These ancient rights of the people were less definite than either the

privileges or the powers of Parliament. They were, perhaps, attractive

and valued somewhat in proportion to their vagueness. They certainly

included right of freedom from arrest or imprisonment except on a

definite charge and by due process of law; they included exemption from

taxation except after consent of Parliament, [Footnote: Hakewell's

argument in the Bates case of 1610 (State Trials, ed 1779, XI);

Petition of Right of 1628] they included protection against violence

and injustice; they included the right of petition to the king against

any grievance, [Footnote: Coke's speech on Petition of Right

(Parliamentary History, VIII., 104). VOL 1--19] and in general a right

to have the laws enforced, yet to have nothing done to their

disadvantage which was not in the law. It was the spirit rather than

the letter of Magna Carta that was valued by the English people. As

time passed and under Charles I. the conflict between the parliamentary

and the royal claims became more intense, the upholders of the former

fell back more and more on the ancient rights and liberties of the

people, and relatively less is said of parliamentary privileges. In the

Petition of Right of 1629, Parliament appeals to the Great Charter, to

the Confirmation of the Charters, and to other early statements of

personal liberties. Pym declared that "the liberties of this House are

inferior to the liberties of this kingdom." When the civil war was

actually imminent, in December, 1641, the Grand Remonstrance was issued

as a statement of the contentions of the leaders in Parliament. In this

document "the people," "the liberties of subjects," "rights of the

nation," and other popular expressions are constantly used or implied.

[Footnote: Grand Remonstrance, SS 11, 19, 28, 40, 53, 57, 98, 130,

etc., in Rushworth, Historical Collections, IV., 438.]

Ultimately, as a result of the struggles of the later years of the

seventeenth century, the more important of such rights were formulated

in the Bill of Rights of 1689. Thus the heritage of civil freedom which

the people of England had traditionally enjoyed was neither taken from

them by the strong monarchy of the sixteenth century nor forgotten in

the struggle of Parliament for its own privileges in the seventeenth.

It was reasserted with constantly new insistence in England, and was

carried to America by the colonists as an acknowledged and valued

possession.

CHAPTER XIV

THE ENGLISH COUNTY AND ITS OFFICERS (1600-1650)

The ordinary Englishman in the seventeenth century had much more to do

with local than with national government. Only a few score men served

the king as ministers, councillors, or judges; only a few hundred

attended Parliament; while as lords lieutenant, sheriffs, justices of

the peace, constables, church-wardens, mayors, aldermen, and in other

capacities of local and limited but real power, many thousands must

have taken a part in public affairs. National government was remote

from the ordinary man; local government came close to him. The

political institutions which surrounded him on all sides, insensibly

controlling every action and forming the world to which his outward

life conformed, were familiar to him and affected his habits and ideas,

whether he remained at home or emigrated to the colonies, far more

directly than did the political institutions of the nation.

The oldest, most stable, and most important unit of local government

was the shire, or county. The conspicuous official and historic head of

the county was the sheriff. As Camden says, "Every year some one of the

gentlemen inhabitants is made ruler of the county wherein he dwelleth."

[Footnote: Camden, Britannia (ed. 1637), 160.] Though no longer

relatively so powerful as in the Middle Ages, his position was even yet

one of much dignity and importance. On occasions of public ceremony he

had an imposing personal retinue, carried a white rod of office, and

wore official robes. [Footnote: King, The Vale-Royall, 40; North,

Examen, quoted in Dict. Nat. Biog., XII., 121.] Richard Evelyn, when

sheriff, "had one hundred and sixteen servants in liverys, every one

liveryed in greene sattin doubliets; divers gentlemen and persons of

quality waited on him in the same garbe and habit." [Footnote: Evelyn,

Diary, 1634.] William Ffarrington, sheriff of Lancashire in 1636, kept

up the following household: a steward, a clerk of the kitchen, two

yeomen of the plate cupboard, a yeoman of the wine-cellar, two

attendants on the sheriff's chamber, an usher of the hall, two

chamberlains, four butlers and butler's assistants, eight cooks, five

scullions, a porter, a baker, a caterer, a slaughterman, a poulterer,

two watchmen for the horses, two men to attend the docket door each day

by turns, twenty men to attend upon the prisoners each day by turns--

altogether a household of fifty-six servants. [Footnote: The Shrievalty

of William Ffarrington, 17 (Chetham Society). This reference and a

number of those which follow I owe to the industry and good scholarship

of Mr. Charles Burrows, a young man of great promise, who, after

studying at the universities of Chicago and Pennsylvania, and beginning

the preparation of a thesis on the Subject of this chapter, went abroad

for further study and died in 1902.] With the need for such official

outlays, it is no wonder that a long series of statutes should have

provided that the sheriff should be one who had land in the county

"sufficient to answer king and people." [Footnote: 9 Ed. II., st. 2; 4

Ed. III., chap, ix.; 5 Ed. III., chaps, iv., xiii., xiv.] In fact, he

was usually a knight or a man of such rank as might be made a knight. A

list of the sheriffs of the county of Chester during the reigns of

James I. and Charles I. shows twenty-three knights and twenty-three

without title, but presumably of equal rank in society. [Footnote:

King, The Vale-Royall, 233.] Many of the best-known men of this period,

such as Sir Thomas Wentworth, Sir Ralph Verney, Sir William Selby, and

Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, afterwards earl of Shaftesbury, acted at

various times as sheriffs of their respective counties. They were

direct successors of Chaucer's Franklyn, of whom we are told, "A

schirreeve had he been." With some exceptions, such as those cities

which had their own elective sheriffs, and those pairs of counties

which were conjoined under one sheriff, each shire had one sheriff,

appointed in the following manner: every year, on November 1, a special

meeting of the Privy Council was held at the exchequer, a number of the

higher government officials being especially required to be present;

here a list of three persons of distinction from each county, qualified

to fill the office of sheriff, was made up and submitted to the king,

who "pricked" one from each three; the men thus chosen were then bound

to seek letters-patent, and take their oaths as sheriffs for the

ensuing year in their respective counties. [Footnote: Fortescue, De

Laudibus Legum Angliae, chap. xxiv.] By law the same man could not be

appointed for two successive years. [Footnote: 14 Ed. III., chap, vii.,

etc.] This was probably a welcome restriction, as the appointees bore

somewhat unwillingly the burdens and expenditures of the office.

[Footnote: Hist. MSS. Commission, Report VII., App., 3-9, 25.] In 1630

we find Sir Francis Coke writing to ask Sir J. Coke "to keep my loving

neighbour and friend Edward Revell of Brookhill from being sheriff this

year";[Footnote: Ibid., Report XII., App. I., 414. ] and in 1663 Evelyn

enters in his diary, "To court to get Sir John Evelyn, of Godstone, off

from being sheriff of Surrey." [Footnote: November 6, 1663.] It is true

that the office brought with it many small fees. A long list of

customary payments for the issue of various writs and the performance

of various services by the sheriff is given in the manuals of the time.

[Footnote: Greenwood, The County Court, 183.] On the other hand, the

fees payable by the sheriff to the officials of the exchequer on his

appointment and discharge, [Footnote: Ibid., 122.] the expenses of his

office, and the requirements of his position for social expenditure

were very considerable, and the comment of a contemporary law-writer

was, no doubt, in most cases, justified: "But the sheriff is at much

more charge, which is laid out and is disbursed during his sheriffwick,

as experience will inform him."[Footnote: Greenwood, The County Court,

187.] Another burden of the sheriff's office was enforced residence in

his own county during his term of service. The records are overspread

with fines for the violation of this requirement and with requests for

dispensations from conformity to it.[Footnote: Hist. MSS. Commission,

Report VII., App., 5; Rushworth, Historical Collections, II., App., 27,

Deputy Keeper of the Public Records, Reports, XLIII.,151; Cal. of State

Pap., Dom., 1628-1629, pp., 396, 403, etc.] A personage in an old play

says of the ladies of his time, "I think they would rather marry a

London jailer than a high-sheriff of a county, since neither can stir

from his employment." [Footnote: Wycherly, The Country Wife, act iv.,

sc. 1.] The title high-sheriff, frequently used instead of the simple

term sheriff, had no especial significance and was probably suggested

by a desire to discriminate him from the under-sheriff. The exacting

duties of the office led the sheriff very frequently to appoint, at his

own cost, such a subordinate and to empower him to perform such

services as could be legally transferred to another. He was usually a

man of some position, "learned somewhat in the law, especially if the

sheriff be not learned himselfe." [Footnote: Smith, Commonwealth of

England, book II., chap. xvii.] He was a source of considerable expense

to his superior, an estimate of annual cost made in 1628 amounting to

352 Pounds 18s. 6d. He relieved the sheriff, however, of his more

onerous and invidious duties. North declared that "Clifford and

Shaftesbury looked like high-sheriff and under-sheriff. The former held

the white staff and had his name to all returns, but all the business,

especially the knavish part, was done by the latter." [Footnote:

Examen, 8, quoted in Dict. Nat, Biog., XII., 113.]

The duties of the sheriff were many and varied; some of them old

judicial and administrative functions, others new and irregular

services demanded of him by the innovating Tudor and Stuart sovereigns.

Every month he must hold a county court, at which were brought suits

for debts of less than forty shillings, suits for damages, for breach

of contract, for non-payment of wages, for not returning borrowed or

pledged articles, and a hundred other petty causes. [Footnote:

Fitzherbert, Natura Brevium, 28 d, etc.] In this court also, and at

some other times and places, he must proclaim certain ancient statutes

and new laws and ordinances for the information and warning of the

people.

The county court as a judicial body was, in the seventeenth century, a

waning institution, its competence and functions becoming rapidly

obsolete; but occasionally it awakened suddenly to life, took on a new

aspect, and became of unwonted importance. This occurred when a summons

was issued for a new parliament, for the county court was the electing

body of the knights of the shire, and to the next session after the

writs for the parliament had been issued came the gentry and

freeholders of the county to elect their representatives. [Footnote:

Dalton, Officium Vicecomitum, chap. xcii.] There was often a great

concourse and much excitement, and the petty disputes of poor suitors

and the labors of obscure officials were for the time completely

superseded. The sheriff, as presiding official at this election, as the

returning officer of the elected members, and as the official charged

with levying money for the payment of their wages and expenses, had an

active and influential connection with the choice of members of

Parliament. A long series of statutes checked the abuses connected with

this influence; but even yet the sheriff exercised some power over the

selection made, especially when he was a man of large influence in his

county apart from his office.[Footnote: Ibid.]

There was great irregularity in the process of election. Sometimes the

members were elected by acclamation, sometimes by show of hands,

sometimes by a poll, one voter after another expressing orally his

preference. The election should, by law, be held between eight and

eleven o'clock in the morning, but a sheriff sometimes postponed the

election, or refused to acknowledge the candidate insisted on by the

electors, or threw out votes which he claimed were not properly given,

or closed the election when his preferred candidate was in an

advantageous position. The journals of the House of Commons are filled

with reports of contested elections, and sheriffs are repeatedly found

kneeling at the bar of the House to receive censure or pardon for such

offences.[Footnote: Commons Journals, I., 511, 556, 801, 854, 884,

etc.]

A period of scarcely less responsibility for the sheriff was the semi-

annual assizes, when the judges in their robes, on their circuit, with

all the dignity of the judicial representatives of the crown, visited

the county.[Footnote: Rushworth, Historical Collections, I., 294.] It

was the duty of the sheriff to see that grand and petty juries were

ready to perform the services required of them by these judges, and to

carry out the mandates and judgments of the court. These judgments,

which he had to execute either in person or by his under-sheriff or

bailiffs, varied in character from the serving of writs or levying upon

property for debt to the infliction of the death penalty. [Footnote:

Greenwood, 133; Fortescue, De Laudibus Legum Angliae, chap xxiv.] The

sheriff had also the supervision of the jail and the appointment of

jailers. His presence at the two assizes of the year was considered one

of his most fundamental duties, and heavy fines were imposed when

occasionally a sheriff was absent from his post at that time.

