CHAPTER IV.

THE MARKET-PLACE.

_Market-place_.--_Present aspect_.--_Visit to its stalls_.--_Norfolk

Marketwomen_.--_Christmas Market_.--_Early History_.--_Extracts from old

records_.--_Domestic scene of 13th century_.--_Early

Crafts_.--_Guilds_.--_Medley of Historical Facts_.--_Extract from Diary

of Dr. Edward Browne_.--_The City in Charles the Second's

reign_.--_Duke's Palace

Gardens_.--_Manufactures_.--_Wool_.--_Worsted_.--_Printing_.--_Caxton_.--

_Specimens of Ancient Newspapers_.--_Blomefield_.

The old city, so rich in antiquarian remains, can boast but slow progress

in modern architectural developments; nor may it vie with many a younger

town in its contrivances for the comfort and conveniences of those most

useful members of society--the market-folks. No Grainger has arisen, to

rear a monument to his own fame, and of his city's prosperity, in the

form of a shelter for this important class of the town and country

populace. May be, the picturesque beauty of the Flemish scene, with its

changeful canopy of "ethereal blue," or neutral tint, toned down at

whiles to hues of sombre gloom, beneath the heavy shade of passing storms

of hail and thunder, or more steady-falling rain and snow, has made the

philanthropists of these reforming times conservatives all, on this one

point, while model cottages, baths and washhouses, almshouses for

freemen, and almost every other scheme ingenuity may devise to testify

the care and thought bestowed upon the public weal, are rising up around.

Let the cry of "_Protection_" once again be raised, not for the

"distressed agriculturist" salesman, in his handsome corn exchange, but

in favour of the "unprotected females" that sit unsheltered from the sun

or storm, to vend the produce of the poultry-yards, the dairy-house, and

market-garden.

But though no Temple to Commerce of the larder has been erected--a fact

to be deplored in a utilitarian sense--it can never be denied that the

good old seat of thriving trade can boast as fine a specimen of a genuine

old market-place as may well be found in this day of competition and

rivalry. Its motley assemblage of buildings, ranged round the open

square, of all styles and all ages, jostling against one another, or here

and there huddled together into all sorts of inconceivable groups of

varied and fantastic outline; the young ones of to-day starting up with

bold and saucy front, and verily squeezing out from among them their

quaint, old-fashioned, gable-ended kinsfolk of older date, or sometimes

creeping out, as it were, from beneath them, content with shewing a

modern face in some lower window, decked with all the new-fangled

conceits of the latest fashions, and allowing their ancestors quiet

resting-place aloft, where to moulder away into decay, are a chronology

of history in themselves. Now and then, the fretted ironwork of some

miniature parade, hanging midway in the air, and clinging to the

perpendicular of masonry above some new plate-glassed and glittering

front, suggests thoughts of marine villas, moonlight and sea views, and

all those pretty poetical fancies associated with a lodging at some

fashionable watering-place, and one wonders how they ever came to be

transported thither, and for why? They that own them tell us that they

have their use, in the city, where the love of pageantry is an heir-loom

from generations long since passed away whose birthright was to minister

to the gorgeous magnificence of fraternities and guilds, banquettings and

processions, that read like fairy tales in this sober nineteenth century;

and we would believe in their utility, were it no other than to afford a

bird's eye view of the busy scenes of homely traffic going on upon a

market day, amongst the accumulated heaps of provisions for the daily

wants of life.

_The wants of life_! Who amongst us knows the meaning of the words, the

_reality_ they hide? Who that has numbered among the wants of life, the

gold to purchase luxury or ornament, place or power, the ways and means

to shine and glitter in the world, where men are prized by what they

_seem_, rather than what they are; the wherewith to pay the idly

accumulated debts, incurred through mean attempts to cover the rags of

poverty, or decent homely garments of honesty, with tinsel mockeries of

wealth's trappings? Who amongst these knows aught of the meaning of the

_wants of life_? Ask him who has known _Hunger_, has been face to face

with want and starvation, has shared with loved and loving ones, weak

babes, and sick and helpless mothers, the task of driving these unbidden

guests away, has felt the gnawing pangs of their demon power, while

gazing upon plenty, upon the wealth of food and sustenance displayed

before his eyes! Is it not more marvellous and strange, that such piles

as a market displays should ever be permitted to lie safe within the

arrow-shot of gaunt and wasting poverty, than that the annals of our

police reports should now and then record how poverty and crime sometimes

go hand in hand?

But to look more in detail at the picture offered on a summer market-day.

There to the left sit congregated together the vendors of the far-famed

staple produce of the country farm-yards, sheltered from the heat by the

artificial grove of variegated umbrellas, serving, or attempting to

serve, the double purpose of protection from the sun in summer, and the

rain in winter and summer. The poultry "pads" and butter-stalls are one.

Turkeys, and geese, and fowls, and sausages, and little round white

cheeses, share the baskets and benches with eggs and _pints_ of butter,

in the land where that commodity is sold by _liquid_ measure, whose

equivalent is somewhere near about 1lb. 3 oz.

There is a legend that one who sits here is the heroine of an old tale,

which goes to the effect that "once upon a time," when the inspector came

his round to test the weights of all the measured pints, the old lady was

observed slily to slip a half crown into the end of a certain pint, and

hand it forward to bear the scrutiny; a bystander, who watched the trick,

a moment after laid his finger on the identical pint and begged to

purchase it, resisting all evasion on the part of the discomfited

saleswoman, who, compelled to submit, turned out eventually the "biter

bit."

Thronging around this neighbourhood, and proffering their services with

most assiduous perseverance, are a host of most amiable-looking porter

women, liveried in white aprons and sleeves, with a pair of huge peck

baskets dangling on their arms. Tumbling, and bumping, and jostling

among them, drowning their pleadings in a deafening chorus of discordant

cries, come the itinerant venders of small wares--"lucifers three boxes a

penny," "cabbage-nets only a penny," "reels of cotton two for a penny,"

little dangling bunches of skewers, ranged in progressive order on queer

and mysteriously twisted holders, that seem designed to puzzle any

mechanical skill to get them off again, "only a penny;" laces, and

saucepans, and stationery, and kettles, thrust into notice as though

haberdashers, and tinmen, and stationers were simultaneously rushing off

to the gold diggings, and disposing of their goods piecemeal by auction.

Ere the next range of stalls may be explored, the pathway is obstructed

by some "literate" specimen of the blind, with an attendant concourse of

listeners eagerly drinking in the titles of his sheet of hundred songs

for a penny. "There's a good time coming," "All's lost now," "My bark is

on the shore," and "I'm on the Sea," &c. &c.; or should any great tragedy

or judicial murder have occurred recently, to furnish him with a still

more profitable stock in trade, such as a "last dying speech and

confession," or "full, true, and particular account" of some "shocking

and brutal outrage," somewhat may be seen and heard of how the minds and

tastes of the ignorant are vitiated, and the morbid cravings of diseased

imaginations fed; and the hawker of this food for the million, forms

living evidence that the eye is not the only member through whose aid

vice may gain entrance to the soul. But there is little time or

opportunity to philosophize amid the din of importunity that is ringing

upon the ears, "What d'ye luke for? fine guse? butifull fowill?" And

there stands one who claims especial notice--the merry bacon woman, amid

her throng of earnest customers. There she stands, or rather moves;

stillness is a state to which she must be a total stranger, we could

fancy. "Good day, ma'am." "What's for you, sir?" "Nice pork, _dear_?

black meat? I'll wait _of ye_ this minute, sir." "Yes, ma'am, beautiful

ham; did you please to want any? Oh, thank you; very well, another day I

shall be _proud_ to wait _of ye_." "No harm in asking," she adds,

turning apologetically to her more profitable customers. And so she goes

on, ever moving, ever talking, ever cheerful, civil, and attentive, one

never-ending strain of courtesy and kindness pouring from her lips, while

her hands are ever busy cutting and weighing, and folding up in fine

white linen cloths, her sausages and bacon, and black meat, and still

nicer white juvenile-looking pork, just fresh from the pickle. Probably

she has a home somewhere, but her sphere of usefulness and theatre of

glory must be at the market-stall; she must have been born and bred a

market-woman. Further on, there sits a melancholy and original old lady,

proprietress of a heterogeneous kind of heap, composed of small

quantities of the choicest produce of various sources of supply--stray

joints of pork, trifling displays of butter, a few eggs, and an

occasional specimen of poultry; but her fame is built upon her unrivalled

"tatoes," hidden up in pads, and carefully concealed from the eyes of

chance passengers; their discovery is a mine of wealth to the privileged

few, especially in bad seasons. Dealing forth sparingly, like a miser

counting out his treasures, the queen of murphies compensates for the

reserve that would seem to imply her belief that her purchasers were

begging favours of her, by the involuntary boon she confers upon the

lover of idioms, in her quaint displays of her county's dialect. The

ordinary greeting of "How d'ye do?" will be met by the assurance that she

"don't _fare to feel_ no matters," or she "_fares to_ feel _right

muddled_," or "_no how_," or that she is scarce fit to be "abroad." Her

"tatoes" she will recommend as eating like balls of flour, if cooked

_enow_ (a word indiscriminately used to express quantity and degree).

