The Customs of Old England Part 13

The civic fathers endeavoured to cope with the "social evil" by drenching all engaged in immoral traffic with nauseous doses of public ridicule. Thus, if a man were convicted of keeping a house of ill-fame, immediately his hair and beard were shaved off, save for a fringe (_liste_) on his head two inches in breadth. He was then conveyed to the pillory, accompanied by minstrels, and there he had to abide at the discretion of the Mayor and Aldermen. If he was found guilty of the offence a third time, he was compelled to abjure the City.

A woman convicted of being a common night-walker was committed to prison--probably the Tun, on Cornhill--and thence she was led to Aldgate with a hood of rayed cloth on her head and a white wand in her hand.

Next she was escorted by musicians to the thewe (pillory)--in Cheap, probably--and there the character of her offence was proclaimed.

Finally, she was taken through Cheap and Newgate to "c.o.kkeslane" without the walls, where she was required to dwell. If guilty a third time, her hair was cropped close, while she stood in the pillory, and she was marched to one of the gates and made to abjure the City for the remainder of her life. A procurer or procuress was also set in the thewe to the accompaniment of music, with a "distaf with towen"--i.e., a distaff dressed with flax--in his or her hand; and the transgressor was made to serve as a public spectacle for such time as the Mayor and Aldermen deemed fit. A priest detected in the company of a loose female, if she were single, was conveyed to the Tun, attended by musicians; and upon a third conviction he was forced to abjure the City for ever, the woman meanwhile being taken to one of the Sheriff's Counters and thence to the Tun. If his partner in guilt chanced to be married, both of them were conducted to one of the Counters, or to Newgate, and after that to the Guildhall; and in the event of conviction they were removed to Newgate, where their heads were shaved like those of thieves. This done, they were led with the inevitable music through Cheap, and lastly incarcerated in the Tun during the pleasure of the Mayor and Aldermen.

The same procedure was observed if the male offender was a married layman.

Incidentally in the course of the narrative we have mentioned various instances of interference with business. We may conclude the chapter by citing a few more, and, as we have spoken of bakers, ill.u.s.trations may be drawn from that trade. Every baker dwelling within the walls was obliged to have his own seal for impressing the loaves, and these seals were periodically inspected by the Alderman of the Ward, who kept a counterpart of the impression. A baker might not sell bread "before his oven" or in any secret place--only in the King's markets; and to every baker was a.s.signed his market, to which the bread was carried in baskets hence called panniers. "Panyers Alley," in Newgate Street, was a famous stand for bakers' boys. Bread was sold also by female hucksters or regratresses, who received it from the bakers and delivered it from house to house. They were allowed to have thirteen batches for twelve, which is the origin of the phrase "baker's dozen," and the extra batch represented their legitimate profit; but a practice grew up whereby they obtained sixpence on Monday mornings as _estrene_, and threepence on Fridays as "curtasie money." This was disallowed by ordinance on pain of amercement, and bakers were admonished, in lieu of such payments, to increase the size of the loaf "to the profit of the public."

URBAN

CHAPTER XIV

THE BANNER OF ST. PAUL

Blount's "Ancient Tenures," a meritorious seventeenth-century work which has been edited by Mr. W. C. Hazlitt, contains a description of the military and civil functions performed, and the privileges enjoyed, by the house of Fitzwalter, in connexion with the City of London. The latter stand in close relation to the subject with which we have just dealt, but it will be convenient to discuss first the obligations and then the "liberties" annexed to their observance. By way of preface we may recapitulate what Blount, who obtained his account from Dugdale, has recorded, and, having done so, we will proceed to investigate and amplify his version of what is beyond question an important chapter in the early administration of the city.

Confining ourselves to the facts as there stated, we find that the duty of providing for the safety of London devolved on the hereditary castellans, the Fitzwalters, Lords of Wodeham, who discharged the office of Chief Standard-bearer in fee for the castlery of Castle Baynard within the City. When war loomed on the horizon Fitzwalter, armed and astride his horse of service, and attended by twenty men-at-arms, who were mounted on horses harnessed with mail or iron, proceeded to the great door of the Minster of St. Paul with a banner of his arms displayed before him. There he was met by the Mayor, Sheriffs, and Aldermen, who came armed and afoot out of the Minster, the Mayor bearing his banner which was _gules_ and charged with the image of St.

