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diff --git a/42975-0.txt b/42975-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..245ae1f --- /dev/null +++ b/42975-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2949 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42975 *** + +MEDIÆVAL BYWAYS + + + + +[Illustration: '_... sat for its portrait to Matthew Paris._'] + + + + + MEDIÆVAL BYWAYS + + + BY L. F. SALZMANN F.S.A. + + AUTHOR OF + 'ENGLISH INDUSTRIES OF THE MIDDLE AGES' + + + ILLUSTRATED BY + GEORGE E. KRUGER + + + BOSTON AND NEW YORK + HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY + 1913 + + + + + TO WHOM + SHOULD I DEDICATE + THESE STUDIES OF THE LIGHTER SIDE + OF THE MIDDLE AGES + IF NOT TO + MY WIFE + WHOSE STUDY IT IS TO LIGHTEN + MY OWN MIDDLE AGE? + + + + +FOREWORDS + +BEING SUNDRY PERSONAL OBSERVATIONS OF NO IMPORTANCE + + +Original research amongst the legal and other documents preserved in the +Public Record Office, and similar depositories of ancient archives is a +pursuit which our friends politely assume 'must be very interesting,' +chiefly because they cannot believe that any one would undertake so dull +an occupation if it were not interesting. And it must be admitted that +there are grounds for looking askance at such work. To begin with, the +financial results of historical research are usually negligible or even +negative, and it is therefore clearly an undesirable, if not positively +reprehensible, employment. Then it is perfectly true that the vast +majority of these records are as dry as the dust which accumulates upon +them, and that in many cases such interest as they possess is +adventitious, being due to their association with some particular person +or place whose identity appeals to us. Thus even the most trivial +technical details of a suit by William S. against Francis B. for forging +his signature would become of absorbing interest if S. stood for +Shakespeare and B. for Bacon, but the chances are a hundred to one that S. +will stand for Smith and B. for Brown. At the same time the thoroughly +unpractical searcher, who allows his attention to be distracted and does +not confine himself to the strict object of his search, is constantly +rewarded by the discovery of entries, quaint, amusing, or grimly +significant, throwing a light upon the lives of men and women whose very +names perished out of memory centuries ago. Dim the light may be, but yet +it is an illumination not to be got elsewhere, for the writers of History, +with a big H, are concerned only with the doings of kings and statesmen, +and other people of importance, while these records tell us something of +the life of those who in their day, like most of us, were each the centre +of their own microcosm but made no figure in the eyes of the world. It is, +I think, not too much to claim that only through intimacy with the +nation's records, and I would use the word in the widest sense to include +also the records written on the face of our land in stone and timber and +even in earthen bank and hedgerow, that some conception can be obtained of +the mediæval spirit. That same spirit is so subtle a thing, though one of +its leading characteristics is an extraordinary directness and simplicity, +that it is more easily understood than explained. But even if it were an +easy matter to dissect and analyse the mediæval spirit, ticketing so much +as simplicity, such a percentage as humour, so many parts as fear of God, +and so many as fear of the Devil, and so forth, it should not be done +here. For though this book was written with a purpose, that purpose was +not to instruct and edify, but rather to interest and amuse, which is a +far higher mission, and if the reader on laying it down feels that he has +acquired knowledge it will probably be due in a large measure to the work +of the artist, who has translated into line something more than the +material details of the incidents which the writer has strung together. + +So far as the half-dozen essays which follow are concerned their origin +was almost as spontaneous as Topsy's; like her, they grew. It has been my +fortune to spend much time searching ancient documents of every kind, and +indeed there is probably hardly a single class of pre-Reformation records +preserved between Chancery Lane and Fetter Lane into which I have not +delved. Being, moreover, of an unmethodical nature it has been my +practice, even when hard pressed for time, to allow my eye to be caught by +any strange or unusual entry which had nothing to do with the object of my +search;--I may admit in passing that I can rarely look up a word in the +_New English Dictionary_, because there are so many more interesting words +on the other pages. In this way my notebooks became full of queer and +fascinating little bits of ancientry, many of them clad in that quaint +garb of archaic English which lends a piquancy, and occasionally a touch +of unintentional humour, to their presentment. Feeling that it was a pity +that such treasures should continue in concealment I strung some of them +together, amplifying my material with parallel passages from some of the +less known Chronicles and other printed sources. The resulting essays were +published in the _Oxford and Cambridge Review_, and, I believe, gave a +certain amount of pleasure to some of their readers. At any rate I was +urged to republish them in book form, which I had all along intended to +do, and the editor-proprietor of the _Oxford and Cambridge Review_ kindly +gave me not only permission but even encouragement. I decided to have the +book illustrated, and one or two attempts to procure the services of +various artists having providentially failed I was introduced in a +fortunate hour to Mr. George Kruger, whose work it would be superfluous +for me to praise. + +As to the particular sources from which my tales are drawn, they range +wide, but it may interest the curious to know that the proceedings of the +Court of Chancery, which at a later date, in _re_ Jarndyce and Jarndyce, +afforded Dickens material for _Bleak House_, proved the most fruitful +class for my purposes. This is due to the fact that in this class of +records, more than in any other of equally early date, the vernacular is +of common occurrence, and it must be admitted that many incidents which +would read but dully in formal Latin or in that atrocious language legal +French acquire merit by being told in the vulgar tongue and eccentric +orthography of the fifteenth or sixteenth century. From a historical point +of view there is one great thing to be said for legal records of this +type:--they are completely free from unprejudice. No one expects a +plaintiff or defendant to be impartial. And there is nothing so hopelessly +misleading, speaking historically, as impartiality. For one thing the +unprejudiced historian is practically bound to be uninteresting; the works +of the most judicially impartial historian of the present time--so far as +English history goes--are unreadable. Moreover, although he is carefully +accurate and painstaking, they give a totally wrong impression so far as +they give any at all. A 'History of the Reformation,' were such to be +written by him, would be infinitely farther from the truth than one by +Froude or Gasquet. To illustrate my meaning from contemporary events: some +future historian will undoubtedly write fairly and impartially about +Tariff Reform, Women's Suffrage, and National Insurance. He will thereby +completely miss the significance of those movements; for the propaganda +and personalities of Mr. Lloyd George, Mrs. Pankhurst, and Mr. Joseph +Chamberlain are not matters for cool and impartial consideration, and it +will only be by the blessed gift of prejudice that the future historian +will be able to enter into the feelings of the present generation and +obtain the true neo-Georgian atmosphere. + +The Chronicles which form the chief of my subsidiary sources are +sufficiently full of life and prejudice. Very human were many of those old +writers, from that brilliant Welsh proto-journalist Gerald de Barri down +to those worthy Londoners Gregory and Fabyan. Best of all are the +rhymesters; there is a vigour and a wealth of detail in their work which +endears them to me, and I could view the loss of Lydgate's _Siege of +Troye_ or of the unreadable grandfather of English poetry, Beowulf, with +greater equanimity than the loss of such pieces as the account of the +Siege of Rouen which John Page wrote + + 'Alle in raffe and not in ryme + By cause of space he hadde no tyme.' + +Few poems can equal this piece in its spirited portrayal of military +operations in the fifteenth century, the two sides to the picture, the +pageantry of the army and the sufferings of the non-combatants, being +contrasted with remarkable dramatic power in the passage which tells how +two pavilions were pitched between the English camp and the walls of the +city for the delegates appointed by the rival nations to discuss terms of +peace. + + 'That was a syght of solempnyte, + To beholde eyther other parte, + To se hir pavylyons in hir araye + The pepylle that on the wallys laye, + And oure pepylle that was with owte, + Howe thycke they stode and walkyd abowte. + Also hyt was solas to sene + The herrowdys of armys that went by twyne; + Kyngys, herrowdys and pursefauntys + In cotys of armys suauntys, + The Englysche beeste, the Fraynysche floure, + Of Portynggale castelle and toure; + Othyr in cotys of dyversyte, + As lordys berys in hys degre. + Gayly with golde they were begon, + Ryght as the son for sothe hyt schone. + Thys syght was bothe joye and chere; + Of sorowe and payne the othyr were. + Of pore pepylle there were put owte + And nought as moche as a clowte + But the clothes on there backe + To kepe them from rayne I wotte. + The weder was unto them a payne, + For alle that tyme stode most by rayne. + There men myght se grete pytte, + A chylde of ij yere or iij + Go aboute to begge hyt brede. + Fadyr and modyr bothe were dede. + Undyr sum the watyr stode; + Yet lay they cryyng aftyr foode. + And sum storvyn unto the dethe, + And sum stoppyde of ther brethe, + Sum crokyd in the kneys, + And sum alle so lene as any treys, + And wemmen holden in thir armys + Dede chyldryn in hyr barmys. + + * * * * * + + Thes were the syghtys of dyfferauns, + That one of joye and that other of penaunce, + As helle and hevyn ben partyd a to, + That one of welle and that othyr of wo.' + +The whole poem shows a Pre-Raphaelite love of detail combined with a +remarkable appreciation of dramatic values, and the same is true of many +of the other rhyming chronicles, political poems, and topical ballads. As +an example of the value of these poems for interpreting the mediæval +spirit I might instance the light thrown on 'the days of chivalry' by the +'Maréchal' poem. In this glorification of the great Earl of Pembroke the +business-like record of the monetary profits resulting from his prowess at +tournaments takes the gilt off the gingerbread 'Knight errant' as +completely as the details of the wholesale slaughter and subsequent sale +of the bag after a fashionable _battue_ strip the gilt from the modern +'sportsman.' In view of the eminently quotable character of these rhymes +it is really rather remarkable that I should have made so little use of +them in any of my essays, covering, as these do, so wide a range of +subject. It is also a great pity that they are so much neglected by those +whose business it is to teach history. The intelligent use of such +materials as these would make history live, but unfortunately there is a +widespread idea that dates are the be-all and end-all of history, which +delusion is fostered by the importance attached to dates in the ordinary +accursed examination. Whereas in reality dates are utterly unimportant and +of no value in themselves, but useful solely as _memoriæ technicæ_ for +grasping the sequence of events; there being, for instance, no +significance whatever--except possibly for astrologers--in the isolated +facts that the Black Death occurred in 1349, and that the Peasants' Rising +happened in 1381, but very great significance in the fact that the one +event was a generation after the other. However, a discussion of the right +and wrong methods of teaching history is rather too big a subject to be +dragged in at the end of these rambling remarks, which were intended to be +an introduction to the essays which follow, so, if any readers have +followed the unusual course of starting with the introduction, I will take +my leave of them at this point and wish them a pleasant journey through +these Mediæval Byways. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + + I. WISE MEN--AND OTHERS 1 + + II. HIGHWAYS 39 + + III. CORONATIONS 66 + + IV. DEATH AND DOCTORS 89 + + V. THOSE IN AUTHORITY 125 + + VI. IVORY AND APES AND PEACOCKS 159 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + + PAGE + + '... sat for its portrait to Matthew Paris' _Frontispiece_ + + 'A young novice of the priory' 10 + + Robert Berewold in the pillory 15 + + ... sware 'gret othes' and took himself by the hair 21 + + '... caused to sytte down and in large wyse to gape' 24 + + '... thrust a leaden bodkin into the head of that image' 29 + + 'Diabolus ligatus' 38 + + 'A wonderful sight' 44 + + 'An impromptu entertainment by three minstrels' 48 + + Pilgrims 53 + + 'St. Piran' 59 + + '... crossed to England' 64 + + 'Henry's badge' 69 + + A 'herauld' 70 + + 'The young Edward III.' 76 + + Crowns ancient and modern 78 + + 'Dymoke of Scrivelsby' 82 + + 'The tiger and the mirror' 87 + + '... got his arms round a branch' 94 + + 'The broken bough fell on the head of a man standing down below' 95 + + '... cast her into a cauldron' 102 + + '... called secretly at the chamber dore' 110 + + '... gyrd abowte his bodye in iij places with towells and gyrdylls' 113 + + '... led through the middle of the city' 123 + + '... failed to identify the geese' 132 + + '... ducking him in a horse-pond' 141 + + '... with drawn swords stood in the doorway' 145 + + 'He incontinently fled' 148 + + '... compellyd them for to devour the same writte' 154 + + '... thrust him out of the church' 156 + + 'latten "Agnus Dei"' 162 + + '... playing innumerable pranks' 166 + + 'When a lion looks at you it becomes a leopard' 170 + + 'The unfortunate "fowle" was "hurten so sore"' 173 + + '... constructed a pantomime dragon on the pattern of the real + article' 179 + + 'Hakeney' 184 + + '... showed him his injuries' 188 + + '... fully armed with swords and bucklers' 191 + + + + +I + +WISE MEN--AND OTHERS + + +THE ALCHEMISTS + +[Illustration] + +The cyclic tendency so obvious in Nature is not least notable in the +domain of knowledge. The discovery of one era is lost in the next, only to +reappear at a later day, welcomed as a triumph of modern ingenuity or +science. In maps of three centuries ago the Nile is shown rising from +great lakes, but in the atlases that our fathers used the lakes have +vanished and a range of imaginary mountains lies like a little woolly +caterpillar in the heart of Africa as the source of the Nile, only to be +replaced once more in our own days by the great lakes. Dragons, after +being commonplaces of ancient time, fell into undeserved contempt, their +very existence denied by a sceptical generation, and have only been +rescued and rehabilitated in recent years by men of science, who, ashamed +to admit that they have found the fabulous monsters of faery, have +disguised them in polysyllabic nomenclature of 'saurus.' The 'travellers' +tales' of old Herodotus, scoffed at by the superior minds of the +unimaginative Victorian era, are daily gaining acceptance; King +Chedorlaomer and other worthies, who, after centuries of blameless +biblical existence, were conclusively demolished by the High German +Critics, have reappeared on contemporary tablets of imperishable clay +unkindly disinterred by archæological explorers; and, in more mundane +matters, the very latest developments of sanitary science prove to have +been anticipated by a trifle of sixty centuries in the palaces of Crete. + +So with Alchemy. The transmutation of the base into the noble, above all +of the baser metals into gold, was accepted as feasible from the earliest +historic times until the seventeenth century. Then the spread of printing +enabled so many votaries of the science to publish their ideas and +theories that all belief in Alchemy was swept away by the flood of +mystical nonsense, but now science is back on the threshold of the +knowledge of transmutation. The old alchemists seem to have based their +theories on the belief that all metals, and indeed all matter, contained +one common element, of which the purest and most perfect form on this +earth was gold. This theory was knocked on the head when scientists +discovered the Atomic Theory. Proof positive was adduced that certain +substances, such as gold and silver, were elements, and that elements +consisted simply and solely of agglomerations of indivisible atoms, each +of which possessed the characteristics of its particular element. In other +words, Gold was Gold and Silver was Silver, and there was an end to it. +But now the indivisible atoms are beginning to fly in pieces before the +skilful and remorseless attack of modern scientists, and it will be no +surprising thing if we live to see the 'elements' of our schooldays +reduced to combinations of two or three Primary Elements, even if the +Primordial Element, the great First Cause, is not weighed, measured, and +photographed. If, then, gold and silver can be split into the same +constituents it might well be possible to recombine those constituents in +such manner that the silver should become gold and the gold silver. To the +scientific mind the two transmutations would be of equal value, but to the +philosopher aiming ever at perfection, and to the sordid speculator, +aiming ever at profit, the production of gold from the baser metal has +always been the goal. + +We naturally hear little of mediæval alchemists in the legal records. +Their proceedings were inoffensive and little calculated to bring them +within the jurisdiction of any court, except possibly that of bankruptcy. +One of the scarce exceptions of this rule of silence occurred in 1463, +when Edward IV. granted to Sir Henry Grey of Codnor in Derbyshire, +authority to labour by the cunning of philosophy for the transmutation of +metals, with all things requisite to the same, at his own cost, provided +he answer to the King if any profit grow therefrom. The terms of the grant +can scarcely be called liberal. Two years later the King decided that Sir +Henry had had sufficient time for his experiments and called upon him to +render an account of his gains. The philosopher, who had probably very +little to account for, did not appear and his case was postponed from term +to term for five years. At last a date was fixed for him to appear in +court in the middle of October 1470, 'but before that date the Lord King, +certain necessary and urgent causes moving him, made a journey from his +realm of England to foreign parts, leaving no regent or guardian in the +same realm, wherefore the Barons of the Exchequer did not come to hear +pleas.' Reading the courtly sentence it is hard to realise that on the +3rd of October King Edward had, in the words of Speed, 'fled from his host +besides Nottingham, passing the Washes towards Lynne, with greater +difficulties than was befitting a Prince to adventure, and thus without +any order taken for his Realme, in two Hulkes of Holland and one English +ship, destitute of all necessary provisions, set sail towards Burgundy, +and in the way was encountered by the Easterlings, England's great +enemies, having much adoe to clear himself of their surprize.' The politer +version of the legal roll has been written over an entry which, although +completely erased, we may be sure set out how Henry VI. had recovered the +realm from Edward, 'king in fact but not in right.' The alchemy of the +pen, by which the roseate Lancastrian version faded to the colourless +statement of the Yorkists, was more successful, we may well believe, than +was ever the alchemy of Sir Henry Grey. + +But in spite of the ill-success of Sir Henry Grey the King in 1476 +licensed David Beaupee and John Merchaunt to practise for four years 'the +natural science of the generation of gold and silver from mercury.' +Alchemy, indeed, was clearly flourishing in the fifteenth century. In 1468 +Richard Carter received authority to practise the art, while under Henry +VI. several such licences were granted. Thus in 1444 Edward Cobbe was +authorised 'to transmute the imperfect metals from their own kind by the +art of Philosophy and to transubstantiate them into gold or silver'; two +years later Sir Edmund Trafford and Sir Thomas Ashton were empowered to +transmute metals, and in 1446 John Fauceby, John Kirkeby, and John Rayny +received the royal permission to search for the philosopher's stone or the +elixir of life and to transmute metals. Presumably the need for royal +licence in all these cases was based on the royal claim to all mines, and +therefore to all other sources, of precious metals. Covetous eyes had been +cast upon Alchemy as a possible source of revenue at least as early as +1330, when Thomas Cary was ordered to bring before King Edward III. John +le Rous and Master William de Dalby, who were said to be able to make +silver by alchemy, with the instruments and other things needful to their +craft. But of all these scientists and philosophers no more is heard, and, +although I have not searched the accounts of bullion purchased for the +Mint, it may safely be asserted that the revenue profited little by all +their science and philosophy. + +Alchemy, like so many other branches of knowledge, found a home in the +monasteries, and there is a story of an abbot in one of the Western +Counties who, at the time of the Dissolution, hid his books and +manuscripts of the hermetic art in a wall, and returning thither to fetch +them found them not, and for grief at his loss lost also his wits. Thomas +Ellis, again, prior of Leighs in Essex, took more loss than gain from +dabbling in the art. Rumours of his skill in manipulating metals caused +him to be suspected of coining, and he had to give an account of himself. +His interest in the theory of Alchemy, which he had derived from reading +books, had been stimulated by 'commynyng with Crawthorne, a goldsmyth in +Lumbardstrete, that sayd ther was a prest callyd Sir George that made +himselfe cunning in suche matters.' This priest in turn introduced the +prior to one Thomas Peter, a clothworker of London, 'that sayd he had the +syens of alkemy as well as eny man in Yngland.' The prior took him at his +own valuation and promised to pay him £20 for lessons in the art, and gave +him 20 nobles in advance. Master Peter then gave his pupil some silver and +quicksilver with instructions how to treat them. These metals Prior Ellis +sealed hermetically in a glass vessel, which he then placed in an earthen +pot full of water, and this he kept hot for some ten weeks or more, +employing a young novice of the priory, Edmund Freke, a boy of twelve, to +keep up a continual fire. Master Peter came from time to time to see how +matters were progressing, and no doubt reported favourably, but after a +while the prior 'perceyved yt was but a falce crafte,' broke the glass +vessel, sold the silver for what it would fetch and refused to pay his +instructor the remaining 20 marks. Peter, however, who was better skilled +in making money out of men than gold out of silver, threatened an action +for debt, and as it chanced that an offer of 20 marks was made at this +time to the prior for the lease of a rectory he handed the money over to +Master Peter. 