A VIEW OF COUNTRY LIFE DURING THE AGE OF SHAKSPEARE;—ITS
MANNERS AND CUSTOMS.—RURAL CHARACTERS.
It may be necessary, in the commencement of this chapter, to remark,
that rural life, in the strict acceptation of the term, will be at
present the exclusive object of attention; a survey of the manners and
customs of the metropolis, and of the superior orders of society, being
deferred to a subsequent portion of the work.
No higher character will, therefore, be introduced in this sketch
than the _country squire_, constituting according to Harrison, who
wrote about the year 1580, one of the second order of gentlemen; for
these, he remarks, "be divided into two sorts, as the baronie or
estate of lords (which conteineth barons and all above that degree),
and also those that be no lords, as knights, esquires, and simple
gentlemen."[68:A] He has also furnished us, in another place, with a
more precise definition of the character under consideration. "Esquire
(which we call commonlie squire) is a French word, and so much in
Latine as Scutiger vel Armiger, and such are all those which beare
armes, or armoires, testimonies of their race from whence they be
descended. They were at the first costerels or bearers of the armes of
barons, or knights, and thereby being instructed in martiall knowledge,
had that name for a dignitie given to distinguish them from common
souldiers called Gregarii Milities when they were together in the
field."[68:B]
It is curious to mark the minute distinctions of gentlemen as detailed
at this period, in the various books of _Armorie_ or _Heraldrie_. The
science, indeed, was cultivated, in the days of Shakspeare, with an
enthusiasm which has never since been equalled, and the treatises on
the subject were consequently multitudinous.
"—— If no gentleman, why then no arms,"[69:A]
exclaims our poet; the aspirants, therefore, to this distinction
were numerous, and in the _Gentleman's Academie_; or, _The Booke of
St. Albans_, published by Gervase Markham in 1595, which he says in
the dedication was _then_ absolutely "necessarie and behovefull to
the accomplishment of the gentlemen of this flourishing ile—in the
heroicall and excellent study of Armory," we find "nine sortes" and
"foure maner" of gentlemen expressly distinguished.
"Of nine sortes of gentlemen:
"First, there is a gentleman of ancestry and blood.
"A gentleman of blood.
"A gentleman of coat-armour, and those are three, one of the kings
badge, another of lordship, and the third of killing a pagan.
"A gentleman untriall: a gentleman Ipocrafet: a gentleman spirituall
and temporall: there is also a gentleman spirituall and temporall.—
"The divers manner of gentlemen:
"There are foure maner of gentlemen, to wit, one of auncestrie, which
must needes bee of blood, and three of coate-armour, and not of blood:
as one a gentleman of coate-armour of the kings badge, which is of
armes given him by an herauld: another is, to whome the king giveth a
lordeshippe, to a yeoman by his letters pattents, and to his heires for
ever, whereby hee may beare the coate-armour of the same lordeshippe:
the thirde is, if a yeoman kill a gentleman, Pagan or Sarazen, whereby
he may of right weare his coate-armour: and some holde opinion, that
if one Christian doe kill an other, and if it be lawfull battell, they
may weare each others coate-armour, yet it is not so good as where the
Christian killes the Pagan."
We have also the virtues and vices proper or contrary to the character
of the gentleman, the former of which are divided into five amorous and
four sovereign: "the five amorous are these,—lordly of countenance,
sweet in speech, wise in answere, perfitte in government and cherefull
to faithfulnes: the foure soveraigne are these fewe,—oathes are no
swearing, patient in affliction, knowledge of his owne birth, and to
feare to offend his soveraigne."[70:A] The vices which are likewise
enumerated as _nine_, are all modifications of cowardice, lechery, and
drunkenness.
That the character of the gentleman was still estimated, in the
reign of Elizabeth, according to this definition of the Prioress of
Sopewell, we have consequently the authority of Markham to assert, who
tells us, that the study of his modernised edition of the Booke of St.
Albans was still "behovefull to the accomplishment of the gentleman" of
1595.
The mansion-houses of the country-gentlemen were, in the days of
Shakspeare, rapidly improving both in their external appearance, and
in their interior comforts. During the reign of Henry the Eighth, and
even of Mary, they were, if we except their size, little better than
cottages, being thatched buildings, covered on the outside with the
coarsest clay, and lighted only by lattices; when Harrison wrote,
in the age of Elizabeth, though the greater number of manor-houses
still remained framed of timber, yet he observes, "such as be latelie
builded, are cōmonlie either of bricke or hard stone, or both; their
roomes large and comelie, and houses of office further distant
from their lodgings."[72:A] The old timber mansions, too, were now
covered with the finest plaster, which, says the historian, "beside
the delectable whitenesse of the stuffe itselfe, is laied on so
even and smoothlie, as nothing in my judgment can be done with more
exactnesse[73:A]:" and at the same time, the windows, interior
decorations, and furniture were becoming greatly more useful and
elegant. "Of old time our countrie houses," continues Harrison,
"instead of glasse did use much lattise, and that made either of
wicker or fine rifts of oke in chekerwise. I read also that some
of the better sort, in and before the time of the Saxons, did make
panels of horne insteed of glasse, and fix them in woodden calmes.