Paul, _or_, the head, hands, and feet _argent_, and in the hands a sword also _argent_.

On perceiving their approach, Fitzwalter dismounted, saluted the Mayor as his comrade, and, addressing him, said: "Sir Mayor, I am come to do my service, which I owe to the City." The Mayor, Sheriffs, and Aldermen replied thereupon: "We allow you here, as our Standard-bearer of this City in fee, this banner of the City to carry and govern to your power, to the honour and profit of the City."

Fitzwalter then took the banner in his hand, and the Mayor and the Sheriffs, following him to the door, presented him with a horse of the value of 20, garnished with a saddle of his arms and covered with a sendal of the same. They also delivered to his chamberlain 20 sterling for his charges of that day. Holding the banner in his hand, Fitzwalter mounted the horse presented to him, and, as soon as he was seated, desired the Mayor that a marshal might be chosen straightway out of the host of London. This request having been complied with, he preferred another--namely, that the common signal might be sounded through the City, when it would be the duty of the commonalty to follow the Banner of St. Paul, borne before them by the Castellan, to Aldgate.

In the event of Fitzwalter marching out of the City, he chose from every ward two of the sagest inhabitants to superintend the defence of the City in his absence, and form a council of war, holding its sittings in the Priory of the Trinity adjoining Aldgate. It was supposed that the Army of London might be engaged from time to time in besieging towns or castles; and should a siege exceed a year in duration, the utmost amount Fitzwalter could claim as remuneration was one hundred s.h.i.+llings. If such were the duties of the Castellan in time of war, he had rights hardly less important in time of peace. Here it should be premised that under Norman rule the King's justice or the King's peace was a.s.sured by the grant of soke and soken--the former being the power of hearing and determining causes and levying fines and forfeitures, and the latter the area within which soke and other privileges were exercised. In the City of London the Fitzwalters had a soken extending from the wall of the Canonry of St. Paul as a man went down by the "bracine" or brewhouse of St. Paul to the Thames; and thence to the side of the mill that stood on the water running down by the Fleet Bridge, by London Walls, round by the Friars Preachers to Ludgate, and by the back of the friary to the corner of the wall of the said Canons of St. Paul. It embraced, in fact, the whole parish of the Church of St. Andrew, which was in their gift.

Appendant to this soken were various rights and privileges. Fitzwalter might choose from the sokemanry, or inhabitants of the soken, a Sokeman _par excellence_; and if any of the sokemanry was impleaded in the Guildhall on any matter not touching the body of the Mayor or any of the Sheriffs for the time being, the Sokeman might demand the court of Fitzwalter. But while the Mayor and Citizens had to allow him to hold his court, his sentence was expected to coincide with that of the Guildhall. He exercised, indeed, a co-ordinate rather than an appellate jurisdiction, as may be shown in the following manner:

Suppose that a thief had been taken in the soken, stocks and a prison were in readiness for him; and he was thence carried before the Mayor to receive his sentence, but not until he had been conveyed to Fitzwalter's court and within his franchise. The nature of the sentence, to which the latter's a.s.sent was required, varied with the gravity of the offence. If the person were condemned for simple larceny, he was conducted to the Elms, near Smithfield--the usual place of execution before Tyburn was adopted for the purpose--and there "suffered his judgment," i.e., was hanged like other common thieves. If, on the other hand, the theft was a.s.sociated with treason, the crime, it was considered, called for more exemplary punishment, and the felon was bound to a pillar in the Thames at Wood-wharf, to which watermen fastened their boats or barges, there to remain during two successive floods and ebbs of the tide.

