prison reform in matters of reviews to insure that no man was in
gaol without due cause, overcharges for bed and board, brutality,
and regulation of prisoners being placed in irons. Many men and
women left money in their wills for food and clothing for
prisoners, especially debtors. Wills often left one-third of the
wealth to the church, the poor, prisoners, infirmaries, young
girls' education; road, wall, and bridge repair; water supply,
markets and almshouses. Some infirmaries were for the insane, who
were generally thought to be possessed by the devil or demons.
Their treatment was usually by scourging the demons out of their
body by flogging. If this didn't work, torture could be used to
drive the demons from the body.
The guilds were being replaced by associations for the investment
of capital. In associations, journeymen were losing their chance
of rising to be a master. Competition among associations was
starting to supplant custom as the mainspring of trade.
The cloth exporters, who were mostly mercers, were unregulated and
banded together for mutual support and protection under the name
of Merchant Adventurers of London. The Merchant Adventurers was
chartered in 1407. It was the first and a prototype of regulated
companies. That is the company regulated the trade. Each merchant
could ship on his own a certain number of cloths each year (the
number depending on the length of his membership in the company)
and sell them himself or by his factor at the place where the
company had privileges of market. Strict rules governed the
conduct of each member. He was to make sales only at certain hours
on specified days. All disagreements were to be settled by the
company's governor, or his deputy in residence, and those
officials dealt with such disputes as arose between members of the
company and continental officials and buyers. A share in the
ownership of one of their vessels was a common form of investment
by prosperous merchants. By 1450, the merchant adventurers were
dealing in linen cloths, buckrams [a stiffened, coarse cloth],
fustians [coarse cloth made of cotton threads going in one
direction and linen threads the other], satins, jewels, fine
woolen and linen wares, threads, potions, wood, oil, wine, salt,
copper, and iron. They began to replace trade by alien traders.
The history of the "Merchant Adventurers" was associated with the
growth of the mercantile system for more than 300 years. It
eventually replaced the staples system.
Paved roads in towns were usually gravel and sometimes cobble.
They were frequently muddy because of rain and spillage of water
being carried. Iron-shod wheels and overloaded carts made them
very uneven. London was the first town with paviors. They cleaned
and repaired the streets, filling up potholes with wood chips and
compacting them with hand rams. The paviors were organized as a
city company in 1479. About 1482, towns besides London began
appointing salaried road paviors to repair roads and collect their
expenses from the householders because the policy of placing the
burden on individual householders didn't work well. London streets
were lighted at night by public lanterns, under the direction of
the mayor. The residents were to light these candle lanterns in
winter from dusk to the 9 p.m. curfew. There were fire-engines
composed of a circular cistern with a pump and six feet of
inflexible hose on wheels pulled by two men on one end and pushed
by two men on the other end. In 1480 the city walls were rebuilt
with a weekly tax of 5d. per head.
In schools, there was a renaissance of learning from original
sources of knowledge written in Greek and rebirth of the Greek
pursuit of the truth and scientific spirit of inquiry. There was a
striking increase in the number of schools founded by wealthy
merchants or town guilds. Every cathedral, monastery, and college
had a grammar school. Merchants tended to send their sons to
private boarding schools, instead of having them tutored at home
as did the nobility. Well-to-do parents still sent sons to live in
the house of some noble to serve them as pages in return for being
educated with the noble's son by the household priest. They often
wore their master's coat of arms and became their squires as part
of their knightly education. Sometimes girls were sent to live in
another house to take advantage to receive education from a tutor
there under the supervision of the lady of the house. Every man,
free or villein, could send his sons and daughters to school. In
every village, there were some who could read and write.
In 1428, Lincoln's Inn required barristers normally resident in
London and the county of Middlesex to remain in residence and pay
commons during the periods between sessions of court and during
vacations, so that the formal education of students would be
continuous. In 1442, a similar requirement was extended to all
members.
The book "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" was written about an
incident in the court of King Arthur and Queen Guenevere in which
a green knight challenges Arthur's knights to live up to their
reputation for valor and awesome deeds. The knight Gawain answers
the challenge, but is shown that he could be false and cowardly
when death seemed to be imminent. Thereafter, he wears a green
girdle around his waist to remind him not to be proud.
Other literature read included "London Lickpenny", a satire on
London and its expensive services and products, "Fall of Princes"
by John Lydgate, social history by Thomas Hoccleve, "The Cuckoo
and the Nightengale", and "The Flower and Leaf" on morality as
secular common sense. King James I of Scotland wrote a book about
how he fell in love. Chaucer, Cicero, Ovid, and Aesops's Fables
were widely read. Malory's new version of the Arthurian stories
was popular. Margery Kempe wrote the first true autobiography. She
was a woman who had a normal married life with children, but one
day had visions and voices which led her to leave her husband to
take up a life of wandering and praying in holy possession. There
were religious folk ballads such as "The Cherry Tree Carol", about
the command of Jesus from Mary's womb for a cherry tree to bend
down so that Mary could have some cherries from it. The common
people developed ballads, e.g. about their love of the forest,
their wish to hunt, and their hatred of the forest laws.
