The Foundations of Education: Charity and the Educational Revolution in Tudor and Stuart England, 1560--1640

This dissertation explores the impact of charity on the expansion of higher education in England between 1560 and 1640. The expansion, which historians have dubbed the "Educational Revolution," included students from all social backgrounds save the lowest levels of society. In large part, this expansion was only possible through the creation of charitable benefactions such as fellowships, scholarships, and exhibitions that supported scholars with limited financial resources. Historians have described this phenomenon as evidence of a modernizing and secularizing society that sought to create pathways for the best and brightest to move up in the world. Through exploring the creation and governance of educational foundations, however, this dissertation shows that ideas regarding the giving and administering of charity had greater influence over the expansion of education than did any modernizing tendencies in English society.;Charitable endowments for poor scholars offered manifold benefits that had little to do with outcomes offered by scholars. The advancement of bright scholars was only one small element of the educational revolution. Educational foundations operated as tools with which benefactors and administrators constructed and reinforced their own positions as leaders of society. Benefactors created charitable foundations in order to repay social and economic debts accrued throughout their lifetimes, and administrators governed those foundations in ways that reinforced their rights and privileges to exercise power.