed in literature, bishop Felix, whom he had received from Kent, assisting him, and supplying them with pedagogues and masters, after the manner of those in Canterbury."

Upon which passage Dr. Fuller observes as follows:"See here, king Sigebert, to make his school complete, united therein such conveniences for education, as he had observed commendable.

"1. Abroad, in France, where learning, at and before his time, was brought to great perfection; St. Jerome affirming, that even in his age, he had seen studia in Gallis promptissima, most flourishing universities in France.

"2. At home, in Canterbury, where, even at this time, learning was professed, though more increased some forty years after, when, as the same Bede reports, in the days of Theodorus, the archbishop, there were those that taught geometry, arithmetic, and music, (the fashionable studies of that age) together with divinity, the perfect

character of an university, where divinity, the queen, is waited on by her maids of honour. But I question whether the formality of commencing was used in that age, inclining rather to the negative, that such distinction of graduates was then unknown, except in St. Paul's sense, such as use the office of deacon well, purchased to themselves a good degree."

CHAP. II.

COLLEGES.-UNIVERSITIES.-LITERATURE OF THE

MONKS.

SIMILAR to the studies at Cambridge, were those in the three earliest colleges at Oxford, one for grammar, another for philosophy, a third for divinity, in which colleges St. Grimbald and St. Neoth, we are told, taught divinity; Asserius, a monk, grammar; John, of St. David's, logic; and Joannes Monachus, mathematics". There is not much in what Dr. Fuller says, about commencing and graduating, the fact being, they did, what he calls, commence and graduate very early. In the account of monasteries it is, that we must trace the rise and progress, with the peculiar language, and distinguishing habits, of public schools and colleges. The scholars (for fellows is a name of comparatively later date,) were monks and clerks, clerici; the abbot was the custos, rector, warden, or magister of the different orders; bishops and abbots were graduates, and were so denominated, and distinguished by their dresses; and the different habits as still worn, are but habits of the old religious orders, somewhat improved. The monastery itself, indeed, was called collegium; and its language, its rules, and discipline all passed, by an easy transition, into our present college forms.

a Ingulph. Hist. Mon.

b We meet with it, however, in Chaucer.

Our corne is stole, men woll us fooles call
Both the warden, and our fellowes all.

REVE'S TALE.

eCnuti Ll. 4. Inter Ll. Anglos. p. 128.

As we get the word college, in its present application, from monastic institutions and churches, so do we the more comprehensive word university, which, as we have observed before, was applied to many monasteries or churches, united under one provincial prior, or bishop, in a provincial relation, long before it was applied to many masters and scholars of colleges, formed into an university, under a chancellor; and before the period at which our university charters begin, we find it applied to the united churches, and individual members, under an archdeacon's visitation a.

These observations may help us to estimate the value of numerous opinions, relative to the origin of colleges, and particularly of such who would divide the matter by placing the first university at Stamford", under Bladud. What does it all amount to? there were colleges all over Kent,

a Ad universitatis vestræ notitiam volumus pervenire, nos cartam venerabilis patris nostri domini, &c. A Chapter's Confirmation of the Parsonages of Hakinton and Tenham, &c. A. D. 1227. See the Charter, in Somner's Antiquities of Canterbury, Appendix, p. 453. I have repeated in the text, what I have observed before, for the sake of introducing the above quotation, that illustrates it.

b Thus our old chronicler, Harding, who wrote in Henry VI.'s reign, as quoted by Anthony Wood, (Hist. et Antiq. Oxon. p. 3.)

Stanford he made the Sanford hight this day,

In which he made a universitee;

His philosophers, as Merlin doth saye,
Had scholars fele of great habilitee,

Studying ever alwaye in unitee,

In all the seven liberal science,

For to purchase wysdome and sapience.

In Chronico suo edit. Londini, 1543, cap. 27. fol. 23.

This was long before Christ, according to Stow. He says, "Bladud had long studied at Athens, and brought philosophers to keepe scholes in Brutane."

there was one in Dover Castle, in the eighth century*: the word occurs in the early Christian writers, as well Greek as Roman; and if we choose to have classical authority, the Romans had colleges and priests; and the word occurs in Horace.

Ambubaiarum collegia, pharmacopolæ.

Sat. lib. 1, 2.

That scholars might pursue their studies without interruption, schools had very early peculiar privileges, and so far seem to have been considered as ecclesiastical bodies. Accordingly, we find, that king Canute, at a considerable expense, obtained of pope John, a free school.

But, to return to our literature.

It is not till after the Conquest that we can speak very clearly of the literature of Cambridge. Ingulphus was made abbot of Croyland, (as appears from DOOMSDAY BOOK,) by William the Conqueror. He wrote the Histories of the Abbies of England, and Petrus Blesensis continued the work. According to this latter writer, Joffrid de Herberto, a man of great learning, was made abbot A. C. 1109.

a Lambarde's Perambulations of Kent.

b Rex Cnutus magno cum honore Romam profectus est; et ingentia munera in auro et argento Sancto Petro obtulit; et ut schola Anglorum libera esset a Johanne Papa impetravit: Chronicon Manniæ Apud Celto Norman. Whatever schola means, the phrase, quod schola sit libera, is exactly the same phrase as occurs in Magna Charta, by king John, quod ecclesia sit libera, and what that means is exactly ascer tained by the same John's charta de liberis electionibus faciendis, which applies both to churches and monasteries; and that priests and monks had peculiar privileges by Canute's own laws, see Ll. Cnuti Regis, 2, 3, 4, in Wilkins's Anglos. Laws, p. 127. It further appears, that this freedom of Canute's school was ecclesiastical, it being granted by the pope.