curtained off. This lower stage was the actors’ dressing-room, and also
served very conveniently as the ‘lower regions’ from which through a
trap-door the Devil would emerge with horns and tail complete. God was
stationed on a raised platform at the back of the upper stage, and
appeared in the full dress of a Pope, saints had gilded hair and beards,
and angels were dressed in white surplices through which their gilded
wings projected.
Most impressive and realistic these must have seemed in the eyes of the
beholders. But there were also ‘realistic effects’ to be seen—lightning,
earthquakes, and the destruction of the world by fire—as the following
items show:—
Payd for the baryll for the yerthequake iiij_d._
Payd for starche to make the storm vj_d._
Payd for settynge the world of fyer v_d._
How realistic also must have been the crossing of the Red Sea! For the
children of Israel did actually cross it in the sight of all. ‘Halfe a
yard of Rede Sea’—there it is down in black and white among the
properties belonging to _Israel in Egypt_.
* * * * *
[Illustration:
A FOURTEENTH CENTURY ‘SHOW.’
(_From an old Manuscript_).
]
The mediæval Miracle Plays have long been dead in our country, but we
still have with us the remains of the great mediæval FAIRS. In the days
when few people travelled if they could possibly stay at home, and when
for the whole of the winter months the state of the country roads
prohibited all travelling except that on horseback, fairs were a
necessity. The right to hold an annual fair was therefore an eagerly
sought privilege.
Thus Beverley, Bridlington, Hedon, Howden, Hull—all these towns very
early obtained the right to hold annual fairs. The Hedon townsfolk had
their fair every year ‘on the feast of St. Mary Magdalen, and for seven
days after,’ from the year 1162; and this fair continued to be held on
Magdalen Hill down to 1878. The charter for the holding of a fair at
Hull was granted in 1299, and the eleventh day of October, 1911, saw
Hull Fair still in full swing.
To these mediæval fairs would come a large concourse of merchants,
minstrels, pedlars, jugglers, and rogues. To them would come also
householders and the stewards of manor-house and castle, eager to buy
cloth, silks, ribbons, pots and pans, boots and shoes, wine, wax, malt,
a store of butter to last over the winter, or a store of salt for
preparing the winter meat supply.
[Illustration:
BEAR-BAITING.
A fifteenth century wood-carving in St. Mary’s Church, Beverley.
]
Among the entertainment providers would come the owner of the ‘wild
beast show’—the show consisting of a solitary elephant or dromedary, or,
much more frequently, an ape and a bear. If it is a bear that is the
showman’s stock-in-trade, then there will be a chance for dogs that have
grown sated with indulgence in the sport of bull-baiting to experience a
new sensation.[42]
Footnote 42:
The old ‘bull ring’ to which bulls were tethered at a bull-baiting in
the market-place of Kilham is now built into the bank of the
churchyard wall.
Hither also would come that strange product of the middle ages—the
pardoner. He professes to have from the Pope power to grant pardons for
sins committed, or even for sins to be committed, if only satisfactory
payment is forthcoming. To prove his genuineness he has a wallet full of
parchments, brought straight from Rome, and all duly stamped with large
seals. And if that is not enough for his credulous audience he has holy
relics to show—a piece of the sail of St. Peter’s boat, and a feather
from the wing of the angel Gabriel.
He has also the shoulder bone of a holy Jew’s sheep, which is guaranteed
to cure disease in any cow, calf, ox, or sheep, if the bone be but
washed in a bucket of water and the sick animal’s tongue well cleaned
with this water. ‘One penny’ is all his charge. ‘Bring your buckets full
of water. Now’s your chance! If you lose it, your sick cow, calf, ox, or
sheep may be dead in the morning, and you’ll be sorry ever afterwards
that you didn’t take my advice.’
Thus does the rascal do a roaring trade.
XIX.
THE TRADE UNIONS OF THE MIDDLE AGES.
With the Trade Unions of our days almost everyone is to some extent
acquainted. Certainly everyone who lives in a town is acquainted with
them. For, in the first place, most workmen in a town belong to a trade
union; and, in the second place, many who are not ‘workmen’, in the
usual meaning of the word, are made uncomfortably aware of the existence
of one or other of the Trade Unions when what is called a ‘Strike’ takes
place.
