But the wife’s plea for thrift, and her statement—

succeeds in the end, and the ballad ends,—

The aid of the shearman was not merely called in by the poor, for we learn that the Countess of Leicester (Eleanor, third daughter of King John, and wife of Simon de Montfort) in 1265 sent Hicque the tailor to London to get her robes re-shorn.[322]

The date of the ballad was probably early, although the King alluded to in the printed text is King Stephen, in that of the Scotch version Robert, and in the Percy MS. a vague King Henry. The ballad must have had a wide popularity, for Shakespeare alludes to it twice. Iago quotes a whole stanza (Othello, act ii.), and Trinculo evidently alludes to it when he says:—

The number of trades connected with clothing were singularly numerous. Besides the shearman (or tondour) there were the feliper, pheliper or fripperer, who dealt in second-hand clothes, and the furbur or furbisher of old clothes.

Dr. Brentano points out that in all manufacturing countries, in England, Flanders and Brabant, as well as in the Rhenish towns, the most ancient gilds were those of the weavers; and Mr. Ashley writes that the first craft gilds to come into notice were the weavers and fullers of woollen cloth. No weaver or fuller might go outside the town to sell his own cloth, and so interfere with the monopoly of the merchants; nor was he allowed to sell his cloth to any save a merchant of the town.[323]

The London Gild of Weavers was recognised by Henry I., and the first charter of incorporation was granted by Henry II. in 1184, when the seal of Thomas à Becket was affixed to the document. The special privileges given to this trade created a strong jealousy among the citizens, and John was induced to suppress the gild.[324] As it had been accustomed to pay the King eighteen marks per annum, he bargained that the citizens should pay twenty marks so that he might not be out of pocket.

The suppression did not continue for long, and in the reign of Henry III. we find the feud between the citizens and the gild again in full force. When the authorities of the gild feared that the citizens would overpower them, they delivered their ‘charter into the Exchequer, to be kept in the treasury there, and to be delivered to them again when they should want it, and afterwards to be laid up in the treasury.’[325]

Mrs. Green says that in 1300 the Mayor had gained the right to preside in the weavers’ court if he chose, and to nominate the wardens of the gild.[326] In the fourteenth year of Edward II. (A.D. 1320-1321) the privileges of the weavers came before a court of law. In spite of the distinguished position that the Gild of Weavers held in its early days, the present Weavers’ Company only stands forty-second in the order of the livery companies.

Many of the old trades of London have been entirely lost sight of, and their names only exist among the patronymics of the people.

The great feud between the victualling and clothing trades of London was one of the most remarkable features of the fourteenth century. Some allusion has been made to this in chapter viii. on the governors of the city, but a reference must also be made here in connection with the history of the London companies.

After the Peasants’ Revolt, London was the battlefield of rival factions. The friends of the King (Richard II.) were found among the great merchants of the victualling trades. In one year sixteen of the twenty-five aldermen were grocers, and Nicholas Brembre was chief of them. The fishmongers, of whom Sir William Walworth was the leader, were scarcely less powerful.

The victuallers were very unpopular, and the public have always specially resented any advance in the price of food. Complaints were rife in the chief cities of the country of the abuses of the victuallers, and an Act (12 Edw. II. cap. 6) was passed to the effect that “no officer of a city or borough shall sell wine or victuals during his office.”

This Act was frequently evaded, and another Act was passed in 1382 (see ante, p. 236). In the end the Act of Edward II. was repealed (3 Hen. VIII. cap. 8, 1511-1512).[327]

John of Northampton, when he became Mayor, took advantage of this Act, and began a policy of aggression directed against the victualling interest. He turned all his enemies off the governing body, and victuallers were forbidden to hold office in the city. These feuds were very serious, and the two leaders were unfortunate in their ends. Brembre was executed in 1388, and John of Northampton was sent to the Tower and imprisoned in Tintagel Castle.

A few words may be said here about the classes of trades represented by the gilds and companies commencing with—

The Bakers.—The price of bread was regulated by law, according to the price of wheat, and the Mayor had the right to levy a ½d. for every quarter of corn sent to the mill. This tax was called pesage from pisa, a corruption of mediæval Latin pensa, a weight. The right was called in question at the Iter held in the Tower in 1321, but the matter was adjourned for the consideration of the King and his Council.[328]

The fraudulent baker had a bad time, for he was sometimes carried about in a tumbrell, and at other times he was put in the pillory. For his first offence the culprit was drawn upon a hurdle from Guildhall through the most populous and most dirty streets, with the defective loaf hanging from his neck. On a second occasion he was drawn from the Guildhall ‘through the great streets of Chepe’ to the pillory, which was usually erected in Cheap or Cheapside, and there he was exposed for one hour. For the third offence he was again drawn on the hurdle, his oven was pulled down, and he was compelled to forswear the trade in London for ever. The use of the hurdle was discontinued in favour of the pillory in the reign of Edward II. Another offence punished by exposure in the pillory, besides short weight and bad quality was the putting of iron in a loaf of bread to increase its weight.[329]

In the famine of 1258, when the Earl of Cornwall’s sixty cargoes of grain arrived, the first thing the King had to do was to issue an ordinance against the greed of the middlemen, known as forestallers and regrators.

No words appear to have been found too strong to hurl at these unfortunate middlemen, but the regratresses or female retailers who bought bread at the markets, and delivered it from house to house, were contented with a small profit. These dealers were privileged by law to receive thirteen batches for twelve, hence the expression ‘a baker’s dozen.’ This seems to have been the extent of their profits. It was once the practice of the baker to give to each regratress who dealt with him sixpence on Monday morning by way of estrene or present, and threepence on Friday as curtasie money, but this was forbidden by public ordinance, and the bakers were ordered to let all such payments in future go towards increasing the size of the loaf, ‘to the profit of the people.’[330]

Corn used to be stored by the city and the companies against times of scarcity, but the origin of the practice is obscure, and no obligation to provide corn appears to have been imposed upon any of the companies by the terms of their charters. Sir Simon Eyre, Mayor in 1435, formed a public granary in Leadenhall. Stow and Fuller eulogise Sir Stephen Brown, who, in 1438, was energetic in his endeavours to get corn stored in the city granaries. In 1578 the farmers of the Bridge House divided the store into twelve equal parts, and the same by lots were appropriated to the twelve companies, to each of them an equal part for the bestowing and keeping of the said corn.

