Bishop Stubbs writes: 'Over against the many grievances which modern thought has alleged against the unlearned ages which passed before the invention of printing it ought to be set to the credit of mediæval society that clerkship was never despised or made unnecessarily difficult of acquisition. The sneer of Walter Map, who declared that in his days the villains were attempting to educate their ignoble and degenerate offspring in the liberal arts proves that even in the twelfth century the way was open. Richard II. rejected the proposition that the villains should be forbidden to send their children to the schools to learn "clergie"; and even at a time when the supply of labour ran so low that no man who was not worth twenty shillings a year in land or rent was allowed to apprentice his child to a craft, a full and liberal exception was made in favour of learning; "every man or woman"--the words occur in the Petition and Statute of Artificers passed in 1406--"of what state or condition that he be, shall be free to set their son or daughter to take learning at any school that pleaseth them within the realm."' Again: 'Schools were by no means uncommon things; there were schools in all cathedrals; monasteries and colleges were everywhere, and wherever there was a monastery or a college there was a school. Towards the close of the Middle Ages, notwithstanding many causes for depression, there was much vitality in the schools.'[381] The larger English abbeys about the country not only had schools within their own precincts, but others dependent upon them in the neighbouring towns. Fitz-Stephen, in his description of London as preserved in the city's _Liber Custumarum_ (vol. i. p. 5), particularises the Church of St. Martin-le-Grand as one of the principal churches of London which had ancient and prerogative schools,[382] the others being St. Paul's and Holy Trinity, Aldgate. In other texts of Fitz-Stephen's work the names of the churches are not mentioned, and Stow, overlooking the text in the city archives, gives the three schools as attached to St. Paul's, St. Peter's Westminster, and St. Saviour's.[383] Fitz-Stephen's patron, St. Thomas of Canterbury, received his early education at one of the London schools after leaving the school of the canons regular at Merton, and before proceeding to the university. In 1447 four parish priests, in a petition to Parliament, begged the Commons to consider the great number of grammar schools 'that sometime were in diverse parts of the realm beside those that were in London, and how few there be in these days.' They asked leave to appoint schoolmasters in their parishes, to be removed at their discretion. King Henry VI. granted the petition, but subjected the priests' discretion to the advice of the Ordinary. During this King's reign nine grammar schools were opened in London alone. [Illustration: CHARING CROSS. (_From the Crace Collection, British Museum._)] CHAPTER XII