She will occasionally detail particulars of her market-horse's

"_trickiness_" when he "_imitated_" to kick on the road, and how she

"_gots_" him on as well as she could. Her breakfast jug she will

designate a _gotch_, and many other like specimens will she afford of the

contents of the vocabulary of East Anglia. A traveller may with little

difficulty fancy he is listening to some native of the distant county

Devon; and, strange to say, the _guse_, _fule_, and _enow_, and other

striking similarities of brogue and dialect, are not the only features of

resemblance these two counties bear to each other. The ancient rood

screens of the Norfolk churches have many of them been found exactly to

correspond with those found in Devonshire, and only there. In the

celebrated rebellions of Edward the Sixth's reign, many remarkable

features of resemblance were observed in the character of the outbreaks

at these distant points,--so much so, as to suggest the idea of secret

communication being kept up between them. Whether both alike owe their

peculiarities to the common parentage of the Iceni, a tribe of whom have

been said to have settled in Devonshire as well as Pembrokeshire, or they

are referable to any less remote link of connection, antiquarians may

perhaps at some future day make clear. Certain it is, the "southron" is

apt to be easily beguiled into the belief that he has met a

fellow-countryman or woman among the folks who deem themselves another

race than the people of the "_sheeres_."

But we have here wandered far aside in our market trip; next come in due

order the butcher-stalls, taking a higher rank in the social scale of

market society than the humbler _pads_, though their wares may not

compete with their neighbours for a world-wide fame--south-down mutton,

prime little scot, and short-horn beef, with the usual attendant displays

of calves' white heads with staring eyes, and mangled feet hanging to

dismembered legs and shoulders by little strings of sinew, looking as

though they were carelessly left on by accident, _not_ to affect the

weight, and other mysterious manifestations of the internal anatomy of

oxen and sheep, and queer-looking conglomerations of odds and ends,

transmogrified by some cooking process into very greasy imitations of

brawn, and selling by the name of pork cheeses,--these make up the

attractions of the butcher department, not over-inviting to look upon,

even to those who are far from objecting to well-disguised appeals to

their carnivorous propensities in the form of savoury dishes.

The lover of beauty will soon permit his eye to wander on and rest upon

the treasures of the market-garden, where it may revel in a perfect sea

of "Bremer" lusciousness; asparagus--seakale--peas, marafats and

blues--beans, kidneys dwarfs, and windsor--salads and cresses--radishes

in radiating bunches and globular bunches--cabbages and cauliflowers,

that may perplex cooks and boilers by their magnitude--cucumbers and

melons, and all the pumpkin tribe. Fruit--shining heaps of

cherries--trays of bright glistening currants, with their little seeds

peeping through as "natural" as the gems in the great Russian

cabinet--strawberries and raspberries on their wooden trays, with the

little skimmer-like spades to shovel them up, and the choice ones packed

up in their little pints, sheltered from the sun by the fresh green leaf

tied over--and sundry and divers wares from foreign parts lending new

features to the home department, since the tariff of the "people's

friend" came into operation. But the crowning glory of the picture is

the sovereign of the stall, the sturdy market-gardener, full of strength

and sinew, the evidence of honest healthful labour meeting its due

reward,--a fitting representative of the great base upon whose soundness

rests the column of wealth, and capitol of rank, that with it form the

pillar of our nation's social prosperity. He knows not what it is to

seek for work, but rather needs to pluralise himself to satisfy the

demands upon his skill, and time, and taste; and fairly has he earned his

reputation both in horti and floriculture. His rustic little home, with

its thatched roof, and ivy and clematis twined verandah, lies in the very

midst of a city of gardens almost of his own creation, watched and tended

by him with a care that has rendered them the fairest line of beauty art

ever devised to grace a road-side pathway through the suburbs of a city;

and who ever saw or tasted wares that could rival the produce of his own

little profitable domain? But the good-humoured smile of conscious

superiority in his profession, that plays upon his features, is the

market-gardener's peculiar fascination. Talk to him of chemical manures

or rich guano, how he will smile! and what a tale will he unfold of roses

all burnt up, geraniums run to leaf, polyanthuses converted into

cabbages, without the advantage of being edible; auriculas dying, &c.

"May do _somewheres_, but not for flower or market-gardens." Beyond him,

lies spread out a rich carpet of flowers, grouped by the hands of younger

and humbler ones, whom one might almost call the lay floricultural

professors. Geraniums, and fuchsias, and bright blue salvias, verbenas

of every hue, from deep maroon, through crimson, up to white;

sweet-scented heliotrope, and richly shaded primroses, that make the

tenants of the woods look pale with envy. A pity it seems to disturb the

harmony of colour, so perfect a parterre does it form, with the

back-ground of shrubs that stand in such rich clusters behind them, all

waiting to be transplanted to new homes. In the very midst of them rises

a mysterious-looking little ark of canvass, resting from its weekly

labour of perambulating the streets and suburbs through which it has been

borne, sedan fashion, by the pair of unclassical-looking hobbledehoys

that own the gay treasures it is formed to shelter, and whose lips can

manage to send forth a string of nomenclature that may fairly shake the

nerves of any modest purchaser. Sweet simple-looking little floral gems,

they will recommend to notice as Gilea rosea adorata, Clarkia fimbricata,

Coreopsis nigra, speciosa, Colinsea rubra, all hardy annuals; and with

the utmost nonchalance describe some trembling little creeper as

Tropoelum Campatica Fuchsia Carolinae, Campanula Campatica, and Lobelia

ramosa, all safely meant, we presume, to conceal the relationship of the

owners to the familiar tenants of the cottage border. A novice must

seize in desperation upon some one that, shorn of its _ishii_ or _osum_,

may chance to be remembered, lest his fate should resemble that of the

fair lady, who once professed to own in her garden the "aurora borealis"

and "delirium tremens."

Among the scientific nurseries that clothe almost every outskirt of the

city, may perhaps be found grander exotics, or more luxuriant varieties

of floral beauty; but these fragments of botanic skill and lore are fair

specimens of the inheritance bequeathed to the sons of the soil by those

great master-minds whose gardens once drew Evelyn from the metropolis

upon a visit to this then pre-eminent seat of wealth and magnificence.

"My Lord's Gardens," that skirted the water-side, whose quadrangle

contained a bowling-green, a wilderness, and garden, with walks of forty

feet in breadth surrounding them, have passed away, a fragment of the

wilderness alone remains to mark the site of the glorious displays of

wealth and fashion once paraded among them; but the name, associated with

the memory of the times, is a star of the first magnitude, in the galaxy

of the city's firmament of great men.

Sir Thomas Browne, the philosopher, the physician, the naturalist, the

antiquarian, and the botanist, the associate and friend of the most

eminent men that graced the age in which he lived, and the historian

whose works have enriched the literature of the world, stands first in

the long list of names that are linked with the beauties of the vegetable

kingdom; a city that has sent forth a Lindley, a Hooker, and a Smith, to

be professors in the great world of science, as his followers, has cause,

indeed to honour the memory of him who sowed the first seeds in the

garden, that has reared such giants from its soil.

But there is yet another picture to be viewed of homely traffic; the

Christmas market-day, when the old place and people seem to be in the

zenith of their glory. Each poultry-stall overflowing with the turkeys,

geese, and fowls, that have not found an exit through the myriad avenues

opened for their flight to every province, town, and city in the land.

There they lie in state, sharing the sovereignty of the season, with

bright-gemmed holly boughs and pearly mistletoe, that deck and garnish

every pad, and stall, and bench, and lie heaped up in shining stacks of

magnitude that may well suggest to the young novice a question as to how

the slow-growing holly and rare parasite could have been found year after

year in such profusion. Country walks, holly-skirted lanes, and park

enclosures, may tell something of the one; and alas! for the poetry of

the Druids and the oaks, the apple orchards now claim almost the sole

honour of giving shelter to the other--the ancient deity of the woods;

they will scarce allow the king of the forest a partial share in the

tribute offerings to merry Christmas.

The bustling eve, when midnight surprises the scrambling teems of "Trotty

Vecks," gathering up the fragments left from rich folk's caterings, that

they too may have a savour of something more than the compliments of the

season; when the remnants of the bountiful display that has been hoarded

up for the highest bidders through the busy day, are auctioned off at the

buyer's own price, and fall thus perchance within the compass of the

weaver's earnings, then is the hour to see the spirit of peace and

good-will towards men stalking abroad, and lifting from men's hearts and

faces the load of weariness and veil of care, transmuting by his magic

touch the poor man's copper into gold, and giving to his little stores a

widow's cruise-like power to cheer and comfort happy living hearts. No

one who dwells in the old city should deem it fruitless toil to wend

their way through the old market-place on Christmas Eve, and take a

poet's lesson from the scene!

