Chapter 12

The Times: 1509-1547

Renaissance humanism came into being in the nation. In this development, scholars in London, Oxford, and Cambridge emphasized the value of classical learning, especially Platonism and the study of Greek literature as the means of better understanding and writing. They studied the original Greek texts and became disillusioned with the filtered interpretations of the church, for example of the Bible and Aristotle. There had long been displeasure with the priests of the church. They were supposed to preach four times yearly, visit the sick, say the daily liturgies, and hear confessions at least yearly. But there were many lapses. Many were not celibate, and some openly lived with a woman and had children. Complaints about them included not residing within their parish community, doing other work such as raising crops, and taking too much in probate, mortuary, and marriage fees. Probate fees had risen from at most 5s. to 60s. in the last hundred years. Mortuary fees ranged from 1/3 to 1/9 of a deceased person's goods. Sanctuary was abused. People objected to the right of arrest by ecclesiastical authorities.

Also, most parish priests did not have a theology degree or even a Bachelor's degree, as did many laymen. In fact, many laymen were better educated than the parish priests. No one other than a laborer was illiterate in the towns.

Humanist grammar [secondary] schools were established in London by merchants and guilds. Classical Latin and Greek were taught and the literature of the best classical authors was read. Education was opened up to women. Secondary education teachers were expected to know Latin and Greek and have studied the ancient philosophers, history, and geography. The method of teaching was for the teacher to read text-books to the class from a prepared curriculum. The students learned how to read and to write, to develop and amplify a theme by logical analysis, and to essay on the same subject in the narrative, persuasive, argumentative, commending, consoling, and inciting styles. They had horn-books with the alphabet and perhaps a Biblical verse on them. This was a piece of wood with a paper on it held down by a sheet of transparent horn. Disobedience incurred flogging by teacher as well as by parents. Spare the rod and spoil the child was the philosophy. There were two week vacations at Christmas and at Easter.

Oxford University was granted a charter which put the greater part of the town under control of the Chancellor and scholars. The mayor of Oxford was required to take an oath at his election to maintain the privileges and customs of the university. Roman law Regius professorships were founded by the King at Oxford and Cambridge.

The physicians of London were incorporated to oversee and govern the practice of medicine. A faculty of physicians was established at Oxford and Cambridge. Only graduates of the new College of Physicians or of Oxford or Cambridge may practice medicine or surgery. Food that was digested was thought to turn into a vapor which passed along the veins and was concreted as blood, flesh, and fat.

Geoffrey Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" was a popular book. Through Chaucer, London English became a national standard and the notion of "correct pronunciation" came into being.

The discoveries and adventures of Amerigo Vespucci, a Portuguese explorer, were widely read. The North and South American continents were named for him.

London merchant guilds started to cease to be trading organizations and began to be identified mainly with hospitality and benevolence. Twelve Great Companies dominated city politics: Mercers, Grocers, Drapers, Fishmongers, Haberdashers, Ironmongers, Vintners, Goldsmiths, Skinners, Salters, Company of Merchant Tailors, and the Clothworkers (composed from leading fullers and shearmen). The leading men of these guilds were generally aldermen and the guilds acted like municipal committees of trade and manufactures. Then they acted like a state department for the superintendence of the trade and manufactures of London. They were called Livery Companies and categorized their memberships in three grades: mere membership, livery membership, and placement on the governing body. Livery membership was distinguished by having the clothing of the brotherhood and were usually those who bought membership and paid higher fees because they were richer. Most of these companies had almshouses attached to their halls for the impoverished, disabled, and elderly members and their widows and children. For instance, many members of the goldsmiths had been blinded by the fire and smoke of quick silver and some members had been rendered crazed and infirm by working in that trade. The pensions of the liverymen were larger than those of mere members and they generally had a right to a place at those banquets which are chartered franchises, and they are invited by the governing body, as a matter of favor, to other entertainments. The freedom and rights of citizenship of the city could only be obtained through membership in a livery company.

A lesser guild, the Leathersellers, absorbed the Glovers, Pursers, and Pouchmakers. These craftsmen then became wage earners of the Leathersellers, but others of these craftsmen remained independent. Before, the Whittawyers, who treated horse, deer, and sheep hides with alum and oil, had become wage-earners for the Skinners.

There are 26 wards of London as of 1550. This is the number for the next four centuries. Each has an alderman, a clerk, and a constable.

Though there was much agreement on the faults of the church and the need to reform it, there were many disagreements on what philosophy of life should take the place of church teachings. The humanist Thomas More was a university trained intellectual. His book "Utopia", idealized an imaginary society of pagans living according to the principles of natural virtue. In it, everything is owned in common and there is no need for money. There is agreement that there is a God who created the world and all good things and who guides men. But otherwise people choose their religious beliefs and their priests. From this perspective, the practices of current Christians, scholastic theologicians, priests and monks, superstition, and ritual look absurd. He encouraged a religious revival. Aristotle's position that virtuous men would rule best is successfully debated against Plato's position that intellectuals and philosophers would be the ideal rulers.

More plead for proportion between punishment and crime. He urged that theft no longer be punished by death because this only encouraged the thief to murder his victim to eliminate evidence of the theft. He opined that the purpose of punishment was to reform offenders. He advocated justice for the poor to the standard of justice received by the rich.

Erasmus, a former monk, visited the nation for a couple of years and argued that reason should prevail over religious belief. He wrote the book "In Praise of Folly", which noted man's elaborate pains in misdirected efforts to gain the wrong thing. For instance, it questioned what man would stick his head into the halter of marriage if he first weighed the inconveniences of that life? Or what woman would ever embrace her husband if she foresaw or considered the dangers of childbirth and the drudgery of motherhood? Childhood and senility are the most pleasant stages of life because ignorance is bliss. Old age forgetfulness washes away the cares of the mind. A foolish and doting old man is freed from the miseries that torment the wise and has the chief joy of life: garrulousness. The seekers of wisdom are the farthest from happiness; they forget the human station to which they were born and use their arts as engines with which to attack nature. The least unhappy are those who approximate the naiveness of the beasts and who never attempt what is beyond men. As an example, is anyone happier than a moron or fool? Their cheerful confusion of the mind frees the spirit from care and gives it many-sided delights. Fools are free from the fear of death and from the pangs of conscience. They are not filled with vain worries and hopes. They are not troubled by the thousand cares to which this life is subject. They experience no shame, fear, ambition, envy, or love. In a world where man are mostly at odds, all agree in their attitude towards these innocents. They are sought after and sheltered; everyone permits them to do and say what they wish with impunity. However, the usual opinion is that nothing is more lamentable than madness. The Christian religion has some kinship with folly, while it has none at all with wisdom. For proof of this, notice that children, old people, women, and fools take more delight than anyone else in holy and religious things, led no doubt solely by instinct. Next, notice that the founders of religion have prized simplicity and have been the bitterest foes of learning. Finally, no people act more foolishly than those who have been truly possessed with Christian piety. They give away whatever is theirs; they overlook injuries, allow themselves to be cheated, make no distinction between friends and enemies, shun pleasure, and feast on hunger, vigils, tears, labors, and scorn. They disdain life, and utterly prefer death. In short, they have become altogether indifferent to ordinary interests, as if their souls lived elsewhere and not in their bodies. What is this, if not to be mad? The life of Christians is run over with nonsense. They make elaborate funeral arrangements, with candles, mourners, singers, and pallbearers. They must think that their sight will be returned to them after they are dead, or that their corpses will fall ashamed at not being buried grandly. Christian theologians, in order to prove a point, will pluck out four or five words from different places, even falsifying the sense of them if necessary, and disregard the fact that the context is irrelevant or even contradicts the point, They do this with such brazen skill that our lawyers are often jealous of them.