Many people, if asked their opinion, would say that Trade Unions are a
purely modern institution—that it is only in our own times that workmen
have found the usefulness of binding themselves together in a ‘Union’
for the obtaining of benefits which singly they could not expect to
gain. But such an opinion would be wrong. Trade Unions, though called by
a different name, existed in our country six, seven, and even eight
hundred years ago.
What we call by the name of Trade Unions were in former times known as
CRAFT GILDS. They had this name because they were clubs, or
fraternities, or brotherhoods, of men who were engaged in some branch or
branches of handicraft, and who paid a fine—originally known as
_gildi_—to obtain the privileges of membership.
In all towns there were found these Craft Gilds. Thus in 1406 Beverley
had thirty-eight, and the Craft Gilds of Kingston-upon-Hull in the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries included those of the Weavers, the
Tailors, the Glovers, the Joiners, the Carpenters, the Shipwrights, the
Bricklayers, the Cobblers, the Shoemakers, the Coopers, the Brewers, the
Innholders, the Bakers, and the Barber Chirurgeons. Each of these crafts
had its own Gild. But, on the other hand, the Goldsmiths, Pewterers,
Plumbers, Glaziers, Painters, Cutlers, Musicians, Stationers,
Bookbinders, and Basketmakers had to be content with one Gild among
them; and a strange medley their Gild must have been.
There was one great difference between these Craft Gilds and our Trade
Unions. Whereas the men who belong to the latter are the employed
workmen, those who belonged to the former were both the employers and
the employed, both the masters and the men. Hence the rules of the Gilds
were framed not only to protect the workmen against hard and unjust
masters, but also to protect the masters against dishonest and careless
workmen, and, in addition, to protect the public from being defrauded by
either dishonest masters or idle workmen. How each of these good results
was effected will be seen from the following extracts, taken from the
rules of different Craft Gilds belonging to Kingston-upon-Hull.
* * * * *
First, we will consider the protection of the workman. Before a _Weaver_
might set up in business for himself he must pay xij_d._ to the Alderman
of his Gild for the inspection of his workhouse by the searchers, who
would search whether his workhouse were ‘good and able’ or not. If they
were satisfied on this point, then the owner was permitted to begin
business on payment of an ‘upsett’ of iij_s._ iiij_d._ No woman was
allowed to work at this trade within the town upon pain of xl_s._ Nor
might a _Tailor_ keep any manner of workman tailor employed within his
dwelling-house. Again, no _Joiner_ might withhold his servant’s wages
over the space of six days after the same were due. If he did, the
servant could get from the Warden an order for their payment, and the
master’s penalty for disobeying this order was xij_d._
For the protection of the masters there were corresponding laws:—
If any of the brotherhood of the _Bricklayers_, being at work with
any man, do, in the time of his work, resort unto the alehouse or do
play at dice, cards, or any other unthrifty game, he shall forfeit
and pay for every time so doing viij_d._
So also, in the rules of the _Shipwrights_, a very heavy penalty was
imposed upon the workman who for mere caprice threw down his tools and
left his work unfinished:—
If any person shall be lawfully retained in work by the day, and
shall unjustly and unlawfully leave or depart from the same until
such time as the same work shall be fully finished, he shall forfeit
and pay to the master warden for every such offence forty shillings
of lawful money of england.
The protection of the public was equally well looked after. No person
might set up or keep an Inn, unless he could make and furnish four
comely and decent guest beds; and every _Innholder_ was obliged to have
in his house, ready-made, four bottles of hay, to be shown to the
searchers at all times when they came to make search. Thus the comfort
of both man and beast was ensured to travellers.
All manufactured goods were to be open to inspection by the searchers of
the particular Gild, and any scamped or fraudulent goods were ‘seized
and forfeited.’ Thus a rule of the _Shoemakers’ Gild_ stated that—
The searchers shall well and diligently search and try all boots,
shoes, buskins, slippers and pantoufles,[43] whether they be made of
leather well and truly tanned and curried, and well and
substantially sewed with good thread, well twisted and made and
sufficiently waxed with wax well rosined, and the stitches hard
drawn with hand leathers.
Boots and shoes made under these regulations were intended to last in
wear for a substantially long time, and brown paper inner soles and
wooden heels would stand a poor chance of passing the inspection of the
searchers. On the shelves of the Hull Museum may be seen some pairs of
boots made and worn two hundred and fifty years ago, and still almost
‘as good as new.’