[Footnote: Rushworth, Historical Collections, II., App., 27; Cal. of

State Pap., Dom, 1628-1629, p. 396.] He not only met the judges with

his retinue and furnished them a guard, but feasted them and acted as a

sort of local host to the circuit court so long as it was in session in

his county.

Closely analogous to this duty of the sheriff was the requirement that

he should be present, provide jurymen, and carry out the behests of the

justices of the peace at their quarter-sessions; but the justices were,

like himself, local officers belonging to the county, not visitors from

the capital, so that their sessions had little of the ceremony and

excitement of the assizes; and, in fact, the sheriff was usually

represented there by the under-sheriff acting as his deputy. [Footnote:

Lister, Two Earliest Sessions Rolls of West Riding of Yorkshire, 1597-

1602, III., 28, 44, 64, etc.]

In addition to these and many less conspicuous regular duties the

sheriff in the early seventeenth century was utilized from time to time

by the central government in irregular and somewhat questionable

services. When James revived the distraint of knighthood it was the

sheriffs who were required to make out lists of all who had 40 Pounds a

year of lands or rents and to order them to appear at court and receive

knighthood. When Charles I. revived the imposition of ship-money it was

to the sheriff of each county that the writ was sent, stating the

amount to be paid by his county and ordering him to arrange with the

lower officials for its assessment and collection.

The patriotic resistance of Hampden found a parallel in the passive

opposition of some of the sheriffs to this demand upon them. On June

30, 1640, the King's Council wrote to the sheriff of Huntingdonshire:

"We have read and considered of your letter of the 24th of the present,

wherein we perceive that you have been rather industrious to represent

the difficulties which, as you say, you find in the execution of his

majesty's writ, than circumspect or careful, as you ought to have been,

in overcoming and removing them,... and we cannot but make this

judgment upon your proceedings, that instead of doing your duty in

person and compelling others subordinate to you to do theirs, you

endeavor to make excuses both for yourself and them." [Footnote:

Rushworth, Historical Collections, I, 1203.]

Alongside of the sheriff at the head of the shire was another officer,

the lord-lieutenant, whose position, although but recently attained,

was in some ways more conspicuous and in certain exigencies more

powerful than his. No statute or other formal action provided for the

original creation of the lord-lieutenancy, and it is probable that

Henry VIII. simply began the habit of delegating his military power in

the shires to such officers. Early in the reign of Edward VI., October,

1549, they are mentioned as existing in the counties, and by 1600 their

office was fully established.[Footnote: 3 and 4 Ed VI, chap v, in

Statutes of the Realm, IV, 107.]This position was usually held by the

greatest nobleman with estates in the county, and he appointed as his

deputies various knights and gentlemen of high position; as when, in

1626, the duke of Buckingham was lord-lieutenant of Bucks, and Sir

Edward Verney and five others were his deputies in that county.

Although purely honorary, the appointment was one of much dignity and

responsibility in military matters.

It was the duty of the lord-lieutenant in times of peace to see that

the musters of the trained bands were regularly held, that the militia-

men had their arms, and that men of higher rank who owed military

service to the crown were prepared to perform it; in time of war to

levy, muster, and train soldiers, fix the quotas of the hundreds and

townships, see to the payment of troops, the collection of horses, and

equipment generally, until the recruits were actually handed over to

their officers. It was also their duty to see that the beacons were

kept in order. The lords-lieutenant must be present, by an order of

1615, nine months in the year [Footnote: Cal. of State Pap., Dom.,

1611-1618, p. 337.] in their counties; but there was no such rigorous

requirement of constant residence as in the case of the sheriff, nor

was the appointment restricted to a single year.

Such an official as the lord-lieutenant was not likely to be left

unburdened with other duties when the government was struggling to

obtain the enforcement of its laws, and, as a matter of fact, functions

quite unmilitary were imposed upon him. In 1637 the council orders the

lords-lieutenant of six of the eastern counties to assist in the better

enforcement of the acts for the drainage of the marshes. [Footnote:

Cal. of State Pap., Dom., 1637, p. 92.] In 1621 they are to investigate

frauds of his majesty's carters. [Footnote: Hist. MSS. Commission,

Report VII., App., 670.] They are asked to help collect subsidies and

benevolences, to search for popish recusants, to oversee ale-houses,

slaughter-houses, and the assize of bread and ale, to assist in the

administration of poor relief and the suppression of vagrancy.

[Footnote: Chetham Society, Lancashire Lieutenancy, I, Int., 19; Camden

Society, Verney Papers, 37, 88.] In 1619 the Lords of the Council write

to the lieutenant of Surrey asking him to urge co-operation in a

lottery for the success of "the English colonies planted in Virginia,

to accept the sums adventured, and to report to the treasurer and

council of Virginia." [Footnote: Hist. MSS. Commission, Report VII.,

App., 670.] Much less dignified in position than either the lord-

lieutenant or the sheriff, and yet filling an old and important office,

was the coroner. He was elected by the freeholders of the county in the

county court, and his oath was administered by the county clerk. He

was, therefore, more distinctly local and representative than the other

county officers, who were appointed by the crown; and as a result he

was the only officer whose office did not terminate with the death of

the king. Notwithstanding the generality of duties indicated by his

name, "custos placitarum coronae," his functions were few beyond the

fundamental duty of investigating sudden deaths and binding over for

trial such persons as were indicated by the jury through which he made

his inquest. [Footnote: Smith, Commonwealth of England, book II., chap.

xxiv.] Under some circumstances the coroner took the place of the

sheriff, and in general his position looked back to a time when it was

of greater significance than it had become in the seventeenth century.

[Footnote: Greenwood, The County Court, 258.]

CHAPTER XV

ENGLISH JUSTICES OF THE PEACE (1600-1650)

However extensive the duties of the officers whose functions are

described above, the real men-of-all-work in the counties at this time

were the justices of the peace. The law required that a justice of the

peace must have lands and tenements to the value of L 20 a year, the

amount of the legal knight's fee; [Footnote: 18 Henry VI., chap. xi]

but ordinarily he had much greater property. John Evelyn's father, who

has been so often referred to as a typical country gentleman of the

early seventeenth century, had an estate of L 4000 a year when he was

successively sheriff and justice of the peace. [Footnote: Evelyn,

Diary, year 1634] The justice of the peace, like the sheriff, the lord-

lieutenant, and the coroner, was expected to perform his public

services as part of his patriotic duty. It is true that certain

statutes provided that part of the fines for any violation should go to

the justices before whom the violators were prosecuted; two or three

others gave small fees to the justice for affixing his seal or signing

a document; but these were apparently casual efforts to secure

enforcement, and can have brought no appreciable return to the

justices. The law gave each justice 2s. for each day of quarter-

sessions up to three days; but this could have produced at most only

6s., and seems to have been usually jointly expended by the magistrates

in a dinner.

In an interesting speech by a Mr. Glascock in the House of Commons,

December 16, 1601, two equally undesirable justices are described--

first, the one "who from base stock and lineage by his wealth is gotten

to be within the commission"; the other "a gentleman born, virtuous,

discreet, and wise, yet poor and needy. And so only for his virtues and

qualities put into the commission. This man I hold unfit to be a

justice, though I think him to be a good member in the commonwealth.

Because I hold this for a ground infallible--that no poor man ought to

be in authority. My reason is this: he will so bribe you and extort you

that the sweet scent of riches and gain taketh away and confoundeth the

true taste of justice and equity." [Footnote: Townshend, Proceedings,

953, 954] But burdensome as the duties of a justice must have been, and

almost unpaid as they were, the office does not seem to have been

avoided as was that of sheriff. Probably such service was taken as a

matter of course by the gentry, and compensation was found in the stamp

of social position it placed upon them, and in the sense of power, as

well as of a patriotic fulfilment of duty. It was sometimes a matter of

complaint that "with us these magistrates have been so unsuitably

appointed that a county justice is made a jest in comedies, and his

character the subject of buffoonery and laughter." [Footnote: Carey,

English Liberties, 275] This is an obvious reference to Justice Shallow

and other worthies of the dramatists. It is dangerous to make too

serious an inference from contemporary comedies, because certain

personages soon became stock characters and ceased to have any very

close relation to actual life, and in this particular instance

Shakespeare was probably gratifying an old grudge.

Nevertheless, there was evidently some foundation for this picture of

the county justice. Dorothy Osborne, in one of her delightful letters

to Sir William Temple, in giving her requirements for a husband, pokes

fun at such ambitions. "He must not be so much of a country gentleman

as to understand nothing but hawks and dogs, and be fonder of either

than his wife; nor of the next sort of them whose aim reaches no

further than to be Justice of the Peace, and once in his life High

Sheriff, who reads no book but statutes, and studies nothing but how to

make a speech interlarded with Latin that may amaze his disagreeing

poor neighbours, and fright them rather than persuade them into

quietness." [Footnote: Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William

Temple, letter 36 (ed. by Parry), p 171] With all these criticisms, and

in the face of occasional ineptitude, the body of justices of the peace

included much ability. It was scarcely possible for a justice to act

without some knowledge of Latin, as almost all the records and

documents which he would have to make, read, or sign were in that

language. A succession of text-books on the duties of the office, the

more important of them appearing in many successive editions, proves an

intelligent interest and demand for instruction in their duties.

Moreover, the men who served as justices were often well known in other

ways, many of them as sheriffs, as members of Parliament, and in still

other capacities. They were of families who provided the active men of

enterprise of the period. The list of Devonshire justices in 1592

includes Sir Francis Drake, Sir Ferdinando Gorges, Gilberts, Carews,

Seymours, Courtenays, and other names prominent among the men who laid

the foundations of the maritime greatness of England and of the

existence of America. Of the fifty-five, twenty-eight were at one time

or another high-sheriffs of the county, twenty more were then, or

became afterwards, knights, six sat in the House of Commons, and three

in the House of Lords. [Footnote: Hamilton, Devonshire Quarter-

Sessions, 3, 330-348.]

The justices of the peace were fair representatives of that great class

of rural gentry which exercised so strong an influence over the

destinies of England in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth

centuries. From this class were drawn all the county officials who have

been named, except the lord-lieutenant; from it were chosen the county

representatives to Parliament; and in it were found the strength and

the weakness of the English political system. James I., in appealing to

the country gentry to continue to live on their estates in their

counties, said to them, "Gentlemen, at London you are like ships in a

sea, which shew like nothing, but in your country villages you are like

ships in a river, which look like great things." [Footnote: Bacon,

Apothegms, in Works (Spedding and Heath ed), VII., 125.]

Out of this body of rural gentry from twenty to sixty in each county

were chosen by the lord-chancellor to serve as justices of the peace.

[Footnote: Lambard, Eirenarcha, book I., chap. v.] The "commission of

the peace," by which the justices were appointed and from which they

drew their powers, was a formula well known and constantly quoted and

commented upon, and added to from time to time until late in the

sixteenth century. In was then, in 1590, revised and formulated anew by

Sir Christopher May, Chief-Justice, with the advice of all the other

judges of the time, and has not been changed from that day to this.

[Footnote: Ibid., book II., chap. vii.]

The justices of the peace performed some of their duties separately,

acting individually as circumstances required, or as proved convenient

to themselves. Other powers they could exercise only when two or more

acted together and concurrently. Still others, and those far the most

important and dignified, they performed in a body at their "quarter-

sessions." What things a justice might do singly, what two, three, or

four justices might do together, and what they might do only in the

formal sessions of the whole body of justices of the peace of the

county were defined partly in the statutes, partly in the commission

under which they acted.

The regular or quarter-sessions were meetings held four times a year--

in October, midwinter, spring, and midsummer--at which all the justices

of the peace of the county were supposed to be present. There were,

besides, occasional irregular sessions, or meetings of the regular

sessions adjourned from one time to another. In corporate towns the

city officers acted as justices of the peace, reinforced usually by

some others especially appointed; and each town followed its own

customs as to meeting in general sessions.

