A prosopographical study of early modern English schoolmasters, c.1480–c.1650

The late fifteenth to the mid‐seventeenth centuries marked an important time in the development of education in England, as new grammar schools were founded and existing ones re‐founded: teaching in these schools was, in theory, an important job. Yet in practice, teaching was not generally well paid or highly regarded, its qualifications and training being loosely defined and non‐standard. Previous studies of schoolmasters have focussed on this gap between theory and practice, evident in many aspects of early modern English education. This article intends to expand upon this appraisal of early modern teaching, by approaching the schoolmasters themselves as a prosopographical category. Who were these grammar school masters? What was their education level and social standing? What did their career patterns look like, and how did they become schoolmasters? Grammar school foundation documents and rules, outlining the hiring and conduct of the schoolmaster, as well as schoolmasters’ wills, are some of our most important sources, as are the schoolmasters’ biographies found in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Approaching schoolmasters in this way will broaden our understanding not just of early modern schoolmasters and their work specifically, but also of wider educational developments during the early modern period.