_To the Editor._
Sir,--A rare and valuable copy of “Holinshed’s Chronicles of Englande,
Scotlande, and Irelande,” a black letter folio volume, with curious
wood-cuts, “imprinted at London” in 1577, has lately fallen in my way,
and afforded me considerable amusement. One chapter especially, in “The
Seconde Booke of the Description of Britaine,” namely, “Cap. 10. Of the
Maner of Buylding, and furniture of our Houses,” cannot fail, I think,
to interest your readers.
After a very entertaining account of the construction of our ancient
cottages and country houses before glass came into general use, this
historian of the age of queen Elizabeth proceeds as follows:--
“The auncient maners and houses of our gentlemen are yet for the most
part of strong tymber. Howbeit such as be lately buylded are commonly
either of bricke, or harde stone, their rowmes large and stately, and
houses of office farder distaunt fro their lodginges. Those of the
nobilitie are likewise wrought with bricke and harde stone, as provision
may best be made; but so magnificent and stately, as the basest house of
a barren doth often match with some honours of princes in olde tyme; so
that if ever curious buylding did flourish in Englande it is in these
our dayes, wherein our worckemen excel and are in maner comparable in
skill with old Vitrunius and Serlo. The furniture of our houses also
exceedeth, and is growne in maner even to passing delicacie; and herein
I do not speake of the nobilitie and gentrie onely, but even of the
lowest sorte that have any thing ‘to take to.’[437] Certes, in noble
men’s houses it is not rare to see abundance of arras, riche hangings of
tapestry, silver vessell, and so much other plate as may furnish sūdrie
cupbordes, to the summe ofte times of a thousand or two thousande pounde
at the least; wherby the value of this and the reast of their stuffe
doth grow to be inestimable. Likewise, in the houses of knightes,
gentlemē, marchauntmen, and other wealthie citizens, it is not geson to
beholde generallye their great provision of tapestrie, Turkye worke,
_pewter_, _brasse_, fine linen, and therto costly cupbords of plate
woorth five or sixe hundred pounde, to be demed by estimation. But as
herein all these sortes doe farre exceede their elders and
predecessours, so in tyme past the costly furniture STAYED THERE,
whereas now it is descended yet lower, even unto the inferiour
artificers and most fermers, who have learned to garnish also their
cupbordes with plate, their beddes with tapestrie and silke hanginges,
and their table with fine naperie, whereby the wealth of our countrie
doth infinitely appeare. Neither do I speake this in reproch of any man,
God is my judge, but to shew that I doe rejoyce rather to see how God
hath blessed us with hys good giftes, and to behold how that in a time,
wherein all thinges are growen to most excessive prices, we doe yet
finde the meanes to obtayne and atchieve such furniture as hath
heretofore been impossible.
“There are _olde men yet dwelling in the village where I remayne_, which
have noted three things to be marveylously altered in Englande within
their sound remembraunce. One is, the multitude of _chimnies_ lately
erected, wheras, in their young dayes there were not above two or three,
if so many, in most uplandish townes of the realme, (the religious
houses and mannour places of their lordes alwayes excepted, and
peradventure some great personages,) but eache one made his fire against
a reredosse in the hall, where he dined and dressed his meate.
“The second is the great _amendment of lodginge_; for, sayde they, our
fathers, and we ourselves, have lyen full oft upon straw pallettes,
covered onely with a sheete under coverlettes, made of dagswain or
hop-harlots, (I use their own termes,) and a good round logge under
their heades in steade of a boulster. If it were so that our fathers, or
the good man of the house, had a matteress or flockbed, and therto a
sacke of chafe to rest hys head upon, he thought himself as well lodged
as the lorde of the towne; so well were they contented. Pillowes, sayde
they, were thoughte meete onely for women in childbed. As for servants
if they had any sheete above them it was well; for seldom had they any
under their bodies to keepe them from the pricking strawes that ran oft
thorow the canvass, and raced their hardened hides.[438]
“The thirde thinge they tell of is the exchange of treene _platters_
into pewter, and woode spoones into silver or tin. For so cōmon were al
sortes of treene vesselles in old time, that a man should hardly find
four peces of pewter, of which one was, peradventure, _a salte_ in a
good farmer’s house; and yet for al this frugalitie, (if it may so be
justly called,) they were scarse able to lyve and paye their rentes at
their dayes without selling of a cow or a horse, or more, although they
payde but foure poundes at the uttermost by the yeare. Such also was
their poverty, that if a fermour or husbandman had been at the
ale-house, _a thing greatly used in those dayes_, or amongst sixe or
seaven of hys neyghbours, and there in a bravery to shewe what store he
had did cast down his purse, and therein a noble, or sixe shillings in
silver, unto them, it was very likely that all the rest could not lay
downe so much against it: wheras, in my tyme, although peradventure
foure pounde of olde rent be improved to fourty or fiftye pound, yet
will the farmer think his gaines very small toward the middest of his
terme, if he have not sixe or seaven yeres rent lying by him, therewith
to purchase a newe lease, besides a faire garnish of _pewter_ in his
cowborde, three or foure feather beddes, so many coverlettes, and
carpettes of tapestry, a silver salte, a bowle for wine, (if not an
whole[439] neast,) and a dussen of spoones to furnishe up the sute. Thys
also he taketh to be his owne cleare; for what stocke of money soever he
gathereth in all his yeares, it is often seene that the landlorde will
take such order with him for the same when he renueth his lease, which
is commōly eight or ten yeares before it be expyred, sith it is nowe
growen almost to a custome, that if he come not to his lorde so long
before, another shall step in for a reversion, and so defeat him
outright, that it shall never trouble him more, then the heare of his
bearde when the barber hath washed and shaven it from his chinne.”
Submitting the above to the especial consideration of our “beaux” and
“belles,” doctors and patients, landlords and farmers, and informing
these last, that in the two reigns preceding land was let for one
shilling per acre,