Although the law contemplated the attendance of all the justices of the

county at each quarter-sessions, as a matter of fact the attendance was

very irregular and incomplete, few of the records, so far as published,

showing an attendance of as many as a dozen out of perhaps forty or

fifty. Most of them evidently came riding up to quarter-sessions if it

suited their convenience and remained away if it did not, restricting

their services to those duties which could be performed in their own

neighborhoods, and leaving to a few active, regular, and hardworking

magistrates the responsibilities of the higher work. [Footnote: West

Riding Sessions Rolls; Manchester Quarter-Sessions, passim.]

Of those who made up quarter-sessions one at least must be "of the

quorum." This expression is taken from the commission of the justices

of the peace, which in the clause giving to the justices the power to

inquire and determine by oath of the jurors as to felonies and other

offences and to punish them, after naming all those to whom the

commission for that county is issued, says, quorum aliquem vestrum, A,

B, C, etc., unum esse volumus (of whom we wish you, A, B, C, etc., to

be one), naming presumably such as were learned in the law or otherwise

especially trustworthy. [Footnote: Lambarde, Eirenarcha, book I., chap.

ix.] As without the presence of one of the "quorum" no quarter-sessions

could be held, to be a "justice of the peace and of the quorum" was to

be one of a select list of the justices. One-third or one-half of the

list of those in the commission were usually named also in the quorum.

In addition to the justices there should, according to law, be present

at quarter-sessions, in the first place, the custos rotulorum, or

keeper of the rolls of the sessions, the "custalorum" of Justice

Shallow. [Footnote: Merry Wives of Windsor, act i., sc. i.] This was

always one of the justices of high rank indicated to the lord-

chancellor for appointment by the king himself, [Footnote: 37 Henry

VIII., chap i.] and was very apt to be the lord-lieutenant of the

county. He could be, and probably was, usually represented at the

sessions by a deputy, who was a person of considerable importance and

influence, upon whom much responsibility was placed by the statutes,

and whose abilities must have been constantly relied upon by the

magistrates. The title of this deputy was "clerk of the peace," the

predecessor apparently of the American county clerk. He was usually

familiar with the law, and his knowledge of precedents and procedure

must often have stood the unlearned justices in good stead, besides the

work which he performed in drawing up indictments, writing orders, and

keeping records.

Besides the custos and the clerk, the sheriff or his deputy were bound

to be present prepared to empanel jurors and execute process; as well

as the jailer ready to produce his prisoners; the superintendent of the

county house of correction; all jurors who had been summoned by the

sheriff; all persons who had been bound over by single justices to

appear at quarter-sessions; all high constables and bailiffs of

hundreds; and the coroners. [Footnote: Dalton, Officium Vicecomitum,

chaps, xxxiv., clxxxv.] The quarter-sessions should, by law, be kept

for three continuous days if there was any need; [Footnote: 12 Richard

II, chap. x.] but, as a matter of fact, sessions seldom lasted more

than a day, and a contemporary complains that "many doe scantly afford

them three whole hours, besides the time which is spent in calling of

the county and giving of the charge." [Footnote: Lambarde, Eirenarcha,

book IV., chap. xix.]

The powers and duties of the justices of the peace in quarter-sessions

and separately were so considerable and varied as to tax the ability of

an Elizabethan or Jacobean text-book writer to reduce them to

simplicity of statement, or to the compass of five or six hundred pages

of enumeration. Many of these powers were general, arising from the

nature of the office for the "conservation of the peace"; but the great

mass of their duties was placed upon them by statutes. Ten early

statutes are enumerated in the commission itself, before coming to the

inclusive "and cause to be kept all other ordinances and statutes made

for the good of our peace and the quiet rule and government of our

people." From the middle of the fifteenth century forward, the

enforcement of the greater number of new laws was placed primarily in

the hands of the justices of the peace.

As time passed on legislation became more and more minute and

inclusive. Few interests in human life escaped the paternal attention

of government under the Tudors and Stuarts, and this great mass of

enactment it became the duty of the groups of country gentry in the

counties and of the civic magistrates of the towns to put into force. A

writer of the time enumerates two hundred and ninety-three statutes

passed previous to 1603 in which justices of the peace are mentioned

and given some jurisdiction or duties. [Footnote: Lambarde, Eirenarcha,

book IV., chap, xix., Table, App.] Under Elizabeth alone there were

seventy-eight, ranging from the "preservation of spawn and frie of

fish" to those "touching bulls from Rome." The infrequent and short-

lived parliaments of James I. added thirty-six to the list. [Footnote:

Dalton, The Country Justice, Table of Contents.]

Although many of these laws are repetitions, some others temporary or

local, still others insignificant, yet, on the other hand, some of them

opened up whole new fields of activity to the justices: as, for

instance, those placing upon them, after 1563, the administration of

the Act of Apprentice; and, after 1581, the responsibility for the

search for and punishment of popish recusants. A whole code of law,

procedure, and precedent grew up on these two subjects, besides others

scarcely less extensive.

Quarter-sessions had nothing to do with civil suits, and cases of

treason, murder, and certain other high crimes were excluded from their

competence. Apart from this restriction and these offences, there was

little difference between sessions and assizes, between the

jurisdiction of the learned judges of the king in their half-yearly

circuit and that of the county magistrates in their quarter-sessions.

Before them both grand and petty juries were empanelled, indictments

drawn up, prisoners tried for assault, burglary, horse-stealing,

witchcraft, pocket-picking, keeping up nuisances, cheating, failure to

attend church, and almost all other offences of which seventeenth-

century Englishmen were capable. If convicted they were placed in the

stocks, whipped, or hanged. In Devonshire, in the midwinter sessions of

1598, out of sixty-five culprits who were tried eight were hanged; at

midsummer, out of forty-five eight were hanged, thirteen flogged, seven

acquitted, and seven, on account of their claim of benefit of clergy,

were branded and then released. [Footnote: Hamilton, Devonshire

Quarter-Sessions, 33.]

The justices in sessions or singly also performed much administrative

work, such as the oversight and repair of bridges, the granting of

licenses to ale-houses, the establishment of wages, the binding out of

apprentices, and the relief of wounded soldiers. Many laws passed under

Elizabeth and James I. admitted of exceptions when approved by one or

more justices of the peace, and there was thus constant occasion for

granting to individual persons or at special times permission to export

grain, to turn their barley into malt, to build cottages without land

attached, to carry hand-guns, to buy and sell out of market-hours, to

beg, and other dispensations from the rigorous application of the law.

[Footnote: Ibid., 27, 164, etc.]

The punishing of recusants and the discipline of those who refused or

neglected to go to church was, as already stated, an active occupation

of the justices.

At certain times, such as the period just following the Gunpowder Plot,

when the search was for Catholics, and somewhat later, when the search

was for Puritans and Separatists, the Privy Council brought severe

pressure upon the justices to fulfill these duties, and numerous

prosecutions were brought by them. In Middlesex during the reign of

James I. the indictments averaged eighty-five per year for religious

offences, and sometimes at one session there were as many as one

hundred and fifty persons indicted. [Footnote: Middlesex County

Sessions Rolls, II., III.; Hamilton, Devonshire Quarter-Sessions, 27,

74, etc.; Cal. of State Pap., Dom., 1633-1634, p. 531.]

The justices were constantly called upon to act in special emergencies

or to give special relief. If a man's thatched cottage were burned, the

nearest justice might authorize him to make an appeal to his neighbors

for help to rebuild; if a whole village or town suffered from a more

extensive fire, the justices in their sessions quartered the homeless

people in various parishes, announced a subscription, and, calling

constables and leading villagers before them, exhorted them to liberal

voluntary gifts, and appointed a subcommittee to administer the funds

for relief; if a pestilence appeared, a tax-rate for immediate

assistance was levied, and the justices supported the sick and enforced

the quarantine; if food became scarce and high-priced the justices

forbade its export from the county or conversion into malt, and even

announced a maximum market-price for it. When weavers or other

artificers were out of work the justices set to work to induce masters

to employ them or merchants to buy their goods, or, as a last resort,

levied a rate for their support. If news came of the capture of a

number of English sailors or merchants by Barbary pirates, collections

were taken up by the justices of the maritime counties for their

redemption. In all such exigencies it was the justices of the peace who

were expected to tide over the special temporary difficulty or need.

Besides the ancient regulative duties of the justices, and besides

those that were definitely given them by successive statutes, they were

constantly subject to the commands and instructions of the Privy

Council. In 1592, soon after the remodelling of the commission, a

circular letter was sent by the Privy Council to certain commissioners

in each county requiring them to call a special meeting of all justices

of the peace, at which the oath of office and the oath of supremacy

must be taken by each, or they must retire from the commission of the

peace. [Footnote: Hamilton, Devonshire Quarter-Sessions, 36, 48;

Nichols, Hist. of the Poor Law, 252; Hist. MSS. Commission, Report

XIV., App. IV., 42.] This seems to have been preparatory to a more

strict discipline and oversight of their actions, for communications

from the council now became more frequent and more drastic. In

requiring them to fulfil their duties as magistrates the Privy Council

spoke categorically in the name of the king in a constant series of

letters, couched often in such harsh terms of reproof as to make it

hard to realize that the justices were gentlemen of rank and dignity,

fulfilling laborious services practically without compensation. In 1598

vigorous letters were sent to the various counties calling the

attention of the justices to the recently enacted poor law, and

requiring them to see it put into execution. [Footnote: Leonard, "the

Poor Law," 143.] From this time forward to the outbreak of the civil

war the pressure of the council on the justices became stronger and

stronger. In January, 1631, a "Book of Orders" was issued by the Privy

Council giving instructions in greater detail to the justices as to

their duties, especially in regard to the poor law, and requiring them

to make reports every three months to the sheriffs, who were to

transmit these reports to the justices of assize, who were in turn to

send them to certain members of the Privy Council deputed for the

purpose. The judges of assize were also to report directly to the king

if they learned of the negligence of any of the justices of the peace.

[Footnote: Ibid., 158, etc.] "The Book of Orders" was reissued from

time to time and its requirements followed up.

An attempt was made by these means to introduce a system of "thorough"

in the affairs of local government during the period of the personal

government of Charles I., analogous to that attempted in the higher

ranges of government by Wentworth, Laud, and their fellow-members of

the Privy Council. The great instruments of this plan were the justices

of the peace, acting within the limits of their respective counties,

carrying out the manifold duties imposed upon them by law, under

constant pressure from the Privy Council and the king. After even this

partial enumeration of the services of the justices of the peace and of

the supervision kept over them, one can readily appreciate the feeling

of the justices of Nottingham who complained that they had "little rest

at home or abroad." [Footnote: "Cal. of State Pap, Dom," 1631-1633, p.

18.]

The centre of gravity of local government in England was in the county.

The power which put its machinery in motion was that of the central

government; but the actual administration was in the hands of the

sheriff, the lord-lieutenant, the coroner, and the justices of the

peace. The county bounded the sphere of activity of all these

officials. The commission of any group of justices named the county in

which they were to exercise their functions, and outside of its

boundaries all their powers dropped from them. The coroner could not

hold an inquest outside of his own county, and even the lord-lieutenant

could exercise his military functions only within the shire or shires

named in his commission. When, in 1603, James I. rode southward from

Edinburgh on the news of the death of Elizabeth, and crossed the border

at Berwick, he was met by the sheriff of Northumberland and escorted by

him to the borders of Durham, where he was met by the sheriff of that

county, and so from shire to shire through the whole length of England

till he reached London.

The basis of representation in Parliament was the county: the counties

formed the districts for all the circuit courts; national taxation was

largely distributed by counties, and, as has been seen, local

jurisdiction and administration were largely in the hands of county

officials.