Pannier (or Panyer) Alley, leading from Newgate Street to Paternoster Row, was once the standing place for bakers with their bread panniers. The bakers of London were divided into white bakers and brown or tourte bakers (turturarii), who made a coarse bread of unbolted meal. No maker of white bread was allowed to make tourte, nor a tourte baker to make white bread. House bread was prepared by the bakers of household bread, while hostellers, by whom it was exclusively used, were forbidden to make it. Similar trades were the pastellers, who made pies and other kinds of pastry, pie-bakers and cooks.

Butchers.—The sale of butchers’ meat seems to have been somewhat limited during the Middle Ages in comparison with the population, although the number of butchers within the city walls were quite sufficient to create a considerable nuisance. Smithfield was then the great cattle market, as it remained until our own time. Lean swine were sold there, probably with the purpose of fattening them in the town. The chief meat markets within the city walls were Stocks Market and the flesh shambles of St. Nicholas, in Newgate Street and its vicinity. A lease of the latter place to the butchers, in 1343, is recorded in Riley’s Memorials. The shocking condition of Newgate Street is indicated by such names as Stinking Lane, St. Nicholas’s Shambles, and Blowbladder Street. There was a Butchers’ Bridge on the Thames side, near Baynards Castle, to which the offal was brought from Newgate Street through the streets and lanes of the city, by which ‘grievous corruption and filth have been generated.’ The evil, in fact, was so great that a royal order was issued in 1369 for the removal of Butchers’ Bridge.

The ‘foreign’ butchers, or those who did not possess the freedom of the city, brought their meat to shambles just outside the civic boundary. On the west, near St. Clement’s Church in the Strand, there was a Butcher Row, and in the east, immediately beyond Aldgate, was another Butcher Row. This last still exists as ‘Aldgate Market,’ and consists of a row of butchers’ shops on the south side of the High Street. Formerly imported animals were killed behind the shops.

The unfortunate tradesmen had to submit to public enactment, by which the exact price of the commodities they sold was fixed. In the reign of Edward I. the carcase of the best ox was sold for 13s. 4d., of the best pig for 4s., of the best sheep for 2s. The ill-treated butcher had no redress, for a provision was added to the order that if any person should withdraw himself from the trade by reason of the said ordinance he should lose the freedom of the city, and be compelled to forswear the trade for ever.[331]

These instances of interference with trade continued for centuries, and we learn that in 1533 it was enacted that butchers should sell their beef and mutton by weight—beef for ½d. a pound, and mutton for 3/4d. Stow, in relating this, adds that at this time, and not before, ‘foreign’ butchers were allowed to sell their flesh in Leadenhall Market.

Fishmongers.—The information relating to the sale of fish in the City Records proves how largely the population of London in the Middle Ages depended upon its ample supply. There was great variety, and a large number of enactments were made as to the sale. The fish mentioned in the Liber Albus as being sold in the London market are: Sturgeon, cod, ray, herring, bass, conger, sole, mackerel, sur-mullet, turbot, porpoise, haddock, sea-ling, sprats, salmon, shad, eels, pike, barbel, roach, dace, dabs, flounders, lampreys, smelts, stickelings, oysters, mussels, cockles, whelks, scallops, and stock fish (imported from Prussia). Of these, sprats, herrings, mussels, whelks and oysters are most often mentioned, but lobsters, crabs and shrimps are not alluded to.

Fish was not allowed to be sold retail upon the quays. The stalls in Stocks Market were occupied by the fishmongers on fish days, and by the butchers on flesh days. Other retail markets for fish were held by the wall of St. Margaret’s Church, New Fish Street, by the wall of St. Mary Magdalen’s in Old Fish Street, and in Westcheap. Stow writes of the first of these places: ‘In this Old Fish Street is one row of small houses, placed along in the midst of Knightrider Street which row is also off Bread Street ward. These houses, now possessed by fishmongers, were at the first but moveable boards or stalls set out on market days to show their fish there to be sold; but procuring license to set up sheds, they grew to shops, and by little and little to tall houses of three or four stories in height.’ Salmon, cod, and herrings are mentioned in the Liber Albus as being sold in the shops in the neighbourhood of Queenhithe.

Old Fish Street, and Old Fish Street Hill which run from it to the Thames, with Queenhithe as their landing-quay, formed the chief fish market of London before Billingsgate supplanted Queenhithe.

A curious regulation is found in a royal ordinance in existence as early as the reign of Henry III., by which the first boat in the season with fresh herrings from Yarmouth was forced to pay double custom at the quay.

Fishmongers selling fish in large quantities to their customers were to sell by the basket, such basket to be capable of containing one bushel of oats, and, if found deficient, to be burnt in open market. Each basket was also to contain one kind of sea-fish, and the fishmongers were warned not to colour their baskets; or, in other words, not to put good fish on the top and inferior beneath. Very stringent regulations were also made with respect to the size of nets used for fishing in the Thames, and any such which were contrary to these regulations were ruthlessly destroyed.

The trade of the Stock fishmonger was quite distinct from that of the ordinary fishmonger, and these belonged respectively to two separate companies. They were united in 1537. Thames Street was formerly known as Stockfishmonger Row. The Abbot of St. Alban’s enjoyed the privilege of buying fish directly of the fishermen, for which he paid the bailiff of the market a fee of one mark per annum. The monks, however, appear to have taken an undue advantage of their privilege, and an order was issued by the Hallmote of the Fishmongers, temp. Edward I., ‘that good care be taken that the buyers of the abbey take out of the city fish for the use of the abbot and convent only.’[332]

Poulterers.—Many of the streets of London must have been almost impassable from the stalls of the traders and the chaffering of the buyers and sellers. This evil grew, and the complaints of obstruction were great. Endeavours were made to provide covered markets, but so many of the trades had special stands appropriated to them, as we see on all sides by the names of the streets, that it was impossible to dislodge them.

Free poulterers had several special localities appropriated to their use. One was Cornhill—they were ordered to stand at the west side of St. Michael’s Church, and were strictly forbidden to sell to the east of the Tun, the site of which and the Conduit are now marked by an unused pump, nearly facing No. 30 Cornhill. Another standing was close by, and still retains the name of the Poultry. Stow tells that it was once known as Scalding Alley, because the poultry which the poulterers sold was scalded there. Still another standing was in Newgate Street, close by the butchers’ shambles. ‘Foreign’ poulterers were ordered to sell their wares at the corner of Leadenhall, known as the Carfukes (or Carfax).