'And thus I never medelyd with hym syne, nor with the crafte +nor never wyll, God wyllyng.' + +[Illustration: '_A young novice of the priory._'] + + +WHITE MAGIC + +Before the days of Sherlock Holmes and the scientific pursuit of clues the +ways of tracing lost or stolen property were devious and varied. In recent +times the aid of St. Anthony of Padua has often been invoked. Why that +good Saint should have taken up this branch of detective work I know not; +possibly he was confused with his namesake the hermit, whose pig might +well have been trained to search for lost articles as less holy pigs to +hunt for truffles, or possibly, as was said of the man who married five +wives, 'it was his hobby.' However this may be, I have known excellent +results obtained by the promise of a candle or the repetition of a +_paternoster_ in honour of St. Anthony; the prayer is the more popular +offering, being cheaper for the petitioner and more certain for the +saint--the candle is apt to be withheld when the property has been +recovered, and candles have even been known to go astray and blaze before +the altar of the other St. Anthony, who was probably too busy in +pre-Reformation days looking after the cattle of his devotees to trouble +about lost property. The man, therefore, who would have supernatural +assistance in the recovery of his strayed goods had perforce to seek the +aid of sorcerers and their familiar but often incompetent spirits. +Unfortunately for the modern inquirer no unsolicited testimonials bearing +witness to the efficacy of these magicians appear to have survived, and it +is only their failures that brought them into unpleasant and enduring +prominence. + +London was naturally a great centre of these occult detectives, and they +seem to have been well patronised. In 1390 when two silver dishes were +stolen from the Duke of York's house, application was made to one John +Berkyng, a renegade Jew, who performed certain incantations, and as a +result accused one of the Duke's servants, William Shadewater. In the +same way, when Lady Despenser's fur-lined scarlet mantle was stolen, about +the same time, Berkyng had no hesitation in denouncing Robert Trysdene and +John Geyte. His repute was no doubt considerable, but these two cases +proved disastrous; the parties accused had him arrested, and he was found +guilty of deceit and defamation, stood in the pillory for an hour, and was +then banished from the city. + +In this case nothing is said as to the means of divination employed, but +in two cases that occurred in London in 1382 particulars are given. When +Simon Gardiner lost his mazer bowl he employed a German, Henry Pot by +name, to trace it. He made thirty-two balls of white clay, and after +appropriate incantations named Nicholas Freman and Cristine, his wife, as +the thieves. Here again the mistake brought the magician to the pillory, +and the same fate befell Robert Berewold. In this case also it was a +mazer that had been stolen; Maud of Eye was its owner, but a friend of +hers, one Alan, a water carrier, who had evidently a high opinion of +Robert's power, called him in. Robert then took a loaf and fixed in the +top of it a round peg of wood and four knives at the four sides of the +same, in the shape of a cross; his further proceedings are vaguely +described as 'art magic,' and resulted first in the accusation of Joan +Wolsey and eventually in the appearance of Robert Berewold in the pillory +with the loaf hanging round his neck. + +The connection between mazers and magic is not obvious, but in 1501 when +John Richardson, a parish clerk, lost a mazer worth 26_s._ he at once +sought the assistance of Nicholas Hanwode, 'bringing with him divers young +children for to behold in a looking-glass.' The record is damaged, but is +sufficiently legible to show that the victim was arrested and imprisoned +by the mayor and could only invoke the intervention of the Court of +Chancery against his accusers. In this last case we have clearly an +instance of divination by the glass, crystal, or similar medium--a pool of +ink was used, if I remember right, by the Indians in _The Moonstone_. The +loaf and knives seem vaguely familiar to me as instruments of divination, +though I should be puzzled to give the correct ceremonial, but the +thirty-two clay balls are more difficult to place, unless possibly they +were used for the construction of some kind of geomantic figure. + +[Illustration: _Robert Berewold in the pillory._] + +So far we have been dealing with genuine, if inaccurate, magicians, but a +case that occurred in London in 1382 shows that there were impostors even +in that learned profession. Mistress Alice Trig having lost her Paris +kerchief suspected Alice Byntham of having stolen it, and apparently not +without good reason. The two women seem to have been fairly intimate, and +Alice Byntham went to a cobbler, William Northamptone, and gave him +information of certain very private matters concerning the other Alice. +William then went round to Mistress Trig and posed as a wise man, which he +may have been, skilled in magic, which he was not, and revealed to her his +knowledge of her private affairs. She, being duly impressed, asked him who +had stolen her kerchief, to which he replied, whoever it was it certainly +was not Alice Byntham, and launching out rashly into prophecy told his +questioner that she would be drowned within a month. The dismal prospect +almost terrified her into an early grave, but in the end she survived to +see William standing in the pillory. + +A case that is recorded in Lincolnshire in the sixteenth century is +interesting as showing the more than local reputation enjoyed by some of +these cunning men. The church of Holbeach having been robbed, the +parishioners consulted their fellow-townsman John Lamkyn, a man known to +have 'resonable knowledg in the sciens of gramer,' which he taught to the +children of the neighbourhood, and said to have a knowledge not so +reasonable of such arts as enchantment, witchcraft, and sorcery. He, at +the request of the churchwardens, went off to consult Edmund Nash, a +wheeler, famed as 'an expert man in the knowleg of thynges stolen,' who +lived at 'Cicestre,' which may have been either Chichester or +Cirencester, as it is called in one place 'Chechestre' and in another +'Circetter,' but was in any case a very long way off. Lamkyn took with him +a pair of leather gloves found in the vestry after the robbery, and Nash +made certain deductions therefrom, which caused suspicion to fall upon +John Partridge, who complained that he had lost friends and reputation and +been 'brought into infamy and slander and owte of credenz.' Lamkyn's +version of the story made out Nash to be merely a private detective +following up clues without recourse to magic, and also hinted that +Partridge's reputation was no great loss. There is as little reason to +believe one as the other. + +Probably the most popular method of ascertaining the whereabouts of lost +property and the identity of the thief was by the use of astrology. Some +years ago, when I was in one of those bookshops in which at that time I +spent much of my spare time and all of my spare money, I was offered a +manuscript volume, formerly the property of William Lilly, in which that +famous but shifty astrologer had recorded some scores of investigations +made by him for clients and mostly concerned with the recovery of stolen +goods. The figures were neatly drawn up, and the interpretation written +below, but, if my memory serves me, there was nothing to show in how many +cases the investigations led to any practical result. There are, I +believe, two similar volumes in the Bodleian, but what became of this +particular copy I do not know; whether it was due to the unfair incidence +of taxation under the budget of that year or to more permanent causes, my +funds did not permit of its acquisition, and I left it sorrowfully in +company with a much-desired Augsburg Missal and Pine's edition of +Horace--the rare edition of the '_post est_' blunder. I did, however, +secure Fludd's _Macrocosm_, by aid of which I might myself, if time and my +mastery of the movements of the whirling spheres permitted, open a branch +of the heavenly Scotland Yard. + +[Illustration: '_... sware "gret othes" and took himself by the hair._'] + +The early astrologers, thanks to the cautious vagueness of their +statements, seem to have avoided the clutches of the law, into which other +magicians fell. The stars reveal no names, recording only, by an +anticipation of the Bertillon procedure, the measurements and physical +peculiarities of the thieves. If from these particulars the querent jumps +to a false conclusion and accuses the wrong man, so much the worse for +him--the stars and their interpreters are not to blame. No one said hard +words of the London astrologers whom Robert Cooke consulted. Cooke was a +carrier from Kendale who came south in 1528 with £30 in money, much of it +belonging to other men, in a 'bogett,' and put up at John Balenger's house +in St. Ives. During the course of the day he opened his packs, bought and +sold and drank with his customers, allowing a number of people in quite a +casual way to feel the weight of his 'bogett,' but not opening it. It was +late that night before they got to bed at John Balenger's, for 'it was +ten of the clok or they went to soper, for as much as every man pakked up +his wares or they sooped,' and when they went up to their rooms the house +was apparently pretty full, as Cooke shared a bed with John Foster, a +draper, and there were others in the same chamber. Next morning, as they +were putting their packs on their horses, Cooke suddenly noticed that one +of his packs was fastened with a different kind of knot from that which he +used. Thereupon he suddenly exclaimed, 'My pak is wrong knyt, by the +passhion of God, sith yesternight,' and opening it took out the precious +'bogett' and found it full of stones. So he sware 'gret othes' and took +himself by the hair and altogether carried on mightily, and finally 'made +his advow that he would never ete fisshe ne fleissh until he had been at +Saint Rynyons in Scotland if he might here of his goodes.' Then, with his +bed-companion of the previous night, he rode over to Cambridge 'to make +calculacion for the said goodes,' but at that seat of learning 'they coude +find noo clerk or other person that wold take on hand to calcle for the +said money.' However, when Robert Cooke got to London he had no difficulty +in finding astrologers, who expressed the utmost confidence in their +ability to 'calcle,' and told him that 'he shulde by the crafte of +astronomye, if he wold, have hys eye or arme or other joynte of hys body +thatt hadd robbed hym, att hys pleasure.' This ferocious promise, it may +be pointed out, merely meant that the astronomer could give a description +of any particular physical traits necessary to indentify the robber. In +this particular instance the description was that of a fair man with large +eyes, hair neither curly nor straight, and a large nose, of medium height, +good looking, with a bright expression, and having one or more black +teeth. This elaborate account the astronomer, with becoming modesty, had +submitted to the judgment of others more learned and experienced than +himself, and they guaranteed its accuracy. It was found to correspond with +the appearance of John Balenger the younger, son of Cooke's host, except +that the latter 'hath no blak toth in his hed as yt apperith iff ony lust +to serch therfor,' and in order to prove this 'the said John Balenger was +caused to sytte down and in large wyse to gape and open his jowes to be +duely seen ... and after due serch therin made yt appeared that the said +John had alle his teth whyte and in good maner proporconed.' Adding to +this the fact that he was 'callid a good young man and wele ruled, not +slaundered neither with dicyng, carding ne other misrule,' and the rather +suspicious circumstance that the biggest stone found in Cooke's 'bogett' +after the supposed robbery was a piece of ironstone of a kind not found +within forty miles of St. Ives but very plentiful in Kendale, it is not +surprising that the magistrates should have dismissed the case against the +younger John Balenger. After all, a black tooth is like a finger-tip +print--damning evidence if present but powerful for acquittal if absent, +and who is a Justice of the Peace that he should contradict Jupiter? + +[Illustration: '_... caused to sytte down and in large wyse to gape._'] + + +BLACK MAGIC + +Considering how large a part magic and the supernatural played in the life +of the people in the Middle Ages it is curious that there should be so few +references thereto in the English judicial records prior to the +Reformation. The ancient chroniclers and historians enlivened many a dull +page with the most astonishing tales of sin and mystery, vouched for on +the testimony of their own eyes or of unimpeachable witnesses, but the +chains of legal evidence are as powerless to bind these legendary +sorcerers as were the triple chains of iron to bind the famous Witch of +Berkeley. With the exception of general vague accusations of witchcraft +levelled against the Lollards and kindred heretics, references to magic +are casual and rare in the records of our courts. + +With the reign of Elizabeth this ceases to be true, and from the middle of +the sixteenth century to the end of the seventeenth the Black Arts +attracted their full share of judicial and magisterial attention. Probably +twenty instances of legal proceedings taken in connection with these +'ungodly practices' could be produced after the Reformation for every one +prior to that date, and while this is in part due to the fact that local +records of the later periods have survived in far greater number than +their predecessors, there is a possibility that _post hoc_ is in the case +also _propter hoc_. It is arguable that the Reformation having abolished, +for all practical purposes, belief in the miracles of God and His saints, +the natural craving of the unscientific man for a supernatural explanation +of the abnormal could only be satisfied by a belief in the miracles of the +Devil and his sinners. Be that as it may, the fact remains that after the +Reformation witches and warlocks became as common as holy nuns and +anchorities had once been--the marvels reported of the one class are about +as unsatisfactory from a scientific point of view as those of the other. +It is, however, with a few chance references of earlier date that I am +concerned. + +Suitably enough it is from the land of 'Cunning Murrell' that my earliest +instance comes. The Sheriff of Essex in 1169 made a note of having +expended 5_s._ 3_d._ on 'a woman accused of sorcery.' The record is brief +and unsatisfactory, telling neither the details of the offence, the method +of trial, nor the result. These two last items we get in another case +which occurred in Norfolk in 1208, when Agnes, wife of Odo the merchant, +appealed a certain Galiena for sorcery, and Galiena successfully cleared +herself by the ordeal of the hot iron. For a century after this any +magical offenders who may have been brought to trial have eluded my +search. Then in 1308 began the proceedings against the Knights Templars, +based very largely on accusations of practising Black Magic. In England, +however, nothing of the kind was even held to have been proved against the +knights, although not only 'what the sailor said' was considered to be +evidence, but also what the clerk thought the priest said the soldier +heard the sailor say. + +[Illustration: '_... thrust a leaden bodkin into the head of that +image._'] + +It is rather remarkable that the year 1324, in which the great Irish trial +of the Lady Alice Kyteler took place, was the date of the fullest and in +many ways the most interesting of the early English trials for sorcery. In +that year Robert Marshall of Leicester, under arrest for a variety of +offences, endeavoured to save his own neck by turning King's evidence and +accusing his former master, John Notingham, and a number of Coventry +citizens of conspiring to kill the King, the two Despensers, and the Prior +and two other officials of Coventry by magical arts. Marshall's tale was +to the effect that the accused citizens came to John Notingham, as a man +skilled in 'nigromancy,' and bargained with him for the death of the +persons named, paying a certain sum down and giving him seven pounds of +wax. With the wax Notingham and Marshall made six images of the proposed +victims and a seventh of Richard de Sowe, the _corpus vile_ selected for +experimental purposes. The work was done in secret in an old deserted +house not far from Coventry, and when the images were ready the magician +bade his assistant thrust a leaden bodkin into the head of that image +which represented Richard de Sowe, and next day sent him to the house of +the said Richard, whom he found raving mad. Master John then removed the +bodkin from the head of the image and thrust it into the heart, and within +three days Richard died. And at that point Robert Marshall's story comes +to a lame and impotent conclusion. Not a word of explanation does he give +as to why, when the preliminary experiment had proved so successful, they +did not go on with their fell design. The unfortunate 'nigromancer' died +in prison before the case had been thrashed out and reported upon by a +jury, and the case against the citizens was allowed to fall through. Even +if the trial had followed its normal course it is not probable that we +should have had more than a plain and enlightening verdict of 'not +guilty,' for Robert Marshall was a liar of inventive genius. He accused +two men of assisting him in the robbery and murder of a merchant from +Chester 'in Erlestrete, Coventry, near the white cellar,' with a profusion +of 'corroborative detail, intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an +otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative,' which proved, as he afterwards +admitted, utterly false. One or two other wild accusations also came to +nothing, and Robert was duly hanged. But while we cannot say that the +procedure he described was actually used in this case, we know it was +quite in accord with the orthodox methods of magicians. That the story was +believed at the time we may conclude, as the younger Despenser wrote this +year to the Pope complaining that he was threatened by magical and secret +dealings. The Pope, with much good sense, recommended him to turn to God +with his whole heart and to make a good confession and such satisfaction +as should be enjoined upon him; adding that no other remedies were +needful. + +Passing again over a century we find in 1426 William, Lord Botreaux, +complaining that Sir Ralph Botreaux, William Langkelly, and others, +'unmindful of the salvation of their souls and not having God before their +eyes,' had procured John Alwode of Trottokeshull, Hugh Bower of +Kilmington, chaplain, and John Newport, who were said to practise +soothsaying, necromancy, and art magic, 'to weaken, subtly consume, and +destroy by the said arts,' the complainant's body. Commissioners were +appointed to inquire into the matter, but any further proceedings that +there may have been have vanished, or at best are lying hid in some +unsuspected corner of the Record Office. + +Another instance of the use of magical ceremonies with evil intent is +alluded to fifty years later, when John Knight, chaplain, complained that +he had been arrested and committed to the Marshalsea for going with the +servants of 'the Lord Straunge' to search the house of Alice, wife of John +Huntley, 'which of long tyme hath used and exercised the feetes of +wychecraft and sorcery,' in Southwark. They went into 'an house called the +lasour loke in Suthwerk in Kenstrete' (a hospital founded originally for +lepers, but by this time used more as an almshouse or infirmary) 'and +there found dyvers mamettes for wychecraft and enchauntements with other +stuff beryed and deeply hydd under the erthe.' The circumstances are very +similar to those related in the case of an old woman turned out of the +almshouses at Rye in 1560 for using magical ceremonies, including the +burial of pieces of raw beef, to the intent that as the beef decayed away +so might the bodies of her enemies, though it is possible that in the case +of Alice Huntley the objects had only been buried for secrecy. +Five-and-twenty years later, in 1502, a still clearer case of the use of +'mamettes' or images occurred in Wales. The bishop of St. Davids, having +vainly remonstrated with Thomas Wyriott and Tanglost William for living +'in advoutre,' imprisoned the woman Tanglost and afterwards banished her +from the diocese. She went to Bristol, and hired one Margaret Hackett, +'which was practized in wychecraft,' to destroy the bishop. Tanglost and +Margaret then went back to Wyriott's house, and in a room called, most +unsuitably, Paradise Chamber, made two images of wax, and then, possibly +thinking that a bishop would take more bewitchment than an ordinary +mortal, sent for another woman, 'which they thought cowde and hadde more +cunning and experiens than they,' and she made a third image. The bishop +was not a penny the worse for this 'inordinat delying,' but ordered the +arrest of Tanglost for heresy; Wyriott intervened by getting her +imprisoned through a trumped-up action for debt, in order to keep her out +of the bishop's clutches, and the bishop had to invoke the assistance of +the Court of Chancery. + +Three cases of magic occurred in 1432. On May 7 of that year an order was +issued for the arrest of Thomas Northfelde, D.D., a Dominican friar of +Worcester, and the seizure of all his books treating of sorcery or +wickedness, and two days later Brother John Ashwell of the Crutched +Friars, London, John Virley, priest, and Margery Jourdemain, who had been +imprisoned at Windsor for sorcery, were released. In these cases it is +very likely that the sorcery consisted in an uncanny and suspicious +addiction to unusual branches of learning, combined possibly with +experiments in chemistry