CHAPTER XVI

ENGLISH PARISH OR TOWNSHIP GOVERNMENT (1500-1650)

Next below the county as a political subdivision of England came the

hundred, or wapentake, as it was called in the northern shires. One of

the oldest political units of the country, perhaps the very oldest, it

had become the least important of all. Its ancient significance as the

primary organization of the community for judicial purposes disappeared

long before the beginning of the seventeenth century, leaving only a

desultory practice of holding a sheriff's semi-annual "tourn" through

the hundreds of the shire; and some traditional payments of fees to the

noblemen who held the hundred court as a "liberty," or to the crown.

Apart from its existence as a unit of jurisdiction, the hundred was

still put to some use as a subdivision of the county for purposes of

taxation, for military organization and service, for the preservation

of order, and as the sphere of activity of the high-constable.

[Footnote: Lambarde, Constables, S 25; Cal. of State Pap., Dom., 1637,

pp. 39, 104.] The high-constables were, indeed, the only officers of

the hundreds, one or more being chosen annually by the justices of the

peace in quarter-sessions from the same class of rural gentry as we

have already seen furnishing the county local officials. The hundred,

for some reason, took but slight root in colonial soil, though it was

established in a few of the colonies, and in such places many of its

English functions reappeared. [Footnote: Howard, Local Constitutional

History of the U. 5., 272-286; Wilhelmi, Local Institutions of

Maryland, 60, n. 5.] An ancient Latin law writer says, "England is

divided into counties, counties are divided into hundreds (which in

some parts of England are called wapentakes), and hundreds are again

subdivided into villas." [Footnote: Fortescue, De Laudibus Legum

Angliae, chap. cxxiv.] By using the general word villas ("vills") he

evaded one of the greatest difficulties in the description of English

local government in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the

confusing and conflicting use of terms for the smallest subdivision of

civil government. Shall we use parish, town, township, manor, or

tithing when we speak of a neighborhood organized for the affairs of

petty government? All these terms are used abundantly in the records of

the time and to a great extent are used indiscriminately.

This lack of consistency is quite natural and explicable. In the first

place, local organization as it existed at this time was the residuum

of several successive systems of custom and law, and contained

survivals from the nomenclature of each. "Township" or "town" was a

term belonging to a far-distant Anglo-Saxon past, and had been long

obscured by the later institution of tithings and the still later

manors. Secondly, the union of church and state, the mutual

interpenetration of the ecclesiastical and civil systems, served to

complicate the matter still further by confusing the word "parish" with

terms which applied in a non-ecclesiastical sense to the same little

group of people and the same tract of land.

Of all these terms, three--manor, town (or township), and parish--are

the most usual. A manor was a group of inhabitants and the land they

occupied (usually a single village), so far as these people were

connected with and dependent upon a certain "lord of the manor," who

had various rights over the people and their lands. Aside from his

position as landlord, the most important of these rights was that of

holding a court-baron and a court-leet and view of frank-pledge.

Various powers and activities had long gathered around these petty

courts, but the whole group of manorial rights and duties of

jurisdiction and administration was, in 1600, fast becoming an obsolete

and insignificant institution. Yet the terms connected with it had

worked themselves inseparably into local life. Courts-baron were held

in but few places, and almost solely for the purpose of making land

transfers; courts-leet were held only infrequently and irregularly,

many lords of manors who possessed the right exercising it but once a

year or less frequently; the whole system of frank-pledges had long

gone into desuetude. Grants of manorial powers, "court-leet, court-

baron, and view of frank-pledge," were made in several of the colonial

charters; but these institutions showed little inclination to renew in

America a vitality they had lost in England.

The English word town or township is the nearest equivalent to the

Latin word villa or vill, which is a generic term used in the records,

without very exact connotation, for one of those country villages in

which the rural population of England was distributed, including the

land connected with the village. Town and township meant the same

thing, except when the former was applied to an urban community. Over

and over again to the same locality first the term "town" and then

"township" is applied; [Footnote: West Riding Sessions Rolls, passim.]

and a careful search fails to find any distinction drawn between them.

In the north of England the term town or township seems to have been

especially familiar and frequently used as a subdivision of some of the

other local units; [Footnote: Fishwick, Hist of Preston, 2.] and it was

in common use everywhere as a synonym for manor or parish.

While all these terms meet us frequently in the records of the

seventeenth century, the term parish, notwithstanding its

ecclesiastical connotation, was, in fact, superseding all others as the

most usual appellation to give to the unit of local government. Terms

strictly applicable to other phases of the local organization were apt

to be applied to the parish. For instance, we hear of the "constable of

a parish," [Footnote: Archaeological Review, IV, 344.] although that

officer was an official of a township; proprietors of "free" and "copy-

hold" lands of a parish are spoken of, though those terms properly

applied only to a manor; the same is true of an order for a court to be

held every three weeks in certain parishes, [Footnote: Saalkeld,

Reports, III., 98.] the term "court" being properly manorial. These

expressions show the tendency of the time to substitute the term

"parish" for more exact terms applied to the local governing body in

its different aspects. It was the "parish" that was usually sued,

taxed, and fined, that received property by bequest, and that was

ordered by the government to perform various duties.

Our colonial forefathers, according to the locality of their origin or

the particular phase of local government that applied to their new

conditions, used sometimes one term, sometimes another; but in this

study of English conditions the parish and the officers whose sphere of

action was the parish may be taken to include all that is necessary,

with the understanding that our use of the term parish is broad, in

conformity with seventeenth-century usage.

The knowledge of the boundaries of the parish was kept alive by the

traditional ceremony of perambulation. From time to time, usually once

a year, a procession was formed which went the rounds of the outer

boundary, stopping from time to time at well-marked points for various

commemorative ceremonies. In pre-Reformation times the ceremony was a

religious one, the priest leading and the parishioners following with

cross, banners, bells, lights, and sacred emblems, successive points

being blessed and sprinkled with holy water. [Footnote: Burn,

Ecclesiastical Law, II, 133,134.] When religious processions were

forbidden at the Reformation, this ceremony came under the condemnation

of the law; and Queen Elizabeth found it necessary, in order to

perpetuate the useful civil element in it, to direct by proclamation a

certain form of renewal of the processions. "The people should, once in

the year, at the time appointed, with the curate and substantial men of

the parish, walk about the parish, and at their return to the church

make their common prayers. And the curate in the said perambulation

was, at certain convenient places, to admonish the people to give

thanks to God in the beholding of His benefits, and for the increase

and abundance of his fruits upon the face of the earth, with the saying

of the one hundred and third Psalm." [Footnote: Gibson, Codex, 213.]

The custom survived in this or other forms, [Footnote: Shillingfleet,

Ecclesiastical Cases, I., 244.] because there were no surveyed

boundaries, and reliance had to be placed on marked stones and trees,

hill-tops, watercourses, and such indications, interpreted and defined

only by human tradition. In some remote districts it is still

preserved. From the practice of performing the perambulation in

rogation week it was often called "the rogation," and conversely

rogation days were sometimes called "gang-days" [Footnote: Burn,

Ecclesiastical Law, II., 133.] In the seventeenth century, as the men

who afterwards practised it in New England and Virginia must have

remembered, it was still a festivity. In the church-wardens' accounts

for the parish of St. Clements, Ipswich, in 1638, is the item "ffor

bread and beare given to the boyes when they wente the boundes of the

parishe, 12s." [Footnote: East Anglian, IV., 2d series, 5.] Boys were

taken as those whose life and memory would naturally be the longest,

and the poorer boys were often especially included as a treat. In

Chelsea, Middlesex, at a somewhat later time, a more official feast is

suggested by the entry: "Spent at the perambulation dinner, 3 pounds

10s." [Footnote: Toulmin Smith, The Parish, 473.]

No material obstacle was allowed to interfere with the progress of the

perambulators. They could, by law, enter all dwellings on the boundary

and pass through and even break down all enclosures which lay across

it. Private persons whose houses lay in the line of march of the

perambulators sometimes provided food and drink for them, and this

became so customary that efforts were made, though unsuccessfully, to

enforce this custom by law. [Footnote: Burn, Ecclesiastical Law, II.,

133.]

In describing the officers of the parish we pass from the class of

country gentry, from which the sheriffs, coroners, justices of the

peace, and high-constables were drawn, to a group of lower social rank.

In the towns they may have been of somewhat higher or at least more

varied status, but in the rural parishes the officers were of very

humble position. In the invaluable description of England written by

Harrison in the latter part of the reign of Elizabeth, from which we

have had occasion to quote so frequently, the author says: "The fourth

and last sort of people in England are day-labourers, poor husbandmen,

and some retailers (which have no free land), copyholders, and all

artificers, as tailors, shoemakers, carpenters, brickmakers, masons,

etc. ... This fourth and last sort of people therefore have neither

voice nor authority in the commonwealth, but are to be ruled and not to

rule others: yet they are not altogether neglected, for ... in villages

they are commonly made churchwardens, sidesmen, aleconners, now and

then constables, and many times enjoy the name of head boroughs."

[Footnote: Harrison, Description of England (Camelot ed.), 13.]

The most active and conspicuous officer of the parish or township was

the constable, or petty constable, as he is often called, to

distinguish him from the high-constable of the hundred. He was

appointed by the court-leet, where this was still held; in other cases

by the steward of the lord of the manor, the vestry of the parish, or,

as a part of their residuary duties, by the justices of the peace. The

regular form of oath of the constable may be quoted in some fulness to

show the nature of his duties. "You shall swear that you shall well and

truly serve our sovereign lord, the king, in the office of a constable.

You shall see and cause his majesty's peace to be well and duly kept

and preserved, according to your power. You shall arrest all such

persons as in your sight and presence shall ride or go armed

offensively, or shall commit or make any riot, affray, or other breach

of his majesty's peace. You shall do your best endeavor to apprehend

all felons, barrators, and rioters, or persons riotously assembled; and

if any such offenders shall make resistance you shall levy hue and cry

and shall pursue them until they be taken. You shall do your best

endeavors that the watch in and about your town be duly kept for the

apprehending of rogues, vagabonds, nightwalkers, eavesdroppers, and

other suspected persons, and of such as go armed and the like. ... You

shall well and duly execute all precepts and warrants to you directed

from the justices of the peace of the county or higher officers. In

time of hay or corn harvest you shall cause all meet persons to serve

by the day for the mowing, reaping, and getting in of corn or hay. You

shall, in Easter week, cause your parishioners to chuse surveyors for

the mending of the highways in your parish. ... And you shall well and

duly, according to your knowledge, power, and ability, do and execute

all things belonging to the office of a constable so long as you shall

continue in this office. So help you God." [Footnote: Dalton, The

Country Justice, chap. clxxiv.]

The constable, among the other duties prescribed by his oath, had to

"raise the hue and cry" when it was demanded--that is to say, if any

one were assaulted or robbed and appealed to the constable of the

parish in which the injury occurred, the constable must summon out his

neighbors, whether it were by day or by night, to seek the culprit. If

not successful he must give notice to the constables of the adjacent

parishes, who were similarly to raise the hue and cry in their

neighborhoods. If the offender was not then discovered the person who

suffered the loss might bring suit for its recovery from the whole

hundred in which the attack occurred. [Footnote: Ibid., chap. lxxxiv,]

In practice hue and cry was a very ineffective method of capturing ill-

doers. Harrison says: "I have known by my own experience felons being

taken to have escaped out of the stocks, being rescued by others for

want of watch and guard, that thieves have been let pass, because the

covetous and greedy parishioners would neither take the pains nor be at

the charge to carry them to prison, if it were far off; that when hue

and cry have been made even to the faces of some constables, they have

said: 'God restore your loss! I have other business at this time.'"

[Footnote: Harrison, Description of England (Camelot ed.), 247.] To

prosecute petty offenders, to force laborers to serve during harvest-

time, to sign their testimonials when they wished to leave the parish,

and to see that innkeepers refused no travellers, gave the constable

considerable duties of local supervision.