Lawyer Christopher St. German wrote the legal treatise "Doctor and Student", in which he deems the law of natural reason to be supreme and eternal. The law of God and the law of man, as enunciated by the church and royalty, merely supplement the law of natural reason and may change from time to time. Examples of the law of reason are: It is good to be loved. Evil is to be avoided. Do onto others as you would have them do unto you. Do nothing against the truth. Live peacefully with others. Justice is to be done to every man. No one is to wrong another. A trespasser should be punished. From these is deduced that a man should love his benefactor. It is lawful to put away force with force. It is lawful for every man to defend himself and his goods against an unlawful power.

Like his father, Henry VIII dominated Parliament. He used this power to reform the church of England in the 1530's. The Protestant reformation cause had become identified with his efforts to have his marriage of eighteen years to the virtuous Catherine annulled so he could marry a much younger woman: Anne. His purported reason was to have a son. The end of his six successive wives was: divorced, beheaded, died; divorced, beheaded, survived. Henry VIII was egotistical, arrogant, and self-indulgent. This nature allowed him to declare himself the head of the church of England instead of the pope.

Henry used and then discarded officers of state e.g. by executing them for supposed treason. One such was Thomas Wolsey, the son of a town butcher, was another supporter of classical learning. He rose through the church, the gateway to advancement in a diversity of occupations of clergy such as secretary, librarian, teacher, lawyer, doctor, author, civil servant, diplomat, and statesman. He was a court priest when he aligned himself with Henry, both of whom wanted power and glory and dressed extravagantly. But he was brilliant and more of a strategist than Henry. Wolsey was a reformer by name and started a purge of criminals, vagrants and prostitutes within. London, bringing many before the council. But most of his reforming plans were not brought to fruition, but ended after his campaign resulted in more power for himself. Wolsey rose to be Chancellor to the King and Archbishop of York. As the representative of the Pope for England, he exercised almost full papal authority there. But he controlled the church in England in the King's interest. He was second only to the King. He also came to control the many courts. Wolsey centralized the church in England and dissolved the smaller monasteries, the proceeds of which he used to build colleges at Oxford and his home town. He was an impartial and respected judge.

When Wolsey was not able to convince the pope to give Henry a divorce, Henry dismissed him and took his property, shortly after which Wolsey died.

The King replaced Wolsey as Chancellor with Thomas More, after whom he made Thomas Cromwell Chancellor. Cromwell was the son of a clothworker and a self- taught lawyer, arbitrator, merchant, and accountant. Like Wolsey, he was a natural orator. He drafted and had passed legislation that created a new church of England. He had all men swear an oath to the terms of the succession act. Thomas More was known for his honesty and was a highly respected man. More did not yield to Henry's bullying for support for his statute declaring the succession to be vested in the children of his second marriage, and his statute declaring himself the supreme head of the church of England, instead of the pope. He did not expressly deny the supremacy act, so was not guilty of treason under its terms. But silence did not save him. He was attainted for treason on specious grounds and beheaded. He conviction rested on the testimony of one perjured witness, who misquoted More as saying that Parliament did not have the power to require assent to the supremacy act because it was repugnant to the common law of Christendom.

Through his host of spies, Cromwell heard what men said to their closest friends. Words idly spoken were tortured into treason. Henry had many bills of attainder passed by Parliament. Silence was a person's only possibility of safety. Fear spread through the people.

Cromwell developed a technique for the management of the House of Commons which lasted for generations. He promulgated books in defense of royal spiritual authority, which argued that canon law was not divine but merely human and that clerical authority had no foundation in the Bible. A reformed English Bible was put in all parish churches. Reformers were licensed to preach. Cromwell ordered sermons to be said which proclaimed the supremacy of the King. He instituted registers to record baptisms, marriages, and burials in every county, for the purpose of reducing disputes over descent and inheritance. He dissolved all the lesser monasteries.

When Cromwell procured a foreign wife for Henry whom Henry found unattractive, he was attainted and executed.

Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote the first English Common Book of Prayer. With its use beginning in 1549, Church services were to be held in English instead of Latin. The mass, thought to be a miracle performed by priests, was to be replaced by communion shared by all. The mass, prayers for souls in purgatory, miracles, the worship of saints, and pilgrimages to shrines such as that of Thomas Becket, were all to be discontinued. Imprisonment or exile rather than death was made the penalty for heresy and blasphemy, and also for adultery.

After the King dissolved the greater monasteries, he took and sold their ornaments, silver plate and jewelry, lead from roofs of their buildings, and finally much of the land itself. Three monasteries were converted into the first three treating hospitals in London, one for the diseased, one for the poor, and one, Bethlehem (or "Bedlam" for short), for the mentally ill.

Henry used the proceeds from the sale of the monasteries for building many new palaces and wood ships for his navy. In war, these navy ships had heavy guns which could sink other ships. In peace time, these ships were hired out to traders. Large ships were constructed in docks, made partly by digging and partly by building walls.

The former land of the monasteries, about 30% of the country's land, was sold and resold or leased. Some went to entrepreneurial cloth manufacturers, who converted the buildings for the manufacture of cloth. They bought the raw wool and hired craftsmen for every step of the manufacturing process to be done in one continuous process. This was faster than buying and selling the wool material between craftsmen who lived in different areas. Also, it was more efficient because the amount of raw wool bought could be adjusted to the demand for cloth.

Many landowners now could live in towns exclusively off the rents of their rural land. Rents were increased so much that tenants could not pay and were evicted. They usually became beggars or thieves. Much of their former land was converted from crop raising to pasture for large herds of sheep. Arable farming required many workers, whereas sheep farming required only one shepherd and herdsman. There were exceptional profits made from the export of wool cloth. But much raw wool was still exported. It's price went up from 6s.8d. per tod in 1840 to 20s.8d. in 1546.

Villeinage was now virtually extinct. A lord could usually claim a small money- rent from the freeholder, sometimes a relief when his land was sold or passed at death, and occasionally a heriot from his heir.

There was steady inflation. Landlords made their leases short term so that they could raise rents as prices rose.

At least 85% of the population still lived in the country. Rich traders built town or country houses in which the emphasis was on comfort and privacy. There was more furniture, bigger windows filled with glass, wallpaper, and formal gardens. Some floors were tiled instead of stone or wood. They were still strewn with straw. The owners ate in a private dining room and slept in their own rooms with down quilts. Their soap was white. They had clothing of white linen and white wool, leather slippers, and felt hats. Men wore long tunics open at the neck and filled in with pleated linen and enormous puffed sleeves.

