Tudor Education

Education was a ladder to climb up the social scales. Wolsey, one of the most well-known men in the history books, was the son of a butcher and grazier. Thomas Cromwell had a father who was a blacksmith, brewer and innkeeper, extremely versatile for the time. The famous Bacon family had a shepherd among their forbears.

                                                                Thomas Cromwell

It was a tribute to the Medieval Era that there was so much free schooling available. Winchester and Eton, for example, had been founded for 'poor and needy scholars'. It is to their credit that these schools (or "colleges" as we now call them) are still in use today !

Boys were sent away from home, but more often to school and university to 'be educated' in the arts and sciences. Girls were taught at home, learning from their brothers if they were lucky. The boy would become a man who would rule the home, therefore needing Education. The girl would become a woman who would marry and have children, they would care for the home and bring up the children. It was apparently, not important for the girls to be Educated. This is quite difficult for us to understand, considering the woman would still need to understand accounts and measures of food and cloth in order to 'run' the home, not to mention knowing medicine and how her own body worked, as she was to have children. Some fathers stood out and had their daughters 'schooled' at home. Henry V111 himself had his two daughters schooled, Elizabeth had the same tutor as Edward (her half-brother) in certain subjects. This gave their daughters an advantage in life which must have helped them back then.

Thanks to the industry of W.Caxton who presses poured out a hundred books before the end of the 15th Century, books became plentiful in Tudor households. This also encouraged music making in the home as songs and madrigals became more cheaply and easily available.