But there are other pictures still to be seen within the quaint old

Elizabethan frame-work of the city's market-place than scenes of

merchandise, in these days of monster meetings. Who can forget the human

gatherings that have many a time and oft, within the limits of even

childhood's memory, been witnessed here, when gable roofs, and parapets,

windows, and balconies, church towers, and Guildhall leads, have swarmed

with living thousands; gay dressed "totties" and dames, aye, and

sober-minded lords of the creation too! all eager and intent to watch

from safe quarters some common object of attraction that has drawn

together a mighty multitude of the people, with their proverbial love of

sight-seeing, an inheritance bequeathed to them by their ancestral

pageantries. Slight stimulus is needed to send the heart's blood of the

city through every vein and artery to this centre, where it pulsates in

deep and heavy throbs of joy, or hope, or anger, as the case may be;

true, in these modern days the common wants and common blessings that

have bound the sympathies of the million into one, cause the spectacle of

tumultuous hate and bitterness, knocking together of heads, &c, to be a

rare manifestation of popular enthusiasm; more frequently one desire, one

feeling animates the body aggregate, be it to see the mammoth train of a

Hughes or Van Amburgh, the _entree_ of a royal duke, the failure of a

promised fountain bid to play by a new water company, the more successful

display of fireworks at the same behest, the popping of some threescore

pensioners in honour of some royal birthday, or the advent of some

political election. On each and all of such occasions, and many more,

the filling up of the frame-work is a picture of life, of concentrated

human power, will, and passion, full of effect; may be, it needs an

adequate cause to give it full strength, but everywhere it is full of

interest, and the good old city's market-place would not be fairly

chronicled were its monster meetings of sight-seers deemed unworthy a

passing comment. Pageantry has been numbered among the chartered rights

of the citizens, from the days of "mysteries," when the itinerant stage,

with its sacred drama provided by the church, was the only theatre known,

through the age of tournaments, the season of royal visits, Elizabethan

processions, and triumphal arches, of guilds, of Georges and dragons,

down to the last relic of the spirit of olden times--the chairing of its

members; and not even the scant nourishment offered in this nineteenth

century, has yet sufficed to starve and wither the seeds thus sown and

fostered in the very nature of the people.

In a work that professes not to follow out the thread of history through

all its variable windings, or note consecutively all the beads of truth

that have been carved by the hand of time, and strung upon its surface,

but only here and there to pause, as some gem more glittering than its

fellows meets the eye, or some quaint rude relic of a day gone by lays

claim to a passing curiosity, wonder, or pity, we feel at liberty to make

a kaleidoscope sort of _pattern_ of our gleanings and notes on the old

market-place. Interwoven with its progress, and associated with its

memories, must be almost every historical reminiscence, peculiarly

belonging to an important municipality, and thriving mart of commerce and

manufactures; from the first simple gatherings in the outer court of the

castle, to the days when trades and crafts, brought over by Norman

intruders, and flourishing under the skilful tutelage of Flemish

refugees, clustered together in groups around the old croft, the

saddlers, the hosiers, the tanners, the mercers, the parmenters, the

goldsmiths, the cutlers, each with their own _row_, to the time when

staples were fixed, or right of wholesale dealing granted--when cloth

halls witnessed the measuring and sealing by government inspectors of

every manufactured piece of cloth, to ensure fairness of dealing between

buyer and seller--when sumptuary laws regulated quantity, quality, and

pattern of the dresses of all dutiful and loyal subjects--down through

ages of fluctuating vicissitudes of prosperity and adversity--tremulous

shakings--and reviving struggles against the tide of competition that has

sunk the first and greatest manufacturing city our country once could

boast, beneath the level of many a nurseling of yesterday, a mere

mushroom in growth and age--from the era of ultra-carnivorous diet, when

boars, peacocks, venison, and porpoise, were scattered in plentiful

profusion on the boards of butchers' stalls, and in the regions of

"_Puleteria_,"--when the potato, brocoli, turnip, onion, and radish, were

unknown--the tansy, the rampion, cow cabbage, and salsify, their only

substitutes in the days when vegetarians were not;--when quinces,

medlars, rude grapes, and mulberries, wild raspberries and strawberries,

supplied the place of a modern dessert, with the valuable addenda of

hazel, and walnuts, whose beautiful wood even then was prized as an

article of manufacture for cups and bowls, under the name of

_masere_--down to the scene of the present day, as it has been pictured

already.

Manifold have been the fleeting shadows that have peopled its disc, now

bright, now dark, its area now traversed by triumphal arches and gorgeous

processions, now serving as a platform for a gallows, whereon a Roberts

and a Barber suffered for their loyalty to his majesty, Charles the

First; in one age witnessing the rise of an oratory in its very midst,

and a chaplain to minister to spiritual cravings, in the heart of

material abundance; the next echoing to the ruthless hammers of

destructive zealots, sweeping from their path every stone or carving that

bore trace of the finger of the "scarlet lady."

But although a consecutive detail of its rise and progress may not be

within the province of our pen, we may endeavour to trace a few of the

leading features of its history since the era of its first rise into

existence as a fishing hamlet, when the sea washed its shores, and the

huts of a few fishermen, perhaps, were the only habitations scattered

over its surface. Here they dwelt, no doubt, in peaceful security, when

the huge mound, topped with its towering castle, rose up in their midst,

and their sovereigns fixed their dwelling-place within its strongholds,

to be succeeded, after the departure of the Romans, by the feudal lords

or earls of Danish and Saxon conquerors, in whose time the market-place

was the magna crofta or great croft of the castle. At the gates of the

ancient castles the markets were continually set, following the precedent

of the assemblage of booths that gathered round the gates of the Roman

camps. These, from being at first moveable stalls or shelters for goods,

grew in after-years into towns, boroughs, and cities, many of them taking

their names from the castles or camps, and were called _chesters_. The

country people were not allowed to carry provisions into Roman camps; at

each gate was a strong guard, that suffered none to enter the camp

without licence from the commanding officer: this guard consisted of one

_cohort_, and one troop at least, from which sprung the modern term of

_court_, or _cohort_, of guard. The commanding officer of the guard at

the gate had oversight of the market, punished such as sold by false

weights and measures, brought bad provisions, or were guilty of any other

offence in the market, and arbitrated in all cases of dispute. The

Saxons, those exterminating conquerors, who so liberally parcelled out

their neighbours' territory into the famous divisions of the Heptarchy,

next figured upon the scene, and the _castellans_ succeeded the officer

of the guard in the duties of his office, in later times to be fulfilled

by pie-powder courts and clerks of the market. At this period, markets

at the castle gates grew so important as to be composed of durable

houses, as durable at least as wooden shambles were likely to be; and of

such like constructions were the first outlines of the market-place

composed, the fishmongers' and butchers' shops of the present day being

the nearest similitudes that can be found to illustrate their features.

From this time the history of the market-place becomes identified with

the progress of the borough, its struggles for growth being somewhat

impeded, we fancy, by the tithes and taxes extorted by barons and

bishops, between whom we may fancy the poor fisherfolks began to "fare

rather sadly," scarcely knowing what was their own, or if, indeed, they

had any own at all. To sum up their miseries, old chroniclers record

that about this time the sea began to withdraw its arm, which to them had

been a great support, and the fishermen, who were bound to pay an annual

tithe of herrings to the bishops of the _see_, found themselves in much

the same plight as the Israelites of old, when doomed to make bricks

without straw--in their case to supply herrings without a fishery--and

were therefore reduced to the unpleasant necessity of thenceforth

purchasing the wherewith to pay the lasting imposition. Notwithstanding

all these impediments the progress of the borough was rapid; houses and

churches sprung up thick and fast; so that at the time of the survey, in

the reign of the "Confessor," we find record of twenty-five parish

churches, and one thousand three hundred burgesses; of sheep-walks,

mills, and hides of land, (a hide being as much as one plough could till

in a year,) of taxes, of honey, and bear dogs.

Churches were owned indiscriminately by bishops, earls, and burgesses;

the materials of which they were constructed, chiefly wood, though

occasionally rough flints and stones cemented by a durable mortar were

substituted; the towers were circular, bricks were employed for

pavements, and bells were used. The ancients conceived the sound of

metal to be an antidote against evil spirits; and the adoption of bells

into the Christian church, and their consecration, was but a variation of

the practices of the pagans, who at the feasts of Vulcan and Minerva,

consecrated trumpets for religious uses.

Such was the condition of the town and market-place, when the Norman

Conqueror, whose coming produced such mighty changes in the land, brought

over from the continent a host of foreigners, who settled themselves down

in almost every part of the kingdom, and introduced trades and crafts of

every variety, giving birth to the great manufacturing spirit that has

grown to be so distinguishing a feature of our national greatness. Among

the foreigners who established themselves in this district, we find the

name of _Wimer_, a name yet prefixed to one of the great wards or

districts of the city--the Wimer ward. At this period, perhaps the most

prominent characteristic of the secular history of the times, especially

in connection with trade, is the important position held by the Jews.

The Norman duke had brought with him a great number of this race of

people, and although their religion was despised and bitterly hated, they

monopolized almost every branch of trade, and so much of the learning of

the day, that they took a high place both in commercial and civil

transactions. In this city they successively had two extensive

synagogues and colleges, where medicine and rabbinical divinity were

taught together.