But as horne in windows is now quite laid downe in everie place, so
our lattises are also growne into lesse use, because glasse is come
to be so plentifull, and within a verie little so good cheape if not
better then the other.—The wals of our houses on the inner sides in
like sort be either hanged with tapisterie, arras worke, or painted
cloths, wherein either diverse histories, or hearbes, beasts, knots,
and such like are stained, or else they are seeled with oke of our
owne, or wainescot brought hither out of the east countries, whereby
the roomes are not a little commanded, made warme, and much more close
than otherwise they would be. As for stooves we have not hitherto used
them greatlie, yet doo they now begin to be made in diverse houses
of the gentrie.—Likewise in the houses of knights, gentlemen, &c.
it is not geson to behold generallie their great provision of Turkie
worke, pewter, brasse, fine linen, and thereto costlie cupbords of
plate, worth five or six hundred or a thousand pounds, to be deemed by
estimation."[73:B]
The house of every country-gentleman of property included a neat chapel
and a spacious hall; and where the estate and establishment were
considerable, the mansion was divided into two parts or sides, one for
the state or banqueting-rooms, and the other for the household; but
in general, the latter, except in baronial residences, was the only
part to be met with, and when complete had the addition of parlours;
thus Bacon, in his Essay on Building, describing the houshold side of
a mansion, says, "I wish it divided at the first into a hall, and a
chappell, with a partition betweene; both of good state and bignesse:
and those not to goe all the length, but to have, at the further end,
a winter, and a summer parler, both faire: and under these roomes a
faire and large cellar, sunke under ground: and likewise, some privie
kitchins, with butteries and pantries, and the like."[74:A] It was the
custom also to have windows opening from the parlours and passages
into the chapel, hall, and kitchen, with the view of overlooking or
controlling what might be going on; a trait of vigilant caution,
which may still be discovered in some of our ancient colleges and
manor-houses, and to which Shakspeare alludes in King Henry the Eighth,
where he describes His Majesty and Butts the physician entering at a
window above, which overlooks the council-chamber.[74:B] We may add,
in illustration of this system of architectural espionage, that Andrew
Borde, when giving instructions for building a house in his _Dietarie
of Health_, directs "many of the chambers to have a view into the
chapel:" and that Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, in a letter, dated
1573, says, "if it please Her Majestie, she may come in through my
gallerie, and see the disposition of the hall in dynner-time, at _a
window opening thereunto_."[74:C]
The hall of the country-squire was the usual scene of eating and
hospitality, at the upper end of which was placed the orsille or high
table, a little elevated above the floor, and here the master of the
mansion presided, with an authority, if not a state, which almost
equalled that of the potent baron. The table was divided into upper and
lower messes, by a huge saltcellar, and the rank and consequence of the
visitors were marked by the situation of their seats above, and below,
the saltcellar; a custom which not only distinguished the relative
dignity of the guests, but extended likewise to the nature of the
provision, the wine frequently circulating only above the saltcellar,
and the dishes below it, being of a coarser kind than those near the
head of the table. So prevalent was this uncourteous distinction, that
Shakspeare, in his Winter's Tale, written about the year 1604, or
1610, designates the inferior orders of society by the term "_lower
messes_."
————————— "Lower messes,
Perchance, are to this business purblind."[75:A]
Dekkar, likewise, in his play called _The Honest Whore_, 1604, mentions
in strong terms the degradation of sitting beneath the salt: "Plague
him, set him beneath the salt; and let him not touch a bit, till every
one has had his full cut."[75:B] Hall too, in the sixth satire of his
second book, published in 1597, when depicting the humiliated state of
the squire's chaplain, says, that he must not
"ever presume to sit _above the salt_:"
and Jonson, in his Cynthia's Revells, speaking of a coxcomb, says,
"his fashion is, not to take knowledge of him that is beneath him in
clothes. He never drinkes _below the salt_." See act i. sc. 2.
This invidious regulation appears to have extended far into the
seventeenth century; for Massinger in his _City Madam_, acted in 1632,
thus notices it:
——————— "My proud lady
Admits him to her table, marry, ever
_Beneath the salt_, and there he sits the subject
Of her contempt and scorn:"[75:C]
and Cartright still later:
——— "Where you are best esteem'd,
You only pass under the favourable name
Of humble cousins that sit _beneath the salt_."
_Love's Convert._
The luxury of eating and of good cooking were well understood in the
days of Elizabeth, and the table of the country-squire frequently
groaned beneath the burden of its dishes; at Christmas and at
Easter especially, the hall became the scene of great festivity; "in
gentlemen's houses, at Christmas," says Aubrey, "the first dish that
was brought to table was a boar's head, with a lemon in his mouth. At
Queen's Coll. Oxon. they still retain this custom, the bearer of it
bringing it into the hall, singing to an old tune an old Latin rhyme,
_Apri caput defero, &c._ The first dish that was brought up to table
on Easter-day was a red-herring riding away on horseback; _i. e._ a
herring ordered by the cook something after the likeness of a man on
horseback, set in a corn sallad. The custom of eating a gammon of bacon
at Easter (which is still kept up in many parts of England) was founded
on this, _viz._ to shew their abhorrence of Judaism at that solemn
commemoration of our Lord's resurrection."[76:A]
Games and diversions of various kinds, such as mumming, masqueing,
dancing, loaf-stealing, &c. &c. were allowed in the hall on these days;
and the servants, or heralds, wore the coats of arms of their masters,
and cried '_Largesse_' thrice. The hall was usually hung round with
the insignia of the squire's amusements, such as hunting, shooting,
fishing, &c.; but in case he were a justice of the peace, it assumed
a more terrific aspect. "The halls of the justice of peace," observes
honest Aubrey, "were dreadful to behold. The skreen was garnished with
corslets and helmets, gaping with open mouths, with coats of mail,
launces, pikes, halberts, brown bills, bucklers."[76:B]
The following admirable description of an old English hall, which still
remains as it existed in the days of Elizabeth, is taken from the notes
to Mr. Scott's recent poem of Rokeby, and was communicated to the bard
by a friend; the story which it introduces, I have also added, as it
likewise occurred in the same reign, and affords a curious though not
a pleasing trait of the manners of the times; as, while it gives a
dreadful instance of ferocity, it shows with what ease justice, even in
the case of the most enormous crimes, might be set aside.
