227 A characteristic example of thief-catching, the man being a vagabond, is in Thorold Rogers: William atte Lane had “feloniously bereft Richard [de Herbarton] of a striped gown, worth ten shillings.” Richard ran after him, “cum hutesio et clamore,” and the man was caught “by the bailiff of the liberty of Holywell, Oxford.” William pleaded not guilty and asked for a jury, “ponit se super patriam.” The jury found him guilty, ordered that he restitute the gown to Richard, and as he had no goods to make atonement, and was “a vagabond belonging to no ward,” he be hanged, “suspendatur,” (Dec. 8, 1337); the marginal note “susp.” shows that he was actually hanged. “Hist. of Agriculture,” ii. 665.
228 Statute of Winchester, 13 Ed. I, cap. 4.
229 “Clamor patriæ” in the Latin texts, “Fleta” for example; “clameur de haro” in France, where the practice existed even before the time of Childebert, sixth century, and was still in use, in Normandy at least, until the Revolution. See above, p. 114, note 1.
230 This power of running down the first comer was, like many practices of the time, at once a guarantee for public safety and a dangerous arm in the hands of felons. Robbers used it, and it happened sometimes that they imprisoned by this means their own victims. Alisot, wife of Henry of Upatherle, sets forth to the king that her husband was made prisoner by the Scotch at the battle of Stirling, remained their captive more than a year, then returned after having paid forty pounds ransom. In his absence, Thomas of Upatherle and Robert of Prestbury seized on the fields which he possessed at Upatherle, divided them, pulled down the houses and acted as the owners, taking to their own homes all the goods they could move. The prisoner’s return surprised them; as soon as they knew that he had re-appeared on his lands, “the said Thomas, by false agreement between him and the said Robert, raised hue and cry on the said Henry and put upon him that he had robbed him (Thomas) of his chattels to the value of £100.” They were believed; “the said Henry was taken and imprisoned in Gloucester castle for a long time,” waiting for the coming of the justices, exactly as the statute said. Henry recovered his liberty in the end, and obtained a writ against his enemies; but they brought force and came to meet their victim, “and beat the said Henry in the town of Gloucester, that is they bruised his two arms, both his thighs, and both his legs, and his head on both sides, and quite wrecked and vilely treated his body, so that he barely escaped death.” The king’s reply is not satisfactory: “If the husband be alive, the plaint is his, if he be dead the wife’s plaint is nothing.” “Rolls of Parliament,” vol. ii. p. 35, A.D. 1330.
231 “Diz de l’Erberie.” “Œuvres complètes de Rutebeuf,” Jubinal’s edition, 1874, vol. ii. p. 58.
232 Isambert, “Recueil Général des anciennes lois Françaises,” vol. iii. p. 16, and iv. p. 676.
233 “The Play of the Sacrament,” “Philological Society Transactions,” ed. Whiteley Stokes, 1860, p. 127.
234 “Let scarlet cloth be taken, and let him who is suffering small-pox be entirely wrapped in it or in some other red cloth; I did thus when the son of the illustrious King of England suffered from small-pox; I took care that all about his bed should be red, and that cure succeeded very well.” Original in Latin, “Joannis Anglici, Praxis Medica Rosa Anglica dicta,” Augsburg, 1595, lib. ii. p. 1050.
To which Gaddesden, I now make humble apologies: for since the above lines were written years ago, modern discoveries, those especially of Niels Finsen, of Copenhagen, a man of the truest worth, whom I saw at work, have justified him. Red light, it has been found, really has an influence on the healing of the scars left by small-pox, and even of the disease itself. So, biding the time when his beetle remedy, mentioned next, may prove operative too, I hold Gaddesden justified in turning, from above, the laugh on his deriders: and I submit to the penance in the same contrite spirit as Dr. Johnson once did at Uttoxeter.
235 “Rosa Anglica,” vol. i. p. 496.
236 A remedy for diseases of the spleen (“Rosa Anglica”).
237 “Memorials of London,” documents relating to the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, edited by H. Riley, London, 1868, p. 466.
238 “L’ordinance encontre les entremettours de fisik et de surgerie,” “Rolls of Parliament,” 9 Hen. V, vol. iv. p. 130.
