SPORT AND RECREATION
As regards the sports and pastimes of the City, there is cockfighting
on Shrove Tuesday, with hockey. Every Friday in Lent there are
tournaments with “disarmed” lances; when Easter has made the river a
little less inclement there will be water sports, tilting in boats,
etc.; in the summer the young men leap, dance, shoot, wrestle, cast the
stone, practise their shields, play at quarter-staff, single-stick,
football and bucklers; the maidens play their timbrels and dance as
long as they can see. In spring boars, bulls, badgers, and even horses
are baited; when the water is frozen over the young men slide and skate
on bones, particularly on the marshy ground at Moorfields and behind
Bankside; many of the citizens keep hawks and hounds, “for they have
liberty of hunting in Middlesex, Hertfordshire, all Chiltern, and in
Kent to the water of Cray.” Fitz Stephen’s description of London in the
reign of Henry II. tells us this and much else; it is repeated by Stow,
who says that with the exception of the tilting on horseback these
sports were continued to his day. He then enumerates the sports and
pastimes belonging to every successive season of the year:—
“First in the feast of Christmas, there was in the King’s house,
wheresoever he was lodged, a lord of misrule or master of merry
disports, and the like had ye in the house of every nobleman of honour
or good worship, were he spiritual or temporal. Amongst the which
the Mayor of London, and either of the sheriffs, had their several
lords of misrule, ever contending, without quarrel or offence, who
should make the rarest pastimes to delight the beholders. These lords
beginning their rule on Allhallon Eve, continued the same till the
morrow after the Feast of the Purification, commonly called Candlemas
Day. In all which space there was fine and subtle disguisings, masks,
and mummeries, with playing at cards for counters nails, and points,
in every house, more for pastime than for gain.
Against the feast of Christmas every man’s house, as also the parish
churches, were decked with holm, ivy, bays, and whatsoever the season
of the year afforded to be green. The conduits and standards in the
streets were likewise garnished; amongst the which I read, in the
year 1444, that by tempest of thunder and lightning, on the first of
February at night, Paule’s Steeple was fired, but with great labour
quenched; and towards the morning of Candlemas Day at the Leadenhall
in Cornhill, a standard of tree was being set up in the midst of the
pavement, fast in the ground, nailed full of holm and ivy, for disport
of Christmas to the people, was torn up and cast down by the malignant
spirit (as was thought) and the stones of the pavement all about were
cast in the streets, and into divers houses, so that the people were
sore aghast of the great tempests.
In the week before Easter had ye great shows made for the fetching in
of a twisted tree, or with, as they termed it, out of the woods into
the King’s house; and the like into every man’s house of honour or
worship.
In the month of May, namely, on May-day in the morning, every man,
except impediment, would walk into the sweet meadows and green woods,
there to rejoice their spirits with the beauty and savour of sweet
flowers, and with the harmony of birds, praising God in their kind;
and for example hereof Edward Hall hath noted, that King Henry VIII.,
as in the 3rd of his reign and divers other years, so namely in the
7th of his reign, on May-day in the morning, with Queen Katherine
his wife, accompanied by many lords and ladies, rode a-maying from
Greenwich to the high ground of Shooter’s Hill, where, as they
passed by the way, they espied a company of tall yeomen, clothed all
in green, with green hoods, and bows and arrows, to the number of
two hundred; one being their chieftain, was called Robin Hood, who
required the King and his company to stay and see his men shoot;
whereunto the King granting, Robin Hood whistled, and all the two
hundred archers shot off, loosing all at once; and when he whistled
again they likewise shot again; their arrows whistled by craft of the
head, so that the noise was strange and loud, which greatly delighted
the King, Queen, and their company. Moreover, this Robin Hood desired
the King and Queen, with their retinue, to enter the greenwood, where,
in harbours made of boughs and decked with flowers, they were set and
served plentifully with venison and wine by Robin Hood and his men, to
their great contentment, and had other pageants and pastimes, as ye
may read in my said author.
I find also, that in the month of May, the citizens of London of
all estates, lightly in every parish, or sometimes two or three
parishes joining together, had their several mayings, and did fetch
in maypoles, with divers warlike shows, with good archers, morris
dancers, and other devices, for pastime all the day long; and toward
the evening they had stage plays and bonfires in the streets.” (Stow’s
_Survey_.)
Stow mentions the Lord of Misrule, but he hardly assigns sufficient
importance to this functionary. The great event of the Christmas
holidays were the masques, mummings, and frolics prepared and played
by the Lord of Misrule, or the Master of the Revels, not only at
Court, but in every great house in the country. During his tenure of
office the Lord of Misrule was treated with all the deference and
state that belonged to the King. He had his Lord Keeper, Treasurer,
and body-guard; his chaplains preached before him, bowing low as they
entered the pulpit; his Master of Requests received petitions for him;
he conferred knighthood; had his favourites, and was permitted to
spend his money freely. At every one of the Inns of Court they had at
Christmas a Lord of Misrule.
