The Law
After the Black Death of 1348 these statutes were enacted:
High treason was defined by statute in 1352 as levying war against the King, aiding the King's enemies, compassing or imagining the death of the King, Queen, or their eldest son and heir, or violating the Queen or the eldest unmarried daughter or the wife of the King's eldest son and heir; making or knowingly using counterfeits of the King's great or privy seal or coinage; or slaying the Chancellor, Treasurer, or any justice in the exercise of their duty. The penalty was forfeit of life and lands.
Petit treason was defined by statute and included a servant slaying his master, a wife her husband, or a man his lord, to whom was owed faith and obedience.
No one shall tell false news or lies about prelates, dukes, earls, barons, and other nobles and great men or the Chancellor, Treasurer, a Justice, Clerk of the Privy Seal, Steward of the King's house whereby debates and discords might arise between these lords or between the lords and the commons. Cases shall be tried by the King's Council, which included the Chancellor, Treasurer, and chief justices.
Preachers drawing crowds by ingenious sermons and inciting them to riot shall be arrested by sheriffs and tried by the ecclesiastical court.
Any stranger passing at night of whom any have suspicion shall be arrested and taken to the Sheriff.
No man shall ride with a spear, upon pain of forfeiting it.
No servant of agriculture or laborer shall carry any sword or dagger, or else forfeit it, except in time of war in defense of the nation. He may carry bow and arrow [for practice] on Sundays and holy days, when he should not play games such as tennis, football, or dice.
No one may enter another's land and tenements by strong hand nor with a mob, upon pain of imprisonment and ransom at the King's will.
Charters, releases, obligations, [quitclaim deeds] and other deeds burnt or destroyed in uprisings shall be reissued without fee, after trial by the king and his council. Manumissions, obligations, releases and other bonds and feoffments in land made by force, coercion or duress during mob uprisings are void.
Men who rape and women consenting after a rape shall lose their inheritance and dower and joint feoffments. The husbands, or father or next of kin of such women may sue the rapist by inquisition, but not by trial by combat. The penalty is loss of life and member.
The Statute of Laborers of 1351 required all workers, from tailors to ploughmen, to work only at pre-plague wage rates and forced the vagrant peasant to work for anyone who claimed him or her. It also encouraged longer terms of employment as in the past rather than for a day at a time. Statutory price controls on food limited profits to reasonable ones according to the distance of the supply. Later, wages were determined in each county by Justices of the Peace according to the dearth of victuals while allowing a victualer a reasonable profit and a penalty was specified as paying the value of the excess wages given or received for the first offense, double this for the second offense, and treble this or forty days imprisonment for the third offense.
A fugitive laborer will be outlawed, and when found, shall be burnt in the forehead with the letter "F" for falsity.
Children who labored at the plough and cart or other agriculture shall continue in that labor and may not go into a craft.
A statute of 1363 designed to stop hoarding various types of merchandise until a type became scarce so to sell it at high prices, required merchants to deal in only one type of merchandise. It also required craftsmen to work in only one craft as before (except women who traditionally did several types of handiwork). This was repealed a year later.
Where scarcity has made the price of poultry high, it shall be lowered to 8d. for a young capon, 7d. for an old capon or a goose, 9d. for a hen, and 10d. for a pullet.
The fares for passage on boats on fresh waters and from Dover to the continent shall remain at their old rate.
Any merchant selling at a fair after it has ended will forfeit to the king twice the value of that sold.
Anyone finding and proving cloth contrary to the assize of cloth shall have one-third of it for his labor.
No shoemaker nor cordwainer shall tan their leather and no tanner shall make shoes, in order that tanning not be false or poorly done.
All denizen [foreigner permitted to reside in the realm with certain rights and privileges] and alien merchants may buy and sell goods and merchandise, in gross, in any part of the country, despite town charters or franchises, to anyone except an enemy of the King. They may also sell small wares: victuals, fur, silk, coverchiefs [an item of woman's apparel], silver wire, and gold wire in retail, but not cloth or wine. They must sell their goods within three months of arrival. Any alien bringing goods to the nation to sell must buy goods of the nation to the value of at least one-half that of his merchandise sold. These merchants must engage in no collusion to lower the price of merchandise bought, take merchandise bought to the staple, and promise to hold no staple beyond the sea for the same merchandise. An amendment disallowed denizens from taking wools, leather, woolfells, or lead for export, but only strangers.
Towns failing to bring disturbers of this right to justice shall forfeit their franchise to the king and pay double damages to the merchant. The disturber shall be imprisoned for a year.
Cloth may not be tacked nor folded for sale to merchants unless they are opened to the buyers for inspection, for instance for concealed inferior wool. Workers, weavers, and fullers shall put their seals to every cloth. And anyone could bring his own wools, woolfells, leather, and lead to the staple to sell without being compelled to sell them in the country. Special streets or warehouses were appointed with warehouse rent fixed by the mayor and constables with four of the principal inhabitants. Customs duties were regulated and machinery provided for their collection. No one was to forestall or regrate, that is, buy at one price and sell at a higher price in the same locale. Forestallers were those who bought raw material on its way to market. Regrators were those who tried to create a "corner" in the article in the market itself.
Imported cloth shall be inspected by the King's officials for non- standard measurements or defects [despite town franchises].
No one shall leave the nation except at designated ports, on pain of one year's imprisonment.
Social distinctions by attire were mandated by statute of 1363. A servant, his wife, son, or daughter, shall only wear cloth worth no more than 27s. and shall not have more than one dish of meat or fish a day. Carters, ploughmen, drivers of the plough, oxherds, cowherds, shepherds, and all other people owning less than 40s. of goods and chattels shall only wear blanket and russet worth no more than 12d. and girdles of linen according to their estate. Craftsmen and free peasants shall only wear cloth worth no more than 40s. Esquires and gentlemen below the rank of knight with no land nor rent over 2,000s. a year shall only wear cloth worth no more than 60s., no gold, silver, stone, fur, or the color purple. Esquires with land up to 2,667s. per year may wear 67s. cloth, cloth of silk and silver, miniver [grey squirrel] fur and stones, except stones on the head. Merchants, citizens, burgesses, artificers, and people of handicraft having goods and chattels worth 10,000s. shall wear cloth the same value as that worn by esquires and gentlemen with land or rent within 2,000s. per year. The same merchants and burgesses with goods and chattels worth 13,333s. and esquires and gentlemen with land or rent within 400s. per year may not wear gold cloth, miniver fur, ermine [white] fur, or embroidered stones. A knight with land or rents within 2,667s. yearly are limited to cloth of 80s., but his wife may wear a stone on her head. Knights and ladies with land or rents within 8,000s. to 20,000s. yearly may not wear fur of ermine or of letuse, but may wear gold, and such ladies may wear pearls as well as stones on their heads. The penalty is forfeiture of such apparel. This statute is necessary because of "outrageous and excessive apparel of diverse persons against their estate and degree, to the great destruction and impoverishment of all the land".
If anyone finds a hawk [used to hunt birds, ducks, and pheasant] that a lord has lost, he must take it to the sheriff for keeping for the lord to claim. If there is no claim after four months, the finder may have it only if he is a gentleman. If one steals a hawk from a lord or conceals from him the fact that it has been found, he shall pay the price of the hawk and be imprisoned for two years.