Most people dressed according to the apparel laws, which were updated from time to time. The used tin or pewter dishes, platters, goblets, saucers, spoons, saltcellars, pots, and basins. They used soap to wash themselves, their clothes, and their dishes. They had bedcovers on their beds. Cloth bore the mark of its weaver and came in many colors. Cloth could be held together with pins that had a shank with a hook by which they were closed. People went to barbers to cut their hair and to extract teeth. They went to people experienced with herbs, roots, and waters for treatment of skin conditions such as sores, cuts, burns, swellings, irritated eyes or scaly faces. For more complicated ailments, they went to physicians, who prescribed drugs and medicines. They bought drugs and medicines from apothecaries and pharmacists. They burned wood logs in the fireplaces in their houses. So much wood was used that young trees were required by statute to be given enough lateral space to spread their limbs and were not cut down until mature.

The King, earls, who ruled counties, and barons, who had land and a place in the House of Lords, still lived in the most comfort. The King's house had courtyards, gardens, orchards, wood-yards, tennis courts, and bowling alleys.

Lawyers had more work with the new laws passed to replace the canons of the church. They played an important role in town government and many became wealthy. They acquired town houses in addition to their rural estates.

The walls of the towns were manned by the citizens themselves, with police and watchmen at their disposal. In inns, travelers slept ten to a bed and there were many fleas and an occasional rat or mouse running through the rushes strewn on the floor. The inn provided a bed and ale, but travelers brought their own food. Each slept with his purse under his pillow.

In markets, sellers set up booths for their wares. They sold grain for making oatmeal or for sowing one's own ground. Wine, butter, cheese, fish, chicken, and candles could also be bought. Butchers bought killed sheep, lambs, calves, and pigs to cut up for selling. Tanned leather was sold to girdle-makers and shoemakers. Goods bought in markets were presumed not to be stolen, so that a purchaser could not be dispossessed of goods bought unless he had knowledge that they were stolen.

The ruling group of the towns came to be composed mostly of merchants, manufacturers, lawyers, and physicians. Some townswomen were independent traders. The governed class contained small master craftsmen and journeyman artisans, small traders, and dependent servants. The major streets of London were paved with stone, with a channel in the middle. More water conduits from hills, heaths, and springs were built to provide the citizens of London with more water.

The idea of competition appeared. Each man sought to be richer than his neighbors.

The cloth, mining, iron, and woodcraft industries employed full-time workers on wages.

Land held in common was partitioned. There were leases of mansion houses, smaller dwelling houses, houses with a wharf having a crane, houses with a timber yard, houses with a garden, houses with a shed, shops, warehouses, cellars, and stables. Land with a dye-house or a brew-house were devised by will along with their dying or brewing implements. There were dairies making butter and cheese.

The knights had 70% of the land, the nobles 10%, the church 10%, and the King 5%.

Citizens paid taxes to the King amounting to one tenth of their annual income from land or wages. The national government was much centralized and had full- time workers on wages. A national commission of sewers continually surveyed walls, ditches, banks, gutters, sewers, ponds, bridges, rivers, streams, mills, locks, trenches, fish-breeding ponds, and flood-gates. When low places were threatened with flooding, it hired laborers, bought timber, and hired carts with horses or oxen for necessary work. Mayors of cities repaired water conduits and pipes under the ground in their cities.

The organ and harp, precursor to the piano, were played.

All people generally had enough food because of the commercialization of agriculture. Also, roads were good enough for the transport of foodstuffs thereon. Four-wheeled waggons were in general use as well as two-wheeled carts. They were used for carrying people as well as goods. Goods were also transported by the pulling of barges on the rivers from paths along the river. A plough with wheels was used as well as those without.

The matchlock musket came into use, but did not replace the bow because rainy weather made it unusable.

Church reforms included abolishing church sanctuaries. Benefit of clergy was restricted. Archbishops were selected by the King. Decisions by archbishops in testamentary, matrimonial, and divorce matters were appealable to the Court of Chancery instead of to the pope. The clergy's canons were subject to the King's approval.

The Law

A person having land in socage or fee simple may will and devise his land by will or testament in writing.

A person holding land by knight's service may will and devise by his last will and testament in writing part of his land to his wife and other parts of his land to his children, as long as 1/3 of entailed land is left to the King.

Anyone serving the King in war may alienate his lands for the performance of his will, and if he dies, his feoffees or executors shall have the wardship of his heir and land.

A person who leases land for a term of years, even if by indenture or without a writing, may have a court remedy as do tenants of freehold for any expulsion by the lessor which is contrary to the lease, covenant, or agreement. These termers, their executors and assigns, shall hold and enjoy their terms against the lessors, their heirs and assigns. The lessor shall have a remedy for rents due or waste by a termer after recovering the land as well as if he had not recovered the land.

A lord may distrain land within his fee for rents, customs, or services due without naming the tenant, because of the existence of secret feoffments and leases made by their tenants to unknown persons.

Anyone seised of land to the use or trust of other persons by reason of a will or conveyance shall be held to have lawful seisin and possession of the land, because by common law, land is not devisable by will or testament, yet land has been so conveyed, which has deprived married men of their courtesy, women of their dower, the King of the lands of persons attainted, the King of a year's profits of the of felons, and lords their escheats.

A woman may not have both a jointure and dower of her husband's land. (Persons had purchased land to hold jointly with their wives)

A sale of land must be in writing, sealed, and registered in its county with the clerk of that county. If the land is worth less than 40s. per year, the clerk is paid 12d. If the land exceeds 40s. yearly, the clerk is paid 2s.6d.

An adult may lease his lands or tenements only by a writing under his seal for a term of years or a term of life, because many people who had taken leases of lands and tenements for a term of years or a term of lives had to spend a lot for repair and were then evicted by heirs of their lessors.

A husband may not lease out his wife's land.

No woman covert, child, idiot, or person of insane memory may devise land by will or testament.

The land of tenants-in-common may be partitioned by them so that each holds a certain part.

No bishop or other official having authority to take probate of testaments may take a fee for probating a testament where the goods of the testator are under 100s., except that the scribe writing the probate of the testament may take 6d., and for the commission of administration of the goods of any man dying intestate, being up to 100s, may be charged 6d. Where the goods are over 100s. but up to 800s. sterling, probate fees may be 3s.6d. at most, whereof the official may take 2s.6d. at most, with 12d. residue to the scribe for registering the testament. Where the goods are over 800s. sterling, probate fees may be 5s. at most, whereof the official may take 2s.6d. at most, with 2s.6d. residue to the scribe, or the scribe may choose to take 1d. per 10 lines of writing of the testament. If the deceased had willed by his testament any land to be sold, the money thereof coming nor the profits of the land shall not be counted as the goods or chattel of the deceased. Where probate fees have customarily been less, they shall remain the same. The official shall approve and seal the testament without delay and deliver it to the executors named in such testaments for the said sum. If a person dies intestate or executors refuse to prove the testament, then the official shall grant the administration of the goods to the widow of the deceased person, or to the next of kin, or to both, in the discretion of the official, taking surety of them for the true administration of the goods, chattels, and debts. Where kin of unequal degree request the administration, it shall be given to the wife and, at his discretion, other requestors. The executors or administrators, along with at least two persons to whom the deceased was indebted, or to whom legacies were made, or, upon their refusal or absence, two honest kinsmen, shall make an inventory of the deceased's goods, chattels, ware, merchandise, as well moveable as not moveable, and take it upon their oaths to the official.