or heretical tendencies, both alike dangerous in +the eyes of the orthodox, but the third case was clearly a matter of +bewitchment--in the opinion of the victim. The facts are quite simple. +John Duram of York had a field with a pond in it, and having in some way +incurred the enmity of Thomas Mell, a farmer, the latter, 'per divers +artes erroneous et countre la foy catholice cest assavoir sorcery,' +withdrew the water from John's pond, to the great injury of his cattle, +besides certain other unnamed injuries wrought by his 'malveys ymaginacion +et sotell labour.' Mell being under the patronage of men of influence +because of his magical abilities, Duran did not dare to bring an action +against him in the ordinary court, and therefore sought the intervention +of the Court of Chancery, with what success I do not know. + +So far my magicians, it must be admitted, have been rather commonplace +people, proceeding on the usual lines of their craft and displaying little +originality, but my final instance is, so far as I know, unique. In an +eighteenth-century manuscript in my possession, formerly in the Phillipps +collection, amongst a mass of extracts from all kinds of records is an +entry said to be taken from the court rolls of the manor of Hatfield in +Yorkshire. According to this, at a court held in 1336 Robert of Rotheram +brought an action against John de Ithen for breach of contract, alleging +that on a certain day, at Thorne, John agreed to sell him for +threepence-halfpenny 'the Devil bound with a certain bond' (_Diabolum +ligatum in quodam ligamine_), and Robert thereupon gave him 'arles-penny,' +or earnest-money (_quoddam obolum earles_), 'by which possession of the +said Devil remained with the said Robert, to receive delivery of the said +Devil within four days,' but when he came to John the latter refused to +hand over the Devil, wherefore Robert claimed 60_s._ damages. John +appeared in court and did not deny the contract, but the steward, holding +that 'such a plea does not lie between Christians,' 'adjourned the parties +to Hell for the hearing of the case,' and amerced both parties. + +The first question is, is this a genuine extract from the rolls? The +critic who is inclined to think that he smells a rat may be confuted by +Camden, according to whom no rats have ever been known in the town of +Hatfield. The extremely solid nature of all the other extracts in my +volume is almost a guarantee of good faith so far as the eighteenth +century copyist is concerned, and the probability that he took it from the +original is strengthened by his having in one place misread _unde_ as +_vide_ and subsequently corrected the error. But allowing that it occurred +on the rolls, was it a genuine transaction or was it a facetious invention +of the manor clerk? I incline to believe that it was genuine. A man who +invented such a case to fill up a blank space on the roll would have been +almost certain to have elaborated it further, while, on the other hand, +having noted the adjournment of the case to 'another place,' to use +parliamentary language, he would not have been likely to add that both +parties were fined. Granting that the action was actually brought, we are +left in doubt whether Robert was a simple gull with whom John had been +amusing himself, or whether the defendant really believed that he could +fulfil his contract. Again, what was that contract? Latin, though +admirably clear in many respects, suffers from the absence of the definite +article, and it is difficult to be certain whether it was a question of +'the Devil' or 'a devil'; judging by the price, the latter seems more +probable, as threepence-halfpenny for the Prince of Darkness seems +absurdly little, and I believe that _Diabolus ligatus_ was sometimes +applied to a divining spirit imprisoned by magic arts in a bottle or +crystal. However that may be, it is not probable that a law court has ever +before or since been asked to decide the question of proprietary rights in +the devil or his imps. + +[Illustration: '_Diabolus ligatus._'] + + + + +II + +HIGHWAYS + + +So much is heard of the modern facilities for travelling that one might +almost think that before the days of Cook (Thomas of the tickets, not the +Polar Mandeville) no Englishman had ever stirred abroad. Yet it is hardly +questionable that in mediæval times the proportion of Englishmen who had +visited foreign lands was far larger than at the present day. Thanks to +military feudalism it is scarcely an exaggeration to say that during the +fourteenth and fifteenth centuries most of our country gentlemen had seen +service in France, taking with them contingents of hired or pressed men +from every village in the land. For the more peaceful classes there were +the attractions of the pilgrimage, the spiritual advantages outweighing +the dangers and hardships of a journey to Rome, and the celebrated +shrine of St. James of Compostella drawing thousands every year to Spain. +Still earlier the Crusades drew the pious and the martial alike yet +farther afield, but of those who journeyed to the East many did not +return. At all time a pretty sharp limit was set to the travels of the +ordinary man by the seaboard of Palestine, and those who penetrated still +deeper into the mysterious East were few. It is therefore interesting to +follow Geoffrey of Langley on his embassy to the Tartar Court in 1292 and +back to England, piecing together the story of his travels from the +prosaic accounts of his paymaster. + +Towards the end of the twelfth century the Tartars, a nomadic tribe who +inhabited the district between the Caucasus and the Euphrates and +professed the Christianity of the Nestorians, came into some prominence in +Europe through the fame of their Khan, the celebrated 'Prester John.' He, +however, was killed in 1203 by the terrible Genghiz Khan the Mogul, from +Turkestan, whose successors adopted the name and, after one or two +generations, the religion of the conquered Tartars. Argon, King or Emperor +of the Tartars, accepted Christianity in 1289, and in alliance with the +kings of Armenia and Georgia inflicted a severe defeat upon the forces of +the Soldan. Later in the same year his ambassadors reached Europe, charged +to preach a new crusade for the ejection of the Saracens from Palestine. +Strengthened with commendatory letters from the Pope, they visited the +English Court. King Edward made them welcome, and wrote to Argon +expressing his delight at his proposed attack upon the Sultan of Babylon, +and promising to come in person as soon as the Pope would sanction his +going to the Holy Land. To cement the alliance he promised to send the +king some gerfalcons, for which he had asked. This letter was written in +September 1290, and next year the falcons were duly dispatched by the +hands of Sir Geoffrey of Langley. + +The embassy reached Trebizond about the middle of June 1292, and obtained +quarters for themselves and the precious gerfalcons while waiting for a +safe-conduct to the Tartar Court. The king's whereabouts were uncertain, +and Nicholas de Chartres, Geoffrey's squire, and Conrad, nephew of the +ambassador's chief-of-staff, Buskerell, were sent by sea to Samsoun, and +thence first to Kaisarieh and then to Sivas, where they waited for the +king. At last all was ready; a tent had been made from cotton cloth and +scarlet and grey material, bought in Trebizond, a parasol had been +purchased for the ambassador, and a horse for him to ride, and also a +mule, which cost more than three times as much as the horse. For the first +stage of the journey to Tabriz, where they were to see the king, thirty +horses were hired, but at Baiburt, which they reached on July 25, the +number was reduced, and from Baiburt to Zaratkana only fourteen horses +were employed. Beyond the giving of presents to Tartars and others, +including a gift of cloth to 'the lady' of Erz Roum, little is recorded +of the journey to Tabriz--the city of baths and iced drinks, as the +Spanish ambassadors to Timour Bey found it a century later. + +The embassy left Tabriz, carrying with them a leopard as a present from +the Tartar king, and on Friday, September 26, reached the busy trading +town of Khoi, where Gonzalez de Clavijo on his way to Samarcand in 1406 +saw a giraffe, which he deemed, 'to a man who had never seen such an +animal before, a wonderful sight.' Sunday night they spent at 'Nosseya,' +presumably Nuskar, and Monday at a village 'of the Armenians,' evidently +near the Lake of Van, as fish appear for the first time amongst the +provisions bought, in addition to the usual bread, cheese, and fruit. At +Argish on the Lake of Van boots were bought for three members of the +suite, the horses were shod and stores laid in, including wine, meat, +ducks, eggs, and salt. After stopping one night at 'Jaccaon,' Melasgird +was reached, where they dismissed their mounted escort from Argish and +proceeded under fresh escort through three nameless Saracen villages to +Erz Roum, which they reached on Monday, October 6. A two days' halt was +made here while they laid in stores and had their clothes washed. The wear +and tear of travelling began to be felt; boots had to be bought for the +chaplain, John the clerk, Robert, Gerard, another Robert, and William and +Martin the grooms, and a hat and shoes for Willecok. On the Wednesday +night, when they stayed at another Saracen village, they were entertained +by native minstrels, and the following day they reached Baiburt, where +John the scullion's boots gave out. Here they had to lay in stores, as the +next two halts were to be 'in the fields,' away from habitations. + +[Illustration: '_A wonderful sight._'] + +At last, on Monday, October 13, they found themselves back at Trebizond, +where they rested for a week and invested largely in new shoes, as well as +in such heavy and bulky conveniences as pots and pans, plates, dishes, and +stools, with which they had had to dispense on their journey. The Saracen +porters who had carried the baggage from Tabriz were paid off, a Tartar +who had rendered some small service was rewarded with a carpet, and the +ambassador's suite received their wages and allowances of linen. At the +head of the suite was Andrew Balaban, who received a scarlet robe in +addition to his wages, and Martin the latimer, or interpreter; then there +were Willecok the chamberer, John the clerk, Walter the cook, Martin +Lombard the larderer, and Michael and Jonot 'of the kitchen'; Chyzerin, +Copin, and Tassin the falconers, Jacques and Oliver the grooms, Michael de +Suria, Theodoric, Manfred, Gerardin, Robert, and Robekin, and one or two +others of whom we learn nothing but their names. Altogether there must +have been about twenty or thirty persons who sailed from Trebizond and +after a slow voyage reached Constantinople on Sunday, November 9. + +At Constantinople, which the accountant by an ingenious error of +derivation calls 'Constantinus Nobilis,' the galley lay for a week, +possibly delayed by adverse winds. There were compensations for the delay; +oysters, hares, mallards, chestnuts, pears, and apples must have been +welcome luxuries after the hardships and monotony of the past weeks, and +it is possibly more than a coincidence that the doctor had to be called in +to attend Richard. Even the leopard fared daintily, three chickens making +a pleasant change from his usual mutton. At last everything was ready, +the clothes had been washed, John the clerk's hose had been mended, some +Persian cloth had been bought for Richard's tabard, and the parasol had +been re-covered, which seems hardly necessary, unless it was to be used as +an umbrella; the weather being cold, eighteen sets of wraps (_muffeles_) +were bought for the suite, while Sir Geoffrey procured fur-lined robes of +vair, gules, and white fox with a hood of 'Alcornyne,' and on Monday, +November 17, the galley set sail for Italy. + +Otranto was reached on Saturday, November 29, and here the ambassador and +part of his suite landed, Richard and Robert going on at once to Brindisi +by boat. The galley waited long enough to revictual and to allow of +cleaning the leopard's cage, and then went on with the rest of the suite +and the heavier luggage to Genoa. On Sunday, the Bishop of Otranto having +kindly lent them horses, the ambassador's party started on their journey +overland to Genoa, reaching Lecce in time for dinner and an impromptu +entertainment by three minstrels. The first four days of December were +spent at Brindisi, whence they went on up the east coast by Villanuova and +Mola to Barletta, then turning inland to 'Tres Sanctos,' which may have +been Trinitapoli, but was chiefly noteworthy for a dinner of chicken, +pigeons, and sausages. Next morning, Wednesday, December 10, they lunched +at San Lorenzo on their way to Troja, and so, past 'Crevaco' to 'Bonum +Albergum,' which, if it was not Benevento, was not far from that town. +Two days more brought them, by Monte Sarchio and Acerra, to Naples, where +they remained until Thursday, the 18th. Here they were once more in a land +of plenty and could feast on pheasants, partridges, mallards, hares, and +pigeons, skilfully seasoned with sage and parsley, garlic, and saffron. +Two mules and a dappled grey horse were bought, as well as some glasses +and earthenware pots and mugs, and the party set out for Capua, sending +their silver plate on ahead by the hands of Manfred Oldebrand. At Capua, +on Friday, December 19, Tassin the falconer died, much regretted by his +brother falconer, Hanekin, to whom he owed 11_s._ 4_d._, and offerings +were made for the good of his soul. + +[Illustration: '_An impromptu entertainment by three minstrels._'] + +Five days' march, through Mignano, Ceprano, Anagni, and a place called +'Mulera,' which I cannot identify, brought them to Rome. At Rome they +spent Christmas. A doctor was called in to attend one of the grooms, and +medicine was obtained for a horse, possibly without avail, as two horses +were bought for thirty florins, from 'the merchants of the Ricardi.' On +Sunday, the 28th, the journey was resumed, Isola and Sutri forming the +first day's march, Viterbo and Monte Fiascone the second. Acquapendente +was reached on Tuesday, and here they spent 18_d._ on 'a small box +(_cofinello_) in which to carry eel pies.' Passing San Quirico, Siena was +reached on the 1st of January, their road after that leading through San +Cossiano, Pistoia, and Buggione, to Lucca. From Lucca they struck across +to the coast, through Avenza and Sarzana to Sestri, and so up by Rapallo +and Recco to Genoa, which they reached on Sunday, January 11. At Genoa +they found their companions, who had come round by sea. A house was hired +from Pucino Roncini, the galley was unloaded and paid off, its cost from +Trebizond to Genoa being £200, a sum more formidable in appearance than in +reality, as the Genoese pound was only about 3_s._ 6_d._ of English money. +Tamorace the Tartar was dismissed with the present of a silver cup, and +there remained only the leopard to link them with the East. + +At Genoa the series of accounts terminates, but the dispatch of a +messenger to the Marquess of Saluzzo suggests that our travellers were +going through his territory, by the same road that Henry of Bolingbroke, +Earl of Derby and afterwards King of England, followed just a century +later on his return from Venice and the East, taking with him, by a +coincidence, a leopard. In that case they would have gone inland, past +Novi, Asti, and Turin to Chambéry in Savoy, then northwards to Châlons, +and by Beaune, Châtillon, and Nogent-sur-Saône to Paris. Thence they would +probably have made for Wissant, and so across to Dover, reaching England +about the beginning of September, 1293, or rather earlier, after two years +of almost continual travelling. Of the wonderful things that they saw, and +the yet more wonderful things that they heard--tales of monstrous men, +uncanny beasts, and evil spirits--of their adventures, perils of +shipwreck, and perils of robbers, no record has survived; but something +of their slow journeying, the trying desert marches, the vexatious delays +of contrary winds, pleasantly varied by the relaxation of a halt in some +great city, we have managed to piece together. + +Such exceptional voyages as those of Geoffrey of Langley to Tabriz or of +Gonzalez de Clavijo to Samarcand are interesting for their rarity; but a +value of another kind attaches to the embassy of Hugh de Vere to the Papal +Court in 1298. It was a placid and uneventful journey, and would seem to +have been not merely without adventures, but without incidents. Beyond the +trifling worries attendant on pack saddles and harness that required +constant repairs, the trifling interest derived from varying changes of +diet, and the complication of accounts caused by the existence of an +entirely fresh monetary standard in each state through which the +travellers passed, there was little to record but the list of stages on +the journey. As, however, the route followed was the main road to Rome, +along which passed a constant stream of pilgrims, prompted by piety or a +wish to see the world--priests seeking benefices for themselves or curses +for their neighbours; penitents desiring absolution; appellants with their +wallets stuffed with deeds, decrees, and legal precedents, and their +appellees carrying the weightier argument of English gold--it is worth +while following the embassy and noting the stopping-places. Most of these +are identical with those used by Henry of Bolingbroke on his return from +Venice almost a century later, and were, therefore, evidently the usual +stages on this road. + +[Illustration: _Pilgrims._] + +Hugh de Vere and his suite, consisting of two knights, two chaplains, a +clerk, ten esquires, and some thirty grooms and other attendants, +assembled at Paris on Good Friday, April 4, 1298, and next day rode as far +as Rozoy, contenting themselves on the journey, as it was a fast day, with +fish and fruit. The next day being Easter Sunday they did not start until +after dinner, but reached Provins, fifty miles south-east of Paris, in the +evening. From Provins of the Roses the cavalcade passed by Pavillon down +the valley of the Seine to Bar-sur-Seine, where, Lent being over, they +feasted on meat and pies and flauns, a kind of mediæval pancake +particularly popular at Easter-time, according to Haliwell. They soon +entered Burgundy, and turning south through Montbard followed for some +distance the route now taken by the Canal de Bourgogne with its +innumerable locks, and after halting a night at 'Flori'--which occurs in +Bolingbroke's account as 'Floreyn,' but would seem to have dwindled out +of the maps if not out of existence--reached Beaune; and still doing an +average of thirty miles a day came to Lyons, stopping at Tournus and +Bellville on the way, on Monday, April 14. After following the valley of +the Rhone a few miles farther south, they turned off eastwards near Vienne +through St. Georges to Voiron and thence northwards, passing close to the +Grande Chartreuse, across the borders of Savoy to Chambéry. So far the +currency in use had been 'neir Turneis,' or black money of Tours, 14_d._ +of 'petit tournois' being equivalent to one 'gros tournois,' the standard +to which all other denominations are reduced in these accounts, a coin +worth approximately 3_d._ sterling; but now and all the way through Savoy +and Piedmont payments are entered in 'Vieneys,' of which seventeen went to +the 'gros tournois.' + +Through the mountainous district of Savoy progress was markedly slower, +the sixty miles from Chambéry to Susa taking six days. The road by which +they travelled followed the valley of the Arc, as does the modern railway, +past Montmélian, la Chambre, and St. Michel; but as the Mont Cenis tunnel +had not then been completed the ambassador and his suite had to go farther +east to Lansle Bourg, toiling up Mont Cenis to the hospice founded on that +storm-swept road by the pious King Louis, first of his name, and then +dropping down to Piedmont and the ancient town of Susa, where after the +hardships of the day's journey they regaled themselves with 'tartes et +flaunes.' Whether it was the climbing or the flauns I do not know, but +next day Sir Hugh's palfreman was ill, and another servant had to be put +in his place at Avigliano. On Friday, April 25, Turin was reached, and a +stay was made here until the following Tuesday, a rest that must have been +welcome after three weeks' continuous travelling. Portmanteaux and bags +were repaired, clothes washed, and bodies reinvigorated by a more varied +choice of food than was possible while travelling; shoulders of mutton, +pigeons, chickens, figs, grapes, and other fruit were bought, and the cook +prepared 'charlet,' evidently an ancestress of the aristocratic Charlotte +Russe rather than of her plebeian namesake Apple Charlotte, as the +constituents were milk and eggs. The journey was resumed on Wednesday, +April 30, the route lying eastwards through Chivasso and Moncalvo to an +unidentifiable place, 'Basseignanh,' evidently just across the Po in +Lombardy, as here the coinage becomes 'emperials,' of which it required +twenty to make a 'gros tournois.' Lomello, Pavia, Piacenza, Borgo San +Donnino (where for the first time we note a purchase of cheese, for which +the district is still famous), Parma, Reggio, and Modena follow in +uneventful succession, but instead of continuing along the same line to +Bologna, as does the modern traveller, the embassy now turned sharply to +the south-west to Sassuolo. In this more countrified district the rate of +exchange fell, and the 'gros tournois' was only worth eighteen instead of +twenty 'emperials,' but as a compensation the accountant notes under +Frassinoro, the next station on the road through the picturesque valley of +the Secchia, that the expenses of four days were small, thanks to the +presents of 'la Marcoys.' I am not clear as to the identity of this +Marquess; all this part of Italy was a mass of little lordships and +semi-independent principalities, but for the most part their lords were +Dukes. The Marquess of Carrara seems a reasonable suggestion--if I am +right in thinking that there was such a person, and am not confusing him +with the Marquess of Carabas, who, from his occurrence in the history of +_Puss in Boots_, was presumably a noble of Catalonia. Lucca was reached on +the eve of Ascension Day, and the feast itself was spent at Pistoia, where +the coinage in use was 'Pisans,' the 'gros tournois' being worth 4_s._ +2_d._ of Pisan money. The same currency continued in use in Florence and +Siena, after which 'curteneys' are introduced, the 'gros tournois' being +worth 5_s._ of this money, which, however, was only in use for two days, +during which halts were made at Acquapendente and Santa Cristina, a town +on the shore of the Lake of Bolsena, which name commemorates that saint's +escape from martyrdom by drowning, thanks to the miraculous buoyancy of +her