The constable must, with the advice of the minister and of one other

inhabitant of the parish, whip any rogue, vagabond, or sturdy beggar

who appeared in the parish, and then send him, with a testimonial to

the fact of the whipping, back to his native parish. The word rogue was

a comprehensive term as used in the laws of Elizabeth, including

wandering sailors, fortune-tellers, collectors of money for charities,

fencers, bearwards, minstrels, common players of interludes, jugglers,

tinkers, peddlers, and many others, and adequate whipping of them and

starting them in the direct route homeward must have been no sinecure.

[Footnote: Lambarde, Duties of Constables, S 45.]

A contemporary testimonial with which such a person was provided may

not be without interest as an illustration of the manners of the time.

"A. B., a sturdy rogue of tall stature, red-haired and bearded, about

the age of thirty years, and having a wart neere under his right eie,

born (as he confesseth) at East Tilberie, in Essex, was taken begging

at Shorne in this county of Kent, the tenth of March, 1598, and was

then and there lawfully whipped therefor, and hee is appointed to goe

to East Tilberie aforesaid, the direct way by Gravesend, over the river

of Thamise; for which hee is allowed one whole day, and no more at his

peril; subscribed and sealed the day and yeare aforesaid. By us"

(signed by the minister, the constable, and a parishioner). [Footnote:

Lambarde, Duties of Constables, S 45.] It is no wonder that constables

are advised "in every corner to have a readie hand and whip."

The constable was also the warden of such arms and armor as each parish

kept, or was supposed to keep, in obedience to the militia

requirements. A writer of Elizabeth's time says: "The said armour and

munition likewise is kept in one several place of every town, appointed

by the consent of the whole parish, where it is always ready to be had

and worn within an hour's warning. ... Certes there is almost no

village so poor ... that hath not sufficient furniture in a readiness

to set forth three or four soldiers, as one archer, one gunner, one

pike, and a billman." [Footnote: Harrison, Description of England

(Camelot ed.), 224.]

An account of the armor kept in a parish in Middlesex is entered in the

vestry accounts of the year 1583. "Note of the armour for the parish of

Fulham: first, a corslet, with a pyke, sworde, and daiger, furnished in

all points, a gyrdle only excepted. Item, two hargobushes, with flaskes

and touch-boxes to the same; two morryons; two swords, and two daigers,

which are all for Fulham side only. All which armore are, and do

remayne in the possession and appointment of John Palton, of Northend,

being constable of Fulhamsyde the yere above wrytten." [Footnote:

Toulmin Smith, The Parish, 473.] One may easily imagine the nature and

value of such accoutrements, and of the villagers who were occasionally

pressed into the service to wear them. Mouldy and Bullcalf, Wart,

Shadow, and Feeble, and Falstaff's whole company of "cankers of a calm

world and a long peace" may readily enough have been drawn from the

life.

These duties the constable must fulfil at his own initiation or upon

the recurrence of the occasion for them. But the great part of his

duties were those imposed upon him from above in special cases--that is

to say, in carrying out the warrants and precepts of the justices of

the peace, or occasionally of the coroner, sheriff, lord-lieutenant, or

still higher officials. If the justice of the peace was the man-of-all-

work, as has been said, of the government of the time, the constable

was the tool and instrument with which he worked. The constable was

required to arrest all persons who were to be bound over by the

justices to keep the peace, and all felons and other ill-doers for whom

a warrant had been issued, and to bring them before the justices into

jail. And woe be to him if he allowed such a prisoner to escape. The

justices might construe his inactivity as participation in the crime of

the prisoner, or he might be fined to the extent of all his property.

[Footnote: Lambarde, Duties of Constables, S 15]

The constable must carry out the lesser sentences of the justices,

inflicting the punishment ordered and collecting the fines imposed. For

instance, when a certain poor woman, Elizabeth Armistead, was convicted

of petty larceny at the West Riding Sessions, in 1598, it was ordered

by the justices that "she shall nowe be delivered to the constable of

Keerbie, and he to cause her to be stripped naked from the middle

upward and soundly whipped thorowe the said town of Keerbie, and by hym

delivered to the constable of Kirkby and he to see like execution

within his town, and the next markett att Weatherbie to delyver her to

the constables of Weatherbie, and they to see like punishment of her

executed thorow their towns." [Footnote: West Riding Sessions Rolls,

58] In assessing and collecting taxes and in obtaining information the

constables were at the command of county and hundred authorities. They

were used as the active or at least the most available intermediaries

between the justices of the peace and the individuals whom it was

desirable to reach. [Footnote: Hist. MSS. Commission, Report XIV., App,

pt. iv, 28, 67.] They were by no means ideal instruments; many were

extremely ignorant--as, for instance, the constable of Collingbourne

Ducis, who in 1650 prays to be relieved from his office because he can

neither read nor write, and is obliged to go to the minister and divers

others to get his warrants read. [Footnote: Hist. MSS. Commission,

Report I., 121] They were constantly being fined by the justices for

neglect of their duties or for inefficiency. [Footnote: Middlesex

County Records, II., 36, 41, 139.]

The most important remaining ancient parochial officers were the

church-wardens. Their position and functions were not so purely

ecclesiastical as the name would suggest. Their duties included, it is

true, the care of the parish church and the provision of other material

requirements for religious services. But they also included many things

which were quite clearly temporal or civil in their nature. Coke says

of their position, "The office is mere temporal." [Footnote: Lambarde,

Duties of Constables, SS 57-60.] That is to say, the church-wardens

represented the parishioners, not the minister or the ecclesiastical

authorities. They formed a quasi-corporation for the holding of the

personal property that belonged to the parish, and could sue and be

sued as trustees for the parish. [Footnote: Lambarde, Duties of Church-

wardens, S 1.]

The almost invariable custom was for the body of the parishioners at a

vestry meeting in Easter week to choose two church-wardens for the next

year. But neither the number nor the mode of appointment was at this

time quite fixed. During the first half of the seventeenth century

clergymen were inclined to magnify their office, and the canons of 1603

and 1639 gave to the minister of the parish some control over the

choice of the wardens; although whenever the rights of the parishioners

were asserted and an established custom shown, the courts upheld this

custom against ecclesiastical encroachments. [Footnote: Toulmin Smith,

The Parish, 78-87.]

The financial powers of the church-wardens were considerable, though

exercised in most cases along with the constable, and in many only

after the approval of the whole body of parishioners at a vestry

meeting. They had, of course, the duty of providing for the repairs of

the church and of taxing their neighbors for this purpose. Unless

previously settled upon by the parishioners themselves, they levied and

collected the local taxes already described as being imposed by the

justices upon the parishes for various purposes. They had the power to

seize and sell the property of such parishioners as refused or

neglected to pay the amounts assessed upon them. Many of the parishes

also received considerable sums by gift or bequest, which were

invested, and the income expended for the poor or other parish objects.

[Footnote: Ibid., chap, v., App.]

Property in land and houses also belonged to some parishes, apart from

the minister's glebe, and the renting and accounts fell within the

church-warden's duties. Various means of combining the securing of

funds with much neighborhood merriment, even in those days of militant

Puritanism, were used by the parish authorities, such as "church-ales,"

"pigeon-holes," Hock-tide games, Easter games, processions, and festive

gatherings, at all of which farthings, pence, and shillings were

gathered. [Footnote: Various quotations in Toulmin Smith, The Parish,

chap, vii., S 12.] Such accounts of these various funds and the record

of the thousand and one petty expenditures for local purposes as were

kept were usually the work of the church-wardens and made their office

one of real local importance. In fact, a whole cycle of parish life

passes before us in these accounts. "Paid the carpenters 5s. for a

barrow to carry the people that died of the sickness to church to bury

them." "For a coat for the whipper, and making, 3s." "For too payre of

glovys for Robin Hode and Mayde Maryan, 3d." "Received for the May-

pole, 1 pound 4s." "Paid Robert Warden, the constable, which he

disbursed for carrying away the witches, 11s." [Footnote: Ibid., 465-

472.]

The church-wardens, under a law of Queen Mary, [Footnote: 2 and 3

Philip and Mary, chap. viii.] with the constables and parishioners,

selected the surveyors of highways; and under two statutes of Queen

Elizabeth [Footnote: 8 Eliz., chap, xv., and 14 Eliz., chap. xi.] every

year appointed two men who should be named "the distributers of the

provision for the destruction of noisome fowle and vermine." A tax was

levied upon the parishioners to provide these officers with funds, and

it then became their duty to pay bounties for the heads and eggs of

crows, rooks, starlings, and many other birds. A long list of four-

footed beasts is also included in the definition of "vermine," and

rates ranging from a shilling for a fox to a halfpenny for a mole were

established. [Footnote: Lambarde, Office of Distributers, etc., 92.]

The mole-catcher was a regular employe of some parishes. [Footnote:

Hist. MSS. Commission, Report III., App., 331; V., App., 597.]

Finally, the church-wardens were ex-officio overseers of the poor. By

the great poor law of 1597 the church-wardens, along with four

overseers of the poor appointed each year at Easter by the justices,

had the whole charge of the relief of the poor. [Footnote: 8 Leonard,

The Poor Law, 76, etc.]

They were to estimate the annual costs and to tax their fellow-townsmen

for this purpose. From this time forward taxation for the poor under

the control of parish officers became the most important, as it was the

heaviest, of local charges. The constant efforts of the Privy Council,

through the justices of the peace, to enforce the poor law, kept

church-wardens and other overseers of the poor up to their duties and

engaged them in constant conferences with the justices and in making

reports, as well as in the actual work of poor relief.

A vestry clerk existed in some parishes, and later such an office

became quite general and influential, but at this period the records

were generally preserved by one of the church-wardens or by the

minister. The vestry-clerk is of special interest as being apparently

the prototype of the town-clerk in the American colonies. [Footnote:

Howard, Local Constitutional History of the U. S., 39.]

Various other petty officers existed, but their duties were either

identical with those already described, or insignificant, or so

exceptional as not to reward inquiry and description here. Such were

the beadle, sexton, haywards, ale-conners, waymen, way-wardens,

sidesmen, synodsmen, swornmen, questmen, and perhaps some others.

[Footnote: Discussed in Charming, Town and County Government in the

English Colonies (Johns Hopkins University Studies, II.), No. 10, p.

18, etc.]

Such being the officers whose sphere of activity was the parish, it

remains to describe the general assembly of the people of the parish,

the vestry. This name arose apparently from the practice of meeting in

the part of the church in which the vestments were kept. Ordinarily,

all who held house or land in a parish, no matter on what tenure, were

members of the vestry of the parish. All inhabitants, therefore--land-

owners, free tenants, copy-holders, laborers occupying cottages, even

those who held land in the parish but lived somewhere else--were by law

at liberty to attend the meetings of the parishioners and to join in

the exercise of their functions.

Such a body is of great interest. [Footnote: Coke, 5 Report, 66, 67.]

Those officials whose positions and functions have been discussed in

the two preceding chapters drew all their powers from the crown, and

the duties that they performed were imposed upon them by statute law or

by royal instruction. The same is true of a considerable part of the

activity of constables and church-wardens. But the vestry of the parish

existed as a body which within certain limits had powers of government

of its own, and could impose duties upon parish officials, appoint

committees and require services from them, adopt by-laws which bound

all the inhabitants, and impose taxes upon the landholders of the

parish which they were bound to pay.