The Lord of Misrule in the year 1551 was one George Ferrers, who gave
great satisfaction not only to the King, but also to the City. For that
year his style was “Master of the King’s Pastimes.” Stow says:—
“Mr. Ferrers being lord of the merrie disportes all the twelve days,
so pleasantly and wisely behaved himself, that the King had great
delight in his pastimes. On Monday the 4th of January, he came by
water to London, and landed at the Tower wharf, entered the Tower,
and then rode through Tower street, where he was received by Serjeant
Vawce, Lord of Misrule to John Mainard, one of the Sheriffs of London,
and so was conducted through the City, with a great company of young
lords and gentlemen, to the house of Sir Geo. Barne, Lord Mayor,
where he with the chief of his company dined, and afterwards had a
great banket, and at his departure the Lord Mayor gave him a standing
cup with a cover of silver gilt, of the value of ten pounds, for a
reward; he also set a hogshead of wine and a barrell of beer at his
gate for his train that followed him; the rest of his gentlemen and
servants dined at other Aldermen’s houses and with the Sheriffs, and
so departed to the Tower wharfe again, and to the Court by water, to
the great commendation of the Mayor and Aldermen, and highly accepted
of the King and Counsaille.” (_Archæeologia_, vol. xviii.)
Some of the bills and charges for the masques and plays presented
by Ferrers remain to show the kind of entertainment provided. There
were, for instance, four challengers and twenty horses properly
apparelled. The Lord of Misrule was attended by his heir, his other
sons, his base sons, counsellors, pages of honour, gentlemen ushers,
serjeants-at-arms, a provost marshal, heralds, trumpeters, and an
orator, a jailer, a footman, jugglers, Irishmen, and fools. The masque
was the Triumph of Mars and Venus; there were jousts and tournaments;
there were mock courts of justice, with a pillory, stocks, and sham
executions. The whole show was magnificently mounted, as appears from
the following bill for dressing the Lord of Misrule himself:—
“For Christmas day and that week, the Lord of Misrule himself had a
robe of white bawdekyn, containing nine yards at 16s. a yard, garded
with a great embroidered gard of cloth of gold, wrought in knots,
fourteen yards, at 13s. 4d. a yard, having a fur of red feathers, with
a cape of chamblet thrum. A coat of flat silver fine with works, five
yards at 50 shillings, with an embroidered gard of leaves of gold
and silk coloured, containing fifteen yards at 20 shillings. A cap
of maintenance of red feathers and chamblett thrum, very rich, with a
plume of feathers. A pair of hosen, the breeches made of a garde of
cloth of gold imbroidered in paynes, nine yards of gardind at 13s. 4d.
lined with silver sarsnet, one ell at 8 shillings. A pair of buskins
of white bawdekyn, one yard, at 16 shillings. A pair of pantacles of
brydges [? Bruges] sattin, 3s. 4d. A girdle of yellow sarsnet, 16d.
The cost £51: 17: 4.” (_Archæeologia_, vol. xviii.)
But there are other details not yet mentioned. The year’s sports very
properly began with the New Year’s gifts.
“These giftes the husband gives his wife and father eke the child,
And master on his men bestows the like with favour mild;
And good beginning of the year they wish and wish again,
According to the ancient guise of heathen people vain.
Then eight days no man doth require his debts of any man,
Their tables do they furnish forth with all the meat they can.”
On the day before Ascension there was the annual beating of the bounds,
a custom still observed, but without the old ceremony of beating
each other for the better preservation of the memory of the ancient
boundaries. At Whitsuntide there was feasting with Whitsun ale. Stow
has told us how May-day was kept. But he writes as an old man, coldly;
the full meaning of May-day he has forgotten. Remember what it meant
for the young Londoner. It fell on what is now the 12th of May, a time
when, except at very rare springs, the biting east wind is over, and
spring has really begun. The leaves and blossoms are out at last,
after struggling against the cold winds since the middle of March; the
days have lengthened; it is now light till nine o’clock, and twilight
all the night through. There is no more huddling around the fire,
perhaps without candles, going off to bed as soon as is possible,
rising before the break of day, sitting all day long in a workshop
darkened by the lowering of the shutters as well as by the dreary grey
skies of winter, working with frozen fingers, living on salt meat for
six months except for the fast days and the forty days of Lent, when
for a change there was salted fish. Spring had come at last, and in
this northern clime the City, like the gardens and the fields, sprang
into new life and returned to the joy of living.