millstone, on which she floated to shore as St. Piran floated on his +stone to the delectable duchy of Cornwall. After this the accounts are +kept at Viterbo in 'paperins,' 3_s._ 4_d._ of papal money being equivalent +to the 'gros tournois,' changing next day, for the last time on the way +out, to 'provis,' at 2_s._ 10_d._ Passing Sutri and Isola, Rome was +reached on Whit Monday. Here they found Master Thomas of Southwark, who +had been sent on ahead to hire lodgings and furniture, and here they spent +six weeks. + +[Illustration: '_St. Piran._'] + +Pope Boniface having agreed to act as arbiter between the Kings of France +and England, Sir Hugh de Vere's mission was accomplished and the embassy +left Rome on the afternoon of Thursday, July 9, the Count of Savoy +accompanying them as far as Isola, their first halting-place. The route +followed as far as Pistoia was the same as that taken on the way out, but +by rather shorter stages, as several of the party appear to have been +knocked up by the heat. At San Quirico, between Acquapendente and Siena, +hackneys were hired for the invalids and special dishes were prepared for +them--eggs, honey, and apples being bought 'to make appilmus,' as well as +'verjus, peresill et autre sause.' Ten miles out of Pistoia, at Buggiano, +a halt had to be made and rooms hired for the sick members of the party, +who were left here while the others went on to Lucca. Here a fortnight's +stay was made, and when the journey was resumed, on August 5, progress was +very slow. Possibly in order to get the benefit of the sea air a different +route was followed from this point. The halt at Lucca had not restored the +strength of the invalids, and the party crept on at about five miles a +day, stopping at insignificant villages, such as 'Pont Sent Pere' and +'Valprumaye' between Lucca and Camajore, 'Fregedo' on the coast between +Pietrasanta and Sarzana, 'Pamarne' and 'La Matillane' between Sarzana, +where a three days' halt was made, and Borghetto. It would seem that there +was a particularly bad piece of road after Sestri, as Sir Hugh and the +other sick persons were taken by boat from Sestri to Chiavari, where a +whole week was spent. During this halt Wilkoc the clerk was sent into +Genoa to fetch a doctor for Sir Hugh, and at the same time, money having +run short, fresh supplies were obtained from some Pistoian merchants +resident in the town. Fortunately Genoa was well furnished with both cash +and curatives, for not only was it one of the richest ports in Europe, but +it shared with its rival, Venice, the fame of producing a 'treacle' which +possessed as many healing virtues as any of the quack compounds that now +make England hideous to the railway traveller. + +After halts at Rapallo, Recco, and Nervi, Genoa was reached on September +4. Here they rested for two weeks, and as the treacle had apparently +proved ineffectual, even when supplemented with 'surupes, leitwaires, +especeries, emplastres et totes manieres de medicines,' seven members of +the party who were still ill were sent by sea to Savona. Their comrades +who came by land having joined them, they left the coast and turned north +through Cortemiglia, 'Castillol,' which I suppose is Castagnole, +Villanova, and Rivoli, ten miles west of Turin, to Susa. Here two days +were spent and 'Monsieur Johan Carbonel and Jak le Gigneur' dined with +them, but who these guests were I do not know. From Susa to Chambéry the +route followed was that by which the embassy had travelled on their way +out, but from Chambéry they took a more easterly road through Belley, St. +Rambert, and Bourg, rejoining the former route at Tournus. From 'Petit +Paris,' somewhere between Nogent-sur-Seine and Tournan, four men were sent +on ahead to secure accommodation. Only one night was spent in Paris, and +our travellers pressed on northwards through Hodancourt, Etrépagny, +Oisemont, and Neufchâtel by Boulogne to Wissant, which they reached on the +last day of October, and whence they crossed to England a week later, +regaling themselves in the meanwhile with whelks and mustard--not +necessarily eaten together. + +[Illustration: '_... crossed to England._'] + +Sir Hugh and his company had thus been out of England eight months, the +journey to Rome occupying some seven weeks, but the return trip covering +four months. If we have no hint of any adventures and few details of +anything but food, it only shows that the roads were safe and the +travellers good Englishmen. + + + + +III + +CORONATIONS + + +At the present time[1] the coronation is the Rome towards which all roads +lead; and if a walk down Oxford Street lands us among 'coronation' cuffs +and collars and soaps and souvenirs it is only to be expected that a +Mediæval Byway should bring us into the subject of coronations. For of all +the survivals with which we are surrounded in this conservative country +the coronation ceremonies, though shorn of much of their grandeur and +significance during the last hundred years, are still the most unchanged +in spirit and in detail. For one thing, they restore to London for a brief +period the predominant feature of mediæval life--colour. For a few days, +in 1911 as in 1236, the city is 'adorned with silkes, banners, crownes, +pals, tapers, lampes, and with certaine wonders of wit and strange +showes'; and, though the colour-scheme is baulked of fulness by the sad +clothes of the spectators, there is a blaze of gaiety which is pleasing in +its appeal to primitive instincts and its disregard of business and +utilitarianism. + +[Illustration: '_Henry's badge._'] + +The proceedings in connection with the coronation of our mediæval kings +began at the Tower. Very significant was it that before taking formal +possession of his throne the king took practical possession of the +fortress. But if his claim to the crown rested partly on force and the +strong hand, it rested also upon the elective will of the people, and +accordingly, on the day before the coronation the king rode from the Tower +to Westminster Palace to show himself to his subjects that they might see +what sort of man it was whom they were choosing for king. Naturally the +processional ride was made as magnificent and impressive as possible. With +the king went a crowd of nobles, all on horseback, conspicuous amongst +them being the recipients of 'coronation honours,' the new-made Knights of +the Bath, usually thirty or forty in number, upon whom the honour of +knighthood had been bestowed, with the accompaniment of scarlet-furred +robes and other gifts of apparel, the previous day. Richard III., whose +cavalcade eclipsed the splendour of his predecessors, was accompanied by +three dukes, nine earls, and a hundred knights and lords, all gorgeously +attired, 'whereof the Duke of Buckingham so farre exceeded, that the +caparison of his horse was so charged with embroydered worke of gold, as +it was borne up from the ground by certaine his footmen thereto +appointed.' Nor did Henry VII., though careful and even parsimonious in +most matters, spare expense over his procession. He himself was arrayed in +rich cloth of gold of a purple ground, of which ten yards were bought from +Jerome Friscobaldi at the prodigious price of £8 the yard; the 'trappour,' +or caparison, of his charger was made of crimson damask cloth of gold, +costing £80, and either this or another trappour was adorned with 102 +silver-gilt 'portculiez' (Henry's badge, so often repeated upon the walls +of his chapel at the Abbey) made by 'Hanche Doucheman.' Over the king's +head was a canopy of cloth of gold, the gilded staves of which were +carried by relays of knights, changed at frequent intervals that many +might partake of the honourable but arduous duty, and in attendance on him +were the 'henxmen,' dressed in crimson satin (costing 16_s._ the yard) and +white cloth of gold embroidered with the royal arms from designs by +Christian Poynter, who also executed twelve 'cotes of armes for herauldes, +beten and wrought in oyle colours with fyne gold,' and twelve similar +trumpet banners. The henchmen led the spare charger which for some reason +always formed part of the royal procession. It was, possibly, for this +state charger that the 'trappours of St. George' were made, of white cloth +of gold, but the 'trappour of blue velvet with 102 red roses worked with +Venice gold and dragons of red velvet,' and the other 'trappour' with the +arms of Cadwallader, clearly belonged to the queen's portion of the +procession. She was clad in white damask cloth of gold, reclining on +cushions of the same material in a litter drawn by two horses with white +harness and trappings, under a canopy of white damask with silver staves. +Five henchmen in crimson and blue led her palfrey of estate; then came +three 'cheires,' or carriages, each containing four ladies and draped in +crimson, and then seven ladies in blue velvet 'purfelled' with crimson +satin, riding on palfreys all of one colour with harness of crimson cloth +of gold, her suite displaying a splendour of colour which formed an +excellent foil to her own silvery radiance. + +[Illustration: _A 'herauld.'_] + +Our sovereigns no longer start from a fortress to ascend the throne, and +they show themselves to their loyal subjects after they have been crowned +instead of before the ceremony, not from any fear that they may prove +unacceptable to the people, but because none would dream of challenging +their right. But if Buckingham Palace is a less satisfactory +starting-point than the Tower (and there are artists who consider the +latter the more picturesque), there are some things in which we have +improved upon our ancestors. Chief amongst these are the police +arrangements. It is no longer necessary to proclaim, as was done when +Edward II. was crowned, 'That no one shall dare to carry sword, or pointed +knife, or dagger, mace, or club, or other arms on pain of imprisonment for +a year and a day'--the only weapon of offence thus sternly prohibited +now-a-days being the aeroplane. Nor is the threat of a similar penalty +needed to ensure the polite treatment of foreigners attending the +coronation. A certain amount of severity was no doubt required to +counteract the effects of nine conduits in the Cheap running red and white +wine, with auxiliary fountains at Westminster, however weak the wine may +have been. Modern coronations are not 'hanseld and auspicated,' as was +that of Richard I., with the blood of many Jews, because some of their +number had dared sacrilegiously to gaze upon the king--a privilege +notoriously accorded to cats, but evidently forbidden to a dog of a Jew. +On the other hand, we are spared such disastrous overcrowding as occurred +at the coronation of Edward II., when the king had to go out of his palace +by the back door to avoid the crush, and by the pressure of the crowd +within the Abbey a stout earthen wall was broken down, a prominent citizen +'threstyd to deth,' and the area reserved for the ceremony invaded. + +It would seem from the instance just quoted that the temporary erections +made by our ancestors on these occasions would not have passed the L.C.C. +tests, and we may also flatter ourselves that they would never have been +capable of hiding their churches and other public buildings under a sea of +ingeniously constructed deal seats, but still the carpenters and +upholsterers were kept pretty busy at the Abbey for some little time +before the ceremony, though the tradesmen who most benefited were the +leading mercers, who had to supply great quantities of cloth of gold, +velvet, Turkish and Italian silks, samite, and fine linen of Tripoli. +Within the Abbey, at the crossing of the transepts, a high stage had to be +erected for the chair of state, where the king sat in full view of the +people during the first part of the service. This stage was covered with +rugs and hung round with silken cloth of gold, the chair of state being +also provided with a golden canopy and silken cushions. Several varieties +of cloth of gold were used, the bill for this material at the coronation +of Edward III., in 1327, amounting to £450, much of it being bought from +one John de Perers, who might very well have been the father of Alice +Perers, that 'busy court-flie' who infatuated the king in his declining +years. The most expensive variety was 'silken cloth of gold of Nak,' but +what place is meant by Nak I cannot say with any certainty: just +conceivably it might be Nasik close to Bombay, for much of this material +came from at least as far east as Turkey; but whatever its place of +origin, it was used for the king's hose and shoes, and for the little tent +or shrine before the high altar within which the ceremony of anointing, +with its attendant disrobing, took place. The next most valuable kind is +described as _raffata_--presumably 'reeded,' though the word is not to be +found in Ducange (when will some one do for mediæval Latin what Oxford and +Sir James Murray are doing for modern English?)--was used for covering the +archbishop's chair, while of a third variety, diapered or damask, one +whole cloth was offered at the high altar, and two cloths sewed together +were used to cover the tomb of the king's grandfather, Edward I. Others of +these diaper cloths, with purple velvet and cloth of Tartar, or Armenian, +silk, were used in the chancel and round the high altar, while canvas +cloth of gold was mixed with the more precious kinds or employed in less +important positions. + +[Illustration: '_The young Edward III._'] + +The king, after his ride to Westminster Palace, partook of a light supper +and retired to his chamber. If he had not already been knighted he +prepared for that ceremony, a usual though not invariable preliminary to +coronation, by keeping vigil. The room in which the young Edward III. +rested was provided with red rugs with the royal arms worked in the +corners, three 'bankers' or bench covers of a like design, and other +'bankers' of red, green, murrey and blue, and his bath was covered with +silken cloth of gold, though for the bath of Henry VII. Flemish linen was +considered good enough. On the morning of the coronation day the king, +after the ceremonial bath, put on spotless raiment, to signify that 'as +his body glistens with the washing and the beauty of his vestments so may +his soul shine,' and went into Westminster Hall, where he was lifted by +his lords into his throne. Presently the royal procession, the king +walking barefoot and the various nobles carrying the regalia, started +down the covered way, carpeted with the coarse burrell cloth of +Candlewykstrete (now Cannon Street), so much of this carpet as lay outside +the church being the perquisite of the lord of the manor of Bedford as +almoner for the day, and were met by the monks and clergy, and by them +conducted into the Abbey. With the details of the ceremony that then +ensued, 'whereof the circumstaunce to shewe in ordre wolde aske a longe +leysoure,' all who are interested must by this time be well acquainted, so +often and so fully has it been described. + +[Illustration: _Crowns ancient and modern._] + +The ceremonial investiture was performed with the regalia of St. Edward, +preserved in the Abbey treasury and regarded as too sacred for lay hands +to touch, so that in the procession they were carried set out upon a +covered board; but before the close of the service the king laid aside the +crown of St. Edward and assumed his royal crown. This did not resemble the +glittering monstrosity with which we now render our sovereigns' heads +uncomfortable and slightly absurd, but was a dignified and artistic +circlet of the type known to heraldic writers as a ducal coronet. Edward +III. had three crowns, all of gold, the chief--described in 1356 as +'lately pawned in Flanders'--with eight fleurs-de-lys of rubies and +emeralds with four great orient pearls and eight sprays of balas rubies +and orient sapphires; the second, given to Queen Philippa, had ten +fleurs-de-lys of rubies and emeralds with groups of emeralds and six +pearls; the third was not, strictly speaking, a crown, but a chaplet, +being an unflowered circlet with nine groups of great oriental pearls and +in the midst a beautiful ruby. Wearing his crown and attended by his +nobles bearing the other insignia of royalty, the newly anointed king +returned to Westminster Palace for the great business of the coronation +banquet. For this event Westminster Hall was prepared, a 'siege royal,' or +throne, being set for the king at the upper end, covered with 'Turkish +cloth of gold,' or other handsome material, with a canopy. The benches of +the lower tables were covered with 'bankers' of red or blue cloth and +'dorsers' of the same material hung behind the guests--the 'dorser' being +the mediæval equivalent of the 'thing they call a dodo, running round the +wall.' The 'dorsers' behind the royal seat were of cloth of gold and were +protected from the dampness of the walls by a lining of canvas. When the +guests were seated in their order of precedence, and the Earl Marshal and +his attendants had ridden up and down the hall to make room for the +attendants, the banquet began, and during its course a number of nobles +and lords of manors had the duty or privilege of discharging various +services to the king, receiving as a rule valuable perquisites. Thus the +table had been laid by the lord of Kibworth-Beauchamp manor, in return for +which service he kept the salt cellar, knives, and spoons; the cloths and +napkins had been provided by the lord of Ashley in Essex, as Chief Napier, +and remained his property. The important post of Chief Butler was filled +by the Earl of Arundel, though at the coronation of Queen Eleanor, in +1236, his place was taken by the Earl of Surrey, as he had been +excommunicated by the Archbishop of Canterbury in a quarrel over sporting +rights, but the lord of Wimondley had the privilege of passing the first +cup of wine to the king, and then withdrew in favour of the mayor of +London, who acted as chief cupbearer--not without reward, for at the +coronation feast of Edward III. the mayor received as his fee a gold cup +enamelled with the royal arms, and a gold 'water-spout-pot,' or ewer, +ornamented with enamel and two Scottish pearls. At the same feast the +Earl of Lancaster as steward secured four silver chargers stamped with the +arms of Harclay, and four others bearing the badge of the Countess of +Hereford, ten silver skewers, and eight sauce-boats, each marked with the +royal leopard, and the chamberlain carried off two basins parcel gilt and +enamelled with the arms of England and Scotland. The lord of Addington +supplied a dish of gruel and the lord of Liston in Essex wafers; other +persons brought water and held basins and towels, and the head of the +family of Dymoke of Scrivelsby rode into the hall in full armour, with his +punning crest of a moke's ears on his helm, and offered to fight any one +who would deny the king's sovereignty. + +[Illustration: '_Dymoke of Scrivelsby._'] + +But after all the main thing at a feast is the food. And that was +plentiful--even at the banquet of Edward II., where the waiting was +disgraceful. For his coronation feast Edward I. sent out orders to the +sheriffs of the different counties to provide 27,800 chickens, 540 oxen, +about a thousand pigs and 250 sheep, besides instructing the prelates to +send up as many swans, peacocks, cranes, rabbits, and kids as possible, +and also giving large orders for salmon, pike, eels, and lampreys. It is +not surprising that his cook, Hugh of Malvern, required six oaks and six +beeches to be made into tables for the kitchen. This suggests a certain +grossness of feeding which a study of the actual menu might dissipate; +certainly the banquets of later sovereigns were sufficiently elaborate and +varied. When Henry VI. was crowned in 1429, at the early age of nine, he +was served with three 'courses.' The first of these included not only +boiled beef and mutton, capons, herons, and cygnets, but 'Frument with +venyson; viand royall plantyd losynges of golde; Bore hedes in castellys +of golde and enarmed; a rede leche with lyons coruyn therin'--in other +words, a pink jelly or mould ornamented with lions--and, as a crowning +glory, 'Custarde royall with a lyoparde of golde syttynge therein and +holdynge a floure de lyce.' The second course, besides chickens, +partridges, cranes, peacock 'enhakyll' (with its feathers), and rabbits, +contained 'pygge endoryd'--gilded sucking-pig--'a frytour garnysshed with +a leopardes hede and two estryche feders; Gely party wryten and notyd with +Te Deum Laudamus,' and, as a masterpiece, 'A whyte leche (or blancmange) +plantyd with a rede antelop, a crowne aboute his necke with a chayne of +golde; flampayne powderyd with leopardes and flower delyce of golde.' +After this the third course, with no creation more wonderful than 'A bake +mete lyke a shylde, quarteryd red and whyte, sette with losenges gylte and +floures of borage,' falls rather flat. With each course was presented a +'sotyltie,' or elaborate device made, presumably, of sugar and pastry, +representing groups of kings and saints. These 'subtleties,' however, were +not to be compared to those at the coronation banquet of Katherine of +France, queen of Henry V. Her banquet also was of three courses, 'and ye +shall understand that this feest was all of fysshe,' and a most +astonishing variety of fish there was. Besides all the common +fish--salmon, soles, turbot, etc.--there were lampreys, in comparison +with which Henry III. once declared that all other fish were insipid, +'sturgeon with welkes,' a combination of the royal and the plebeian, fried +'menues,' or minnows, the mediæval whitebait, conger, now much neglected, +and 'porpies rostyd,' besides a score of other kinds, including certain +mysterious 'dedellys in burneux.' The sweets included 'Gely coloured with +columbyne floures'; 'flampeyn--a kind of raised pie--flourished with a +scochon royall, therein three crownes of golde plantyd with floure delyce +and floures of camemyll wrought of confeccyons'; 'A whyte leche +flourysshed with hawthorne levys and redde hawys;' and 'A march payne +garnysshed with dyverse fygures of aungellys, amonge the whiche was set an +ymage of Seynt Katheryne holdynge this rason, _Il est escrit, pur voir et +dit, per mariage pur cest guerre ne dure_.' Of the 'sotylties' the first +showed a pelican and its young, and an image of St. Katherine (of +Alexandria) holding a book in one hand and an inscribed scroll in the +other; the second showed a panther, the Queen's badge, and St. Katherine +with her more usual emblem, the wheel. The third and most elaborate was 'a +tigre lokyng in a mirrour and a man sittyng on horse backe, clene armyd, +holdyng in his armys a tiger whelpe, with this reason (_i.e._ motto), _Par +force sanz reson ie ay pryse ceste beste_, and with his one hande makynge +a countenaunce of throwynge of mirrours at the great tigre, the whiche +helde this reason, _Gile de mirrour ma fete distour_.' The legend of the +Tiger and the Mirror has been very fully worked out in connection with the +arms of the Kentish family of Sybill by Mr. G. C. Druce, a great authority +on unnatural history, but he does not appear to have known this instance +of its occurrence. An early bestiary informs us that 'there is a beast +which is called Tiger; it is a kind of serpent' (this suggests the +zoological classification of _Punch's_ railway porter--'Cats is dogs and +rabbits is dogs, but a tortoise is a hinsect'). 