239 Their charter of 1461 is given in Report and Appendix of the City Liveries’ Commission, 1884, vol. iii. p. 74. [L. T. S.]
240 “The Foure P.” London, 1545.
241 Statute 3 Hen. VIII, cap. 11.
242 Statutes 32 Hen. VIII, cap. 42; 34 and 35 Hen. VIII, cap. 8.
243 “The Fox,” Act II, sc. 1 (1605).
244 “Coryat’s Crudities,” reprinted from the edition of 1611, London, 1776, vol. ii. pp. 50, 53. Coryat set out from Dover, 14 May, 1608.
245 Visited in 1875, not since.
246 Horn and his companions, in the romance of “King Horn,” disguise themselves as minstrels, and range themselves at the gate of Rymenhild’s castle:
“King Horn,” ed. J. R. Lumby, Early English Text Society, 1866, l. 1465.
247 Wordsworth, “The Solitary Reaper.”
248 “Cursor Mundi,” a Northumbrian poem of the fourteenth century, edited by R. Morris for the Early English Text Society, vol. v. p. 1651 and vol. i. p. 8.
249 It began to be customary to read aloud verses too, instead of singing them. Chaucer foresees that his poem of “Troilus” may be indifferently read or sung, and he writes, addressing his book:
250 “Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight,” ed. R. Morris, Early English Text Society, 1864, pp. 38, ff.
251 Brilliantly illuminated manuscripts of romances continued, however, to multiply; they were very well paid for. Edward III bought, in 1331, of Isabella of Lancaster, nun of Aumbresbury, a book of romance for which he paid her £66 13s. 4d., which was an enormous sum. When the king had this book he kept it in his own room (Devon’s “Issues of the Exchequer,” 1837, p. 144). Richard II (ibid. 213) bought a bible in French, a “Roman de la Rose,” and a “Roman de Perceval” for £28. To give an idea of these prices we must recall, for example, that a few years before Edward bought his book of romance, the inhabitants of London entered in the City accounts £7 10s. for ten oxen, £4 for twenty pigs, and £6 for twenty-four swans, which they had given to the king. Year 1328, Riley’s “Memorials of London,” 1868, p. 170.
252 The “Thornton Romances,” edited by J. O. Halliwell for the Camden Society, pp. 88, 121, 177. The romances in this volume are, “Perceval,” “Isumbras,” “Eglamour,” and “Degrevant”; the longest scarcely reaches 3,000 lines, “Isumbras” not 1,000. The manuscript, which is in Lincoln Cathedral, is a collection containing many other romances, especially a “Life of Alexander,” a “Mort d’Arthur,” an “Octavian,” and a “Diocletian,” besides numerous prayers in verse, recipes for curing toothache, prophecies of the weather, etc.
253 From Golias, the type of the debauched and gluttonous prelate, made famous by Latin poems attributed to Walter Map, twelfth century, ed. Th. Wright, Camden Society, 1841; cf. “The Cambridge Songs, a Goliard’s song book of the eleventh century,” ed. Karl Breul, Cambridge, 1916.
255 “Issues of the Exchequer,” p. 244.
256 “Extracts from the Municipal Records of the City of York,” by Rob. Davies, London, 1843, p. 230.
257 Wardrobe Accounts; “Archæologia,” vol. xxvi. p. 342.
258 Thomas Wright, “Domestic Manners and Sentiments,” 1862, p. 181.
259 40 Ed. III, Devon’s “Issue Rolls of the Exchequer,” p. 188.
260 See two examples of like cases in the introduction to the “Issue Roll of Thomas de Brantingham,” p. xxxix.
261 “Roll of Household Expenses of Richard de Swinfield, Bishop of Hereford,” ed. J. Webb, Camden Society, 1854–55, vol. i. pp. 152, 155. On the condition of minstrels, jugglers, bear-wards, etc., in France, see e.g. “Histoire économique de la Propriété, des Salaires . . . et de tous les Prix,” by Vicomte d’Avenel, Paris, 1914, vol. v. p. 264, and Bédier, “Les Fabliaux,” 1895, p. 389.
262 Ed. P. Meyer, in “Revue Critique,” vol. x. (1870), p. 373.
263 “Piers Plowman,” Text C, pass. xii. ll. 35–39.