Then all went out into the fields on May-day Eve. They passed over
the marshy and muddy plain of Moorfields till they came to the little
village of Iseldon or Iselden, where the great forest began. There grew
the whitethorn and the blackthorn, the broom and the gorse blossomed,
there the wild crab was covered with a garment of pink and white, and
the wild rose was all glorious to behold; the people came home bearing
boughs of those sweet blossoms, singing and dancing as they went;
with them marched the lusty fellow with pipe and tabor, with them ran
barking and fighting, for pure joy, all the dogs of the parish. Then
they set up their Maypole adorned with ribbons and garlands, and they
danced around it, singing, hand in hand, right hand with left hand, and
left hand with right, covered with chaplets of wild rose and wild apple
blossom. As at Christmas they celebrated the close of the old year and
the beginning of the new, so now they celebrated the end of the winter
and the birth of the spring. They had Tom Fools, mummers, hobby horses,
Robin Hood, Maid Marian, Little John; they had bonfires; and they had
feasting and drinking. ’Twas the most joyous festival of all the year.
On the feast of St. Bartholomew were held athletic sports with
races, archery, and wrestling. At Holyrood they went nutting in the
woods; at Martinmas they feasted—I know not why. Then in the long
summer days they celebrated the eves of festivals and the festivals
themselves by a kind of open-house hospitality. Then burned bonfires
in the streets—this was partly with a view to keep off infection; and
certainly in their narrow streets it was necessary to renew the air as
much as possible. Then the wealthier sort spread tables before their
doors and furnished them on the vigils with bread and drink, and on
the festival days with meat and drink, to which they would invite all
passers-by, “praising God for His benefits bestowed upon them.” There
were feasts of reconciliation and amity for those who had quarrelled.
The feast of reconciliation was a ceremony observed down to the last
century.
A kind of Flower Feast was held on the vigil of St. John the Baptist,
and on the days of St. Peter and St. Paul the Apostles. Then every
man’s door was decorated with “green birch, long fennel, St. John’s
wort, orpin, white leten, and such like.” Garlands of flowers were
hung up among the leaves, with small lamps of glass containing enough
oil to last all through the night; there were branches of wrought iron
hung out over the street thus decorated, and some houses had hundreds
of lamps hung up all over them. Picture to yourself a street in Old
London, narrow, with lofty gabled houses projecting in each storey,
so that at the top one might almost shake hands across. Even in the
soft and limpid twilight of a June evening it is generally almost dark
in the streets thus deprived of the sky; but to-night it is lighter
than at noontide. There are rows on rows, one row above the others of
bright lamps, red and blue and green, gleaming among green branches and
white flowers; there are people dancing and pledging each other, there
is music—nay, not pipe and tabor only, but harp and rebeck, flute and
silver bells, drum and syrinx. And of course the lads and maidens are
dancing with all the spirit they possess.
[Illustration: A HUNTING PARTY
From fourteenth-century MS. Bibliothèque Nat. de Paris.]
Dancing was a passion with everybody. From the Queen to the milkmaid
all the women danced; from the King to the craftsman all the young men
danced. They danced in the streets whenever it was possible, which
was one of the reasons why May-day was so joyous a festival. The more
courtly people had dances dignified and stately, such as the _Danse au
Virlet_, in which each performer sang a verse, and then they all danced
round singing the same verse in chorus; the _Pas de Brabant_, where
every man knelt to his partner; the _Danse au chapelet_, where every
man kissed his partner; they danced together singing minstrels’ songs;
they danced in the garden, they danced in the meadow, they went out at
night to dance with tapers in their hands; they danced to beautiful
music played by an orchestra. But for the humbler folk the street was
the ball-room, and the pipe and tabor the music; while the dance was
the simple _Hey_, or a round with capers of surprising agility, or the
interlacing of hands and the dancing round a maypole.
The wrestling match filled much the same place in the civic mind as
the football match of the present day. It was not a sport so much as a
battle, and occasionally, as in the case of London _v._ Westminster, it
caused serious riots and disturbances. The usual prize at a wrestling
match was a ram, or a ram and a ring. Sometimes there were more
valuable prizes, as in the old poem, “A mery Geste of Robin Hood,”
quoted by Strutt,[10] in which a white bull, a courser with saddle and
bridle, a pair of gloves, a gold ring, and a pipe of wine, were prizes.
In Chaucer’s Prologue we read, “At wrastling he wolde have alwey the
ram.” And Matthew Paris mentions a wrestling match at Westminster, A.D.
1222, at which a ram was the prize.
[10] Joseph Strutt, _Sports and Pastimes of the English People_.
Then there was the valuable right of hunting in the forest of
Middlesex. The country was nearly covered with a vast forest, opened up
here and there by the clearings of charcoal-burners, woodcutters, and
licensed huntsmen. The forest of Middlesex extended on the east side
far into Essex. It was filled with fallow deer, red deer, wild swine,
and wild boar. Of vermin there were wolves still, wild cats, foxes,
badgers, and the smaller creatures. The rabbit warren or the coney
garth was found on every estate, partly for food and partly for the
fur. Two thousand rabbits were supplied in one year for the table of a
rich Norfolk squire. Hares and pheasants were bred in the coney garth.
