“Oyez, oyez, oyez! all minstrels within this honour, residing in the
counties of Stafford, Derby, Nottingham, Leicester, and Warwick, come in
and do your suit and service or you will be amerced.” All were then
sworn to keep the king of music’s counsel, their fellows’, and their
own; and a lengthy charge from the steward followed, in which he
expatiated on the antiquity and excellence of their noble science. After
this the jurors proceeded to choose a new king, who was taken
alternately from the minstrels of Staffordshire and Derbyshire, as well
as four stewards, and retired to consider the offences which were
alleged against any minstrel, and fine him if necessary. In the meantime
the old stewards brought into the court a treat of wine, ale, and cakes,
and the minstrels diverted themselves and the company by playing their
merriest airs. The new king entered, and was presented by the jurors,
the old one rising from his place, and giving the white wand to his
successor, pledging him in a cup of wine; the old stewards followed his
example, and at noon all partook of a dinner prepared for them by the
old king.
In the afternoon they all met at the abbey gate, where a bull was given
by the prior. The poor beast, after having had the tips of his horns
sawed off, his ears and tail cut off, his body smeared with soap, and
his nose filled with pepper, was let loose, and if the surrounding
minstrels could succeed in cutting off a piece of his skin before he
crossed the river Dove into Derbyshire, he became the property of the
king of music, but if not he was returned to the prior again. After
becoming the king’s own, he was brought to the High Street, and there
baited with dogs three times. It has been supposed that John of Gaunt,
who assumed the title of King of Castile and Leon, introduced this sport
in imitation of the Spanish bull-fights. In course of time, however, the
pursuit of the bull, which had been confined to the minstrels, became
general, and the multitude promiscuously joined in the barbarous sport,
which sometimes terminated in broken heads. In 1778 the custom was
abolished by the Duke of Devonshire, after lasting four hundred
years.--See Pitt’s _History of Staffordshire_, 1817, p. 49;
_Archæologia_, vol. ii. p. 86; Plot, _Natural History of Staffordshire_,
1686, p. 439; Shauff, _History of Staffordshire_, vol. i. p. 52.
AUG. 16.] ST. ROCHE’S DAY.
This day was anciently kept like a wake, or general harvest-home, with
dances in the churchyard in the evening.--Fosbrooke, _Dict. Antiq._
AUG. 18.] ST. HELEN’S DAY.
This saint gives name to numerous wells in the north of England. Dr.
Kuerden, in the middle of the seventeenth century, describing one in the
parish of Brindle, says: “To it the vulgar neighbouring people of the
Red Letter do much resort with pretended devotion, on each year upon St.
Ellin’s Day, where and when, out of a foolish ceremony, they offer, or
throw into the well, pins, which, there being left, may be seen a long
time after by any visitor of that fountain.” A similar custom was
observed some years ago by the visitors of St. Helen’s well in Sefton,
but more in accordance with an ancient practice than from any devotion
to the saint.--Baines, _History of County of Lancaster_, 1836, vol. iii.
p. 497; _Med. Ævi Kalend._ vol. i. pp. 336, 337.
AUG. 24.] ST. BARTHOLOMEW’S DAY.
Bartholomew Fair--The origin of Bartholomew Fair was a grant from Henry
I., in 1133, to a monk named Rayer, or Rahere, who had been his jester,
and had founded the Priory of St. Bartholomew, in later times
transformed into a hospital. The fair was annually held at the festival
of St. Bartholomew, and, like all other ancient fairs, was originally
connected with the Church, under whose auspices miracle-plays, founded
on the legends of saints, were represented, which gave place to
mysteries, and these again to moralities; afterwards, profane stories
were introduced, the origin of the modern English drama. It was
discontinued after 1855, having flourished for seven centuries and a
half. Established originally for useful trading purposes, it had long
survived its claim to tolerance, but, as London increased, became a
great public nuisance, with its scenes of riot and obstruction in the
very heart of the city. After the opening of the fair, it was customary
anciently for wrestlers to exercise their art, of which Paul Hentzner, a
German tutor, travelling in the year 1598 through England has given an
account. He says, “that every year upon St. Bartholomew’s day, when the
fair is held, it is usual for the mayor, attended by the twelve
principal aldermen, to walk in a neighbouring field, dressed in his
scarlet gown, and about his neck a golden chain to which is hung a
golden fleece, and, besides, that particular ornament which
distinguishes the most noble Order of the Garter. When the mayor goes
out of the precincts of the city a sceptre and sword and a cap are borne
before him, and he is followed by the principal aldermen in scarlet
gowns with gold chains, himself and they on horseback. Upon their
arrival at a place appointed for that purpose, where a tent is pitched,
the mob begin to wrestle before them, two at a time; the conquerors
receiving rewards from the magistrates. After this is over, a parcel of
live rabbits are turned loose among the crowd, which are pursued by a
number of boys, who endeavour to catch them, with all the noise they can
make.” In a proclamation, made in 1608, we find the following command
laid down in reference to the wrestling: “So many aldermen as dine with
my Lord Mayor and the sheriffs, be apparelled in their scarlet gowns
lined, and after dinner their horses be brought to them where they dine,
and those aldermen which dine with the sheriffs, ride with them to my
lord’s house, to accompany him to the wrestling. Then when the wrestling
is done, they take their horses, and ride back again through the fair,
and so in at Aldersgate, and so home again to the said Lord Mayor’s
house.” Mr. Samuel Pepys (1663) alludes to this wrestling in his diary.