No parish priest or other spiritual person shall take a mortuary or money from a deceased person with moveable goods under the value of 133s., a deceased woman covert baron, a child, a person keeping no house, or a traveler. Only one mortuary may be taken of each deceased and that in the place where he most dwelled and lived. Where the deceased's moveable goods are to the value of 133s. or more, above his debts paid, and under 600s., a mortuary up to 3s. 4d. may be taken. Where such goods are 600s. or more and under 800s., mortuary up to 6s.8d. may be taken. Where such goods are 800s. or above, mortuary up to 10s. may be taken. But where mortuaries have customarily been less, they shall remain the same.

Executors of a will declaring land to be sold for the payment of debts, performance of legacies to wife and children, and charitable deeds for the health of souls, may sell the land despite the refusal of other executors to agree to such sale.

A man may not marry his mother, step-mother, sister, niece, aunt, or daughter.

Only marriages which have not been consummated may be dissolved by annulment.

The entry of an apprentice into a craft shall not cost more than 2s.6d. After his term, his entry shall not be more than 3s.4d. This replaced the various fees ranging from this to 40s.

No master of a craft may require his apprentice to make an oath not to compete with him by setting up a shop after the term of his apprenticeship.

No alien may take up a craft or occupation in the nation.

No brewer of ale or beer to sell shall make wood vessels or barrels, and coopers shall use only good and seasonable wood to make barrels and shall put their mark thereon. Every ale or beer barrel shall contain 32 of the King's standard gallons. The price of beer barrels sold to ale or beer brewers or others shall be 9d.

An ale-brewer may employ in his service one cooper only to bind, hoop and pin, but not to make, his master's ale vessels.

No butcher may keep a tanning-house.

Tanned leather shall be sold only in open fairs and markets and after it is inspected and sealed.

Only people living in designated towns may make cloth, to prevent the ruin of these towns by people taking up both agriculture and cloth-making outside these towns.

No one shall shoot in or keep in his house any hand-gun or cross-bow unless he has 2,000s. yearly.

No one may hunt or kill rabbits in the snow since their killing in great numbers by men other than the King and noblemen has depleted them.

No one shall take an egg or bird of any falcon or hawk out of its nest on the King's land. No one may disguise himself with hidden or painted face to enter a forest or park enclosed with a wall for keeping deer to steal any deer or rabbit.

Ducks and geese shall not be taken with any net or device during the summer, when they haven't enough feathers to fly. But a freeholder of 40s. yearly may hunt and take such with long bow and spaniels.

No one may sell or buy any pheasant except the King's officers may buy such for the King.

No butcher may kill any calf born in the spring.

No grain, beef, mutton, veal, or pork may be sold outside the nation.

Every person with 36 acres of agricultural land, shall sow one quarter acre with flax or hemp-feed.

All persons shall kill crows on their land to prevent them from eating so much grain at sowing and ripening time and destroying hay-stacks and the thatched roofs of houses and barns. They shall assemble yearly to survey all the land to decide how best to destroy all the young breed of crows for that year. Every village and town with at least ten households shall put up and maintain crow nets for the destruction of crows.

No land used for crop-raising may be converted to pasture.

No woods may be converted to agriculture or pasture.

No one shall cut down or break up dikes holding salt water and fresh water from flooding houses and pastures.

No one shall dump tin-mining debris, dung, or rubbish into rivers flowing into ports or take any wood from the walls of the port, so that ships may always enter at low tide.

A person may lay out a new highway on his land where the old one has been so damaged by waterways that horses with carriages cannot pass, with the consent of local officials.

Only poor, aged, and disabled persons may beg. Begging without a license is punishable by whipping or setting in the stocks 3 days with only bread and water.

Alien palm readers shall no longer be allowed into the nation, because they have been committing felonies and robberies.

Butchers may not sell beef, pork, mutton, or veal from carcasses for more than 1/2 penny and 1/2 farthing [1/4 penny] per pound.

French wines may not sell at retail for more than 8d. per gallon.

A barrel maker or cooper may sell a beer barrel for 10d.

No longer may aliens bring books into the nation to sell because now there are sufficient printers and book-binders in the nation.

No one may buy fresh fish other than sturgeon, porpoise, or seal from an alien to put to sale in the nation.

Every person with an enclosed park where there are deer, shall keep two tall and strong mares in such park and shall not allow them to be mounted by any short horse, because the breeding of good, swift, and strong horses has diminished.

A man may have only as many trotting horses for the saddle as are appropriate to his degree.

No one may maintain for a living a house for unlawful games such as bowling, tennis, dice, or cards. No artificer, craftsman, husbandman, apprentice, laborer, journeyman, mariner, fisherman may play these games except at Christmas under his master's supervision. Noblemen and others with a yearly income of at least 2,000s. may allow his servants to play these games at his house.

Hemp of flax may not be watered in any river or stream where animals are watered.

No one shall sell merchandise to another and then buy back the same merchandise within three months at a lower price. No one shall sell merchandise to be paid for in a year above the sum of 200s. per 2000s. worth of merchandise. No one shall sell or mortgage any land upon condition of payment of a sum of money before a certain date above the sum of 200s. per 2000s. per year.

No one shall commit forgery by counterfeiting a letter made in another person's name to steal any money, goods, or jewels.

No one shall libel by accusing another of treason in writing and leaving it in an open place without subscribing his own name to it.

If any servant converts to his own use more than 40s. worth of jewels, money, or goods from caskets entrusted to him for safekeeping by a nobleman or other master or mistress, it shall be a felony.

If a person breaks into a dwelling house by night to commit burglary or murder, is killed by anyone in that house, or a person is killed in self-defense, the killer shall not forfeit any lands or goods for the killing.

Killing by poisoning shall be deemed murder and is punishable by death.

A person who has committed a murder, robbery, or other felony he has committed shall be imprisoned for his natural life and be burned on the hand, because those who have been exiled have disclosed their knowledge of the commodities and secrets of this nation and gathered together to practice archery for the benefit of the foreign realm. If he escapes such imprisonment, he shall forfeit his life.

A person convicted or outlawed shall be penalized by loss of life, but not loss of lands or goods, which shall go to his wife as dower and his heirs.

Buggery may not be committed on any person or beast.

No one shall slander or libel the King by speeches or writing or printing or painting.

No one shall steal fish from a pond on another's land by using nets or hooks with bait or by drying up the pond.

The mayor of London shall appoint householders to supervise watermen rowing people across the Thames River because so many people have been robbed and drowned by these rowers. All such boats must be at least 23 feet long and 5 feet wide.

No man shall take away or marry any maiden under 16 years of age with an inheritance against the will of her father.

Any marriage solemnized in church and consummated shall be valid regardless of any prior contract for marriage.

Sheriffs shall not lose their office because they have not collected enough money for the Exchequer, but shall have allowances sufficient to perform their duties.