No laborer or any other man who does not have lands and tenements of the value of 40s. per year shall keep a greyhound [or other hound or dog] to hunt, nor shall they use nets or cords or other devices to take [deer, hare, rabbits, nor other gentlemen's game], upon pain of one year imprisonment. (The rabbit had been introduced by the Normans.) This 1390 law was primarily intended to stop the meetings of laborers and artificers.
No man shall eat more than two courses of meat or fish in his house or elsewhere, except at festivals, when three are allowed [because great men ate costly meats to excess and the lesser people were thereby impoverished].
No one may export silver, whether bullion or coinage, or wine except foreign merchants may carry back the portion of their money not used to buy English commodities. The penalty for bringing false or counterfeit money into the nation is loss of life and member. An assigned searcher [inspector] for coinage of the nation on the sea passing out of the nation or bad money in the nation shall have one third of it. No foreign money may be used in the nation.
Each goldsmith shall have an identifying mark, which shall be placed on his vessel or work only after inspection by the King's surveyor.
No one shall give anything to a beggar who is capable of working.
Vagrants begging in London were banned by this 1359 ordinance: "Forasmuch as many men and women, and others, of divers counties, who might work, to the help of the common people, have betaken themselves from out of their own country to the city of London and do go about begging there so as to have their own ease and repose, not wishing to labor or work for their sustenance, to the great damage of the common people; and also do waste divers alms which would otherwise be given to many poor folks, such as lepers, blind, halt, and persons oppressed with old age and divers other maladies, to the destruction of the support of the same - we do command on behalf of our lord the King, whom may God preserve and bless, that all those who go about begging in the said city and who are able to labor and work for the profit of the common people shall quit the said city between now and Monday next ensuing. And if any such shall be found begging after the day aforesaid, the same shall be taken and put in the stocks on Cornhill for half a day the first time, and the second time he shall remain in the stocks one whole day, and the third time he shall be taken and shall remain in prison for forty days and shall then forswear the said city forever. And every constable and the beadle of every ward of the said city shall be empowered to arrest such manner of folks and to put them in the stocks in manner aforesaid."
The hundred year cry to "let the king live on his own" found fruition in a 1352 statute requiring consent of the Parliament before any commission of array for militia could be taken and a 1362 statute requiring purchases of goods and means of conveyance for the king and his household to be made only by agreement with the seller and with payment to him before the king traveled on, instead of at the low prices determined unilaterally by the king's purveyor.
Every man who has wood within the forest may take houseboot [right to take wood for repair of one's house] and heyboot [right to take material for the maintenance of hedges and fences, and the making of farming utensils] in his wood without being arrested so long as it take such within the view of the foresters.
No fecal matter, dung, garbage, or entrails of animals killed shall be put into ditches or rivers or other waters, so that maladies and diseases will not be caused by corrupted and infected air. The penalty is 400s. to the king after trial by the Chancellor.
Gifts or alienation of land to guilds, fraternities, or towns are forbidden. Instead, it escheats to its lord, or in his default, to the King.
No man will be charged to go out of his county to do military service except in case of an enemy invasion of the nation. Men who chose to go into the king's service outside the nation shall be paid wages by the king until their return.
Admiralty law came into being when ancient naval manners and customs were written down as the "Black Book of the Admiralty". This included the organization of the fleet under the Admiral, sea-maneuver rules such as not laying anchor until the Admiral's ship had, engagement rules, and the distribution of captured goods: one-fourth to the vessel owner, one-fourth to the king if the seamen were paid by the king's wages, and the rest divided among the crew and Admiral. Stealing a boat or an anchor holding a boat was punishable by hanging. Stealing an oar or an anchor was punishable by forty days imprisonment for the first offense, six months imprisonment for the second, and hanging for the third. Desertion was punishable by loss of double the amount of wages earned and imprisonment for one year. Cases were tried by jury in the Admiral's court.
Wines, vinegar, oil and honey imported shall be gauged by the King's appointees.
Judicial Procedure
The office of Justice of the Peace was developed and filled by knights, esquires and gentlemen who were closely associated with the magnates. There was no salary nor any requirement of knowledge of the law. They were to pursue, restrain, arrest, imprison, try, and duly punish felons, trespassers, and rioters according to the law. They were expected to arrest vagrants who would not work and imprison them until sureties for good behavior was found for them. They also were empowered to inspect weights and measures. Trespass included forcible offenses of breaking of a fence enclosing private property, assault and battery, false imprisonment, and taking away goods and chattels.
The action of trespass was replacing private suits for murder and for personal injury.
Pardons may be given only for slaying another in one's own defense or by misfortune [accident], and not for slaying by lying in wait, assault, or malice aforethought.
Justices of Assize, sheriffs, and Justices of the Peace and mayors shall have power to inquire of all vagabonds and compel them to find surety of their good bearing or be imprisoned.
A reversioner shall be received in court to defend his right when a tenant for a term of life, tenant in dower, or by the Law of England, or in Tail after Possibility of Issue extinct are sued in court for the land, so as to prevent collusion by the demandants.
A person in debt may not avoid his creditors by giving his tenements or chattels to his friends in collusion to have the profits at their will.
Where there was a garnishment given touching a plea of land, a writ of deceit is also maintainable.
Actions of debt will be heard only in the county where the contract was made. The action of debt includes enforcement of contracts executed or under seal, e.g. rent due on a lease, hire of an archer, contract of sale or repair of an item. Thus there is a growing connection between the actions of debt and contract.
Executors have an action for trespass to their testators' goods and chattels in like manner as did the testator when alive.
If a man dies intestate, his goods shall be administered by his next and most lawful friends appointed. Such administrators shall have the same powers and duties as executors and be accountable as are executors to the ecclesiastical court.
Children born to English parents in parts beyond the sea may inherit from their ancestors in the same manner as those born in the nation.
A person grieved by a false oath in a town court proceeding may appeal to the King's Bench or Common Pleas, regardless of any town franchise.
The Court of the King's Bench worked independently of the King. It was exceptional to find the king sitting on his bench. It became confined to the established common law.
Decisions of the common law courts are appealable to the House of Lords. The king's council members who are not peers, in particular the justices and the Masters of the Chancery, are summoned by the House of Lords only as mere assistants. Parliament can change the common law by statute. The right of a peer to be tried for capital crimes by a court composed of his peers was established. There is a widespread belief that all the peers are by right the king's councilors.
No attorney may practice law and also be a justice of assize. No justice may take any gift except from the king nor give counsel to any litigant before him.
In 1390, there was another statute against maintainers, instigators, barretors, procurers, and embracers of quarrels and inquests because of great and outrageous oppressions of parties in court. Because this encouraged maintenance by the retinue of lords with fees, robes, and other liveries, such maintainers were to be put out of their lords' service, and could not be retained by another lord. No one was to give livery to anyone else, except household members and those retained for life for peace or for war. Justices of the Peace were authorized to inquire about yeomen, or other of lower estate than squire, bearing livery of any lord.
Whereas it is contained in the Magna Carta that none shall be imprisoned nor put out of his freehold, nor of his franchises nor free custom, unless it be by the law of the land; it is established that from henceforth none shall be taken by petition or suggestion made to the king unless by indictment of good and lawful people of the same neighborhood where such deeds be done, in due manner, or by process made by writ original at the common law; nor that none be out of his franchise, nor of his freeholds, unless he be duly brought into answer and before judges of the same by the course of law.
