FIFTEENTH CENTURY ARMOUR.
As the fifteenth century advanced the wars of the Roses gave urgent reason
for attention to the subject of defensive armour; and we find,
accordingly, that the fashions of armour underwent many modifications, in
the attempt to give the wearer more perfect protection for life and limb.
It would be tedious to enter into the minute details of these changes, and
the exact date of their introduction; we must limit ourselves to a brief
history of the general character of the new fashions. The horizontal bands
of armour called _taces_, depending from the corslet, became gradually
narrower; while the pieces which hung down in front of the thighs, called
_tuilles_, became proportionately larger. In the reigns of Richard III.
and Henry VII. the knightly equipment reached its strangest forms. Besides
the usual close-fitting pieces which protected the arms, the elbow-piece
was enlarged into an enormous fan-like shape that not only protected the
elbow itself, but overlapped the fore arm, and by its peculiar shape
protected the upper arm up to the shoulder. The shoulder-pieces also were
strengthened, sometimes by several super-imposed overlapping plates,
sometimes by hammering it out into ridges, sometimes by the addition of a
_passe garde_--a kind of high collar which protected the neck from a
sweeping side blow. The breastplate is globular in shape, and often narrow
at the waist; from it depend narrow _taces_ and _tuilles_, and under the
_tuilles_ we often find a deep skirt of mail. When broad-toed shoes came
into fashion, the iron shoes of the knight followed the fashion; and at
the same time, in place of the old gauntlet in which the fingers were
divided, and each finger protected by several small plates of metal, the
leather glove was now furnished at the back of the hand with three or four
broad over-lapping plates, like those of a lobster, each of which
stretched across the whole hand. These alterations may have added to the
strength of the armour, but it was at the cost of elegance of appearance.
A suit of armour embossed with ornamental patterns, partially covered with
a blue mantle, may be seen in the fifteenth-century Book of Hours, Harl.
5,328, f. 77.
In the time of Henry VIII., in place of the _taces_ and _tuilles_ for the
defence of the body and thighs, a kind of skirt of steel, called
_lamboys_, was introduced, which was fluted and ribbed vertically, so as
to give it very much the appearance of a short petticoat. Henry VIII. is
represented in this costume in the equestrian figure on his great seal.
And a suit of armour of this kind, a very magnificent one, which was
presented to the king by the Emperor Maximilian on the occasion of his
marriage to Katharine of Arragon, is preserved in the Tower armoury. A
good sketch of a suit of this kind will be seen in one of the pikemen--the
fifth from the right hand--in the nearest rank of the army in the
engraving of King Henry VIII.'s army, which faces page 455. The armour of
this reign was sometimes fashioned in exact imitation of the shape of the
ordinary garments of a gentleman of the time, and engraved and inlaid in
imitation of their woven or embroidered ornamentation.
In the tournament armour of the time the defences were most complete, but
unwieldy and inelegant. The front of the saddle had a large piece of
armour attached, which came up to protect the trunk, and was bent round to
encase each thigh. A clearly drawn representation of this will be found in
a tilting scene in the illumination on f. 15 v. of the MS. Add. 24,189,
date _circa_ 1400 A.D. There are several examples of it in the Tower
armoury. The shield was also elaborately shaped and curved, to form an
outer armour for the defence of the whole of the left side. Instead of the
shield there was sometimes an additional piece of armour, called the
_grand garde_, screwed to the breastplate, to protect the left side and
shoulder; while the great spear had also a piece of armour affixed in
front of the grasp, which not only protected the hand, but was made large
enough to make a kind of shield for the right arm and breast. There was
also sometimes a secondary defence affixed to the upper part of the
breastplate, which stood out in front of the face. These defences for
thigh and breast will be observed in the woodcut of the "playing at
tournament," on p. 408; and in the combat of the Earl of Warwick, p. 418,
will be seen how the _grande garde_ is combined with the _volante_ piece
which came in front of the face. Behind such defences the tilter must have
been almost invulnerable. On the other hand, his defences were so unwieldy
that he must have got into his saddle first, and then have been packed
securely into his armour; and when there, he could do nothing but sit
still and hold his spear in rest--it seems impossible for him even to have
struck a single sword stroke. James I.'s remark on armour was especially
true of such a suit: "It was an admirable invention which preserved a man
from being injured, and made him incapable of injuring any one else."
[Illustration: _Combat on Foot._]
There are several very good authorities for the military costume of the
reign of Henry VIII. easily accessible to the student and artist. The
roll preserved in the College of Arms which represents the tournament held
at Westminster, A.D. 1510, in honour of the birth of the son of Henry and
Katharine of Arragon, has been engraved in the "Vetusta Monumenta." The
painting of the Field of the Cloth of Gold at Hampton Court is another
contemporary authority full of costumes of all kinds. The engravings of
Hans Burgmaier, in the _Triumphs of Maximilian_ and the _Weise Könige_
contain numerous authorities very valuable for the clearness and artistic
skill with which the armour is depicted. We have given an illustration, on
the preceding page, reduced from one of the plates of the latter work,
which represents a combat of two knights, on foot. The armour is partly
covered by a surcoat; in the left-hand figure it will be seen that it is
fluted. The shields will be noticed as illustrating one of the shapes then
in use.
But our best illustration is from a contemporary drawing in the British
Museum (Aug. III., f. 4), which represents Henry VIII.'s army, and gives
us, on a small scale, and in very sketchy but intelligible style, a
curious and valuable picture of the military equipment of the period. We
have two armies drawn up in battle array, and the assault is just
commenced. The nearer army has its main body of pikemen, who, we know from
contemporary writers, formed the main strength of an army at this time,
and for long after. In front of them are two lines of arquebusiers. Their
front is protected by artillery, screened by great _mantelets_ of timber.
The opposing army has similarly its main body of pikemen, and its two
lines of arquebusiers; the first line engaged in an assault upon the
enemy's artillery. On the left flank of its main body is the cavalry; and
there seems to be a reserve of pikemen a little distance in the rear,
behind a rising ground. Tents pitched about a village represent the
head-quarters of the army, and baggage waggons on the left of the picture
show that the artist has overlooked nothing. A fortress in the distance
seems to be taking part in the engagement with its guns.
There are other similar pictures in the same volume, some of which supply
details not here given, or not so clearly expressed. At folio 1 are two
armies, each with a van of musketeers three deep, a main body of pikemen
eleven deep, and a third line of musketeers three deep. The cavalry are
more distinctly shown than in the picture before us, as being men-at-arms
in full armour, with lances. At folio 3 the drummers, fifers, and baggage
and camp followers are shown.
In the _Weise Könige_,[399] on plate 44, is a representation of a camp
surrounded by the baggage waggons; on plates 91 and 96 a square fort of
timber in the field of battle; on plates 57, 84, &c., are cannons
surrounded by mantelets, some of wicker probably filled with earth; on
plate 60 is a good representation of a column of troops defiling out of
the gate of a city.
The following account, from Grafton's Chronicle, of the array in which
Henry VIII. took the field when he marched to the siege of Boulogne, will
illustrate the picture:--
"The xxj. day of July (1513), when all thinges by counsayle had bene
ordered concernyng the order of battaile, the king passed out of the town
of Calice in goodly array of battaile, and toke the field. And
notwithstandyng that the forewarde and the rerewarde of the kinges great
armye were before Tyrwin, as you have heard, yet the king of his own
battaile made three battailes after the fassion of the warre. The Lord
Lisle, marshall of the hoste, was captain of the foreward, and under him
three thousand men; Sir Rychard Carew, with three hundred men, was the
right-hand wing to the foreward; and the Lord Darcy, with three hundred
men, was wing on the left hande; the scowrers and fore-ryders of this
battaile were the Northumberland men on light geldings. The Erle of Essex
was lieutenaunt-generall of the speres, and Sir John Pechy was
vice-governour of the horsemen. Before the king went viij. hundred
Almaynes, all in a plump by themselves. After them came the standard with
the red dragon, next the banner of our ladie, and next after the banner of
the Trinitie: under the same were all the kinges housholde servauntes.
Then went the banner of the armes of Englande, borne by Sir Henry
Guilforde, under which banner was the king himselfe, with divers noblemen
and others, to the number of three thousand men. The Duke of Buckyngham,
with sixe hundred men, was on the kinges left hande, egall with the
Almaynes; in like wise on the right hande was Sir Edward Pournynges, with
other sixe hundred men egall with the Almaynes. The Lord of Burgoynie,
with viij. hundred men, was wing on the right hande; Sir William Compton,
with the retinue of the Bishop of Winchester, and Master Wolsey, the
king's almoner,[400] to the number of viij. hundred, was in manner of a
rereward. Sir Anthony Oughtred and Sir John Nevell, with the kinges speres
that followed, were foure hundred; and so the whole armie were xj.
thousand and iij. hundred men. The Mayster of the Ordinaunce set forth the
kinges artillerie, as fawcons, slinges, bombardes, cartes with powder,
stones, bowes, arrowes, and suche other thinges necessary for the fielde;
the whole number of the carriages were xiij. hundreth; the leaders and
dryvers of the same were xix hundreth men; and all these were rekened in
the battaile, but of good fightyng men there were not full ix. thousande.
Thus in order of battayle the king rode to Sentreyla."
[Illustration: _Pikeman._]
A little after we have a description of the king's camp, which will
illustrate the other pictures above noted.
"Thursedaie, the fourth daye of Auguste, the king, in good order of
battaile, came before the city of Tyrwyn, and planted his siege in most
warlike wise; his camp was environed with artillerie, as fawcons,
serpentines, crakys, hagbushes, and tryed harowes, spien trestyles, and
other warlike defence for the savegard of the campe. The king for himselfe
had a house of timber, with a chimney of iron; and for his other lodgings
he had great and goodlye tents of blewe waterworke, garnished with yellow
and white, and divers romes within the same for all officers necessarie.
On the top of the pavalions stoode the kinges bestes, holding fanes, as
the lion, the dragon, the greyhound, the antelope, the Done Kowe.[401]
Within, all the lodginge was paynted full of the sunnes rising: the
lodginge was a hundred xxv. foote in length."
At folio 5 of the MS. already referred to (Aug. III.) is a connected
arrangement of numerous tents, as if to form some such royal quarters. But
at folio 8 are two gorgeous _suites_ of tents, which can hardly have been
constructed for any other than a very great personage. One _suite_ is of
red, watered, with gold ornamentation; the other is of green and white
stripes (or rather gores), with a gilded cresting along the ridge, and red
and blue fringe at the eaves.
Our next engravings are from coloured drawings at f. 9, in the same MS.,
and respectively represent very clearly the half-armour worn by the
pikeman and the arquebusier, and the weapons from which they took their
name.
In the reign of Elizabeth and James I. armour was probably very little
worn; but every country knight and esquire possessed a suit of armour,
which usually hung in his hall over his chair of state, surrounded by
corslets and iron hats, pikes and halberts, cross-bows and long-bows,
wherewith to arm his serving-men and tenants, if civil troubles or foreign
invasion should call the fighting-men of the country into the field.[402]
The knights and esquires of these times are also commonly represented in
armour, kneeling at the prayer-desk, in their monumental effigies. The
fashion of the armour differs from that of preceding reigns. The elaborate
ingenuities of the latter part of the fifteenth century have been
dispensed with, and the extravagant caprices also by which the armour of
Henry VIII.'s time imitated in steel the fashion of the ordinary costume
of the day are equally abandoned. The armour is simply made to fit the
breast, body, arms, and legs; the thighs being protected by a modification
of the _tuilles_ in the form of a succession of overlapping plates
(_tassets_ or _cuisses_) which reach from the corslet to the knee.