Footnote 43:
The French name for slippers.
A rule of the _Brotherhood of Cobblers_ reads quaintly. But, doubtless,
it proved a very useful rule:—
If any cobbler shall keep any work brought to him longer than two
days, without consent of the owner, he shall forfeit for every
offence the sum of two shillings and sixpence.
One is bound to imagine that there was in those days a brisk trade in
‘Boots Mended While You Wait.’
Prices were also well looked after. ‘That no one presume to sell a pound
of candles for more than one penny, or a gallon of the best ale for more
than the same, or a gallon of small ale for more than a half-penny’—so
runs one of the laws as to prices. Bakers’ charges were regulated
according to the price of wheat. A farthing and a half-penny were fixed
as the price of loaves, but the weight of the loaf varied. Thus in 1267,
when wheat was one shilling a quarter—
White bread cost ½d. per 13 lbs.
Wheat bread ” ” ” 20 ”
Horseloaves[44] ” ” ” 27 ”
Footnote 44:
Horse loaves were coarse bean bread, something like the modern
dog-biscuit, and used as a winter food for horses.
The employment of cheap unskilled labour was expressly guarded against.
In general, no master might keep more than one or two apprentices, and
each apprentice must serve for a space of seven years. By the latter
rule there was a kind of guarantee that an apprentice would learn his
craft thoroughly before becoming a journeyman. No alien might be taken
as an apprentice, and in many towns night-work was forbidden, as being
usually inferior to day-work.
* * * * *
When an apprentice had ‘served his time’ and learned his craft, he
might, in his turn, become free of his Gild and so earn the right to
sell the product of his hands. But this right to sell was carefully
guarded, as the following regulations of the _Coopers_ and the _Bakers_
show:—
No cooper, unless he be first free burgess of this town and free of
this company, shall keep any shop in this town upon pain of 5s.
weekly.
No person or persons dwelling without this town shall sell any bread
or cakes within this town otherwise than on the Tuesdays and
Fridays, market days, in open market.
If a craftsman was thus protected against undue competition from
outsiders, so he was protected against undue competition from those who
had a desire to encroach on someone else’s preserves. Carpenters might
not work as joiners or as shipwrights, cobblers might not work as
shoemakers, nor might shoemakers work as cobblers. ‘Every man to his own
trade’ was a maxim of the middle ages, and there was then no call for a
‘William Whiteley’ or a ‘Selfridge’s, Ltd.’
Sunday labour and Sunday trading were expressly forbidden in all Gilds:—
No shopwindows of the fraternity of _Shoemakers_ shall be opened
upon the sabbath days in pain of every default viij_d._
No brother exercising the crafts or mysteries of a _Barber_ or
_Peruke-maker_ shall upon the Lord’s day, commonly called Sunday,
either out or in time of divine service, work, or keep open his
shop, on pain to forfeit for every time he shall be found so doing
the sum of ten shillings.
Again, it is interesting to find that ‘Sunday Closing’ was provided for
in the following regulation:—
No _Vintner_ or _Aleseller_ shall sell any ale or wine unto any one
before 11 o’clock on Sunday, unless to strangers, under penalty of
vj_s._ viij_d._
* * * * *
Most interesting of all the thirty-eight Craft Gilds of Beverley is that
of the Minstrels. The charter of this Gild was confirmed by ‘the
gracious goodness of our most virtuous sovereign Lord and Lady, King
Philip and Queen Mary,’ and is said to date ‘from the time of King
Aethelstan, of famous memory.’
[Illustration: THE BEVERLEY MINSTRELS.]
In 1520 the tower of St. Mary’s Church, Beverley, fell, and destroyed in
its fall the greater part of the nave of the church. Various families of
the town undertook the rebuilding of some portion of this, and one
portion—the north-east pillar and the wall and roof above it—was rebuilt
at the expense of the _Gild of the Minstrels_. This fact is recorded on
a tablet placed high up on the pillar, where may be read these words:—
THYS PYLLOR
MADE THE
MEYNSTYRLS.
Attached to the east face of the pillar are also figures of five
‘meynstyrls,’ each gaudily coloured and holding his particular musical
instrument—a tabor and pipe, a large viol, a shawm, a cittern, and a
wait or hautboy.