Littlecote-House stands in a low and lonely situation. On three sides
it is surrounded by a park that spreads over the adjoining hill; on
the fourth, by meadows which are watered by the river Kennet. Close on
one side of the house is a thick grove of lofty trees, along the verge
of which runs one of the principal avenues to it through the park. It
is an irregular building of great antiquity, and was probably erected
about the time of the termination of feudal warfare, when defence came
no longer to be an object in a country-mansion. Many circumstances in
the interior of the house, however, seem appropriate to feudal times.
The hall is very spacious, floored with stones, and lighted by large
transom windows, that are clothed with casements. Its walls are hung
with old military accoutrements, that have long been left a prey to
rust. At one end of the hall is a range of coats of mail and helmets,
and there is on every side abundance of old-fashioned pistols and guns,
many of them with matchlocks. Immediately below the cornice hangs a
row of leathern jerkins, made in the form of a shirt, supposed to
have been worn as armour by the vassals. A large oak-table, reaching
nearly from one end of the room to the other, might have feasted the
whole neighbourhood, and an appendage to one end of it made it answer
at other times for the old game of shuffle-board. The rest of the
furniture is in a suitable style, particularly an arm-chair of cumbrous
workmanship, constructed of wood, curiously turned, with a high back
and triangular seat, said to have been used by Judge Popham in the
reign of Elizabeth. The entrance into the hall is at one end by a low
door, communicating with a passage that leads from the outer door,
in the front of the house, to a quadrangle within; at the other it
opens upon a gloomy staircase, by which you ascend to the first floor,
and, passing the doors of some bed-chambers, enter a narrow gallery,
which extends along the back front of the house from one end to the
other of it, and looks upon an old garden. This gallery is hung with
portraits, chiefly in the Spanish dresses of the sixteenth century. In
one of the bed-chambers, which you pass in going towards the gallery,
is a bedstead with blue furniture, which time has now made dingy and
threadbare, and in the bottom of one of the bed-curtains you are shewn
a place where a small piece has been cut out and sown in again; a
circumstance which serves to identify the scene of the following story:
"It was a dark rainy night in the month of November, that an old
midwife sate musing by her cottage fire-side, when on a sudden she
was startled by a loud knocking at the door. On opening it she found
a horseman, who told her that her assistance was required immediately
by a person of rank, and that she should be handsomely rewarded, but
that there were reasons for keeping the affair a strict secret, and,
therefore, she must submit to be blind-folded, and to be conducted in
that condition to the bed-chamber of the lady. After proceeding in
silence for many miles through rough and dirty lanes, they stopped, and
the midwife was led into a house, which, from the length of her walk
through the apartment, as well as the sounds about her, she discovered
to be the seat of wealth and power. When the bandage was removed from
her eyes, she found herself in a bed-chamber, in which were the lady
on whose account she had been sent for, and a man of a haughty and
ferocious aspect. The lady was delivered of a fine boy. Immediately the
man commanded the midwife to give him the child, and, catching it from
her, he hurried across the room, and threw it on the back of the fire,
that was blazing in the chimney. The child, however, was strong, and by
its struggles rolled itself off upon the hearth, when the ruffian again
seized it with fury, and, in spite of the intercession of the midwife,
and the more piteous entreaties of the mother, thrust it under the
grate, and raking the live coals upon it, soon put an end to its life.
The midwife, after spending some time in affording all the relief in
her power to the wretched mother, was told that she must be gone. Her
former conductor appeared, who again bound her eyes, and conveyed her
behind him to her own home; he then paid her handsomely, and departed.
The midwife was strongly agitated by the horrors of the preceding
night; and she immediately made a deposition of the fact before a
magistrate. Two circumstances afforded hopes of detecting the house
in which the crime had been committed; one was, that the midwife, as
she sate by the bed-side, had, with a view to discover the place, cut
out a piece of the bed-curtain, and sown it in again; the other was,
that as she had descended the staircase, she had counted the steps.
Some suspicions fell upon one Darrell, at that time the proprietor of
Littlecote-House and the domain around it. The house was examined, and
identified by the midwife, and Darrell was tried at Salisbury for the
murder. By corrupting his judge, he escaped the sentence of the law;
but broke his neck by a fall from his horse in hunting, in a few months
after. The place where this happened is still known by the name of
Darrell's Hill: a spot to be dreaded by the peasant whom the shades of
evening have overtaken on his way.
"Littlecote-House is two miles from Hungerford, in Berkshire, through
which the Bath road passes. The fact occurred in the reign of
Elizabeth. All the important circumstances I have given exactly as they
are told in the country." Rokeby, 4to. edit. notes, p. 102-106.