[Illustration: _Arquebusier._]
The civil war of the Great Rebellion offers a tempting theme, but we must
limit ourselves to the notice that few, except great noblemen when acting
as military leaders, ever wore anything like a complete suit of armour. A
beautiful suit, inlaid with gold, which belonged to Charles I., is in the
Tower armoury. But knights are still sometimes represented in armour in
their monumental effigies. A breast and back-plate over a leather coat,
and a round iron cap, were commonly worn both by cavalry and infantry.
In the time of Charles II. and James II., and William and Mary, officers
still wore breastplates, and military leaders were sometimes painted in
full armour, though it may be doubted whether they ever actually wore it.
As late as the present century, officers, in some regiments at least, wore
a little steel gorget, rather as a distinction than a defence. But even
yet our horse-guards remain with their breast and back-plates and helmets,
and their thick leather boots, to show us how bright steel and scarlet,
waving plumes and embroidered banners, trained chargers and gay trappings,
give outward bravery and chivalric grace to the holiday aspect of the
sanguinary trade of war.
THE MERCHANTS OF THE MIDDLE AGES.
CHAPTER I.
THE BEGINNINGS OF BRITISH COMMERCE.
In the remotest antiquity, before European civilisation dawned in Greece,
Britain was already of some commercial importance. In those days, before
the art of tempering iron was discovered, copper occupied the place which
iron now fills. But an alloy of tin was requisite to give to copper the
hardness and edge needed to fit it for useful tools for the artisan, for
arrow and spear heads for the hunter, and for the warrior's sword and
shield; and there were only two places known in the world where this
valuable metal could be obtained--Spain and Britain. For ages the
Phoenician merchants and their Carthaginian colonists had a monopoly of
this commerce, as they only had the secret of the whereabouts of the
"Isles of Tin." It is very difficult for us to realise to ourselves how
heroic was the daring of those early adventurers. We, who have explored
the whole earth, and by steam and telegraph brought every corner of it
within such easy reach; we, to whom it is a very small matter to make a
voyage with women and children to the other side of the world; we, who
walk down to the pier to see the ships return from the under world,
keeping their time as regularly as the Minster clock--we cannot comprehend
what it was to them, to whom the tideless sunny Mediterranean was "The
Great Sea," about which they groped cautiously from one rocky headland to
another in fine weather, and laid up in harbour for the winter; to whom
the Pillars of Hercules were the western boundary of the world, beyond
which the weird ocean with its great tides and mountain-waves stretched
without limit towards the sunset; we cannot comprehend the heroic daring
of the men who, in those little ships, without compass, came from the
easternmost shores of the Great Sea, ventured through its western portal
into this outer waste, and steered boldly northwards towards the unknown
regions of ice and darkness.
Our readers will remember that Strabo tells us how, when Rome became the
rival of Carthage, the Romans tried to discover the route to these
mysterious islands. He relates how the master of a Carthaginian vessel,
finding himself pursued by one whom the Romans had appointed to watch him,
purposely ran his vessel aground, and thus sacrificing ship and cargo to
the preservation of the national secret, was repaid on his return out of
the public treasury.
The trade, which included lead and hides as well as tin, when it left the
hands of the Phoenicians, did not, however, fall into those of the Romans,
but took quite a different channel. The Greek colony of Marseilles became
then the emporium from which the world was supplied; but the scanty
accounts we have received imply that it was not conveyed there direct on
ship-board, but that the native ships and traders of the Gallic towns on
the coasts of the Continent conveyed the British commerce across the
Channel, and thence transported it overland to Marseilles.
The Britons, however, had ships, and it is interesting to know of what
kind were the prototypes of the vast and magnificent vessels which in
later days have composed the mercantile navy of Great Britain. They were a
kind of large basket of wickerwork, in shape like a walnut shell,
strengthened by ribs of wood, covered on the outside with hides.[403] Such
constructions seem very frail, but they were capable of undertaking
considerable voyages. Pliny quotes the old Greek historian Timæus as
affirming that the Britons used to make their way to an island at the
distance of six days' sail in boats made of osiers and covered with
skins. Solinus states that in his time the communication between Britain
and Ireland was kept up on both sides by means of these vessels. Two
passages in Adamson, quoted by Macpherson,[404] tell us that the people
sailed in them from Ireland as far as Orkney, and on one occasion we hear
of one of these frail vessels advancing as far into the Northern Ocean as
fourteen days with full sail before a south wind. The common use of such
vessels, and the fact of this intercommunication between England and
Ireland and the islands farther north, seem to imply, at least, some
coasting and inter-insular traffic: ships are the instruments either of
war or commerce.
The invasion of Julius Cæsar opened up the island to the knowledge of the
civilised world, and there are indications that in the interval of a
hundred years between his brief campaign and the actual conquest under
Claudius, a commerce sprang up between the south and south-east of Britain
and the opposite coasts of the Continent. In this interval the first
British coinage was struck, and London became the chief emporium of
Britain. When the island became a province of the Roman empire, active
commercial intercourse was carried on between it and the rest of the
empire. Its chief production was corn, of which large quantities were
exported, so that Britain was to the northern part of the empire what
Sicily was to the southern. Besides, the island exported cattle, hides,
and slaves; British hunting dogs were famous, and British oysters and
pearls. The imports would include all the articles of convenience and
luxury used by the civilised inhabitants. We do not know with certainty
whether this foreign commerce was carried on by British vessels or not.
History has only preserved the record of the military navy. But when we
know that the British fleet, which had been raised to control the
piratical enterprises of the Saxons and Northmen, was so powerful that its
admiral, Carausius, was able to seize upon a share of the empire, and that
his successor in command, Allectus, was able, though for a shorter period,
to repeat the exploit, we may conclude that the natives of the island must
have acquired considerable knowledge and experience of maritime affairs,
and were very likely to turn their acquirements in the direction of
commerce. Many of the representations of Roman ships, to be found in works
on Roman antiquities, would illustrate this part of the subject; we may
content ourselves with referring the reader to a representation, in
Witsen's "Sheeps Bouw," of a Roman ship being laden with merchandise: a
half-naked porter is just putting on board a sack, probably of corn, which
is being received by a man in Roman armour; it brings the salient features
of the trade at once before our eyes.
The Saxon invasion overwhelmed the civilisation which was then widely
spread over Britain; and of the history of the country for a long time
after that great event we are profoundly ignorant.
It appears that the Saxons after their settlement in England completely
neglected the sea, and it was not until the reign of Alfred, towards the
end of the ninth century, that they again began to build ships, and not
until some years later that foreign commerce was carried on in English
vessels. In these later Saxon times, however, considerable intercourse
took place with the Continent. There was a rage among Saxon men, and women
too, for foreign pilgrimages; and thousands of persons were continually
going and coming between England and the most famous shrines of Europe,
especially those of Rome, the capital city of Western Christendom. Among
these travellers were some whose object was traffic, probably in the
portable articles of jewellery for which the Saxon goldsmiths were famous
throughout Europe. It seems probable that some of these merchants were
accustomed to adopt the pilgrims' character and habit in order to avail
themselves of the immunities and hospitalities accorded to them; and,
perhaps, on the other hand, some of those whose first object was religion,
carried a few articles for sale to eke out their expenses. This, probably,
is the explanation of the earliest extant document bearing on Saxon
commerce, which is a letter from the Emperor Charlemagne to Offa, King of
the Mercians, in which he says: "Concerning the strangers, who, for the
love of God and the salvation of their souls, wish to repair to the
thresholds of the blessed Apostles, let them travel in peace without any
trouble; nevertheless, if any are found among them not in the service of
religion, but in the pursuit of gain, let them pay the established duties
at the proper places. We also will that merchants shall have lawful
protection in our kingdom; and if they are in any place unjustly
aggrieved, let them apply to us or our judges, and we shall take care that
ample justice be done them." The latter clause seems clearly to imply that
English merchants in their acknowledged character were also to be found in
the dominions of the great Emperor.
The next notice we find of Saxon foreign commerce is equally picturesque,
and far more important. It is a law passed in the reign of King Athelstan,
between 925 and 950, which enacts that every merchant who shall have made
three voyages over the sea in a ship and cargo of his own should have the
rank of a thane, or nobleman. It will throw light upon this law, if we
mention that it stands side by side with another which gives equally
generous recognition to success in agricultural pursuits: every one who
had so prospered that he possessed five hides of land, a hall, and a
church, was also to rank as a thane.
The law indicates the usual way in which foreign commerce was carried on
by native merchants. The merchant owned his own ship, and laded it with
his own cargo, and was his own captain, though he might, perhaps, employ
some skilful mariner as his ship-master; and, no doubt, his crew was well
armed for protection from pirates. In these days a ship is often chartered
to carry a cargo to a particular port, and there the captain obtains
another cargo, such as the market affords him, to some other port, and so
he may wander over the world in the most unforeseen manner before he finds
a profitable opportunity of returning to his starting-place. So, probably,
in those times the spirited merchant would not merely oscillate between
home and a given foreign point, but would carry on a traffic of an
adventurous and hazardous but exciting kind, from one of the great
European ports to another.
From a volume of Saxon dialogues in the British Museum (Tiberius, A.
III.), apparently intended for a school-book, which gives information of
various kinds in the form of question and answer, Mr. S. Turner quotes a
passage that illustrates our subject in a very interesting way. The
merchant is introduced as one of the characters, to give an account of his
occupation and way of life. "I am useful," he says, "to the king and to
ealdormen, and to the rich, and to all people. I ascend my ship with my
merchandise, and sail over the sea-like places, and sell my things, and
buy dear things which are not produced in this land, and I bring them to
you here with great danger over the sea; and sometimes I suffer shipwreck
with the loss of all my things, scarcely escaping myself." The question,
"What do you bring us?" demands an account of the imports, to which he
answers, "Skins, silks, costly gems, and gold; various garments, pigment,
wine, oil, ivory, and onchalcus (perhaps brass); copper, tin, silver,
glass, and such like." The author has omitted to make his merchant tell us
what things he exported, but from other sources we gather that they were
chiefly wool, slaves, probably some of the metals, viz., tin and lead, and
the goldsmith's work and embroidery for which the Saxons were then famous
throughout Europe. The dialogue brings out the principle which lies at the
bottom of commerce by the next question, "Will you sell your things here
as you bought them there?" "I will not, because what would my labour
profit me? I will sell them here, dearer than I bought them there, that I
may get some profit to feed me, my wife, and children." For the silks and
ivory, our merchant would perhaps have to push his adventurous voyage as
far as Marseilles or Italy. Corn, which used to be the chief export in
British and Roman times, appears never to have been exported by the
Saxons; they were a pastoral, rather than an agricultural, people. The
traffic in slaves seems to have been regular and considerable. The reader
will remember how the sight of a number of fair English children exposed
for sale in the Roman market-place excited Gregory's interest, and led
ultimately to Augustine's mission. The contemporary account of Wolfstan,
Bishop of Worcester, at the time of the Conquest, speaks of similar scenes
to be witnessed in Bristol, from which port slaves were exported to
Ireland--probably to the Danes, who were then masters of the east coast.