The articles dealt in by poulterers were rabbits, game, eggs and poultry. Eggs were brought to market in baskets on men’s backs, and poultry upon horses. The prices of poultry, like those of other food, were assessed by the Mayor from time to time, and duly proclaimed. In the reign of Edward I. the best hen was sold for 3d., the best rabbit, with the skin, for 5d., and without for 4d., 100 eggs (120 to the hundred) for 8d., a partridge for 3d., a plover for 2d., and eight larks for 1d.[333]

The body of London citizens suffered from one great evil in marketing, and that was that lords and great people were allowed the pick of the market. It was a common practice for the purveyors and servants of these great people to visit the various markets between midnight and prime (6 a.m.), after which hour the poorer classes were allowed to market. It is thus ordered by a proclamation of Edward I., that no poulterer, fishmonger or regrator shall buy any kind of victuals for re-sale until prime has been run out at St. Paul’s, ‘so that the buyers for the King and the great lords of the land and the good people of the city may make good their purchases, so far as they shall need.’[334]

Grocers.—The grocers (properly ‘grossers,’ or wholesale sellers in gross) were for some time the chief of the victualling companies. They were originally known as the pepperers of Soper Lane, and the apothecaries were associated with the grocers until they were incorporated as a distinct company in 1617.

By various charters and ordinances the company of grocers was entrusted with the examining, sorting and passing of spices and drugs. They were empowered to enter the shops of grocers, druggists, confectioners, tobacconists and tobacco cutters within the city and three miles around it, to seize and confiscate adulterated and unwholesome goods, and to fine and, in default of payment, imprison delinquent dealers.

Brewers and Vintners.—A passing allusion must be made to the sale of drink in London, which has always been very considerable. Mr. Riley tells us that there is no mention of milk as an article of sale or otherwise in the Liber Albus, and butter must have been of very inferior quality, for it was sold by liquid measure. The ale tavern, or ale-house, was a distinct establishment from the wine tavern. In 1309 the number of taverns in London was 354, whilst the number of brewers amounted to no less than 1334.[335]

The ale brewed was a very different product from what we understand by the term now, as malt liquor was not hopped in those days. Hops were not used in the making of beer until the early years of the sixteenth century. Mr. Riley says that the best ale was no better than sweet wort, and so thin that it might be drunk in potations ‘pottle deep,’ without danger to the head. The smallest measure mentioned in the Liber Albus is the quart, so that it was evidently drunk in large quantities. It was used immediately after being made, as may be inferred from the fact that, according to the Domesday of St. Paul’s, the brewings at the Cathedral brewery took place twice a week throughout the year. Immediately after a brewing was finished it was the duty of the brewer (or rather brewster, for the business was almost entirely in the hands of women until the beginning of the sixteenth century) to send for the ale-conner of the ward in order to taste the ale. If this officer was not satisfied with its quality, he, with the assent of his alderman, set a lower price upon it, which upon sale thereof was not to be exceeded. Fine, imprisonment, and even punishment by pillory was the result of reiterated breaches of the Assize. The Assize price of ale varied at different periods. At one time it was 3/4d. per gallon and no more, but later the price was 1½d. for the best, and 3/4d. to 1d. for the second quality.[336]

The vintners were an important body, and were mostly located in the Vintry, a district which has kept its name to the present time. The Vintners’ Company consisted of vinetarii, or wine importers and merchants, and tabernarii, tavern keepers, or retailers of wine.

The public taste in wine was not a very refined one in the Middle Ages, or possibly the liquor did not keep very well, as new wine was preferred to old. It was enacted that after the arrival of new wine at a tavern none of it should be sold before the old was disposed of. There is no allusion in the Liber Albus to bottles or flasks, and all the wine seems to have been drawn from the wood. Taverners who sold sweet wines were forbidden to deal in other kinds. The sweet wines enumerated are Malvesie, the modern Malmsey, a Greek wine sold in the reign of Richard II. at 16d. per gallon; Vernage (Vernaccia), a red Tuscan wine, sold at 2s.; Crete, sold at 1s; and wine of Provence, sold at the same price, probably a kind of Roussillon. By royal writ of 39 Edw. III., only three taverns for the sale of sweet wines were in future to be permitted within the city,—in Cheap, Walbrook, and Lombard Street. In the class of non-sweet wines were Rhenish, sold in the reign of Richard II. at 8d. per gallon, and Red (Vermaille) at 6d. Other wines came from Gascony, Burgundy, Rochelle, and Spain.

No wine was permitted to be sold till it had been submitted to a scrutiny, and been duly gauged. In the reign of Edward III. four vintners were chosen yearly to assess the prices of wine. King’s Prisage, or Custom, was taken according to a certain scale on all imported wines. The wine taverns were furnished with a pole projecting from the gable of the house, and supporting a sign, or a bunch of leaves at the end (the bush of the proverb, ‘Good wine needs no bush’). In one ordinance it is stated that the poles of the taverns of Cheapside and elsewhere were of such a length as to be in the way of persons on horseback, and so heavy as to cause the risk of greatly damaging the houses; in consequence of this it was enacted that from thenceforth no sign-pole should be more than seven feet in length.[337]

No ale or wine tavern was allowed to remain open after curfew.

The clothing trades are well represented among the city companies. The Mercers head the list of the ‘Twelve,’ and the freemen were originally ‘chapmen in small or mixed wares,’ that is, those articles which were sold retail by the little balance or small scale, in contradistinction to those things sold by the beam, or in gross, and they did business in the Mercery, Cheapside. Wadmal, a coarse woollen stuff, lake or fine linen, fustian, felt, etc., were among these smallwares. Gradually the mercers of Cheap extended their dealings, became vendors of silks and velvets (temp. Henry VI.), and formed a mixed body of merchants and shopkeepers, leaving the smallwares, or mercery proper, to the haberdashers. Sir William Stone held the position of mercer to Queen Elizabeth, and supplied her with her wardrobe.

The Haberdashers imported a cloth at first styled halberject, and in the fourteenth century hapertas, from which, as Mr. Riley suggests, the term ‘haberdasher’ probably originated. Subsequently the Hurers and the Hatters joined them.