The crane, the bittern, the great bustard, together with wild ducks
and smaller birds innumerable, were also found—by the marshes along
the river side or in the forests. It is noted that in London even the
craftsmen feasted freely on hares and rabbits.
Music was even a more favourite form of recreation than dancing.
To learn the use of some instrument was part of every gentleman’s
education. The details of the education of the lower class are scanty,
but there is a treasury of manners and customs in Chaucer, from which
it is certain that all classes learned and practised music of some
kind. For instance. Of the Squire, he is said to have been singing or
fluting all the day.
Of the Nun the poet says—
“Ful wel sche sange the service devyne
Entuned in hire nose ful semely.”
[Illustration: THE PARDONER
THE FRIAR
THE NUN’S PRIEST
THE SECOND NUN
TYPES OF CHAUCER’S CHARACTERS
From the Ellesmere MS.]
Of the Mendicant Friar—
“And certainly he had a merry note
Wel couthe he synge and playe on a rote
Somwhat he lipsede for his wantonnesse,
To make his Englische swete upon his Tunge.
And in his harping when that he had sunge
His eyghen twynkeled in his hed aright,
As du the sterris in the frosty night.”
Of the Miller—
“A baggepipe well could he blowe and sowne.”
Of the Pardoner—
“Ful loude he sang ‘Come hider love to me.’”
Of the Scholar—
“And al above ther lay a gay sautrye (_psaltery_)
On which he made a-nightes melody
So swetely that all the chamber rang,
And Angelus et Virginem he sang.”
Of the Carpenter’s wife—
“But of her song it was so loude and yerne (_brisk_)
As eny swalwe chitering on a berne.”
And so on,—they could all sing and play. It was a disgrace for any not
to play some kind of instrument.
A bas-relief on a capital in a Norman church of the eleventh century
represents a concert in which the performers are playing on different
instruments. There was the violin, the violoncello, the guitar, the
harp, the syrinx or Pandora pipes, a zither, great bells and little
bells, and an unintelligible instrument. The list does not include the
flute, pipe, or whistle of various kinds, the bagpipe, the lute, the
trumpet, the horn, the water organ, the wind organ, the cymbals, the
drum, the psaltery, the three-stringed organistrum, the hurdy-gurdy,
the pipe and tabor, the rebeck, and others. Of course many of them
are but varieties. The instruments dear to the common people were the
fiddle and the pipe and tabor, at the music of which the bear capered,
the bull was baited, the prentices and maidens danced, and the tumblers
performed; at the tap of the tabor, and the call of the pipe, everybody
turned out to see what was going on. In every tavern there was music of
a more pretentious kind; there sat the harper, there the mandoline was
touched by those who sat in the place to drink; then to flute and viol
the dancing girl gave her performance; then the story-teller sang his
long tale to the sound of the lute in a low monotone, while the music
rambled up and down, in the same way as a Welsh singer sings while
the air itself rolls round and round about his words. In every church
there was the organ, sometimes only a hand organ; sometimes a great and
glorious organ, the thunders of which awed the trembling soul while
its soft notes uplifted and cheered the worshipper. There was long
opposition to the introduction of the organ; and it was not until the
thirteenth century that the voice of opposition was hushed altogether;
once the organ found admission the difficulty was to make it splendid
enough. Winchester boasted as early as the year 951 an organ divided
into parts, each with its own bellows, its own keyboard, and its own
organist. At Milan Cathedral the organ pipes were made of silver; at
Venice they were made of gold. The best organs of western Europe were
made after the model of an organ presented by Constantine Copronymus to
King Pepin.
[Illustration: A BANQUET
From Willemin, _Monuments inédits_, etc.]
Another form of recreation in the City life was the garden. The poetry
of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries is full of the garden. In
Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale Emelie goes into the garden to make a chaplet:—
“And in the garden at the sonne uppriste
Sche walketh up and doun, and as hir liste,
Sche gadereth floures, party white and redde,
To make a sotil gerland for here hedde,
And as an angel hevenly sche song.”
Every house of importance in London had its garden. Of these gardens
some traces yet remain. The Drapers’ Garden until recently covered a
large area, and there is still a little left; other Companies retain
some portion of their old gardens; apart from the churchyards, now
converted into gardens, there are still even in some crowded parts of
the City one or two private gardens left. The garden afforded a safe
and pleasant place of recreation for the ladies of the house. It seems
as if, with the noise, the dirt, the crowds, the violence, there was no
place for ladies in the streets of Mediæval London; they were escorted
to and from church, and for the rest of the day there was the house or
the garden “ful of leves and of floures.”
“And craft of mannes hand so curiously
Arrayed had the gardeyn of such pris,
As if it were the verray paradise.”
Here the ladies kept their singing birds, of which they were extremely
fond.
[Illustration: KING AND JESTER
From MS. in British Museum. Harl. 1892.]