The Chancery came to have a separate and independent equitable jurisdiction. It heard petitions of misconduct of government officials or of powerful oppressors, fraud, accident, abuse of trust, wardship of infants, dower, and rent charges. Because the common law and its procedures had become technical and rigid, the Chancery was given equity jurisdiction by statute in 1285. King Edward III proclaimed that petitions for remedies that the common law didn't cover be addressed to the Chancellor, who was not bound by established law, but could do equity. In Chancery, if there is a case that is similar to a case for which there is a writ, but is not in technical conformity with the requirements of the common law for a remedy, then a new writ may be made for that case by the Chancellor. These were called "actions on the case". Also, Parliament may create new remedies. There were so many cases that were similar to a case with no remedy specified in the common law, that litigants were flowing into the Chancery. The Chancellor gave swift and equitable relief, which was summary. With the backing of the council, the Chancellor made decisions implementing the policy of the Statute of Laborers. Most of these concerned occupational competency, for instance negligent activity of carriers, builders, shepherds, doctors, cloth workers, smiths, innkeepers, and gaolers. For instance, the common law action of detinue could force return of cloth bailed for fulling or sheep bailed for pasturing, but could not address damages due to faulty work. The Chancellor addressed issues of loss of wool, dead lambs, and damaged sheep, as well as dead sheep. He imposed a legal duty on innkeepers to prevent injury or damage to a patron or his goods from third parties. A dog bite or other damage by a dog known by its owner to be vicious was made a more serious offense than general damage by any dog. A person starting a fire was given a duty to prevent the fire from damaging property of others.
The king will fine instead of seize the land of his tenants who sell or alienate their land, such fine to be determined by the Chancellor by due process.
Only barons who were peers of the House of Lords were entitled to trial in the House of Lords. In practice, however, this pertained only to major crimes.
Treason was tried by the lords in Parliament, by bill of "attainder". It was often used for political purposes. Most attainders were reversed as a term of peace made between competing factions.
The King's coroner and a murderer who had taken sanctuary in a church often agreed to the penalty of confession and perpetual banishment from the nation as follows: "Memorandum that on July 6, [1347], Henry de Roseye abjured the realm of England before John Bernard, the King's coroner, at the church of Tendale in the County of Kent in form following: 'Hear this, O lord the coroner, that I, Henry de Roseye, have stolen an ox and a cow of the widow of John Welsshe of Retherfeld; and I have stolen eighteen beasts from divers men in the said county. And I acknowledge that I have feloniously killed Roger le Swan in the town of Strete in the hundred of Strete in the rape [a division of a county] of Lewes and that I am a felon of the lord King of England. And because I have committed many ill deeds and thefts in his land, I abjure the land of the Lord Edward King of England, and [I acknowledge] that I ought to hasten to the port of Hastings, which thou hast given me, and that I ought not to depart from the way, and if I do so I am willing to be taken as a thief and felon of the lord King, and that at Hastings I will diligently seek passage, and that I will not wait there save for the flood and one ebb if I can have passage; and if I cannot have passage within that period, I will go up to the knees into the sea every day, endeavoring to cross; and unless I can do so within forty days, I will return at once to the church, as a thief and a felon of the lord King, so help me God."
Property damage by a tenant of a London building was assessed in a 1374 case: "John Parker, butcher, was summoned to answer Clement Spray in a plea of trespass, wherein the latter complained that the said John, who had hired a tavern at the corner of St. Martin- le-Grand from him for fifteen months, had committed waste and damage therein, although by the custom of the city no tenant for a term of years was entitled to destroy any portion of the buildings or fixtures let to him. He alleged that the defendant had taken down the door post of the tavern and also of the shop, the boarded door of a partition of the tavern, a seat in the tavern, a plastered partition wall, the stone flooring in the chamber, the hearth of the kitchen, and the mantelpiece above it, a partition in the kitchen, two doors and other partitions, of a total value of 21s. four pounds, 1s. 8d., and to his damage, 400s. [20 pounds]. The defendant denied the trespass and put himself on the country. Afterwards a jury [panel]... found the defendant guilty of the aforesaid trespass to the plaintiff's damage, 40d. Judgment was given for that amount and a fine of 1s. to the King, which the defendant paid immediately in court."
The innkeeper's duty to safeguard the person and property of his lodgers was applied in this case:
"John Trentedeus of Southwark was summoned to answer William Latymer touching a plea why, whereas according to the law and custom of the realm of England, innkeepers who keep a common inn are bound to keep safely by day and by night without reduction or loss men who are passing through the parts where such inns are and lodging their goods within those inns, so that, by default of the innkeepers or their servants, no damage should in any way happen to such their guests ...
On Monday after the Feast of the Purification of the Virgin Mary in the fourth year of the now King by default of the said John, certain malefactors took and carried away two small portable chests with 533s. and also with charters and writings, to wit two writings obligatory, in the one of which is contained that a certain Robert Bour is bound to the said William in 2,000s. and in the other that a certain John Pusele is bound to the same William in 800s. 40 pounds ... and with other muniments [writings defending claims or rights] of the same William, to wit his return of all the writs of the lord King for the counties of Somerset and Dorset, whereof the same William was then sheriff, for the morrow of the Purification of the Blessed Mary the Virgin in the year aforesaid, as well before the same lord the King in his Chancery and in his Bench as before the justices of the King's Common Bench and his barons of his Exchequer, returnable at Westminster on the said morrow, and likewise the rolls of the court of Cranestock for all the courts held there from the first year of the reign of the said lord the King until the said Monday, contained in the same chests being lodged within the inn of the same John at Southwark
And the said John ... says that on the said Monday about the second hour after noon the said William entered his inn to be lodged there, and at once when he entered, the same John assigned to the said William a certain chamber being in that inn, fitting for his rank, with a door and a lock affixed to the same door with sufficient nails, so that he should lie there and put and keep his things there, and delivered to the said William the key to the door of the said chamber, which chamber the said William accepted...
William says that ... when the said John had delivered to him the said chamber and key as above, the same William, being occupied about divers businesses to be done in the city of London, went out from the said inn into the city to expedite the said businesses and handed over the key of the door to a certain servant of the said William to take care of in meantime, ordering the servant to remain in the inn meanwhile and to take care of his horses there; and afterwards, when night was falling, the same William being in the city and the key still in the keeping of the said servant, the wife of the said John called unto her into her hall the said servant who had the key, giving him food and drink with a merry countenance and asking him divers questions and occupying him thus for a long time, until the staple of the lock of the door aforesaid was thrust on one side out of its right place and the door of the chamber was thereby opened and his goods, being in the inn of the said John, were taken and carried off by the said malefactors ... The said John says ...[that his wife did not call the servant into the hall, but that] when the said servant came into the said hall and asked his wife for bread and ale and other necessaries to be brought to the said chamber of his master, his wife immediately and without delay delivered to the same servant the things for which he asked ... protesting that no goods of the same William in the said inn were carried away by the said John his servant or any strange malefactors other than the persons of the household of the said William."
On the Coram Rege Roll of 1395 is a case on the issue of whether a court crier can be seized by officers of a staple:
"Edmund Hikelyng, 'crier', sues William Baddele and wife Maud, John Olney, and William Knyghtbrugge for assault and imprisonment at Westminster, attacking him with a stick and imprisoning him for one hour on Wednesday before St. Martin, 19 Richard II.
Baddele says Mark Faire of Winchester was prosecuting a bill of debt for 18s. against Edmund and John More before William Brampton, mayor of the staple of Westminster, and Thomas Alby and William Askham, constables of the said staple, and on that day the Mayor and the constables issued a writ of capias against Edmund and John to answer Mark and be before the Mayor and the constables at the next court. This writ was delivered to Baddele as sergeant of the staple, and by virtue of it he took and imprisoned Edmund in the staple. Maud and the others say they aided Baddele by virtue of the said writ.