About 30% of Londoners could read English. Books were bought in
London in such quantities by 1403 that the craft organizations of
text-letter writers, illuminators, bookbinders, and book sellers
was sanctioned by ordinance. "Unto the honorable lords, and wise,
the mayor and aldermen of the city of London, pray very humbly all
the good folks, freemen of the said city, of the trades of writers
of text-letter, limners [illuminator of books], and other folks of
London who are wont to bind and to sell books, that it may please
your great sagenesses to grant unto them that they may elect
yearly two reputable men, the one a limner, the other a text-
writer, to be wardens of the said trades, and that the names of
the wardens so elected may be presented each year before the mayor
for the time being, and they be there sworn well and diligently to
oversee that good rule and governance is had and exercised by all
folks of the same trades in all works unto the said trades
pertaining, to the praise and good fame of the loyal good men of
the said trades and to the shame and blame of the bad and disloyal
men of the same. And that the same wardens may call together all
the men of the said trades honorably and peacefully when need
shall be, as well for the good rule and governance of the said
city as of the trades aforesaid. And that the same wardens, in
performing their due office, may present from time to time all the
defaults of the said bad and disloyal men to the chamberlain at
the Guildhall for the time being, to the end that the same may
there, according to the wise and prudent discretion of the
governors of the said city, be corrected, punished, and duly
redressed. And that all who are rebellious against the said
wardens as to the survey and good rule of the same trades may be
punished according to the general ordinance made as to rebellious
persons in trades of the said city [fines and imprisonment]. And
that it may please you to command that this petition, by your
sagenesses granted, may be entered of record for time to come, for
the love of God and as a work of charity."
Gutenberg's printing press, which used movable type of small
blocks with letters on them, was brought to London in 1476 by a
mercer: William Caxton. It supplemented the text-writer and
monastic copyist. It was a wood and iron frame with a mounted
platform on which were placed small metal frames into which words
with small letters of lead had been set up. Each line of text had
to be carried from the type case to the press. Beside the press
were pots filled with ink and inking balls. When enough lines of
type to make a page had been assembled on the press, the balls
would be dipped in ink and drawn over the type. Then a sheet of
paper would be placed on the form and a lever pulled to press the
paper against the type. Linen usually replaced the more expensive
parchment for the book pages.
The printing press made books more accessible to all literate
people. Caxton printed major English texts and some translations
from French and Latin. He commended different books to various
kinds of readers, for instance, for gentlemen who understand
gentleness and science, or for ladies and gentlewomen, or to all
good folk. There were many cook books in use. There were convex
eyeglasses for reading and concave ones for distance to correct
near-sightedness. The first public library in London was
established from a bequest in a will in 1423.
Many carols were sung at the Christian festival of Christmas.
Ballads were sung on many features of social life of this age of
disorder, hatred of sheriffs, but faith in the King. The legend of
Robin Hood was popular. Town miracle plays on leading incidents of
the Bible and morality plays were popular. Vintners portrayed the
miracle of Cana where water was turned into wine and Goldsmiths
ornately dressed the three Kings coming from the east. In York,
the building of Noah's Ark was performed by the Shipwrights and
the Flood performed by the Fishery and Mariners. Short pantomimes
and disguising, forerunners of costume parties, were good
recreation. Games of cards became popular as soon as cards were
introduced. The king, queen, and jack were dressed in contemporary
clothes. Men bowled, kicked footballs, and played tennis. In
London, Christmas was celebrated with masques and mummings. There
was a great tree in the main market place and evergreen
decorations in churches, houses, and streets. There were also
games, dances, street bonfires in front of building doors, and
general relaxation of social controls. Sometimes there was drunken
licentiousness and revelry, with peasants gathering together to
make demands of lords for the best of his goods. May Day was
celebrated with crowns and garlands of spring flowers. The village
May Day pageant was often presided over by Robin Hood and Maid
Marion.
People turned to mysticism to escape from the everyday violent
world. They read works of mystics, such as "Scale of Perfection"
and "Cloud of Unknowing", the latter describing how one may better
know God. They believed in magic and sorcery, but had no religious
enthusiasm because the church was engendering more disrespect.