Pharmacy, education, and all monetary transactions of any importance,

seem to have come within their province, their utility and wealth

preserving them, for the time at least, from anything more than petty

persecution. The history, however, of little St. William, given

elsewhere, and other similar records that have been handed down, betray

the jealousy and ill-will that existed between them and the Christians,

even during the season of their prosperity, when royalty, as in the time

of Rufus, patronized them.

Meantime the city had become a bishopric; a monastery, three friaries,

and a nunnery sprung up in quick succession, betraying the growth of

ecclesiastical power, and the presence of a great rival to the secular

authority claimed by the ministers of civil justice; itinerant judges had

been established for trying great crimes, such as murder or theft, and

coroners had been instituted to hold inquests upon any persons dying

suddenly, or found dead; either to acquit them of self murder, or seize

their goods; the citizens were also exempted from the judgment of the law

by single combat by Richard I. Among the events of interest bearing very

early date is the royal visit of the first Henry, in the day when the

king was his own tax-gatherer, and when, failing to receive his dues in

lawful coin of the realm, he was wont to take them in kind, and to tarry

until himself and suite had eaten up the hogs and sheep, and cows and

geese, whose addition to his retinue would have been otherwise very

burdensome. So liberal was the entertainment afforded the royal visitor

here, that his majesty was pleased to confer upon the citizens many

privileges as a mark of gratitude, among which exemption from such like

visitations in future was included.

The next visit of royalty is attributed to Edward the First, whose

generosity was evidenced by the command issued speedily after his return

thither, that the Jews throughout the kingdom should be charged with

unlawfully clipping and adulterating the coin of the realm, as an excuse

for their persecution, imprisonment, and final extermination. The

religious antipathies of the zealous crusader would not suffice to

explain these atrocities; but the ambition of the warlike monarch seeking

to replenish his exhausted treasury, that he might prosecute expensive

foreign enterprises, gives a more satisfactory clue to the origin of

cruelties, that led to such important confiscations being made to the

crown. In obedience to the royal will, the beautiful college of the Jews

in this city was plundered and burnt, its coffers emptied into the royal

exchequer, and its tenants banished or imprisoned. An inn, called

"Abraham's Hall," was soon after raised in the immediate neighbourhood,

to memorialize the event; but an old ricketty gable or two, hidden away

behind fair modern frontings of brickwork and stucco, is all that remains

of this monument. St. George in combat with the Dragon, now figures on

the sign board affixed to the inn that occupies one portion of its site.

It is some credit to the ministers of justice in the city, that we find

upon their records, traces of the efforts made to bring to punishment

some of the actual perpetrators of the outrages in Jewry, albeit they

could perhaps only be deemed instruments in the hands of higher powers.

Extracts from the "Coroners' Rolls," containing accounts of robberies and

street frays in this reign and the preceding, prove this fact, and afford

in addition curious evidence of the state of society at that period. For

the quaint and amusing details they give, we must render thanks to the

learned and skilled in antiquarian lore, obsolete orthography, black

letter type, &c., but, for whose assistance in rescuing them from

obscurity, and interpreting their meaning, they must to us have remained

veiled in an impenetrable incognita.

Amongst them is the record of an "inquisition made of the fire raised in

Jewry," and a "precept given to apprehend all the felons concerned."

Another is so graphic, that we feel able to see the whole picture it

gives at a glance--the widow sitting beside the bier of her husband, the

sanctity of her sorrow invaded by brute violence, the house pillaged, and

the corpse plundered and burnt in the agonised wife's presence. The

words of the roll say, "Katharina, the wife of Stephen Justice, accused

Ralph, son of Robert Andrew, the gaoler, William Kirby Gaunter, William

Crede, Walter de Hereham, John, servant of Nicholas de Ingham, and

Nicholas sometime servant of Nicholas de Sopham, and Nicholas de Gayver,

that when she was at peace with God and the king, in the house of Stephen

Justice her husband, and the Thursday night after the feast of King

Edmund, in the forty-eighth year of the reign of King Henry, the son of

King John (1263), they came in the town of Norwich, in Fybriggate, St.

Clement's, and broke the oaken gates, and the hooks and the hinges of

iron, with hatchets, bars, wedges, swords, knives, and maces, and flung

them down into the court, and feloniously entered; that they then broke

the pine wood doors of the hall, and the hinges and iron work of them,

and the chains, bolts, and oaken boards of the windows. Afterwards they

entered the door of the hall chamber towards the south, and robbed that

chamber of two swords, value 3_s._ 6_d._, one ivory handled anlace, value

12_d._, one iron head piece, value 10_d._, an iron staff, value 4_d._;

one cow leather quirre (cuirass) with iron plates, value half a mark; and

one wambeis (a body garment stuffed with cotton, wool, or tow), and

coming thence into the hall, they burnt the body of her husband, as it

there lay upon a bier, together with a blanket of 'reins,' value 3_s._;

and took away with them a linen cloth, value 18_d._ The said Katharina

immediately raised hue and cry, from street to street, from parish to

parish, and from house to house, until she came into the presence of the

bailiffs and coroners. They also stole a lined cloth of the value of

5_s._, and one hood of _Pers_ (Persian) with squirrel's fur, value

10_s._"

A writer in the Archaeological Journal describes the houses of this

period as possessing only a ground floor, of which the principal

apartment was the aire, aitre, or hall, into which the principal door

opened, and which was the room for cooking, eating, receiving visitors,

and the other ordinary uses of domestic life. Adjacent to this, was the

chamber which was by day the private apartment and resort of the female

portion of the household, and by night the bed room. Strangers and

visitors generally slept in the hall, beds being made for them on the

floor. A stable was frequently adjacent to the hall, probably on the

side opposite to the chamber or bed-room.

Another memorandum on the rolls, records the deaths of Henry Turnecurt

and Stephen de Walsham, who "were killed in the parish of St. George,

before the gate of the Holy Trinity, St. Philip and James' day, in the

same year. The coroners and bailiffs went and made inquisition.

Inquisition then made was set forth in a certain schedule. Afterwards

came master Marc de Bunhale, clerk, and Ralph Knict, with many others,

threatening the coroners to cut them to pieces, unless the schedule was

given up, and then they took Roger the coroner, and by force led him to

his own house, with swords and axes, until the said Roger took the

schedule from his chest; and then they took him with the schedule to St.

Peter of Mancroft church, and there the aforesaid Ralph tore away the

schedule from the hands of Roger, and bore it away, and before his

companions, in the manner of fools, cut it into small pieces; and with

much ado, Roger the coroner escaped from their hands in great fear and

tremor. The coroners say they cannot make inquisition, by reason of the

imminence of the war." The disturbances alluded to were the dissensions

going on between the king and barons.

Another describes an attack of four men, one of them a priest, upon one

man in his shop in the market, where he was killed. Among many other

similar accounts of these troubled times, stands the description of

various felons, who sheltered themselves within the walls of the

sanctuary, a privilege permitted from the time of Alfred, whose laws

granted protection for three days and nights to any within the walls of a

church; William the Conqueror confirmed and extended the privilege. In

the times of feudal tyranny, this refuge was oftentimes of considerable

advantage to innocent persons falsely accused, but as frequently was the

shelter of crime.

In a case quoted from this authority, the felon professes to have sought

refuge from punishment awaiting robberies, of which he acknowledges

himself guilty. Upon the church of St. Gregory there yet remains a

curious escutcheon, a part of the knocker, always then placed upon the

door of a church, for the purpose of aiding those who sought refuge in

sanctuary. A curious account of the ceremony of abjuration of the realm

by one who had taken refuge in Durham Cathedral, is given in the York

volume of the Archaeological Institute.

"A man from Wolsingham is committed to prison for theft. He escapes,

and seeks refuge in the Cathedral. He takes his stand before the

shrine of St. Cuthbert, and begs for a coroner. John Rachet, the

coroner of Chester ward, goes to him, and hears his confession. The

culprit, in the presence of the sacrist, sheriff, under-sheriff, and

others, by a solemn oath renounces the kingdom. He then strips

himself to his shirt, and gives up his clothing to the sacrist as his

fee. The sacrist restores the clothing--a white cross of wood is put

into his hand, and he is consigned to the under-sheriff, who commits

him to the care of the nearest constable, who hands him over to the

next, and he to the next, in the direction of the coast. The last

constable puts him into a ship, and he bids an eternal farewell to

his country."

There were usually chambers over the porches of churches, in which two

men slept, for the purpose of being ready at all hours to admit

applicants. In proof of the expense attending the maintaining of persons

in the sanctuary, it is said that "in 1491, the burgesses in parliament

acquainted the assembly that they had been at great expense in getting an

ordinance of parliament to authorize them in a quiet way to take one John

Estgate out of sanctuary, the said John having entered the churchyard of

St. Simon and St. Jude, and there remained for a long time past, during

which time, the city being compelled to keep watch on him day and night,

lest he should escape, was at great charge and trouble. The ordinance

being passed, John Pynchamour, one of the burgessess, went to the

sanctuary and asked John Estgate whether he would come out and submit to

the law, or no; and upon his answering he 'would not,' he in a quiet

manner went to him, led him to the Guildhall, and committed him to

prison."