Then, for recreation in the daily life, we have the morning mass, the
several services of the Church, the work of the shop for the craftsman,
the house for his wife; in summer evenings ramblings in the fields,
rowing on the river, dancing in the streets, athletics of all kinds,
for the young; for the men the tavern with its songs and drink; for
the women, talk in the street at the house doors in the summer; in
the evening, work and music and singing and talk before the fire. In
addition to the festivals and the rejoicings on stated days there was
the procession of the watch, the miracle play within the church or
without, the Royal pageants and the City ridings. The procession of the
watches has been given in _London in the Time of the Tudors_, p. 362.
[Illustration: THE SQUIRE
THE MILLER
THE SERJEANT-AT-LAW
THE REEVE
TYPES OF CHAUCER’S CHARACTERS
From the Ellesmere MS.]
What part, if any, had cards in the houses of Mediæval London? The
origin of card-playing need not concern us here. Probably the theory
that cards first appeared at Viterbo, whither they were brought from
the East, is true; that they spread over Italy, Germany, France, and
Spain is quite certain. In the year 1393 occurs the well-known and
often-quoted passage in the account of the Treasurer of France, Charles
Poupart. “Givin to Grinfonneur, painter, for three packs of cards, gilt
and coloured, and variously ornamented, for the amusement of the King,
fifty-six livres.” From this passage it has been argued that cards were
invented for the solace of the mad King Charles VI. But if they were a
new invention the entry would not have been made with such simplicity,
and, in fact, we now know that cards had before this date been brought
into France. Whatever was known or practised in France speedily crossed
over to England. Yet it is remarkable that Chaucer makes no mention
of card-playing. In the year 1463 it was practised. This is proved by
a clause in an Act of 1463, by which the importation of cards, among
other wares of foreign manufacture, was forbidden. In one of the Paston
Letters, dated Dec. 24, 1484, Margery Paston tells her husband that in
a certain great lady’s house there were at Christmas “no disguisings,
nor harpings, nor luting, nor singing, nor none loud disputes; but
playing at the tables, chess and cards.” It may therefore be assumed
that card-playing was known in London during the fifteenth century;
that it was not an amusement or a form of gambling belonging to the
common sort, but that it belonged to the wealthier class. This is what
we should expect from the cost of the early cards with their gold and
their hand-painted faces and backs. Of gambling with dice a great deal
is said, and it would appear the lower classes as well as the upper
classes were greatly addicted to dice and games of pure chance. Every
tavern had its gaming table; the keeper advanced money to those who
lost: there were then as now gamesters _acharnés_ who gambled away all
that they had and more. In the satirical drawings of the time they are
represented as having stripped themselves of everything, including
every shred of clothing. The lower classes of London have always been,
and are still, incurably addicted to the pursuit of fortune, blind and
incapable of favouritism. Laying on the odds and backing his fancy
takes the place with the young Londoner of the old-fashioned dice.
For games we have the rhyme:—“The men and maids do merry make, at
Stoolball and at Barley-break.” The games played by boys were “Hoop and
hide,” “Hide and seek,” “Harry Racket,” “Fillip the toad,” “Hoos and
Blind,” “Hoodwink Play,” “Loggats,” “Slide Sheriff or Shove groat.”
“To wrestle, play at stooleballe, or to runne;
To pitch the Barre, or to shoote off a gun;
To play at Luggats, nine holes, or Tenpinnes:
To try it out at Football by the shinnes.”
Fitz Stephen says that on Shrove Tuesday the boys brought cocks to
school and made them fight—the Master received from every boy a
“Cockpenny.” The custom was kept up in some parts of England, I believe
in the town of Lancaster, until well into the eighteenth century.
With all these aids to rest and recreation it will be seen that London
was a City full of joy and cheerfulness. But there was a great deal
more than this. No City on the Continent, not even Antwerp, Bruges,
or Paris, surpassed London in the splendour and magnificence of her
Pageants and Ridings. They were the public processions and rejoicings
at coronations whether of the King or his consort, those after great
victories, those when the King rode in state through London, those in
which foreign sovereigns were received, and the Ridings of the Mayor
and Aldermen. Let us consider what was meant by such a Pageant in the
thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, the period to which
this chapter belongs. They were rare events, naturally—a coronation
does not happen often in one generation,—so rare were they that the
principal Pageants can all be enumerated in a few lines. Thus:—
A.D. 1205 Reception of Otho, nephew to King John.
1216 ” ” Louis the Dauphin.
1236 ” ” Henry III.
1243 ” ” Beatrice, Countess of Provence.
1274 ” ” Queen Margaret.
1307 ” ” Queen Isabella.
1328 ” ” Queen Philippa.
1357 ” ” King John of France.
1363 ” ” King John of France, King David of Scotland,
and the King of Cyprus.
1377 ” ” King Richard II.
1382 ” ” Queen Anne.