"You might have seen with sorrow long ranks of young people of both sexes,
and of the greatest beauty, tied together with ropes, and daily exposed to
sale: nor were these men ashamed--O horrid wickedness--to give up their
nearest relations, nay their own children, to slavery." The good bishop
induced them to abandon the trade, "and set an example to all the rest of
England to do the same." Nevertheless, William of Malmesbury, who wrote
nearly a century later, says that the practice of selling even their
nearest relations into slavery had not been altogether abandoned by the
people of Northumberland in his own memory.
Already, on the death of Ethelbert, in 1016, the citizens of London had
arrived at such importance, that, in conjunction with the nobles who were
in the city, they chose a king for the whole English nation, viz., Edmund
Ironside; and again on the death of Canute, in 1036, they took a
considerable part in the election of Harold. At the battle of Hastings the
burgesses of London formed Harold's body-guard. A few years previously,
Canute, on his pilgrimage to Rome, met the Emperor Conrade and other
princes, from whom he obtained for all his subjects, whether merchants or
pilgrims, exemption from the heavy tolls usually exacted on the journey to
Rome.
During the peaceful reign of Edward the Confessor a much larger general
intercourse seems to have sprung up with the Continent, and the commerce
of England to have greatly increased. For this we have the testimony of
William of Poictiers, William the Conqueror's chaplain, who says, speaking
of the time immediately preceding the Conquest, "The English merchants to
the opulence of their country, rich in its own fertility, added still
greater riches and more valuable treasures. The articles imported by them,
notable both for their quantity and their quality, were to have been
hoarded up for the gratification of their avarice, or to have been
dissipated in the indulgence of their luxurious inclinations. But William
seized them, and bestowed part on his victorious army, and part on the
churches and monasteries, while to the Pope and the Church of Rome he sent
an incredible mass of money in gold and silver, and many ornaments that
would have been admired even in Constantinople."
We are not able to give any authentic contemporary illustration of the
shipping of this period. Those which are given by Strutt are not really
representations of the ships of the period: Byzantine Art still exercised
a powerful influence over Saxon Art, and the illuminators frequently gave
traditional forms; and the ships introduced by Strutt, though executed by
a Saxon artist, are probably copied from Byzantine authorities. The Bayeux
tapestry is probably our earliest trustworthy authority for a British
ship, and it gives a considerable number of illustrations of them,
intended to represent in one place the numerous fleet which William the
Conqueror gathered for the transport of his army across the Channel; in
another place the considerable fleet with which Harold hoped to bar the
way. The one we have chosen is the duke's own ship; it displays at its
mast-head the banner which the Pope had blessed, and the trumpeter on the
high poop is also an evidence that it is the commander's ship. In the
present case the trumpeter is known, from contemporary authority, to have
been only wood gilded; but in many of the subsequent illustrations we
shall also find a trumpeter, or usually two, who were part of the staff of
the commander, and perhaps were employed in signalling to other ships of
the fleet.
[Illustration: _William the Conqueror's Ship._]
The Conquest checked this thriving commerce. William's plunder of the
Saxon merchants, which was probably not confined to London, must have
gone far to ruin those who were then engaged in it; the general depression
of Saxon men for a long time after would prevent them or others from
reviving it; and the Normans themselves were averse from mercantile
pursuits. In the half-century after the Conquest we really know little or
nothing of the history of commerce. The charters of the first Norman kings
make no mention of it. Stephen's troubled reign must have been very
unfavourable to it. Still foreign merchants would seek a market where they
could dispose of their goods, and the long and wise reign of Henry II.
enabled English commerce, not only to recover, but to surpass its ancient
prosperity. An interesting account of London, given by William
FitzStephen, about 1174, in the introduction to a Life of à Becket, gives
much information on our subject: he says that "no city in the world sent
out its wealth and merchandise to so great a distance," but he does not
enumerate the exports. Among the articles brought to London by foreign
merchants he mentions gold, spices, and frankincense from Arabia; precious
stones from Egypt; purple cloths from Bagdad; furs and ermines from Norway
and Russia; arms from Scythia; and wines from France. The citizens he
describes as distinguished above all others in England for the elegance of
their manners and dress, and the magnificence of their tables. There were
in the city and suburbs thirteen large conventual establishments and 120
parish churches. He adds that the dealers in the various sorts of
commodities, and the labourers and artizans of every kind, were to be
found every day stationed in their several distinct places throughout the
city, and that a market was held every Friday in Smithfield for the sale
of horses, cows, hogs, &c.; the citizens were distinguished from those of
other towns by the appellation of barons; and Malmesbury, an author of the
same age, also tells us that from their superior opulence, and the
greatness of the city, they were considered as ranking with the chief
people or nobility of the kingdom.
The great charter of King John provided that all merchants should have
protection in going out of England and in coming back to it, as well as
while residing in the kingdom or travelling about in it, without any
impositions or payments such as to cause the destruction of their trade.
During the thirteenth century, it seems probable that much of the foreign
commerce of the country was carried on by foreign merchants, who imported
chiefly articles of luxury, and carried back chiefly wool, hides, and
leather, and the metals found in England. But there were various
enactments to prevent foreign merchants from engaging in the domestic
trade of the country. In the fourteenth century commerce received much
attention from government, and many regulations were made in the endeavour
to encourage it, or rather to secure as much of its profits as possible to
English, and leave as little as possible to foreign, merchants. Our limits
do not allow us to enter into details on the subject, and our plan aims
only at giving broad outside views of the life of the merchants of the
Middle Ages.
Let us introduce here an illustration of the ships in which the commerce
was conducted. Perhaps the only illustration to be derived from the MS.
illuminations of the thirteenth century is one in the Roll of St. Guthlac,
which is early in the century, and gives a large and clear picture of St.
Guthlac in a ship with a single mast and sail, steered by a paddle
consisting of a pole with a short cross handle at the top, like the poles
with which barges are still punted along, and expanding at bottom into a
short spade-like blade. Some of the seals of this century also give rude
representations of ships: one of H. de Neville gives a perfectly
crescent-shaped hull with a single mast supported by two stays; that of
Hugo de Burgh has a very high prow and stern, which reminds us of the
build of modern _prahus_. Another, of the town of Monmouth, has a more
artistic representation of a ship of similar shape, but the high prow and
stern are both ornamented with animals' heads, like the prow of William
the Conqueror's ship. The Psalter of Queen Mary, which is of early
fourteenth-century date, gives an illustration of the building of Noah's
ark, which is a ship of the shape found in the Bayeux tapestry, with a
sort of house within it. The illustration we give opposite from the Add.
MS. 3,983, f. 6, was also executed early in the fourteenth century, and
though rude it is valuable as one of the earliest examples of a ship with
a rudder of the modern construction; it also clearly indicates the fact
that these early vessels used oars as well as sails. The usual mode of
steering previous to, and for some time subsequent to, this time was with
a large broad oar at the ship's counter, worked in a noose of rope (a
_gummet_) or through a hole in a piece of wood attached to the vessel's
side. The first mode will be found illustrated in the Add. MS. 24,189, at
f. 30, and the second at f. 5 in the same MS. The men of this period were
not insensible to the value of a means of propelling a vessel
independently of the wind; and employed human muscle as their motive
power. Some of the great trading cities of the Mediterranean used galleys
worked by oars, not only for warfare, but for commercial purposes: _e.g._
in 1409 A.D., King Henry granted to the merchants of Venice permission to
bring their carracks, galleys, and other vessels, laden with merchandise,
to pass over to Flanders, return and sell their cargoes without
impediment, and sail again with English merchandise and go back to their
own country.
[Illustration: _A Ship, Early Fourteenth Century._]
A very curious and interesting MS. (Add. 27,695) recently acquired by
the British Museum, which appears to be of Genoese Art, and of date
about A.D. 1420, enables us to give a valuable illustration of our
subject. It occupies the whole page of the MS.; we have only given the
lower half, of the size of the original. It appears to represent the
siege of Tripoli. The city is in the upper part of the page; our cut
represents the harbour and a suburb of the town. It is clearly indicated
that it is low water, and the high-water mark is shown in the drawing by a
different colour. Moreover, a timber pier will be noticed, stretching out
between high and low-water mark, and a boat left high and dry by the
receding tide. In the harbour are ships of various kinds, and especially
several of the galleys of which we have spoken. The war-galley may be
found fully illustrated in Witsen's "Sheep's Bouw," p. 186.
[Illustration: _A Harbour in the Fourteenth Century._]
[Illustration: _An Early Representation of the Whale Fishery._]
The same MS., in the lower margin of folio 9 v., has an exceedingly
interesting picture of a whaling scene, which we are very glad to
introduce as a further illustration of the commerce and shipping of this
early period. It will be seen that the whale has been killed, and the
successful adventurers are "cutting out" the blubber very much after the
modern fashion.
CHAPTER II.
THE MERCHANT NAVY.
The history of the merchant navy in the Middle Ages is very much mixed up
with that of the military navy.
In the time of the earlier Norman kings we seem not to have had any
war-ships. The king had one or two ships for his own uses, and hired or
impressed others when he needed them; but they were only ships of burden,
transports by which soldiers and munitions of war were conveyed to the
Continent and back, as occasion required. If hostile vessels encountered
one another at sea, and a fight ensued, it seems to have been a very
simple business: the sailors had nothing to do with the fighting, they
only navigated the ships; the soldiers on board discharged their missiles
at one another as the ships approached, and when the vessels were laid
alongside, they fought hand to hand. The first ships of war were a revival
of the classical war-galleys. We get the first clear description of them
in the time of Richard I., from Vinesauf, the historian of the second
Crusade. He compares them with the ancient galleys, and says the modern
ones were long, low in the water, and slightly built, rarely had more than
two banks of oars, and were armed with a "spear" at the prow for
"ramming." Gallernes were a smaller kind of galleys with only one bank of
oars.
From this reign the sovereign seems to have always maintained something
approaching to a regular naval establishment, and to have aimed at keeping
the command of the narrow seas. In the reign of John we find the king had
galleys and galliases, and another kind of vessels which were probably
also a sort of galley, called "long ships," used to guard the coasts,
protect the ports, and maintain the police of the seas.
The accompanying drawing, from one of the illuminations in the famous
MS. of Froissart's Chronicle, in the British Museum (Harl. 4,379), is
perhaps one of the clearest and best contemporary illustrations we have of
these mediæval galleys. It will be seen that it consists of a long low
open boat, with outrigger galleries for the rowers, while the hold is
left free for merchandise, or, as in the present instance, for
men-at-arms. It has a forecastle like an ordinary ship; the shields of the
men-at-arms who occupy it are hung over the bulwarks; the commander stands
at the stern under a pent-house covered with tapestry, bearing his shield,
and holding his leader's truncheon. A close examination of the drawing
seems to show that there are two men to each oar; we know from other
sources that several men were sometimes put to each oar. The difference in
costume between the soldiers and the sailors is conspicuous. The former
are men-at-arms in full armour--one on the forecastle is very distinctly
shown; the sailors are entirely unarmed, except the man at the stroke-oar,
probably an officer, who wears an ordinary hat of the period, the rest
wear the hood drawn over the head. The ship in the same illustration is an
ordinary ship of burden, filled with knights and men-at-arms; the
trumpeters at the stern indicate that the commander of the fleet is on
board this ship; he will be seen amidships, with his visor raised and his
face towards the spectator, with shield on arm and truncheon in hand.