264 “Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight,” ed. R. Morris, Early English Text Society, 1864, ll. 484, 1652–1656, and 1952. In the same manner Arthur, after an exploit by Gawain, sits down to table, “Wythe alle maner of mete and mynstralcie bothe.”
265 “This indenture, made 5 June in the 3rd year of our sovereign lord King Henry the fifth since the Conquest, witnesseth that John Clyff, minstrel, and 17 other minstrels, have received from our said lord the king, through Thomas, Earl of Arundel and Surrey, treasurer of England, forty pounds as their wages, to each of them 12d. a day for a quarter of a year, for serving our said lord in the parts of Guyenne or elsewhere.” Rymer’s “Fœdera,” ed. 1704–32, year 1415, vol. ix. p. 260.
266 The chief of the minstrels of Beverley was called alderman. [L.T.S.]
267 “Fœdera,” year 1387, vol. vii. p. 555. In Sir John Hawkins’ “History of Music,” London, 1893, vol. i. p. 193, John of Gaunt’s charter to the king of his minstrels in Tutbury, dated 4 Richard II, is given at length. [L.T.S.]
268 “Fœdera,” year 1464, vol. xi. p. 512.
269 “Issue Roll of Thos. de Brantingham,” ed. Devon, pp. 54–57 and 296–298. These pensions were granted for life.
MS. Harl. 1319, in the British Museum, printed in “Archæologia,” vol. xx. p. 297.
271 Of which letters, models have come down to us, “and judging by the lavish eulogy they employ, the minstrels themselves must have had a hand in drawing them up.” E. K. Chambers, “The Mediæval Stage,” Oxford, 1903, 2 vols., i. p. 53; three chapters on minstrels of great interest and importance, beginning with a bibliography of the subject, i. 23.
272 Warton’s “History of English Poetry,” Hazlitt’s edition, 1871, ii. p. 98. John of Gaunt orders £16 13s. 4d. to be paid to “various minstrels of his very dear cousin the count of Flanders,” and £65 to various heralds, etc., of “our most redoubted lord and father, the king at Eltham.” “John of Gaunt’s Register,” ed. S. A. Smith, 1911, vol, ii. p. 279. Langland notices the good reception given, when they were travelling, to the king’s minstrels, in order to please their master, known to be sensible of these marks of good will.
273 November 26, 1372. “John of Gaunt’s Register,” ed. S. A. Smith, 1911, ii. 98.
274 Chambers, ibid. i. 51.
275 “Piers Plowman,” Text C, pass. viii. l. 97.
276 See a drawing of such a gallery in a miniature reproduced by Eccleston, “Introduction to English Antiquities;” London, 1847, p. 221. To the sound of the minstrels’ music four wild men or mummers are dancing with contortions; sticks lie on the ground, no doubt for their exercises; a barking dog is jumping between them.
277 “Album de Villard de Honnecourt,” edited by Lassus and Darcel, 1858, plate I.
“Le roi d’Angleterre et le jongleur d’Ely,” edited with “La riote du monde,” by Francisque Michel, Paris, 1834, p. 28.—“Viola. Save thee, friend, and thy music: Dost thou live by thy tabor?” And the tabor player, in “Twelfth Night” (iii. 1) is the Clown.
279 At Exeter Cathedral may be seen many of the musical instruments used in the fourteenth century, sculptured in the “Minstrels’ Gallery,” where angels are performing (see the plate). The instruments they use have been identified by M. Carl Engel as being: the cittern, the bag-pipe, the clarion, the rebec, the psaltery, the syrinx, the sackbut, the regals, the gittern, the shalm, the timbrel, the cymbals. “Musical Instruments,” South Kensington Museum Art Handbook, p. 113. [The duties of the court minstrels of Edward IV are declared in the Black Book of the Orders of that king’s household (Harl. MS. 610, fol. 23), and their instruments are enumerated; “some vse trumpetts, some shalmes, some small pipes, some are stringe-men.” L. T. S.]