Yet evidences of anything like regular meetings of the parishioners

are, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, so scanty as to leave

considerable doubt as to whether they occurred at all generally. They

are not mentioned in the legal text-books of the time, which were, of

course, written by men who looked from above downward and were not

interested in local institutions as such. A few accounts of such vestry

meetings remain, [Footnote: E.g., those of Steeple Ashton, quoted in

Toulmin Smith, The Parish, chap, vii, SS 12.] but the action taken at

them was apparently restricted to the choice of parish officers, the

adoption of by-laws for the carrying out of necessary taxation and

other distribution of burdens, and for matters connected with the

building or repair of the church. The attendance probably consisted

only of the more substantial members of the parish and of those who

held office and must present reports. The parish life resided more in

the activity of its officials than of its assembly. Vigorous local

self-government could not have existed without leaving more distinct

traces than it has done, and our study of the political system of the

time will have made it clear that much local independence was not

suited to the period of the Tudors and Stuarts. [Footnote: See Toulmin

Smith, The Parish, chaps, ii., iv., vii.; and Gneist, Self-Government,

book III., chap, ix., S 115.] Such was the provision for the carrying

out of those matters of local concern in the county, the hundred, and

rural parish which were not performed by immediate officials or

commissioners of the central government. It is evident that in the

early seventeenth century the motive power for almost all government,

local as well as general, emanated from the national government--from

the king, Privy Council, and Parliament. It was a vigorous, assertive,

centralized administration, eager to carry out its will and enforce

order, uniformity, and its own ideas upon all persons and bodies in

England. No shade of doubt of their own wisdom or reluctance to

override local or individual liberty of action troubled the thought or

weakened the resolution of the Tudor and Stuart sovereigns and their

ministers. Nor were their Parliaments antagonistic to the principle of

centralized government, even when they wished to curb unrestrained

royal control of it. Strong government was in entire consonance with

the spirit of the time.

Yet this ambitious central government was working with very inadequate

and unsuitable instruments. Instead of a body of efficient and

responsible officials, directly and immediately dependent upon their

superiors, receiving wages and hoping for promotion, such as successful

centralized governments have usually possessed, the king and council

made use of the old and cumbrous machinery of local self-government as

they found it. It was quite unsuited to their purposes. Sheriffs,

coroners, high and petty constables, church-wardens, even justices of

the peace, had come down from a period when government was of quite

another and more primitive character, in which the central power

counted for far less, local powers for far more. Most of the local

officials were unpaid, and the others were dependent on insignificant

fees for such money reward as they obtained. The labors imposed upon

them were performed only from a sense of duty, loyalty, or necessity,

not as a fair return for remuneration received.

There was little provision for a wise selection of office-holders, so

far as regarded their suitability to the objects of the central

administration. The county and hundred officials were taken from one

restricted class, the rural gentry; the township and parish officials

were chosen by their neighbors from their own number. In a word, the

government of Elizabeth, James, and Charles was trying to carry on an

ambitious, centralized administration by means of an unpaid, untrained,

and carelessly selected group of local officials, whose offices had

been established and whose characters had been formed for a system of

much more limited powers and of more independent local life.

At certain times, as in the period of personal government of Charles

I., something like a hierarchy seemed about to develop itself, in which

the Privy Council, speaking in the name of the king, gave instructions

to the justices of assize, the justices of assize to the sheriffs and

justices of the peace, the justices of the peace to the high-constable

of the hundred, and the high-constable to the petty constable, church-

wardens, and other township or parish officials. But no such regularity

was attained; the council frequently communicated directly with the

justices of the peace, the sheriff with the parish officers; and the

administration became no more systematic as time went on.

The primary governmental division of the country, the shire, was the

sphere of much activity; but it was not automatic, and acted wholly or

almost wholly in response to pressure from above. The ultimate unit of

local government, the parish, township, or manor, had many and

interesting functions, but they were for the most part either declining

survivals of earlier powers, or new forms of activity imposed upon it

from above. It had the necessary officials and the political rights to

enable it to do a great deal, but it showed few signs of vigorous life.

Thus government in England in the early seventeenth century was so

organized that at the top was an energetic national government, midway

an active but dependent county organization, and at the bottom the

parish with a residuum of ancient but unutilized powers of self-

government.

No greater contrast could be noted in the position of men than that

between the Englishman at home, in the early seventeenth century, and

the Englishman who emigrated to America. Almost all the conditions that

surrounded the former were reversed in the case of the latter. The

pressure of central government was immediately and almost completely

withdrawn. Many of the most urgent activities of government in England,

such as the administration of the poor law and the restriction of

vagabondage, almost ceased in the colonies. The class of settled rural

gentry from which most local officials were drawn in England did not

exist in America. On the other hand, the wilderness, the Indians, the

freedom from restraint, the religious liberty, the opportunity for

economic and social rise in the New World made a set of conditions

which had been quite unknown in the mother-country.

As a result, the colonists had to make a choice from among the

institutions with which they were familiar at home, of those which were

applicable to their new needs. Of such institutions of local government

in England there were, as has been seen, a considerable number and

variety. Naturally, some functions which had been prominent at home

were reduced to insignificance in the colonies; some which had been

almost forgotten or had remained quite undeveloped in England gained

unwonted importance in America. Almost every local official or body

which existed in England reappeared in some part or other of the

English colonies, although often with much altered powers and duties.

All the familiar names are to be found, though sometimes with new

meanings and always more or less considerably adapted to new

conditions. Moreover, the choice was in the main restricted to familiar

English institutions, for in the great variety of system in different

parts of the colonies there was scarcely an official or body which did

not have its prototype in England. [Footnote: Howard, Local

Constitutional History of the U. S.; Channing, Town and County

Government in the English Colonies; Adams, Germanic Origin of New

England Towns. Cf. also Tyler, England in America; Andrews, Colonial

Self-Government; Greene, Colonial Commonwealth (American Nation

Series), IV., V., VI.]

In this as in other matters, the foundations of America were laid in

European conditions and occurrences. European needs sent explorers on

their voyages of discovery, and European ambitions equipped adventurers

for their expeditions of conquest; the commercial projects of England,

France, Holland, and Sweden led to the establishment of the principal

New-World colonies; the economic exigencies and the political and

religious struggles of Europe sent a flood of settlers to people them;

the institutions of Spain, France, Holland, and England all found a

lodgment in the western continent; and those of England became the

basis of the great nation which has reached so distinct a primacy in

America.

CHAPTER XVII

CRITICAL ESSAY ON AUTHORITIES

BIBLIOGRAPHIES

No general bibliography of the whole field of this volume exists,

although two comprehensive publications (both described below) have

special bibliographic sections: The Cambridge Modern History has full

lists of books, less well analyzed than the systematic and useful

bibliographies in Lavisse et Rambaud, Histoire Generale.

GENERAL SECONDARY WORKS

Several general histories of Europe covering the field of this volume

have been published in recent years or are now appearing. The most

important are: Lavisse et Rambaud, Histoire Generale (12 vols., 1893-

1901), of which vols. III. and VI. apply most nearly to the subjects

included in this book; The Cambridge Modern History (to be in 12 vols.,

1902-), especially vols. I.-IV.; H. H. Helmolt, History of the World,

translated from the German (to be in 8 vols., 1902-), especially vols.

I. and VII. Helmolt differs from all other general histories by its

arrangement in accordance with ethnographical and geographical

divisions rather than historical epochs; he pays also especial

attention to economic phenomena. The following three volumes in the

series entitled Periods of European History, give an account of this

period in somewhat shorter form: Richard Lodge, The Close of the Middle

Ages, 1272-1494 (1901); A. H. Johnson, Europe in the Sixteenth Century,

1494-1598 (1897); H. O. Wakeman, Europe, 1598-1715 (1904).

Two excellent histories of the period of discovery are O. F. Peschel,

Geschichte des Zeitalters der Entdeckungen (1858), and Sophus Ruge,

Geschichte des Zeitalters der Entdeckungen (1881). More recent works

are S. Gunther, Das Zeitalter der Entdeckungen (1901), and Carlo

Errera, L'Epoca delle Grandi Scoperti Geografiche (1902).

SPECIAL QUESTION ON COLUMBUS

The seemingly well-established view that Columbus when he discovered

America was in search of a direct western route to the East Indies and

Cathay, and that he had been led to form this plan by correspondence

with the Florentine scholar Toscanelli, was attacked by Henry Vignaud,

La Lettre et la Carte de Toscanelli sur la Route des Indes par L'Orient

(1901), and in a translation and extension of the same work under the

title Toscanelli and Columbus (1902). Vignaud considers the letter of

Toscanelli a forgery, and the object of Columbus in making the voyage

the discovery of a certain island of which he had been informed by a

dying pilot. His work elicited many replies in the form of book reviews

or more extended works. Of the former may be mentioned those of E. G.

Bourne (American Historical Review, January, 1903) and Sophus Ruge

(Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft fur Erdkunde zu Berlin, 1902); among the

latter, the monumental work, Christopher Columbus, His Life, His Work,

His Remains, by John Boyd Thacher (I., 1903). Few scholars seem to have

been convinced by the arguments of Vignaud, but the whole question must

be considered as still undetermined. The last word is E. G. Bourne,

Spain in America (The American Nation, III., 1904).

SOURCES

A large number of the contemporary accounts of the early expeditions of

discovery and adventure are published by the Hakluyt Society. These

volumes are provided with introductions of great value and with

numerous maps, glossaries, and other material illustrative of the time.

They cover a long period of time and include many lines of travel not

referred to in this book; but many of them refer to the early

expeditions to the southeast, west, and northwest which had much to do

with the discovery and exploration of America. Some of the most

important publications of this character in the series are the

following: Select Letters of Columbus, edited by R. H. Major (II, and

XLIII, 1849 and 1870); Narratives of Early Voyages to the Northwest,

edited by Thomas Rundall (V., 1851); India in the Fifteenth Century,

edited by R. H. Major (XXII., 1859); The Commentaries of the Great

Afonso Dalboquerque, edited by Walter de Gray Birch (LIII., LV., LXII.,

LXIX., 1875, 1880, and 1883); The Voyage of John Huyghen van Linschoten

to the East Indies, edited by A. C. Burnell and P. A. Tiele (LXX. and

LXXI., 1884); The Journal of Christopher Columbus, edited by C. R.

Markham (LXXXVI., 1892); The Discovery and Conquest of Guinea, Written

by Gomes Eannes de Azurara, edited by C. R. Beazley and Edgar Prestage

(XCV. and C., 1896 and 1900); The First Voyage of Vasco da Gama, edited

by E. G. Ravenstein (XCIX., 1898); Texts and Versions of John de Piano

Carpini and William de Rubruquis, edited by C. R. Beazley (1903).

The standard editions of the narratives of the early land travellers in

eastern Asia are those of the Recueil de Voyages et de Memoires publie

par la Societe de Geographie, including (IV., 1839) Relations des

Voyages de Guillaume de Rubruk, Jean du Plan Carpin, etc. (edited by M.

A. R. D'Avezac); and Schafer et Cordier, Recueil de Voyages et de

Documents pour Servir a L'Histoire de la Geographie, especially

"Voyages en Asie ... du ... Odoric de Pordenone" (edited by Henri

Cordier). English translations of Rubruquis and Pordenone also appear

as an appendix in Travels of Sir John Mandeville, edited by A. W.

Pollard (1900). Sir John Mandeville is worthless as an historical

source, as his genuine material is all drawn from these sources and

from Marco Polo, and there is no probability that he ever travelled in

the East. His own additions are usually mendacious. The standard

edition of Marco Polo is that of Sir Henry Yule (2 vols., 1871). This

has just been reprinted with additional editorial notes by Henri

Cordier, under the title, The Book of Ser Marco Polo the Venetian,

Concerning the Kingdoms and Marvels of the East, etc. (1903). A

valuable collection of narratives of early discovery is M. F. de

Navarrete, Coleccion de los Viages y Descubrimientos (5 vols., 1825-

1837). Those of particular interest to England are in Richard Hakluyt,

Principal Navigations, Voyages, and Discoveries (1589, reprinted 1903,

to be in 12 vols.).

GEOGRAPHY AND COMMERCE

Among the standard histories of mediaeval and modern geography are

Joachim Lelewel, Geographie du Moyen Age (4 vols., 1852-1857); Vivien

de St. Martin, Histoire de la Geographie et des Decouvertes

Geographiques (1873); M. F. Vicomte de Santarem, Essai sur L'Histoire

de la Cosmographie pendant le Moyen Age (3 vols., 1849-1852); and C. R.