Another entry of an event that transpired during the troubled reign of

Henry III., bears reference to the memorable disputes between the

citizens and the monks of the priory, of which the Ethelbert gateway,

leading into the Cathedral Close, is a monument; the citizens having had

the penance of erecting it, imposed upon them for their destructive

attacks upon the monastery, a great portion of which, including parts of

the cathedral, they pillaged and burnt. The record states that "one John

Casmus was found slain on the Tuesday next after the feast of St.

Laurence, by William de Brunham, prior of Norwich, at the gates of St.

Trinity, on the eastern side; the said prior having struck him with a

certain 'fanchone' on the head, from which blow he instantly died. The

coroners are afraid to make inquisition, for fear of a felonious assault;

a result rendered very probable by the known temper of the prior, who, by

his violent conduct, is said to have contributed materially to the

unhappy disturbances."

Long-cherished bitterness and jealousies respecting their several limits

of jurisdiction, had found occasion for outbreak the preceding week to

that mentioned in the record, at the annual fair, held on Trinity Sunday,

before the gates of the cathedral, on the ground known as Tombland, from

having anciently been a burial place. The servants of the monastery, and

the citizens, had come into collision at some games that were going on

upon the Tuesday, and a violent conflict ensued, which lasted for a

considerable time. The writers of the time are divided as to the

blameable parties; the monks being accused of aiding and abetting their

servants in doing wrong, and _vexing_ the people; the citizens, in their

turn, being condemned for transgressing the recognized laws which existed

concerning the boundaries of the prior's jurisdiction.

The animosities never fairly could be said to have ceased until the

general destruction of all monastic power at the period of the

Reformation.

One more curious extract we will make from these coroner's rolls,

remarkable as being one of the very few authentic accounts to be met with

of a person being restored to life after execution.

"Walter Eye was condemned in the court of Norwich, and hung, and

appeared dead, but was afterwards discovered to be alive by William,

the son of Thomas Stannard; and the said Walter was carried in a

coffin to the church of St. George's, before the gate of St. Trinity,

where he recovered in fifteen days, and then fled from that church to

the church of the Holy Trinity, and there was, until the king upon

his suit pardoned him."

It was formerly a prevalent idea that felons could only be suspended for

a certain time, but this was not really the case; so far from it, Hale's

"Pleas of the Crown" asserts, "that, in case a man condemned to die, come

to life after he is hanged, as the judgment is not executed till he is

_dead_, he ought to be hung up again."

Another anecdote, extracted from the books of the corporation, bearing a

more recent date, possesses a double interest, from being connected with

a memorable disturbance, dignified in local history by the title of

Gladman's Insurrection, and also from the name and rank of the lady

concerned, who was grand-daughter to Chaucer, the poet, and wife of

William de la Pole, who succeeded to the earldom of Suffolk upon the

death of his brother Michael, A.D. 1415, the second year of the reign of

King Henry V.

The only liberty we shall take with the original account is to slightly

abridge it, and render it in modern orthography.

Item. It was so, that Alice, Duchess, that time Countess of Suffolk,

lately in person came to this city, disguised like a country house-wife.

Sir Thomas Tuddenham, and two other persons, went with her, also

disguised; and they, to take their disports, went out of the city one

evening, near night, so disguised, towards a hovel called Lakenham Wood,

to take the air, and disport themselves, beholding the said city. One

Thomas Ailmer, of Norwich, esteeming in his conceit that the said duchess

and Sir Thomas had been other persons, met them, and opposed their going

out in that wise, and fell at variance with the said Sir Thomas, so that

they fought; whereby the said duchess was sore afraid; by cause whereof

the said duchess and Sir Thomas took a displeasure against the city,

notwithstanding that the mayor of the city at that time being, arrested

Thomas Ailmer, and held him in prison more than thirty weeks without

bail; to the intent thereby both to chastise Ailmer, and to appease the

displeasure of the said duchess and Sir Thomas; and also the said mayor

arrested and imprisoned all other persons which the said duchess and Sir

Thomas could understand had in any way given favour or comfort to the

said Ailmer, in making the affray. Notwithstanding which punishment, the

displeasure of the duchess and Sir Thomas was not appeased. And it is

so, moreover, that one John Haydon, late was recorder of the city, taking

of the mayor and citizens a reasonable fee, as the recorder is

accustomed; he, being so recorded, had interlaced himself with the prior

of Norwich, at that time being _in travers_ with the said mayor and

commonality, and discovered the privity of the evidence of the said city

to the said prior, because whereof the mayor and commons of the said city

discharged the said Haydon of the condition of recorder; for which Haydon

took a displeasure against the said city.

By malice of these displeasures of the said duchess, Sir Thomas

Tuddenham, and John Haydon, the Duke of Suffolk, then earl, in his

person, upon many suggestions by the said Tuddenham and Haydon to him

made, that the mayor, aldermen, and commonality aforesaid, should have

misgoverned the city, laboured and made to be taken out of the chancery a

commission of over determiner. And thereupon, at a sessions holden at

Thetford, the Thursday next after the feast of St. Matthew the Apostle,

the said Sir Thomas and John Haydon, finding in their conceit no manner

or matter of truth whereof they might cause the said mayor and

commonality there to be indicted, imagined thus as ensueth: first, they

_sperde an inquest_, _then taken_ in a chamber, at one Spilmer's house;

in which chamber the said T. _lodged_, _and so kept them sperde_.

"And it was so, that one John Gladman, of Norwich, which was then,

and at this hour, is a man of 'sad' dispositions, and true and

faithful to God and to the king, of disport, as is and hath been

accustomed in any city or borough through all this realm, on fasting

Tuesday made a disport with his neighbours, having his horse trapped

with tinsel, and otherwise disguising things, crowned as King of

Christmas, in token that all mirth should end with the twelve months

of the year; afore him went each month, disguised after the season

thereof; and Lent clad in white, with red-herring's skins, and his

horse trapped with oyster shells after him, in token that sadness and

abstinence of mirth should follow, and an holy time; and so rode in

divers streets of the city, with other people with him disguised,

making mirth, and disport, and plays.

"The said Sir Thomas and John Haydon, among many other full strange

and untrue presentments, made by perjury at the said inquest, caused

the said mayor and commonality, and the said John Gladman, to be

indicted of that, that they should have imagined to have made a

common rising, and have crowned the said John Gladman as king, with

crown, sceptre and diadem, (when they never meant it), nor such a

thing imagined, as in the said presentiment it showeth more plain,

and by that presentiment, with many other horrible articles therein

comprised, so made by perjury, thay caused the franchise of the said

city to be seized into the king's hands, to the harm and cost of the

said mayor and commonality."

And now we take a long stride from the reign of Henry V. to that of

Charles II., omitting the intermediate century that was marked by the

royal visit of the maiden queen, chronicled at length among the

"pageantries;" and passing over the troubled era of the Commonwealth, the

Reformation, and "Kett's rebellion," all of which have found a place for

notice elsewhere, we find ourselves once more in the smooth waters of

peace, with the tide of prosperity at the full within the walls of the

old city; and we ask no pardon for making copious extracts from the

journal that furnished Macaulay with materials to serve up the rich

banquet that lies condensed in the few lines devoted to this period of

the city's history, in his unrivalled work. The diary of Dr. Edward

Browne gives a picture of the society and habits of the citizens in his

time, perhaps not to be met with elsewhere. His father, Sir Thomas

Browne, then tenanted the house now known by the title of the "Star," and

in the winter of 1663-4 was visited by his son Edward, who, during his

stay, made the entries in his journal which we have extracted. At that

time, Henry, afterwards Lord Howard, of Castle Rising, subsequently Earl

of Norwich, and Marshal of England, resided in the city, at the palace of

his brother, Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, who was an invalid, on the

continent, suffering from disease of the brain.

"Jan. 1st. (1663-4.) I was at Mr. Howard's, brother to the Duke of

Norfolk, who kept his Christmas this year at the Duke's palace in

Norwich, so magnificently that the like hath scarce been seen. They

had dancing every night, and gave entertainments to all that would

come; _hee_ built up a room on purpose to dance in, very large, and

hung with the bravest hangings I ever saw; his candlesticks,

snuffers, _tongues_, fire-shovel, and and-irons, were silver; a

banquet was given every night after dancing; and three coaches were

employed every afternoon to fetch ladies, the greatest of which would

holde fourteen persons, and coste five hundred pounde, without the

harnesse, which cost six score more; I have seen of his pictures,

which are admirable; he hath prints and draughts, done by most of the

great masters' own hands. Stones and jewels, as onyxes, sardonyxes,

jacinths, jaspers, amethysts, &c. more and better than any prince in

Europe. Ringes and seales, all manner of stones, and limnings beyond

compare. These things were most of them collected by the old Earl of

Arundel (the Duke's grandfather).