The Merchant Taylors and Linen Armourers are in some documents styled ‘Mercatores Scissores,’ ‘Scissors of London,’ ‘Scissors and Fraternity of St. John Baptist,’—titles alike pointing to their being anciently both tailors and cutters, and also making the padding and interior lining of armour, as well as manufacturing garments. Tailors made dresses for both sexes, their prices, as usual, being regulated by public enactment. By ordinance of the reign of Edward III. it is declared that ‘Tailors shall henceforth take for a robe, garnished with silk, 18d.; for a man’s robe, garnished with thread and buckram, 14d.; also a coat and hood, 10d.; also for a lady’s long dress, garnished with silk and cendale, 2s. 6d.; also for a pair of sleeves for changing, 4d.’[338]

The Drapers’ Company is the third on the list of the twelve great companies, and the second of the clothing companies, the Mercers being the first. Henry Fitz-Ailwin, the first Mayor of London, was a freeman of the Drapers’ Gild, to which he left by will an inn, called the Chequer, in the parish of St. Mary Bothaw.

The Skinners represented the trade that dealt with furs. The furs mentioned in the Liber Albus as imported are, marten skins, rabbit skins, dressed woolfels, Spanish squirrel skins, and grysoevere or grey work. In the reign of Edward I. an enactment was made that ‘no woman, except a lady who is in the habit of using furs, shall have a hood furred with dressed woolfel’ (pelure). Women of ill-fame were forbidden at one period to wear minever or other furs, though at a later date they were permitted to use lambs’ wool and rabbit skin. No mixed work, formed of different kinds of skins, was allowed to be made, and no new fur was to be worked up with the old.[339]

The minor companies connected with the clothing trades require some notice here. The Cordwainers held a prominent position, but in the reign of Edward I. (1303) there were public complaints of frauds and irregularities brought against them, and charges were made that they mixed inferior with the superior leathers. They were continually at feud with the Cobblers, and every endeavour was made to keep the two trades distinct. The cordwainers were forbidden to mend shoes and the cobblers to make them. Moreover, throughout the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries there were fixed regulations not only that cordwainers should use new leather in making shoes, but that cobblers should be restricted wholly to the use of old leather in mending them. The latter were even punished for having new leather in their possession.[340]

In the reign of Edward III. the prices fixed for boots and shoes were: a pair of shoes made of cordwain, 6d.; made of cow leather, 5d.; a pair of boots made of cordwain, 3s, 6d.; made of cow leather, 3s.[341] This shows that boots were then very dear.

In Edward IV.’s reign the cordwainers stood up for the defence of their trade against the decree of the Pope. They were decidedly in the wrong, but one cannot but admire their pluckiness. The story is told in William Gregory’s Chronicle of London, which is thus paraphrased by Dr. James Gairdner, the editor: ‘The Pope issued a Bull that no cordwainer should make any pikes [at the toes of the shoes] more than two inches long, or sell shoes on Sunday, or even fit a shoe upon a man’s foot on Sunday, on pain of excommunication. Neither was the cordwainer to attend fairs on a Sunday under the same penalty; for not only were fairs held on that day, but the cordwainer’s services, it must be supposed, were required at the fairs to adjust the dandy’s chaussure, just as much as, in a later age, the barber’s aid was necessary to dress his wig. The papal Bull was approved by the King’s Council and confirmed by Act of Parliament; and proclamation was consequently made at Paul’s Cross that it should be put in execution. Yet, with all this weight of authority against a silly fashion, the dandy world had its own ideas upon the subject, and some men ventured to say they would wear long pikes in spite of the Pope, for “the Pope’s curse would not kill a fly.” The cordwainers, too, had a vested interest in the extravagance, though some of their own body had been instrumental in getting the Pope’s interference. They obtained privy seals and protections from the King to exempt them from the operation of the law, which soon became a dead letter; and those who had applied to the Pope to restrain their practices were subjected to much trouble and persecution.’[342]

The Leathersellers had still more to do with leather than the cordwainers, and the same complaints were made against them for passing off inferior for superior leather. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries several ordinances were issued regulating the trade of the leathersellers in the City of London, and for the prevention of deceit in the manufacture and sale of their wares.

Pursers or Glovers were incorporated with the leathersellers in 1502, but in 1638 a new company of glovers was formed.

The Girdlers made belts or girdles for men and women. They were also called Ceinturiers and Zonars. In 1217 (1 Hen. III.) Benedict Seynturer was one of the sheriffs of London. The company still exists, although it cannot be said that the calling survived the reign of Charles II.

The Goldsmiths’ Company stands almost alone, on account of the great services to the State which it performs in connection with the important trade it represents, and also in connection with the tryal of the gold and silver coins in the Pyx of His Majesty’s Mint, a service which has been performed without intermission, at any-rate since the year 1281. This history also contains a strong argument in favour of the received opinion that the companies are the lineal descendants of the gilds, for the craft of goldsmiths performed by Statute the same duties of assaying vessels of gold and silver that the present company does. The Act (28 Edw. I., cap. 20) recites that: ‘The wardens of the craft shall go from shop to shop among the goldsmiths to essay if their gold be of the same Touch that is spoken of before.’

According to Stow’s Chronicle a variance fell between the fellowships of Goldsmiths and Taylors in 1268, ‘causing great ruffling in the city and many men to be slain, for which riot thirteen of the captains were hanged.’

By the first charter (1 Edw. III., 1327), ‘the company were allowed to elect honest, lawful and sufficient men, but skilled in the trade, to enquire of any matters of complaint, and who might, in consideration of the craft, reform what defects they should find therein, and punish offenders. It states that it had been theretofore ordained that all those who were of the goldsmiths’ trade should sit in their shops in the High Street of Cheap; and that no silver or plate ought to be sold in the City of London except at the King’s Exchange, or in the said street of Cheap amongst the goldsmiths, and that publicly, to the end that the persons of the said trade might inform themselves whether the sellers came lawfully by such vessel or not; whereas of late not only the merchants and strangers brought counterfeit sterling in the realm, and also many of the trade of goldsmiths kept shops in obscure turnings and by-lanes and streets, but did buy vessels of gold and silver secretly, without enquiring whether such vessel were stolen or lawfully come by, and melting it down, did make it into plate, and sell it to merchants travelling beyond seas, that it might be exported; and so they made false work of gold and silver, which they sold to those who had no skill in such things. These abuses and deceptions this charter provides against by ordaining that no gold or silver shall be manufactured to be sent abroad but what shall be sold at the King’s Exchange, or openly amongst the goldsmiths; and that none, pretending to be goldsmiths, shall keep any shops but in Cheap.’