Edmund does not acknowledge Baddele to be sergeant of the staple or Mark a merchant of the staple or that he was taken in the staple. He is minister of the King's Court of his Bench and is crier under Thomas Thorne, the chief crier, his master. Every servant of the court is under special protection while doing his duty or on his way to do it. On the day in question, he was at Westminster carrying his master's staff of office before Hugh Huls, one of the King's justices, and William took him in the presence of the said justice and imprisoned him.
The case is adjourned for consideration from Hilary to Easter."
A law of equity began to be developed from decisions by the Chancellor in his court of conscience from around 1370. One such case was that of Godwyne v. Profyt sometime after 1393. This petition was made to the Chancellor: To the most reverend Father in God, and most gracious Lord, the bishop of Exeter, Chancellor of England. Thomas Godwyne and Joan his wife, late wife of Peter at More of Southwerk, most humbly beseech that, whereas at Michaelmas in the 17th year of our most excellent lord King Richard who now is, the said Peter at More in his lifetime enfeoffed Thomas Profyt parson of St. George's church Southwerk, Richard Saundre, and John Denewey, in a tenement with the appurtenances situated in Southwerk and 24 acres of land 6 acres of meadow in the said parish of St. George and in the parish of our Lady of Newington, on the conditions following, to wit, that the said three feoffees should, immediately after the death of the said Peter, enfeoff the said Joan in all the said lands and tenements with all their appurtenances for the life of the said Joan, with remainder after her decease to one Nicholas at More, brother of the said Peter, to hold to him and the heirs of his body begotten, and for default of issue, then to be sold by four worthy people of the said parish, and the money to be received for the same to be given to Holy Church for his soul; whereupon the said Peter died. And after his death two of the said feoffees, Richard and John, by the procurement of one John Solas, released all their estate in the said lands and tenements to the said Thomas Profyt, on the said conditions, out of the great trust that they had in the said Thomas Profyt, who was their confessor, that he would perform the will of the said Peter [at More] in the form aforesaid; and this well and lawfully to do the said Thomas Profyt swore on his Verbum Dei and to perform the said conditions on all points. And since the release was so made, the said Thomas Profyt, through the scheming and false covin of the said John Solas, has sold all the lands and tenements aforesaid to the same John Solas for ever. And the said John Solas is bound to the said Thomas Profyt in 100 pounds by a bond to make defense of the said lands and tenements by the bribery (?) and maintenance against every one; and so by their false interpretation and conspiracy the said Joan, Nicholas, and Holy Church are like to be disinherited and put out of their estate and right, as is abovesaid, for ever, tortiously, against the said conditions, and contrary to the will of the said Peter [at More]. May it please your most righteous Lordship to command the said Thomas Profyt, Richard Saundre, and John Denewy to come before you, and to examine them to tell the truth of all the said matter, so that the said Joan, who has not the wherewithal to live, may have her right in the said lands and tenements, as by the examination before you, most gracious Lord, shall be found and proved; for God and in way of holy charity.
Chapter 10
The Times: 1399-1485
This period, which begins with the reign of the usurper King, Henry IV, is dominated by war: the last half of the 100 year war with France, which, with the help of Joan of Arc, took all English land on the continent except the port of Calais, and the War of the Roses over the throne in England. The ongoing border fights with Wales and Scotland were fought by England's feudal army. But for fighting in France, the king paid barons and earls to raise their own fighting forces. When they returned to England, they fought to put their candidate on its throne, which had been unsteady since its usurpation by Henry IV. All the great houses kept bands of armed retainers. These retainers were given land or pay or both as well as liveries [uniforms or badges] bearing the family crest. In the system of "livery and maintenance", if the retainer was harassed by the law or by enemies, the lord protected him. The liveries became the badges of the factions engaged in the War of the Roses. And the white rose was worn by the supporters of the house of York, and the red rose by supporters of the house of Lancaster for the Crown. Great lords fought each other for property and made forcible entries usurping private property. Shakespeare's histories deal with this era.
In both wars, the musket was used as well as the longbow. To use it, powder was put into the barrel, then a ball rammed down the barrel with a rod, and then the powder lit by a hot rod held with one hand while the other hand was used to aim the musket. Cannon were used to besiege castles and destroy their walls, so many castles were allowed to deteriorate. The existence of cannon also limited the usefulness of town walls for defense. But townspeople did not take part in the fighting.
Since the power of the throne changed from one faction to another, political and personal vindictiveness gave rise to many bills of attainder that resulted in lords being beheaded and losing their lands to the King. However, these were done by the form of law; there were no secret executions in England. Families engaged in blood feuds. Roving bands ravaged the country, plundering the people, holding the forests, and robbing collectors of Crown revenue. Some men made a living by fighting for others in quarrels. Individual life and property were insecure. Whole districts were in a permanent alarm of riot and robbery. The roads were not safe. Nobles employed men who had returned from fighting in war to use their fighting skill in local defense. There was fighting between lords and gangs of ruffians holding the roads, breaking into and seizing manor houses, and openly committing murders.
Peace was never well-kept nor was law ever well-executed, though fighting was suspended by agreement during the harvest. Local administration was paralyzed by party faction or lodged in some great lord or some clique of courtiers. The elections of members to Parliament was interfered with and Parliament was rarely held. Barons and earls fought their disputes in the field rather than in the royal courts. Litigation was expensive, so men relied increasingly on the protection of the great men of their neighborhood and less on the King's courts for the safety of their lives and land. Local men involved in court functions usually owed allegiance to a lord which compromised the exercise of justice. Men serving in an assize often lied to please their lord instead of telling the truth. Lords maintained, supported, or promoted litigation with money or aid supplied to one party to the detriment of justice. It was not unusual for lords to attend court with a great force of retainers behind them. Many justices of the peace wore liveries of magnates and accepted money from them. Royal justices were flouted or bribed. The King's writ was denied or perverted. For 6-8s., a lord could have the king instruct his sheriff to impanel a jury which would find in his favor. A statute against riots, forcible entries, and, excepting the King, magnates' liveries of uniform, food, and badges to their retainers, except in war outside the nation, was passed, but was difficult to enforce because the offenders were lords, who dominated the Parliament and the council.
With men so often gone to fight, their wives managed the household alone. The typical wife had maidens of equal class to whom she taught household management, spinning, weaving, carding wool with iron wool-combs, heckling flax, embroidery, and making garments. There were foot-treadles for spinning wheels. She taught the children. Each day she scheduled the activities of the household including music, conversation, dancing, chess, reading, playing ball, and gathering flowers. She organized picnics, rode horseback and went hunting, hawking to get birds, and hare-ferreting. She was nurse to all around her. If her husband died, she usually continued in this role because most men named their wife as executor of their will with full power to act as she thought best. The wives of barons shared their right of immunity from arrest by the processes of common law and to be tried by their peers.
