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Hornbooks

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Definition

Hornbooks were tools for teaching young boys and girls (age four to eight) how to read. Hornbooks consisted of a leaf of paper containing the alphabet, the Lord’s Prayer, syllables, and sometimes the Ten Commandments. In early modern London, the teacher, often a scrivener, cobbler, tailor, or fishmonger who taught part-time in hopes of making some extra money (Jewell 96), would mount the paper or parchment onto a wooden paddle (a square piece of wood with a handle) and cover it with a thin sheet of horn for protection. Alternatively, as Helen Jewell points out in her analysis of hornbooks, the alphabet could be incised directly into the wood (Jewell 98). Mermaids, birds, and other images were sometimes engraved on the back of the wood for aesthetic effect. Historian Andrew W. Tuer notes that teachers taught students how to read by a pointer, which might be a straw, pin, pen, piece of wire, quill, feather, or pointed piece of wood or bone, [which] was used to direct children (Tuer 24).

Origins and Development

When the Normans conquered England in 1066, they wrote and read primarily in Latin, the language imposed by the Church. Consequently, early English schools, as Nicholas Orme remarks in his study of medieval education, taught children the Latin alphabet by rote for the purpose of reading religious texts (Orme 55). By the twelfth century, the alphabet had become Christianized: it was used both as a pedagogical tool and a form of devotion. Orme explains that when children recited the alphabet, they began by crossing themselves and ended with an Amen (Orme 56). When hornbooks first appeared in the thirteenth century, this Christian ritual was deeply entrenched: a cross symbol (+) appeared visually before the letter A and Amen appeared after Z (Orme 56). In short, the hornbook’s visual structure dictated how the alphabet was taught. By the 1580s, parents, schoolmasters, and the clergy used hornbooks as the principal teaching tool for young children.

Hornbooks in Early Modern England

Although hornbooks constituted the second-largest market for early modern printers, few copies survive today; overuse and dirty fingers caused hornbooks to deteriorate quickly. The hornbook’s development in sixteenth-century England reflected a desire to instill a fixed set of ideas and facts into the pupil that would reaffirm values of order and conformity (Houston 56). Since English society was becoming sharply stratified, schools for the poor were created in order to curb the turbulence of lower-class youth and turn them into useful members of an ordered society (Houston 14). Consequently, a progressive educational system emerged that consisted of elementary school, grammar school, and university. However, this system of education did not grant complete social mobility. Helen Jewell points out that guild regulations in the sixteenth century required literate apprentices, but only male children of yeomanry or higher could further their education past elementary school after reaching the age of employability (Jewell 93-94). Like lower-class men, women could attend only elementary school (Jewell 17). Thus, elementary schools reserved Latin for advanced scholars in grammar school. Instead, elementary schoolmasters used hornbooks to teach the English alphabet. Children learned how to read through memorization, a convention that stressed knowledge as an ordered system. After children had learned their letters, they would progress to primers (small books of prayers) and classical texts. Hornbooks remained a popular teaching tool until the late nineteenth century, when they were replaced by ABC storybooks and textbooks.

Thomas Dekker’s The Gull’s Hornbook

First published as a quarto in 1609, The Gull’s Hornbook emerged from Dekker’s dissatisfaction with his translation of Frederick Dedekind’s ever-popular Grobianus (first published in 1549 and enlarged into three books in 1552). According to R.B. McKerrow, an early editor of The Gull’s Hornbook, Dekker not only recast Dedekind’s boorish Dutch Saint Grobian, but he also repositioned the ignoramus as a source of wit (McKerrow iv). Despite Dekker’s efforts to transform Grobianus into an English tale, his book fell far short of achieving the popularity of Grobianus: the publisher never entered The Gull’s Hornbook into the Stationers’ Register and no other edition was published during Dekker’s lifetime. While Dekker’s use of hornbook in the title invokes the hornbook as an educational tool, he does not follow the traditional paddle form of a hornbook. Rather, his pamphlet parodies a young gallant’s initial behaviour in London and suggests that London life, as a unique urban culture, must be learned. Dekker’s use of gull in the title also implies that newcomers are impressionable and easily fooled. Thus, just as hornbooks teach children through an ordered methodology, The Gull’s Hornbook teaches young men (gallants) and newcomers about London culture by guiding them through the city on a set course.
In 1674, Samuel Vincent re-issued Dekker’s book under the title The Young Gallant’s Academy, or, Directions how he should Behave himself in all Places and Company. Vincent updated Dekker’s now outmoded descriptions by revising the descriptions of London’s fashions and theatrical arrangements.

