Our Legal Heritage Part 85

About 1567, London authorities punished Nicholas Jennings alias Blunt for using elaborate disguises to present himself as an epileptic to beg for handouts from the public. He was pilloried, whipped, and pulled behind a cart through the streets. He was kept at the Bridewell and was set to work at a mill.

- - - Chapter 14 - - -

- The Times: 1601-1625 -

Due in part to increasing population, the prices of foodstuffs had risen sixfold from the later 1400s, during which it had been stable.

This inflation gradually impoverished those living on fixed wages.

Landlords could insist on even shorter leases and higher rents. London quadrupled in population. Many lands that were in scattered strips, pasture lands, waste lands, and lands gained from drainage and disafforestation were enclosed for the introduction of convertible agriculture (e.g. market-oriented specialization) and only sometimes for sheep. The accompanying extinguishment of common rights was devastating to small tenants and cottagers. Gentry and yeomen benefited greatly.

There was a gradual consolidation of the land into fewer hands and demise of the small family farm. In towns, the ma.s.s of poor, unskilled workers with irregular work grew. Prices finally flattened out in the 1620s.

Society became polarized with a wealthy few growing wealthier and a ma.s.s of poor growing poorer. This social stratification became a permanent fixture of English society. Poverty was no longer due to death of a spouse or parent, sickness or injury, or a phase in the life cycle such as youth or old age. Many full-time wage earners were in constant danger of dest.i.tution. More subdivided land holdings in the country made holdings of cottagers minuscule. But these were eligible for parish relief under the poor laws. Beside them were substantial numbers of rogues and vagabonds wandering the roads. These vagrants were usually young unmarried men. There were no more licensed liveries of lords.

During the time 1580 to 1680, there were distinct social cla.s.ses in England which determined dress, convention in comportment which determined face-to-face contacts between superiors and inferiors, order of seating in church, place arrangement at tables, and rank order in public processions. It was influenced by power, wealth, life-style, educational level, and birth. The various cla.s.ses lived in separate worlds; their paths did not cross each other. People moved only within their own cla.s.s. Each cla.s.s had a separate existence as well as a different life style from the other cla.s.ses. So each cla.s.s developed a wariness of other cla.s.ses. However, there was much social mobility between adjacent cla.s.ses.

At the top were the gentry, about 2% of the population. Theirs was a landed wealth with large estate mansions. They employed many servants and could live a life of leisure. Their lady wives often managed the household with many servants and freely visited friends and went out shopping, riding, or walking. They conversed with neighbors and made merry with them at childbirths, christenings, churchings, and funerals.

Gentlemen usually had positions of responsibility such as lords of manors and leaders in their parishes. These families often sent the oldest son to university to become a Justice of the Peace and then a member of Parliament. They also served as county officers such as High Constable of their hundred and grand jury member. Their social, economic, and family ties were at least countywide. They composed about 700 gentle families, including the peers, who had even more landed wealth, which was geographically dispersed. After the peers were: baronets (created in 1611), knights, esquires, and then ordinary gentlemen. These t.i.tles were acquired by being the son of such or by purchase. Most gentry had a house in London, where they spent most of their time, as well as country mansions. About 4/5 of the land was in the hands of 7,000 of the n.o.bility and landed gentry due in part to estate tails constructed by attorneys to favor hereditary interests. The gentry had also profited by commerce and possessions in the colonies.

The country life of a country squire or gentleman dealt with all the daily affairs of a farm. He had men plough, sow, and reap. He takes part in the haying and getting cut gra.s.s under cover when a rain came. His sow farrows; his horse is gelded; a first lamb is born. He drags his pond and takes out great carps. His horses stray and he finds them in the pound. Boys are bound to him for service. He hires servants, and some work out their time and some run away. Knaves steal his sheep. His hog is stabbed. He and a neighbor argue about the setting up of a cottage. He borrows money for a daughter's dowry. He holds a leet court.