"This Mr. Howard hath lately bought a piece of ground of Mr. Mingay,

in Norwich, by the waterside in Cunisford, which hee intends for a

place of walking and recreation, having made already walkes round and

across it, forty feet in breadth; if the quadrangle left be spacious

enough, he intends the first of them for a bowling-green, the third

for a wildernesse, and the fourth for a garden. These and the like

noble things he performeth, and yet hath paid 100,000 pounds of his

ancestors' debts.

"Jan. 6th. I dined at my Aunt Bendish's, and made an end of

Christmas at the Duke's palace, with dancing at night and a great

banquet. His gates were opened, and such a number flocked in, that

all the beer they could set out in the streets could not divert the

stream of the multitude.

"Jan. 7th. I opened a dog.

"Jan. 9th. Mr. Osborne sent my father a calf, whereof I observed the

knee joint, and the neat articulation of the put-bone, which was here

very perfect.

"This day Monsieur Buttet, who plays most admirably on the flageolet,

bagpipe, and sea-trumpet, a long three-square instrument, having but

one string, came to see me.

"Jan. 11th. This day, being Mr. Henry Howard's birthday, we danced

at Mr. Howard's, till 2 of the clock in the morning.

"Jan. 12th. Cutting up a turkey's heart. A monkey hath 36 teeth: 23

molares, 4 canini, and 8 incisores.

"Jan. 13th. This day I met Mr. Howard at my Uncle Bendish's, where

he taught me to play at _l'hombre_, a Spanish game at cards.

"Jan. 21st. I shewed Dr. De Veau about the town; I supped with him

at the Duke's palace, where he shewed a powder against agues, which

was to be given in white wine, to the quantity of three grains. He

related to me many things of the Duke of Norfolk, that lives at

Padua, _non compos mentis_, and of his travailes in France and Italy.

"Jan. 23rd. Don Francisco de Melo came from London, with Mr. Philip

Howard (third grandson of the Earl of Arundel), to visit his honour,

Mr. Henry Howard. I met them at Mr. Deyes the next day, in Madam

Windham's chamber.

"I boyled the right fore-foot of a monkey, and took out all the

bones, which I keep by me. In a put-bone, the unfortunate casts are

outward, the fortunate inward.

"Jan. 26th. I saw a little child in an ague, upon which Dr. De Veau

was to try his febrifuge powder; but the ague being but moderate, and

in the declension, it was thought too mean a disease to try the

efficacy of his extolled powder.

"Feb. 2nd. I saw cock-fighting at the White Horse, in St. Stephen's.

"Feb. 5th. I went to see a _serpent_, that a woman, living in St.

Gregory's church-yard, vomited up, but she had burnt it before I

came.

"Feb. 16th. I went to visit Mr. Edward Ward, an old man in a fever,

where Mrs. Anne Ward gave me my first fee, 10_s._

"Feb. 22nd. I set forward for my journey to London."

This quaint admixture of scientific research, pleasure-seeking, and

superstitious credulity, blended with intellectual enquiry, affords a

curious picture of the domestic and professional habits of a physician of

the seventeenth century. The father of the writer, the eminent Dr.

Thomas Browne, received the order of knighthood from his majesty, King

Charles II., on the occasion of his visiting the city in 1671, when he

dined in state at the New Hall (St. Andrew's); the same honour was

pressed upon the acceptance of the mayor, who, however, ventured to

decline the proffered dignity. In the reign of James II., we find record

of Henry, then Duke of Norfolk, riding into the market-place at the head

of 300 knights, to declare a free parliament, the mayor and sheriffs

meeting him there, and consenting to the act. But the glory of the

palace, once the scene of such regal splendour and magnificence, was not

of long duration. A dispute between the grandson of the Duke Henry and

the mayor of the city, concerning the entrance of some comedians into the

city, playing their trumpets, &c. on the way to the palace, caused its

owner, Thomas, then Duke, to destroy the greater portion of it, and leave

the remainder untenanted; and among divers transmutations of property

that characterized the era of Queen Anne, we find the appropriation of

its vestiges to the purpose of a workhouse, when those institutions first

sprang into existence--a fate shared at the same period by the cloisters

of the old Black Friars monastery.

The river, that once reflected the gorgeous displays of wealth that

glittered upon the margin of its waters, in the palace of the Dukes, now

flows darkly and silently on, through crowded thoroughfares and gloomy

wharfs, and staiths; corn and coal depots, red brick factories, with

their tiers of low window-ranges and tall chimneys, have usurped the

place of banquetting halls and palace gardens; a toll bridge adds silence

to the gloom, by its prohibitory tax on passers-by, a stillness,

oppressive by its sudden contrast to the activity of neighbouring

thoroughfares, pervades the whole region round about; and the spot that

once was the nucleus of wealth, riches, and grandeur, now seems the very

seat and throne of melancholy.

Coeval with the rise of workhouses, in the reign of Anne, is another

event of local history--the introduction of street-lighting. An act of

parliament of William III., confirmed in the 10th of Anne, enacted "that

every householder charged with 2_d._ a week to the poor, whose

dwelling-house adjoined any streets, market-places, public lanes, or

passages in the city, should every night, yearly, from Michaelmas to

Lady-day, as it should grow dark, hang out, on the outside of their

houses, _a candle_, _or visible and convenient lights_, and continue the

same until eleven o'clock at night, for enlightening the streets, and

convenience of passengers, under penalty of 2_s._ for every neglect."

Lamps, at the cost of the community in general, were soon afterwards

substituted, but their shape, and distance from each other, would seem to

have rendered them but indifferent substitutes for the illuminations that

preceded them; and if memory is faithful to us, in recalling the

progenitors of the gas-lights of the present day, we may form some slight

conception of the pigmy race of ancestors from which they sprung.

Meantime, during these years of progress and prosperity, while Time was

tracing its finger-marks upon the walls of men's houses, and writing its

lessons on their hearts and minds, there stood, in the centre of the old

market-place, a little silent symbol of the religious feeling of the

passing ages,--the market-cross, and oratory within the little octagonal

structure, whose external corners bore upon all of them the emblem of

hope and salvation--the crucifix. In its earliest days, its oratory was

tenanted by a priest, supported by the alms of the busy market-folks, who

could find means, in the midst of all their worldly callings, to pay some

tribute in time and money to religion. And was it such a very foolish

practice of our ignorant old forefathers, thus to bring the sanctuary

into the very midst of the business of life?--was it a great proof of

childish simplicity, to seek to sanctify the scenes of merchandize by the

presence and teaching of Christianity? Is it indeed needful that the

elements of our nature, spirit, soul, and body, should be rent asunder,

and fed and nurtured in distinct and separate schools, until each one of

us becomes almost conscious of two separate existences--the Sabbath-day

life, within the church or meeting walls, and the week-day business life

abroad in the world? Or shall the union be pronounced more beautiful and

consonant with the laws of harmony, that carries the world into the

sanctuary, and desecrates the house of God by the presence of sordid

passions, crusted round the heart by daily exercise in the great marts of

commerce, or in the intercourse of political or even social life, that

not the one day's rest in seven, spent in listening to some favourite

theologian's intellectual teachings of doctrinal truths, or controversial

dogmas, can suffice to rub off, to purify, or make clean? A market-cross

and priest may not be the remedies for this disease of later times, but

they were outer symbols of the reality needed--Christianity, to be

carried out into the every-day actions of the world, mingling with the

dealings of man with man, master and workman, capitalist and

consumer,--that there may no longer exist those monstrous anomalies that

are to be met with in almost every phase of society in this Christian

land, among a people professing to be guided by the light of "Truth," to

walk according to the law of "Charity," and to obey the precept, "Love

thy neighbour as thyself."

But the busy hands of zealous reformers long since began their work upon

this little outward expression of "superstition;" the priest disappeared,

the crucifixes fell beneath the murmurs of "_true Protestants_," and the

oratory was transferred to the "masters, and searchers, and sellers of

leather;" but, in process of time, falling to decay, the little monument

was pulled down, and all traces of its existence obliterated from the

scene of its former dominion.

