Who would have used these objects?

These objects would have been used by a schoolchild. William Camden's Greek grammar was to be used by boys at Westminster School where he was teaching. It is a very rare object as few Tudor books have survived.

How were they used?

Greek, like Latin and Hebrew, is an ancient language which was taught at some Tudor schools. Children started by learning whole passages of Greek off by heart. Later they studied the rules of grammar and read books by famous Greek writers.

The second object is a hornbook. This was used by children who were learning to read. A sheet of paper was mounted onto a wooden board with a handle. The paper was protected by a thin layer of clear animal horn, which you can see is now brittle and cracked.

At the top was written the alphabet, in both capital and lower-case letters, followed by simple combinations of letters. Children would have repeated each of these carefully after the teacher, before practising simple sentences. The Lord's Prayer would have been written on the lower half of the paper, which is now missing.