So important a franchise in the City was in itself a high honour, and it carried other distinctions with it. The Fitzwalter of the day, when the Mayor was minded to hold a Great Council, was invited to attend, and be a member of it; and on his arrival, the Mayor or his deputy was required to rise and appoint him a place by his side. During the time he was at the hustings, all judgments were p.r.o.nounced by his mouth, and such waifs as might accrue whilst he was there were presented by him to the bailiffs of the City or to whomsoever he pleased, by the advice of the Mayor.

Such is the story as we find it in the pages of Blount, in which it appears apropos of nothing--merely as an instance of curious and picturesque usages which had long ceased to exist. Blount, as we have seen, gives as his authority Sir William Dugdale, who alludes to the subject in his "Extinct Baronage of England," and Dugdale seems to have owed the information to the "Collection of Glover, Somerset Herald."

Stow also knew of the "services and franchises," and it is thought that he had seen a copy of them in the "Liber Custumarum." The latter is accessible in print in Riley's edition of the "Munimenta Gildhallae Londiniensis," and corresponds in all or most respects with what we have found in Blount.

So much for the antecedents of the story.

The Fitzwalters are said to have come over with the Conqueror, and to have been invested with the soke before mentioned by his favour and in requital of their services. That the family had at one time extraordinary rights in the City of London is shown by the evidence of the Patent Rolls, from which we learn that in the third year of Edward I. (1275) Robert Fitzwalter received licence from the Crown to transfer Baynard Castle, "adjoining the wall of the City, with all walls and fosses thereunto pertaining, as also the Tourelle called Montfichet," to Robert Kilwardley, Archbishop of Canterbury, for the purpose of founding the House and Church of the Friars Preachers--"provided always that by reason of this grant nothing shall be extinguished to him and his heirs which to his Barony did belong, but that whatsoever relating thereto, as well in rents, landing of vessels, and other franchises and privileges in the City of London or elsewhere, without diminution unto him the said Robert, or to that Barony, have recently belonged, shall henceforth be reserved."

This Robert was the son of Walter Fitzwalter and grandson of his more ill.u.s.trious namesake, the Marshal of the Army of G.o.d and Captain of the Barons in the days of King John; and it may be noted in pa.s.sing that either to the last-named or his son Walter, as lord of Dunmow in Ess.e.x, has been ascribed the inst.i.tution of the Flitch. Thirty years after the sale of his patrimonial estate Robert Fitzwalter, in 1303, recited and claimed his services "and franchises" before Sir John le Blount, Warden of the City; and as late as 1321, as shown by the "Placita de Quo Warranto," the Justiciars of the Iter were inquiring into the claims of Fitzwalter in relation to the City of London. One of his rights he was prepared to waive--namely, that of drowning traitors at Wood-wharf. The Justiciars refused to take cognizance of the matter, but the Fitzwalters did not soon or easily abandon their demands, which were renewed by John, grandson of Robert Fitzwalter, in 1347. On the feast of St.

Matthew in that year it was announced to the Mayor, Aldermen, and Citizens in Common Council "that John, Lord Fitzwalter, claims to have franchises in the Ward of Castle Baynard wholly repugnant to the liberties of the City, and to the prejudice of the estate of his lords.h.i.+p the King, and of the liberties of the City aforesaid. For now of late he has made stocks for imprisonment of persons in the said Ward and [has claimed] to make deliverance of persons imprisoned." Thereupon it was agreed "that the said John had no franchise within the liberties of the City aforesaid, nor was he in future to intermeddle with any pleas holden in the Guildhall of London or with any matters touching the liberties of the City."

Probably this resolution served as a quietus of the efforts of the Fitzwalters to establish or re-establish the right of jurisdiction over the citizens of London. It seems likely that these were endeavours to reinst.i.tute ancient privileges rather than to create new. The doc.u.ment in the "Liber Custumarum," used in support of the claims of Robert Fitzwalter in 1303, contains a reference to the Friars Preachers, which would lead to the supposition that it was drawn up at the time; but Riley believes that it was remodelled, perhaps only to the extent of this interpolation, and that otherwise it was a copy of an earlier p.r.o.nouncement pertaining to the days of the first Robert Fitzwalter, who would have been the actual owner of Baynard Castle.