The usual fare of country-gentlemen, relates Harrison, was "foure,
five, or six dishes, when they have but _small resort_;" and
accordingly, we find that Justice Shallow, when he invites Falstaffe
to dinner, issues the following orders: "Some pigeons, Davy; a
couple of short-legged hens; a joint of mutton; and any pretty
little tiny kickshaws, tell William Cook."[79:A] But on feast-days,
and particularly on the festivals above-mentioned, the profusion
and cost of the table were astonishing. Harrison observes that the
country-gentlemen and merchants contemned butchers meat on such
occasions, and vied with the nobility in the production of rare and
delicate viands, of which he gives a long list[79:B]; and Massinger
says,
"Men may talk of _country-christmasses_—
Their thirty-pound butter'd eggs, their pies of carps tongues,
Their pheasants drench'd with ambergris, the carcases
Of three fat wethers bruised for gravy, to
Make sauce for a single peacock; yet their feasts
Were fasts, compared with the city's."[80:A]
It was the custom in the houses of the country-gentlemen to retire
after dinner, which generally took place about eleven in the morning,
to the garden-bower or an arbour in the orchard, in order to partake
of the banquet or dessert; thus Shallow, addressing Falstaffe after
dinner, exclaims, "Nay, you shall see mine orchard: where, in an
_arbour_, we will eat a last year's pippin of my own graffing, with a
dish of carraways, and so forth."[80:B] From the banquet it was usual
to retire to evening prayer, and thence to supper, between five and
six o'clock; for in Shakspeare's time, there were seldom more than two
meals, dinner and supper; "heretofore," remarks Harrison, "there hath
beene much more time spent in eating and drinking than commonlie is in
these daies, for whereas of old we had breakfasts in the forenoone,
beverages, or nuntions after dinner, and thereto reare suppers
generallie when it was time to go to rest. Now these od repasts,
thanked be God, are verie well left, and ech one in manner (except
here and there some yoong hungrie stomach that cannot fast till dinner
time) contenteth himselfe with dinner and supper onelie. The nobilitie,
_gentlemen_, and merchantmen, especiallie at great meetings, doo sit
commonlie till two or three of the clocke at afternoone, so that with
manie is an hard matter to rise from the table to go to evening praier,
and returne from thence to come time enough to supper."[81:A]
The supper which, on days of festivity, was often protracted to a
late hour, and often too as substantial as the dinner, was succeeded,
especially at Christmas, by gambols of various sorts, and sometimes
the squire and his family would mingle in the amusements, or retiring
to the tapestried parlour, would leave the hall to the more boisterous
mirth of their household; then would the BLIND HARPER, who sold his
_FIT of mirth for a groat_, be introduced, either to provoke the
dance, or to rouse their wonder by his minstrelsy; his "matter being
for the most part stories of old time, as the tale of Sir Topas, the
reportes of Bevis of Southampton, Guy of Warwicke, Adam Bell, and
Clymme of the Clough, and such other old romances or historical rimes,
made purposely for recreation of the common people at Christmasse
dinners and brideales."[81:B] Nor was the evening passed by the parlour
fire-side dissimilar in its pleasures; the harp of history or romance
was frequently made vocal by one of the party. "We ourselves," says
Puttenham, who wrote in 1589, "have written for pleasure a little brief
romance, or historical ditty, in the English tong of the Isle of Great
Britaine, in short and long meetres, and by breaches or divisions, to
be more commodiously sung to the harpe in places of assembly, where the
company shal be desirous to heare of old adventures, and valiaunces
of noble knights in times past, as are those of King Authur and his
Knights of the Round Table, Sir Bevys of Southampton, Guy of Warwicke,
and others like."[81:C]
The _posset_ at bed-time, closed the joyous day, a custom to which
Shakspeare has occasionally alluded; thus Lady Macbeth says of the
"surfeited grooms," "I have drugg'd their possets[82:A];" Mrs. Quickly
tells Rugby, "Go; and we'll have a posset for't soon at night, in
faith, at the latter end of a sea-coal fire[82:B];" and Page, cheering
Falstaffe, exclaims, "Thou shall eat a posset to-night at my[82:C]
house." Thomas Heywood also, a contemporary of Shakspeare, has
particularly noticed this refection as occurring just before bed-time:
"Thou shall be welcome to beef and bacon, and perhaps a bag-pudding;
and my daughter Nell shall pop a _posset_ upon thee when thou goest to
bed."[82:D]
In short, hospitality, a love of festivity, and an ardent attachment
to the sports of the field, were prominent traits in the character
of the country-gentleman in Shakspeare's days. The floor of his hall
was commonly occupied by his greyhounds, and on his hand was usually
to be found his favorite hawk. His conversation was very generally on
the subject of his diversions; for as Master Stephen says, "Why you
know, an'a man have not skill in the hawking and hunting languages
now-a-dayes, I'll not give a rush for him. They are more studied than
the _Greeke_, or the _Latine_."[82:E] Classical acquirements were,
nevertheless, becoming daily more fashionable and familiar with the
character which we are describing; but still an intimacy with heraldry,
romance, and the chroniclers, constituted the chief literary wealth of
the country-gentleman. In his dress he was plain, though occasionally
costly; yet Harrison complains in 1580, that the gaudy trappings of the
French were creeping even into the rural and mercantile world: "Neither
was it merrier," says he, "with England, than when an Englishman was
knowne abroad by his owne cloth, and contented himselfe at home with
his fine carsie hosen, and a meane slop: his coat, gowne, and cloak of
browne, blue, or puke, with some pretie furniture of velvet or furre,
and a doublet of sad tawnie, or blacke velvet, or other comelie silke,
without such cuts and gawrish colours as are worne in these daies,
and never brought in but by the consent of the French, who thinke
themselves the gaiest men, when they have most diversities of jagges
and change of colours about them."[83:A]
Of the female part of the family of the country-gentleman, we must
be indulged in giving one description from Drayton, which not only
particularizes the employments and dress of the younger part of the
sex, but is written with the most exquisite simplicity and beauty; he
is delineating the well-educated daughter of a country-knight:
"He had, as antique stories tell,
A daughter cleaped Dawsabel,
A maiden fair and free:
And for she was her father's heir,
Full well she was ycond the leir
Of mickle courtesy.