And now a word upon manufactures. The great parent of English looms, and

English weavers of wool, claims it; the city, that has for centuries

robed the priesthood of Christendom in its camlets; that has invented

crapes, and bombazines, and paramattas, to clothe one-half of the world

in the sable "livery of woe;" that has draped the fair daughters of every

clime in the graceful folds of its far-famed "filover;" that has in later

years shod the feet of no small proportion of the nation's population;

whose every court and alley echoes the throw of the shuttle and rattle of

the loom; whose every cellar and hovel has its winding frame for

childhood and old age to earn their mite upon; whose garrets pour forth

their pale sickly wool-combers, with faces blanched by the fumes of

charcoal; that has its districts of "cord-wainers," and colonies of

"binders;" its hidden timber-yards, where thousands of square feet are

rapidly being transformed into "vestas" and "lucifers," and "silent

lights;" and its tall factories, whose heaped-up stories send down their

streams of human working bees, from the cells of their monster queen, the

steam-engine, and the task of making produce to supply the rich man's

wants--has, we say, a claim upon us in her character of a manufacturing

place. The venerable city, once the summit of the pyramid of our

nation's commercial glory, stands no longer in isolated grandeur, the

mistress of trade, but for long has had to look up at a vast mass of

capital and labour, accumulated above her head by the energies and

activities of younger rivals. India has gorged with its raw material the

markets once fed with the wool of home-grown sheep, and cotton towns have

risen up and outgrown the old woollen mart of the country. Fashion and

its fluctuations, machinery and its progressions, iron and coal in their

partial distribution, have each and all helped to lay the head of the

mighty low; but there is strong vitality left within her--powerful

talents and great resources; she is even now rising from the lethargy

that had crept over her. Would our space permit, how fain would we trace

the workings yet going on in her midst: the progress of the shearer's

wool from the wool-sack to the rich brocaded cashmere; through its

"combing" with irons heated over charcoal furnaces, that poison the

atmosphere around, and shorten the lives of the operatives engaged in it,

forsooth, because the foreman of the manufactory has a perquisite of

selling charcoal,--thence to the huge factory with giant engines, and

labyrinths of spinning-wheels; away, again, to the spider-looking

winding-frame, that children and old women may turn to help to fill the

shuttles of the abler workers at the loom; thence to the dyers, and then

to the loom itself, where manhood, youth, and woman's feebler strength

alike find exercise and room for labour. How many histories have been

woven into the fabric--what tears or smiles have cast their light or

shade upon the tints,--what notes of harmony or love, or wailings of

sorrow and sickness have echoed the shuttle's throw,--how many tales of

stern heart griefs, pining wants, wasting penury, or disease, are wrapped

in the luxurious folds that minister to the comfort and enjoyment of the

unconscious wearer.

But we dare not tarry amid these scenes, richly fraught as they may be

with subject for graphic sketching; we may not pause to visit the great

gatherings in factory chambers, or linger amongst the home labours of the

industrious artisan; can barely hint at traits of heroism, lives of

gentle loving duty going on amid the rattling noise of looms that trench

upon the narrow limits of the sick bed; deeds of good Samaritanism that

grace the weary weaver's home, or dwell upon the Christian lessons they

have power to teach. If the anatomy of a manufacturing city does revolt

the senses and sensibilities in the pictures of suffering and poverty it

seldom fails to abound with, there is yet much beauty in the deep,

earnest, truthful poetry to be read in the page it lays open. Mary

Barton is no fiction; scarce a district in a manufacturing province that

could not furnish a heroine like her; nor need we, perhaps, look to the

other side of the Atlantic, to find the prototype of "Uncle Tom."

There is little doubt that woollen manufactures of some kind existed in

this neighbourhood from a very early period. Sheep were here in great

abundance, and as soon as there were ships to send them in, were exported

to other countries from these parts. Doomsday Book mentions numerous

"sheep-walks," covering many acres of ground; whether these "walks"

comprised such lands as we now term "meadows or pastures," is not

explained, but most probably such is the interpretation to be put upon

the term, and _not_, as at first sight might seem to be implied, that the

sheep had narrow strips of "esplanade," or promenade, all to themselves,

upon which they marched up and down in regimental order. About these

same sheep it has been said, in these our times, that there exists strong

presumptive evidence that the fine Spanish "merino" is a lineal

descendant of the family, and that the wool now imported as of foreign

extraction, is literally and truly the growth of the offspring of

respectable English forefathers, some members of whose domestic circle

were honoured by being made presents of to Spanish princes by the

sovereign of England, in the days when the office and title of shepherd

was coveted by nobles in that country. The hypothesis we pretend not to

establish, so "revenons _a nos_ moutons."

The preparing of wool was a favourite occupation of the British ladies of

rank; and soon after the settlement of the Romans, it is recorded by

Dionysius Alexandrinus, that "the wool of Britain was often spun so fine,

that it was in a manner comparable to a spider's thread." The mother of

Alfred is described as being skilled in the spinning of wool, and busied

in training her daughters to similar occupations. The advent of the

various workmen who followed in the train of the conqueror from Normandy,

caused fresh energy to be infused into this, as all other branches of

manufactures; but the main stimulus was given by a colony of Dutch, who,

driven from their own country by inundations in the reign of Henry the

First, crossed the channel, and selecting the convenient promontory of

Norfolk, settled themselves down at a little village called _Worsted_,

about thirteen miles from Norwich, whence the name of the wool first spun

there by them.

In the reign of Stephen the woollen manufactures were so flourishing in

many large towns, that the merchants petitioned for power to form

themselves into distinct guilds or corporations,--the earliest

development of the principle of joint stock companies, borrowed by the

Normans from the free cities of Italy, where trade and manufactures had

long flourished, and where this combination of mercantile influence had

been employed by the Roman monarchs as a check upon the feudal power of

the barons. The inconvenience, however, that attended the monopolies

that sprung from this source were soon manifest; and disturbances were

continually arising, until free trade was in a measure restored. The

sumptuary laws of Edward the Third, and the inducements held out by him

to foreigners to settle in his dominions,--the fixing of the _staples_,

that obliged all merchants to bring their wool and woollen cloths for

sale to Norwich, forbidding any to offer such articles in any other part

of Norfolk or Suffolk,--tended materially to the commercial prosperity of

the city; but in the reign of Richard the Second, discontent spread

itself throughout the working population of the kingdom, and the

insurrection of Wat Tyler was followed by an open rebellion in Suffolk,

when 80,000 men marched upon Norwich, and committed divers acts of

devastation and plunder, headed by John Litester, a dyer. This, united

to the jealousies that existed between the native and foreign artisans,

caused a decline in the local manufactures for some time. In Elizabeth's

reign they revived, through the invitation given to the Dutch and

Walloons, then fleeing from the persecutions of the Duke of Alva. By the

advice of the Duke of Norfolk, thirty of these, all experienced workmen,

were invited to attend in Norwich, each bringing with him ten servants,

to be maintained at the expense of the duke. These speedily multiplied,

until their number exceeded five thousand. No matter of surprise,

therefore, is it that the Old City retains so many quaint traces of

Flemish taste and Flemish architecture, or that strangers, one and all,

should be struck with the peculiarly foreign outline of its quaint old

market-place. Soon after the settlement of these strangers in the

neighbourhood, new articles of manufacture were introduced; in addition

to the "worsteds," "saies," and "stamins," hitherto the sole articles of

commerce, and the admixture of mohair and silk with the wool, produced a

total change in the quality of the goods. Bombazine, that staple

"mourning garb," was the first result of the experiments made in silk and

wool combined. The ladies of Spain were thenceforth supplied with the

material for that indispensable article of their costume, the mantilla.

Camlets, too, were woven for the religious orders of priests and monks,

as also calimancoes, tabinets, brocaded satins, florettes, and damasks,

of which the legends of our grandmothers, and occasionally their

wardrobes, bear trace; crape, the celebrated Norwich crape, now almost a

forgotten fabric, was of later invention; but its fame is chronicled in

Ministerial mandates during Walpole's administration, 1721, when court

mourning was ordered to consist of nothing but that pre-eminent material.

Long since, the paramatta cloth has superseded both bombazine and Norwich

crape; nor must we be unmindful that this superfine invention owes its

origin to the skill and ingenuity of a manufacturer of the same city.

Shawls of every variety have held a prominent place among the

manufactures; indeed, may be considered as nominally the staple produce

of the Norwich looms, though in reality such is not the fact, an infinite

variety of materials, bearing as many new and fashionable titles, being

in truth the result of the labour of its artisans, silk--satins,

brocades, alpaccas, bareges, and many more; and of late years the shoe

manufactory has so vastly increased, that it may fairly take a place

henceforth among the constituents of the "fame" of the capital of

Norfolk. It may not be out of place here also to give some little sketch

of the rise and progress of that most important of all inventions and

arts, printing, in these particular parts,--more especially as William

Caxton, the first English printer, was one of the agents, and a principal

one, in opening the commerce between this country and Flanders in 1464,

when that port was appointed a staple for English goods as well as

Calais, a measure fraught with immense advantages to the manufacturing

districts of the country, and of course pre-eminently to this city. When

he, the mercer's apprentice, first stamped the "merchants' mark" upon his

master's bales, he little thought that by this same process of stamping,

carried forward by the ingenuity of many men into a new art, the whole

aspect of the world's history would be changed. The origin of these

distinctive "marks," still to be seen engraved on brasses, painted in

church windows, and here and there carved on the doors and panels of old

houses, is about as obscure as most of the other customs of those ages.

They were undoubtedly used to distinguish the property of one merchant

from another; and if their owners gave money towards the building or

restoration of churches, their marks were placed in the windows, in

honour of their liberality. Similar marks are to this day used by some

of the merchants of Oporto and Lisbon, stamped upon their pipes of wine.