'This beast is of a nature +so courageous and fierce that no living man dares to approach it. When +the beast has young the hunters ... watch until they see the tiger go off +and leave its den and its young; they then seize the cubs and place +mirrors in the path just where they leave. The character of the tiger is +such that however angry it may be it is unable to look in the mirror +without its gaze becoming fixed.' (Surely this is more suggestive of Eve +than of the serpent?) 'It believes then that it is its cub that it sees in +the mirror; it recognises its figure with great satisfaction and believes +positively to have found its cub.' (This property of the mirror may +explain the puzzling question why so many ladies persist in dressing like +their own daughters.) Thus the hunters escape while the tiger stops where +it is, and I think that I had better follow the tiger's example. + +[Illustration: '_The tiger and the mirror._'] + + + + +IV + +DEATH AND DOCTORS + + +To read a medical dictionary is to marvel that any man should enjoy even +brief intervals of health, there are so many delicate organs in the body +and so many diseases lying in wait for them. Read the pronouncements of +specialists on diet and the dangers which attend the eating of any food or +the drinking of any liquid, and the marvel grows. Add the extraordinary +facility with which accidents occur, and the margin between life and death +becomes surprisingly narrow. The crew of a destroyer are habitually +separated from the other world by about a quarter of an inch of steel. +With most of us the partition is less obvious, less constant and uniform, +but very nearly as thin in places. For any but the most hardened there +must always be a feeling of pleased surprise upon emerging safely on the +other side of Piccadilly Circus or the Embankment by Blackfriars. (It is +true that in the latter case a paternal, not to say grandmotherly, Council +has provided the unexciting alternative of a subway, but only leisurely +athletes have the time or energy to descend and reascend those stairs.) +The average City man is within inches and seconds of death every day, and +it is only when the inches and seconds become fractional that he realises +for the moment his insecurity of tenure. Which is just as well. Every age +has its own dangers: we have the motor car, unwitting apostle of socialism +in its brutal, individualistic disregard for the rights of others; +mediæval man, I am inclined to think, ran most risk from the quick temper +of his fellows. + +From time to time, when some undesirable alien is arrested for stabbing an +enemy or chance acquaintance who has annoyed him, the police-court +magistrate before whom he is brought will comment, with patriotic pride, +on the 'un-English' nature of the offence. And it is true that at the +present time the Englishman as a rule emphasises his disagreement with his +opponent by means of fist or hob-nailed boot rather than with a knife, but +this was certainly not so in mediæval times. Call a man 'a boor' nowadays +and you may get a black eye, but the results were more disastrous in the +thirteenth century, as John Marsh found when he applied that opprobrious +term to Richard Fraunkfee as they were walking back from church at +Doncaster, for Richard promptly knifed him. Every man in those days +carried a knife, dagger, anelace, or baselard, and produced it without +hesitation if angered. Needless to say, the knife was much in evidence +after harvest feasts, wakes, and especially visits to the tavern, for +drunkenness has been an English vice since Fitz Stephen, in the twelfth +century, spoke of 'the inordinate drinking of fools' as one of the two +plagues of London. How far this failing was common to both sexes I do not +know; casual references to women in taverns occur occasionally, but they +might have been there as blamelessly as their descendants in a modern +tea-shop, and, so far as I can remember, I have only come across one woman +who met her death when drunk--a Yorkshire woman who fell down a well. At +the same time, seeing that 'the good wyf taugte hir dougter' in the +fifteenth century that 'if thou be ofte drunke it falle thee to schame,' +it looks as if occasional excess might have been condoned. With the +exception of drunkenness, the moving cause of the innumerable murderous +assaults is rarely given, and it is rather curious that the only two cases +which I have found of men quarrelling, with fatal results, over a woman +both occurred at ironworks in Yorkshire in 1266. + +[Illustration: '_... got his arms round a branch._'] + +Knives were not infrequently responsible for deaths without any evil +intent on the part of their owners. In quite a large number of cases when +boys were playing together a knife would fall out of its sheath and +inflict a mortal wound. And then, if the owner were over twelve, he would +have, theoretically, to go to prison and stay there till he received a +formal pardon from the king for accidental manslaughter. I say +'theoretically' because in practice the culprit usually 'fled,' which, I +suspect, meant that he went round the corner while the village constable +carefully looked in the wrong place for him. An unusual incident connected +with a knife occurred in Dorset in 1280, when a girl, clearing the table +after dinner, picked up the tablecloth with a knife inside, and as she +went out of the room tripped and fell so that the knife stuck into her. It +was about the same date that a Suffolk peasant, William le Keu, flung a +knife against the wall of his house and it bounded off and killed his +infant daughter, lying on her mother's lap in front of the fire. Why he +should have thrown his knife at the wall does not appear, but people were +always throwing things about and hitting inoffensive passers-by. For +instance, a man would fling a rake or a flail at some chicken and hit his +own child. Children, in fact, had an unhappy knack of coming round the +corner with disastrous results to themselves, especially when their +elders were playing quoits or pennystone down the village street. One of +the most curious cases of what we may call an indirect accident was when +two small boys went into an orchard to get apples; one of them threw a +stone up into a tree, but instead of bringing down an apple it hit a stone +that some one had thrown up long before, and this fell on his cousin's +head and killed him. Another case of the unforeseen happened in +Nottinghamshire in the thirteenth century, when Richard Palmer was +climbing a tree in a churchyard to take a crow's nest. He was standing on +a bough when suddenly it broke; but the result was not what might have +been expected, for Richard got his arms round a branch and after hanging +for a long time came down safely, but the broken bough fell on the head of +a man standing down below, and 'the dog it was that died.' + +[Illustration: '_The broken bough fell on the head of a man standing down +below._'] + +Fire, the second of Fitz Stephen's 'plagues,' played its part in +preventing over-population, as might be expected when the framework of the +huts was of wood, the roof of thatch and the floor covered with straw or +rushes. If a woman went to bed leaving a lighted candle stuck on the wall +it was hardly surprising if she paid for her carelessness with her life, +but as a rule the victims were children or very old people, and as often +as not the immediate cause was some chicken, or pig, or calf getting on to +the open hearth and scattering the fire on to the straw-covered floor. For +the mediæval peasant shared his hut with his live stock, though it would +not be often that a man would be called upon to separate two horses +fighting in his kitchen; this did actually happen to a man in Winchester, +and as usual the peacemaker got the worst of it. Fire, again, acting +indirectly through the medium of water, was another frequent cause of +disaster, a most astonishing number of cases occurring of persons, usually +children, scalded to death. I can only suppose that the cauldrons were +large and insecurely balanced; that they were large may be concluded from +the frequency with which people fell into them. But cold water was perhaps +as deadly an agent as any. In Yorkshire in particular the coroners' rolls +suggest that the number of people that fell off bridges and out of boats +into streams and down wells must have seriously interfered with the purity +of the water supply; but, fortunately, water was very rarely drunk in +those days. The most frequent cause of drowning seems to have been falling +off a horse, and the mediæval version of the well-known proverb ought to +have been 'One man can ride a horse to the water, but nine out of ten +can't stay on when he drinks.' Taking the number of cases in which men +watering their horses did get drowned, and allowing that a reasonable +percentage of those thrown into the water scrambled out again, the +standard of mediæval riding must have been about equal to that of the +White Knight, who, when his horse stopped fell over its head, and when it +went on again fell over its tail. + +Occasionally the propelling agent, so to speak, was human, as in the case +of a clothworker of Tadcaster, who, 'being annoyed with his wife,' flung +her into the Wharfe and drowned her. The measure seems extreme, and he +could not plead peril of shipwreck, the excuse of the Syracusan, who, +'when all ponderous things were to be exonerated out of the ship,' flung +his wife into the sea 'because she was the greatest burden.' + +In spite of a verdict of 'misadventure,' I cannot help feeling a little +sceptical about an incident which took place at Bedford in 1220, when +William the miller was driving certain Jews in his cart, and at the bridge +the cart fell into the water and three Jews were drowned. As I read the +story there came into my mind Sam Weller's conversation with Mr. Pickwick +about his father's remarkable accident with the voters: '"Here and there +it is a wery bad road," says my father. "'Specially near the canal, I +think," says the gentleman.... You wouldn't believe it, sir, but on the +wery day as he came down with them woters his coach was upset on that 'ere +wery spot and every man on 'em was turned into the canal.' + +Occasionally, also, the victim was a voluntary one, as in the case of John +Milner, who, with the contempt for consequences which we might expect from +one of his name, jumped into the Ouse. The consequence for him was that he +became what Mr. Mantalini called 'a demmed, moist, unpleasant corpse,' and +the jury decided that he had acted 'by temptation of the Devil.' While +they displayed a certain boldness in thus arraigning the Devil for +procuring, aiding, and abetting a felony, they showed more discretion in +another quarter, for when a man and his wife were found struck by +lightning, where a modern jury would have declared it an 'act of God' the +mediæval jury preferred the less dogmatic and more reasonable verdict that +'no one is suspected.' It is pleasant to note that in another instance, +where the body of a man struck by lightning was first found by his wife, +the jury expressly exonerated her, saying 'she is not suspected' (of +having done it). + +I am not quite certain of the force of a verdict of 'by temptation of the +Devil' in a case of suicide, but it seems to have been the half-way house +between _felo-de-se_ and madness, to have been, in fact, the mediæval +equivalent of that 'temporary insanity' which is the invariable verdict in +modern times. The idea that a man must be mad to take his own life, and +that therefore all suicides were insane, had not occurred to the mediæval +mind, but they evidently felt that there were cases in which the suicide +was not himself, although he was not sufficiently outside or beside +himself to be considered an absolute lunatic. There are strange and grim +little stories of madmen in some of these old records. One of these, not +wanting in pathos in its evidence of good intentions diabolically twisted, +tells how Robert de Bramwyk, a lunatic who had some lucid intervals (and +was, therefore, probably not so closely guarded), in a fit of frenzy took +his sister Denise, who had been deformed and hunchbacked from her birth, +and, wishing to make her straight, cast her into a cauldron of hot water, +and taking her out of this bath trampled upon her with his feet to +straighten her limbs. + +[Illustration: '_... cast her into a cauldron._'] + +With the exception of this madman's empiric bone-setting I only remember +to have come across one instance of an operation being mentioned in this +particular class of coroner's records. This was in 1330, when Richard de +Berneston, a surgeon of Nottingham, cut a 'wenne' on the arm of William de +Brunnesley and William afterwards died of heart failure. It is rather +remarkable that doctors seem hardly ever to have been held responsible +for the death of their patients, though in 1350 we do find Thomas Rasyn, +leech, and Pernel, his wife, pardoned for the death of John Panyers, +miller, of Sidmouth, whom they were said to have killed through ignorance +of their art; the inclusion of the wife seems to point to a mediæval +nursing home. As a rule, probably, when a patient died under a doctor's +care, his relations took the matter philosophically and assumed that the +treatment had been correct and that he would have died in any case. It was +the patients who survived that made all the fuss. For instance, there was +Thomas Medewe, the vicar of a Hertfordshire parish in the fifteenth +century, who 'by goddys visitacion had an infirmyte in his throte.' The +local practitioner, or his equivalent, who would probably have been a +'wise woman,' being unable to deal with it, the vicar came up to London +and consulted John Dayvyle, surgeon, who gave him a plaster for his throat +which did him much good and only cost 4_d._ Unfortunately for both +parties, the surgeon finding that his patient was 'nygh hole' as a result +of his first experiment insisted upon his having another plaster, for +which he charged 20_d._ to make him 'thurgh hole.' The result was +disastrous, as the patient 'felle in suche infirmitye that he might not +speke and was like therby to have dyed' if he had not called in another +doctor. It was, in the circumstances, perhaps natural that the vicar +expressed his feelings strongly when Dayvyle sent in a bill for 20_s._ for +attendance. There was the case also of Edmund Broke, of Southampton, who +came up to London to undergo an operation, and put himself in the hands of +Nicholas Sax, who stipulated for a fee of 33_s._ 4_d._, of which 13_s._ +4_d._ was paid in advance. The patient, according to his own account, was +in jeopardy of his life through the 'defaute and unkunnyng' of Dr. Sax, +and had to call in John Surgeon, 'dwelling at Powlez cheyn,' who cured him +and to whom he paid the 20_s._ which his incompetent attendant claimed was +due to him. + +Of course there was another side to the question, patients then as now +being more ready with promises when ill than with fees when well. There +was William Robinson, for instance, a haberdasher of Lombard Street, who +fell ill with pestilence and sent for William Paronus, promising that if +he would only save him 'he would reward him as well as ever he was +rewarded for any cure'; but when, after a month's attendance, he was well +again, he declined even to pay the doctor's out-of-pocket expenses +incurred for drugs. And sometimes there were cases in which it was +difficult to decide who was in the right. One such case came into court in +1292. Mauger le Vavassour, a member of a leading Yorkshire family, fell +ill; his wife, Agnes, and other friends, including his uncle, Henry le +Chapeleyn, sent for Master Otto of Germany, evidently a doctor of repute, +promising him one mark to come and see the invalid, and further six marks +if he would undertake his treatment. So Master Otto paid his visit and +then went off to York to the apothecary's and compounded various medicines +and healing drinks, which he gave to Mauger, with excellent effect. When +the patient was convalescent Master Otto put him on a very strict diet, +so strict that Mauger grew restive, and his wife, who sympathised with his +feelings, gave him various forbidden foods. The doctor, finding his orders +disobeyed, declined to accept responsibility, washed his hands of the case +and withdrew. The question then arose whether he was entitled to his fees +or whether he had shown neglect by leaving his patient before he was fully +cured. The jury decided that Master Otto ordered the strict diet for +Mauger's good, and not, as had been suggested, with the object of keeping +him weak, and so increasing the bill for attendance, but they also found +that as a matter of fact the extra food did the patient good and not harm. +The verdict being thus for both parties the judges were puzzled and +reserved their decision. + +Another rather curious point cropped up about the middle of the fifteenth +century. Eryk de Vedica, one of the brethren of the Grey Friars of London, +was a physician of skill and reputation, and was sent for by Alice, wife +of William Stede, a vintner. She seems to have been in a very bad way, and +when Brother Eryk saw her and understood her 'grete age and jubertous +sikeness' he was with difficulty persuaded to attempt her cure. However, +after five weeks' attention he 'had soo doon hys parte vnto her that she +thought herself wele amended in her body, she cowde hym grete thancke and +gave hym 20_s._ for his labour.' And then her curmudgeon of a husband, who +was possibly not particularly pleased at her recovery, sued Brother Eryk +for taking the money, and technically the unfortunate friar had no +defence, as 'the common law supposeth every receiving of the husband's +goods or money by the hands of his wife without his licence or command to +be a wrongful taking away of the same from him.' We will hope that the +Court of Chancery, whose assistance was invoked, over-ruled the Common Law +and did the friar justice. + +It was not unusual for friars to have a knowledge of science and medicine, +but a statement that I read the other day in a book recently published, +that most (I believe my author said 'all') mediæval doctors 'were, of +course, monks' is singularly wide of the truth. On the contrary, in even +the largest monasteries it was customary to call in a doctor from outside +in any case of serious illness, and the greater houses frequently retained +the services of a secular physician. The cathedral monastery of +Winchester, for instance, in the fourteenth century, made an agreement +with Master Thomas of Shaftesbury that he should attend the convent in +return for his board and lodging, the board, it may be noticed, including +a daily allowance of one and a half gallons of the best ale and a gallon +of a smaller brew. It is probable also that Master Adam of St. Albans, +surgeon, who came from the priory of Ely to attend King Edward I. in his +last illness at Lanercost, was the cathedral doctor. There were, of +course, medical attendants attached to the court; their salaries were not +large, the surgeons of the first two Edwards being paid only from one to +two pounds a year, but there were perquisites in the shape of furred +robes, gifts of money, or silver goblets from grateful patients, and +substantial pickings in the shape of ecclesiastical benefices--the +favourite way of pensioning a court physician being to give him one or +more prebends or rectories. Occasionally the pension took the form of +landed estate, as when Edward III. gave land in Kildare to his surgeon, +John Leche, a grant which proved rather a white elephant, for early in the +next reign Parliament, seeing the evils of absenteeism, ordered that all +owners of estates in Ireland should reside on them in person or else pay +for an able-bodied man to assist in policing the country, two alternatives +equally trying to the old surgeon's feelings. With such slender and +precarious remuneration it was excusable that the royal doctors should +sometimes have an eye to the main chance, and Fabyan tells a story against +one Master Dominic, physician (very much) in waiting to Elizabeth, Queen +of Edward IV. Before the birth of her first child (the Princess +Elizabeth) Master Dominic had been very positive that it would be a boy, +and so, when the time came, he stood outside the queen's room 'that he +myght be the firste that shulde brynge tydynges to the kynge of the byrth +of the prynce to the entent to have greate thanke and rewarde of the +kynge; and lastly when he harde the childe crye, he knockyd or called +secretly at the chamber dore, and frayned what the quene had. To whom it +was answeryd by one of the ladyes, "what so ever the quenes grace hath +here wythin, suer it is that a fole standithe there withoute." And so +confused with thys answere, he deperted wythoute seynge of the kynge for +that tyme.' + +[Illustration: '_... called secretly at the chamber dore._'] + +The position of the medical man who was not attached to the court or to +some nobleman's suite is rather obscure. In London during the fourteenth +and fifteenth centuries the surgeons of the city were under the control of +two or more master surgeons who acted as universal consultants; any +surgeon undertaking a case involving risk to life or limb being obliged to +call in one of the masters to see that his treatment was correct. In the +same way the veterinary surgeons were at liberty to call in the advice of +a master farrier, and if through conceit or negligence they did not do so +and the horse they were treating died, then they would be responsible to +the owner for its value. As to the country practitioner, it is not quite +clear who licensed him to take the title of 'leech' or whether he merely +assumed it. There were, no doubt, a certain number of men of learning in +the provinces, and in 1478 Sir John Savage was able to find a 'connyng +fisission' for Robert Pilkington in Macclesfield. He certainly required +such a one, for, as a result of eating a mess of 'grene potage' containing +poison he was 'swolne so grete that he was gyrd abowte his bodye in iij +places with towells and gyrdylls' to prevent him bursting. When a man is +in such a state it is 'a thousand to one if he lives the age of a little +fish,' as Nicholas Culpeper would say, but the physician 'dyd grete cures +to hym' and he recovered. As a rule, however, it is probable