History of the Fife Pitcairns

50 THE FIFE PITCAIRNS.
ale, their herds and flocks with beef and mutton. Each
family killed a fat bullock in November, which was salted
up for winter use, to which the wife could add a dish of
pigeons or a fat capon. The garden gave kale and the
river salmon ; peat they had in plenty, as the bogs afforded
turf, and woods gave logs. Bucks they were sometimes
able to shoot with their crossbows." 1
Perth and Stirling had their schools as early as 1173,
of which the monks of Dunfermline were the directors,
and there were similar seminaries in the towns of Ayr,
Berwick, and Aberdeen. It is certain that attached to the
Cathedral Church, belonging to the Monastery of St
Andrews, there stood a lyceum, where the youth were in-
structed in Latin ; and that as early as 1293 the schools of
St Andrews were under the charge of a rector. A remark-
able instance of this is to be found in the Chartulary of
Kelso, where " Matilda, Lady of Mull, in the year 1260,
grants a certain rent to be paid to the abbot and the
monks of this religious house, on the condition that they
should board and educate her son with the best boys who
were intrusted to their care." 2
The Chartulary of Kelso says that the schools in Rox-
burghshire were under the care of the monks of Kelso
during the reign of David I., and that the rectorship of the
schools was an established office in 1241. The noblemen's
and gentlemen's sons of that time were obliged to attend
the grammar-schools for some years : there they were
taught reading, writing, Latin, and a knowledge of the law,
which latter proved very useful to them when they had to
manage their estates later on.
After the school-days were over it was the custom for
the sons and daughters of the gentry to be sent into the
castles of those of higher rank than themselves, as pages
and waiting-gentlewomen, to be trained in all the manners
and observances of polite society of those days. Edinburgh,
1 From Sir Walter Scott.
2 Tytler's Hist., Edinburgh, 1829, vol. ii. pp. 353, 354. The printed Dunferm-
line charter.