Butchers, brewers, and bakers shall not conspire together to sell their victuals only at certain prices. Artificers, workmen and laborers shall not conspire to work only at a certain rate or only at certain hours of the day.

No one shall sell any woolen cloth that shrinks when it is wet.

Only artificers using the cutting of leather, may buy and sell tanned leather and only for the purpose of converting it into made wares.

A beggar's child above five years may be taken into service by anyone that will.

Cattle may be bought only in the open fair or market and only by a butcher or for a household, team, or dairy, but not for resale live.

Butter and cheese shall not be bought to be sold again except at retail in open shop, fair, or market.

No man may enter a craft of cloth-making until he has been an apprentice for seven years or has married a clothiers' wife and practicing the trade for years with her and her servants sorting the wool.

No country person shall sell wares such as linen drapery, wool drapery, hats, or groceries by retail in any incorporated town, but only in open fairs.

For every 60 sheep there shall be kept one milk cow because of the scarcity of cattle.

No clothier may keep more than one wool loom in his house, because many weavers do not have enough work to support their families. No weaver may have more than two wool looms.

No cloth-maker, fuller, shearman, weaver, tailor, or shoemaker shall retain a journeyman to work by the piece for less than a three month period. Every craftsman who has three apprentices shall have one journeyman. Servants in agriculture and bargemen shall serve by the whole year and not by day wages.

There shall be a sales tax of 12d. per pound of wool cloth goods for the Crown.

All people shall attend church on Sundays to remember God's benefits and goodness to all and to give thanks for these with prayers and to pray to be given daily necessities.

Anyone fighting in church shall be excluded from the fellowship of the parish community.

No one shall use a rope or device to stretch cloth for sale so to make it appear as more in quantity than it is.

No one may sell cloth at retail unless the town where it was dressed, dyed, and pressed has placed its seal on the cloth. Cloth may not be pressed with a hot press, but only with a cold press.

Offices may not be bought and sold, but only granted by justices of the royal courts.

No one going from house to house to repair metal goods or sell small goods he is carrying may do this trade outside the town where he lives.

No one may sell ale or beer without a license, because there have been too many disorders in common alehouses. Offenders may be put in the town or county jail for three days.

French wine may not be sold for more than 8d. per gallon.

Only persons with yearly incomes of 1,333s. or owning goods worth 13,333s. may store wine in his house and only for the use of his household.

No one may sell forged iron, calling it steel, because the edged tools and weapons made from it are useless.

Parish communities shall repair the highways for four days each year using oxen, cart, plough, shovels, and spades.

The children of priests are declared legitimate so they may inherit their ancestor's lands. The priests may be tenants by courtesy after the death of their wives of such land and tenements that their wives happened to be seized of in fee simple or in fee tail, during the spousals.

Judicial Procedure

Doctors of the civil law may practice in the church or Chancery courts.

Justices shall tax inhabitants of the county for building jails throughout the nation, for imprisonment of felons, to be kept by the sheriffs and repaired out of the Exchequer.

Piracy at sea or in river or creek or port are adjudicated in shires because of the difficulty of obtaining witnesses from the ship, who might be murdered or who are on other voyages on the sea, for adjudication by the admiral.

Piracy and murder on ships is punishable by death only after confession or proof by disinterested witnesses.

Land held by tenants in common may be partitioned by court order, because some of these tenants have cut down all the trees to take the wood and pulled down the houses to convert the material to their own use.

Persons worth 800s. a year in goods shall be admitted in trials of felons in corporate towns although they have no freehold of land.

Each justice of the high courts may employ one chaplain.

The Privy Council took the authority of the star court, which organized itself as a specialty court. Also, a specific group of full-time councilors heard pleas of private suitors.

The bishops, nobility, and Justices of the Peace were commanded to imprison clergy who taught papal authority. Justices of the Peace and sheriffs were to watch over the bishops. The Justices of Assize were to assess the effectiveness of the Justices of the Peace as well as enforce the treason act on circuit.

The criminal court had no jury and went outside the common law to prosecute political enemies.

Since the nation was now peaceful, expediency was no longer needed, so judicial procedures again became lengthy and formal with records.

All pleadings and usually testimony was put into writing in
Chancery court.

Witnesses could be sworn in to state pertinent facts necessary for full understanding and adjudication of cases, because they are reliable now that there is no livery and maintenance and because jurors no longer necessarily know all the relevant facts.

Chapter 13

The Times: 1558-1604

Queen Elizabeth I was intelligent, educated, and wise about human nature. When young, she was a brilliant student. Then, she studied much history, philosophy, and oratory. She wrote in English, Latin, French, and Italian. She read Greek, including the Greek Testament, Greek orators, and Greek dramatists at age seven, when the first professorship of Greek was founded at Cambridge University. Book- learning was one of her highest values throughout her life. She had good judgment in selecting her ministers and advisors for her Privy Council. Like her father and grandfather, she dominated Parliament.

She was so influenced by her reading of Cicero that she acquired his style of writing. Her Chief Secretary William Cecil was so guided by Cicero's "Offices" that he carried a copy in his pocket. Cicero opined that government officials' duty was to make the safety and interest of citizens its greatest aim and to design all their thoughts and endeavors without ever considering personal advantage. Government was not to serve the interest of any one group to the prejudice or neglect of the rest, for then discord and sedition would occur. Furthermore, a governor should try to become loved and not feared, because men hated those whom they feared, and wished dead those whom they hated. Therefore obedience proceeding from fear could not last, whereas that which was the effect of love would last forever. An oppressor ruling by terror will be resented by the citizens, who in secret will choose a worthier person. Then liberty, having been chained up, would be unleashed more fiercely than otherwise. To obtain the peoples' love, a governor should be kind and bountiful. To obtain the peoples' trust, a governor should be just, wise, and faithful. To demonstrate this, a governor should be eloquent in showing the people an understanding better than theirs, the wisdom to anticipate events, and the ability to deal with adverse events. And this demonstration should be done with modesty. One cannot get the peoples' trust by vain shows, hypocritical pretenses, composed countenances, and studied forms of words. The first goal of a governor is to take care that each individual is secured in the quiet enjoyment of his own property. The second goal is to impose taxes that are not burdensome. The third goal is to furnish the people with necessaries. The law should be enforced keeping in mind that its fundamental purpose is to keep up agreement and union among citizens.

Elizabeth cared deeply for the welfare of all citizens of whatever class. She was sensitive to public opinion and wanted to be loved by her people, which she was. She was frugal and diplomatically avoided unnecessary wars, saying that her purse was the pockets of her people. England was a small Protestant nation threatened by the larger Catholic nations of France and Spain. Elizabeth flirted with foreign princes to make them waste their time trying to get England by marrying her instead of by war. Her promotion of commercial speculations diffused a vast increase of wealth among her people. Her good spirits and gayness created a happy mood in the nation. She loved dancing and madrigal music was popular. The Elizabethan era was one of general prosperity.