This has an important bearing on the reality of the dual or reciprocal obligations, which were apparently embodied in a compact between the Mayor and Citizens of London on the one part, and their military chief or champion on the other. Thus it will be necessary to glance at the personal history of the elder Robert Fitzwalter, on which something has been already said. According to the Chronicle of Dunmow and other early records, the princ.i.p.al reason of Fitzwalter's insatiable hatred of King John was that the monarch had attempted the chast.i.ty of Matilda, Robert's fair daughter, who, by the way, is identified by Anthony Munday and other Elizabethan playwrights with the Maid Marian of Robin Hood.

Dugdale is disposed to accept this story; but, granting that it is true, it hardly suffices to explain Fitzwalter's pre-eminence in the forces of the rebellious Barons. This seems to have been due to his influence with the wealthy citizens of London, who were among the staunchest opponents of the astute and tyrannous sovereign. On May 24, 1215--the Sunday next before Ascension Day, when many of the inhabitants would have been in attendance on Divine service--the army of the Barons, marching from Ware, were permitted to enter the City, unopposed, through the gate of Aldgate. Fitzwalter's position as Castellan, and his connexion with the Priory of Holy Trinity at Aldgate, furnish an easy and natural explanation of this proceeding. In 1217 the citizens of London raised a force of 20,000 men for the a.s.sistance of the Dauphin of France against King Henry and his guardian William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, and Robert Fitzwalter acted as commander. He died in 1234, and was buried before the high altar in the church of Dunmow Priory.

In the description of the banner delivered to Fitzwalter by the Mayor we have the earliest mention of the a.s.sumption of any sort of arms by the City of London. It may be noted that the sword is stated by some heraldic authorities to have been argent, whilst by others this detail is omitted. In Saxon times York also had its standard-bearer. The "Great Gate" of St. Paul's was probably the Northern Gate.

Still keeping to the military aspects of the subject--at the commencement of the fourteenth century there was at the west end of St.

Paul's Cathedral a waste piece of ground, which was the property of the City; and here it was the custom for the citizens to make a muster of arms under the command or inspection of the lord of Baynard Castle for the defence of the City, "so often as the said citizens might see fit."

Moreover, at the east end of the church lay a smaller plot, on which the citizens held folkmotes and made parade of arms for preserving the King's peace. This was perhaps a relic of the Anglo-Saxon inst.i.tution of Inward, which is mentioned in Domesday, and was designed for the maintenance of order within the walls. Adjacent to this smaller plot was the clochier or campanile of St. Paul's, which was a distinct building from the cathedral proper, and contained the great bell, known as the _motbelle_, by which the citizens were summoned to the Folkmote or an a.s.sembly of arms on occasions "when within the respective bailiwicks of the Aldermen anything unexpected, doubtful, or disastrous against the realm, or the royal crown, chanced suddenly to take place." When the King required the services of the Host of London against foreign enemies or outside the confines of the City, it is natural to suppose that the muster was held on the larger of the two s.p.a.ces.

The musters and parades of the Host probably lapsed when, by the sale of Baynard Castle, the Fitzwalters ceased to be _de facto_ Castellans of London. This is a fair inference from the circ.u.mstance that in 1321 the citizens complained before the Justiciars Itinerant that the Dean and Chapter had unlawfully taken possession of the vacant s.p.a.ces, enclosed them with walls, and even erected dwelling-houses on the eastern plot.

The blazonry of the Banner of St. Paul, which would have been no longer used, was so far forgotten that eighty or a hundred years later nothing remained but the sword, which was supposed to stand for the dagger of that militant mayor, Sir William Walworth, who is said to have terminated therewith the lawlessness of Wat Tyler.

URBAN

CHAPTER XV

G.o.d'S PENNY

Were we obliged to sum up the difference between town and country in one word, that word would be "trade." In mediaeval, far more than in modern, times country places had their fairs, but London, with its markets open Sundays and week-days, enjoyed all the benefits of a perpetual fair; from which strangers and foreigners, though under some disadvantages compared with freemen, were by no means excluded.