1392 Reconciliation of King Richard II. and the City.
1396 Coronation of Queen Isabella.
1399 ” ” Henry IV.
1399 Reception of Emmanuel, Emperor of Constantinople.
1413 Coronation of Henry V.
1415 Return of Henry V. after Agincourt.
1416 Reception of the Emperor Sigismund.
1421 Return of Henry V. and Queen Katherine.
1422 Reception of infant King Henry VI.
1432 ” ” Henry VI.
1445 ” ” Margaret of Anjou.
1461 Coronation of Edward IV.
1465 ” ” Queen Elizabeth Grey.
1483 Reception of Edward V.
1483 Coronation of Richard III.
Thus in 278 years there were twenty-seven Pageants and Receptions,
an average of one in every ten years. It is certain that at every
coronation there was some kind of pageant or procession, but there
seems no record of those of Kings Edward II. and III. The first of
which a detailed account has come down to us is the reception of Henry
III. on his marriage in 1286. It is by Matthew Paris:—
“There were assembled at the King’s nuptial festivities such a host of
nobles of both sexes, such numbers of religious men, such crowds of the
populace, and such a variety of actors, that London, with its capacious
bosom, could scarcely contain them. The whole City was ornamented with
flags and banners, chaplets and hangings, candles and lamps, and with
wonderful devices and extraordinary representations, and all the roads
were cleansed from mud and dirt, sticks and everything offensive. The
citizens, too, went out to meet the King and Queen dressed in their
ornaments, and vied with each other trying the speed of their horses.
On the same day when they left the City for Westminster, to perform
the duties of butler to the King (which office belonged to them by
right of old, at the coronation), they proceeded thither dressed in
silk garments, with mantles worked in gold, and with costly changes
of raiment, mounted on valuable horses, glittering with new bits and
saddles, and riding in troops arranged in order. They carried with
them three hundred and sixty gold and silver cups, preceded by the
King’s trumpeters and with horns sounding, so that such a wonderful
novelty struck all who beheld it with astonishment. The Archbishop
of Canterbury, by the right especially belonging to him, performed
the duty of crowning with the usual solemnities, the Bishop of London
assisting him as a dean, the other bishops taking their stations
according to their rank. In the same way all the abbats, at the head
of whom, as was his right, was the abbat of St. Alban’s (for as the
Protomartyr of England, B. Alban, was the chief of all the martyrs of
England, so also was his abbat the chief of all the abbats in rank
and dignity), as the authentic privilege of that church set forth.
The nobles, too, performed the duties, which, by ancient right and
custom, pertained to them at the coronations of kings. In like manner
some of the inhabitants of certain cities discharged certain duties
which belonged to them by right of their ancestors. The Earl of Chester
carried the sword of St. Edward, which was called ‘Curtein,’ before the
King, as a sign that he was earl of the palace, and had by right the
power of restraining the King if he should commit an error. The Earl
was attended by the Constable of Chester, and kept the people away with
a wand when they pressed forward in a disorderly way. The Grand Marshal
of England, the Earl of Pembroke, carried a wand before the King, and
cleared the way before him both in the church and in the banquet-hall,
and arranged the banquet and the guests at table. The wardens of the
Cinque Ports carried the pall over the King, supported by four spears,
but the claim to this duty was not altogether undisputed. The Earl
of Leicester supplied the King with water in basins to wash before
his meal; the Earl Warrenne performed the duty of King’s cupbearer,
supplying the place of the Earl of Arundel, because the latter was
a youth and not as yet made a belted knight. Master Michael Belet
was butler _ex officio_: the Earl of Hereford performed the duties
of marshal of the King’s household, and William Beauchamp held the
station as almoner. The Justiciary of the Forests arranged the drinking
cups on the table at the King’s right hand, although he met with some
opposition, which however fell to the ground. The citizens of London
passed the wine about in all directions, in costly cups, and those of
Winchester superintended the cooking of the feast; the rest, according
to the ancient statutes, filled their separate stations, or made their
claim to do so. And in order that the nuptial festivities might not
be clouded by any disputes, saving the right of any one, many things
were put up with for the time which they left for decision at a more
favourable opportunity. The office of Chancellor of England, and all
the offices connected with the King, are ordained and assized in the
Exchequer. Therefore the Chancellor, the Chamberlain, the Marshal, and
the Constable, by right of their office, took their seats there, as
also did the barons according to the date of their creation, in the
City of London, whereby they each knew his own place. The ceremony
was splendid, with the gay dresses of the clergy and knights who were
present. The Abbat of Westminster sprinkled the holy water, and the
Treasurer, acting the part of sub-dean, carried the paten. Why should
I describe all those persons who reverently ministered in the church
to God as was their duty? Why describe the abundance of meats and
dishes on the table? the quantity of venison, the variety of fish, the
joyous sounds of the glee-men, and the gaiety of the waiters? Whatever
the world could afford to create pleasure and magnificence was there
brought together from every quarter.” (Giles’s trans. pp. 8, 9.)