The King’s Exchange for the receipt of bullion was situated in the street leading from Cheapside to Knight-riders Street, known from the early part of the seventeenth century as Old ‘Change. The London goldsmiths chiefly inhabited Cheapside, Old ‘Change, Lombard Street, Foster Lane, St. Martin’s-le-Grand, Silver Street, Goldsmiths’ Street, Wood Street, and the lanes about Goldsmiths’ Hall. That part of the south side of Cheapside from Bread Street to the Cross was called Goldsmiths’ Row. It was described in enthusiastic terms by Stow as ‘the most beautiful frame of fair houses and shops that be within the walls of London or elsewhere in England... the same was [re]built by Thomas Wood, goldsmith, one of the Sheriffs of London, in the year 1491. It containeth in number ten fair dwelling-houses and fourteen shops, all in one frame, uniformly built four storeys high, beautified towards the street with the goldsmiths’ arms and the likeness of Woodmen, in memory of his name, riding on monstrous beasts, all which is cast in lead, richly painted over and gilt: these he gave to the goldsmiths, with stocks of money, to be lent to young men having those shops. This said front was again new painted and gilt over in the year 1594; Sir Richard Martin being then Mayor and keeping his mayoralty in one of them.’

Sir Walter Prideaux, in his valuable Memorials of the Goldsmiths’ Company, says that the native and the foreign goldsmiths appear to have been divided into classes, and to have enjoyed different privileges. First, there were the members of the company who were chiefly, but not exclusively, Englishmen; their shops were subject to the control of the company; they had the advantages conferred by the company on its members, and they made certain payments for the support of the fellowship. The second division comprised the non-freemen, who were called ‘allowes,’ that is to say, allowed or licensed. There were ‘allowes Englis,’ ‘allowes Alicant,’ ‘Alicant strangers,’ ‘Dutchmen,’ ‘Men of the Fraternity of St. Loys,’ etc. All these paid tribute to the company, and were also subject to their control.

All the livery companies possessed a class of young unmarried members called ‘The Bachelors,’ and in the Goldsmiths’ Company a special place was reserved for their lodging. This was known as Bachelors’ Alley or Court, and was situated between Foster Lane and Gutter Lane. The lodgings were supplied at ‘very small and easy rents,’ the greatest not to exceed 8s. per annum. The tenants could continue as long as they were unmarried, but difficulties arose by reason of attempts at underletting without authority, and disorderly persons gave much trouble. In 1595 an order was promulgated ‘that from henceforth no goldsmith shall have his dwelling in any of the tenements in Bachelors’ Alley before he be admitted by the wardens for the time being; and that everyone so admitted shall forthwith enter into a bond to deliver to the wardens, at his departure, the key of his tenement, and quietly to quit possession of the same.’

Sir Walter Prideaux states that at the early period of the first charter the goldsmiths acted as bankers and pawnbrokers. They received pledges not only of plate, but of other articles, such as cloth of gold and pieces of napery. Saint Dunstan was the patron saint of the company, and feasts were held on his day, when also bells were set ringing. This saint’s likeness in wood (gilt) formed the figure-head of the company’s barge. There was also a Chapel of St. Dunstan in St. Paul’s Cathedral which was attached to the company.

In the foregoing remarks there are some references to the livery companies, but these are introduced more particularly on account of the light thrown by them upon the trade of London. The work of the gilds was devoted to the trades which they represented, but in course of time many of the companies lost touch with the trades whose names they bore. This largely came about in a quite natural way, and the privilege of introduction to a company by patrimony caused the addition to the list of freemen of a large number of those who were engaged in other occupations.

The relative position in precedence of the various companies have continually altered, and there is no information to show how the twelve chief companies have attained that commanding position.

The feuds between the trades continued to comparatively late times. Pepys relates, in 1664, how there was a fray in Moorfields between the butchers and the weavers, between whom there had ever been a competition for mastery. At first the butchers knocked down all the weavers that had green or blue aprons, but at last the butchers were fain to pull off their sleeves that they might not be known, and were soundly beaten out of the field.[343]

Some note must be made here of the Jews and of the Italian moneylenders who for so long carried on the financial business of the country.

One of the many hardships which the Jews suffered in this country was that wherever they might dwell they were compelled to bury their dead in London. This regulation was abolished by Henry II. in 1177.

The cruel calumny that the Jews at Lincoln crucified a Christian child brought them into great trouble, and in 1256 one hundred and two Jews were brought from Lincoln to Westminster charged with this crime. Eighteen of them were hanged, and the remainder lay in prison for a long time.

Clipping of money became very general about 1278, and the Jews were supposed to be the chief culprits. Those who were suspected, with their Christian accomplices, were arrested, and at the end of the trial 300 Jews were condemned to be hanged as well as three Christians. Nearly all the goldsmiths and moneyers escaped the death penalty. In 1290 came the final blow, when every Jew was expelled from England. It is difficult to understand Edward I.’s motive in banishing a class of men who were so useful to him. In Stow’s Chronicle it is said that as their houses were sold ‘the King made a mighty mass of money,’ but the action certainly added to his difficulties, and drove him to resort to the Italian financiers, who were no more popular with the citizens than the Jews. The expulsion was ascribed to the instigation of the King’s mother, Eleanor, widow of Henry III., but it certainly expressed the will of the nation. Stow gives the number of Jews banished as 15,060, but this is probably an exaggeration. The number of London Jews is estimated at 2000.

The Old Jewry was originally the Ghetto of London, and the burial-place of the Jews was on the site of Jewin Street. Mr. Joseph Jacobs, who compiled a valuable account of the Old Jewry, is of opinion that the Jews no longer lived in this place at the time of the expulsion. There was a Jewry within the Liberty of the Tower in the thirteenth century, and there is still a Jewry Street, Aldgate.

The republics of Italy during the Middle Ages were the home of finance, and had advanced far before the other states of Europe in wealth and civilisation. The necessities of the great countries of Europe, caused by the Crusades of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, were the opportunity of companies of moneylenders, who acted as the Pope’s collectors.

Before the close of the reign of Henry III. the Italians had gained a firm footing in England as merchants and moneylenders. Citizens of Sienna, Lucca and Florence came here, and fought with the Jews for the financial control of the country.