One of the great principles regulating commercial transactions in the Middle Ages and enforced by law and custom was publicity. Bakers, as we have seen, might not sell bread "before their oven," and to this we may add that fishmongers might not take fish into their shops--they had to expose it for sale outside. The object of such arrangements was to ensure fair dealing all round. As Justice is usually figured with a pair of scales, it may be taken for granted that the important question of due weight did not escape the attention of legislators, and it attained considerable prominence in 31 Edward I. (A.D. 1303), in which year the statute De Nova Custuma was promulgated. This statute provided that in every market town and fair throughout the Kingdom there was to be erected in some fixed spot the Royal Beam or Balance, and that both vendor and purchaser were to view the scale before weighing, to see that it was empty. Prior to being used, the arms of the balance had to be exactly equal, and when the tronator was weighing, he had to remove his hands as soon as they were level. It may be observed that the citizens of London refused to accept the "New Custom," stating that it had always been the custom for all buyers of wares, whether archbishops, bishops, earls, barons, or other persons, to have the draught of the beam; but we have learnt by this time that a local custom was not allowed to override the law of the land, and thus it is most improbable that this protest, though it led to the issuing of two Royal mandates, was long persisted in.

But the "New Custom" statute contained another provision--namely, when once a bargain had been ratified, neither of the contracting parties was to recede from it. If they, or either of them, took this course after the weighing process, it would be bringing the Royal Beam into contempt, and such profanation could not be contemplated; but the sacredness of contract had been affirmed by local ordinances or customs before this measure was enacted. A contract was held to be good when G.o.d's Penny, or earnest money, had been given and received by the princ.i.p.als. As G.o.d's Penny, or that which it symbolized, was the basis of all business, and business was the life of towns, the custom appears worthy of notice in some detail.

The _arles_, or earnest money, was given to a servant on hiring, as shown by an entry in the Shuttleworth Accounts (printed by the Chetham Society) for September, 1590: "4_d._, earnest money, was paid unto a cook to serve at the next a.s.sizes." Similarly, in February, 1592: "To John Hay upon earnest to serve for a year as butler and brewster at Smithhills, 4_d._" Previous entries state that 12_d._ was paid to John h.o.r.ebyn "upon erlynges" of a bargain for ditching, and that "3_d._ was given of erles unto the gardener for his hiring another year."

Mr. Gerald P. Gordon, to whom we are indebted for much valuable information, quotes as an a.n.a.logous instance the gift of the "King's s.h.i.+lling" to a recruit on enlistment. As regards mercantile transactions he considers that the usage "was not so much a partial or symbolic payment of the price as a distinct payment for the seller's forbearance to deliver to somebody else." This view of the case appears to us extremely doubtful, as it would render the contract binding on one of the parties only--namely, the buyer; whereas Bracton and "Fleta" aver that if the seller default he must pay double the earnest. Mr. Gordon subsequently adduces a Preston decree, that "if a buyer should buy any goods in large or small quant.i.ties and give earnest, and he who agreed to sell should rue the bargain, he shall pay the double asked. But if the buyer fingers the goods, he must either take them or pay the seller 5_s._" We infer, therefore, from his evidence alone, that the payment of earnest was essentially symbolical and served all the purpose of a written contract.

That the act was regarded as expressive of mutual understanding is shown by a Northampton ordinance of about the year 1260: "That if anyone put a penny or any merchandise before the seller be agreed to the bargain, he shall forfeit the penny to the use of the bailiffs." The importance of the due-fulfilment of the contract was recognized by the imposition of a penalty on anyone who delivered the earnest and afterwards declined to make good the bargain. At Waterford about 1300 it was enacted that "whoever gives G.o.d's silver and repents, be he who he may, shall pay 10s."; and at Cork in 1614 an ordinance was pa.s.sed, disfranchising the defaulter of his councillors.h.i.+p and freedom and compelling him to pay a fine of 20.