The scholars from the different London schools met at the Priory for
disputations on grammar and logic, and wrangled together in verse. John
Stow says: “I myself, in my youth, have yearly seen on the eve of St.
Bartholomew the Apostle, the scholars of divers grammar schools repair
unto the churchyard of St. Bartholomew, the Priory in Smithfield, where
upon a bank boarded about under a tree, some one scholar hath stepped
up, and there hath opposed and answered till he were by some better
scholar overcome and put down; and then the overcomer taking his place
did like as the first. And in the end, the best opposers and answerers
had rewards, which I observed not but it made both good schoolmasters
and also good scholars, diligently against such times to prepare
themselves for the obtaining of this garland. I remember there repaired
to these exercises, amongst others, the masters and scholars of the free
schools of St. Paul’s in London, of St. Peter’s at Westminster, of St.
Thomas Acon’s Hospital, and of St. Anthonie’s Hospital; whereof the last
named commonly presented the best scholars, and had the prize in those
days. This Priory of St. Bartholomew being surrendered to Henry VIII.,
those disputations of scholars in that place surceased; and was again,
only for a year or twain, revived in the cloister of Christ’s Hospital,
where the best scholars, then still of St. Anthonie’s School, howsoever
the same be now fallen both in number and estimation, were rewarded with
bows and arrows of silver, given to them by Sir Martin Bower, goldsmith.
Nevertheless, however, the encouragement failed; the scholars of St.
Paul’s, meeting with them of St. Anthonie’s, would call them Anthonie’s
Pigs, and they again would call the other Pigeons of Paul’s, because
many pigeons were bred in St. Paul’s Church, and St. Anthonie was always
figured with a pig following him; and mindful of the former usage, did
for a long season disorderly provoke one another in the open street with
_Salve tu quoque, placet mecum disputare? Placet!_ And so proceeding
from this to questions in grammar, they usually fell from words to
blows, with their satchels full of books, many times in great heaps that
they troubled the streets and passengers; so that finally they were
restrained with the decay of St. Anthonie’s School.”
In the first centuries of its existence Bartholomew Fair was one of the
great annual markets of the nation and the chief cloth fair of the
kingdom. It was the great gathering in the metropolis of England, for
the sale of that produce upon which England especially relied for her
prosperity. Two centuries after the Conquest our wealth depended upon
wool, which was manufactured in the time of Henry II., in whose days
there arose guilds of weavers. In King John’s reign there was
prohibition of the export of wool and of the import of cloth. A
metropolitan cloth fair was therefore a commercial institution, high in
dignity and national importance. There was a trade also at Bartholomew
Fair in live stock, in leather, pewter, and in other articles of
commerce, but cloth ranked first among the products of our industry. The
clothiers of England, and the drapers of London, had their standings
during the fair in the Priory churchyard. In the reign of Queen
Elizabeth, however, Bartholomew Fair ceased to be a cloth fair of any
importance; but its name and fame is still preserved in the lane running
parallel to Bartholomew Close, termed “Cloth Fair,” which was generally
inhabited by drapers and mercers in the days of Strype.
A Pedlars’ Court of Piepowder was held within the Priory gates, for
debts and contracts, before a jury of traders formed on the spot, at
which the prior, as lord of the fair, presided by his representative. It
remained always by its original site, being held in Cloth Fair to the
last. There is no record to be found of any ordinance by which the court
of Piepowder was first established in this country. There never had been
known a fair in Europe to which such a court was not by usage attached.