Matthew Paris relates that Roger, Bishop of London, anathematised the Caorsins and banished them from his diocese in 1235 in spite of the support of ‘judges that were servants (familiaribus) to the Caorsins, whom they had elected for their will.’[344]

In the early years of Edward I.’s reign, there were four companies of merchants of Sienna acting under the title of ‘Campsores Papæ.’ In his ninth year the keepers of the Exchange delivered £10,000 to Lombard merchants (as they are styled in the record) in part payment of sums they had lent to the King. It is recorded that between the twenty-third and twenty-seventh years of his reign Edward I. contracted a debt to the Friscobaldi alone of not less than £15,800.[345]

The King wanted much money for his wars, and, as he could no longer look to the Jews he was forced to apply for aid to the Italians. These loans grew so formidable that they caused considerable financial embarrassments in the reign of Edward II.

There were a large number of companies such as the Ricciardi, the Bardi, the Peruzzi, and the Spini, but the Friscobaldi, of which family there were several companies, occur most frequently in London history. Amerigo de’ Friscobaldi was constable of Bordeaux in the first year of Edward II.’s reign.

Here are two entries from the city records:—

‘14 Feb. 1299-1300.—Thursday after the Feast of St. Valentine came John de Pounteysse, goldsmith, and acknowledged himself bound to Faldo Jamiano, of the society of Frescobaldi, in the sum of £8 and 45d. sterling, to be paid at Easter next.’[346]

‘2 Feb. 1305-6.—Andrew le Mareschal acknowledged himself indebted to Bettinus Friscobalde and his partners, merchants of the company of Friscobaldi, in the sum of £102, 13s. 4d.’[347]

The loans in the reign of Edward III. were very considerable, and the unpopularity of the Italians was great. In 1376 a petition was presented to the King by the Mayor, Aldermen and Commons of the City of London against usurious foreign moneylenders dwelling in London, asking that the Lombards might be forbidden from dwelling in the city, or acting as brokers and buying and selling by retail which they alleged to be against their ancient franchises. The King answered the petition to the effect that if the citizens would put the city under good government for the future no foreigner should be allowed to dwell, act as broker, or sell by retail in London or the suburbs save and except the merchants of the Hanse towns.[348]

On the whole we must extend our sympathy to the Italians, for the King was not very prompt in paying his debts, and he considered it immoral to have promised any interest. The effect was that he ruined many of these unfortunate foreigners. The name of Lombard Street occurs in the city books in 1382, and was in common use at the beginning of the fourteenth century. It is a remarkable fact that the locality in which the Italian financiers first settled in London should obtain a name which has continued to the present day as a synonym of finance, and was used by the late Mr. Bagehot as the title of his great work.

Matthew Paris tells us that the houses which the Italian moneylenders built for themselves were so costly that, although at one period the Italians were anxious to leave the kingdom to escape the persecutions they suffered from, they were constrained to remain by the loss they feared to incur by deserting their houses.[349]

In 1456 a serious attack was made upon the houses of the Lombards by the mercers and other crafts led by William Cantelowe, alderman and mercer, who was summoned before the King’s Council and imprisoned. We learn also from the Paston Letters that two of the men who joined in the attack were hanged (ed. J. Gairdner, 1872, vol. i. p. 387). In Gregory’s Chronicle it is said that the Lombards were compelled to quit London and take up their residence in Southampton and Winchester. Dr. James Gairdner writes of this outbreak: ‘The withdrawal of the Lombard merchants in all probability produced a sensible effect upon the commerce of the city; for they made a bye-law among themselves that no individual merchant of Northern Italy should henceforth go to London and trade there.’ This ordinance the Signory of Venice ratified by a decree of the Senate, and prohibited, under a heavy fine, all Venetian vessels from visiting the port of London.[350]

In spite of all this turmoil affairs settled down again, and the foreigners appear to have returned to their London houses.

In connection with the introduction of Italian bankers into London, the popular derivation of bankrupt from a broken bench is naturally called to mind, and I have tried to find some allusion in the city records to a broken bench in Lombard Street, but without success.

In Florio’s A New Worlde of Wordes; or, Dictionarie in Italian and English (1598), we find the following entries:—

‘Banca, a bench or a forme.

‘Bancarotta, a bankrupt.’

In Torriano’s edition of Florio (1650) we come upon these amplified entries—

‘Banca-rotta, a bankrout merchant, one that hath broken his credit.

‘Banca fallito, a bank broken, a merchant’s credit crackt.’

This is the explanation that commends itself to Dr. Murray (New English Dictionary), who writes that he cannot trace the reference to a broken bench earlier than that of Dr. Johnson, who introduced the suggestion with the formula ‘it is said.’

There is, however, an early note bearing on this derivation in Sir John Skene’s remarkable little book, De Verborum Significatione (1641),[351] where we read under the words ‘Dyour, Dyvour’ this explanation: ‘In Latine, cedere bonis, quhilk is most commonly used amongst merchandes to make bankrout, bankrupt or bankrompue; because the doer thereof, as it were, breakis his bank, stalle or seete quhair he used his traffique of before.’

No earlier date for the use of the word than the reign of Henry VIII. has been found by Professor Skeat or Dr. Murray, but surely an earlier reference must be lurking somewhere. In the First Folio of Shakespeare the word is printed ‘bankeroute’ (pronounced as four syllables), but this was altered in later editions to bankrupt. There can be no doubt that the word is directly derived from bancarotta, and that the form bankrupt is an afterthought of the learned to connect it with the Latin language.

The point that has to be accounted for is the strange appropriation of an expression meaning broken bench or broken bank to the individual whose credit is broken. This one would naturally expect to be a secondary meaning.

In concluding this chapter it is necessary to make an allusion to the Statute merchant (11 Edw. I.) for the recovery of debts. The first two Letter Books of the City of London are chiefly concerned with recognisances of debts, and they are of great value as illustrating the commercial intercourse of the citizens of London in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries with Gascony and Spain, more especially in connection with wine and leather.

By the Statute of Acton Burnel (11 Edw. I.) it was enacted (inter alia) that recognisances of debts should be taken before the Mayor and a clerk appointed by the King. Nevertheless within a very short while after the passing of this Statute and notwithstanding its express provision to the contrary, we find the Mayor, sheriffs and aldermen declaring that such recognisances should be made before the city chamberlain, who might, if he liked, receive, as he frequently did, the recognisances at his own house instead of at the Guildhall.[352]

It was ordered that the recognisances should bear ‘the debtor’s seal and also the King’s seal,’ to be provided for the purpose. This latter seal appears to be no longer in existence. From impressions of it preserved at King’s College, Cambridge, and elsewhere, it is found to have been circular, and nearly three-quarters of an inch in diameter, with the King’s bust between two castles, with a lion of England in base. Legend—‘S⁺ Edm Reg⁺ Angl⁺ ad recogn Debitor⁺.’[353]

The following entry from Letter Book A forms an interesting illustration of the contents of these books:—

‘Laurence de Gisors acknowledged before H. le Galeis the Mayor that he owed Sir Philip le Taylor a cask of wine to be delivered on a certain love day (diem amoris) because the said Laurence killed a dog belonging to him.’