He attends church on Sunday and reads the lesson when called upon. He visits the local tavern to hear from his neighbors. Country folk brawl.

Wenches get pregnant. Men commit suicide, usually by hanging. Many gentlemen spent their fortunes and died poor. New gentlemen from the lower cla.s.ses took their places.

The second cla.s.s included the wealthier merchants and professional men of the towns. These men were prominent in town government. They usually had close family ties with the gentry, especially as sons. When wealthy enough, they often bought a country estate. The professional men included military officers, civil service officials, attorneys, some physicians, and a few clergymen. The instabilities of trade, high mortality rates in the towns, and high turnover rate among the leading urban families prevented any separate urban interest group arising that would be opposed to the landed gentry. Also included in this second group were the most prosperous yeomanry of the countryside.

The third cla.s.s was the yeomanry at large, which included many more than the initial group who possessed land in freehold of at least 40s., partly due to inflation. Freehold was the superior form of holding land because one was free to sell, exchange, or devise the land and had a political right to vote in Parliamentary elections. Other yeomen were those who possessed enough land, as copyholder or leaseholder, to be protected from fluctuations in the amount of the annual harvest, that is, at least 50 acres. A copyholder rented land from a lord for a period of years or lives, usually three lives including that of the widow, and paid a substantial amount whenever the copyhold came up for renewal. The copyholder and leaseholder were distinguished from the mere tenant-at-will, whose only right was to gather his growing crop when his landlord decided to terminate his tenancy. The average yeoman had a one and a half story house, with a milkhouse, a malthouse, and other small buildings attached to the dwelling. The house would contain a main living room, a parlor, where there would be one or more beds, and several other rooms with beds. No longer was there a central great hall.

Cooking was done in a kitchen or over the open fire in the fireplace of the main room. Furniture included large oak tables, stools, long bencches with or without backs, chests, cupboards, and a few hard-backed simple chairs. Dishware was wood or pewter. The yeomen often became sureties for recognizances, witnesses to wills, parish managers, churchwardens, vestrymen, the chief civil officers of parishes and towns, overseers of the poor, surveyors of bridges and highways, jurymen and constables for the Justices of the Peace, and sheriffs' bailiffs.

The families and servants of these yeomen ate meat, fish, wheaten bread, beer, cheese, milk, b.u.t.ter, and fruit. Their wives were responsible for the dairy, poultry, orchard, garden, and perhaps pigs. They smoked and cured hams and bacon, salted fish, dried herbs for the kitchen or lavender and pot-pourri for sweetening the linen, and arranged apples and roots in lofts or long garrets under the roof to last the winter.

They preserved fruits candied or in syrup. They preserved wines; made perfumes, washes for preserving the hair and complexion, rosemary to cleanse the hair, and elder-flower water for sunburn; distilled beverages; ordered wool hemp, and flax to spin for cloth (the weaving was usually done in the village); fas.h.i.+oned and sewed clothes and house linens; embroidered; dyed; malted oats; brewed; baked; and extracted oils. Many prepared herb medicines and treated injuries, such as dressing wounds, binding arteries, and setting broken bones. Wives also ploughed and sowed, weeded the crops, and sheared sheep. They sometimes cared for the poor and sold produce at the market. Some yeomen were also tanners, painters, carpenters, or blacksmiths; and as such they were frequently brought before the Justices of the Peace for exercising a craft without having served an apprentices.h.i.+p. The third cla.s.s also included the freemen of the towns, who could engage independently in trade and had political rights. These freemen were about one-third of the male population of the town.

The fourth cla.s.s included the ordinary farmer leasing by copyhold, for usually 21 years, five to fifty acres. From this cla.s.s were drawn sidesmen [a.s.sistants to churchwardens] and constables. They had neither voice nor authority in government. Their daily diet was bacon, beer, bread, and cheese. Also in this cla.s.s were the independent urban craftsmen who were not town freemen. Their only voice in government was at the parish level.