For ladies, close-fitting jackets came to be worn over close- fitting long gowns with low, square-cut necklines and flowing sleeves, under which was worn a girdle or corset of stout linen reinforced by stiff leather or even iron. Her skirt was provocatively slit from knee to ankle. All her hair was confined by a hair net. Headdresses were very elaborate and heavy, trailing streamers of linen. Some were in the shape of hearts, butterflies, crescents, double horns, steeples, or long cones. Men also wore hats rather than hoods. They wore huge hats of velvet, fur, or leather. Their hair was cut into a cap-like shape on their heads, and later was shoulder-length. They wore doublets with thick padding over the shoulders or short tunics over the trucks of their bodies and tightened at the waist to emphasize the shoulders. Their collars were high. Their sleeves were long concoctions of velvet, damask, and satin, sometimes worn wrapped around their arms in layers. Their legs and hips were covered with hosen, often in different colors. Codpieces worn between the legs emphasized the sensuality of the age as did ladies' tight and low- cut gowns. Men's shoes were pointed with upward pikes at the toes that impeded walking. At another time, their shoes were broad with blunt toes. Both men and women wore much jewelry and ornamentation. But, despite the fancy dress, the overall mood was a macabre preoccupation with mortality, despair, and a lack of confidence in the future. Cannon and mercenaries had reduced the military significance of knighthood, so its chivalric code deteriorated into surface politeness, ostentation, and extravagance.
Master and servants ceased to eat together in the same hall, except for great occasions, on feast days, and for plays. The lord, and his lady, family, and guests took their meals in a great chamber, usually up beneath the roof next to the upper floor of the great hall. The chimney-pieces and windows were often richly decorated with paneled stonework, tracery and carving. There was often a bay or oriel window with still expensive glass. Tapestries, damask, and tablecloths covered the tables. There was much formality and ceremonial ritual, more elaborate than before, during dinners at manorial households, including processions bringing and serving courses, and bowing, kneeling, and curtseying. There were many courses of a variety of meats, fish, stews, and soups, with a variety of spices and elaborately cooked. Barons, knights, and their ladies sat to the right of the lord above the salt and were served by the lord's sewer and carver and gentlemen waiters; their social inferiors such as "gentlemen of worship" sat below the salt and were served by another sewer and yeomen. The lord's cupbearer looked after the lord alone. A knights table was waited on by yeomen. The gentlemen officers, gentlemen servants and yeomen officers were waited on by their own servants. The amount of food dished out to each person varied according to his rank. The almoner said grace and distributed the leftovers to the poor gathered at the gate. The superior people's hands were washed by their inferiors. Lastly, the trestle tables were removed while sweet wine and spices were consumed standing. Then the musicians were called into the hall and dancing began. The lord usually slept in a great bed in this room. The standard number of meals was three: breakfast, dinner, and supper.
The diet of an ordinary family such as that of a small shopholder or yeoman farmer included beef, mutton, pork, a variety of fish, both fresh and salted, venison, nuts, peas, oatmeal, honey, grapes, apples, pears, and fresh vegetables. Cattle and sheep were driven from Wales to English markets. This droving lasted for five centuries.
Many types of people besides the nobility and knights now had property and thus were considered gentry: female lines of the nobility, merchants and their sons, attorneys, auditors, squires, and peasant-yeomen. The burgess grew rich as the knight dropped lower. The great merchants lived in mansions which could occupy whole blocks. Typically, there would be an oak-paneled great hall, with adjoining kitchen, pantry, and buttery on one end and a great parlor to receive guests, bedrooms, wardrobes, servants' rooms, and a chapel on the other end or on a second floor. The beds were surrounded by heavy draperies to keep out cold drafts. In towns these mansions were entered through a gate through a row of shops on the street. A lesser dwelling would have these rooms on three floors over a shop on the first floor. An average Londoner would have a shop, a storeroom, a hall, a kitchen, and a buttery on the first floor, and three bedrooms on the second floor. Artisans and shopkeepers of more modest means lived in rows of dwellings, each with a shop and small storage room on the first floor, and a combination parlor-bedroom on the second floor. The humblest residents crowded their shop and family into one 6 by 10 foot room for rent of a few shillings a year. All except the last would also have a small garden. The best gardens had a fruit tree, herbs, flowers, a well, and a latrine area. There were common and public privies for those without their own. Kitchen slops and casual refuse continued to be thrown into the street. Floors of stone or planks were strewn with rushes. There was some tile flooring. Most dwellings had glass windows. Candles were used for lighting at night. Torches and oil-burning lanterns were portable lights. Furnishings were still sparse. Men sat on benches or joint stools and women sat on cushions on the floor. Hall and parlor had a table and benches and perhaps one chair. Bedrooms had a curtained feather bed with pillows, blankets, and sheets. Clothes were stored in a chest, sometimes with sweet-smelling herbs such as lavender, rosemary, and southernwood. Better homes had wall hanging and cupboards displaying plate. Laundresses washed clothes in the streams, rivers, and public conduits. Country peasants still lived in wood, straw, and mud huts with earth floors and a smoky hearth in the center or a kitchen area under the eaves of the hut.
In 1442, bricks began to be manufactured in the nation and so there was more use of bricks in buildings. Chimneys were introduced into manor houses where stone had been too expensive. This was necessary if a second floor was added, so the smoke would not damage the floor above it and would eventually go out of the house.
Nobles and their retinue moved from manor to manor, as they had for centuries, to keep watch upon their lands and to consume the produce thereof; it was easier to bring the household to the estate than to transport the yield of the estate to the household. Also, at regular intervals sewage had to be removed from the cellar pits. Often a footman walked or ran on foot next to his master or mistress when they rode out on horseback or in a carriage. He was there primarily for prestige.
Jousting tournaments were held for entertainment purposes only and were followed by banquets of several courses of food served on dishes of gold, silver, pewter, or wood on a linen cloth covering the table. Hands were washed before and after the meal. People washed their faces every morning after getting up. Teeth were cleaned with powders. Fragrant leaves were chewed for bad breath. Garlic was used for indigestion and other ailments. Feet were rubbed with salt and vinegar to remove calluses. Good manners included not slumping against a post, fidgeting, sticking one's finger into one's nose, putting one's hands into one's hose to scratch the privy parts, spitting over the table or too far, licking one's plate, picking one's teeth, breathing stinking breath into the face of the lord, blowing on one's food, stuffing masses of bread into one's mouth, scratching one's head, loosening one's girdle to belch, and probing one's teeth with a knife.
Fishing and hunting were reserved for the nobility rather than just the King.
As many lords became less wealthy because of the cost of war, some peasants, villein and free, became prosperous, especially those who also worked at a craft, e.g. butchers, bakers, smiths, shoemakers, tailors, carpenters, and cloth workers.
An agricultural slump caused poorer soils to fall back into waste. The better soils were leased by peasants, who, with their families, were in a better position to farm it than a great lord, who found it hard to hire laborers at a reasonable cost. Further, peasants' sheep, hens, pigs, ducks, goats, cattle, bees, and crop made them almost self-sufficient in foodstuffs. They lived in a huddle of cottages, pastured their animals on common land, and used common meadows for haymaking. They subsisted mainly on boiled bacon, an occasional chicken, worts and beans grown in the cottage garden, and cereals. They wore fine wool cloth in all their apparel. Brimless hats were replacing hoods. They had an abundance of bed coverings in their houses. And they had more free time. Village entertainment included traveling jesters, acrobats, musicians, and bear-baiters. Playing games and gambling were popular pastimes.
Most villeins were now being called "customary tenants" or "copy- holders" of land because they held their acres by a copy of the court-roll of the manor, which listed the number of teams, the fines, the reliefs, and the services due to the lord for each landholder. The Chancery court interpreted many of these documents to include rights of inheritance. The common law courts followed the lead of the Chancery and held that copyhold land could be inherited as was land at common law. Evictions by lords decreased.