References

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    A.B.C. London, 1620. STC 21.4.

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    A.B.C. with Pasternoster, Ave, Crede, and X Commandments. London: Richard Lant, 1536. STC 19.6.

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    A right godly and Christian A.B.C. shewing the duty of every degree To the tune of Rogero. London, 1625. STC 22.

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    Aabc. London, 1625. STC 21.6.

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    Aabc. London, 1630. STC 21.7.

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    An A.B.C. for Chyldren. London: John King, 1561. STC 19.4.

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    Browne, David. Calligraphia: Or the Arte of Faire Writing. Saint Andrew’s University: Edward Raban, 1622. STC 3905.

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    Dekker, Thomas. The guls horne-booke. London: Nicholas Okes for R. Sergier, 1609. STC 6500.

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    Hornby, William. Hornbyes Hornbook. London: Aug. Mathewes, 1622. STC 13814.

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    Houston, R.A. Literacy in Early Modern Europe: Culture and Education 1500-1800. New York: Longman, 1988. Print.

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    Jewell, Helen M. Education in Early Modern England. Ed. Jeremy Black. Hampshire: MacMillan, 1998. Print.

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    McKerrow, Ronald B. Introduction. The Gull’s Hornbook. By Thomas Dekker. London: De La More, 1904. i-viii. Print.

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    Orme, Nicholas. Medieval Schools: From Roman Britain to Renaissance England. New Haven: Yale UP, 2006. Print.

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    The A. B. C set forthe by the Kynges maiestie and his clergye. London: William Powell, 1547. STC 20.

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    The A.B.C. with the catechisme. London, 1620. STC 21.5.

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    The A B C with the catechism that is to saie, the instruction. London: Thomas Purfoot, 1601. STC 20.7.

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    The virgins A.B.C. or, An alphabet of vertuous admonitions for a chaste, modest, and well governed maid. To the tune of, The young-mans A.B.C. London: M.P., 1638. STC 24830.

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    Tuer, Andrew W. History of the Horn Book. New York: Benjamin Blom, 1968. Print.

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    Vincent, Samuel. The Young Gallant’s Academy, or, Directions how he should Behave himself in all Places and Company. London: J.C., 1674. Wing V426.

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Cite this page

MLA citation

Patterson, Serina. Hornbooks. The Map of Early Modern London, Edition 7.0, edited by Janelle Jenstad, U of Victoria, 05 May 2022, mapoflondon.uvic.ca/edition/7.0/HORN10.htm.

Chicago citation

Patterson, Serina. Hornbooks. The Map of Early Modern London, Edition 7.0. Ed. Janelle Jenstad. Victoria: University of Victoria. Accessed May 05, 2022. mapoflondon.uvic.ca/edition/7.0/HORN10.htm.

APA citation

Patterson, S. 2022. Hornbooks. In J. Jenstad (Ed), The Map of Early Modern London (Edition 7.0). Victoria: University of Victoria. Retrieved from https://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/editions/7.0/HORN10.htm.

RIS file (for RefMan, RefWorks, EndNote etc.)

Provider: University of Victoria
Database: The Map of Early Modern London
Content: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

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A1  - Patterson, Serina
ED  - Jenstad, Janelle
T1  - Hornbooks
T2  - The Map of Early Modern London
ET  - 7.0
PY  - 2022
DA  - 2022/05/05
CY  - Victoria
PB  - University of Victoria
LA  - English
UR  - https://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/edition/7.0/HORN10.htm
UR  - https://mapoflondon.uvic.ca/edition/7.0/xml/standalone/HORN10.xml
ER  -

TEI citation

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