The silk well couth she twist and twine,
And make the fine march-pine,
And with the needle work:
And she couth help the priest to say
His mattins on a holy day,
And sing a psalm in kirk.
She wore a frock of frolic green,
Might well become a maiden queen,
Which seemly was to see;
A hood to that so neat and fine,
In colour like the columbine,
Ywrought full featously.
Her features all as fresh above,
As is the grass that grows by Dove,
And lythe as lass of Kent.
Her skin as soft as Lemster wool,
As white as snow on Peakish Hull,
Or swan that swims in Trent.
This maiden in a moon betime,
Went forth when May was in the prime,
To get sweet setywall,
The honey-suckle, the harlock,
The lily, and the lady-smock,
To deck her summer-hall."[84:A]
Some heightening to the picture of the country-gentleman which we have
just given, may be drawn from the character of the upstart squire or
country-knight, as it has been pourtrayed by Bishop Earle, towards the
commencement of the seventeenth century; for the absurd imitation of
the one is but an overcharged or caricature exhibition of the costume
of the other. The upstart country-gentleman, remarks the Bishop, "is
a holiday clown, and differs only in the stuff of his clothes, not
the stuff of himself, for he bare the kings sword before he had arms
to wield it; yet being once laid o'er the shoulder with a knighthood,
he finds the herald his friend. His father was a man of good stock,
though but a tanner or usurer; he purchased the land, and his son the
title. He has doffed off the name of a country-fellow, but the look
not so easy, and his face still bears a relish of churne-milk. He is
guarded with more gold lace than all the gentlemen of the country, yet
his body makes his clothes still out of fashion. His house-keeping is
seen much in the distinct families of dogs, and serving-men attendant
on their kennels, and the deepness of their throats is the depth of
his discourse. A hawk he esteems the true burden of nobility, and is
exceeding ambitious to seem delighted in the sport, and have his fist
gloved with his [84:B]jesses. A justice of peace he is to domineer
in his parish, and do his neighbour wrong with more right. He will
be drunk with his hunters for company, and stain his gentility with
droppings of ale. He is fearful of being sheriff of the shire by
instinct, and dreads the assize-week as much as the prisoner. In sum,
he's but a clod of his own earth, or his land is the dunghill and he
the cock that crows over it: and commonly his race is quickly run, and
his children's children, though they scape hanging, return to the place
from whence they came."[85:A]
Notwithstanding the hospitality which generally prevailed among the
country-gentlemen towards the close of the sixteenth century, the
injurious custom of deserting their hereditary halls for the luxury
and dissipation of the metropolis, began to appear; and, accordingly,
Bishop Hall has described in a most finished and picturesque manner the
deserted mansion of his days;
"Beat the broad gates, a goodly hollow sound
With double echoes doth againe rebound;
But not a dog doth bark to welcome thee,
Nor churlish porter canst thou chafing see:
All dumb and silent, like the dead of night,
Or dwelling of some sleepy Sybarite!
The marble pavement hid with desert weed,
With house-leek, thistle, dock, and hemlock-seed.—
Look to the towered chimnies, which should be
The wind-pipes of good hospitalitie:——
Lo, there th'unthankful swallow takes her rest,
And fills the tunnel with her circled nest."[85:B]
That it was no very uncommon thing for country-gentlemen to spend
their Christmas in London at this period, is evident from a letter
preserved by Mr. Lodge, in his Illustrations of British History;
it is written by William Fleetwood, afterwards Queen's Serjeant,
to the Earl of Derby; is dated New Yere's Daye, 1589, and contains
the following passage:—"The gentlemen of Norff. and Suffolk were
commanded to dep{r}te from London before Xtemmas, and to repaire
to their countries, and there to kepe hospitalitie amongest their
neighbours.[86:A]" The fashion, however, of annually visiting
the capital did not become general, nor did the character of the
country-squire, such as it was in the days of Shakspeare, alter
materially during the following century.[86:B]
The _country-clergyman_, the next character we shall attempt to
notice, was distinguished, in the time of Shakspeare, by the
appellation of _Sir_: a title which the poet has uniformly bestowed
on the inferior orders of this profession, as _Sir_ Hugh in the Merry
Wives of Windsor, _Sir_ Topas in the Twelfth Night, _Sir_ Oliver in As
You like It, and _Sir_ Nathaniel in Love's Labour's lost. This custom,
which was not entirely discontinued until the close of the reign of
Charles II., owes its origin to the language of our universities, which
confers the designation of _Dominus_ on those who have taken their
first degree or bachelor of arts, and not, as has been supposed, to
any claim which the clergy had upon the order of knighthood. The word
_Dominus_ was naturally translated _Sir_; and as almost every clergyman
had taken his first degree, it became customary to apply the term to
the lower class of the hierarchy. "_Sir_ seems to have been a title,"
remarks Dr. Percy, "formerly appropriated to such of the inferior
clergy as were only _readers_ of the service, and not admitted to be
preachers, and therefore were held in the lowest estimation, as appears
from a remarkable passage in Machell's MS. _Collections for the History
of Westmoreland and Cumberland_, in six volumes, folio, preserved in
the Dean and Chapter's library at Carlisle. The Rev. Thomas Machell,
author of the Collections, lived temp. Car. II. Speaking of the little
chapel of Martindale in the mountains of Westmoreland and Cumberland,
the writer says, 'There is little remarkable in or about it, but a
neat chapel yard, which, by the peculiar care of the old reader, _Sir
Richard_[89:A], is kept clean, and as neat as a bowling-green.'