[Illustration: TOURNAMENT OF THE EARL OF WARWICK
From Strutt’s _Manners and Customs_.]
It must have been a wealthy city which could thus furnish for a
coronation banquet three hundred and sixty wealthy citizens, who
could afford to dress in silk with gold-embroidered mantles, and to
ride stately horses richly caparisoned, and to carry every man a
gold or silver cup, and to decorate and light up their houses with
flags and banners, chaplets and hangings, candles and lamps. The
magnificent dress of the citizen at all these pageants strikes one with
astonishment. They welcomed Queen Margaret in 1300 to the number of 600
in a livery of red and white, each with the cognisance of his Mystery
embroidered on his sleeve. They followed King Henry IV. in 1399 with a
train of 6000 horse—all of London and clothed in their proper livery.
When Henry V. came home after Agincourt, the Mayor and Aldermen met him
clothed in “orient grained scarlet,” with 400 citizens in murrey, well
mounted, with collars and chains of gold; with them went a multitude of
the city clergy in sumptuous copes with rich crosses and massy censers.
[Illustration: CORONATION OF HENRY IV.
From Froissart’s _Chronicles_.]
The Lord Mayor’s Show began with the presentation of the Mayor elect to
the King or his justiciary. The new Mayor had to ride to Westminster;
of course he rode in state with the Sheriffs, Aldermen, and officers
of the city. It was in 1452 that John Norman, then Mayor, is said to
have changed the custom of riding by land to going by barge. For this
purpose he presented the City with a beautiful barge; the Companies
followed his example, and provided themselves with barges; of course it
was no new thing for a wealthy citizen or a nobleman to have his barge;
the Thames was always, until quite recent times, the chief highway
of the City—witness the line of palaces which lay along its north
bank from Baynard’s Castle to the King’s House of Westminster. The
innovation of Norman was to present the City with its barge of state:
there is reason to believe that before his time some of the journeys to
Westminster had been made by water. Some notes of the cost of such
a procession have been preserved. For instance, in the year 1401, on
the Riding of John Walcote, Mayor, there is the following entry in the
books of the Grocers’ Company:—
Itm. Meres Averes paie po le chevache du £ _s_ _d_
John Walcote mayr, po vi mynstrelles
po. lo. sabire XL
Itm. po. lo. cheprous and po. lo. pessure VIIj
It. po. lo. dyner & po vyn po. le chaucer XXI
Itm. po. un cluvue po. le bidge IIIj
[Illustration: ENGLISH KNIGHTS TRAVELLING
From MS. in British Museum. Harl. 1319.]
The wealth and state of the City itself were confided to the care of
the Mayor and Aldermen, who lost no opportunity, whether by a Riding,
or a Pageant, or a Feast, of exhibiting the wealth of the City by the
liveries and splendour of dress worn by the citizens. Thus, Stow gives
some particulars on the subject, which help to show us the real wealth
of the citizens:—
“1236. The 20th of Henry III., the Mayor, Aldermen, Sheriffs, and
citizens of London, rode out to meet the King and his new wife Queen
Eleanor, daughter to Reymond Beringarius of Aragon, Earl of Provence
and Narbone. The citizens were clothed in long garments, embroidered
about with gold, and silk in divers colours, their horses finely
trapped, to the number of three hundred and sixty, every man bearing
a gold or silver cup in his hand, the King’s trumpets before them
sounding, etc. as ye may read in my Annales.
1300. The 29th of Edward I., the said King took to wife Margaret,
sister to Philip le Beau, King of France: they were married at
Canterbury. The Queen was conveyed to London, against whom the
citizens to the number of six hundred rode in one livery of white and
red, with the cognisances of their mysteries embroidered upon their
sleeves; they received her four miles out of London, and so conveyed
her to Westminster.
1415. The 3rd of Henry V., the said King arriving at Dover, the Mayor
of London, with the Aldermen and craftsmen riding in red, with hoods
red and white, met with the King on the Black hith, coming from Eltham
with his prisoners out of France.
1432. The 10th of Henry VI., he being crowned in France, returning
into England, came to Eltham towards London, and the Mayor of London,
John Welles, the Aldermen, with the commonality, rode against him on
horseback, the Mayor in crimson velvet, a great velvet hat furred, a
girdle of gold about his middle, and a bawdrike of gold about his neck
trilling down behind him, his three henxeme, on three great coursers
following him, in one suit of red, all spangled in silver, then
the Aldermen in gowns of scarlet, with sanguine hoods, and all the
commonality of the city clothed in white gowns and scarlet hoods, with
divers cognisances embroidered on their sleeves, etc.
1485. The 1st of Henry VII., the Mayor, Aldermen, Sheriffs, and
commonality, all clothed in violet (as in a mourning colour), met
the King at Shireditch, and conveyed him to Bowles Church, where he
offered his banners.