Monks and nuns had long ago resigned spiritual leadership to the
friars; now the friars too lost much of their good reputation. The
monks became used to life with many servants such as cooks,
butlers, bakers, brewers, barbers, laundresses, tailors,
carpenters, and farm hands. The austerity of their diet had
vanished. The schedule of divine services was no longer followed
by many and the fostering of learning was abandoned. Into
monasteries drifted the lazy and miserable. Nunneries had become
aristocratic boarding houses. The practice of taking sanctuary was
abused; criminals and debtors sought it and were allowed to
overstay the 40-day restriction and to leave at night to commit
robberies. There were numerous chaplains, who were ordained
because they received pay from private persons for saying masses
for the dead; having to forego wife and family, they had much
leisure time for mischief. Church courts became corrupt, but
jealously guarded their jurisdiction from temporal court
encroachment. Peter's Pence was no longer paid by the people, so
the burden of papal exaction fell wholly on the clergy. But the
church was rich and powerful, paying almost a third of the whole
taxation of the nation and forming a majority in the House of
Lords. Many families had kinsmen in the clergy. Even the lowest
cleric or clerk could read and write in Latin.
People relied on saint's days as reference points in the year, because
they did not know dates of the year. But townspeople knew the hour and
minute of each day, because clocks driven by a descending weight on a
cord were in all towns and in the halls of the well-to-do. This
increased the sense of punctuality and lifted standards of
efficiency. These weight-driven clocks replaced water clocks, which had
a problem of water freezing, and sandclocks, which could measure only
small time intervals.
A linguistic unity and national pride was developing. London
English became the norm and predominated over rural dialects.
Important news was announced and spread by word of mouth in market
squares and sometimes in churches. As usual, traders provided one
of the best sources of news; they maintained an informal network
of speedy messengers and accurate reports because political
changes so affected their ventures. News also came from peddlers,
who visited villages and farms to sell items that could not be
bought in the local village. These often included scissors,
eyeglasses, colored handkerchiefs, calendars, fancy leather goods,
watches, and clocks. Peddling was fairly profitable because of the
lack of competition. But peddlers were often viewed as tramps and
suspected of engaging in robbery as well as peddling.
A royal post service was established by relays of mounted
messengers. The first route was between London and the Scottish
border, where there were frequent battles for land between the
Scotch and English.
The inland roads from town to town were still rough and without
signs. A horseman could make up to 40 miles a day. Common carriers
took passengers and parcels from various towns to London on
scheduled journeys. Now the common yeoman could order goods from
the London market, communicate readily with friends in London, and
receive news of the world frequently. Trade with London was so
great and the common carrier so efficient in transporting goods
that the medieval fair began to decline. First the Grocers and
then the Mercers refused to allow their members to sell goods at
fairs. There was much highway robbery. Most goods were still
transported by boats along the coasts, with trading at the ports.
Embroidery was exported. Imported were timber, pitch, tar, potash
[for cloth dying], furs, silk, satin, gold cloth, damask cloth,
furred gowns, gems, fruit, spices, and sugar. Imports were
restricted by national policy for the purpose of protecting native
industries.
English single-masted ships began to be replaced by two or three
masted ships with high pointed bows to resist waves and sails
enabling the ship to sail closer to the wind. 200 tuns was the
usual carrying capacity. The increase in trade made piracy, even
by merchants, profitable and frequent until merchant vessels began
sailing in groups for their mutual protection. The astrolabe was
used for navigation by the stars.
Consuls were appointed to assist English traders abroad.
Henry IV appointed the first admiral of the entire nation and
resolved to create a national fleet of warships instead of using
merchant ships. In 1417, the war navy had 27 ships. In 1421,
Portsmouth was fortified as a naval base. Henry V issued the
orders that formed the basic law of English admiralty and
appointed surgeons to the navy and army. He was the last true
warrior King.
For defense of the nation, especially the safeguard of the seas,
Parliament allotted the king for life, 3s. for every tun of wine
imported and an additional 3s. for every tun of sweet wine
imported. From about 1413, tunnage on wine and poundage on
merchandise were duties on goods of merchants which were regularly
granted by Parliament to the king for life for upkeep of the Navy.
Before this time, such duties had been sporadic and temporary.
The most common ailments were eye problems, aching teeth,
festering ears, joint swelling and sudden paralysis of the bowels.
Epidemics broke out occasionally in the towns in the summers. The
plague swept London in 1467 and the nation in 1407, 1445, and
1471. Leprosy disappeared.
Infirmaries were supported by a tax of the king levied on nearby
counties. The walls, ditches, gutters, sewers, and bridges on
waterways and the coast were kept in repair by laborers hired by
commissions appointed by the Chancellor. Those who benefited from
these waterways were taxed for the repairs in proportion to their
use thereof.
Alabaster was sculptured into tombs surmounted with a recumbent
effigy of the deceased, and effigies of mourners on the sides. Few
townsmen choose to face death alone and planned memorial masses to
be sung to lift his soul beyond Purgatory. Chantries were built by
wealthy men for this purpose.