Elizabeth came to dress elaborately and fancifully. Her dresses were fitted at the waist with a long and pointed bodice stiffened with wood, steel, or whalebone. Her skirt was held out with a petticoat with progressively larger hoops. There were two layers of skirt with the top one parted to show the bottom one. The materials used were silks, satins, velvets, and brocades. On her dress were quiltings, slashings, and embroidery. They were covered with gold ornaments, pearls, and gems from America. She wore decorated gloves. So ladies copied her and discarded their simple over-tunics for elaborate dresses. The under-tunic was now becoming a petticoat and the over-tunic a dress. Their under-tunics became petticoats. Often they also wore a fan with a mirror, a ball of scent, a miniature portrait of someone dear to them, and sometimes a watch. Single ladies did not wear hats, but had long, flowing hair and low cut dresses showing their bosoms. Married ladies curled their hair and wore it in high masses on their heads with jewels interwoven into it. Both gentlemen and ladies wore hats both indoors and outside and large, pleated collars around their necks (with the newly discovered starch), perfume, and high-heeled shoes. Gentlemen's' tight sleeves, stiffened and fitted doublet with short skirt, and short cloak were ornamented and their silk or velvet hats flamboyant, with feathers. At their leather belts they hung pouches and perhaps a watch. They wore both rapiers [swords with cutting edges] and daggers daily as there were many quarrels. There were various artistic beard cuts and various lengths of hair, which was often curled and worn in ringlets. They now wore breeches and stockings instead of long hosen. Both gentlemen and ladies wore silk stockings and socks over them and then boots. Coats dipped in boiled linseed oil with resin served as raincoats. They wore nightgowns to bed. Fashions changed every year. When Elizabeth became old, she had a wig made to match her youthful long red hair. Other ladies began wearing wigs.

Poor men wore skirted fustian tunics, loose breeches, and coarse stockings or canvas leggings. Agricultural laborers kept sword and bow in a corner of their fields in the first part of Elizabeth's reign.

Women spent much of their time doing needlework and embroidery. Since so many of the women who spent their days spinning were single, unmarried women became known as "spinsters".

Children wore the same apparel as their elders. They were given milk at meals for good growth. It was recognized that sickness could be influenced by diet and herbs. Sickness was still viewed as an imperfect balance of the four elements of blood (hot and moist like air), phlegm (cold and moist like water), choler or yellow bile (hot and dry like fire), and melancholy or black bile (cold and dry like earth) in a person.

There were many lifestyle possibilities in the nation: independently wealthy with 40s. yearly or goods worth 200s.; gentleman, that is one who owned land or was in a profession such as an attorney, physician, priest or who was a university graduate, government official, or a military officer; employment in agriculture, arts, sciences; employment in households and offices of noblemen and gentlemen; independent farmers with their own farm; fisherman or mariner on the sea or apprentice of such; employment by carriers of grain into cities, by market towns, for digging, seeking, finding, getting, melting, fining, working, trying, making of any silver, tin, lead, iron, copper, stone, coal; glassmaker.

Typical wages in the country were: fieldworkers 2-3d. a day, ploughmen 1s. a week with board, shepherd 6d. a week and board, his boy 2 1/2 d., hedgers 6d. a day, threshers 3-7d. depending on the grain, thatching for five days 2d., master mason or carpenter or joiner 4d. a day and food or 8d. without food, a smith 2d. a day with food, a bricklayer 2 1/2 d. a day with food, a shoemaker 2d. a day with food. These people lived primarily on food from his own ground.

There was typical work for each month of the year in the country: January - ditching and hedging after the frost broke, February - catch moles in the meadows, March - protect the sheep from prowling dogs, April - put up hop poles, sell bark to the tanner before the timber is felled, fell elm and ash for carts and ploughs, fell hazel for forks, fell sallow for rakes, fell horn for flails, May - weed and hire children to pick up stones from the fallow land, June - wash and shear the sheep, July - hay harvest, August - wheat harvest, September and October - gather the fruit, sell the wool from the summer shearing, stack logs for winter, buy salt fish for Lent in the town and lay it up to dry, November - have the chimneys swept before winter, thresh grain in the barn, December - grind tools, repair yokes, forks, and farm implements, cover strawberry and flower beds with straw to protect them from the cold, split kindling wood with beetle and wedge, tan their leather, make leather jugs, make baskets for catching fish, and carve wood spoons, plates, and bowls.

There was a wave of building and renovation activity in town and country. Housing is now, for the first time, purely for dwelling and not for defense. They were designed symmetrically with decorative features instead of a haphazard addition of rooms. Windows were large and put on the outer walls instead of just inside the courtyard. A scarcity of timber caused proportionally more stone to be used for dwelling houses and proportionately more brick to be used for royal palaces and mansions. The rest of the house was plaster painted white interspersed with vertical, horizontal, and sloping timber, usually oak, painted black. They had locks and bolts for protection from intruders. The floors were stone or wood, and sometimes tile. They were often covered with rushes or plaited rush mats. Some private rooms may have carpets on the floor. Walls were smoothly plastered or had carved wood paneling to control drafts. Painted cloths replaced tapestries on walls. Candles were hung from the ceiling and used on tables. Plastered ceilings and a lavish use of glass made rooms lighter and cozy. Broad and gracious stairways with carved wood banisters replaced the narrow winding stone steps of a stairwell. Most houses had several brick chimneys and clear, but uneven, glass in the windows. There were fireplaces in living rooms, dining rooms, kitchen, and bedrooms. Sometimes there was a library, study room, or breakfast room as well. Rooms were more spacious than before and contained furniture such as chests of drawers, enclosed cupboards, cabinets, buffets, tables, chairs and benches with backs and cushions, sometimes with arms, and occasionally wardrobes, either hanging or with shelves, for clothes. Carpeting covered tables, chests, and beds. Family portraits decorated some walls, usually in the dining room. Bedrooms all led out of each other. But curtains on the four poster beds with tops provided privacy. Beds had elaborately carved bedsteads, sheets, and a feather coverlid as well as a feather mattress. Often family members, servants, and friends shared the same bed for warmth or convenience. Each bedroom typically had a cabinet with a mirror, e.g. of burnished metal or crystal, and comb on top. One brushed his teeth with tooth soap and a linen cloth, as physicians advised. Each bedroom had a pitcher and water bowl, usually silver or pewter, for washing in the morning, and a bed-pan for nighttime use, and also fragrant flowers. Elizabeth had a room just for her bath. Smoking tobacco and snuff-taking became popular.

On the table was a fancy salt cellar and pepper. Some gentry used two-pronged forks for eating. Glass drinking vessels replaced even gold and silver goblets. Breakfast was substantial, with meat, and usually eaten in one's bedroom. There was great plenty and variety of meats to all but the poorer classes: beef, mutton, veal, lamb, kid, pork, rabbit, capon, red deer, fish and wild fowl as well as the traditional venison and brawn [boar]. From English orchards and gardens came apricots, almonds, gooseberries, raspberries, melons, currants, oranges, and lemons as well as the traditional apples, pears, plums, mulberries, quinces, pomegranates, figs, cherries, walnuts, chestnuts, hazel nuts, filberts, strawberries, blackberries, dewberries, blueberries, and peaches. Also grown were sweet potatoes, artichokes, cabbages, turnips, broad beans, peas, pumpkins, cucumbers, radishes, carrots, celery, parsnips, onions, garlic, leeks, endive, spinach, sorrel, lettuce, parsley, mustard, cress, sage, tarragon, fennel, thyme, mint, savory, rhubarb, and medicinal herbs. Sugar was used to make sweet dishes. Grace was said before meals. Toothpicks were used.

