At the end of a study such as this, it is perhaps not too flippant to ask what we have learnt. From one point of view at least, the answer is perhaps rather little. The evidence brought together here often seems to confirm rather than challenge the established image of medieval education, showing punishment to be fixed at the heart of grammar schooling. Not only do the sources rarely question the efficacy of beating, but they often show coercion worming its way into every imaginable aspect of instruction. Beating stretches far beyond being a simple practical measure, gaining the power to transmit a long list of benefits and strengths, and binding itself to ideas of learning and learnedness across a wide range of fronts. What is more, it is only in rare cases, such as the Westminster statutes or a few of the latinitates, that we actually find authors codifying punishment in terms of specific offences: by and large, the impression given is of a general climate of beating, in which blows are not linked to particular irregularities, but are applied as part of the overall regimen of the school, correcting the child in a broad rather than limited sense. To echo Stephen Greenblatt again, it is still difficult to avoid the conclusion that whipping and teaching were inseparable in the period; if anything, the roots of the practice have been shown to be both deep and all-pervading.

However, while the sources underscore the heavy reliance of educators on beating, they also shed light on a range of areas relating to instruction and punishment in the Middle Ages, taken both separately and together. At their most immediate level, they offer evidence against a number of engrained convictions that have grown up around medieval conceptions of the young; their treatment of correction, it might be said, is itself a corrective to many of the assumptions that bedevil this particular topic. One of the key ideas they question is the overall valuation of young people by medieval culture. The authors reviewed here make clear that the centrality of beating in education should not be interpreted as a general sense of indifference or cruelty towards children, of the kind posited by DeMause, Stone and their followers.