SIR WILLIAM MARSHAL, EARL OF PEMBROKE, TEMPLE CHURCH.
SIR WILLIAM MARSHAL, EARL OF PEMBROKE, TEMPLE CHURCH.

CHAPTER XI

The Church and Education

Poverty and humility were the great principles of the friars, but these were soon forgotten, and in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries all the regulars became equally obnoxious to the reformers. Wycliffe and his followers preached against them, and writers with such different views as Langland and Chaucer had little but evil to say of them. Chaucer condemns monks and friars alike, and reserves his praise for the poor parish priest.

We must first deal with the bishop and the secular clergy, and then consider the conditions relative to the establishment of the regulars, ending with a note on education in London during the Middle Ages.

The Cathedral Church of St. Paul’s is of great antiquity, and was established in the first period of Saxon Christianity. There have been three buildings on the same site, and the first was erected in the earliest years of the seventh century by Mellitus the missionary bishop and Ethelbert, King of Kent. Although this church existed for nearly five centuries no record whatever remains of it. Sir Gilbert Scott wrote: ‘I am not aware that we have any information as to the Cathedral built by the companions of Augustine (Mellitus and Justus) at London and Rochester. Curiously enough there continues to this day at Rochester, and continued to the seventeenth century in our own St. Paul’s equally as at Canterbury, a crypt beneath the elevated sanctuary, no doubt the lineal successor and representative of those erected by these missionary bishops, in imitation of the great basilica at Rome, whence they had been sent to evangelise this distant region.’[354]

Erkenwald, whose shrine stood at the back of the high altar in the oldest church, was the fourth bishop (A.D. 675-693), and it was at his house in London that Archbishop Theodore, the organiser of the Church of England, was reconciled to Bishop Wilfrid after their long estrangement.[355] Aelfun, or Alhunus, was Bishop of London in 1012, and performed the burial service over Aelfah (or Alphage), Archbishop of Canterbury, who was murdered by the Danes and buried in St. Paul’s.

William, the chaplain of Edward the Confessor, was consecrated in 1051. He was driven from England with the other foreign prelates in the following year, but returned to his See and died in 1075. It was he who was addressed as ‘William Bishop’ in William the Conqueror’s charter to the citizens of London.

The first Church of St. Paul’s was destroyed by fire at the end of the eleventh century, but the exact time is not certain as Matthew of Westminster and Roger of Wendover give conflicting dates for the rebuilding. There seems to be no doubt that the second cathedral was commenced by Bishop Maurice, and as he was not consecrated until 1085 the date given by Dugdale, 1083, must be wrong. Probably the received date of 1087 (the last year of William the Conqueror’s reign) is more correct. Fire again did great damage in the year 1136, but the work of rebuilding proceeded slowly, and in 1221 the steeple was finished; the choir was rebuilt and the whole building was nearly completed by 1283.

Old St. Paul’s was a very grand building, which took a prominent position among the cathedrals of the country. It was longer than Winchester, and the height of the choir was the same as Westminster; that of the nave was rather less.[356]

The crowning glory of old St. Paul’s was its elegant spire, but the building itself had many beauties, the magnificent rose window at the east end of the Lady Chapel, with the beautiful seven-light window beneath, being among these. This grand building, therefore, standing on a hill in the most prominent position of city, was for several centuries the great ornament of London, bringing in harmony all the picturesque elements of the mediæval town.

In the year 1314 the cross fell, and the steeple of wood being ruinous, was taken down and rebuilt with a new gilt ball. Many relics were found in the cross, which were replaced in the new cross, and the new pommel or ball was made of sufficient size to contain ten bushels of corn. A Chronicle in Lambeth Palace Library contains an account of the solemn dedication of these relics, which is quoted by Canon Benham: ‘On the tenth of the calends of June 1314, Gilbert, Bishop of London, dedicated altars, namely those of the Blessed Virgin Mary, of St. Thomas the Martyr, and of the Blessed Dunstan, in the new buildings of the Church of St. Paul, London. In the same year the cross and the ball, with great part of the Campanile of the Church of St. Paul, were taken down because they were decayed and dangerous, and a new cross, with a ball well gilt, was erected; and many relics of divers saints were, for the protection of the aforesaid Campanile, and of the whole structure beneath, placed within the cross, with a great procession, and with due solemnity, by Gilbert the bishop, on the fourth of the nones of October, in order that the Omnipotent God and the glorious merits of His saints, whose relics are contained within the cross, might deign to protect from all danger of storms.’[357]

In 1444 the spire was nearly destroyed by lightning and was not repaired until 1462. In the severe fire of 1561 the spire was destroyed and never rebuilt, although the rest of the Cathedral was restored in 1566. The great height of the steeple gave point to many a proverb, and in Lodge’s Wounds of Civil War (1594) a clown talks of the ‘Paul’s steeple of honour,’ meaning by that phrase the highest point that could be attained.[358] The choristers ascended the spire to a great height on certain saints’ days, and chanted prayers and anthems, a custom still observed in the tower of Magdalen College, Oxford, on May Day. The last observance of the custom at St. Paul’s is said to have taken place in the reign of Mary I.[359]

The western front was originally a plain Norman façade of great size, which was flanked by two strong stone towers. The one on the north was connected with the Bishop’s Palace, while that on the south was called the Lollards’ Tower, and was used as the Bishop’s prison ‘for such as were detected for opinions in religion contrary to the faith of the Church’ (Stow’s Survey).[360]