Most dwellings were of brick and stone. Only a few were of wood or mud and straw. The average house was now four rooms instead of three. Yeomen might have six rooms. A weaver's house had a hall, two bedrooms, and a kitchen besides the shop. Farmers might have two instead of one room. A joiner had a one-room house with a feather bed and bolster. Even craftsmen, artificers and farmers had feather beds on bed frames with pillows and hung loom tapestry and painted cloth to keep out the cold in their single story homes. They also had pewter spoons and plates, instead of just wood or earthenware ones. Even the poorer class had glass drinking vessels, though of a coarse grade. The poor still used wooden plates and spoons. Laborers had canvas sheets. Richer farmers would build a chamber above the hall, replacing the open hearth with a fireplace and chimney. Poorer people favored ground floor extensions, adding a kitchen or second bedchamber to their cottages. Kitchens were often separate buildings to reduce the risk of fire. Roasting was done on a spit and baking in irons boxes placed in the fire or in a brick oven at the side of the fireplace.

Mixed farming began. In this, some of the arable land produced food for man and the rest produced food for sheep, cattle, pigs, and poultry. This was made possible by the introduction of clover, artificial grasses, and turnip and other root crops for the animals. Since the sheep ate these crops in the field, they provided manure to maintain the fertility of the soil. This meant that many animals could be maintained throughout the winter instead of being slaughtered and salted.

More than medieval castles and manor houses, mansions were designed with privacy in mind. The great hall, often hung around with bows, pikes, swords, and guns, was not abandoned, but the family used it as an eating place only on rare occasions. Instead they withdrew to the parlor and great chamber, while their servants lived in turrets or attics and continued to eat in the hall. The distinction between parlor and great chamber was that the former was for domestic use and the latter for entertaining. Parlors were situated on the ground floor: the family lived and relaxed there, and had informal meals in a dining parlor. The formal or "state" rooms were on the first floor, usually comprising a great chamber, a withdrawing chamber, one or more bedchambers, and a long gallery. The idea of a long gallery was copied from Henry VII and was used for exercise, recreation such as music and dancing, and private conversations. Each room had carved chairs and cabinets. A noble or gentleman's house had not only a garden for the kitchen and orchards, but formal gardens of flowers and scrubs. Grown were apples, plums, pears, apricots, peaches, walnuts, filberts, almonds, figs, capers, oranges, and lemons. Trees were planted and grafted.

A noble lord made written rules with penalties for his country household, which numbered about a hundred, including family, retainers, and servants. He enforced them by fines, flogging, and threats of dismissal. The lady of the house saw that the household, held together as an economic and social unit. The noble's family, retainers, guests, and the head servants, such as chaplain and children's tutor, and possibly a musician, dined together at one table. The family included step children and married sons and daughters with their spouses. They drank from drinking of fine clear glass from Italy. They ate from silver dishes with silver spoons. Chandeliers of candles lit rooms. A silver salt cellar was on the table, which was covered with a linen cloth. The lady of the house sat in a chair at the end of the table and was served first. After the upper table was served, the food was sent to the servants: serving men and women, bakers, brewers, cooks, pot cleaners, laudresses, shepherds, hogherds, dairy maids, falconers, huntsmen, and stable men. What was left was given to the poor at the gates of the house. The biggest meal of the day was dinner, served at noon. There were sandglass clocks. For amusement, the house was occasionally handed over to a lord of misrule for twelve days. Clothes were washed in rivers and wells.

Farmers' wives used looms as well as spinning wheels with foot treadles. Due to new grass and root crops, animals could be kept through the winter. Therefore, salted meat and salted fish were no longer the staple food of the poorer people during the winter. Farm laborers ate soup, porridge, milk, cheese, bacon, and beer or mead (depending on the district), and dark barley or rye bread, which often served as his plate. Gentlemen ate wheat bread.

By 1600 basement services were frequently found in town houses built on restricted sites. Lastly, provision of water supplies and improved sanitary arrangements reflected concern with private and public health. There was virtually no drainage. In the case of town houses, some owners would go to considerable effort to solve drainage problems, often paying a cash composition to the civic authorities, but sometimes performing some service for the town at Court or at Westminster in return for unlimited water or some drainage. Most affluent households, including the Queen's moved from house to house, so their cesspits could be cleaned out and the vacated buildings aired after use. A few cesspits were made air-tight. Otherwise, there was extensive burning of perfumes. Refuse was emptied out of front doors and shoveled into heaps on street corners. It was then dumped into the river or along the highways leading out of town. People put on perfume to avoid the stench. By 1600, the first water-closet was built, which provided a clean latrine all year round.

The value of grain and meat rose compared to wool. Grain became six times its value in the previous reign. Wool fell from 20s.8d. per tod in 1546 to 16s. in 15s. So sheep-farming, which had taken about 5% of the arable land, was supplanted somewhat by crop-raising and the rural population could be employed for agriculture. In some places, the threefold system of rotation was replaced by alternating land used for crops with that used for pasture. The necessity of manuring and the rotation of crops and grasses such as clover for enrichment of the soil were recognized. Wheat, rye, barley, peas, and beans were raised. There was much appropriation of common land by individual owners by sale or force. Many farms were enclosed by fences or hedges so that each holder could be independent of his neighbors. Red and black currants, rhubarb, apricots, and oranges were now grown. These independent farmers could sell wool to clothiers, and butter, cheese, and meat to the towns. They also often did smithwork and ironwork, making nails, horseshoes, keys, locks, and agricultural implements to sell. A laborer could earn 6d. a day in winter and 7d. a day in summer. Unfree villeinage ceased on the royal estates. But most land was still farmed in common and worked in strips without enclosure. Windmills now had vanes to change the position of the sails when the wind direction changed. Formerly, the position of the sails was changed by manual labor. Prosperous traders and farmers who owned their own land assumed local offices as established members of the community.

The population of the nation was about five million. Population expansion had allowed landlords to insist on shorter leases and higher rents, instead of having to choose between accepting a long lease and good rent or allowing their estates to pass out of cultivation. 90% of the population lived in the countryside and 5% in the London and 5% in the other towns. Over half the people of the nation were on the margin of subsistence. Life expectancy was about 40 years of age.

Most of London was confined within the city wall. There were orchards and gardens both inside and outside the walls, and fields outside. Flower gardens and nurseries came into existence. No part of the city was more than a ten minute walk to the fields. Some wealthy merchants had four story mansions or country houses outside the city walls. Goldsmiths' Row was replete with four story houses. A few wealthy merchants became money-lenders for interest, despite the law to the contrary. The mayor of London was typically a rich merchant prince. Each trade occupied its own section of the town and every shop had its own signboard, for instance, hat and cap sellers, cloth sellers, grocers, butchers, cooks, taverns, and book-sellers. Many of the London wards were associated with a craft, such as Candlewick Ward, Bread St. Ward, Vintry Ward, and Cordwainer Ward. Some wards were associated with their location in the city, such as Bridge Ward, Tower Ward, Aldgate Ward, Queenhithe Ward, and Billingsgate Ward. People dwelled at the back or on the second floor of their shops. In the back yard, they grew vegetables such as melons, carrots, turnips, cabbages, pumpkins, parsnips, and cucumbers; herbs; and kept a pig. Hyde Park was the Queen's hunting ground. London had a small zoo of ten animals, including a lion, tiger, lynx, and wolf.