"Within the limits of myne own memory all _readers_ in chapels were
called _Sirs_[89:B], and of old have been writ so; whence, I suppose,
such of the laity as received the noble order of knighthood being
called _Sirs_ too, for distinction sake had _Knight_ writ after them;
which had been superfluous, if the title _Sir_ had been peculiar to
them."[90:A]
Shakspeare has himself indeed sufficiently marked the distinction
between priesthood and knighthood, when he makes Viola say, "I am one
that had rather go with _Sir Priest_ than _Sir Knight_."[90:B]
Were we to estimate the diameter of the country-clergy, during the age
of Elizabeth, from the sketches which Shakspeare has given us of them,
I am afraid we should be induced to appreciate their utility and moral
virtue on too low a scale. It will be a fairer plan to exhibit the
picture from the delineation of one of their own order, a competent
judge, and who was likewise a contemporary. "The apparell of our
clergiemen," records Harrison, "is comlie, and, in truth, more decent
than ever it was in the popish church: before the universities bound
their graduats unto a stable attire, afterward usurped also even by
the blind Sir Johns. For if you peruse well my chronolojie, you shall
find, that they went either in diverse colors, like plaiers, or in
garments of light hew, as yellow, red, greene, &c.: with their shoes
piked, their haire crisped, their girdles armed with silver; their
shoes, spurres, bridles, &c. buckled with like metall: their apparell
(for the most part) of silke, and richlie furred; their cappes laced
and butned with gold: so that to meet a priest in those daies, was to
behold a peacocke that spreadeth his taile when he danseth before the
henne: which now (I saie) is well reformed. Touching hospitalitie,
there was never any greater used in England, sith by reason that
marriage is permitted to him that will choose that kind of life, their
meat and drinke is more orderly and frugallie dressed; their furniture
of houshold more convenient, and better looked unto; and the poore
oftener fed generallie than heretofore they have beene." Then, alluding
to those who reproach the country-clergy for not being so prodigal of
good cheer as in former days, he adds, "To such as doo consider of the
curtailing of their livings, or excessive prices wherevnto things are
growen, and how their course is limited by law, and estate looked into
on every side, the cause of their so dooing is well inough perceived.
This also offendeth manie, that they should after their deaths leave
their substances to their wives and children: whereas they consider
not, that in old time such as had no lemans nor bastards (verie few
were there God wot of this sort) did leave their goods and possessions
to their brethren and kinsfolk, whereby (as I can shew by good record)
manie houses of gentilitie have growen and beene erected. If in anie
age some one of them did found a college, almes-house, or schoole,
if you looke unto these our times, you shall see no fewer deeds of
charitie doone, nor better grounded upon the right stub of pietie
than before. If you saie that their wives be fond, after the decease
of their husbands, and bestow themselves not so advisedlie as their
calling requireth, which God knoweth these curious surveiors make
small accompt of in truth, further than thereby to gather matter of
reprehension: I beseech you then to look into all states of the laitie,
and tell me whether some duchesses, countesses, barons, or knights'
wives, doo not fullie so often offend in the like as they: for Eve will
be Eve, though Adam would saie naie. Not a few also find fault with
our thread-bare gowns, as if not our patrons but our wives were causes
of our wo: but if it were knowne to all, that I know to have beene
performed of late in Essex, where a minister taking a benefice (of
lesse than twentie pounds in the Quéen's bookes so farre as I remember)
was inforced to paie to his patrone, twentie quarters of otes, ten
quarters of wheat, and sixtéene yéerlie of barleie, which he called
hawkes-meat; and another left the like in farme to his patrone forten
pounds by the yéere, which is well worth fortie at the least, the cause
of our thread-bare gowns would easilie appeere, for such patrones doo
scrape the wooll from our clokes."[91:A]
This delineation is, upon the whole, a favourable one; but the
author in the very next page admits that the country-clergy
had notwithstanding fallen into "general contempt" and "small
consideration;" that the cause of this was not merely owing to the
poverty of the ministry, but was for the most part attributable either
to the iniquity of the patron or the immorality of the priest, will
but too clearly appear from the relation of Harrison himself, and from
other contemporary evidence. The historian declares that it was the
custom of some patrons to "bestow advowsons of benefices upon their
bakers, butlers, cookes, good archers, falconers, and horsekéepers,
insted of other recompence for their long and faithfull service[92:A];"
and the following letter from the Talbot papers presents us with a
frightful view of the manners of the country-clergy at the commencement
of the reign of James I.
"Ad. Slack to the Lady Bowes.
"Right wor{ll}.
"I understand that one Raphe Cleaton ys curate of the chappell
at Buxton; his wages are, out of his neighbour's benevolence,
about v{li} yearely: S{r} Charles Cavendishe had the tythes
there this last yeare, ether of his owne right or my Lords, as
th' inhabitants saye. The minister aforenamed differeth litle
from those of the worste sorte, and hath dipt his finger both
in manslaughter and p'jurie, &c. The placinge or displacing
of the curate there resteth in Mr. Walker, commissarie of
Bakewell, of which churche Buxton is a chappell of ease.
"I humbly thanke yo{r} Wor{pp} for yo{re} l{re} to the justices
at the cessions; for S{r} Peter Fretchvell, togither w{th} Mr.