Such courts were held in the markets of the Romans, which some writers
regard as fairs, and in which they find the origin of modern fairs. The
court of Piepowder in Bartholomew Fair, or the corresponding court in
any other fair in England, had jurisdiction only in commercial
questions. It could entertain a case of slander if it was slander of
wares, not slander of person: not even the king, if he should sit in a
court of Piepowder, could extend its powers. In 1445 four persons were
appointed by the court of aldermen as keepers of the fair and of the
court of Piepowder, the city being thus in that case represented as
joint lord of the fair with the prior. As the fair prospered it was
rendered attractive by a variety of popular amusements. All manner of
exhibitions, theatrical booths, &c., thronged the fair, and tumblers,
acrobats, stilt-walkers, mummers, and mountebanks, resorted to it in
great numbers. Shows were exhibited for the exhibition of puppet-plays,
sometimes constructed on religious history, such as “The Fall of
Nineveh,” others were constructed on classic story, as “The Siege of
Troy.” Shows of other kinds abounded, and zoology was always in high
favour. In 1593 the keeping of the fair was for the first time
suspended, by the raging of the plague. The same thing happened in 1603,
in 1625, in 1630, in 1665, and in 1666. The licence of the Restoration
mainly arising from the low personal character of the king, but greatly
promoted by the natural tendency to reaction after the excess of
severity used by the Puritans in suppressing what was not to be
suppressed, at once extended Bartholomew Fair from a three days’ market
to a fortnight’s--if not even at one time to a six weeks’--riot of
amusement. In 1678 the civil authorities had already taken formal notice
of the “Irregularities and Disorders” of Bartholomew and Lady Fairs, and
referred it to a committee “to consider how the same might be
prevented, and what damages would occur to the city by laying down the
same.” This is the first hint of suppression that arises in the history
of the fair, and its arising is almost simultaneous with the decay of
the great annual gathering as a necessary seat of trade. In 1685 the
fair was leased by the city to the sword bearer for three years at a
clear rent of £100 per year. At the expiration of two years a committee
having reported that the net annual profit for those years had amounted
to not more than £68, the city fair, then lasting fourteen days, was, on
his application, leased to the same sword-bearer for twenty-one years at
the same rent. As time went on, however, the Corporation of London was
still setting daily against the evil that was in the fair. In 1691, and
again in 1694, a reduction to the old term of three days was ordered, as
a check to vice, and in order that the pleasures of the fair might not
choke up the avenues of the traffic. In 1697, the Lord Mayor, on St.
Bartholomew’s Day, published an ordinance recorded in the _Postman_ “for
the suppression of vicious practices in Bartholomew Fair, as obscene,
lascivious, and scandalous plays, comedies and farces, unlawful games
and interludes, drunkenness, etc., strictly charging all constables and
other officers to use their utmost diligence in persecuting the same.”
But there was no suppression of the puppet-theatres. _Jephthah’s Rash
Vow_ was performed that year at Blake’s Booth, as in the following years
at Blake and Pinkethman’s. Again on the 18th of June, 1700, stage-plays
and interludes at the fair were for that year prohibited: they were
again prohibited by the mayor who ruled in the year 1702. In 1698, a
Frenchman, Monsieur Sorbière, visiting London, says, “I was at
Bartholomew Fair. It consists most of toy-shops, also fiacres and
pictures, ribbon shops, no books; many shops of confectioners, where any
woman may be commodiously treated. Knavery is here in perfection,
dextrous cut-purses and pickpockets. I went to see the dancing on the
ropes, which was admirable. Coming out, I met a man that would have took
off my hat, but I secured it, and was going to draw my sword, crying out
“Begar! damn’d rogue! morbleu!” &c., when on a sudden I had a hundred
people about me, crying, “Here, monsieur, see _Jephthah’s Rash Vow_;”
“Here, monsieur, see _The Tall Dutchwoman_;” “See _The Tiger_,” says
another; “See _The Horse and No Horse_, whose tail stands where his head
should do;” “See the _German Artist_, monsieur;” “See _The Siege of
Namur_, monsieur;” so that betwixt rudeness and civility I was forced to
get into a fiacre, and, with an air of haste and a full trot, got home
to my lodgings.”
In 1701 Bartholomew Fair was presented as a nuisance by the Grand Jury
of London, and in 1750 it was reduced to its original three days. By the
alteration of the calendar in 1752, the fair, in the following year,
was, for the first time, proclaimed on September 3rd.