Chemical experimentation was still thought to be akin to sorcery,
so was forbidden by King Henry IV in 1404.
Gold was minted into coins: noble, half noble, and farthing.
King Henry IV lost power to the Commons and the Lords because he
needed revenue from taxes and as a usurper King, he did not carry
the natural authority of a King. The Commons acquired the right to
elect its own speaker. The lords who helped the usurpation felt
they should share the natural power of the kingship. The council
became the instrument of the Lords. Also, the Commons gained power
compared to the nobility because many nobles had died in war. The
consent of the Commons to legislation became so usual that the
justices declared that it was necessary. The Commons began to see
itself as representative of the entire commons of the realm
instead of just their own counties. Its members had the freedom to
consider and debate every matter of public interest, foreign or
domestic, except for church matters. The Commons, the poorest of
the three estates, established an exclusive right to originate all
money grants to the king in 1407. The Speaker of the Commons
announced its money grant to the king only on the last day of the
parliamentary session, after the answers to its petitions had been
declared, and after the Lords had agreed to the money grant. It
tied its grants by rule rather than just practice to certain
appropriations. For instance, tunnage and poundage were
appropriated for naval defenses. Wool customs went to the
maintenance of Calais, a port on the continent, and defense of the
nation. It also put the petitions in statutory form, called
"bills", to be enacted after consideration and amendment by all
without alteration. Each house had a right to deliberate in
privacy. In the Commons, members spoke in the order in which they
stood up bareheaded. Any member of Parliament or either house or
the king could initiate a bill. Both houses had the power to amend
or reject a bill. There were conferences between select committees
of both houses to settle their differences. The Commons required
the appointment of auditors to audit the King's accounts to ensure
past grants had been spent according to their purpose. It forced
the King's council appointees to be approved by Parliament and to
be paid salaries. About 1430, kings' councilors were required to
take an oath not to accept gifts of land, not to maintain private
suits, not to reveal secrets, and not to neglect the kings'
business. A quorum was fixed and rules made for removal from the
council. For the next fifty years, the council was responsible
both to the king and to Parliament. This was the first
encroachment on the King's right to summon, prorogue, or dismiss a
Parliament at his pleasure, determine an agenda of Parliament,
veto or amend its bills, exercise his discretion as to which lords
he summoned to Parliament, and create new peers by letters patent
[official public letters]. Parliament was affected by the
factionalism of the times. The speaker of the commons was often an
officer of some great lord. In 1426, the retainers of the barons
in Parliament were forbidden to bear arms, so they appeared with
clubs on their shoulders. When the clubs were forbidden, they came
with stones concealed in their clothing.
Kings created dukes and marquesses to be peers. A duke was given
creation money or allowance of 40 pounds a year. A marquess was
given 35 pounds. These new positions could not descend to an
heiress, unlike a barony or earldom. An earl was given 20 pounds,
which probably took the place of his one-third from the county.
King Henry VI gave the title of viscount to several people; it had
an allowance of 13.3 pounds and was above baron. It allowed them
to be peers. There were about 55 peers. In King Edward IV's reign,
the king's retinue had about 16 knights, 160 squires, 240 yeomen,
clerks, grooms, and stablemen. The suitable annual expense of the
household of the king was 13,000 pounds for his retinue of about
516 people, a duke 4,000 pounds for about 230 people, a marquess
3,000 pounds for about 224 people, an earl 2,000 pounds for about
130 people, a viscount 1,000 pounds for about 84 people, a baron
500 pounds for about 26 people, a banneret [a knight made in the
field, who had a banner] 200 pounds for about 24 people, a knight
bachelor 100 pounds for about 16 people, and a squire 50 pounds
for about 16 people. Of a squire's 50 pounds, about 25 pounds were
spent in food, repairs and furniture 5, on horses, hay, and
carriage 4, on clothes, alms and oblations 4, wages 9, livery of
dress 3, and the rest on hounds and the charges of harvest and
hay time. Many servants of the household of the country gentleman
were poor relations. They might by education and accomplishment
rise into the service of a baron who could take him to court and
make his fortune.
Barons' households also included steward, chaplains, treasurer,
accountants, chamberlain, carvers, servers, cupbearers, pages, and
even chancellor. They were given wages and clothing allowances and
had meals in the hall at tables according to their degree.
The authority of the King's privy seal had become a great office
of state which transmitted the King's wishes to the Chancery and
Exchequer, rather than the King's personal instrument for sealing
documents. Now the king used a signet kept by his secretary as his
personal seal. Edward IV made the household office of secretary,
who had custody the king's signet seal, a public office. The
secretary was generally a member of the council. Edward IV
invented the benevolence, a gift wrung from wealthy subjects.