[Illustration: _Ship and Galley._]
If the reader is curious to see illustrations of the details of a naval
combat, there are a considerable number to be found in the illuminated
MSS.; as in MS. Nero, D. iv., at folio 214, of the latter part of the
thirteenth century; in some tolerably clearly drawn in the "Chronique de
S. Denis" (Royal, 20, cvii.), of the time of our Richard II., at folio 18,
and again at folio 189 v. Other representations of ships occur at folios
25, 26 v., 83, 136 v. (a bridge of boats), 189 v., and 214 of the same MS.
These ships continued to a late period to be small compared with our
notion of a ship, and most rude in their arrangements. They were great
undecked boats, with a cabin only in the bows, beneath the raised platform
which formed the forecastle; and the crew of the largest ships was usually
from twenty-five to thirty men. An illumination in the MS. of Froissart's
Chronicle (Harl. 4,379), folio 104 v., shows a ship, in which a king and
his suite are about to embark, from such a point of view that we see the
interior of the ship in the perspective, and find that there is a cabin
only in the prow. The earliest notice of cabins occurs in the year A.D.
1228, when a ship was sent to Gascony with some effects of the king's,
and 4_s._ 6_d._ was paid for making a chamber in the same ship for the
king's wardrobe, &c. In A.D. 1242 the king and queen went to Gascony; and
convenient chambers were ordered to be built in the ship for their
majesties' use, which were to be wainscoted--like that probably in Earl
Richard of Warwick's ship in the present woodcut. This engraving, taken
from Rouse's MS. Life of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick (British
Museum, Julius, E. IV.), of the latter part of the fourteenth century,
gives a very clear representation of a ship and its boat. The earl is
setting out on his pilgrimage to the Holy Land. In the foreground we see
him with his pilgrim's staff in hand, stepping into the boat which is to
carry him to his ship lying at anchor in the harbour. The costume of the
sailors is illustrated by the men in the boat. The vessel is a ship of
burden, but such a one as kings and great personages had equipped for
their own uses; resembling an ordinary merchant-ship in all essentials,
but fitted and furnished with more than usual convenience and
sumptuousness. In Earl Richard's ship the sail is emblazoned with his
arms, and the pennon, besides the red cross of England, has his badges of
the bear and ragged staff; the ragged staff also appears on the castle at
the mast-head. The castle, which all ships of this age have at the stern,
is in this case roofed in and handsomely ornamented, and no doubt formed
the state apartment of the earl. There is also a castle at the head of the
ship, though it is not very plainly shown in the drawing. It consists of a
raised platform, the round-headed entrance to the cabin beneath it is seen
in the picture; the two bulwarks also which protect it at the sides are
visible, though their meaning is not at first sight obvious. A glance at
the forecastle of the other ships in our illustrations will enable the
reader to understand its construction and use. Besides the boat which is
to convey the earl on board, another boat will be seen hanging at the
ship's quarter.
[Illustration: _Ship of Richard Earl of Warwick._]
The next woodcut is taken from the interesting MS. in the British Museum
(Add. 24,189, f. 3 v.), from which we have borrowed other illustrations,
containing pictures of subjects from the travels of Sir John Mandeville.
We have introduced it to illustrate two peculiarities: the first is the
way of steering by a paddle passed through a gummet of rope, still, we
see, in use in the latter part of the fourteenth century, long after the
rudder had been introduced; and the use of lee-boards to obviate the
lee-way of the ship, and make it hold its course nearer to the wind. The
high, small, raised castle in the stern is here empty, and the forecastle
is curiously defended by a palisade, instead of the ordinary bulwarks.
Another representation of the use of lee-boards occurs at folio 5 of the
same MS.
[Illustration: _Sir J. Mandeville on his Voyage to Palestine._]
But though the royal navy was small, as we have said, in case of need
there was a further naval force available. The ancient ports of Kent and
Sussex, called the Cinque Ports, with their members (twelve neighbouring
ports incorporated with them), were bound by their tenure, upon forty
days' notice, to supply the king with fifty-seven ships, containing
twenty-one men and a boy in each ship, for fifteen days, once in the year,
at their own expense, if their service was required. Thus _e.g._ a mandate
of the 18th Rich. II., addressed to John de Beauchamp, Constable of Dover
Castle, and Warden of the Cinque Ports, after reciting this obligation,
requires fifty-seven ships, each having a master and twenty men well armed
and arrayed to meet him at Bristol; stating further, that at the
expiration of the fifteen days the ships and men should be at the king's
own charges and pay, so long as he should have the use of them, viz., the
master of each ship to have 6_d._, the constable 6_d._, and each of the
other men 3_d._, per day.
In the year A.D. 1205 we have a list of royal galleys and vessels of war
ready for service; and it is instructive to see where they were stationed:
there were at London 5, Newhaven 2, Sandwich 3, Romney 4, Rye 2,
Winchelsea 2, Shoreham 5, Southampton 2, Exeter 2, Bristol 3, Ipswich 2,
Dunwich 5, Lyme 5, Yarmouth 3, in Ireland 5, at Gloucester 1--total 51;
and the Cinque Ports furnished 52; so that there were ready for sea more
than 100 galleys or "men-of-war."
If the occasion required a greater force than that which the Cinque Ports
were required to furnish, the king was at liberty to issue his royal
mandate, and impress merchant ships. Thus, in May, 1206 A.D., the Barons
of the Cinque Ports were commanded to be at Portsmouth by a certain date
with all the service they owed; and writs were also issued to all such
merchants, masters, and seamen, as might meet the king's messengers on the
sea, to repair to Portsmouth, and enter the king's service; and the royal
galleys were sent to cruise at sea to arrest ships and send them in.
Again, in A.D. 1442, the Commons in Parliament stated the necessity of
having an armed force upon the sea, and pointed out the number of ships
and men that it would be proper to employ: viz., eight ships with
fore-stages carrying 150 men each, and that there should be attendant upon
each ship a barge carrying eighty men, and a balynfer carrying forty men;
and that four spynes, or pinnaces, carrying twenty-five men each, would be
necessary. The Commons also pointed out the individual ships which it
recommended to be obtained to compose this force: viz., at Bristol the
_Nicholas of the Tower_, and _Katherine of Burtons_; at Dartmouth the
Spanish ship that was the Lord Poyntz's, and Sir Philip Courtenay's great
ship. In the port of London two great ships, one called _Trinity_, and the
other _Thomas_. At Hull a great ship called Taverner's, the name
_Grace-dieu_. At Newcastle a great ship called _The George_. They also
state where the barges, balynfers, and pinnaces may be obtained. Some of
these may have been royal ships, but not all of them. Of the _Grace-dieu_
of Hull, we know from Rymer (xi., 258) that John Taverner of Hull,
mariner, having made a ship as large as a great carrack, or larger, had
granted to him that the said ship, by reason of her unusual magnitude,
should be named the _Grace-dieu_ carrack, and enjoy certain privileges in
trade.
On a great emergency, a still more sweeping impressment of the mercantile
fleet was made: _e.g._, Henry V., in his third year, directed Nicholas
Manslyt, his sergeant-at-arms, to arrest all ships and vessels in every
port in the kingdom, of the burden of twenty tons and upwards, for the
king's service; and Edward IV., in his fourteenth year, made a similar
seizure of all ships of over sixteen tons burden. On the other hand, the
king hired out his ships to merchants when they were not in use. Thus, in
1232 A.D., John Blancboilly had the custody of King Henry III.'s great
ship called the _Queen_, for his life, to trade wherever he pleased,
paying an annual rent of eighty marks; and all his lands in England were
charged with the fulfilment of the contract. In 1242 directions were given
to surrender the custody of the king's galleys in Ireland to the sailors
of Waterford, Drogheda, and Dungaroon, to trade with in what way they
could, taking security for their rent and restoration.
The royal ships, however, maintained the police of the seas very
inefficiently, and a _petite guerre_ seems to have been carried on
continually between the ships of different countries, and even between the
ships of different seaports; while downright piracy was not at all
uncommon. When these injuries were inflicted by the ships of another
nation, the injured men often sought redress through their own government
from the government of the people who had injured them, and the mediæval
governments generally took up warmly any such complaints. But the
merchants not unfrequently took the law into their own hands. In the
twelfth century, _e.g._, it happened to a merchant of Berwick, Cnut by
name, that one of his ships, having his wife on board, was seized by a
piratical Earl of Orkney, and burnt. Cnut spent 100 marks in having
fourteen stout vessels suitably equipped to go out and punish the
offender. And so late as 1378 a sort of private naval war was carried on
between John Mercer, a merchant of Perth, and John Philpott of London.
Mercer's father had for some time given assistance to the French by
harassing the merchant ships of England; and in 1377, being driven by foul
weather on the Yorkshire coast, he was caught, and imprisoned in
Scarborough Castle. Thereupon the son carried on the strife. Collecting a
little fleet of Scottish, French, and Spanish ships, he captured several
English merchantmen off Scarborough, slaying their commanders, putting
their crews in chains, and appropriating their cargoes. Philpott, the
mayor of London, at his own cost, collected a number of vessels, put in
them 1,000 armed men, and sailed for the north. Within a few weeks he had
retaken the captured vessels, had effectually beaten their captors, and,
in his turn, had seized fifteen Spanish ships laden with wine, which came
in his way. On his return to London he was summoned before the council to
answer for his conduct in taking an armed force to sea without the king's
leave. But he boldly told the council: "I did not expose myself, my money,
and my men to the dangers of the sea that I might deprive you and your
colleagues of your knightly fame, nor that I might win any for myself, but
in pity for the misery of the people and the country, which from being a
noble realm with dominion over other nations, has through your supineness
become exposed to the ravages of the vilest race, and since you would not
lift a hand in its defence, I exposed myself and my property for the
safety and deliverance of our country."
The ships of the Cinque Ports seem to have been at frequent feud with
those of the other ports of the kingdom (see Matthew Paris under A.D.
1242). For example, in 1321 Edward II. complained of the great dissension
and discord which existed between the people of the privileged Cinque
Ports and the men and mariners of the western towns of Poole, Weymouth,
Melcombe, Lyme, Southampton, &c.; and of the homicide, depredation,
ship-burning, and other evil acts resulting therefrom. But in place of
taking vigorous measures to repress these disorders, the king did not
apparently find himself able to do more than issue a proclamation against
them.
When so loose a morality prevailed among seafaring men, and the police of
the seas was so badly maintained, it follows almost as a matter of course
that piracy should flourish. The people of Brittany, and especially the
men of St. Malo, at one time were accustomed to roam the sea as the old
sea-kings did, plundering merchant-ships, making descents on the coasts of
England, exacting contributions and ransoms from the towns. In the time of
Alfred it would seem by one of his laws as if English vessels sometimes
pillaged their own coasts.[405]
About the year 1242 a Sir William de Marish, who was accused of murder and
treason, took refuge in the Isle of Lundy, whence he robbed the
merchantmen passing to and fro, and made descents on the coast. He was
building a galley in which to carry on his piracies when he was taken and
hanged.