that the +country leech had little more knowledge of the healing art than many of +his patients. It must be remembered that a knowledge of simple herbal +remedies was pretty widely diffused, and an acquaintance with more +elaborate preparations formed part of the education of the upper classes. +Did not the lady of the manor almost to our own days dispense home-made +medicines with moral stimulants to her tenants, whose simple minds and +_dura ilia_ received therefrom much benefit? Yea, 'kynges and kynges sones +and other noble men hath ben eximious phisicions,' and there is in the +British Museum a book full of recipes for plasters and ointments, composed +by Henry VIII. Half a century before that bluff but gouty monarch 'the +gude Erl of Herforth was holden a gud surgen,' though he seems to have had +a tendency towards extravagant multiplication of ingredients in his +prescriptions. In humbler ranks of life every monastery had an Infirmarian +who, though dependent on outside assistance in serious cases, was expected +to treat the ordinary illnesses of his brethren, and at least to see that +there was always ginger, cinnamon, and peony (this last most effectual for +the incubus or nightmare) in his cupboard. It is noteworthy that in all +the hundreds of hospitals founded prior to the Reformation, from St. +Leonard's at York with its two hundred beds downwards, there appears to +have been no provision for medical attendance. The wardens were rarely +medical men; Master Thomas Goldington, one of the surgeons of Edward III. +was made warden of two hospitals, at Derby and Carlisle, but the only +result was that he attended to his private practice and neglected the +hospitals. Clearly the rudiments of nursing were assumed to be known to +the resident chaplain or some of the inmates--more particularly the women. +Wise women have doctored the country-side time out of mind, and in the +reign of Elizabeth we even find one, Isabel Warick, practising surgery in +York and requiring protection from her male rivals. A century earlier +Alice Shevington, servant to William Gregory of London, 'pretendyng +hirself to have had connyng in helyng of sore ighen,' spent much of her +time attending to her neighbours' eyes instead of her master's house, +wherefore he docked her of part of her munificent wages of 16_s._ a year. + +[Illustration: '_... gyrd abowte his bodye in iij places with towells and +gyrdylls._'] + +But, of course, this lay knowledge of herbs and so forth was not enough, +for, as Andrew Borde, that man of wit and sound learning, said, quoting +Galen, '"If Phisicions had nothing to do with Astronomy, Geomatry, Logycke +and other sciences, coblers, curryars of lether, carpenters and smythes +and al such manner of people wolde leave theyr craftes and be Phisicions," +as it apereth nowe a dayes that many coblers be; fye on such ones!' +Without a knowledge of astronomy how could Culpeper have discovered that a +certain French quack was 'as like Mars in Capricorne as a Pomewater is an +Apple,' and that therefore he was a fool? It was important also to +comprehend the mystical properties of gems, many of which exercised as +healing an influence as any herb. So well was this recognised that in +1217, when Alice Lunsford, a member of an old East Sussex family (whose +later descendants endeavoured to extend its antiquity by forging Saxon +ancestors with the delightfully improbable Christian names of David and +Joseph), fell ill, she sent to Philip Daubigny and borrowed three rings +from him, and when he asked for them back begged him, for the love of +God, not to take them away, as without them she could not recover. +Unfortunately the troops of Louis the Dauphin plundered her house shortly +afterwards, and although she did recover Philip lost his rings, one of +them being a sapphire for which he would not have taken 50 marks. + +Gems were not only held to exercise a beneficent influence when worn in +rings or held in the mouth, but were also administered internally. Amongst +the long list of medicines made for Edward I. during his last illness, in +1307, is 'a comforting electuary made with ambergis, musk, pearls, and +jacinths, and pure gold and silver.' Lower down in the list occurs 'a +precious electuary called Dyacameron,' and a fifteenth-century book of +prescriptions shows that this was composed of ginger, cinnamon, clove, and +other spices, black, white, and long pepper, musk, ambergris, 'the bone of +a stag's heart,' coral, pure gold, and shavings of ivory, amongst other +things. This same book shows a still more elaborate preparation, called +'The Duke's Electuary,' containing fifty ingredients, but mostly herbal, +and not so precious or indigestible as these others. These electuaries, +which were a kind of medicated sweetmeat, seem to have been taken in large +quantities, as Richard de Montpelier, King Edward's apothecary, prepared +over 280 pounds of electuaries made with sugar. These cost a shilling the +pound, while Dyacameron ran up to 13_s._ 4_d._ the pound, and four ounces +of rose comfits (_sucurosset_) flavoured with pearls and coral cost £3, +13_s._ 4_d._ Oriental ambergris to put in the king's food and in his +claret was another expensive item. But all these drugs and all the care of +Master Nicholas de Tyngewyk, his physician, of whose skill the king held a +high opinion, proved unavailing. + +A list of drugs provided for the Scottish expedition in 1323 is chiefly of +interest as showing that the virtue of a fine-sounding name for a medicine +was recognised some six centuries before Mr. Ponderevo hit on the sonorous +Tono-Bungay. Here are some of the items; Oxerocrosium, Diaterascos, +Apostolicon, Dyaculon, Ceroneum, Popilion, Agrippa, Gracia Dei--all of +them compounds of the patent medicine types; Galbanum, Armoniak, Apoponak, +Bedellum, Collofonium, Mastik, and Dragon's blood--simpler vegetable +preparations; Seruse, Calamine, Litharge, and Tutie--which are mineral +substances: Tutie being 'bred of the sparkles of brasen furnaces, +whereinto store of the mineral Calamine beaten to dust, hath been cast.' +Of the high-sounding preparations Popilion was so called from its +containing poplar leaves; Diaterascos was a plaster compounded of pitch, +wax, acetic acid, and various aromatics; Ceroneum was a similar plaster +without the acid, containing rather more aromatics and also saffron, +aloes, and litharge; and Dyaculon was a third variety of plaster, very +remotely, if at all, connected with the adhesive Diachylon plasters of +modern times. 'The oynment that is called Agrippa' was still used in the +fifteenth century for deafness, and at that date Apostolicon was made as +follows: Take equal quantities of 'vermod (wormwood), smallache (water +parsley), centori, waybred (? plantain), and the rote of osmond and als +muche of egremoyne (agrimony) as of all the others,' seethe in vinegar and +add an ounce of 'medwax (beeswax) that is multen in woman's milk' (a +favourite solvent). To this is added alum, galbanum, pitch, and +turpentine, and the whole worked up into an ointment. If this is not +sufficiently elaborate for your purpose, 'Her is makyng of Gracia Dei: +Take betanye, pympernel and vervayn, of ilkon an handfull, bothe crope and +rote, and wasshe hem clene and stamp hem smalle and do hem in a new erthen +pote and put therto a galon of white wyne, and if you may get no white +wyne take red, and sethe them till yt come to a potell:' let it cool, +strain through canvas, seethe again, and add half-a-pound of 'gud mede +wax, bot loke the wax be molten first, and woman's milke of knave child +and a pond of rosyn and a pond of gome litarge and a pond of galbanum and +a pond of popanelke (? opoponax) and a pond of arestolog rotundum +(birth-wort) and an unce of mastike wel poudred,' stir well and then 'do +als mykill baume (balsam) als weies a peny and a ferthyng and lete it +sethe whil you may say iij _Miserere mei deus_ all the hole salme'; take +off the fire, add gum turpentine, and stir till melted, strain and skim +off any dirt with a feather. When cold it should be worked up between the +hands until it becomes of sticky consistency, it is then to be spread on +clean linen or leather, and is good for all manner of sores that be +perilous. There is another method of preparing Gracia Dei which was used +by 'Hopkyn of the fermory of Killyngworth,' that is to say in the +infirmary at Kenilworth Priory, and a third, devised by 'the gude erl of +Herforth' which is much more elaborate, the herbs used being 'betany, +vervayne, pympernel, comfrey, osmond, dayshy, mousher (mouse-ear) +weybrede, rib (? rhubarb), milfoile (the yarrow, which in Saxon leechdom +seems to have been held good for everything from headaches to +snake-bites), centory, anence, violete, flos campi (? campion), smalache, +sauge, and egremoyn.' + +[Illustration: '_... led through the middle of the city._'] + +When these simple remedies were not successful recourse could always be +had to charms--either sheer pagan gibberish or rhyming prayers and +invocations of saints. It was obviously appropriate for the sufferer from +toothache to appeal to St. Appolonia, who was tortured by having her teeth +broken with a mallet, but it was less obvious why a man with the falling +sickness should cut his little finger and write with his blood the names +of the three kings, Jasper, Balthazar, and Melchior, on a piece of +parchment and hang it round his neck; nor do I know why SS. Nichasius and +Cassian should be invoked against any 'erwig or any worme that is cropyn +into a mans bed.' It was as well in any case to be sure that the charm was +genuine, as Roger atte Hache found in 1382. His wife, Joan, being ill, he +accepted the word of one Roger Clerk of Wandsworth that he was skilled +in medical lore and paid him 12_d._ to undertake her cure. Clerk took a +leaf of parchment out of a book and sewed it up in cloth of gold and bade +Joan put it round her neck. When she got no better her husband grew +suspicious and summoned Clerk for fraud. Clerk, being asked to explain the +value of the piece of parchment, said that it was a good charm for fever +and contained the words 'Anima Christi sanctifica me' and other similar +pious expressions, but upon examination it was found that there were no +such words upon it, and as he proved to be ignorant of physic and +illiterate, it was adjudged that he should be led through the middle of +the city, with trumpets and pipes, riding on a horse without a saddle, +with the parchment and a whetstone (the recognised symbol of a liar) hung +round his neck, and in front of him the unseemly emblem of the medical +profession. + + + + +V + +THOSE IN AUTHORITY + + +It is a common delusion, or, not to beg the question before producing +evidence, a common opinion, that England in olden times, by which I mean +that vague period when all words were spelled with an 'e' at their end and +most with a 'y' in the middle, was a 'merrie' place. This idea is held not +only by the _laudatores temporis acti_, who find it safer to repine for a +past which can never be recovered than to enthuse over a future which may +arrive and prove disappointing, but also by those energetic persons who +set out to make the world enjoy itself and imagine that their schemes for +compulsory happiness will really only restore a lost gaiety to the nation. +Life in the Middle Ages was undoubtedly more highly coloured, more varied, +more picturesque, but that it was merrier is at least a doubtful +assumption. As the life of a people is reflected in their arts, we may +compare the life of the Middle Ages to the quaint, irregular lines of some +unimproved village street, or to the older parts of such towns as +Winchester and Guildford, and contrast it with the mid-Victorian era, the +flattest and dullest of all periods, as typified by Brixton, or with the +frivolity of the present day, portrayed in the outbreak of terra-cotta and +white wood flimsinesses all over the country. But the picture is not +complete. In the background, behind the straight sameness of 'Alma +Terrace,' or the quirked and joggled sameness of 'Mafeking Avenue,' lies +nothing more terrible than the 'desirable residence' or the 'eligible +mansion.' Behind your picturesque old-world cottages frowns the shadow of +the feudal fortress. And, as Huxley remarked to the young man who said +that he did not see what difference it would have made to him if his +great-grandfather had or had not been a monkey, 'it must have made a lot +of difference to your great-grandmother.' + +It was not without reason that such names as Batvilayne, Scorchevilayne, +and Maungevilayne are found amongst the landowning classes. There were men +who would beat, scorch, or devour their villeins, and some six-and-a-half +centuries ago an ancestor of the present Lord Ashburnham could oppress his +tenants until they were reduced to literal beggary, and when they +complained to the Justices could airily reply that they were his villeins +and, short of injury to life and limb, he need not answer them. Such was +the position of the bulk of the peasantry, but in practice they did not +often suffer by it, for it was obviously to the advantage of the landlord +to have prosperous tenants. It was at the hands of the officials, the +swarm of stewards, bailiffs, catchpoles, and so forth, that the peasants, +yeomen, and smaller gentry suffered. These men, secure in the protection +of a chain of superiors reaching back to some great noble, lived on their +neighbours, wringing money from them on every, or no, pretext. A favourite +weapon was the jury list; the frequency with which juries were summoned +and the resulting inconvenience to those called away from their work made +the more wealthy willing to pay well for exemption; then money could be +obtained by summoning four or five times as many jurors as were required +and taking bribes from the superfluous to let them go home again. Another +common object of the country-side was the 'scotale,' which was a kind of +bean-feast. No doubt this lent an appearance of merriness to life in the +country, just as the wriggling of the worm on the hook lent it a +superficial air of gaiety which deceived old Isaak Walton, but it is +questionable if the feasters really enjoyed themselves, as they knew that +the ale which formed the main feature of the meal was brewed from malt +which they had unwillingly contributed, and that they were paying for the +(compulsory) privilege of consuming their own produce. Nor did the +townsmen escape entirely; even five hundred years ago the Christmas box +was an established extortion, and, in 1419, William Sevenok, Mayor of +London, had to forbid the custom of the servants of the mayor, sheriffs, +and corporation begging gifts from the tradesmen at Christmas, as it was +found that they used threats towards those who would not give and accepted +the gifts of others as bribes to overlook their offences against the +trading laws. Not only at Christmas did the servants of the city and the +court fleece the tradesmen; the doubtful privilege of supplying the royal +court with provisions could be, and frequently was, avoided by a gift to +the purveyors, and one result was that rogues from time to time went round +the breweries pretending to be court purveyors and taking money to leave +the ale alone. A rogue of a similar type, with a turn of humour, was +William Pykemyle, who in 1379 went to the town house of the Countess of +Norfolk, and, pretending to be a royal messenger, left word that she was +to dine with the King at Leeds Castle, near Maidstone, next day; having +received from her a reward of 3_s._ 4_d._ (royal messengers always +expecting a substantial tip) he went on to the Countess of Bedford and +gave a similar message, only making the place of dining Eltham. Whether +the ladies kept their appointments is not recorded, but the gay deceiver +was caught and committed to Newgate. + +If the men of the Middle Ages had had nothing more to complain of than +extortion by threats and trickery they might have been merry enough, but +when the bailiffs exercised their powers of arbitrary arrest and +imprisonment it was another matter. From the sheriffs downwards those +'clothed with a little brief authority' used it unscrupulously to fill +their own pockets, dragging men off to prison on false accusations, or on +none, and causing convicted felons to accuse the innocent of participation +in their crimes. Release from prison depended solely upon the payment of a +fine to the officer concerned, and was almost as easily available for the +guilty as for the innocent. Upon occasion the powers of the law could be +used to assist the criminal and punish his victim. During the misrule of +the last years of Henry III., one, Wilkin of Gloseburne, accused Gilbert +Wood of killing his son; Gilbert promptly turned the tables by bribing the +gaoler of York, who arrested Wilkin on a charge of theft, bound him naked +to a post in the prison, and kept him without food until he paid 40_s._ +About the same time, in Suffolk, a man stole six geese belonging to +Constance de Barnaucle; possibly he would have argued that they were +'barnacle geese,' and as this species notoriously grew on trees they were +_feræ naturæ_, in which there could be no property. If so, he must have +felt that his case was weak, as he ran away, pursued by the lady's +servant. The thief was caught by the bailiffs of Thingoe Hundred, but +either they were friends of his or they saw a chance of getting the geese +themselves, for they let him go free, and when the pursuer came up they +showed half-a-dozen other geese, which he naturally failed to identify; +they then talked big about libel actions and false accusations and +terrified 4_s._ out of the unlucky man's pockets. + +[Illustration: '_... failed to identify the geese._'] + +Besides accusations of actual misdeeds, charges of opposing a predominant +or favouring a fallen faction could be used for purposes of extortion. +Towards the end of the reign of Edward II., when the Despensers were in +power, Alan of Teesdale, chamberlain to the younger Despenser, with the +assistance of Geoffrey Eston, the villainous gaoler of York, started a +report that Sir John de Barton had spoken ill of Hugh le Despenser, +whereat Hugh was much moved and furiously threatened Sir John, who for +fear of his power had to give them lands to appease their lord. The same +two scoundrels burnt down part of one of Alan's own mills and then laid +the blame first on Sir John de Barton, then on Thomas Vipont, and finally +on the Abbot of Byland, all of whom, for fear of the Despenser, paid heavy +compensation. They further extorted lands from Master Thomas de Leuesham +by threatening to accuse him of having been a partisan of Andrew de +Harclay, who, after winning the earldom of Carlisle by his loyalty at +Boroughbridge in 1322, had, the following year, been dramatically +degraded and executed as a traitor. Nearly a century earlier, Robert +Passelewe, Justice of the Jews, had extorted £60 from John le Prestre, a +wealthy Jew, by threatening to commit him to Corfe Castle for having +financed the Bishop of Carlisle and Hubert de Burgh, then in disgrace. +From the same Jew Passelewe extorted, amongst other things, a cameo worth +40 marks; he seems to have had an appreciation for jewels, as he +appropriated a 'camehew' and an emerald belonging to a Jew who was hanged, +and made Benedict Crispin give him another cameo, which he afterwards gave +to the Queen. Crispin was fleeced by several persons in high places and +had to part with another of his cameos, 'on which was engraved a chariot +with two angels,' to Peter de Rievaux, the Treasurer. + +If the Jews were plundered we may at least put it to the credit of our +ancestors that they showed a fine impartiality in according similar +treatment to Christian clergy. The sheriff of Yorkshire, in 1315, wishing +to persuade Master Henry de Percy, rector of Wharrom, to surrender his +church, handed him over to Geoffrey Eston,[2] the gaoler of York, of whom +we have already said something, who bound him to a convicted criminal and +kept him five days without food or drink; at the end of that time he paid +£20 to be released, but he kept his church. Encouraged by this, the +sub-sheriff followed his superior's example and brought the rector of +Whixley to Geoffrey, who confined him 'in a horrible place in the prison' +until he produced 20 marks. Most prisons, probably, had a 'horrible +place,' usually an underground dungeon, such as 'the pit of the gaol' at +Exeter, or the 'fosse' at Newgate, or the place in the King's Bench +prison called by the grim humour of the fifteenth century 'Paradise,' from +which Alexander Lokke, who had been detained there 'alle this holy tyme of +Cristemasse,' begged to be removed to some other prison. Apart from these +dungeons the comfort of the prisoners depended largely on their possession +of money; they were not 'lodged at his majesty's expense,' but were +dependent upon money supplied by friends or on the alms of the charitable, +and their position when the gaoler was a tyrant was unenviable. In the +reign of Henry VIII. the keeper of Norwich gaol, Andrew Asketell, 'of his +uncharitabill and covetous mind' oppressed the poor prisoners, charging +them twice as much for ale as it cost outside--and ale, it must be +remembered, was in those days really 'the people's food in liquid +form'--and when kind people sent 'a potte ale' to the prisoners he made +his servants pour the drink in the streets and break the vessels. But he +did this once too often, when 'a litill boy haveng a veray power woman to +his moder in prison brought to her to ye prison wyndow a crok with ale.' +Edward Rede, alderman and J.P., seeing her drink thus snatched from her, +kindly sent her 'a cruse with drynk.' The arrival of this widow's cruse so +annoyed the keeper that he came up to the alderman and insulted him, +calling him 'a Bedlam man,' and as a result he saw prison life from a +fresh point of view. Some two centuries earlier Newgate was controlled by +Edmund le Lorimer, who ill-treated his prisoners shockingly, keeping them +short of food, depriving them of their share in the common alms, and +preventing them communicating with their friends. He robbed them, taking +from Roger Martel a gold cross with four garnets and a 'pere crapaudyn' or +toad-stone, the precious jewel which a toad bears in its head and which is +an invaluable antidote to poison, and he inflicted such severe 'penaunce' +to extort money that many died, including a knight, Sir John de Horn, and +that Roger de Colney, being loaded with irons and deprived of food, +snatched a knife from a companion and cut his throat. + +All those in authority were not brutes; it is even recorded of a Suffolk +bailiff that finding on his recovery from illness that his deputy had been +guilty of extortion, he returned the money and dismissed the deputy. But +the reports from Yorkshire in 1275 were fairly typical; the bailiff of