Life in London was lived in the open air in the streets. The merchant transacted business agreements and the lawyer saw his clients in the street or at certain pillars at St. Paul's Church, where there was a market for all kinds of goods and services. Some gentlemen had offices distant from their dwelling houses such as attorneys, who had a good income from trade disputes and claims to land, which often changed hands. Plays and recreation also occurred in the streets, such as performances by dancers, musicians, jugglers, clowns, tumblers, magicians, and men who swallowed fire. The churches were continuously open and used by trades and peddlers, including tailors and letter-writers. Water carriers carried water in wood vessels on a shoulder from the Thames River or its conduits to the inhabitants three gallons at a time. Soldiers, adventurers, physicians, apprentices, prostitutes, and cooks were all distinguishable by their appearances. An ordinance required apprentices to wear long blue gowns and white breeches with stockings, with no ornamentation of silk, lace, gold or silver and no jewelry. They could wear a meat knife, but not a sword or dagger. Apprentices lived with their masters and worked from 6 or 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Some people knitted wool caps as they walked to sell when finished. There were sections of town for booksellers, butchers, brewers, hosiers, shoemakers, curriers, cooks, poulters, bow makers, textwriters, pattenmakers, and horse and oxen sellers. Large merchant companies had great halls for trade, such as the mercers, grocers, drapers, fishmongers, and goldsmiths. The other great guilds were the skinners, merchant tailers, haberdashers, salters, ironmongers, vintners, and clothworkers. Smaller guilds were those of the bakers, weavers, fruiterers, dyers, Thames watermen and lightermen, carpenters, joiners, turners, and parish clerks. The guilds insured quality by inspecting goods for a fee. >From 1571, merchants could meet at the Royal Exchange building for business purposes. It's great bell rang at midday and at 6 p.m. Crime was rampant in the streets and criminals were executed near to the crime scene.

Taverns served meals as well as ale. They were popular meeting places for both men and women of all backgrounds to met their friends. Two taverns in particular were popular with the intelligentsia. Music was usually played in the background and games were sometimes played. Beer made with hops and malt was introduced and soon there were beer drinking contests. Drunkenness became a problem.

The main thoroughfare in London was still the Thames River. Nobles living on the river had their own boats and landings. Also at the banks, merchants of all nations had landing places where ships unloaded, warehouses, and cellars for goods and merchandise. Swans swam in the clear bright water. Watermen rowed people across the river for a fee. On the south bank of the river were theaters, outlaws, cutpurses, prostitutes, and prisons. In the summer, people ate supper outside in public. Refuse is still thrown into the streets. At night, the gates of the city were closed and citizens were expected to hang out lanterns. The constable and his watchmen carried lanterns and patrolled the streets asking anyone they saw why they were out so late at night. There were a few horse-drawn coaches with unglazed windows with curtains to keep out the weather.

As of old times, brokers approved by the Mayor and aldermen made contracts with merchants concerning their wares. Some contracts included holding wares as security. Some craftsmen and manual workers extended this idea to used garments and household articles, which they took as pawns, or security for money loaned. This began pawn brokerage, which was lucrative. The problem was that many of the items pawned had been stolen.

The Queen's Privy Council fixed wages and prices in London, advised Justices of the Peace on wages elsewhere, and controlled exports of grain to keep prices down and supplies ample. There were labor strikes in some towns for higher wages after periods of inflation. In 1591, London authorities rounded up the sturdy vagabonds and set them to work cleaning out the city ditches for 4d. per day.

Most of the men in Elizabeth's court had attended a university, such as the lawyer and writer Francis Bacon and the sea-fighter and writer Walter Raleigh, who had a humble origin. Many wives and daughters of Privy Councilors attended the Queen in her privy chamber. Most of the knights or gentlemen of the royal household were also members of Parliament or Justices of the Peace for certain districts in the counties. The court did not travel as much as in the past, but became associated with London. Elizabeth took her entire court on summer visits to the country houses of leading nobility and gentry.

Secular education and especially the profession of law was the route for an able but poor person to rise to power, rather than as formerly through military service or through the church.

The first stage of education was primary education, which was devoted to learning to read and write in English. This was carried out at endowed schools or at home by one's mother or a tutor. The children of the gentry were usually taught in their homes by private teachers of small classes. Many of the poor became literate enough to read the Bible and to write letters. However, most agricultural workers and laborers remained illiterate.

The next stage of education was grammar [secondary] school. There a student was taught rhetoric (e.g. poetry, history, precepts of rhetoric, and classical oratory), some logic, and Latin and Greek grammar. English grammar was learned through Latin grammar and English style through translation from Latin. Literary criticism was learned through rhetoric. There were disputations on philosophical questions such as how many angels could sit on a pin's point. The students sat in groups around the hall for their lessons. The boys and girls were also taught hawking, hunting and archery. The secondary student and the undergraduate were tested for proficiency by written themes and oral disputations, both in Latin. Grammar schools were headed by schoolmasters. There were so many secondary schools financed by merchants and guilds such as the Mercers and Fishmongers that every incorporated town had at least one. The middle classes from the squire to the petty tradesman were brought into contact with the best Greek and Roman writers. A typical schoolday lasted from 7:00 am to 5:00 PM. Flogging with a birch rod was used for discipline. Some students learned this material from a tutor rather than school.

The government of Oxford University, which had been Catholic, was taken from the resident teachers and put into the hands of the Vice-Chancellor, Doctors, Heads of Colleges, and Proctors. Then Oxford became a hotbed of Puritanism. Cambridge already had a strong reformed element from Erasmus' influence. Oxford University and Cambridge University were incorporated to have a perpetual existence for the virtuous education of youth and maintenance of good literature. The Chancellors, masters, and scholars had a common seal. Undergraduate students entered at age 16 and resided in rooms in colleges rather than in scattered lodgings. Each undergraduate student had a tutor and those not seeking a degree could devise his own course of study with his tutor's permission. Many students who were working on the seven year program for a Master's Degree went out of residence at college after the four year's "bachelor" course. Students had text books to read rather than simply listening to a teacher read books to them. Oxford was authorized to and did acquire its own printing press. Examination was still by disputation. Students acted in Latin plays. If a student went to a tavern, he could be flogged. For too elaborate clothing, he could be fined. Fines for absence from class were imposed.

All students had to reside in a college or hall, subscribe to the 39 articles of the university, the Queen's supremacy, and the prayer book. Meals were taken together in the college halls. The universities were divided into three tables: a fellows' table of earls, barons, gentlemen, and doctors; a second table of masters of arts, bachelors, and eminent citizens, and a third table of people of low condition. Professors, doctors, masters of arts and students were all distinguishable by their gowns.