Their forms seemed to depend on fancy, but a certain geometrical

precision pervaded all; sometimes they were composed of a circle with a

cross, or a shield with crosses laid over each other, of angles of every

possible direction grouped into a figure, now and then the figure of a

bird or animal added, but each differing essentially from every other,

that it may retain its distinctive characteristics. Printing, however,

though introduced into this country by Caxton, was for some centuries

seldom, if ever, practised, save in London and the two universities. To

the Dutch and Walloons, who came over at the invitation of Elizabeth, is

ascribed its first introduction in this city. In 1568, a Dutch metrical

version of the Psalms was issued from the press. No great progress,

however, would seem to have been made during the next century, but in

1736 was printed anonymously the "Records of Norwich," containing the

monuments of the cathedral, the bishops, the plagues, friars, martyrs,

hospitals, &c., in two parts, price three halfpence each; and in 1738, an

"Authentic History of the Ancient City of Norwich, from its Foundation to

its Present State, &c. (the like not extant), by Thomas Eldridge, T.C.N.,

printed for the author in St. Gregory's ch. yd., where may be had neat

Jamaica rum, fine brandy, Geneva and cordial waters, all sorts of

superfine snuffs and tobaccos at the lowest price!!!" This work, the

author presumes, from its bulk (thirty-two pages), to be the "_completest

work ever yet published_." Alas for the literature of the day! From

this period, however, Norwich kept pace with other places; a newspaper

had been established even earlier, a quarto foolscap, at a penny a

number. Among the advertisements from this "_Gazette_" bearing date July

16, 1709, are these--

"This is to give notice to all persons in the city, that right over

against the three Feathers in St. Peter's of Hungate, there is one

lately come from London, who teacheth all sorts of Pastry and

Cookery, all sorts of jellies, creams, and pickles, also all sorts of

Collering and Potting, and to make rich cakes of all sorts, and

everything of that nature. She teaches for a crown down, and a crown

when they are fully learned, that her teaching so cheap may encourage

very many to learn."

June 5, 1708.

"Mr. Augustine de Clere, of Norwich Thorpe, have now very good malt

for retail as he formerly had; if any of his customers have a mind to

take of him again, they shall be kindly used with good malt, and as

cheap as any body sell.--You may leave your orders with Mr. John de

Clere, Hot-presser, living right over the Ducking stool, in St.

Martin's of the palace of Norwich."

Among the Queries from Correspondents occur the following--

Norwich Gazette, April 9, 1709.

"Mr. Crossgrove,

You are desired to give an answer to this question, 'Did the soul

pre-exist in a separate state, before it came into the body, as many

learned men have thought it did; and as that question in the ninth

chapter of St. John's gospel seems to insinuate. Your answer to this

query will very much oblige your constant customer, T. R."

This query is replied to at some length satisfactorily by Mr. Crossgrove.

This department of the paper is headed "The Accurate Intelligencer," and

in its columns are sundry other rather peculiar interrogatories, such

as--

"Mr. Crossgrove,

Pray tell me where Moses was buried, and you will very much oblige

your constant customer, B. S."

Answer.

"Mr. B. S.

_He tells you himself_ that no man knew it, even when he could not

have been long buried; as you may see in the last chapter of

Deuteronomy; from whence, Sir, you may infer, that if it was a secret

so early, 'tis certainly so still. Your humble servant, H. C."

Another rich specimen runs--

Lynn, May 18, 1709.

"Mr. Crossgrove,

Did the Apostles use notes when they preached? I have sent this

Query twice before, and if I do not find it answered in your next

paper, I shall conclude you either cannot or durst not answer it.

Yours unknown, &c."

Answer

"Sir,

I have a bushel of letters by me that came all to the same tune with

this of yours, viz. _You cannot or durst not answer it_; but

sometimes they see I dare do it, tho' I neglect other letters more

pertinent through want of room: I have a dozen letters come in a

week, all post haste for an answer, and seldom room to insert more

than one at a time, so that many must of necessity lye by. But now

for your dreadful puzzling question, Did the Apostles use notes? and

to this I answer positively _No_, nor Bibles neither to hide their

notes in; take notice of that; nor had they pulpits to stand in as

ever I heard of, and we may observe from their sermons they took no

texts: and what then? What would you infer from all this? The

Apostles also never studied their sermons, for they had an

extraordinary gift of preaching, as well as of speaking. But I shall

say no more to your designing question than this--That those divines

who read their sermons know how to improve their time much better

than in getting them like schoolboys by heart; and that a good polite

discourse well read, is more worthy than a Bundle of what comes

uppermost tumbled out Head and Heels.

Yours, H. C."

Well done, Mr. Crossgrove! say we.

In 1714, a "Courant" was established, small folio size: at the end of one

occurs this notice--

"Note. An Accident happening, the reader is desired to pardon all

_literal_ errors, as it is not corrected."

Papers of somewhat later date afford samples almost as

quaint:--Advertisement. "James Hardy acquaints his friends, that he has

lately had a large quantity of preserves. I shall be very happy to

supply any gentleman with coals." "Notice is hereby given that on

Thursday and Friday next, being sixth and seventh of June, 1734, a coach

and horses will set out for London, from Mr. Thomas Bateman's, St. Giles,

and perform the same in three days. Note, the coach will go either by

Newmarket or Ipswich, as the passengers shall agree." They certainly had

_one_ advantage over railway travellers of the present day--that they

could choose their own route.

Another specimen runs--"Whereas Mrs. Cooke at the pastry shop near the

three steps has charged Mrs. Havers with embezzling to the quantity of

two yards of padashway, out of her suit of clothes turned upside down two

years since, and made at first for a much less person; the clothes having

been viewed by several mantua makers, the same appears to be a most

malicious slander," &c.

Specimens might be multiplied, but these may suffice to place beside the

elaborate and ornate productions of this present year 1853, to see what a

century has done in orthography, etymology, syntax, and prosody.

It must have been rather more than twenty years after the first

establishment of a local newspaper, that the Rev. Francis Blomefield, the

great historian of the county, first commenced printing his elaborate

"Topographical Essay," a work of five volumes folio, the materials for

which he is said to have begun to collect when only fifteen years of age.

Many beyond the limits of the locality more especially intended to profit

by this laborious undertaking, may feel interested in the facts connected

with its progress, contributing so much as they do to give a correct idea

of the difficulties attending the path of an author little more than a

century ago.

Blomefield was rector of the parish of Fersfield, in which also he was

born; in the summer months he was in the habit of making excursions in

search of materials for his work, and to test the accuracy of information

he had gained, by a method he had adopted, in furtherance of his object,

of distributing "queries," to be filled up with answers concerning any

historical or antiquarian subjects that may be known to the parties

applied to. In reference to this plan, he says himself, in a letter to a

friend, "It is impossible to tell you what great helps have come in by my

queries: sometimes having twenty or thirty sheets, besides books,

letters, records and papers for a single hundred;" (alluding to the

divisions of the county into hundreds).

It was after one of his collating rambles that he finally determined to

issue proposals for printing his work; and meeting with much

encouragement, he speedily looked about for a suitable printing

establishment. In a letter to Mr. Chase, a printer who lived next door

to "John o' all sorts," Cockey Lane, Norwich, on the 1st of July, 1733,

he says, "I have endeavoured to procure a set of Saxon types, but cannot

do it; and upon looking over my book find a good number of Greek

inscriptions, some Hebrew words, and some Gothic. So that I must print

it in London; it being impossible to have those types any where in the

country (!). I wish heartily I could have done it with you; for I like

your terms, and could have been glad to have corrected the press myself,

which I then could easily have done."

Eventually he decided upon printing the work upon his own premises, and

engaged a good workman, at a salary of 40 pounds a year, bought a press

for 7 pounds, and fitted up a printing office with all the requisite

materials. The account in the papers of the "Archaeological Society,"

goes on to say, "At that time, distance and difficulties of intercourse

made any want of punctuality most annoying, and the plan of printing at

home involved the necessity of a great variety of type and other

materials. Meanwhile type founders, stationers, and engravers, were but

too much given to weary him with delay, or to disgust him with fraud.

Beginning a correspondence with frankness and civility, he often had to

continue it, urging and reiterating entreaties of attention--alternately

coaxing compliance with 'half a piece' to drink his health and success to

his work, or with 'promise of making amends,' or a 'fowl at Christmas,'

or rebuking with reluctant severity, resulting more from devotedness to

his object, than anger or bitterness. A facetious engraver, who was

introduced to him, and invited to his house to assist him, after

remaining there three weeks, agreed for a large portion of the work, and

cut several of the things, all which he ran away with. Other vexations

sprang out of the patronage and assistance he most valued; but, after

many interruptions, the first edition of a part of the book was brought

out in 1736."

In the midst of his labours, however, he was cut off by that virulent

enemy, the small pox, on the 15th January, 1751, at the age of forty-six.

His work was continued by the Rev. Charles Parkens, of whom a curious

anecdote is related;--its accuracy we do not pretend to vouch; the tale

runs that Mr. Parkens had a tame magpie, which had access to her master's

study, and seeing him busily employed in folding and unfolding the

packets that lay before him on his desk, she thought it no harm to be

busy too, until from time to time she flew away _with the __whole borough

of Yarmouth_. Many of the parcels, it is added, were recovered, but

others irrecoverably lost.

"I know not how the truth may be,

But tell the tale as 'twas told to me."

With this cursory glance at the work of the great historian of the

district, we close our chapter on the subjects suggested by the "Old

Market-place." The sketches have been necessarily superficial, but they

afford proof that its chronicles include a variety of matter and incident

that may interest almost every class of mind.