Beazley, The Dawn of Modern Geography (vols. I. and II., 1897 and

1901). A full account of the history and development of maps,

especially of the form known as portolani, is to be found in the two

works translated from the Swedish of A. E. Nordenskiold: Facsimile

Atlas to the Early History of Cartography (1889), Periplus, an Essay on

the Early History of Charts and Sailing-Directions (1 vol. and an

atlas, 1897); G. Wauverman, Histoire de L'Ecole Cartographique Belge et

Anversois du 16 degrees Siecle (2 vols., 1895).

The state of geographical knowledge at the beginning of the period of

explorations is well described in C. R. Beazley, Introduction to the

volume of the Hakluyt Society's publications for 1899. F. Kunstmann,

Die Kenntniss Indiens in XV. Jahrhunderts (1863); and G. H. Pertz, Der

Aelteste Versuch zur Entdeckung des Seeweges nach Ostindien (1859),

describe two important phases of that subject.

The fullest and best work on the relations between the Orient and the

Occident, the trade-routes, the objects of trade, and the methods of

its administration is Wilhelm Heyd, Geschichte des Levantehandels im

Mittelalter (2 vols., 1879). There is a French translation of this work

(1885-1887), which is later and has been corrected by the author. There

is a valuable article on ancient trade in Encyclopaedia Biblica, IV.,

48, etc. Much that is suggestive and informing concerning Eastern

commerce and trade-routes can be found in Sir W. W. Hunter, History of

British India, I. (1899), and on the products of the East in Sir George

Birdwood, Report of Commissioners for the Paris Exhibition of 1878

(1878). Some information concerning trade organization in the

Mediterranean Sea and throughout Europe can be found in William

Cunningham, An Essay on Western Civilization in Its Economic Aspects (2

vols., 1898-1900). H. H. Helmolt, General History, VII., pt. i., pp. 1-

139, has a long and valuable chapter on "The Economic Development of

Western Europe Since the Time of the Crusades," by Dr. Richard Mayr.

John Fiske, The Discovery of America (2 vols., 1892), contains an

interesting popular account of the trade conditions of the time and of

those explorations which were directed westward.

The formation of the later commercial companies is described and the

provisions of their charters analyzed in P. Bonnassieux, Les Grandes

Compagnies de Commerce (1892). This work is somewhat superficial, being

based, apparently, entirely on works in the French and Latin languages,

and using secondary materials where primary sources are attainable; but

it stands almost alone in its subject, and has, therefore, considerable

importance.

Naval architecture is described in Auguste Jal, Archeologie Navale (2

vols., 1840); and J. P. E. Jurien de la Graviere, Les Manns du XV. et

du XVI. Siecle (1879); Sir William Stirling-Maxwell, Don John of

Austria (2 vols., 1883).

ITALY AND THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN

The best general account of Italy during the fourteenth and fifteenth

centuries is in Lavisse et Rambaud, Histoire Generale, III., chaps, ix.

and x., and IV., chap. i. For the intellectual and artistic history of

Italy as a whole, J. Burckhardt, The Civilization of the Renaissance in

Italy (1860, English translation, 2 vols.), is the most satisfactory

work. J. A. Symonds, Renaissance in Italy (7 vols., 1875-1886), takes

up many sides of the period. A good general history of Venice in small

compass is H. P. Brown, Venice: a Historical Sketch of the Republic

(1893).

M. G. Canale, Storia del Commercio dei Viaggi, ... degl' Italiani

(1866), and Storia della Republica di Genoa (1858-1864), contain much

information about Mediterranean trade and voyages, especially of the

Genoese.

The commerce of Venice is described in H. F. Brown, Calendar of State

Papers, Venetian, Introduction, I. (1864).

Of the fondaco and the German merchants in Venice a description is

given in H. Simonsfeld, Der Fondaco dei Tedeschi in Venedig (2 vols.,

1887). Many additional sources are in G. Thomas, Capitolare dei

Visdomini del Fontego dei Todechi (1874). A valuable article on the

same subject is W. Heyd, "Das Haus der deutschen Kaufleute in Venedig,"

in Historische Zeitschrift, XXXII., 193-220.

The standard history of the rise of the Ottoman Empire is J. W.

Zinkeisen, Geschichte des Osmanischen Reichs in Europa (6 vols., 1840).

More modern works are A. La Jonquiere, Histoire de L'Empire Ottoman

(1881); and G. F. Herzberg, Geschichte des Bysantischen und des

Osmanischen Reiches (1883).

An excellent work on the fifteenth century is Edwin Pears, The

Destruction of the Greek Empire and the Story of the Capture of

Constantinople by the Turks (2 vols., 1903). For later history, see L.

von Ranke, Die Osmanen in XVI. und XVII. Jahrhundert (1827). A short

and good popular account is A. Lane-Poole, Turkey (1886). Good sections

are devoted to the Ottoman Turks in the Cambridge Modern History (I.,

chap, iii., by J. B. Bury); and in Lavisse et Rambaud, Histoire

Generale (III., chap, xvi., and IV., chap, xix.), by A. Rambaud.

PORTUGAL IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY

A short but excellent history of Portugal is H. M. Stephens, The Story

of Portugal (1891, Stories of the Nations Series).

The interesting character and significant work of Prince Henry the

Navigator have made him the subject of many biographies. One of the

earliest of these was G. de Veer, Prinz Heinrich und seine Zeit (1864).

More detailed is R. H. Major, Life of Prince Henry the Navigator (1868,

abbreviated edition, 1874). A number of other biographies were called

forth by the interest in the five hundredth anniversary of Henry's

birth, which was coincident with the four hundredth anniversary of the

discovery of America. A partial list of these is as follows: C. R.

Beazley, Prince Henry the Navigator (1890); G. Wauverman, Henri le

Navigateur et L'Academie Portugaise de Sagres (1890); J. P. O. Martins,

Os Filhos de Dom Joao I. (1891); M. Barradas, O Infante Dom Henrique

(1894); A. Alves, Dom Henrique o Infante (1894); J. E. Wappaus,

Untersuchungen uber... Heinrich (1842). Two valuable essays, Prince

Henry the Navigator and The Demarcation Line of Pope Alexander III., by

E. G. Bourne, are republished in his Essays in Historical Criticism

(1901).

The most important original source for the early exorations of the

Portuguese is Gomes Eannes de Azurara, Chronicle of the Discovery and

Conquest of Guinea (2 vols., Hakluyt Society, 1896 and 1899). The

voyages of Cadamosto are published by the Hakluyt Society. Long

extracts from the accounts of the voyages of Diego Gomez are given in

C. R. Beazley, Prince Henry, 289-298, and in R. H. Major, Prince Henry,

288-298. A number of original documents illustrative of this period are

contained in Alguns Documentos do Archivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo

Acerca das Navagacoes e Conquistas Portuguezas (1892). An account of

the latest stages of the Portuguese advance to India is given in F. C.

Danvers, The Portuguese in India (1894). An almost contemporary account

of the explorations is J. Barros, Decadas da Asia (first published

1552, etc.); the first five books have been translated into German by

E. Feust (1844).

SPAIN IN THE FIFTEENTH AND SIXTEENTH CENTURIES

The great collection of sources for the history of Spain is the

Coleccion de Documentos Ineditos para la Historia de Espana (112 vols.,

1842-1895). Matters more particularly relating to the subjects of this

book appear in vols. I., III., VI., XIII., XIX., XXIV., XXVIII.,

XXXIX., and LI. The proceedings of the cortes are published by the

Academia de la Historia, Cortes de los Antiguos Reinos de Leon y de

Castilla (4 vols., 1861-1884). The records of those called by Ferdinand

and Isabella are in vol. IV. (1882). A careful analysis and

introduction to these records is by M. Colmeiro (2 vols., 1883-1884).

The three most important chronicles of Spain contemporary with

Ferdinand and Isabella are Hernando del Pulgar, Cronica de los Reyes

Catolicos (1780); and Andre Bernaldez, Historia de los Reyes (1878).

The institutions of Spain are described in detail in two admirable

works: J. M. Antequera, Historia de la Legislacion Espanola (1874); and

F. M. Marina, Ensayo Historico-critico sobre la Antigua Legislacion ...

de Leon y Castilla (1834). There is a short but systematic and valuable

account of Spanish institutions in The Cambridge Modern History (I.,

chap, xi., by H. B. Clarke). The most satisfactory general description

of the changes in Spanish institutions during the reign of the Catholic

sovereigns is J. H. Mariejol, L'Espagne sous Ferdinand et Isabelle: le

Gouvernement, les Institutions, et les Moeurs (1892). William H.

Prescott, The Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic (various

editions), is less uncritical in character, and consequently more

trustworthy, than the other works of this author. An important study of

the personal character of Isabella is Clemencin, Elogio de la Reina

Catolica, in Real Academia de la Historia, Memorias, IV. An important

and suggestive study of this period is W. Maurenbrecher, Spanien unter

den Katholischen Konigen: Studien und Skizzen zur Geschichte der

Reformationszeit (1857). Of somewhat similar character is W. Havemann,

Darstellungen aus der inneren Geschichte Spaniens wahrend des XV., XVI.

und XVII. Jahrhunderts (1850). The more purely political history is

best given in M. Danvilla y Collado, El Poder Civil en Espana (6 vols.,

1885-1887). The expulsion of the Jews is described in the third volume

of J. Amador de los Rios, Los Judios de Espana y Portugal (3 vols.,

1875-1876); that of the Moriscos in H. C. Lea, The Moriscos of Spain,

their Conversion and Expulsion (1901). Much valuable description of

this period is also given in H. C. Lea, Chapters from the Religious

History of Spain (1890). Mr. Lea has also an important article, "The

Policy of Spain towards the Indies" (Yale Review, August, 1899). The

military history of Ferdinand's reign is given in P. Boissonade,

Reunion de la Navarre a la Castille (1893), and in the large general

histories of Spain, such as A. Canovas del Castillo, Historia General

de Espana (1894), and Vicente de la Fuente, Historia General de Espana

(30 vols., 1850-1867).

The organization of the Casa da Contractacion is fully described in

Primeras Ordenanzas ... de la Contractacion de las Indias, by J. de

Veitia Linage (1672, "made English" by Captain John Stevens, under the

title The Spanish Rule of Trade to the West Indies, 1702). It is also

described in Richard Hakluyt, Principal Navigations, IV. Economic

conditions are further described in two books by K. Habler, Geschichte

der Fugger'schen Handlung in Spanien (1897); Die Wirtschaftliche Blute

Spaniens im XVI. Jahrhundert und ihr Verfall (1888).

FRANCE IN THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES

The great mass of contemporary writings for this period is published

partly in the great Collection de Documents Inedits (about 280 vols.,

1835-), partly in other collections, such as that of Michaud et

Poujoulat, Correspondance D'Orient, 1830-1831 (7 vols., 1835), and

partly as individual publications. The royal enactments down to 1514

are best edited in Ordonnances des Roys de France (21 vols., 1723-

1849). The Recueil General des Anciennes Lois Francaises, edited by

Isambert and Taillandier (29 vols., 1822-1833), extends later in time

but is inferior in fulness and accuracy.

A short general history of France during this period is A. J. Grant,

The French Monarchy, 1483-1789 (2 vols., 1900). Of the excellent work,

Lavisse, Histoire de France, the latest section to appear is V., pt.

i., by H. Lemonnier, which covers the period 1492-1547.

For the commercial history of France valuable works are H. Pigeonneau,

Histoire du Commerce de la France (2 vols., 1887-1889); Pierre Clement,

Histoire de la Vie et de L'Administration de Colbert (2 vols., 1846);

G. Fagniez, "Le Commerce de la France sous Henri IV.," in Revue

Historique, May-June, 1881; and F. Bourquelot, Etude sur les Foires de

Champagne (Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres de L'Institut de

France, series II., vol. V., 1865). For the commercial companies in

Canada, see H. P. Biggar, Early Trading Companies of New France (1901).