The fifth and lowest cla.s.s included the laborers and cottagers, who were usually tenants at will. They were dependent on day labor. They started work at dawn, had breakfast for half an hour at six, worked until dinner, and then until supper at about six; in the summer they would then do ch.o.r.es around the barns until eight or nine. Some were hedgers, ditchers, ploughmen, reapers, shepherds, and herdsmen. The cottagers' typical earnings of about 1s. a day amounted to about 200 s.h.i.+llings a year, which was almost subsistence level. Accordingly they also farmed a little on their four acres of land with garden. Some also had a few animals. They lived in one or two room cottages of clay and branches of trees or wood, sometimes with a brick fireplace and chimney, and few windows. They ate bread, cheese, lard, soup, and greens. If a laborer was unmarried, he lived with the farmer. Theirs was a constant battle for survival. They often moved, because of deprivation, to seek opportunity elsewhere. The town wage-earning laborers ranged from journeymen craftsmen to poor casual laborers. The ma.s.s of workers in London were not members of guilds, and the crime rate was high.

The last three cla.s.ses also contained rural craftsmen and tradesmen, who also farmed. The variety of trades became very large, e.g.

tinsmiths, chain smiths, pewterers, violin makers, and gla.s.s painters.

The curriers, who prepared hides for shoemakers, coachmakers, saddlers, and bookbinders, were incorporated.

The fourth and fifth cla.s.ses comprised about three fourths of the population.

Then there were the maritime groups: traders, s.h.i.+p owners, master and seamen, and the fishers.

Over one fourth of all households had servants. They were the social equals of day laborers, but materially better off with food and clothing plus an allowance of money of two pounds [40s.] a year. Those who sewed got additional pay for this work. There was no great chasm between the family and the servants. They did not segregate into a parlor cla.s.s and a kitchen cla.s.s. The top servants were as educated as their masters and ate at the same table. Great households had a chaplain and a steward to oversee the other servants. There was usually a cook. Lower servants ate together. Servants were disciplined by cuffs and slaps and by the rod by master or mistress. Maids wore short gowns, a large ap.r.o.n, and a gypsy hat tied down over a cap. Chamber maids helped to dress their mistresses. Servants might sleep on trundle beds stored under their master's or mistress's bed, in a separate room, or on the straw loft over the stables. A footman wore a blue tunic or skirted coat with corded loop fasteners, knee-britches, and white stockings. He walked or ran on foot by the side of his master or mistress when they rode out on horseback or in a carriage and ran errands for him, such as leading a lame horse home or running messages. A good footman is described in this reference letter: "Sir, - You wrote me lately for a footman, and I think this bearer will fit you: I know he can run well, for he has run away twice from me, but he knew the way back again: yet, though he has a running head as well as running heels (and who will expect a footman to be a stayed man) I would not part with him were I not to go post to the North. There be some things in him that answer for his waggeries: he will come when you call him, go when you bid him, and shut the door after him; he is faithful and stout, and a lover of his master. He is a great enemy to all dogs, if they bark at him in his running; for I have seen him confront a huge mastiff, and knock him down. When you go a country journey, or have him run with you a-hunting, you must spirit him with liquor; you must allow him also something extraordinary for socks, else you must not have him wait at your table; when his grease melts in running hard, it is subject to fall into his toes. I send him to you but for trial, if he be not for your turn, turn him over to me again when I come back..."

Dress was not as elaborate as in Elizabethan times. For instance, fewer jewels were worn. Ladies typically wore a brooch, earrings, and pearl necklaces. Men also wore earrings. Watches with elaborate cases were common. Women's dresses were of satin, taffeta, and velvet, and were made by dressmakers. Pockets were carried in the hand, fastened to the waist by a ribbon, or sewn in petticoats and accessible by a placket opening. The corset was greatly reduced. Women's hair was in little natural-looking curls, a few small tendrils on the forehead with soft ringlets behind the ears, and the back coiled into a simple knot. Men also wore their hair in ringlets. They had pockets in their trousers, first as a cloth pouch inserted into an opening in the side seam, and later sewn into the side seam. The bereaved wore black, and widows wore a black veil over their head until they remarried or died. Rouge was worn by lower cla.s.s women. Toothbrushes, made with horsehair, were a new and costly luxury. The law dictating what cla.s.ses could wear what clothes was difficult to enforce and the last such law was in 1597.