Thus much for liveries of citizens in ancient times, both in triumphs
and otherwise, may suffice, whereby, may be observed, that the
coverture of men’s heads was then hoods, for neither cap nor hat is
spoken of, except that John Welles, Mayor of London, to wear a hat in
time of triumph, but differing from the hats lately taken in use, and
now commonly worn for noblemen’s liveries. I read that Thomas, Earl of
Lancaster, in the reign of Edward II., gave at Christmas in liveries,
to such as served him, a hundred and fifty-nine broadcloths, allowing
to every garment furs to fur their hoods: more near our time, thereby
remaineth the counterfeits and pictures of Aldermen and others that
lived in the reigns of Henry VI. and Edward IV., namely, Alderman
Darby, dwelling in Fenchurch Street, over against the parish church
of St. Diones, left his picture, as of an Alderman, in a gown of
scarlet on his back, a hood on his head, etc. as is in that house (and
elsewhere) to be seen. For a further monument of those late times, men
may behold the glass windows of the Mayor’s Court in the Guildhall
above the stairs; the Mayor is there pictured sitting in habit,
party-coloured, and a hood on his head, his sword-bearer before him
with a hat or cap of maintenance; the common clerk and other officers
bareheaded, their hoods on their shoulders: and therefore, I take it,
that the use of square bonnets worn by noblemen, gentlemen, citizens,
and others, took beginning in the realm by Henry VII., and in his
time, and of further antiquity, I can see no counterfeit or other
proof of use. Henry VIII. (towards his latter reign) wore a flat round
cap of scarlet or of velvet, with a bruch or jewel and a feather:
divers gentlemen, courtiers, and others did the like. The youthful
citizens also took them to the new fashion of flat caps knitted of
woollen yarn black, but so light that they were obliged to tie them
under their chins, for else the wind would be master over them. The
use of these flat round caps so far increased (being of less price
than the French bonnet) that in short time the young Aldermen took the
wearing of them: Sir John White wore it in his Mayoralty, and was the
first that left example to his followers; but now the Spanish felt, or
the like counterfeit, is most commonly, of all men both spiritual and
temporal, taken to use, so that the French bonnet or square cap, and
also the round cap, have for the most part given place to the Spanish
felt; but yet in London amongst the graver sort (I mean the liveries
of companies) remaineth a memory of the hoods of old time worn by
their predecessors; these hoods were worn, the roundlets upon their
heads, the skirts to hang behind in their necks to keep them warm, the
tippet to lie on their shoulder, or to wind about their necks; these
hoods were of old time made in colours according to their gowns, which
were of two colours, as red and blue, or red and purple, murrey, or as
it pleased their masters and wardens to appoint to the companies: but
now of late time they have used their gowns to be all of one colour,
and those of the saddest, but their hoods being made the one half of
the same cloth their gowns be of, the other half remaineth red as of
old time.”
The age was, above all, martial, therefore battle real or battle
mimic was the sport which mostly moved the people. The tournament
was nominally a mimic battle, yet it so closely resembled a real
battle, and so often ended in wounds or death, that it was sometimes
difficult to distinguish between a tournament and a duel. At the Tilt
Yard at Whitehall, in Tothill Fields, at Smithfield and in Cheapside,
tournaments were held. Among the most famous tournaments were the
following:—
That of 1329 in Cheapside when the scaffolding erected for the Queen
and her ladies fell, fortunately without injury to the Queen.
[Illustration: A TOURNAMENT IN LONDON
From Froissart’s _Chronicles_.]
Those of 1357, 1362, and 1374. The last was especially splendid: it was
held in honour of Alice Perrers, the “Lady of the Sun,” and continued
for seven days.
The magnificent tournament, held by Richard II. in 1390, which was
also continued for several days, and was attended by sixty combatants.
The famous encounter of Scottish with English knights in 1393. That of
French and English knights at Smithfield in 1409. The challenge of a
knight of Aragon who was defeated by Robert Carey. The challenge, 1442,
of another knight of Aragon, Sir Philip le Beaufe, who was defeated by
John Ansley.
The challenge, 1467, of the Bastard of Burgundy. These challenges were
more than joustings; they were duels to the death. The Burgundian
knight challenged Lord Scales, brother of the Queen. They fought for
three days. On the first they fought on foot without result. On the
second they fought on horseback, when the Burgundian’s horse fell with
him. On the third they fought with poleaxes until the point of Lord
Scales’ axe entered his antagonist’s helmet, so that he could have
thrown him to the ground and killed him. But the King threw down his
warder and discontinued the combat. In 1501 there was a tournament in
the Tower. In 1540 there was a five days’ tournament at Westminster. In
1571, 1581, and 1599, there were tournaments, but not on the same scale
as formerly.
In 1610 the last tournament was held in the Tilt Yard, Westminster, in
honour of Henry, Prince of Wales.