Besides these numerous Craft Gilds there were MERCHANT GILDS, or, as we
should call them to-day, ‘Trading Companies.’
The distinction between the two kinds of Gilds is not always clear, and
in some cases a trader belonged to both. But in general the Craft Gilds
contained men who by their daily work changed the form of a thing, while
the Merchant Gilds contained those whose daily work consisted of trading
in a thing without changing its form. Thus, the Merchant Tailors bought
and sold cloth, but the Tailors made the cloth into clothes. And just as
to-day it is ‘much more respectable’ to be an egg-merchant than to be a
pastry-cook, so, five centuries ago, it was equally ‘more respectable’
to be a merchant-tailor than a tailor pure and simple.
[Illustration:
ARMS OF THE HULL
MERCHANTS’
COMPANY.
]
Chief among the Merchant Gilds of Kingston-upon-Hull were the _Gild of
the Merchant Adventurers_, originally known as the ‘Brotherhood of St.
Thomas of Canterbury,’ and the _Hull Merchants’ Company_. During the
reigns of the Tudor and Stuart Kings, these did much to foster the trade
of Hull with the great ports on the other side of the North Sea.
A charter was granted to the Hull Merchants’ Company by Queen Elizabeth,
and King Charles II. renewed it on receipt of ‘fifty pounds of good and
lawful money of England.’ The members of the Company met in the
Merchants’ Hall—the upper story of the red-brick building on the south
of the Market Place, now known as the Choir School—and a ‘merchant’s
mark’ is still to be seen cut in three stone panels in the front wall of
the building. They were a wealthy Company, and at one time had much
power. Fines or ‘upsetts’ for the privilege of membership ranged from
6s. 8d. to £20.
It is interesting to find that the Hull Merchants’ Company acted as a
Post Office for foreign correspondence. ‘Masters of ships’—so ran one of
the laws governing their Exchange—must
hang up a bagg a week before their sailing, that merchants may putt
their letters therein, and soe the masters to take the same away the
night before they intend to saile.
Equally interesting is it to find that the Hull merchants of the
seventeenth century were, evidently, firm believers in the modern
doctrine of ‘Protection.’ For, by one of the statutes regulating the
trade of the port, all alien merchants must bring their goods to the
Exchange and must pay one penny in the pound for the privilege of sale.
* * * * *
What an insight into the working-lives of the townspeople, whether
traders or craftsmen, we have given us in the ancient documents of the
Merchant Gilds and Trade Gilds! As Canon Lambert says in his _Two
Thousand Years of Gild Life_, they ‘bring back into view the everyday
life of the town in the centuries of which they treat. As we study them
we can mingle again in the vigorous life of the narrow streets. We can
learn how it was that the men of that time built houses of which the
mortar stands to-day as hard as stone; we can picture the barber looking
askance at the upstart man who presumed as surgeon to molest his ancient
right of letting the blood of his customers at the fall of the leaf; we
can look into the mysteries of the brewing-vat as it was before tea had
usurped the time-honoured place of the pewter at the breakfast tables of
society; we can see the shipwrights who made the ships of Elizabeth at
work; we can walk, as it were, along the small booths and shops, and
judge of the quality of the goods which had come from Hamburg or
Muscovy, or which had been fashioned with such care in the workshop
behind the parlour.’
Of the _Religious_ or _Social Gilds_, which existed at even earlier
times than the Merchant and Craft Gilds, something was said in Chapter
XVIII. The fate which overwhelmed the Religious Gilds during the reign
of Edward VI. had, doubtless, some effect on the Trading Companies and
Brotherhoods of Craftsmen. But the last-named were very largely excepted
from the Suppression of the Gilds in 1547, and their gradual decay and
final extinction were due to the introduction of new industries and new
methods of working. The _Hull Merchants’ Company_ became extinct in
1706, there was still existing at Beverley in 1752 the _Brotherhood of
the Barkers or Tanners_, and the last entry in the Book of the _Hull
Fraternity of Coopers_ is dated 1788.
XX.
THE SUPPRESSION OF THE MONASTERIES
AND
THE PILGRIMAGE OF GRACE.
In a previous chapter were described the various buildings of a
monastery and the mode of life of its inmates. And at the end of the
chapter reference was made to the gradual loss of those high ideals
which had been the origin of the many hundred monasteries that existed
in our country at the beginning of the sixteenth century. The results of
that loss will now be described.