The difference between villein and freeman lessened but landlords usually still had profits of villein bondage, such as heriot, merchet, and chevage.
A class of laborers was arising who depended entirely on the wages of industry for their subsistence. The cloth workers in rural areas were isolated and weak and often at the mercy of middlemen for employment and the amount of their wages. When rural laborers went to towns to seek employment in the new industries, they would work at first for any rate. This deepened the cleavage of the classes in the towns. The artificers in the town and the cottagers and laborers in the country lived from hand to mouth, on the edge of survival, but better off than the old, the diseased, the widows, and the orphans. However, the 1400s were the most prosperous time for laborers considering their wages and the prices of food. Meat and poultry were plentiful and grain prices low.
Social mobility was most possible in the towns, where distinctions were usually only of wealth. So a poor apprentice could aspire to become a master, a member of the livery of his company, a member of the council, an alderman, a mayor, and then an esquire for life. The distance between baron and a country knight and between a yeoman and knight was wider. Manor custom was strong. But a yeoman could give his sons a chance to become gentlemen by entering them in a trade in a town, sending them to university, or to war. Every freeman was to some extent a soldier, and to some extent a lawyer, serving in the county or borough courts. A burgess, with his workshop or warehouse, was trained in warlike exercises, and he could keep his own accounts, and make his own will and other legal documents, with the aid of a scrivener or a chaplain, who could supply an outline of form. But law was growing as a profession. Old-established London families began to choose the law as a profession for their sons, in preference to an apprenticeship in trade. Many borough burgesses in Parliament were attorneys.
In London, shopkeepers appealed to passersby to buy their goods, sometimes even seizing people by the sleeve. The drapers had several roomy shops containing shelves piled with cloths of all colors and grades, tapestries, pillows, blankets, bed draperies, and 'bankers and dorsers' to soften hard wooden benches. A rear storeroom held more cloth for import or export. Many shops of skinners were on Fur Row. There were shops of leather sellers, hosiers, gold and silver cups, and silks. At the Stocks Market were fishmongers, butchers, and poulterers. London grocers imported spices, canvas, ropery, potions, unguents, soap, confections, garlic, cabbages, onions, apples, oranges, almonds, figs, dates, raisins, dyestuffs, woad, madder (plant for medicine and dye), scarlet grains, saffron, iron, and steel. They were retailers as well as wholesalers and had shops selling honey, licorice, salt, vinegar, rice, sugar loaves, syrups, spices, garden seeds, dyes, alum, soap, brimstone, paper, varnish, canvas, rope, musk, incense, treacle of Genoa, and mercury. The Grocers did some money lending, usually at 12% interest. The guilds did not restrict themselves to dealing in the goods for which they had a right of inspection, and so many dealt in wine that it was a medium of exchange. There was no sharp distinction between retail and wholesale trading.
In London, grocers sold herbs for medicinal as well as eating purposes. Breadcarts sold penny wheat loaves. Foreigners set up stalls on certain days of the week to sell meat, canvas, linen, cloth, ironmongery, and lead. There were great houses, churches, monasteries, inns, guildhalls, warehouses, and the King's Beam for weighing wool to be exported. In 1410, the Guildhall of London was built through contributions, proceeds of fines, and lastly, to finish it, special fees imposed on apprenticeships, deeds, wills, and letters-patent. The Mercers and Goldsmiths were in the prosperous part of town. The Goldsmiths' shops sold gold and silver plate, jewels, rings, water pitchers, drinking goblets, basins to hold water for the hands, and covered saltcellars. The grain market was on Cornhill. Halfway up the street, there was a supply of water which had been brought up in pipes. On the top of the hill was a cage where riotous folk had been incarcerated by the night watch and the stocks and pillory, where fraudulent schemers were exposed to ridicule. No work was to be done on Sundays, but some did work surreptitiously. The barbers kept their shops open in defiance of the church. Outside the London city walls were tenements, the Smithfield cattle market, Westminster Hall, green fields of crops, and some marsh land.
On the Thames River to London were large ships with cargoes; small boats rowed by tough boatmen offering passage for a penny; small private barges of great men with carved wood, gay banners, and oarsmen with velvet gowns; the banks covered with masts and tackle; the nineteen arch London Bridge supporting a street of shops and houses and a drawbridge in the middle; quays; warehouses, and great cranes lifting bales from ship to wharf. Merchant guilds which imported or exported each had their own wharves and warehouses. Downstream, pirates hung on gallows at the low-water mark to remain until three tides had overflowed their bodies. A climate change of about 1 1/2 degree Celcius lower caused the Thames to regularly freeze over in winter.
The large scale of London trade promoted the specialization of the manufacturer versus the merchant versus the shipper. Merchants had enough wealth to make loans to the government or for new commercial enterprises. Local reputation on general, depended upon a combination of wealth, trustworthiness of character, and public spirit; it rose and fell with business success. Some London merchants were knighted by the King. Many bought country estates and turned themselves into gentry.
The king granted London all common soils, improvements, wastes, streets, and ways in London and in the adjacent waters of the Thames River and all the profits and rents to be derived therefrom. Later the king granted London the liberty to purchase lands and tenements worth up to 2,667s. yearly. With this power, London had obtained all the essential features of a corporation: a seal, the right to make by-laws, the power to purchase lands and hold them "to them and their successors" (not simply their heirs, which is an individual and hereditary succession only), the power to sue and be sued in its own name, and the perpetual succession implied in the power of filling up vacancies by election. Since these powers were not granted by charters, London is a corporation by prescription. In 1446, the liverymen obtained the right with the council to elect the mayor, the sheriff, and certain other corporate officers.
Many boroughs sought and obtained formal incorporation with the same essential features as London. This tied up the loose language of their early charters of liberties. Often, a borough would have its own resident Justice of the Peace. Each incorporation involved a review by a Justice of the Peace to make sure the charter of incorporation rule didn't conflict with the law of the nation. A borough typically had a mayor accompanied by his personal sword- bearer and serjeants-at-mace bearing the borough regalia, bailiffs, a sheriff, and chamberlains or a steward for financial assistance. At many boroughs, aldermen, assisted by their constables, kept the peace in their separate wards. There might be coroners, a recorder, and a town clerk, with a host of lesser officials including beadles, aletasters, sealers, searchers [inspectors], weighers and keepers of the market, ferrymen and porters, clock-keepers and criers, paviors [maintained the roads], scavengers and other street cleaners, gatekeepers and watchmen of several ranks and kinds. A wealthy borough would have a chaplain and two or three minstrels. The mayor replaced the bailiffs as the chief magistracy.
In all towns, the wealthiest and most influential guilds were the merchant traders of mercers, drapers, grocers, and goldsmiths. From their ranks came most of the mayors, and many began to intermarry with the country knights and gentry. Next came the shopholders of skinners, tailors, ironmongers, and corvisors [shoemakers]. Thirdly came the humbler artisans, the sellers of victuals, small shopkeepers, apprentices, and journeymen on the rise. Lastly came unskilled laborers, who lived in crowded tenements and hired themselves out. The first three groups were the free men who voted, paid scot and bore lot, and belonged to guilds. Scot was a ratable proportion in the payments levied from the town for local or national purposes. Merchant guilds in some towns merged their existence into the town corporation, and their guild halls became the common halls of the town, and their property became town property.