In the early part of the sixteenth century G.o.d's Penny was paid at Waterford on s.h.i.+ps' freights; and at Youghal, in 1611, it was paid into court for the right of buying wines on board s.h.i.+p. As may have been noticed in previous examples, the arles did not necessarily consist of a penny. An ordinance of Berwick of the year 1249 declared: "If anyone buy herring or other aforesaid goods and give G.o.d's penny or other silver in earnest, he shall pay the merchant from whom he bought the said goods according to the bargain made." But a penny sufficed. Noyes, the Attorney-General of Charles I., is emphatic on this point. "If," he says in his "Maxims," "the bargain be that you shall give me two pounds for my horse, and you do give me one penny in earnest, which I do accept, this is a perfect bargain." The impression left upon one's mind is that the most important contracts as well as the most trifling dealings were settled by the exchange of G.o.d's Penny or some equivalent ceremony.

Now, it is evident on the face of it that the transactions must have taken place in the presence of witnesses; otherwise a man who had made an awkward bargain would have found it easy to escape from his dilemma by denying that he had either given or received the penny. In early times, before writing became a common accomplishment, and when, as now, men might be eager to clinch a bargain without loss of time, it was desirable in the interests of common honesty that such agreements should be made in the light of day and in the face of the world. This custom appears to have continued to a late date. Thus, if O'Keeffe the dramatist may be believed, there was in the centre of Limerick Exchange a pillar with a circular plate of copper, about three feet in diameter, called "the nail," on which the earnest of all Stock Exchange bargains had to be paid. At Bristol there are said to have been four pillars called "the nails" in front of the Exchange, the purpose being the same; and similarly, at Liverpool, bargains were completed on a plate of copper, also called "the nail," and standing in front of the Exchange.

It is probable, however, as Mr. Gordon observes, that, the phrase "payment on the nail" did not originate from circ.u.mstances like these, but was an adaptation of the Latin _super unguem_ or the French _sur l'ongle_, by which is meant "paying down into a man's hand." It might thus stand for a bargain the opposite of that of which G.o.d's Penny was the usual symbol. It appears to have been the custom at Ipswich in 1291 for traders not to make writings or tallies if two witnesses were in attendance to prove that the undertaking was to pay on a near day _ou freschement sur le ungle_. The notion of immediate payment is still conveyed by the expression, and would cover the entire amount, not merely G.o.d's Penny. However, that payment was undoubtedly made "on the nail;" hence some confusion may have arisen, especially where plates and pillars were provided for the deposit of earnest money.

In all this there is much to remind us of the Roman _manc.i.p.atio_, a method of sale which demanded the presence of five witnesses, and in which the buyer took possession of his new purchase by holding in his hand a bronze ingot and repeating the formula: "This man [i.e., a slave]

I claim as belonging to me by right quiritary; and be he [or he is]

purchased to me by this ingot and this scale of bronze [i.e., that in which the purchase money had been weighed out]."

We have expressed the opinion that the payment of G.o.d's Penny was a symbolical act, and this opinion is supported by the fact that there were in mediaeval England hand-clasp bargains. Marbeck, a musician and theologian of the sixteenth century, remarks: "As ye see: after all bargaines there is a signe thereof made, eyther clapping of hands or giving earnest." Among the provisions of the Grimsby charter of 1259 is one to the effect that only buyers of the said town might make bargains by hand-clasp for herring or other fish or for corn. To this was added that hand-clasp bargains were to be valid, unless the merchandise, which was the subject of such a bargain, should be inferior to that agreed upon--a question which has to be determined by men worthy of credit. In Shakespeare's "Henry V." we meet with the saying: "Give me your answer, i' faith, do; and so clasp hands _and a bargain_; how say you, lady?"

This recalls that the joining of hands in the marriage ceremony is in the highest degree symbolical; and it is, of course, the common token of faith in friends.h.i.+p. Judging by these parallels, the payment of G.o.d's Penny was not less symbolical than its equivalent, the clapping or clasping of hands.

URBAN

CHAPTER XVI