The spirit that lingered to very recent times among the "wreckers" of
remote spots on our coast seems to have prevailed largely in the days of
which we are writing. A foreigner was regarded as a "natural enemy," and
his ships and goods as a legitimate prize, when they could be seized with
impunity. So in 1227 A.D. we find a mariner named Dennis committed to
Newgate for being present when a Spanish ship was plundered and her crew
slain at Sandwich. In the same year the inhabitants of some towns in
Norfolk were accused of robbing a Norwegian ship. And, to give a later
example, in 1470 some Spanish merchants applied to King Edward IV. for
compensation for the loss of seven vessels, alleged to have been
piratically taken from them by the people of Sandwich, Dartmouth,
Plymouth, and Jersey. Yet there is a Saxon law as early as King Ethelred,
which gives immunities to merchant ships, even in time of war, which the
Council of Paris a few years ago hardly equalled:--"If a merchant ship,
even if it belonged to an enemy, entered any port in England, she was to
have 'frith,' that is peace, and freedom from molestation, provided it was
not driven or chased into port; but even if it were chased, and it reached
any frith burgh, and the crew escaped into the burgh, then the crew and
whatever they brought with them were to have 'frith.'"
The shipping of the time of Henry VIII. is admirably illustrated in
Holbein's famous painting at Hampton Court. The great vessel of his reign,
the _Henri Grace à Dieu_, is also illustrated in the _Archæologia_. Both
these subjects are so well-known, or so easily accessible, that we do not
think it necessary to reproduce them here. In the MS. Aug. 1, will be
found a large size drawing of a galley intended to be built for King Henry
VIII.
The discovery of the sea-passage to India, and of the new world, opened up
to commerce a new career of heroic adventure and the prospect of fabulous
wealth. England was not backward in entering upon this course. In truth,
although Sebastian Cabot was not an Englishman by birth, we claim the
honour of his discoveries for England, inasmuch as he was resident among
us, and was fitted out from Bristol, at the cost of English merchants, on
his voyages of discovery. It was in this career--which was part discover,
part conquest, part commerce--that our Hawkinses, and Drakes, and
Frobishers, and Raleighs were trained. And besides those historic names,
there were scores of men who fitted out ships and entered upon the roads
these pioneers had opened up, and completed their discoveries, and created
the commerce whose possibility they had indicated.
The limitation of our subject to the mediæval period forbids us to enter
further upon this tempting theme. But we may complete our brief series of
illustrations of merchant shipping by giving a picture of one of the
gallant little ships--little, indeed, compared with the ships which are
now employed in our great lines of sea-traffic--in which those heroes
accomplished their daring voyages. The woodcut is a reproduction from the
frontispiece of one of Hulsius' curious tracts on naval affairs, and
represents the ship _Victoria_, in which Magellan sailed round the world,
passing through the straits to which he gave his name. The epitaph that
the author has subjoined to the engraving tells briefly the story of the
famous ship:--
"Prima ego velivolvis ambivi cursibus orbem
Magellane novo te duce ducta freto.
Ambivi meritoque dicor _Victoria_: Sunt mihi
Vela, alæ, precium, gloria, pugna, mare."
The ship, it will be seen, is not very different in general features from
those of the Middle Ages which we have been considering. It has the high
prow and stern with their castles, it has shields outside the bulwarks, in
imitation of the way in which, as we have seen in former illustrations,
the mediæval men-at-arms hung their shields over the bulwark of the ship
in which they sailed. But it has decks (apparently two), and is armed with
cannon at the bows and stern.
[Illustration: _The Ship Victoria._]
CHAPTER III.
THE SOCIAL POSITION OF THE MEDIÆVAL MERCHANTS.
Though the commerce of England has now attained to such vast dimensions,
and forms so much larger a proportion of the national wealth and greatness
than at any former period, yet we are inclined to think that, in the times
of which we write, the pursuit of commerce held a higher and more
honourable place in the esteem of all classes than it does with us.
It is true that one class was then more distinctly separated from another,
by costume and some external habits of life; the knight and the franklin,
the monk and the priest, the trader and the peasant, always carried the
badges of their position upon them; and we, with our modern notions, are
apt to think that the man who was marked out by his very costume as a
trader must have been "looked down upon" by what we call the higher
classes of society. No doubt something of this feeling existed; but not,
we think, to the same extent as now. Trade itself was not then so meanly
considered. Throughout the Middle Ages the upper classes were themselves
engaged in trade in various ways. In the disposal of the produce of his
estates the manorial lord engaged in trade, and purchased at fairs and
markets the stores he needed for himself and his numerous dependants.
Noblemen and bishops, abbots and convents, nay kings themselves, in the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, had ships which, commanded and manned
by their servants, traded for their profit with foreign countries. In the
thirteenth century the Cistercian monks had become the greatest
wool-merchants in the kingdom. In the fifteenth century Edward IV. carried
on a considerable commerce for his own profit. Just as now, when noblemen
and gentlemen commonly engage in agriculture, and thus farming comes to be
considered less vulgar than trade, so, then, when dignified ecclesiastics,
noblemen, and kings engaged in trade, it must have helped to soften caste
prejudices against the professional pursuit of commerce.[406]
A considerable number of the traders of the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries were cadets of good families. Where there were half a dozen sons
in a knightly family, the eldest succeeded to the family estate and
honours: of the rest, one might become a lawyer; another might have a
religious vocation, and, as a secular priest, take the family living, or
obtain a stall in the choir of the neighbouring monastery; a third might
prefer the profession of arms, and enter into the service of some great
lord or of the king, or find employment for his sword and lance, and pay
for himself and the dozen men who formed the "following of his lance," in
the wars which seldom ceased in one part of Europe or another; another son
might engage in trade, either in a neighbouring town or in one of the
great commercial cities of the time, as Bristol, Norwich, or London.[407]
The leading men of the trading class stood side by side with the leading
men of the other classes. They were consulted by the king on the affairs
of the kingdom, were employed with bishops and nobles on foreign
embassies, were themselves ennobled. And the greatness which men attain in
any class reflects honour on the whole class. The Archbishop of
Canterbury's high position gives social consideration to the poor curate,
who may one day also be archbishop; and the Lord Chancellor's to the now
briefless barrister who may attain to the woolsack. The great free towns
of the German Empire reflected honour on every town of Europe; and the
merchant princes of Venice and Florence and the Low Countries on the
humblest member of their calling.
But what, perhaps, more than anything else tended to maintain the social
consideration of traders, was their incorporation into wealthy and
powerful guilds; and the civil freedom and political weight of the towns.
The rather common-looking man, in a plain cloth gown and flat cap, jogging
along the high road on a hack, with great saddle-bags, is not to be
compared in appearance with the knight who prances past him on a spirited
charger, with a couple of armed servants at his heels; and the trader
pulls his horse to the side of the road, and touches his bonnet as the
cavalcade passes him in a cloud of dust; but the knight glances at his
fellow-traveller's hood as he passes, and recognises in him a member of
the great Guild of Merchants of the Staple, and returns his courtesy. The
nobleman, jostling at court against a portly citizen in a furred gown with
a short dagger and inkhorn at his belt, sees in him an alderman of one of
those great towns by whose help the king maintains the balance of power
against the feudal aristocracy. Yet, after all, why should the merchant be
"a rather common-looking man," and the alderman a "portly citizen"? We are
all apt to let our sober sense be fooled by our imagination. Thus we are
apt to have in our minds abstract types of classes of men: our ideal
knight is gallant in bearing, gay in apparel, chivalrous in character;
while our ideal merchant is prosaic and closefisted in character, plain
and uncourtly in manner and speech. A moment's thought would be enough to
remind us that Nature does not anticipate or adapt herself to class
distinctions: the knight and the merchant, we have seen, might be
brothers, reared up in the same old manor-house; and the elder son might
be naturally a clown, though fortune made him Sir Hugh; while the cadet
might be full of intelligence and spirit, dignified and courteous, though
fortune had put a flat cap instead of a helmet on his head, and a pen
instead of a lance into his hand.
Our plan limits us to mere glances at the picturesque outside aspect of
things. Let us travel across England, and see what we can learn on our
subject from the experiences of our journey. A right pleasant journey,
too, in the genial spring-time or early summer. It must be taken on
horseback; for, though sometimes we shall find ourselves on a highway
between one great town and another, yet, for the most part, our road is
along bridle-paths, across heath and moor; through miles of "greenwood;"
across fords; over wide unenclosed wolds and downs dotted with sheep;
through valleys where oxen feed in the deep meadowland; with comparatively
little arable, covered with the green blades of rye and barley, oats, and
a little wheat--
"Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the wold and meet the sky."
Now and then we ride through a village of cottages scattered about the
village-green; and see, perhaps, the parish-priest, in cassock and
biretta, coming out of the village-church from his mass. Further on we
pass the moated manor-house of a country knight, or the substantial old
timber-built house of a franklin, with the blue wood-smoke puffing in a
volume out of the louvre of the hall, and curling away among the great
oak-trees which overshadow it. We may stay there and ask for luncheon, and
be sure of a hearty welcome: Chaucer tells us,
"His table dormant in the hall alway
Stands ready covered, all the longe day."
Then a strong castle comes in sight on a rising ground, with its
picturesque group of walls and towers, and the donjon-tower rising high in
the midst, surmounted by the banner of its lord. We seek out the
monasteries for their hospitable shelter at nights: they are the inns of
mediæval England; and we gaze in admiration as we approach them and enter
their courts. From outside we see a great enclosure-wall, over which rise
the clerestories and towers of a noble minster-church; and when we have
entered through the gate-house we find the cloister court, with its
convent buildings for the monks, and another court of offices, and the
guest-house for the entertainment of travellers, and the abbot's-house--a
separate establishment, with a great hall and chambers and chapel, like
the manor-house of a noble; so that, surrounded by its wall, with strong
entrance-towers, the monastery looks like a great castle or a little town;
and we doff our hats to the dignified-looking monk who is ambling out of
the great gate on his mule, as to the representative of the noble
community which has erected so grand a house, and maintains there its
hospitalities and charities, schools and hospitals, and offers up, seven
times a day in the choir, a glorious service of praise to Almighty God,
and of prayer for the welfare of His church and people. But from time to
time, also, we approach and ride through the towns, which are studded as
thickly over the land as castles or monasteries. Each surrounded by a fair
margin of common meadowland, out of which rise the long line of strong
walls with angle towers, with picturesque machicolations and overhanging
pent-houses; and the great gate-towers with moat, drawbridge, and
barbican. Over the wall numerous church-towers and spires are seen rising
from a forest of gables, making a goodly show. We enter, and find wide
streets of handsome picturesque houses, with abundance of garden and
orchard ground behind them, and guildhalls and chapels, the head-quarters
of the various guilds and companies. The traders are wealthy, and indulge
in conveniences which are rare in the franklin's house, and even the
lord's castle; and live a more refined mode of life than the old rude, if
magnificent, feudal life. Look at the extent of the town, at its strong
defences; estimate the wealth it contains; think of the clannish spirit of
its guilds; see the sturdy burghers, who turn out at the sound of the
town-bell, in half armour, with pike and bow, to man the walls; consider
the chiefs of the community, men of better education, wider experience of
the world, deeper knowledge of political affairs, than most of their
countrymen, many of them of the "gentleman" class by birth and breeding,
men of perfect self-respect, and of high public spirit. If our journey
terminates at one of the seaports, as Hull, or Lynn, or Dover, or Hythe,
or Bristol, we find--in addition to the usual well-walled town, with
houses and noble churches and guildhalls--a harbour full of
merchant-ships, and exchanges full of foreign merchants; and we soon learn
that these are the links which join England to the rest of the world in a
period of peace, and enable her in time of war to make her power felt
beyond the seas. Many of these towns have inherited their walls and their
civic freedom from Roman times: they stood like islands amid the flood of
the Saxon invasion; they received their charters from Norman kings, and
maintained them against Norman barons. Each of them is a little republic
amidst the surrounding feudalism; each citizen is a freeman, when
everybody else is the sworn liege-man of some feudal lord.