In London, the Cutlers' Company was chartered in 1415, the Haberdashers' Company in 1417, the Grocers' Company in 1428, the Drapers' and Cordwainers' companies in 1429, the Vintners' and Brewers' companies in 1437, the Leathersellers' Company in 1444, the Girdlers' Company in 1448, the Armourers' and Brassiers' companies in 1453, the Barbers' Company in 1461, the Tallow Chandlers' Company in 1462, the Ironmongers' Company in 1464, the Dyers' Company in 1471, the Musicians' Company in 1472, the Carpenters' Company in 1477, the Cooks' Company in 1481, and the Waxchandlers' Company in 1483. The Fishmongers, which had been chartered in 1399, were incorporated in 1433, the Cordwainers in 1439, and the Pewterers in 1468.
There were craft guilds in the towns, at least 65 in London. In fact, every London trade of twenty men had its own guild. The guild secured good work for its members and the members maintained the reputation of the work standards of the guild. Bad work was punished and night work prohibited as leading to bad work. The guild exercised moral control over its members and provided sickness and death benefits for them. There was much overlapping in the two forms of association: the craft guild and the religious fraternity. Apprentices were taken in to assure an adequate supply of competent workers for the future. The standard indenture of an apprentice bound him to live in his master's house, to serve him diligently, obey reasonable commands, keep his master's secrets, protect him from injury, abstain from dice, cards and haunting of taverns, not marry, commit no fornication, nor absent himself without permission. In return the master undertook to provide the boy or girl with bed, board, and lodging and to instruct him or her in the trade, craft, or mystery. When these apprentices had enough training they were made journeymen with a higher rate of pay. Journeymen traveled to see the work of their craft in other towns. Those journeymen rising to master had the highest pay rate.
Occupations free of guild restrictions included horse dealers, marbelers, bookbinders, jewelers, organ makers, feathermongers, pie makers, basket makers, mirrorers, quilters, and parchment makers. Non-citizens of London could not be prevented from selling leather, metalwares, hay, meat, fruit, vegetables, butter, cheese, poultry, and fish from their boats, though they had to sell in the morning and sell all their goods before the market closed.
In the towns, many married women had independent businesses and wives also played an active part in the businesses of their husbands. Wives of well-to-do London merchants embroidered, sewed jewelry onto clothes, and made silk garments. Widows often continued in their husband's businesses, such as managing a large import-export trade, tailoring, brewing, and metal shop. Socially lower women often ran their own breweries, bakeries, and taverns. It was possible for wives to be free burgesses in their own right in some towns.
Some ladies were patrons of writers. Some women were active in prison reform in matters of reviews to insure that no man was in gaol without due cause, overcharges for bed and board, brutality, and regulation of prisoners being placed in irons. Many men and women left money in their wills for food and clothing for prisoners, especially debtors. Wills often left one-third of the wealth to the church, the poor, prisoners, infirmaries, young girls' education; road, wall, and bridge repair; water supply, markets and almshouses. Some infirmaries were for the insane, who were generally thought to be possessed by the devil or demons. Their treatment was usually by scourging the demons out of their body by flogging. If this didn't work, torture could be used to drive the demons from the body.
The guilds were being replaced by associations for the investment of capital. In associations, journeymen were losing their chance of rising to be a master. Competition among associations was starting to supplant custom as the mainspring of trade.
The cloth exporters, who were mostly mercers, were unregulated and banded together for mutual support and protection under the name of Merchant Adventurers of London. The Merchant Adventurers was chartered in 1407. It was the first and a prototype of regulated companies. That is the company regulated the trade. Each merchant could ship on his own a certain number of cloths each year (the number depending on the length of his membership in the company) and sell them himself or by his factor at the place where the company had privileges of market. Strict rules governed the conduct of each member. He was to make sales only at certain hours on specified days. All disagreements were to be settled by the company's governor, or his deputy in residence, and those officials dealt with such disputes as arose between members of the company and continental officials and buyers. A share in the ownership of one of their vessels was a common form of investment by prosperous merchants. By 1450, the merchant adventurers were dealing in linen cloths, buckrams [a stiffened, coarse cloth], fustians [coarse cloth made of cotton threads going in one direction and linen threads the other], satins, jewels, fine woolen and linen wares, threads, potions, wood, oil, wine, salt, copper, and iron. They began to replace trade by alien traders. The history of the "Merchant Adventurers" was associated with the growth of the mercantile system for more than 300 years. It eventually replaced the staples system.
Paved roads in towns were usually gravel and sometimes cobble. They were frequently muddy because of rain and spillage of water being carried. Iron-shod wheels and overloaded carts made them very uneven. London was the first town with paviors. They cleaned and repaired the streets, filling up potholes with wood chips and compacting them with hand rams. The paviors were organized as a city company in 1479. About 1482, towns besides London began appointing salaried road paviors to repair roads and collect their expenses from the householders because the policy of placing the burden on individual householders didn't work well. London streets were lighted at night by public lanterns, under the direction of the mayor. The residents were to light these candle lanterns in winter from dusk to the 9 p.m. curfew. There were fire-engines composed of a circular cistern with a pump and six feet of inflexible hose on wheels pulled by two men on one end and pushed by two men on the other end. In 1480 the city walls were rebuilt with a weekly tax of 5d. per head.
In schools, there was a renaissance of learning from original sources of knowledge written in Greek and rebirth of the Greek pursuit of the truth and scientific spirit of inquiry. There was a striking increase in the number of schools founded by wealthy merchants or town guilds. Every cathedral, monastery, and college had a grammar school. Merchants tended to send their sons to private boarding schools, instead of having them tutored at home as did the nobility. Well-to-do parents still sent sons to live in the house of some noble to serve them as pages in return for being educated with the noble's son by the household priest. They often wore their master's coat of arms and became their squires as part of their knightly education. Sometimes girls were sent to live in another house to take advantage to receive education from a tutor there under the supervision of the lady of the house. Every man, free or villein, could send his sons and daughters to school. In every village, there were some who could read and write.
In 1428, Lincoln's Inn required barristers normally resident in London and the county of Middlesex to remain in residence and pay commons during the periods between sessions of court and during vacations, so that the formal education of students would be continuous. In 1442, a similar requirement was extended to all members.
The book "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" was written about an incident in the court of King Arthur and Queen Guenevere in which a green knight challenges Arthur's knights to live up to their reputation for valor and awesome deeds. The knight Gawain answers the challenge, but is shown that he could be false and cowardly when death seemed to be imminent. Thereafter, he wears a green girdle around his waist to remind him not to be proud.
Other literature read included "London Lickpenny", a satire on London and its expensive services and products, "Fall of Princes" by John Lydgate, social history by Thomas Hoccleve, "The Cuckoo and the Nightengale", and "The Flower and Leaf" on morality as secular common sense. King James I of Scotland wrote a book about how he fell in love. Chaucer, Cicero, Ovid, and Aesops's Fables were widely read. Malory's new version of the Arthurian stories was popular. Margery Kempe wrote the first true autobiography. She was a woman who had a normal married life with children, but one day had visions and voices which led her to leave her husband to take up a life of wandering and praying in holy possession. There were religious folk ballads such as "The Cherry Tree Carol", about the command of Jesus from Mary's womb for a cherry tree to bend down so that Mary could have some cherries from it. The common people developed ballads, e.g. about their love of the forest, their wish to hunt, and their hatred of the forest laws.