the +Earl of Lincoln had done 'many acts of oppression, rapine, and injuries +beyond belief'; 'many other things, beyond number and astonishing,' were +related of the sub-sheriff, and 'innumerable devilish acts of oppression' +were accredited to the steward of Earl Warenne. The earl himself was a man +of violence, who had turned about a fifth part of the county of Sussex +into a game preserve, and maintained armed keepers to prevent the peasants +from driving the deer out of their corn. The story is well known how, when +King Edward's commissioners demanded by what title he held his lands, he +produced a rusty sword and said 'by this my ancestors won their lands and +by this I will defend them.' Like most well-known stories this is +apocryphal, and in any case a distaff would have been more appropriate, as +his lands had descended through an heiress, but that he would have been +willing to protect his lands with the sword is likely enough. One of his +descendants, the Earl of Surrey of the time of Henry VIII. seems to have +inherited some of his lawlessness, as he was charged with 'a lewde and +unsemely manner of walking in the night abowght the stretes and breaking +wyth stonebowes (_i.e._ catapults) of certeyne wyndowes.' It does not +appear that he wanted 'Votes for Peers' and, in fact, he admitted that he +'hadde verye evyll done therein,' and was sent to the Fleet prison. + +Life must certainly have been more exciting, if not merrier, in now +peaceful Sussex when Earl John de Warenne was alive. He was carrying on a +sort of private war with his neighbour, Robert Aguillon, who was also on +bad terms with his other neighbour, William de Braose, while further west, +at Midhurst, was John de Bohun, who displayed his contempt for the law by +attacking Luke de Vienne on the high road and ducking him in a horse-pond +when he was on his way to hold a court. The son and namesake of this +William de Braose showed his temper by insulting one of the Justices of +the King's Court who had given judgment against him. Edward I. was not the +man to excuse such conduct; he had, indeed, banished the Prince of Wales +from court for insolence towards a judge, and Braose had to walk in +penitential garb through Westminster Hall when the court was sitting and +apologise to the justice. With such examples set by their lords it is not +surprising that the smaller men adopted an attitude of swagger and +arrogance, riding with armed followers through markets and fairs for the +mere pleasure of frightening the people. As an example of apparently +pointless insolence, the constable of Shrewsbury gave his groom 4_d._ to +go through the village of Cressage calling out 'Wekare, Wekare,' to +insult both men and women. The character of the insult is not obvious, but +it was evidently clear to those concerned, as a woman dared to +remonstrate; the groom struck at her and wounded a man who came to her +assistance, but then had to fly and was shot--for which his lord obtained +full compensation. + +[Illustration: '_... ducking him in a horse-pond._'] + +Whatever the meaning of 'Wekare,' there can be no doubt of the insult +conveyed by Robert Sutton to Roger of Portland, clerk of the Sheriff of +London, when he exclaimed in full court, 'Tprhurt, tprhurt!' This +monosyllable is a very trumpet blast of contempt and its significance +surely did not require to be emphasised by Robert's 'raising his +thumb'--whether to his nose or not it is not stated, which is a pity, as +it would have been interesting to find the 'long nose' flourishing in +1290. City Officers, and more particularly mayors and aldermen, were very +touchy, seeing and punishing 'vile and abominable abuse' in the most +harmless retort, and my sympathy is certainly with Collard, the cobbler, +who was sent to prison at Norwich because, when the mayor ordered him to +take off his beard he refused to do so and said, 'Noo, I was ones shaven +and I made an othe I wolde never have off my berde again, I was so evell +shaven.' Still there is no doubt that however arbitrary the authorities +may have been they also had their trials, and, if officials often abused +their powers, their was another side to the question. Smaller men than +William de Braose could, upon occasion, tell the judges what they thought +of them. In 1300 one Henry de Biskele came into the Sussex county court +and asked leave to say certain matters 'on the king's behalf,' and having +thus obtained silence and the attention of the whole court, he broke out +into violent abuse of one of the justices, calling him a liar and using +other opprobrious terms, for which he was lucky to escape with a fine of +20_s._ Some fifty years later a more violent act of contempt of court +occurred at Pevensey. John de Molyns, the Queen's steward, came to hold a +court there, but being busy appointed a deputy to take his place in the +morning; this official seems to have irritated the townsmen, and when he +ordered them to withdraw outside the bar, contrary to their local custom, +Roger Porter replied by challenging him to come outside and fight. During +the luncheon interval the deputy reported the state of affairs, and in the +afternoon the steward himself came to the court, preceded by the portreeve +carrying his white wand of office, but the townsmen refused to come when +summoned, Roger and Simon Porter in particular declaring that they were +not bound to attend. At last the steward rose in wrath and started to +seize the two Porters, who fled to their house and with drawn swords stood +in the doorway. A pitched battle ensued between them and the steward's +men, in which several were injured, but in the end victory rested with the +law. + +[Illustration: '_... with drawn swords stood in the doorway._'] + +Even the King's Court at Westminster was not safe from disturbance. In +1332 John Parles, acting as attorney for Adam Basset in a plea of debt +against Florence de Aldham, was waiting in the great hall at Westminster, +where the court was in session. He was sitting on a table 'close to the +sellers of jewels,' from which it would seem that the lower end of the +hall was used for stalls, or at any rate for peddling jewellery, even +while cases were proceeding. Presently Florence came up with two men and +abused John Parles, threatening to kill him if he did not abandon the +suit; Richard Calware dragged him off the table and struck him a blow +which drew blood and Thomas Newark whipped out a knife and would have +killed him if he had not been restrained. John at once made his way to the +bar and complained to the judges, who ordered the arrest of his +assailants, but they struggled towards the door and were joined by Thomas +of Thornhamton with his sword drawn. But the clerks of the court, +apprentices, and attorneys barred the doors and disarmed them, and they +were all handed over to the warden of the Tower. + +In all these cases the disturbers of the peace met with prompt defeat, but +sometimes they were more successful, though their success was usually +temporary and vengeance overtook them sooner or later. No courts seem to +have been so unpopular as those of the Church; dealing with moral +offences, they touched the lives of the people in a way which must have +led to constant irritation, even if the archdeacons and their summoners +had not been unfair and extortionate. That they were so was the pretty +general opinion of mediæval Englishmen, from Chaucer to his contemporary +John Belgrave, who, when the archdeacon of Leicester was going to hold a +court, set up in his church a clearly written bill setting forth that the +archdeacon and his officials might well rank with the judges who condemned +Susannah, giving unrighteous judgment, oppressing the innocent, and +suffering evildoers. This so terrified the archdeacon and his officials, +possibly made cowards by their consciences, that they dared not hold their +courts. Civil courts were also liable to be broken up, especially the +open-air courts held by sheriffs. On one occasion, in the fourteenth +century, when the sheriff of Sussex was holding such a court, John +Ashburnham rode up, with a small boy bearing his tabard, and so threatened +the sheriff that he incontinently fled. To hasten his going Ashburnham +whistled on his fingers--a street-boy's accomplishment to which I must +admit I have never managed to attain in spite of repeated efforts--at +which whistle his esquire and other men in ambush suddenly rose up. Even +the assize courts were liable to be interfered with, especially in the +north, and at the end of the reign of Edward II. there were in Lancashire +several men of position who rode about with armed bands and turned up at +the courts with fifty or sixty ruffians to persuade their adversaries not +to proceed with their suits, or, if such peaceful picketing proved +unavailing, to terrorise the justices. Chief of these was Sir Walter +Bradshaw. He had been one of the sworn adherents of Sir Adam Banaster in +his rebellion, and having assisted in the attack on Liverpool Castle and +the capture of Halton, had fled the country after the defeat of his +friends at Preston. Returning later, he carried on a private war with Sir +Richard de Holand, another ruffian of the same kidney, each of them riding +about with small armies, oppressing each other's tenants and openly +defying the courts. These quarrels between county families were +undoubtedly more exciting when the process of cutting one another was +conducted with swords instead of with averted eyes and upturned noses, but +whether they were more conducive to the merriness of their rival retainers +may be doubted. These retainers, if we may trust Sir Ralph Evers, did not +always play their parts with the politeness and courtesy which their +masters displayed, and, in fact, on one occasion he remonstrated with Sir +Roger Hastings' servant, saying, 'Ye false hurson kaytyffes, I shall lerne +you curtesy and to knowe a gentilman.' It is possible that he was feeling +irritated at the time, as he had been lying in wait to ambush Sir Roger, +and it must have been annoying to find that he had only caught his +servants. Sir Roger himself seems to have been rather quick-tempered; he +had a grudge against one Ralph Jenner, and on his way to church on +Christmas Day discovered that Ralph was in the church; he at once decided +that the season of peace and goodwill was a suitable occasion to make an +end of his quarrel (and of his adversary), but the vicar flung himself on +his knees before him, while Lady Hastings ran up to Ralph Jenner +exclaiming, 'Woo worthe man this day! The chirche wolbe suspended and thou +slayn withoute thou flee away and gette thee oute of his sighte.' +Whereupon Ralph, either out of consideration for the parishioners or +himself, prudently fled. + +[Illustration: '_He incontinently fled._'] + +It sometimes happened that these imperious gentry reaped the reward of +their own lawlessness and goaded their oppressed tenants to active +rebellion. As early as the twelfth century the sheriff of Hants is found +grimly entering in his accounts money spent on doing justice on the +peasants who burned their lord. At Faccombe in the same county, in 1426, +John Punchardon, lord of the manor, was dragged from his bed one Sunday +night, carried out into the fields, and there done to death. In this case +there was probably some personal feeling in the matter, as the murderers +included five members of the family of Cosyn, whose ancestors had formerly +held the manor, but who had now come down to the position of labourers. A +case in which the motive of rebellion was more clearly resentment to +oppression occurred at Preston in Sussex, in 1280, when the villeins of +Simon de Pierpoint set fire to his manor-house, and with drawn knives and +flourished axes compelled him to swear upon the Gospels that he would +demand no services from them without their consent, and would take no +action against them for their violence. At the same time they destroyed +their lord's tabard, so beat his charger that it could never be used again +and slew his 'gentle falcon,' thus wreaking their wrath on the outward +signs of his nobility. Such revolts were much more common in towns; for +instance, at Lynne, in 1313, when Robert Muhaut tried to exercise his +authority in a new direction, a crowd of tradesmen, under the leadership +of the prior, assaulted his house, dragged him out and made him stand on a +stall in the market-place and swear on the Host that he would not +interfere with the town officers. At Bristol, also about the same time, +the burgesses quarrelled with the castellan, barricaded the streets and +erected an embattled wall from behind which they shot into the castle, and +at Oxford the watchmen were on several occasions shot at with arrows:--I +have known, in more recent times, a casual shot at a proctor with a lump +of sugar have more disastrous effects--to the shooter. + +[Illustration: '_... compellyd them for to devour the same writte._'] + +But if the lords of manors, town officials, and judges occasionally found +their authority slighted and their persons endangered by the disrespect of +those who should have been subservient to them, their trials were not to +be compared with those of the inferior officers such as bailiffs. In the +fourteenth century, when Philip of Berwick was elected as bailiff of +Hailsham, he had to fly for his life to escape from a certain John of +Buckholt, who terrorised the whole neighbourhood, chasing the vicar into +his church, killing several persons, and so frightening the coroner that +he dared not hold any inquests. With such men about as this John of +Buckholt, who was known as king among his people, the life of a bailiff +was not a happy one, and in particular, the life of the process-server was +exciting, but not necessarily merry. It can hardly have been cheering to +the man who had to serve a writ in Drayton Basset to know that the +offenders were boasting that 'whoo so ever wold be so bolde to serve any +warrant there shuld runne upon a pycheforke.' It was also not an uncommon +experience that Thomas Talbot and Thomas Gaiford had when they served a +writ on Agnes Motte, who 'reysyd upp her neghburs with wepyns drawen for +to slee and mordre the said bryngers of the writte and compellyd them for +to devour the same writte and ther, sitting upon ther knees, in saving of +ther lyves, eete the writte bothe wex and parchement,' in fact, from the +number of similar instances recorded it would almost seem that +writ-servers must have been accustomed to a diet of wax and parchment. +There seems also to have been a custom of serving writs in church, not +unattended with risk, as the sacredness of the place does not seem always +to have subdued the temper of the recipient. When William Nash served a +writ on John Archer in Ilmingdon churchyard he retorted by threatening to +make him eat it, and afterwards, as Nash was kneeling in the church, he +came up to him and said, 'Pray, longenekked horesson, by Goddes armes, +thou shalt be hanged ere I ete holy bred.' John Cheyney, also, when he was +served with a writ in church, took the server by the shoulders and thrust +him out of the church, saying that he would slit his nose, stove his eyes, +crop his ears, and 'make hym a curtall.' + +[Illustration: '_... thrust him out of the church._'] + +No, taking into consideration the injuries inflicted by the more powerful +men in authority upon those subject to them and the pains suffered by +those having the responsibilities of office without its powers, I do not +think the mediæval populace was always merry and bright, and if any one, +after reading this article, still thinks that England in the Middle Ages +was a 'merrie' place, I can only say with Robert Sutton, 'Tprhurt, +tprhurt!' + + + + +VI + +IVORY AND APES AND PEACOCKS + + +There is a sentence in the biblical account of the wonders of Solomon's +reign that has always had a fascination for me. 'Once in three years came +the navy of Tarshish bringing gold and silver, ivory and apes and +peacocks.' And the fascination lies not in the crude magnificence of tusks +and ingots, the burnished brilliance of peacocks, or the uncanny, too +human, grotesqueness of apes, but in all the varied multitude of unnamed +articles which must have constituted the cargo of those far-faring ships +of Tarshish--gaudy tissues interwoven with bettle-wings, strange shells, +jewel-crusted swords, carvings in sandal-wood and in the wood of the +mysterious almug tree. Possibly the almug tree is not mysterious to the +well-informed man, but I admit that I have always carefully avoided +looking it up; I might say, as was said of the purple cow, 'I never saw an +almug tree, I never want to see one,' because I am certain that it would +prove a vast disappointment. The unlading of a ship is an enlarged and, it +must be admitted, less personal version of the unpacking of a Christmas +hamper, a joy apportioned to childhood, not, in nine cases out of ten, +because in our maturer years we lose the appreciation of disinterring the +unexpected from swathings of paper, string, and straw, but because the +opportunities are denied us. Of course, it is given to few to unpack a +ship, and there may be persons of little imagination to whom a bill of +lading seems dull and uninspiring, but to me every such list is a +potential hamper. When the bill of lading is of the fifteenth century +there is added something of the feeling which we have when turning out a +drawer in an old forgotten bureau of our great-grandmother's. The everyday +objects of that time are now unfamiliar, and our ingenuity is taxed to +guess the use of some of them, while on the other hand it is quite a shock +to find that other things which we still use were known so long ago. + +[Illustration: '_latten "Agnus Dei."_'] + +The hold of a ship, like poverty, makes strange bed-fellows acquaint. A +hundred distaves, emblems of peaceful home-life, came into London port in +1390 side by side with ninety-three dozen swords, these latter for Gerard +van Barle, who must have been either an armourer in business on a very +large scale, or else an army contractor. Six hundred oranges, at fifteen a +penny, we find sandwiched between eight barrels of varnish and nine glass +cups; a jar of preserved dates is thrust in between twelve yards of linen +cloth and a barrel containing seven and a half dozen beaver hats. A ship +of Dieppe came into Winchelsea harbour in 1490 with damask and satin and +pipes of wine, razors and needles and mantles of leopard skins, five gross +of playing-cards and eight gross of latten 'Agnus Dei.' These last, which +I regret to say seem to have been considerably less valued than the +'devil's books' which accompanied them, were plaques stamped with the +figure of the holy Lamb, and it would seem that they were so common that +the word became a synonym for a plaque, as in an inventory of the jewels +of Henry VII. occurs 'an Agnus of the Salutation of Our Lady.' In the same +way the component parts of the rosary became so intimately associated in +men's minds with prayers that when we read in a list of cargo of +'pater-nosters' or 'bedys' of amber, coral, tin, or 'tree' it is +impossible to be sure whether they were rosaries or beads in the modern +sense of ornaments. Devotional objects naturally figured largely in the +imports of mediæval days, images of painted wood or tin occurring with +frequency in the London customs accounts of 1390, and the alabaster +carvings for which England, and in particular Nottingham, was famous form +quite the most interesting of our exports in the fifteenth century. As a +whole it must be admitted that our exports at that time were very dull +compared to our imports; cloth, hides, and corn are but uninspiring +merchandise, and although the frequent mention of ale and beer might cheer +the heart of Mr. Belloc or the late Mr. Calverley it leaves me cold. One +item, however, is interesting in the fifteenth-century exports from +Bristol, and that is the constant occurrence in cargoes for Ireland, and +for nowhere else, of casks of 'corrupt wine.' This looks like 'another +injustice to Ireland.' With this untempting liquor went a good quantity of +honey, possibly to counteract its acidity, and of 'battery-ware,' which +was really such things as kettles, but may have been endeared to the Irish +from an imaginary connection with assault. + +If the exported cloth was uninspiring in its lack of variety the same +charge cannot be brought against the imported stuffs. There is some room +for imagination in the cargo of Matthew Clayson's boat, which brought +kerchiefs of Cyprus and Syria (so at least I interpret _cirian_), oriental +kerchiefs and glittering (_relusant_) kerchiefs, with 707 lb. of pins +wherewith to fasten them. There is also something satisfactory about +baudrik powdered with Cyprian gold, and even about chamelet and sarcenet. +I own to a delight in the old drapery terms, and, whatever their merits as +materials, I feel that our modern trade terms such as viyella and eoline +(if these be their names) are feeble and finicking besides arras, bayes, +bewpers, boulters, borratoes, buffins, bustyans, bombacyes, calimancoes, +carrells, dornicks, frisadoes, fustians, grograines, mockadoes, minnikins, +makarells, oliotts, pomettes, plumettes, perpetuanas, rashes, russells, +sayes, stamells, tukes, tamettes, and woadmolles. But if these and similar +words have a fascination it is partly a fascination of the unknown, and I +should be grateful to any one who could tell me what it was that Walter +Hake brought into London port in 1390, for, besides two barrels with +fourteen nests of mazer cups and other recognisable goods, he carried +three thousand five hundred 'redwark,' ten hundred 'ruskyn,' as much +'popl,' and, most puzzling of all, eight thousand 'of good work' (_boni +operis_). I admit the temptation to endow the work with plurality and to +set this load of good works in opposition to a contemporary Rabelaisian +cargo of 'fartes of Portingale.' + +[Illustration: '_... playing innumerable pranks._'] + +So far the cargoes of our ships have not greatly resembled those of the +ships of Tarshish, but, if the peacocks are to seek, we can easily find +the ivory, in the shape of combs, and as to the apes the _Clement_ of Rye +in 1490 brought home four dozen baboons (_baboynes_). It must, however, be +admitted that these baboons would not have found a home at the Zoo--they +were in fact little grotesque figures, and in that sense the word occurs +often in mediæval inventories. Edward III. had not only a number of +pieces of plate with 'babewyns' upon them, but one cup described as gilt +and enamelled with 'diverse babwynrie.' At the same time the real monkey +was a common enough object; he figures in the margin of scores of +illuminated manuscripts, playing innumerable pranks, not infrequently in +the dress of a priest, a monk, or a friar. Monkeys were kept by many of +the nobles, and when Thomas Becket went, as