These experiences of our ride across England will have left their strong
impressions on our minds. The castles will have impressed our minds with a
sense of the feudal power and chivalric state of the territorial class;
and the monasteries with admiration of the grandeur and learning and
munificence and sanctity of the religious orders; and the towns with a
feeling of solid respect for the wealth and power and freedom and
civilisation of the trader class of the people.
[Illustration: _Entry of Queen Isabel of Bavaria into Paris_, A.D. 1389.]
Our first illustration forms part of a large picture in the great Harleian
MS. of Froissart's Chronicle (Harl. 2,397, f. 3), and represents Isabel
of Bavaria, Queen of Charles VII., making her entry into Paris attended
by noble dames and lords of France, on Sunday, 20th of August, in the year
of our Lord 1389. There was a great crowd of spectators, Froissart tells
us, and the _bourgeois_ of Paris, twelve hundred, all on horseback, were
ranged in pairs on each side of the road, and clothed in a livery of gowns
of baudekyn green and red. The Queen, seated in her canopied litter,
occupies the middle of the picture, in robe and mantle of blue powdered
with _fleur-de-lis_, three noblemen walking on each side in their robes
and coronets. The page and ladies, who follow on horseback, are not given
in our woodcut. The Queen has just arrived at the gate of the city;
through the open door may be seen a bishop (? the Archbishop of Paris) in
a cope of blue powdered with gold _fleur-de-lis_, holding a gold and
jewelled box, which perhaps contains the chrism for her coronation. On the
wall overlooking the entrance is the king with ladies of the court, and
perched on the angle of the wall is the court jester in his cap and
bauble. On the left of the picture are the burgesses of Paris; their short
gowns are of green and red as described; the hats, which hang over their
shoulders, are black. On the opposite side of the road (not represented in
the cut) is another party of burgesses, who wear their hats, the bands
falling on each side of the face. In the background are the towers and
spires of the city, and the west front of Notre-Dame, rising picturesquely
above the city-wall.
Some of the merchant-princes of the Middle Ages have left a name which is
still known in history, or popular in legend. First, there is the De la
Pole family, whose name is connected with the history of Hull.
Wyke-upon-Hull was a little town belonging to the convent of Selby, when
Edward III. saw its capabilities and bought it of the monks, called it
Kingston-upon-Hull, and, by granting trading and civil privileges to it,
induced merchants to settle there. De la Pole, a merchant of the
neighbouring port of Ravensern, was one of the earliest of these
immigrants; and Hull owes much of its greatness to his commercial genius
and public spirit. Under his inspiration bricks were introduced from the
Low Countries to build its walls and the great church: much of the latter
yet remains. He rose to be esteemed the greatest merchant in England.
Edward III. honoured him by visiting him at his house in Hull, and in
time made him Chief Baron of his Exchequer, and a Knight Banneret. In the
following reign we find him engaged, together with the most distinguished
men in the kingdom, in affairs of state and foreign embassies. His son,
who also began life as a merchant at Hull, was made by Richard II. Earl of
Suffolk and Lord Chancellor. In the end a royal alliance raised the
merchant's children to the height of power; and designs of a still more
daring ambition at length brought about their headlong fall and ruin.
William Cannynges, of Bristol, was another of these great merchants. On
his monument in the magnificent church of St. Mary Redcliffe, of which he
was the founder, it is recorded that on one occasion Edward IV. seized
shipping of his to the amount of 2,470 tons, which included ships of 400,
500, and even 900 tons.
Richard Whittington, the hero of the popular legend, was a London
merchant, thrice Lord Mayor. He was not, however, of the humble origin
stated by the legend, but a cadet of the landed family of Whittington, in
Gloucestershire. What is the explanation of the story of his cat has not
been satisfactorily made out by antiquaries. Munificence was one of the
characteristics of these great merchants. De la Pole, we have seen, built
the church at Hull; Cannynges founded one of the grandest parish churches
yet remaining in all England; Whittington founded the College of the Holy
Spirit and St. Mary, a charitable foundation which has long ceased to
exist. Sir John Crosby was an alderman of London in the reign of Edward
IV., and allied his family with the highest nobility. His house still
remains in Bishopsgate, the only one left of the great city merchants'
houses: Stowe describes it as very large and beautiful, and the highest at
that time in London. Richard III. took up his residence and received his
adherents there, when preparing for his usurpation of the crown.
Monuments remaining to this day keep alive the memory of other great
merchants, which would otherwise have perished. In the series of
monumental brasses, several of the earliest and most sumptuous are
memorials of merchants. There was an engraver of these monuments living in
England in the middle of the fourteenth century, whose works in that
style of art have not been subsequently surpassed: Gough calls him the
"Cellini of the fourteenth century." He executed a grand effigy for Thomas
Delamere, abbot of St. Alban's Abbey; and the same artist executed two
designs, no less sumptuous and meritorious as works of art, for two
merchants of the then flourishing town of Lynn, in Norfolk. One is to Adam
de Walsokne, "formerly burgess of Lynn," who died in 1349 A.D., and
Margaret his wife; it contains very artistically drawn effigies of the two
persons commemorated, surmounted by an ornamental canopy on a diapered
field. The other monumental brass represents Robert Braunche, A.D. 1364,
and his two wives. A feature of peculiar interest in this design is a
representation, running along the bottom, of an entertainment which
Braunche, when mayor of Lynn, gave to King Edward III. There was still a
third brass at Lynn, of similar character, of Robert Attelathe--now, alas!
lost. Another monument, apparently by the same artist, exists at Newark,
to the memory of Alan Fleming, a merchant, who died in 1361 A.D.
Hundreds of churches yet bear traces of the munificence of these mediæval
traders. The noble churches which still exist in what are now
comparatively small places, in Lincolnshire, Norfolk, and Suffolk, are
monuments of the merchants of the staple who lived in those eastern
counties; and monuments, and merchants' marks, and sometimes inscriptions
cut in stone or worked in flint-work in the fabrics themselves, afford
data from which the local antiquary may glean something of their history.
Many interesting traces of mediæval traders' houses remain too in
out-of-the-way places, where they seem quite overlooked. The little town
of Coggeshall, for example, is full of interesting bits of domestic
architecture--the traces of the houses of the "Peacockes" and other
families, merchants of the staple and clothmakers, who made it a
flourishing town in the fifteenth century; the monumental brasses of some
of them remain in the fine perpendicular church, which they probably
rebuilt. Or, to go to the other side of the kingdom, at the little town of
Northleach, among the Cotswold Hills, is a grand church, with evidences in
the sculpture and monuments that the wool-merchants there contributed
largely to its building. It contains an interesting series of small
monumental brasses, which preserve their names and costumes, and those of
their wives and children; and the merchants' marks which were painted on
their woolpacks appear here as honourable badges on their monuments. There
are traces of their old houses in the town.
A general survey of all these historical facts and all these antiquarian
remains will confirm the assertion with which we began this chapter, that
at least from the early part of the fourteenth century downwards, the
mediæval traders earned great wealth and spent it munificently, possessed
considerable political influence, and occupied an honourable social
position beside the military and ecclesiastical orders.
We must not omit to notice the illustrations which our subject may derive
from Chaucer's ever-famous gallery of characters. Here is the merchant of
the Canterbury cavalcade of merry pilgrims:--
"A merchant was there with a forked beard,
In mottély, and high on horse he sat,
And on his head a Flaundrish beaver hat,
His bote's clapsed fayre and fetisly,[408]
His reasons spake he full solempnely,
Sounding alway the increase of his winning,
He would the sea were kept, for any thing,
Betwixen Middleburgh and Orewell.
Well could he in exchanges sheldes[409] sell,
This worthy man full well his wit beset;
There weste no wight that he was in debt,
So steadfastly didde he his governance
With his bargeines and with his chevisance,[410]
Forsooth he was a worthy man withal;
But, sooth to say, I n'ot how men him call."[411]
Of the trader class our great author gives us also some examples:--
"An haberdasher and a carpenter,
A webber, a dyer, and a tapiser,
Were all yclothed in one livery,
Of a solempne and great fraternitie,
Full fresh and new their gear y-piked was
Their knives were ychaped, not with brass.
But all with silver wrought full clene and well,
Their girdles and their pouches every deal.
Well seemed each of them a fair burgess
To sitten in a gild-hall on the dais.
Each one for the wisdom that he can,
Was likely for to be an alderman.
For chattles hadden they enough and rent,
And eke their wives would it well assent,
And elles certainly they were to blame,
It is full fair to be ycleped madame,
And for to go to vigils all before,
And have a mantle royally upbore."
The figures on the next page from a monument to John Field, Alderman of
London, and his son, are interesting and characteristic. Mr. Waller, from
whose work on monumental brasses the woodcut is taken, has been able to
discover something of the history of Alderman Field. John Field, senior,
was born about the beginning of the fifteenth century, but nothing is
known of his early life. In 1449 he had clearly risen to commercial
eminence in London, since he was in that year appointed one of fifteen
commissioners to treat with those of the Duke of Burgundy concerning the
commercial interests of the two countries in general, and specially to
frame regulations for the traffic in wool and wool-fells brought to the
staple at Calais. Of these commissioners five were of London, three of
Boston, three of Hull, and one of Ipswich. These names, says Mr. Waller,
probably comprise the chief mercantile wealth and intelligence in the
eastern ports of the kingdom at this period. In 1454 he was made sheriff,
and subsequently was elected alderman, but never served the office of
mayor; which, says the writer, may be accounted for by the fact that in
the latter part of his life he was afflicted with bodily sickness, and on
that ground in 1463 obtained a grant from the then lord mayor, releasing
him from all civic services. The alderman acquired large landed estates in
Kent and Hertfordshire, in which he was succeeded by his eldest son John,
the original of the second effigy, who only survived his father the short
term of three years.
The brasses have been inlaid with colour; the alderman's gown of the
father with red enamel, and its fur-lining indicated by white metal; the
tabard of arms of the son is also coloured according to its proper
heraldic blazoning--_gules_, between three eagles displayed _argent_,
_guetté de sangue_, a fesse _or_. The unfinished inscription runs, "Here
lyeth John Feld, sometyme alderman of London, a merchant of the stapull of
Caleys, the which deceased the xvj day of August, in the yere of our Lord
God mcccclxxiiij. Also her' lyeth John his son, squire, y{e} which
deceased y{e} iiij day of May y{e} yere of".... The monumental slab is
ornamented with four shields of arms: the first of the city of London, the
second of the merchants of the staple, the third bears the alderman's
merchant's-mark, and the fourth the arms which appear on the tabard of his
son, the esquire, to whom, perhaps, they had been specially granted by the
College of Arms. The father's costume is a long gown edged with fur, a
leather girdle from which hang his gypcire (or purse) and rosary, over
which is worn his alderman's gown. The son wears a full suit of armour of
the time of Edward IV., with a tabard of his arms. The execution of the
brass is unusually careful and excellent.
[Illustration: _Monumental Brass of Alderman Field and his Son_, A.D.
1474.]