About 30% of Londoners could read English. Books were bought in London in such quantities by 1403 that the craft organizations of text-letter writers, illuminators, bookbinders, and book sellers was sanctioned by ordinance. "Unto the honorable lords, and wise, the mayor and aldermen of the city of London, pray very humbly all the good folks, freemen of the said city, of the trades of writers of text-letter, limners [illuminator of books], and other folks of London who are wont to bind and to sell books, that it may please your great sagenesses to grant unto them that they may elect yearly two reputable men, the one a limner, the other a text- writer, to be wardens of the said trades, and that the names of the wardens so elected may be presented each year before the mayor for the time being, and they be there sworn well and diligently to oversee that good rule and governance is had and exercised by all folks of the same trades in all works unto the said trades pertaining, to the praise and good fame of the loyal good men of the said trades and to the shame and blame of the bad and disloyal men of the same. And that the same wardens may call together all the men of the said trades honorably and peacefully when need shall be, as well for the good rule and governance of the said city as of the trades aforesaid. And that the same wardens, in performing their due office, may present from time to time all the defaults of the said bad and disloyal men to the chamberlain at the Guildhall for the time being, to the end that the same may there, according to the wise and prudent discretion of the governors of the said city, be corrected, punished, and duly redressed. And that all who are rebellious against the said wardens as to the survey and good rule of the same trades may be punished according to the general ordinance made as to rebellious persons in trades of the said city [fines and imprisonment]. And that it may please you to command that this petition, by your sagenesses granted, may be entered of record for time to come, for the love of God and as a work of charity."
Gutenberg's printing press, which used movable type of small blocks with letters on them, was brought to London in 1476 by a mercer: William Caxton. It supplemented the text-writer and monastic copyist. It was a wood and iron frame with a mounted platform on which were placed small metal frames into which words with small letters of lead had been set up. Each line of text had to be carried from the type case to the press. Beside the press were pots filled with ink and inking balls. When enough lines of type to make a page had been assembled on the press, the balls would be dipped in ink and drawn over the type. Then a sheet of paper would be placed on the form and a lever pulled to press the paper against the type. Linen usually replaced the more expensive parchment for the book pages.
The printing press made books more accessible to all literate people. Caxton printed major English texts and some translations from French and Latin. He commended different books to various kinds of readers, for instance, for gentlemen who understand gentleness and science, or for ladies and gentlewomen, or to all good folk. There were many cook books in use. There were convex eyeglasses for reading and concave ones for distance to correct near-sightedness. The first public library in London was established from a bequest in a will in 1423.
Many carols were sung at the Christian festival of Christmas. Ballads were sung on many features of social life of this age of disorder, hatred of sheriffs, but faith in the King. The legend of Robin Hood was popular. Town miracle plays on leading incidents of the Bible and morality plays were popular. Vintners portrayed the miracle of Cana where water was turned into wine and Goldsmiths ornately dressed the three Kings coming from the east. In York, the building of Noah's Ark was performed by the Shipwrights and the Flood performed by the Fishery and Mariners. Short pantomimes and disguising, forerunners of costume parties, were good recreation. Games of cards became popular as soon as cards were introduced. The king, queen, and jack were dressed in contemporary clothes. Men bowled, kicked footballs, and played tennis. In London, Christmas was celebrated with masques and mummings. There was a great tree in the main market place and evergreen decorations in churches, houses, and streets. There were also games, dances, street bonfires in front of building doors, and general relaxation of social controls. Sometimes there was drunken licentiousness and revelry, with peasants gathering together to make demands of lords for the best of his goods. May Day was celebrated with crowns and garlands of spring flowers. The village May Day pageant was often presided over by Robin Hood and Maid Marion.
People turned to mysticism to escape from the everyday violent world. They read works of mystics, such as "Scale of Perfection" and "Cloud of Unknowing", the latter describing how one may better know God. They believed in magic and sorcery, but had no religious enthusiasm because the church was engendering more disrespect. Monks and nuns had long ago resigned spiritual leadership to the friars; now the friars too lost much of their good reputation. The monks became used to life with many servants such as cooks, butlers, bakers, brewers, barbers, laundresses, tailors, carpenters, and farm hands. The austerity of their diet had vanished. The schedule of divine services was no longer followed by many and the fostering of learning was abandoned. Into monasteries drifted the lazy and miserable. Nunneries had become aristocratic boarding houses. The practice of taking sanctuary was abused; criminals and debtors sought it and were allowed to overstay the 40-day restriction and to leave at night to commit robberies. There were numerous chaplains, who were ordained because they received pay from private persons for saying masses for the dead; having to forego wife and family, they had much leisure time for mischief. Church courts became corrupt, but jealously guarded their jurisdiction from temporal court encroachment. Peter's Pence was no longer paid by the people, so the burden of papal exaction fell wholly on the clergy. But the church was rich and powerful, paying almost a third of the whole taxation of the nation and forming a majority in the House of Lords. Many families had kinsmen in the clergy. Even the lowest cleric or clerk could read and write in Latin.
People relied on saint's days as reference points in the year, because they did not know dates of the year. But townspeople knew the hour and minute of each day, because mechanical clocks were in all towns and in the halls of the well-to-do. This increased the sense of punctuality and lifted standards of efficiency.
A linguistic unity and national pride was developing. London English became the norm and predominated over rural dialects. Important news was announced and spread by word of mouth in market squares and sometimes in churches. As usual, traders provided one of the best sources of news; they maintained an informal network of speedy messengers and accurate reports because political changes so affected their ventures. News also came from peddlers, who visited villages and farms to sell items that could not be bought in the local village. These often included scissors, eyeglasses, colored handkerchiefs, calendars, fancy leather goods, watches, and clocks. Peddling was fairly profitable because of the lack of competition. But peddlers were often viewed as tramps and suspected of engaging in robbery as well as peddling.
A royal post service was established by relays of mounted messengers. The first route was between London and the Scottish border, where there were frequent battles for land between the Scotch and English.
The inland roads from town to town were still rough and without signs. A horseman could make up to 40 miles a day. Common carriers took passengers and parcels from various towns to London on scheduled journeys. Now the common yeoman could order goods from the London market, communicate readily with friends in London, and receive news of the world frequently. Trade with London was so great and the common carrier so efficient in transporting goods that the medieval fair began to decline. First the Grocers and then the Mercers refused to allow their members to sell goods at fairs. There was much highway robbery. Most goods were still transported by boats along the coasts, with trading at the ports.
Embroidery was exported. Imported were timber, pitch, tar, potash [for cloth dying], furs, silk, satin, gold cloth, damask cloth, furred gowns, gems, fruit, spices, and sugar. Imports were restricted by national policy for the purpose of protecting native industries.
English single-masted ships began to be replaced by two or three masted ships with high pointed bows to resist waves and sails enabling the ship to sail closer to the wind. 200 tuns was the usual carrying capacity. The increase in trade made piracy, even by merchants, profitable and frequent until merchant vessels began sailing in groups for their mutual protection. The astrolabe was used for navigation by the stars.
Consuls were appointed to assist English traders abroad.
Henry IV appointed the first admiral of the entire nation and resolved to create a national fleet of warships instead of using merchant ships. In 1417, the war navy had 27 ships. In 1421, Portsmouth was fortified as a naval base. Henry V issued the orders that formed the basic law of English admiralty and appointed surgeons to the navy and army. He was the last true warrior King.
For defense of the nation, especially the safeguard of the seas, Parliament allotted the king for life, 3s. for every tun of wine imported and an additional 3s. for every tun of sweet wine imported. From about 1413, tunnage on wine and poundage on merchandise were duties on goods of merchants which were regularly granted by Parliament to the king for life for upkeep of the Navy. Before this time, such duties had been sporadic and temporary.