Until the beginning of the 19th century, education was neither compulsory, nor state-funded or controlled; however, in medieval Coventry there were educational opportunities for the poor, as well as the wealthy who could afford to pay the fees. The monks at St. Mary's priory ran a school for children of the poor from an early date; as well as a public grammar school in School House Lane from 1303 that had been endowed to them, for which fees would probably have been charged. It is believed that the Charterhouse, or Carthusian monastery, also kept a school for needy scholars, and that priests attached to various parish churches taught children in their spare time.