Merchants who had become rich by pirating could now afford to extend their trading ventures well beyond the Atlantic sea. Cotton chintzes, calicoes, taffetas, muslins, and ginghams from India now became fas.h.i.+onable as dress fabrics. Simple cotton replaced linen as the norm for napkins, tablecloths, bed sheets, and underwear. Then it became the fas.h.i.+on to use calicoes for curtains, cus.h.i.+ons, chairs, and beds. Its inexpensiveness made these items affordable for many. There was a cotton-weaving industry in England from about 1621, established by cotton workmen who fled to England in 1585 from Antwerp, which had been captured. By 1616, there were automatic weaving looms in London which could be operated by a novice.

Even large houses now tended to do without a courtyard and became compacted into one soaring and stately whole. A typical country house had deep-set windows of gla.s.s looking into a walled green court with a sundial in it and fringed around with small trees. The gables roofs were steep and full of crooks and angles, and covered with rough slate if there was a source for such nearby. There was an extensive use of red tile, either rectangular or other shapes and with design such as fishscales. The rooms are broad and s.p.a.cious and include hall, great parlor, little parlor, matted chamber, and study. In the hall was still the great, heavy table. Dining tables were covered with cloth, carpet, or printed leather. Meals were increasingly eaten in a parlor. n.o.ble men now preferred to be waited upon by pages and grooms instead of by their social equals as before. After dinner, they deserted the parlor to retire into drawing rooms for conversation and desserts of sweet wine and spiced delicacies supplemented by fruit. Afterward, there might be dancing and then supper. In smaller parlors, there was increasing use of oval oak tables with folding leaves. Chests of drawers richly carved or inlaid and with bra.s.s handles were coming into increased use. Walls were lined with panels and had pictures or were hung with tapestry. Carpets, rugs, and curtains kept people warm. There were many stools to sit on, and some arm chairs. Wide and handsome open staircases separated the floors. Upstairs, the sitting and bedrooms open into each other with broad, heavy doors. Bedrooms had four-post beds and wardrobes with shelves and pegs. Under the roof are garrets, apple-lofts, and root-chambers. Underneath is a cellar. Outside is a farmyard with outbuildings such as bake house, dairy, cheese-press house, brewery, stilling house, malt house, fowl house, dove cot, pig stye, slaughter-house, wood house, barns, stable, and sometimes a mill. There were stew-ponds for fish and a park with a decoy for wild fowl. There was also a laundry, carpenter's bench, blacksmith's forge, and pots and equipment of a house painter.

In the 1600s, towns were fortified by walled ditches instead of relying on castles, which couldn't contain enough men to protect the townspeople. Also in towns, water was supplied by local pumps and wells.

In 1613, a thirty-eight-mile aqueduct brought spring water into London.

In the country, floors were of polished wood or stone and strewn with rushes. A ladies' attendant might sleep the same bedroom on a bed which slid under the ladies' bed. Apprentices and shop boys had to sleep under the counter. Country laborers slept in a loft on straw. Bread was made in each household. There were bedroom chairs with enclosed chamber pots.

Wood fires were the usual type. Coal was coming into use in the towns and near coal mines. Charcoal was also used. Food was roasted on a spit over a fire, baked, or broiled. People still licked their fingers at meals. The well-to-do had wax candles. Tallow dips were used by the poor and for the kitchen. People drank cordials and homemade wines made with grapes, currants, oranges, or ginger. Some mead was also drunk.