On the 3rd of December, 1760, the London Court of Common Council
referred to its City Lands Committee to consider the tenures of the City
fair, with a view to their abolition. The subject was then carefully
discussed, and a final report sent in, with the opinion of counsel, upon
which the court came to a resolution, that, owing to the interest of
Lord Kensington in Bartholomew Fair, that was a nuisance which they
could endeavour only by a firm practice of restriction to abate. In 1769
plays, puppet-shows, and gambling were suppressed. In 1798, when the
question of abolishing the fair was discussed, a proposal to restrict it
to one day was made and set aside, because the measure might produce in
London a concentrated tumult dangerous to life. In the course of a trial
at Guildhall in 1817, involving the rights of Lord Kensington, it was
stated on Lord Kensington’s behalf, that considering the corrupt state
of the fair, and the nuisance caused by it in the neighbourhood of
Smithfield, he should throw no obstacle in the way of its removal, and
was ready to give up his own rights over it, on being paid their value.
His receipts from toll were stated to be 30_l._ or 40_l._ a year, and
their estimated value 500_l._ or 600_l._ In the year 1830 the
Corporation of London did accordingly buy from Lord Kensington the old
Priory rights, vested in the heirs of Chancellor Rich, and all the
rights and interests in Bartholomew Fair then became vested in the City.
Having thus secured full power over the remains in question, the
Corporation could take into its own hands the whole business of their
removal. The fair at this time had long ceased to be a place of traffic,
and was only a haunt of amusement, riot, and dissipation. Latterly it
had only been attended by the keepers of a few gingerbread stalls; and
consequently in 1839 measures were for the first time seriously adopted
for its suppression, and in the following year the exhibitions were
removed to Islington. In 1850 the last proclamation by the Lord Mayor
took place, and in 1855 the once famous Bartholomew Fair came to an
end.--_History and Origin of Bartholomew Fair_, published by Arliss and
Huntsman, 1808; Chambers’ _Encyclopædia_ (1860), vol. i. p. 719; Morley,
_Memoirs of Bartholomew Fair_, 1859; Chambers’ _Book of Days_, vol. ii.
pp. 263-267.
LINCOLNSHIRE.
In the morning a number of maidens, clad in their best attire, went in
procession to a small chapel, situated in the parish of Dorrington, and
strewed its floor with rushes, from whence they proceeded to a piece of
land called the “Play-Garths,” where they were joined by most of the
inhabitants of the place, who passed the remainder of the day in rural
sports, such as foot-ball, wrestling and other athletic exercises, with
dancing, &c.--_History of County of Lincoln_, 1834, vol. ii. p. 255.
It was customary at Croyland Abbey to give little knives to all comers
on St. Bartholomew’s Day. Mr. Gough, in his _History of Croyland Abbey_,
p. 73. says that this abuse was abolished by Abbot John de Wisebech, in
the time of Edward IV., exempting both the abbot and convent from a
great and needless expense. This custom originated in allusion to the
knife wherewith St. Bartholomew was flayed. Three of these knives were
quartered, with three of the whips so much used by St. Guthlac, in one
coat borne by this house. Mr. Hunter had great numbers of them, of
different sizes, found at different times in the ruins of the abbey and
in the river.
YORKSHIRE.
Dr. Johnston, quoted by Hampson (_Med. Ævi Kalend._ vol. i. p. 342), has
preserved an account of a pageant exhibited at Dent on the rush-bearing
(St. Bartholomew’s Day) after the Restoration, in which, among other
characters, Oliver and Bradshaw, Rebellion and War, were represented,
all decked by times with vizardes on, and strange deformities; and
Bradshaw had his tongue run through with a red hot iron, and Rebellion
was hanged on a gibbet in the market-place. Then came Peace and Plenty,
and Diana with her nymphs, all with coronets on their heads, each of
which made a several speech in verses of their loyalty to their king.
AUG. 30.] PRESTON GUILD.
LANCASHIRE.
Concerning this curious custom, Britton, in his _Lancashire_ (1818, p.