280 Rymer’s “Fœdera,” April 24, 1469. See Appendix XI. On minstrels’ gilds in various English cities, the Beverley one being perhaps the most famous (none, however, possessing documentary proofs of its existence so old as the French ones, the Paris gild, for example, which was reformed in 1321 and lasted till 1776), see Chambers, “Mediæval Stage,” ii. 258. Having known various vicissitudes, the royal or London gild “still exists as the Corporation of the Master, Wardens and Commonalty of the Art and Science of the Musicians of London.” Ibid. ii. 261.
281 “Rolls of Parliament,” iii. p. 508, A.D. 1402.
283 The songs about him were collected by J. Ritson; “Robin Hood Ballads,” London, second edition, 1832. Most of them are only of the sixteenth century, but a few are of an earlier date. Robin Hood’s popularity was, however, well established in the fourteenth century, as shown by a line in “Piers Plowman,” Skeat’s edition, Text B, passus v., l. 79. On Robin Hood as the hero of popular songs, of many games and of plays, see Chambers, “Mediæval Stage,” i. 174.
284 “The Wyf of Bathes Tale” (sixty-eight lines on the equality of men and on nobility); again, in the “Parson’s Tale”: “Eek for to pryde him of his gentrye is ful greet folye . . . we ben alle of o fader and of o moder; and alle we been of o nature roten and corrupt, both riche and poure” (Skeat’s edition of the “Canterbury Tales,” vol. iv. p. 596). Not less striking, these lines of a French poem of the same century, quoted in the Discourse upon the state of letters in the fourteenth century, “Histoire Littéraire de la France,” vol. xxiv. p. 236:
285 “Sicut lex justissima, provida circumspectione sacrorum principum stabilita, hortatur et statuit ut quod omnes tangit ab omnibus approbetur, sic.,” etc. Rymer’s “Fœdera,” year 1295, vol. ii. p. 689.
286 “Fœdera,” year 1297, vol. ii. p. 783.
287 Isambert’s “Recueil,” vol. iii, pp. 102, 104.
288 A not at all rare occurrence. See in the fabliau, “Le povre Clerc,” how the itinerant verse teller is asked by the peasant who receives him to say, while the supper is cooking: “Some of those things that are in writing, either a song or a story of adventure.” Bédier, “Les Fabliaux,” 2nd ed., 1895, p. 391.
289 Performing animals or wild ones in cages enjoyed a popularity which proved more constant than that of minstrels, since it has continued unabated from the early middle ages to the present time. Ursinarii frequently appear in the accounts of the Shrewsbury corporation quoted by Chambers who gives, e.g. this noteworthy entry: “In regardo dato ursinario domini Regis pro agitacione bestiarum suarum ultra denarios tunc ibidem collectos. . . .” (Mediæval Stage, ii. 251; year 1517). The English kings, as is well known, had their ménagerie in the Tower, as the French ones had theirs in Paris. St. Louis sent, “as a great gift,” in 1255, an elephant to Henry III; “and we do not believe any had been seen before in England,” wrote Matthew Paris who, good draughtsman as he was, painted the portrait of the wondrous beast. The miniature in MS. Nero D I, in the British Museum, fol. 169, is by him, according to Madden, “Historia Anglorum,” Rolls, Preface.
291 Chambers, “Mediæval Stage,” i. 58, quoting, the “Summa Theologiæ”: “Sicut dictum est, ludus est necessarius ad conservationem vitæ humanæ,” etc. On the distinction between the higher and lower minstrelsy, see ibid. pp. 59 ff.
292 Lib. i. chap. viii.
293 “Historical Papers from the Northern Registers,” ed. Raine, Rolls Series, p. 398. Cf. Bodleian MS. 264, fos. 21, 51, 56, 91, etc.
295 “Loci e libro veritatum; Passages selected from Gascoigne’s Theological Dictionary” (1403–48), ed. Thorold Rogers, Oxford, 1881, p. 144.
296 For instance, MS. Add. 29704, fol. 11. This particular illumination seems to be of the fourteenth century.
297 Devon’s “Issues of the Exchequer,” p. 212.
298 Phillip Stubbes’ “Anatomy of Abuses,” ed. F. J. Furnivall, New Shakspere Society, 1877–79, pp. 171, 172. Stubbes’ opinion was shared by all the religious writers or moralists of the sixteenth century.
