Note 295 — Chapter IV

Parker wrote in 1561 to the bishops of his province, enjoining them to send him certificates of the names and qualities of all their clergy; one column, in the form of certificate, was for learning: "And this," Strype says, "was commonly set down; Latinè aliqua verba intelligit, Latinè utcunque intelligit; Latinè pauca intelligit," etc. Sometimes, however, we find doctus. L. of Parker, 95. But if the clergy could not read the language in which their very prayers were composed, what other learning or knowledge could they have? Certainly none; and even those who had gone far enough to study the school logic and divinity, do not deserve a much higher place than the wholly uninstructed. The Greek tongue was never generally taught in the universities or public schools till the Reformation, and perhaps not so soon.

Since this note was written, a letter of Gibson has been published in Pepys's Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 154, mentioning a catalogue he had found of the clergy in the archdeaconry of Middlesex, a.d. 1563, with their qualifications annexed. Three only are described as docti Latinè et Græcè; twelve are called docti simply; nine, Latinè docti; thirty-one, Latinè mediocriter intelligentes; forty-two, Latinè perperam, utcunque aliquid, pauca verba, etc., intelligentes; seventeen are non docti or indocti. If this was the case in London, what can we think of more remote parts