The third woodcut, from the Harleian MS. 4,379, f. 64, represents the
execution, in Paris, of a famous captain of robbers, Aymerigol Macel. The
scaffold is enclosed by a hoarding; at the nearer corners are two friars,
one in brown and one in black, probably a Franciscan and a Dominican; the
official, who stands with his hands resting on his staff superintending
the executioner, has a gown of red with sleeves lined with white fur, his
bonnet is black turned up also with white fur. In the background are the
timber houses on one side of the place, with the people looking out of
their windows; a signboard will be seen standing forth from one of the
houses. The groups of people in the distance and those in the foreground
give the costumes of the ordinary dwellers in a fourteenth-century city.
The man on the left has a pink short gown, trimmed with white fur; his
hat, the two ends of a liripipe hanging over his shoulders, and his purse
and his hose, are black. The man on his right has a long blue gown and red
hat and liripipe; the man between them and a little in front, a brown long
gown and black hat. The man on horseback on the left wears a very short
green gown, red hose, and black hat; the footman on his left, a short
green gown and red hat and liripipe; and the man on his left, a black
jacket and black hat fringed. The man on horseback, with a foot-boy behind
holding on by the horse's tail, has a pink long gown, black hat and
liripipe, purse, and girdle; the one on the right of the picture, a long
blue gown with red hat, liripipe, and purse. Just behind him (unhappily
not included in the woodcut) is a touch of humour on the part of the
artist. His foot-boy is stealing an apple out of the basket of an
apple-woman, who wears a blue gown and red hood, with the liripipe tucked
under her girdle; she has a basket of apples on each arm, and another on
her head. Still further to the right is a horse whose rider has
dismounted, and the foot-boy is sitting on the crupper behind the saddle
holding the reins.
[Illustration: _An Execution in Paris._]
The last cut is taken from the painted glass at Tournay of the fifteenth
century, and represents _marchands en gros_. This illustration of a
warehouse with the merchant and his clerk, and the men and the casks and
bales, and the great scales, in full tide of business, is curious and
interesting.
Chaucer once more, in the "Shipman's Tale," gives us an illustration of
our subject. Speaking of a merchant of St. Denys, he says:--
"Up into his countour house goth he,
To reken with himselvin, wel may be,
Of thilke yere how that it with him stood,
And how that he dispended had his good,
And if that he encreased were or non.
His bookes and his bagges many one
He layeth before him on his counting bord.
Ful riche was his tresor and his hord;
For which ful fast his countour done he shet,
And eke he n'olde no man shuld him let
Of his accountes for the mene time;
And thus he sat till it was passed prime."
[Illustration: _Marchands en Gros, Fifteenth Century._]
The counting-board was a board marked with squares, on which counters were
placed in such a way as to facilitate arithmetical operations.
We have also a picture of him setting out on a business journey attended
by his apprentice:--
"But so bifell this marchant on a day
Shope him to maken ready his array
Toward the town of Brugges for to fare
To byen there a portion of ware.
* * * * *
The morrow came, and forth this marchant rideth
To Flaundersward, his prentis wel him gideth.
Til he came into Brugges merily.
Now goth this marchant fast and bisily
About his nede, and bieth and creanceth;
He neither playeth at the dis ne danceth,
But as a marchant shortly for to tell
He ledeth his lif, and ther I let him dwell."
CHAPTER IV.
MEDIÆVAL TRADE.
It is difficult at first to believe it possible that the internal trade of
mediæval England was carried on chiefly at great annual fairs for the
wholesale business, at weekly markets for the chief towns, and by means of
itinerant traders, of whom the modern pedlar is the degenerate
representative, for the length and breadth of the country. In order to
understand the possibility, we must recall to our minds how small
comparatively was the population of the country. It was about two millions
at the Norman Conquest, it had hardly increased to four millions by the
end of the fifteenth century, it was only five millions in the time of
William III. Nearly every one of our towns and villages then existed; but
the London, and Bristol, and Norwich, and York of the fourteenth century,
though they were relatively important places in the nation, were not
one-tenth of the size of the towns into which they have grown. Manchester,
and Leeds, and Liverpool, and a score of other towns, existed then, but
they were mere villages; and the country population was thinly scattered
over a half-reclaimed, unenclosed, pastoral country.
To begin with the fairs. The king exercised the sole power of granting the
right to hold a fair. It was sought by corporations, monasteries, and
manorial lords, in order that they might profit, first by the letting of
ground to the traders who came to dispose of their wares, next by the
tolls which were levied on all merchandise brought for sale, and on the
sales themselves; and then indirectly by the convenience of getting a near
market for the produce the neighbourhood had to sell, and for the goods it
desired to buy.
The annexed woodcut, from the MS. Add. 24,189, represents passengers
paying toll on landing at a foreign port, and perhaps belongs in
strictness to an earlier part of our subject. The reader will notice the
picturesque custom-house officers, the landing-places, and the indications
of town architecture. The next illustration, from painted glass at Tournay
(from La Croix and Seré's "Moyen Age et la Renaissance") shows a group of
people crossing the bridge into a town, and the collector levying the
toll. The oxen and pigs, the country-wife on horseback, with a lamb laid
over the front of her saddle, represent the country-people and their
farm-produce; the pack-horse and mule on the left, with their flat-capped
attendant, are an interesting illustration of the itinerant trader
bringing in his goods. The toll-collector seems to be, from his dress and
bearing, a rather dignified official, and the countryman recognises it by
touching his hat to him. The river and its wharves, and the boats moored
alongside, and the indication of the town gates and houses, make up a very
interesting sketch of mediæval life.
[Illustration: _Passengers paying Toll._]
[Illustration: _Traders entering a Town._]
There were certain great fairs to which traders resorted from all parts of
the country. The great fair at Nijni Novgorod, and in a lesser degree the
fair of Leipsic, remain to help us to realise such gatherings as
Bartholomew Fair used to be. Even now the great horse-fair at Horncastle,
and the stock-fair at Barnet, may help us to understand how it answered
the purpose of buyers and sellers to meet annually at one general
rendezvous. The gathering into one centre of the whole stock on sale and
the whole demand for it, was not only in other ways a convenience to
buyers and sellers, but especially it regulated the general prices current
of all vendibles, and checked the capricious variations which a
fluctuating local supply and demand would have created in the then
condition of the country and of commerce. The king sometimes, by
capricious exercises of his authority in the subject of fairs, seriously
interfered with the interests of those who frequented them--_e.g._ by
granting license to hold a new fair which interfered with one already
established; by licensing a temporary fair, and forbidding trade to be
carried on elsewhere during its continuance. Thus in 1245 A.D. Henry II.
proclaimed a fair at Westminster to be held for fifteen days, and required
all the London traders to shut up their shops and bring their goods to the
fair. It happened that the season was wet; few consequently came to the
fair, and the traders' goods were injured by the rain which penetrated
into their temporary tents and stalls. He repeated the attempt to benefit
Westminster four years afterwards, with a similar result.
Of course when great crowds were gathered together for days in succession,
and money was circulating abundantly, there would be others who would seek
a profitable market besides the great dealers in woolfels and foreign
produce. The sellers of ribbands and cakes would be there, purveyors of
food and drink for the hungry and thirsty multitude, caterers for the
amusement of the people, minstrels and jugglers, exhibitors of
morality-plays and morrice-dancers, and still less reputable people. And
so, besides the men who came for serious business, there would be a mob
of pleasure-seekers also. The crowd of people of all ranks and classes
from every part of the country, with the consequent variety of costume in
material, fashion, and colour--the knight's helm and coat of mail, or
embroidered _jupon_ and plumed bonnet, the lady's furred gown and jewels,
the merchant's sober suit of cloth, the minstrel's gay costume and the
jester's motley, the monk's robe and cowl, and the peasant's smockfrock,
continually in motion up and down the streets of the temporary canvas
town, the music of the minstrels, the cries of the traders, the loud talk
and laughter of the crowd--must have made up a picturesque scene, full of
animation.
When the real business of the country had found other channels, the fairs
still continued--and in many places still continue--as mere
"pleasure-fairs;" still the temporary stalls lining the streets, and the
drinking-booths and shows, preserve something of the old usages and
outward aspect, though, it must be confessed, they are dreary, desolate
relics of what the mediæval fairs used to be. The fair was usually
proclaimed by sound of trumpet, before which ceremony it was unlawful to
begin traffic, or after the conclusion of the legal term for which the
fair was granted. A court of _pie-poudre_ held its sittings for the
cognizance of offences committed in the fair. Many of our readers will
remember the spirited description of such a fair in Sir Walter Scott's
novel of "The Betrothed."
In the great towns were shops in which retail trade was daily carried on,
but under very different conditions from those of modern times. The
various trades seem to have been congregated together, and the trading
parts of the town were more concentrated than is now the case; in both
respects resembling the bazaars of Eastern towns. Thus in London the
tradesmen had shops in the Cheap, which resembled sheds, and many of them
were simply stalls. But they did not limit themselves to their dealings
there; they travelled about the country also. The mercers dealt in toys,
drugs, spices, and small wares generally; their stocks being of the same
miscellaneous description as that of a village-shop of the present day.
The station of the mercers of London was between Bow Church and Friday
Street, and here round the old cross of Cheap they sold their goods at
little standings or stalls, surrounded by those belonging to other trades.
The trade of the modern grocer was preceded by that of the pepperer,
which was often in the hands of Lombards and Italians, who dealt also in
drugs and spices. The drapers were originally manufacturers of cloth; to
drape meaning to make cloth. The trade of the fishmonger was divided into
two branches, one of which dealt exclusively in dried fish, then a very
common article of food. The goldsmiths had their shops in the street of
Cheap; but fraudulent traders of their craft, and not members of their
guild, set up shops in obscure lanes, where they sold goods of inferior
metal. A list of the various trades and handicrafts will afford a general
idea of the trade of the town. Before the 50th of Edward III. (1376 A.D.)
the "mysteries" or trades of London, who elected the Common Council of the
city, were thirty-two in number; but they were increased by an ordinance
of that year to forty-eight, which were as follows:--grocers, masons,
ironmongers, mercers, brewers, leather-dressers, drapers, fletchers,
armourers, fishmongers, bakers, butchers, goldsmiths, skinners, cutlers,
vintners, girdlers, spurriers, tailors, stainers, plumbers, saddlers,
cloth-measurers, wax-chandlers, webbers, haberdashers, barbers,
tapestry-weavers, braziers, painters, leather-sellers, salters, tanners,
joiners, cappers, pouch-makers, pewterers, chandlers, hatters,
woodmongers, fullers, smiths, pinners, curriers, horners.