299 All the extracts here are from the “House of Fame,” book iii. “Complete Works,” ed. Skeat, Oxford, 1894, vol. iii. pp. 33 ff.
300 “A suit respecting civil matter was commenced in this reign (Ed. I), as in earlier or subsequent reigns, by the purchase of a writ and sometimes by bill. . . . The writs were committed to messengers who had to travel into the different parts of the kingdom and deliver them to the sheriffs or other proper officers to be served on the defendants.” Horwood, “Year-books of Edward I,” years 30–31, p. xxv. Against the purchase of the writs the Commons protested, claiming (35 Ed. III, year 1351–2) that this was contrary to Magna Charta, according to which the king “ne vendra ne deleiera droit à nulli.” The king refused to give up what he considered as a legitimate profit, but promised that the tariff would be lowered. “Rolls of Parliament,” ii., 241.
301 See the representation of lords and ladies dictating their letters to scribes, and of messengers carrying them to their destinations in the MSS. at the British Museum, Royal 10 Ed. IV, fol. 305, 306, etc., and Add. 12228 fol. 238.
302 “King Edward II’s Household and Wardrobe Ordinances,” 1323, ed. Furnivall, 1876, p. 46. The French kings had a much larger number: “Les riches personnages entretenaient des messagers de pied et des chevaucheurs: de ces derniers le roi de France en avait une centaine . . . de moindres seigneurs se contentaient de deux ou trois. Les chevaucheurs étaient payés à forfait: au XIVe siécle, 18 francs par jour (present value) pour un parcours de 55 kilomètres environ. . . . Les messagers de pied, par journée de 30 kilomètres en moyenne, touchaient 9 francs chez le Roi (1380); à la solde des particuliers ou des villes leur salaire variait de 5 à 10 francs. Un voyage de nuit valait le double: 20 francs: de même les courses périlleuses.” D’Avenel, “L’évolution des moyens de transport,” Paris, 1919, p. 142. Cf. Thorold Rogers, “History of Agriculture and Prices,” i. 665, iv. 712.
303 Anne of Bohemia, first wife of Richard II, born at Prague in 1366, grand-daughter of blind King John of Bohemia killed at Crécy, herself dying of the plague at Shene, 1394, leaving her husband almost crazy with grief. “Issue roll of Thomas de Brantingham,” ed. F. Devon, London, 1835, pp. xxxii, xxxvii, xliv, 408; “Issues of the Exchequer,” 1837, pp. 220, 255. Whole pages of Thomas de Brantingham’s roll (e.g. pp. 154–155) are filled with payments received by messengers, which show the frequent use made of their services.
304 32 Ed. III, “Issues of the Exchequer,” p. 169.
305 2 Rich. II, year 1378, “Rolls of Parliament,” vol. iii. p. 36.
306 Rymer’s “Fœdera,” April 3, 1396 (19 Rich. II).
307 “Issues of the Exchequer,” p. 202.
308 “Rolls of Parliament,” i. p. 48 (18 Ed. I).
309 “Wardrobe Accounts of Edward II,” Archæologia, xxvi. 321, 336.
310 Extract from a letter to the author: “Yesterday I was reading your ‘Vie Nomade,’ and that portion of it which speaks of the rewards given in fourteenth and fifteenth centuries to messengers who brought good tidings to the king. It may interest you to know that a remnant of this custom still survives. The officer sent by a general after a victory to convey the despatch to the Queen, receives besides a promotion in rank (or a decoration), a pecuniary reward. The officer who brought the news of the fall of Sebastopol to the Queen received the rank of Colonel, and a present of 500 guineas.
“My brother A.D.C., Major Anson, who carried home from China the despatch announcing the fall of Pekin, was promoted Colonel, and received a present of 500 guineas.—St. James’ Club, May 30, 1890.—F. Grant.”
What happened, in our less ceremonious days, when the news was brought of the Marne, of Ypres, of Messines? Doubtless it was not brought; it came.
311 “Item, be it prohibited everywhere that any alien send letters beyond the sea, or receive letters which come thence; unless he shew them to the chancellor or to some other lord of the Privy Council, or at least to the chief wardens of the ports or their lieutenants, who shall further show them to the said Council.” “Rolls of Parliament,” vol. ii. p. 163, 20 Fd. III.