THE NETHERLANDS AND GERMANY IN THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES

The best history of the Netherlands is P. J. Blok, History of the

People of the Netherlands (1892, in part translated by Ruth Putnam, 3

vols., 1898-1900); J. L. Motley, Rise of the Dutch Republic (many

editions), still has value and much interest, but the work is

uncritical and based on inadequate study of the sources. C. M. Davies,

History of Holland and the Dutch Nation (3 vols., 1851), is of special

value for its attention to the internal organization of the Dutch

nation. Robert Fruin, Geschiedniss der Staatsinstellingen in Nederland

(edited by H. T. Colenbrander, 1901), is a much more detailed and

modern work, the first two books of which refer to the period of this

volume. In it are to be found abundant references to the sources of

Dutch institutions. Douglas Campbell, The Puritan in Holland, England,

and America (2 vols., 1892), is a vivacious work including much

description of conditions in Holland and England during this period. It

is, however, written in a spirit of controversial exaggeration which

reduces its historical value to small proportions. The long and

valuable paper "William Usselinx," by J. P. Jameson (American

Historical Society, Papers, II., 1888), contains much information

concerning political and commercial conditions in the Netherlands.

There is a short description of the municipal organization of Holland

in an article by J. F. Jameson in the Magazine of American History,

VIII., 315-330. The charter of the Dutch West India Company is in E. B.

O'Callaghan, History of New Netherland, I., App. A (1855); and in

Samuel Hazard, State Papers, I.

The general history of Germany for this period can be Studied from the

following volumes of the series entitled Allgemeine Geschichte in

Einzeldarstellungen--viz., F. von Bezold, Geschichte der deutschen

Reformation (1890); G. Droysen, Geschichte der Gegenreformation (1893);

G. Winter, Der dreissigjahrigen Krieges (1893); B. Erdmannsdorfer,

Deutsche Geschichte von westfalischen Frieden bis Friedrichs der

Grossen (2 vols., 1892). The last work contains in its first book a

valuable resume of the results of the Thirty Years' War and the

condition of Germany at the time. E. Armstrong, The Emperor Charles V.

(2 vols., 1902), is an excellent account of Germany during the middle

years of the sixteenth century. Anton Gindely, The Thirty Years' War

(English translation, 2 vols., 1884), is a standard work on the Thirty

Years' War.

The religious changes of the time are described in a scholarly but

extremely dry fashion in W. Moeller, History of the Christian Church,

III. (English translation, 1900). L. von Ranke, Deutsche Geschichte im

Zeitalter der Reformation, translated into English (3 vols., 1845-

1847), is a well-known work. More detailed accounts of the Anabaptists

are given in H. W. Erbkam, Geschichte der Protestantischen Sekten in

Zeitalter der Reformation (1848); L. Keller, Geschichte der

Wiedertaufer (1880); and Max Goebel, Geschichte des Christlichen Leben

in der rheinschwestphdlischen evangelischen Kirche (3 vols., 1849-

1860).

ENGLAND IN THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--The standard bibliographical guide in early English

history is Charles Gross, Sources and Literature of English History

from the Earliest Times to about 1485 (1900).

GENERAL WORKS.--The best general history of the reign of Henry VII. is

W. Busch, England under the Tudors (I., Henry VII., 1895); on the early

part of the reign of Henry VIII., J. S. Brewer, The Reign of Henry

VIII. (2 vols., 1884); J. A. Froude, History of England from the Fall

of Wolsey to the Defeat of the Armada (12 vols., 1856-1870).

Notwithstanding the criticism to which this work has been subjected it

remains the most detailed, serious, and valuable history of England in

the sixteenth century. A. F. Pollard, England under Protector Somerset

(1900), is a valuable survey of the period 1547-1551. S. R. Gardiner,

History of England from 1603 to 1642 (10 vols., 1883-1884), History of

the Great Civil War, 1642-1649 (4 vols., 1886-1891), and History of the

Commonwealth and Protectorate (3 vols., 1894-1903), form a series of

great value, covering more than half of the seventeenth century. Henry

Hallam, Constitutional History of England (3 vols., 1829), is

serviceable. L. O. Pike, Constitutional History of the House of Lords

(1894), and A. V. Dicey, The Privy Council (1895), are valuable

monographs.

SOURCES.--The sources for English history during this period are to be

found principally in the Acts of the Privy Council (in progress 1890-),

Calendars of State Papers (about 300 vols.), Statutes of the Realm,

1235-1713 (11 vols.), Journals of the House of Lords (16 vols. to

1700), Journals of the House of Commons (13 vols. to 1700), Sir S.

D'Ewes, Journals of the Period of Elizabeth (1682), J. Rushworth,

Historical Collections (1703), Historical Manuscripts Commission,

Reports (106 parts), Deputy Keeper of the Rolls, Public Records,

Reports (64 vols.), and in a vast number of detached publications of

contemporary journals, correspondence, etc.

Many of the most important statutes and other state papers are

collected in G. W. Prothero, Select Statutes and other Constitutional

Documents of the Reigns of Elizabeth and James I., 1559-1625 (1894),

and S. R. Gardiner, Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution,

1628-1660 (1889). Each of these collections has an admirable

introduction discussing the history and institutions of the period.

Other collections illustrating the constitutional history of the time

are George B. Adams and H. Morse Stephens, Select Documents of English

Constitutional History (1901); and Mabel Hill, Liberty Documents

(1901). The following collections of sources also illustrate social

conditions: C. W. Colby, Selections from the Sources of English History

(1899); Elizabeth K. Kendall, Source-Book of English History (1900);

Ernest P. Henderson, Side-Lights on English History (1900).

COMMERCIAL HISTORY.--The Merchants Adventurers are discussed and

illustrated in W. E. Lingelbach, Laws and Ordinances of the Merchant

Adventurers (1902), and The Internal Organization of the Merchant

Adventurers (1902); in G. Schanz, Englische Handelspolitik (2 vols.,

1881); Richard Ehrenberg, England and Hamburg (1896); and Charles

Gross, The Gild Merchant (2 vols., 1890). The commercial companies

generally are described in Cawston and Keane, The Early English

Chartered Companies (1896), a book of slight value and limited extent

of information apart from the fact that it is practically the only work

covering the field. David Macpherson, Annals of Commerce (4 vols.,

1802), is a book of old-fashioned learning on the subject. For the East

India Company there is a large literature. Some of the sources are The

Charters of the East India Company (no date or place of publication);

Birdwood and Foster, The First Letter Book of the East India Company,

1600-1619 (1893); Henry Stevens, Dawn of British Trade to the East

Indies (1886). Of more general histories the most recent and one of the

best is Beckles Wilson, Ledger and Sword (1903).

Events in England affecting the early history of Virginia are related

and the original papers given in Alexander Brown, Genesis of the United

States (2 vols., 1891). Valuable articles by H. L. Osgood bearing on

this general subject are: "England and the Colonies" (Political Science

Quarterly, II.); "Political Ideas of the Puritans" (ibid., VI., Nos. 1,

2); and "The Colonial Corporation" (ibid., XI., Nos. 2, 3). See also

his American Colonies in the Seventeenth Century (2 vols., 1904). On

general commercial conditions, William Cunningham, Growth of English

Industry and Commerce (revised ed., 1904).

RELIGIOUS HISTORY.--W. E. Griffis, The Pilgrims in their Three Homes

(1898); Daniel Neal, History of the Puritans (4 vols., 1732-1738); W.

A. Shaw, The English Church During the Commonwealth (1900); E.

Eggleston, Beginners of a Nation (1897), gives interesting and

unfamiliar details of the religious sects in England. A. B. Hinds, The

England of Elizabeth (1895), is a careful study of the origins of

English Puritanism on the Continent. G. P. Gooch, English Democratic

Ideas in the Seventeenth Century (1898), throws light on the various

sects. William Sewel, History of the Quakers (1725), is a standard

history on the origin of that body.

C. G. Walpole, The Kingdom of Ireland (1882), describes the "Plantation

of Ulster" and the conditions that led to the emigration of the Scotch-

Irish. Of value also are W. E. H. Lecky, England in the Eighteenth

Century (8 vols., 1878-1890); J. P. Prendergast, The Cromwellian

Settlement of Ireland (1865); and H. Green, The Scotch-Irish in America

(1895).

ENGLISH LOCAL GOVERNMENT.--For local government the admirable

bibliography is Charles Gross, Bibliography of British Municipal

History, Including Gilds and Parliamentary Representatives (Harvard

Historical Studies, V., 1897). Contemporary legal treatises concerning

county government are Michael Dalton, Officium Vicecomitum, or the

Office and Authority of Sheriffs (1623), and The Country Justice

(1681); William Greenwood, Authority, Jurisdiction, and Method of

Keeping County Courts, Courts-Leet, and Courts-Baron, etc. (1659);

William Lambarde, Eirenarcha, or the Office of the Justices of Peace

(1588); A. Fitzherbert, L'Office et Authorities de Justices de Peace

(1514), often quoted as "Crompton", an editor who enlarged the original

work in 1583; John Wilkinson, Office and Authority of Coroners and

Sheriffs (1628). All these appear in numerous editions, the above dates

being, as far as ascertained, those of the earliest editions.

Few records of county government exist to any large extent, and very

few have been printed. Among them are three bodies of quarter-sessions

records. John Lister, West Riding Sessions Rolls, 1597-1602 (Yorkshire

Archaeological and Topographical Association, Records Series, III.,

1888); J. C. Jeaffreson, Middlesex County Records, 1549-1608 (Middlesex

County Records Society, 1886-1892); Ernest Axon, in Record Society of

Lancaster and Cheshire, Manchester Sessions, XLII. Some material for

Wiltshire and Worcestershire is published in the Historical Manuscripts

Commission, Reports, VI., VII.

A. H. A. Hamilton, Quarter-Sessions ... chiefly of Devon (1878),

contains much on the subject. E. M. Leonard, The Early History of the

English Poor Relief (1900), is a scholarly study involving much

description of local administration and the central and local

governments.

For the parish, Richard Burn, Ecclesiastical Law (2 vols., 1763);

William Sheppard, Offices and Duties of Constables, Borsholders,

Tythingmen, etc. (1641); William Lambarde, Duties of Church-wardens and

Duties of Constables, affixed to his Eirenarcha (1581); George Meriton,

Duties of Constables (1669). For the actual life of the parish,

recourse must be had to the few bodies of such records that are printed

separately or in local histories. Some of these are as follows: J. L.

Glasscock, Records of St. Michael's Church (1882); Collyer and Turner,

Ilkley, Ancient and Modern (1885); W. T. Woodbridge, Rushbrook Parish

Registers (1903); W. O. Massingberd, History of Ormsby (1893); J. P.

Earwaker, Constables' Accounts of Manchester (3 vols., 1891-1892); John

Nichols, Illustration of the Manners, etc., of England from Accounts of

Church-wardens (1797).

The book that has exerted the most influence on opinion on this subject

is Toulmin Smith, The Parish (1854). It is, however, written in a

spirit of controversy, many of its interpretations of the statutes are

quite incorrect, and it must, therefore, be used with great caution.

Its most valuable contents are its references to sources, and extracts

from local records. Rudolf Gneist, Self-Government, Communalverfassung

und Verwaltungsgeschichte in England (1871), is almost the sole work

covering the whole subject, but it is quite unsatisfactory, being drawn

from a comparatively small group of sources. George E. Howard, Local

Constitutional History of the United States (Johns Hopkins University

Studies, extra vol. IV., 1889), and The Development of the King's Peace

(Nebraska University Studies, I., 1890); Edward Channing, Town and

County Government in the English Colonies of North America (Johns

Hopkins University Studies, II., No. 10), and some other articles by

Herbert B. Adams and others in the same series, include considerable

information on local conditions in England, though their primary

reference is to America.

[Proofer's note: Index omitted.]

END OF VOL. I.