Bainbrigg, were verie earnest against the badd vicar of Hope;
and lykewyse S{r} Jermane Poole, and all the benche, savinge
Justice Bentley, who use some vaine —— on his behalfe, and
affirmed that my La. Bowes had been disprooved before My Lord
of Shrowesburie in reports touching the vicar of Hope; but
such answere was made therto as his mouthe was stopped: yet
the latter daie, when all the justic's but himselffe and one
other were rysen, he wold have had the said vicar lycensed to
sell ale in his vicaredge, althoe the whole benche had comanded
the contrarye; whereof S{r} Jermane Poole being adv'tised,
retyrned to the benche (contradicting his speeche) whoe, w{th}
Mr. Bainbrigge, made their warrant to bringe before them, him,
or anie other person that shall, for him, or in his vicaridge,
brue, or sell ale, &c. He ys not to bee punished by the
Justices for the multytude of his women, untyll the basterds
whereof he is the reputed father bee brought in. I am the more
boulde to wryte so longe of this sorrie matter, in respect you
maye take so much better knowledge of S{r} Jo. Bentley, and his
p'tialytie in so vile a cause; and esteeme and judge of him
accordinge to y{r} wisdome and good discretion. Thus, humbly
cravinge p'don, I com̄itt y{r} good Wors. to the everlasting
Lorde, who ever keepe you. This 12th of Octob. 1609.
"Yo{r} La' humble poore tenant, at comandm{t}.
"AD. SLACK.[93:A]
"To the right wor{ll} my good Ladie, the
La. Bowes of Walton, geive theise."
That men who could thus debase themselves should be held in little
esteem, and their services ill requited, cannot excite our wonder; and
we consequently read without surprise, that in the days of Elizabeth,
the minstrel and the cook were often better paid than the priest;—thus
on the books of the Stationers' Company for the year 1560, may be found
the following entry:
_s._ _d._
"Item, payd to the preacher vi 2
Item, payd to the minstrell xij 0
Item, payd to the coke xv 0"[93:B]
Let us not conclude, however, that the age of Shakspeare was without
instances of a far different kind, and that religion and virtue were
altogether excluded from what ought to have been their most favoured
abode; it will be sufficient to mention the name of _Bernard Gilpin_,
the most exemplary of parish-priests, whose humility, benevolence,
and exalted piety were never exceeded, and whose ministerial labours
were such as to form a noble contrast to the shameful neglect of the
pastoral care which existed around him. Indeed we are inclined to
infer, notwithstanding the numerous individual instances of profligacy
and dissipation which may be brought forward, that the country clergy
then, as now, if considered in the aggregate, possessed more real
virtue and utility than any other equally numerous body of men; but
that aberrations from the stricter decency of their order were, as is
still very properly the case in the present day, marked with avidity,
and censured with abhorrence. To the younger clergy in the country,
also, was frequently committed the task of education, a labour of
unspeakable importance, but in the period of which we are writing,
attended too often with the most undeserved contumely and contempt.
In the Scholemaster of Ascham may be found the most bitter complaints
of the barbarous and disgraceful treatment of the able instructor of
youth; and the following sketches of the clerical tutor from Peacham
and Hall, will still further heighten and authenticate the picture.
The former of these writers observes, "Such is the most base and
ridiculous parsimony of many of our Gentlemen, (if I may so terme
them) that if they can procure some poore Batchelor of Art from the
Universitie to teach their children to say grace, and serve the cure of
an impropriation, who wanting meanes and friends, will be content upon
the promise of ten pounds a yeere at his first comming, to be pleased
with five; the rest to be set off in hope of the next advouson, (which
perhaps was sold before the young man was borne): Or if it chance to
fall in his time, his lady or master tels him; 'Indeed Sir we are
beholden unto you for your paines, such a living is lately falne, but I
had before made a promise of it to my butler or bailiffe, for his true
and extraordinary service.'
"Is it not commonly seene, that the most Gentlemen will give better
wages, and deale more bountifully with a fellow who can but a dogge,
or reclaime a hawke, than upon an honest, learned, and well qualified
man to bring up their children? It may be, hence it is, that dogges
are able to make syllogismes in the fields, when their young masters
can conclude nothing at home, if occasion of argument or discourse be
offered at the table."[95:A]
The domestic chaplain of Bishop Hall is touched with a glowing pencil,
and while it faithfully exhibits the servile and depressed state of the
poor tutor, is, at the same time, wrought up with much point and humour.
"A gentle squire would gladly entertaine
Into his house some trencher-chapelaine;
Some willing man, that might instruct his sons.
And that would stand to good conditions.
First, that he lie upon the truckle-bed,
While his young maister lieth o'er his head:
Second, that he do, upon no default,
Never presume to sit above the salt:
Third, that he never change his trencher twise;
Fourth, that he use all common courtesies;
Sit bare at meales, and one half rise and wait:
Last, that he never his young maister beat;
But he must aske his mother to define
How manie jerks she would his breech should line.