The benefits to the country at large arising from the establishment of
these religious houses had been great. They served as hotels for the
rich and as almshouses for the poor. The Cistercian monks were pioneers
in agriculture. Both monks and friars got together libraries of
books—that at Meaux Abbey contained 324 volumes in 1539—and were mostly
diligent scribes. Thus they helped to spread the means of learning.
But by the beginning of the sixteenth century many Houses had outlived
their usefulness. Their inmates had decreased in numbers until only six
monks remained where sixty had once been. Laxity of discipline crept in
with this decrease of numbers. Hence it seemed right to suppress the
small and useless religious houses, and to apply their revenues to other
useful purposes.
This was the thought in the minds of both Cardinal Wolsey and the Pope
of Rome when in 1524 the one applied for a certain Papal Bull and the
other granted it. It was to the effect that various small monasteries to
the annual value of three thousand ducats should be suppressed, and
their revenues used to endow the new ‘Cardinal College’ which Wolsey was
then planning to build at Oxford. Four years later permission was
granted to suppress others to the annual value of eight thousand ducats.
In the following year King Henry VIII. was given permission to suppress
others to the annual value of ten thousand ducats, and to apply their
revenues to the foundation of new cathedrals.
‘Very right and proper,’ you will probably think. ‘The money was going
to be put to a better use.’ Yes, but these suppressions might point out
to some unscrupulous adviser of the King a means whereby large supplies
of money could easily be obtained; and if the King happened to be in
need of money and was not very scrupulous as to the manner in which that
money were obtained, it might become a very dangerous precedent.
[Illustration:
_Photo by_] The Gateway of Kirkham Priory. [_H.F. Farr_
]
This is just what it did become. King Henry VIII. was not a particularly
scrupulous man in more ways than one, and his chief adviser after
Cardinal Wolsey’s death was particularly unscrupulous. Acting on the
advice of Thomas Cromwell, Parliament, at the close of 1535, ordered a
‘Visitation’ of the monasteries throughout the country, and the
presentation of a report based on the results of this. Accordingly, two
‘Visitors’ were appointed, who in the short space of six weeks visited,
or were said to have visited, eighty-eight monasteries in the dioceses
of Coventry, Lichfield and York.
[Illustration:
_Photo by_] [_C.W. Mason_
Ruins of the East End of the Church of Kirkham Priory.
]
The report presented to Parliament was named THE BLACK BOOK, and its
nature was such that in February, 1536, Parliament ordered the
suppression of all monasteries that had an annual income of less than
£200. As a result 376 religious houses were suppressed, their inmates
were transferred to the larger houses or left to shift for themselves,
and their lands, to the annual value of £32,000, were forfeited to the
King. All the monasteries and nunneries in the East Riding thus came to
an end except those at Kirkham, Meaux, Watton and Bridlington, whose
annual incomes amounted to £269, £299, £360 and £547 respectively.
* * * * *
In most parts of the country this suppression of the smaller monasteries
caused no great stir. Undoubtedly some of them needed suppression.
Undoubtedly, too, the report which got about, that the confiscation of
the wealth of the religious houses would provide so much money for the
government that there would thenceforth be no taxes for the common folk
to pay, tended to prevent an outcry from being raised by the people. But
in two counties there were rebellions. The first, in Lincolnshire,
proved of little account; but the second, which had its origin in
Yorkshire, was a formidable rising to which was given the name of _The
Pilgrimage of Grace_.
In this rising all the north of England was concerned. The great Abbeys
of Yorkshire exercised a powerful influence over the minds of the
people, and a widespread religious ferment broke out. Lord Darcy, Earl
of Holderness, Sir Robert Constable of Flamborough, Sir Thomas Percy,
brother of the Earl of Northumberland, and many other northern nobles
threw in their lot with the rebellious commoners. Soon forty thousand
men were enrolled under the command of Robert Aske, a Westminster lawyer
and brother of John Aske, the lord of the manor of Aughton-on-Derwent.
The demands of Aske and his followers were:—
(1) The restoration of the suppressed monasteries;
(2) The expulsion of counsellors of low birth from the King’s court;
(3) The holding of Parliament and of a Court of Justice at York as
well as at London.[45]
Footnote 45:
This third demand resulted in the formation of the ‘Council of the
North,’ which met at York during the next hundred years.