As a specimen of a provincial town we may take Colchester. A detailed
description of this town in the reign of Edward III. shows that it
contained only 359 houses, some built of mud, others of timber. None of
the houses had any but latticed windows. The town-hall was of stone, with
handsome Norman doorway. It had also a royal castle, three or more
religious houses--one a great and wealthy abbey--several churches, and was
surrounded by the old Roman wall. The number of inhabitants was about
three thousand. Yet Colchester was the capital of a large district of
country, and there were only about nine towns in England of greater
importance. In the year 1301 all the movable property of the town,
including the furniture and clothing of the inhabitants, was estimated,
for the purpose of a taxation, to be worth £518, and the details give us a
curious picture of the times. The tools of a carpenter consisted of a
broad axe, value 5_d._, another 3_d._, an adze 2_d._, a square 1_d._, a
_noveyn_ (probably a spokeshave) 1_d._, making the total value of his
tools 1_s._ The tools and stock of a blacksmith were valued at only a few
shillings, the highest being 12_s._ The stock-in-trade and household goods
of a tanner were estimated at £9 17_s._ 10_d._ A mercer's stock was valued
at £3, his household property at £2 9_s._ The trades carried on there were
the twenty-nine following:--Baker, barber, blacksmith, bowyer, brewer,
butcher, carpenter, carter, cobbler, cook, dyer, fisherman, fuller,
furrier, girdler, glass-seller, glover, linen-draper, mercer and
spice-seller, miller, mustard and vinegar seller, old clothes-seller,
tailor, tanner, tiler, weaver, wood-cutter, and wool-comber. Our woodcut,
from the MS. Add. 27,695, which has already supplied us with several
valuable illustrations, represents a mediæval shop of a high class,
probably a goldsmith's. The shopkeeper eagerly bargaining with his
customer is easily recognised, the shopkeeper's clerk is making an entry
of the transaction, and the customer's servant stands behind him, holding
some of his purchases; flagons and cups and dishes seem to be the
principal wares; heaps of money lie on the table, which is covered with a
handsome tablecloth, and in the background are hung on a "perch," for
sale, girdles, a hand-mirror, a cup, a purse, and sword.
[Illustration: _A Goldsmith's Shop._]
Here, from "Le Pélerinage de la Vie Humaine," in the French National
Library,[412] is another illustration of a mediæval shop. This is a
mercer's, and the merceress describes her wares in the following lines:--
"Quod sche, 'Gene[413] I schal the telle
Mercerye I have to selle
In boystes,[414] soote oynementes,[415]
Therewith to don allegementes[416]
To ffolkes which be not gladde,
But discorded and malade.
I have kyves, phylletys, callys,
At ffestes to hang upon walles;
Kombes no mo than nyne or ten,
Bothe for horse and eke ffor men;
Mirrours also, large and brode,
And ffor the syght wonder gode;
Off hem I have ffull greet plenté,
For ffolke that haven volunté
Byholde himselffe therynne.'"
In some provincial towns, as Nottingham, the names of several of the
streets bear witness to an aggregation of traders of the same calling.
Bridlesmith Gate was clearly the street in which the knights and yeomen of
the shire resorted for their horse-furniture and trappings, and in the
open stalls of Fletcher Gate sheaves of arrows were hung up for sale to
the green-coated foresters of neighbouring Sherwood. The only trace of
the custom we have left is in the butcheries and shambles which exist in
many of our towns, where the butchers' stalls are still gathered together
in one street or building.
[Illustration: _French National Library._]
But the greater part of the trade of the towns was transacted on
market-days. Then the whole neighbourhood flocked in, the farmers to sell
their farm produce, their wives and daughters with their poultry and
butter and eggs for the week's consumption of the citizens, and to carry
back with them their town-purchases. In every market-town there was
usually a wide open space--the market-place--for the accommodation of this
weekly traffic; in the principal towns were several market-places,
appropriated to different kinds of produce: _e.g._ at Nottingham, besides
the principal market-place--a vast open space in the middle of the town,
surrounded by overhanging houses supported on pillars, making open
colonnades like those of an Italian town--there was a "poultry" adjoining
the great market, and a "butter-cross" in the middle of a small square, in
which it is assumed the women displayed their butter. In an old-fashioned
provincial market-town, the market-day is still the one day in the week on
which the streets are full of bustle and the shops of business, while on
the other days of the week the town stagnates; it must have been still
more the case in the old times of which we write. In some instances there
seems reason to think a weekly market was held in places which had hardly
any claim to be called towns--mere villages, on whose green the
neighbourhood assembled for the weekly market. Round the green, perhaps, a
few stalls and booths were erected for the day; pedlars probably supplied
the shop element; and artificers from neighbouring towns came in for the
day, as in some of our villages now the saddler and the shoemaker and the
watchmaker attend once a week to do the makings and mendings which are
required. There are still to be seen in a few old-fashioned towns and
remote country places market-crosses in the market-place or on the
village-green. They usually consist of a tall cross of stone, round the
lower part of whose shaft a penthouse of stone or wood has been erected to
shelter the market-folks from rain and sun. There is such a cross at
Salisbury; a good example of a village market-cross at Castle Combe, in
Gloucestershire, one of wood at Shelford, in Cambridgeshire, and many
others up and down the country, well worthy of being collected and
illustrated by the antiquary before they are swept away. Our illustration,
from the painted glass at Tournay, represents a market scene, the women
sitting on their low stools, with their baskets of goods displayed on the
ground before them. The female on the left seems to be filling up her time
by knitting; the woman on the right is paying her market dues to the
collector, who, as in the cut on p. 505, is habited as a clerk. The
background appears to represent a warehouse, where transactions of a
larger kind are going on.
[Illustration: _A Market Scene._]
But the inhabitants of rural districts were not altogether dependent on a
visit to the nearest market for their purchases. The pursuit of gain
enlisted the services of numerous itinerant traders, who traversed the
land in all directions, calling at castle and manor house, monastery,
grange, and cottage; and by the tempting display of pretty objects, and
the handy supply of little wants, brought into healthy circulation many a
silver penny which would otherwise have jingled longer in the owner's
_gypcire_, or rested in the hoard in the homely stocking-foot. An entry in
that mine of curious information, the York Fabric Rolls, reveals an
incident in the pedlar's mode of dealing. It is a presentation, that is, a
complaint, made to the Archbishop by the churchwardens of the parish of
Riccall, in Yorkshire, under the date 1519 A.D. They represent, in the
dog-Latin of the time: "_Item, quod Calatharii_ (_Anglice_ Pedlars),
_veniunt diebus festis in porticum ecclesiæ et ibidem vendunt mercimonium
suum_." That _Calatharii_--that is to say, Pedlars--come into the
church-porch on feast-days, and there sell their merchandise. From another
entry in the same records it seems that sometimes the chapmen congregated
in such numbers that the gathering assumed the proportions of an irregular
weekly market. Thus among the presentations in 1416, is one from St.
Michael de Berefredo, St. Michael-le-Belfry, in the city of York, which
states, "The parishioners say that a common market of vendibles is held in
the churchyard on Sundays and holidays, and divers things and goods and
rushes are exposed there for sale." The complaint is as early as the
fourth century; for we find St. Basil mentioning as one abuse of the great
church-festivals, that men kept markets at these times and places under
colour of making better provision for the feasts which were kept thereat.
The presentation from Riccall carries us back into the old times, and
enables us to realise a picturesque and curious incident in their
primitive mode of life. A little consideration will enable us to see how
such a practice arose, and how it could be tolerated by people who had at
least so much respect for religion as to come to church on Sundays and
holidays. When we call to mind the state of the country districts, half
reclaimed, half covered with forest and marsh and common, traversed
chiefly by footpaths and bridle-roads, we shall understand how isolated a
life was led by the inhabitants of the country villages and hamlets, and
farmhouses and out-lying cottages. It was only on Sundays and holidays
that neighbours met together. On those days the goodman mounted one of his
farm-horses, put his dame behind him on a pillion, and jogged through deep
and miry ways to church, while the younger and poorer came sauntering
along the footpaths. One may now stand in country churchyards on a Sunday
afternoon, and watch the people coming in all directions, across the
fields, under copse, and over common, climbing the rustic styles, crossing
the rude bridge formed by a tree-trunk thrown over the sparkling
trout-stream, till all the lines converge at the church porch. And one has
felt that those paths--many of them ploughed up every year and made every
year afresh by the feet of the wayfarer--are among the most venerable
relics of ancient times. And here among the ancient laws of Wales is one
which assures us that our conjecture is true: "Every habitation," it says,
"ought to have two good paths (convenient right of road), one to its
church, and one to its watering-place." Very pleasant in summer these
church-paths to the young folks who saunter along them in couples or in
groups, but very disagreeable in wet wintery weather, and in difficult at
all times to the old and infirm. Another presentation out of the York
Fabric Rolls, gives us a contemporary picture of these church paths, seen
under a gloomy aspect: In A.D. 1472, the people of Haxley complain to the
Archdeacon that they "inhabit so unresonablie fer from ther parisch
cherche that the substaunce (majority) of the said inhabitauntes for
impotensaye and feblenes, farrenes (farness == distance) of the way, and
also for grete abundance of waters and perlouse passages at small brigges
for peple in age and unweldye, between them and ther next parische
cherche, they may not come with ese or in seasonable tyme at ther saide
parische cherche as Cristen people should, and as they wold," and so they
pray for leave and help for a chaplain of their own.
We must remember, too, that our ante-Reformation forefathers did not hold
modern doctrines concerning the proper mode of observing Sundays and
holydays. They observed them more in the way which makes us still call a
day of leisure and recreation a "holiday;" they observed them all in much
the same spirit as we still observe some of them, such as Christmas-day
and Whitsuntide. When they had duly served God at _matins_ and mass, they
thought it no sin to spend the rest of the day in lawful occupations, and
rather laudable than otherwise to spend it in innocent recreations. The
Riccall presentation gives us a picture which, no doubt, might have been
seen in many another country-place on a Sunday or saint-day. The pedlar
lays down his pack in the church-porch--and we will charitably suppose
assists at the service--and then after service he is ready to spread out
his wares on the bench of the porch before the eyes of the assembled
villagers and make his traffickings, ecclesiastical canons to the contrary
notwithstanding, and so save himself many a weary journey along the
devious ways by which his customers have to return in the evening to their
scattered homes. The complaint of the churchwardens does not seem to be
directed against the traffic so much as against its being conducted in the
consecrated precincts. Let the pedlar transfer his wares to the steps of
the village-cross, and probably no one would have complained; but then,
though they who wanted anything might have sought him there, he would have
lost the chance of catching the eye of those who did not want anything,
and tempting them to want and buy--a course for which we must not blame
our pedlar too much, since we are told it is the essence of commerce, on a
large as on a small scale, to create artificial wants and supply them.
In the late thirteenth-century MS. Royal, 10 Ed. IV., are some
illuminations of a mediæval story, which afford us very curious
illustrations of a pedlar and his pack. At f. 149, the pedlar is asleep
under a tree, and monkeys are stealing his pack, which is a large bundle,
bound across and across with rope, with a red strap attached to the rope
by which it is slung over the shoulder. On the next page the monkeys have
opened the wrapper, showing that it covered a kind of box, and the
mischievous creatures are running off with the contents, among which we
can distinguish a shirt and some circular mirrors. On f. 150, the monkeys
have conveyed their spoil up into the tree, and we make out a purse and
belt, a musical pipe, a belt and dagger, a pair of slippers, a hood and
gloves, and a mirror. On the next page, a continuation of the same
subject, we see a pair of gloves, a man's hat, a woman's head-kerchief;
and again, on p. 151, we have, in addition, hose, a mirror, a woman's
head-dress, and a man's hood. These curious illuminations sufficiently
indicate the usual contents of a pedlar's pack.
[Illustration: _Pack-horses._]
In the Egerton MS., 1,070, of the fourteenth century, at f. 380, is a
representation of the flight into Egypt, in which Joseph is represented
carrying a round pack by a stick over the shoulder, which probably
illustrates the usual mode of carrying a pack or a pedestrian's personal
luggage. Other illustrations of the pedlar of the latter part of the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries will be found in the series of the Dance
of Death.