326 THE CHURCH
the way in which the clergy of the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries were recruited from the peasant class, and fourteenth-
century writers draw attention to beggar's brats who have risen
even to the rank of bishops, and of men, like Chaucer's parson,
whose brothers were ploughmen. Few of them, indeed, could
hope for much advancement or for rich livings, but they were glad
to serve in more humble positions as vicars and drudges for richer
and more influential men who were seldom seen in their parishes.
Langland's seemingly autobiographical references in Piers Plow-
man picture one such type of man—of peasant stock, roaming
from place to place and "singing for silver" at funerals or other
ceremonies, or striving to "pierce heaven with a pater-noster",
and making a bare living "in London and on London both".
If we imagine how such men became priests it seems probable
that many of them found themselves being slowly drawn into the
ecclesiastical machine without any very active efforts on their
own part. Perhaps a boy started, to the delight of a pious mother,
as server to the village priest. He would receive the first tonsure,
and afterwards, if still willing to continue, was gradually (or at
times en bloc) promoted through the four minor orders of clergy.
A kindly and lettered priest might teach a promising boy the
elements of Latin, so that he could follow the service and join in
the responses. Sometimes, again, such a boy was made " holy-
water clerk", and thus got a small income which enabled hinxto
remain a servant of the Church; and, where it was possible, to
gain a little learning from a private teacher or at a local grammar
school. Learning, however, was not very easily come by for such
men, and those who had the advantage of the formal training at
.the grammar school or even at a university found themselves at
the end of it all with what we should consider a very narrow
education. Latin and cognate subjects occupied their studies,
and such things as mathematics, science, history or geography
did not come their way. Nor was there any training peculiarly
fitted to instruct them in their pastoral office. At best, a man
returned from the university a competent Latinist, able to dis-
pute with some readiness, and the imperfect master of such
fragments of the schoolmen, and of the Fathers and such ancient
authors as his course had set before him. But for the majority
not even this was possible: a moderate ability to read and con-