312 Text C, pas. xiv. ll. 33–59.
313 5 and 6 Ed. VI, ch. 21. Statutes, vol. iv. part i. p. 155.
314 14 Eliz. ch. v. “Statutes,” vol. iv. part i. pp. 590 ff.
315 8 and 9 Will. III, ch. 25.
316 Cf the contents of the pack of a French “porte-balle” of the eighteenth century: “ . . . Un de ces merciers ambulants qu’on appelle porte-balles et qui lui crie: Monsieur le chevalier, jarretières, ceintures, cordons de montre, tabatières du dernier goût, vraies jaback, bagues, cachets de montre. . . .” Diderot, “Jacques le Fataliste.” Ed. Asseline, p. 30.
317 Text B, pas. v. l. 257.
318 The English coaling trade had greatly increased in the fourteenth century; large quantities of coal were brought by water from Newcastle and other places to London and partly consumed on the spot, partly exported. The importance of coal mines did not escape the notice of the Commons, who stated in the year 1376–7 that, “en diverses parties deinz le Roialme d’Engleterre sont diverses miners de carbons, dont les communes du dit partie ont lour sustenantz en grande partie.” 51 Ed. III, “Rolls of Parliament,” ii. 370. Cf Salzmann, “English Industries of the Middle Ages,” 1913, ch. I, and H. Hall, “A select Bibliography for the study, sources and literature of English Political Economy,” London, 1914.
319 The trade in wines was enormous, especially with Gascony, and subjected to the most minute regulations. Not only the importation of it was the occasion of ceaseless interfering, but the retail sale in towns was perpetually regulated anew by local ordinances. Woe to the vintner who was detected meddling in any unfair way with his liquor; he might experience the chastisement inflicted upon John Penrose, who for such an offence was sent to the pillory in 1364, was made to drink publicly there his own stuff, had what he could not drink poured over his head, and was besides sentenced to renounce his trade for ever. Riley, “Memorials of London,” 1868, p. 318.
320 Same rules in France: “Que nul billon, vaissellemente, joyaux d’or et d’argent ne soint traits hors dudit royaume par personne quelle que ce soit, si ce n’estoit vaissellemente de prélats ou de nobles ou d’autres gens d’église pour lour service.” Ordinance of Jean le Bon, dated from London, 1358; Isambert, vol. v. p. 39.
321 “Rolls of Parliament,” 45 Ed. III, year 1371, vol. ii. p. 306. While this legislation was strictly enforced in England, the royal government, according to petitions of the Commons and with remarkable naïveté, often wrote to princes on the continent, recommending them to allow their own subjects to bring to England money, bullion, and plate.
322 Statute 5 Rich. II st. i. ch. 3, and 6 Rich. II, year 1381–2.
323 “Rolls of Parliament,” 46 Ed. III, year 1372, vol. ii. p. 311.
324 Ibid., 11 Rich II, A.D. 1387, vol. iii. p. 253. The penalties are removed for the Hanse merchants but not for the Prussians, “Et en le mesne temps soient lettre du privé seal envoié al Mestre de Pruys de repaier et due redresse faire as merchantz Engleis des arestes et autres tortz et damages à eux fait deinz la seigneurie de Pruys, come reson demande.”
325 Statute 27 Ed. III st. ii. ch. 2.
326 25 Ed. III stat. iii. ch. 2.
327 See, for particulars about the “Gildhalda Teutonicorum” in Dowgate Ward, Thames Street, and afterwards in the Steel-house, Herbert’s “Livery Companies,” London, 1837, vol. i. pp. 10–16. The importance of Italian settlements of money-changers and money-lenders (whence the “Lombard streets” or “rues des Lombards” surviving in many towns) are well known.
328 These and many other particulars about English trade with Venice are to be found in Rawdon Brown’s “Calendars of State Papers . . . in the Archives of Venice,” London, 1864 (Rolls); see also J. Delaville le Roulx, “La France en Orient au XIVe siècle,” Paris, 1886, vol. i. p. 199.
329 For the first time in 1397–98. He was a liberal lender of money to Kings Henry IV and Henry V.