109), gives the following account:--
It is a sort of public carnival or _jubilee_, and is held every twenty
years, as appears by the records of the corporation. The last
confirmation was by Charles II., in 1684, since which time it has been
regularly held, in the first of Anne, ninth of George I., sixteenth of
George II., and second, twenty-second, and again in the forty-second
year of George III., the only monarch, except Queen Elizabeth, who has
reigned during the time of three guilds. It begins about the latter end
of August, and, by the Charter, which obliges the corporation to
celebrate it at the end of every twenty years, on pain of forfeiting
their elective franchises and their right as burgesses, twenty-eight
days of grace are allowed to all who are disposed to renew their
freedom. By public proclamation it is declared that, on failure of doing
so, they are ever after to be debarred of the same on any future
occasion. The last guild commenced on the 30th of August, 1802, when an
immense concourse of people of all ranks were assembled, and processions
of the gentlemen at the heads of the different classes of manufactories
with symbolical representations of their respective branches of trade
and commerce; and bands of music passed through the principal streets of
the town. The mayor and corporation, with the wardens of the different
companies at the head of their respective incorporated bodies, each in
their official dresses, and with their usual insignia, fell into the
ranks in due order, and the whole was preceded by an excellent band of
music belonging to the 17th Regiment of Light Dragoons, in full dress,
and their officers newly clothed. Besides the wool-combers’, spinners’,
weavers’, cordwainers’, carpenters’, vintners’, tailors’, smiths’,
plumbers’, painters’, glaziers’, watchmakers’, mercers’ and drapers’
companies, the whole was closed by the butchers, skinners, tanners, and
glovers, habited in characteristic dresses, each company being attended
by a band of music and a very elegant ensign. In this order they
proceeded to church, and after service returned and paraded through the
different streets in the same order. The mayor afterwards entertained
the gentlemen at his house, and on the next day the mayoress repeated
the treat to the ladies of the town and its vicinity, who formed a
procession on this day, in a similar manner, preceded by the girls of
the cotton manufactory.
SEPT.] ECCLES WAKE.
LANCASHIRE.
An annual festival used to be held at Eccles, of great antiquity, as old
probably as the first erection of the church, called Eccles Wake,
celebrated on the first Sunday in September, and was continued during
the three succeeding days, and consisted of feasting upon a kind of
local confectionery, called “Eccles Cakes,” and ale, with various
sports.
The following was the programme on such an occasion:
“_Eccles Wake._--On Monday morning, at eleven o’clock the sports will
commence (the sports of Sunday being passed over in silence) with that
most ancient, loyal, rational, constitutional and lawful diversion--
“_Bull Baiting_--In all its primitive excellence, for which this place
has been long noted. At one o’clock there will be a foot race; at two
o’clock, a bull baiting for a horse collar; at four o’clock, donkey
races for a pair of panniers; at five o’clock, a race for a stuff hat;
the day’s sport to conclude with baiting the bull, Fury, for a superior
dog-chain. On Tuesday, the sports will be repeated; also on Wednesday,
with the additional attraction of a smock race by ladies. A main of
cocks to be fought on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday for twenty guineas,
and five guineas the byes, between the gentlemen of Manchester and
Eccles; the wake to conclude with a fiddling match by all the fiddlers
that attend for a piece of silver.”--Baines, _History of County of
Lancaster_, 1836, vol. iii. p. 123.
CHALK-BACK DAY.
NORFOLK.
At Diss, it is customary for the juvenile populace, on the Thursday
before the third Friday in September (on which latter day a fair and
session for hiring servants are held), to mark and disfigure each
other’s dresses with white chalk, pleading a prescriptive right to be
mischievous on “Chalk-Back Day.”--_N. & Q. 1st. S._ vol iv. p. 501.
IRELAND.
The following extract is taken from the _Leeds Mercury_, September 8th,
1863:--The triennial ceremony of “throwing the dart” in Cork Harbour was
performed on Thursday afternoon by the mayor of that city. This is one
of those quaint ceremonials by which, in olden time, municipal
boundaries were preserved and corporate rights asserted. A similar civic
pageant called “riding the fringes” (franchises) was formerly held by
the lord mayor and corporation of Dublin, in which, after riding round
the inland boundaries of the borough, the cavalcade halted at a point on
the shore near Bullock, whence the lord mayor hurled a dart into the
sea, the spot where it fell marking the limit of the maritime
jurisdiction. At 2 o’clock, P.M., the members of the Cork town council
embarked on board a steam-vessel, attended by all the civic officers,
and the band of the Cork civil artillery. A number of ladies also
attended. The steamer proceeded out to sea until she reached an
imaginary line between Poor Head and Cork Head, which is supposed to be
the maritime boundary of the borough. Here the mayor donned his official
robes and proceeded, attended by the mace and sword bearer, the city
treasurer, and the town clerk, all wearing their official costumes, to
the prow of the vessel, whence he launched his javelin into the water,
thereby asserting his authority as lord high admiral of the port. The
event was celebrated by a banquet in the evening.
SEPT. 4.] ST. CUTHBERT’S DAY.
DURHAM.