Page:The Elizabethan stage (Volume 2).pdf/31

 housed by the twelfth century. The college had also a common hall on the north of the cathedral, near the Pardon churchyard; and hard by was the almonry in Paternoster Row. The statutes left the almoner the option of either giving the boys their literary education himself, or sending them elsewhere. It naturally proved convenient to send them to the grammar school, and the almoners claimed that they had a right to admission without fees. On the other side we find the grammar school boys directed by Colet to attend the Boy Bishop ceremony and make their offerings. Evidently there was much give and take between song school and grammar school.

As early as 1378 the scholars of Paul's are said to have prepared a play of the History of the Old Testament for public representation at Christmas. Whether they took a share in the other miracles recorded in mediaeval London, it is impossible to say. A century and a half later the boys of the grammar school, during the mastership of John Ritwise, are found contributing interludes, in the humanist fashion, to the entertainment of the Court. On 10 November 1527 they gave an anti-Lutheran play in Latin and French before the King and the ambassadors of Francis I, and in the following year the Phormio before Wolsey, who also saw them, if Anthony Wood can be trusted, in a Dido written by Ritwise