No English, please!

Claude de Sainliens alias Claudius Holyband is considered to be the most professional of the language teachers and textbooks writers of the Tudor period in England. He opened several schools in London where he himself taught French (and the standard Latin curriculum) to children of the wealthy mercantile classes. (The aristocracy did not send their children to school). The textbooks he published made ample use of dialogues. They represent scenes from everyday life and include one school scene which deals with the late arrival of one of the boys, Peter, and his excuses! Nothingworth, the school ruffian, breaks a number of rules, one of which concerns the language: he is punished for speaking English in class. It suggests that Holyband used French as the medium of instruction. Holyband considered good pronunciation to be of the highest importance and used, amongst other things, a star to mark silent letters, something he had thought up himself. In his standard textbook, The French Littleton, there is very little grammar. Holyband considered that grammar really belonged to a more advanced course! (Howatt, A.P.R.: A History of English Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984: 19-25)