Chancellor of England, on an +embassy to the court of France an ape sat on every pack horse of his +gorgeous cavalcade. The merchandise of Venice in 1436 included 'Apes and +japes and marmusettes tayled,' and so far was the ape a common import that +at many seaports monkeys figured in the customs lists, the due at Norwich +being 40_d._ each, no small sum. With the monkey in these lists is also +found the bear, who at Norwich paid 42_d._ for admission to the country. +Bears were even commoner sights than monkeys, for not only were there the +performing bears in charge of itinerant showmen, but many of the poor +brutes were kept for sport, to be baited by dogs. It was probably for +purposes of sport that Sir John Bourchier, Earl of Bath, kept half-a-dozen +bears, which after the Reformation he stabled in the dismantled priory of +the Black Friars at Fisherton, near Salisbury. There they lived happily +until, according to Harry Sutton, their keeper, John Davy and Agnes his +wife with other naughty and evil-disposed persons broke into the close +where they were kept, and Agnes, 'being thene of most wyckyd and damnable +disposicion,' scattered poisoned bread on the ground and in the water +where the bears drank. As a result three of the bears died, as did also a +poor man's sow that drank of the pond; and a poor woman who washed her +face in the water 'so swelled that she was like to have died,' which I +take leave to think was an exaggeration on the part of Harry Sutton. There +is always another side to every story, and according to John Davy he had a +lease of part of the friary lands, and his wife was quite peaceably +walking there when Sutton, to frighten her away, untied 'the grettyste and +most terryble bere' and set him at her, whereat she being 'sore affrayed +and abashed' ran away and in running fell over a sow, not the poor man's +sow that died, but a sow of lead, and received a hurt from which she died. +The two versions are singularly divergent, and if Sutton could show three +dead bears and a sow in support of his story, Davy could show a dead wife +in support of his. + +Henry III. was the proud possessor of a polar bear, which used to be taken +for a swim in the Thames to disport itself and to catch fish, no doubt to +the great joy of the young Londoners. This was a present from the King of +Norway, and gifts of strange beasts were often made to our kings, the +favourites naturally being lions and leopards, in allusion to the royal +arms, the Black Prince on one occasion sending his father a lion and a +leopard. In passing it may be remarked that it is a curious trait of the +heraldic lion that it cannot look a man in the face; when a lion looks at +you it becomes a leopard. This, I admit, sounds rather like the +schoolboy's description of the tortuous river of Palestine, 'The Jordan +runs straight down the middle of the map, but when you look at it it +wriggles,'--but it is none the less a fact. In early heraldry the lean and +fearsome beast that does duty for a lion when seen in profile is called a +leopard when its full face is shown; it is true that a later generation of +heraldic writers converted the three golden leopards of England into +'lions passant guardant,' but leopards they were, and, for those of us who +prefer the heraldry of the classic period to its debased and jargonised +descendant, leopards they remain. At the same time, as the live lions +could hardly be expected to look continuously over their left shoulders, +the royal menagerie at the tower was usually stocked with real leopards +as well as lions. For generations, and indeed centuries, the lions of the +Tower enjoyed much the same privileged position as the eponymous bears of +Berne, and were so emphatically the sight to which all country cousins, by +a humane version of 'Christianos ad leones,' had to be taken that their +name became, and remains, synonymous with all that is double-asterisked by +Baedeker. + +[Illustration: '_When a lion looks at you it becomes a leopard._'] + +Mediæval Englishmen seem to have a partiality for strange beasts, combined +with a reluctance to pay exorbitant fees for seeing them. In 1364 Edward +III. had to order the mayor and sheriffs of London to protect Roger Owery +and John Want, to whom he had committed the custody of a certain Egyptian +beast called an 'Oure,' various persons, who apparently wished to see the +beast without paying, having threatened to assault them and kill the +'Oure.' What this creature was is not clear; possibly it was the aurochs +or buffalo--Borde's 'vengeable beast,' the Bovy of Bohemia. Whatever it +was its keepers, who had no doubt looked forward to making a good thing +out of exhibiting it, seem to have had a doubtful bargain, and the same +fate befell Thomas Charles, 'squier,' and William Lynde just about a +century later when they obtained from the king the keeping of his 'foul +called an Estrich.' They sent the ostrich round the country in charge of +Richard Axsmith and John Piers, 'for to disporte with the sight of hym the +kynges true lieges,'--and incidentally, though they do not think that +worth mentioning, to put money in their own pockets. 'How be hit that +oother mysdoers in certain places wher lite reverence is doon or shewed to +anything of the kinges, as the dede hathe proven, have withoute cause +wrongfully doon grete trespasses and offenses as wel to the said foul as +to Richard Axsmyth and John Piers.' At Royston a mob, egged on by the +prior, assaulted the keepers and caused the ostrich 'to ben seyn of alle +peuple' and the unfortunate 'fowle' was 'hurten so sore that he may +never be hool, as hit on hym wel appereth.' When they came to Norwich one +of the sheriffs cast them into prison as 'false Flemings,' and 'caused the +foul to be seyn in the common strete of alle peuple that list to come seen +hym for nought.' Nor did they have any better luck at the next town, Bury +St. Edmunds, where they were again imprisoned and the bird exhibited for +nothing, the townsmen 'axing hem who made hem so hardy as to go on with +the kinges foule about among his peuple without a commission.' This seems +to have been the end of their tour in the eastern counties. + +[Illustration: '_The unfortunate "fowle" was "hurten so sore."_'] + +The ostrich does not often occur under that name, but its egg was often +made into a cup, under the name of a griffon's egg or 'grype's ey.' Edward +III. had more than one 'oef de greffon,' and Henry IV. had half-a-dozen +'gryppesheys,' but possibly by this time the term was only conventional +and the true origin of the egg was known, as one of these 'gryppesheys' +was mounted on 'two white ostriches.' The griffin, half eagle and half +lion, was a very popular mediæval beast; that no specimen is ever recorded +to have been taken round on show may have been due to the fact that this +beast 'so much disdaineth vassalrey and subjection that he will never be +surprised alive.' The appearance amongst the jewels of Richard II. of an +almsdish supported by two griffons suggests an analogy with its modern +relation the Jubjub, of which it is said that 'In charity meetings it +stands at the door, And collects though it does not subscribe.' If doubt +is to be thrown on examples of the griffon's eggs, still more dubitable is +the 'drinking vessel made of the horn of a griffon, mounted in copper +gilt,' which belonged to Edward III. This may well rank with a relic +preserved in the Cathedral Priory of Rochester,--'the rod of Moses which +budded,'--in view of the fact that it was Aaron's rod which budded and +that a griffon has no horns. + +If our forefathers never had a chance of seeing a griffon and failed to +appreciate an ostrich when they did see one, there is no question that +they saw and appreciated the first elephant that landed in England. It was +a present from King Louis of France to Henry III. and landed at Sandwich +in 1255, whence it proceeded leisurely to London, filling all beholders +with astonishment. It only lived a couple of years, and when its successor +came over I do not know, but I suspect that there was a very long interval +before England was again visited by an elephant. Before its lamented +decease it sat for its portrait to Matthew Paris and another contemporary +chronicler, and the resulting sketches are quite recognisable. The +elephant was not a very favourite subject with mediæval artists, though +the Earl of Arundel in 1397 had a piece of tapestry (probably oriental) +'powdered with lions, olyfauntes and imagery,' and if any one wants to +know what it was like they have only to go to an old house in Market +Street at Rye, where they can see just such a piece of tapestry, +'olyfauntes' and all, reproduced as a wall-painting. Talking of elephants, +a learned man not many years back wrote an article with the fascinating +title, 'How the Elephant became a Bishop'; as a matter of fact it dealt +with the evolution of the chess 'bishop,' but what a title for a fairy +tale! + +Elephants, to one mediævally minded, infallibly suggest dragons, for it is +notorious that there was bitter enmity between elephants and dragons. And +the subject of dragons is a wide one. So far as I know the last, in +Western Europe at least, was killed in the Roman Campagna in 1660, its +slayer himself dying from the poison in its breath, but it was less than +half a century before that, in 1614 to be precise, that a young +half-fledged dragon--it was nine feet long and its wings were only just +sprouting--was seen in Sussex, at Faygate in St. Leonards Forest. Of +course in earlier times they were much more numerous; Switzerland swarmed +with them, in fact Lucerne seems to have been almost as much the happy +hunting-ground of the dragon and the cockatrice as it is now of the Cook's +tourist. The northern counties, especially Durham and Northumberland, were +also much pestered by 'laidly worms'; two estates were held of the Bishop +of Durham from early time by exhibiting to him annually the swords with +which redoubtable ancestors of the tenants had slain the Worm of Sockburn +and the fearsome Brawn of Brancepeth, a boar to which all ordinary boars +were but as ordinary cattle to the Dun Cow, slain by Guy of Warwick with a +sword still shown at Warwick Castle. Perhaps the most satisfactory dragon +on record was that slain at Rhodes in 1345 by Deodatus de Gonzago. That +wily and prudent knight constructed a pantomine dragon on the pattern of +the real article and made two of his servants get inside and work it +realistically; in this manner he accustomed his horse and his dogs to +dragon-baiting, and his trouble was rewarded by the death of the monster +and his own election to the mastership of the Knights of St. John. +Another famous dragon was the Tarask. It seems that when St. Mary +Magdalene landed at Marseilles she installed herself in a dragon's cave; +the dragon was unceremoniously ejected and went off higher up the Rhone; +but he had no luck; the first person he met on landing was St. Martha, who +gave him a good dressing down and handed him over to the peasants, who +slew him but immortalised his name in Tarascon. There were a great many +varieties of dragons, but I think the most curious that I have met was one +of silver gilt belonging to Henry IV. which was described as 'au guyse +d'un boterflie'; anything less like a dragon than a butterfly it would be +difficult to imagine. At the same time some of these terrible beasts seem +to have been quite insignificant. The amphisbæna, though it developed in +the Bestiaries into a fearsome dragon with a head at each end, started as +quite a small worm, so small indeed that a whole one could be carried on +the person without inconvenience. So carried it prevented the wearer from +ever feeling chilly; in which respect it would seem to have been the +opposite of the salamander, whose flesh was so cold that it quenched fire. +Henry V. bought a parrot, two monkeys, and three salamanders from a +fishmonger. I wonder what the salamanders were; if they were the squabby +and unattractive lizard, black, with yellow spots, which now goes by that +name I fear the king must have been disappointed. If he experimented upon +their alleged ability to live in fire, or at least to extinguish it, I +fear the disappointment would have been shared by the salamanders. + +[Illustration: '_... constructed a pantomime dragon on the pattern of the +real article._'] + +Besides the monsters of the land and air there were, of course, mediæval +varieties of the sea-serpent. Matthew Paris records that in 1255 a monster +bigger than the biggest whale was thrown up on the coast of Norfolk. As +this was the year in which the first elephant came over I almost wondered +if two had started and one had fallen overboard and been drowned, but +quite by accident I came upon a legal case connected with this very sea +monster, arising out of foreshore rights and rights of wreck, which showed +that the creature, whatever it was, was very much alive when first seen, +as no less than six boats were sunk in effecting its capture. +Unfortunately no description of the monster is given, but probably it was +a great sperm whale. Fifteen years earlier, in 1240, according to the +same chronicler, there was a great battle of whales off the mouth of the +Thames, and one of the wounded came up the river, just managed to squeeze +through the arches of London Bridge and got as far as Mortlake before it +was killed. A fresh-water monster, or at least one which started life in a +river and developed in a well but afterwards took to the land, was the +terrible Lambton worm, which seems after all to have been more of a +nuisance than a danger, as, so long as it got its trough full of milk +regularly, it was content to lie about, coiled round Lambton Hill. + +Terrible beasts were the basilisk--for which I have always felt an +affection since I saw his portrait by Carpaccio in the church of St. +George of the Sclavs (after much furious argument with a gondolier who +knew no St. George but S. Giorgio Maggiore) at Venice--the cockatrice, and +that strange hybrid of the two, the basilcok, known chiefly for its mean +and unrelenting enmity to the centichore or yale, the strange pig-antelope +who now sits once more as he sat of yore on the bridge at Hampton Court. +Terrible beasts all; but none so morally destructive as that noble friend +of man, the horse. Everybody knows the famous derivation of hypocrite, +'from two Greek words--hippos, a horse, and krites, a judge: a +horse-dealer, therefore, a deceiver.' The Archbishop of York would seem to +have been of the same opinion when he inhibited the cellarer of Newburg +from dealing in horses, on the ground that it was not fitting for a man of +religion, because in the negotiations between buyer and seller it is +almost impossible to avoid sin. It would have been well if John Hill, +vicar of Coliton in Devon in 1426, had considered this before he sold a +horse to Walter Trouns, 'knowing the horse to have contracted divers +diseases and to be incapable of working.' From the description the horse +would seem to have been of the same breed as the 'hakeney' hired by +William Driffeld from Thomas Plevener, a London innkeeper, who 'promysed +and warantized the said hakeney to be of helth and of habilitie and well +and trewlay' to carry Master William to Walsingham, whither he was going, +no doubt, on pilgrimage. In spite of the warranty, the hackney, before he +had covered twenty miles, 'wold nor myght go no ferther' and had to be +left at Ware, where he died 'of dyverse infyrmytes.' Richard Chapman had a +similar experience when he hired a horse from Christopher Thomas to carry +him to York; at the end of the first day it 'failed hym and was +morefounded.' Probably the hirers out of the horses threw the blame on +their clients, as did Robert Grene, 'corsour' (_i.e._ horse-dealer, not +to be confused with corsair, a pirate), who, having sold a horse to John +Bonauntre, complained that 'the said John rode upon the said hors' with +the result that it was 'perished and utterly destroyed,' though whether +that was due to the delicacy of the horse, which was only intended for +ornament, or to the 'unresonable and outrajus rydyng' of the purchaser is +not clear. Mules, as we might expect, occasionally gave as much trouble as +horses. There was a Welsh clergyman in the fifteenth century, John Yevan +by name, upon whom a brother clerk, John Grigge, managed to plant a mule +'the whiche he wold not have had, but through the gret labour and desyre +of the said Sir John Grigge he toke the same mule upon his warantie that +he shuld bere hym from Rome to London, orells not to paye therefore.' +Exactly what happened on that journey is not revealed, but the mule would +seem to have proved several degree more aggravating than Modestine in the +Cevennes, for John Yevan 'was fayne and glad to make a cambicion +(exchange) by the waye, to his gret hurte and hynderance,' and felt much +injured at being called upon to account for the missing mule on his +return. The good man's knowledge of legal jargon seems to have been oral +rather than literary, as he invoked the magic of the law by demanding a +'wryte of sorserare,' in which it is not easy to recognise a writ of +_certiorari_. + +[Illustration: '_Hakeney._'] + +One of the most deadly of vicarious insults was to crop the tails of your +adversary's horses; it would seem to have been as bad as the biblical +custom of cutting off the skirts of his messengers. John Enot, archdeacon +of Buckingham in the fifteenth century, complained tearfully that one +Thomas Coneloye (was he a lawless Irish Connelly?) prevented him from +carrying out his duties in the punishment of sinners and had caused the +tails of his horses to be cut. It was a similar insult to the hot-tempered +Thomas Becket that caused that archbishop's furious denunciation of his +enemies and led to his murder and so to his canonisation, from which it +follows that we owe Chaucer's _Canterbury Tales_ to the curtailment of the +archbishop's horses. From insult to assault is a short journey, and horses +have brought so many to the 'demnition bow-wows,' that I am reminded at +this point of the adventure of the vicar and the dog and the door-key, +which fell out in this wise. William Russell, vicar of Mere in Somerset, +some time during the reign of Henry VI., left his church at five o'clock +one Good Friday evening, having been 'bysyly occupyed all that day before +in hyryng of confessions.' He locked up his church and turned homewards, +but on his way met one of his parishioners, John Totyn, an evil man, 'not +dredyng God ne the censers of the chirche.' Totyn had in his hand a +seven-foot staff with 'a grete pyke of yren' at one end and with him was +'an horryble grete Dogge called a lymer,' and he at once attacked the +vicar and 'provoked and stered his saide dogge to renne upon hym, callyng +hym by his name and saide Hay Dewgarde.' I am not clear whether the dog's +name was Dieugarde, which seems rather unlikely, or Dugald, which is +possible, but I rather incline to the idea that Totyn really said 'good +dog,' with a provincial accent--'Hey! gude darg!' in fact. Anyhow, 'the +saide dogge, knowyng the condicions of his maister, ran upon (the vicar) +and bote hym by the arme in iij places and pullyd hym downe to grounde +twyes and so was likely then to have been murthored by the saide John +Totyn and his dogge,'--the good vicar at the recollection of the exciting +incident becomes oblivious of grammar and changes the subject of his +verbs--'but as God woold he smote the said dogge with the chirche dore key +under his ere, and with that the said dogge departed.' Next day worthy +William Russell trotted off to his patron, the Abbot of Glastonbury, and +showed him his injuries--'his shurte beyng full of blode, his gowne to +torne, his arme sore byten'; but he got cold comfort and scant sympathy. +Totyn was the abbot's servant and the abbot said, 'that that was doon it +was doon in the defence of my man, and it shall coste me xl{_li_} or thou +shalte do my man any wrong, for I lete the wete I wyll defende hym.' + +[Illustration: '_... showed him his injuries._'] + +Dogs of all kinds,-- + + 'Mastiff, greyhound, mongrel grim, + Hound or spaniel, brach or lym, + Or bobtail tike or trundle tail,' + +figure often enough in our old records, and often enough got their owners +into trouble for poaching, but they were not so frequently complained of +for assault as might have been expected. I remember coming across one +rather interesting case in which a man complained that a neighbour's dogs +had chased a tame deer belonging to his daughter, and when she interfered +to rescue it had bitten her hands. The keeping of tame deer was common +enough; Edward III. had a tame hind brought from St. Albans to Woodstock +on one occasion, and about a couple of centuries later a Lincolnshire +clergyman, John Barnardiston, rector of Great Coates, for his own +recreation and comfort and the amusement of his friends, 'norysched, kept +and brought up a tame hynde calfe.' Unfortunately he had annoyed Sir +Christopher Askew, who instigated William Morecropp and other 'lyght and +evyll disposed persons' to kill the hind. They discovered where it +frequented day and night and carried it off to Morecropp's house, where +they assembled next day 'with force and aryms; that is to saye wyth +staves, bylles, swordes and bokelers,'--an almost excessive armament for +the purpose,--and slew the unfortunate hind and carried its body to Sir +Christopher, who, when Barnardiston complained, 'lyghtly and wantonly made +a gret game and sport therat' and threatened that worse should befall him +if he did not sit still. While sympathising with the rector for the loss +of his pet, it is difficult to deny that the assembly of half-a-dozen +ruffians fully armed with swords and bucklers to tackle one tame little +fawn suggests the four-and-twenty tailors who set out to kill a snail, and +is not without its ludicrous side. + +[Illustration: '_... fully armed with swords and bucklers._'] + + +Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to His Majesty at the Edinburgh +University Press + + + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] June 1911. + +[2] The record of one of this man's acts of torture is worth preserving, +though it is, for obvious reasons, best left in the original Latin: 'cepit +unum vermem qui vocatur clok [_i.e._ a sheep tick] et posuit infra virgam +Roberti de Alverton et ligavit virgam cum parva corda et posuit ipsum +Robertum super unam cordam et ligavit cordam de una trabe ad aliam et +fecit ipsum moveri super cordam predictam et membra sua frotari quousque +finem fecit pro x marcis.' + + + + +Transcriber's Notes: + +Passages in italics are indicated by _italics_. + +Superscripted characters are indicated by {superscript}. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Mediæval Byways, by Louis F. Salzmann + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 42975 *** |