St. Paul’s Churchyard was formerly an enclosure, and not a thoroughfare. The public route to Cheapside from Ludgate Hill passed up the Old Bailey and along Newgate Street. The Cathedral Close is thus described by the late Dr. Sparrow Simpson: ‘The wall erected about 1109, and, by letters-patent of Edward I., greatly strengthened in 1285, extends from the N.E. corner of Ave Maria Lane, runs eastward along Paternoster Row to the north end of Old ‘Change in Cheapside, thence southward to Carter Lane, and on the north of Carter Lane to Creed Lane, back to the Great Western Gate. There are six entrances to the enclosure. The first is the Great Western Gate, by which we have just entered; the second, in Paul’s Alley in Paternoster Row, leading to the postern gate of the Cathedral; the third at Canon Alley; the fourth, or Little Gate, where S. Paul’s Churchyard and Cheapside now unite; the fifth, S. Augustine’s Gate, at the west end of Watling Street; the sixth, at Paul’s Chain.’[361]

The great western gate spanned the street towards the ends of Creed Lane and Ave Maria Lane. On entering the gate the west front of the Cathedral came in view. The old Church of St. Gregory adjoined the main building at the south-west corner. It stood in the same position to the first Cathedral, and within its walls the body of St. Edmund, king and martyr, was preserved for a time before it was carried to Bury St. Edmund’s for honourable burial. The early history of this church is lost, and it is not known whether it was destroyed with the first Cathedral, and rose again from its ashes like the second Cathedral, or whether it continued for a time in its original state. It was pulled down before 1645, and not rebuilt. On the northern side of the nave of the Cathedral stood the Bishop’s Palace, a large and gloomy building.[362]

Still further to the north (past the palace and its grounds) was the cemetery, called Pardon Church Haugh. Here was a cloister painted with the subjects of the Danse Macabre or Dance of Death, commonly known as the Dance of Paul’s. John Lydgate translated out of French the old verses that explained these paintings. Over the east quadrant of the cloister was the Cathedral Library, built by Walter Sherington,

PAUL’S CROSS. (From an original drawing in the Pepysian Library, Cambridge.)
PAUL’S CROSS.
(From an original drawing in the Pepysian Library, Cambridge.)

Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in Henry VI.’s time, and Canon Residentiary. At one time the library was ‘well furnished with fair-written books in vellum.’

In the midst of the churchyard was a chapel, first founded by Gilbert, the father of Thomas à Becket, and rebuilt by Dean More in the reign of Henry V. Near by was Minor Canons’ Hall, and the College of Minor Canons, or Peter’s College. The Charnel House, with a chapel over it, stood at the north-east, not far from Paul’s Cross.[363] This building existed in the reign of Edward I., and the chapel contained some monuments and alabaster figures. Among the historians of St. Paul’s there is some little confusion respecting these various chapels.

Paul’s Cross holds a very prominent position in the history of the religious life of the Middle Ages and for many years after. In ages when the voice of the people was largely inarticulate the preacher has often been the man to make it heard. Stow describes the Cross as having ‘been for many ages the most solemn place in this nation, for the greatest divines and most eminent scholars to preach at,’ and Carlyle calls it a kind of Times newspaper. It is worthy of remark that the position of Paul’s Cross was near the place where the ancient folkmoots were held, and the former continued the traditions of the latter.

At the east end of the Cathedral was St. Paul’s School, founded by Dean Colet, and the famous Bell Tower, formed of wood covered with lead, and containing the common bell, which called the people to their folkmoots, and afterwards four bells, known as the Jesus Bells, because they specially belonged to Jesus Chapel, in the crypt of the Cathedral. As the open space at the east end was claimed by the citizens as a place for their assemblies in folkmoots, so the space at the west end was reserved for the military displays in connection with the appearance of Fitz-Walter as Bannerer of the city.

On the south side of the close, and to the west of the transept, was the old octagonal Chapter House, with its own two-storeyed cloister (built in 1332). This was a small but beautiful building.[364]

Close by stood the house of the Chancellor. On the south-west is the Deanery, first built by Ralph de Diceto, and more westward various houses for the use of the canons. On the south side of the Cathedral also stood the dormitory, refectory, kitchen, bakehouse and brewery of the college. The brewhouse became subsequently the Paul’s Head tavern.

This brief list of the buildings in the old Cathedral Close will give some idea of the arrangement of the College of Secular Canons, and the houses which they occupied.

Having walked round the close we may now enter the Cathedral church at the western end where were three gates or entries. The middle gate had a massive pillar of brass, to which the leaves of the great door were fastened. In the nave were twelve noble Norman bays with Norman triforium and pointed clerestory windows. It is probable that originally the roof of the nave was a flat painted ceiling, but Mr. Ferrey supposes that a vaulted roof was

INTERIOR OF OLD ST. PAUL’S.
INTERIOR OF OLD ST. PAUL’S.

added in 1255; apparently this was originally of wood, but that stone vaulting was intended may be inferred from the flying buttresses in some of the pictures of the Cathedral.

The view along the nave, as represented in Hollar’s engraving is very fine, and reminds one of the noble nave at Ely. Both the nave and choir had twelve bays counting from the west door. The second bay of the north side contained the Court of Convocation, and close by was the font near which Sir John Montacute desired in his will (1388) to be buried. ‘If I die in London, then I desire that my body may be buried in St. Paul’s, near to the font wherein I was baptized.’ In the tenth bay was the Chantry Chapel of Thomas Kempe, bishop of the diocese (1448-1489), and rebuilder of Paul’s Cross.

In the eleventh bay, on the south side, was the tomb of Sir John Beauchamp, K.G. (d. 1358), Constable of Dover Castle, and son to Guy Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick. This tomb was commonly called after Duke Humphrey, and the nave of the church from this misnomer went by the name of Duke Humphrey’s Walk. On May Day watermen and tankard-bearers came to the tomb early in the morning, strewed herbs upon it and sprinkled it with water. At the foot of this tomb was the image of the Virgin, before which a lamp was kept perpetually burning, and every morning after matins a short office was said before it. A taper was also kept burning before the Great Crucifix, near to the north door, fabulously said to have been discovered by King Lucius, A.D. 140. Richard Martin, Bishop of St. David’s in the reign of Edward IV., had a special veneration for this crucifix, and left an annual gift to the choristers that they might sing before it Sancte Deus fortis.[365]

In the north aisle was the famous Si quis door, on which notices were fixed; originally these were probably purely ecclesiastical, but in course of time all classes made their wants known there. Decker writes: ‘The first time that you venture into Paul’s, pass through the body of the church like a porter, yet presume not to fetch so much as one whole turn in the middle aisle, no, nor to cast an eye to Si quis door, pasted and plastered up with serving-men’s supplications, before you have paid tribute to the top of Paul’s steeple with a single penny.’

Bishop Hall, in his Satires, shows that Churchmen could be hired there too—