All these observ'd, he could contented be,
To give five markes, and winter liverie."[95:B]
From the description of the character of the country clerical tutor, it
is an easy transition to that of the _rural pedagogue or schoolmaster_,
a personage of not less consequence in the days of Elizabeth, than in
the present period. He frequently combined, indeed, in the sixteenth
century, the reputation of a conjuror with that of a schoolmaster,
and accordingly in the _Comedy of Errors_, _Pinch_, in the dramatis
personæ, is described as "a schoolmaster, and a conjuror," and the
following not very amiable portrait of his person is given towards the
conclusion of the play:—
"They brought one Pinch; a hungry lean-faced villain,
A meer anatomy, a mountebank,
A thread-bare juggler, and a fortune-teller;
A needy, hollow-eye'd, sharp-looking wretch,
A living dead man: this pernicious slave,
Forsooth, took him on as conjuror."[96:A]
Ben Jonson also alludes to this union of occupations when he says,
"I would have ne'er a cunning _schoolemaster_ in England, I mean a
Cunningman as a schoolemaster; that is, a Conjurour."[96:B]
A less formidable figure of a schoolmaster has been given us by
Shakspeare, under the character of Holofernes, in _Love's Labour's
Lost_, where he has drawn a full-length caricature of the too frequent
pedantry of this profession. Yet Holofernes, though he speak _a
leash of languages at once_, is not deficient either in ability or
discrimination; he ridicules with much good sense and humour the
literary fops of his day, the "rackers of orthography;" and his
conversation is described by his friend, Sir Nathaniel, the Curate,
as possessing all the requisites to perfection. "Sir: your reasons at
dinner have been sharp and sententious; pleasant without scurrility,
witty without affection, audacious without impudency, learned without
opinion, and strange without heresy."[96:C] "It is very difficult,"
remarks Dr. Johnson, "to add any thing to this character of the
schoolmaster's table-talk, and perhaps all the precepts of Castiglione
will scarcely be found to comprehend a rule for conversation so justly
delineated, so widely dilated, and so nicely limited."[96:D]
The country-schoolmasters in the reigns of Elizabeth and James, were,
however, if we trust to the accounts of Ascham and Peacham, in general
many degrees below the pedagogue of Shakspeare in ability; tyranny and
ignorance appear to have been their chief characteristics; to such an
extent, indeed, were they deficient in point of necessary knowledge,
that Peacham, speaking of bad masters, declares, "it is a generall
plague and complaint of the whole land; for, for one discreet and able
teacher, you shall finde twenty ignorant and carelesse; who (among so
many fertile and delicate wits as _England_ affordeth) whereas they
make one scholler, they marre ten."[97:A]
Ascham had endeavoured, by every argument and mode of persuasion in
his power, to check the severe and indiscriminate discipline which
prevailed among the teachers in his time; it would seem in vain; for
Peacham, about the year 1620, found it necessary to recommend lenity
in equally strenuous terms, and has given a minute and we have no
doubt a faithful picture of the various cruelties to which scholars
were then subjected; a summary of the result of this conduct may be
drawn, indeed, from his own words, where he says, "Masters for the
most part so behave themselves, that their very name is hatefull to
the scholler, who trembleth at their comming in, rejoyceth at their
absence, and looketh his master (returned) in the the face, as his
deadly enemy."[97:B]
To the charges of undue severity and defective literature, we must
add, I am afraid, the infinitely more weighty accusation of frequent
immorality and buffoonery. Ludovicus Vives, who wrote just before
the age of Shakspeare, asserts, that "some schoolmasters taught
Ovid's books of love to their scholars, and some made expositions,
and expounded the vices[97:C];" and Peacham, at the close of the era
we are considering, censures in the strongest terms their too common
levity and misconduct: "the diseases whereunto some of them are very
subject, are _humour_ and _folly_ (that I may say nothing of the grosse
ignorance and insufficiency of many) whereby they become ridiculous and
contemptible both in the schoole and abroad. Hence it comes to passe,
that in many places, especially in Italy, of all professions that of
_pedanteria_ is held in basest repute: the schoole-master almost in
every comedy being brought upon the stage, to paralell the _Zani_
or _Pantaloun_. He made us good sport in that excellent comedy of
_Pedantius_, acted in our Trinity Colledge in _Cambridge_, and if I be
not deceived, in _Priscianus Vapulans_, and many of our English plays.
"I knew one, who in winter would ordinarily in a cold morning, whip his
boyes over for no other purpose than to get himselfe a heat: another
beat them for swearing, and all the while he sweares himself with
horrible oathes, he would forgive any fault saving that.
"I had I remember myselfe (neere _S. Albanes_ in _Hertfordshire_, where
I was borne) a master, who by no entreaty would teach any scholler he
had, farther than his father had learned before him; as, if he had
onely learned but to reade English, the sonne, though he went with
him seven yeeres, should goe no further: his reason was, they would
then proove saucy rogues, and controule their fathers; yet these are
they that oftentimes have our hopefull gentry under their charge and
tuition, to bring them in science and civility."[98:A]
We must, I apprehend, from these representations, be induced to
conclude, that ignorance, despotism, and self-sufficiency were leading
features in the composition of the country-schoolmaster, during this
period of our annals; it would not be just, however, to infer from
these premises that the larger schools were equally unfortunate in
their conductors; on the contrary, most of the public seminaries of
the capital, and many in the large provincial towns, were under the
regulation of masters highly respectable for their erudition, men,
indeed, to whom neither Erasmus nor Joseph Scaliger would have refused
the title of ripe and good scholars.
We shall now pass forward, in the series of our rural characters, to
the delineation of one of great importance in a national point of view,
that of the substantial Farmer or Yeoman, of whom Harrison has left
us the following interesting definition:—"This sort of people have
a certaine preheminence, and more estimation than labourers and the
common sort of artificers, and these commonlie live wealthilie, kéepe
good houses, and travell to get riches. They are also for the most part
farmers to gentlemen, or at the leastwise artificers, and with grazing,
frequenting of markets, and kéeping of servants (not idle servants, as
the gentlemen doo, but such as get both their owne and part of their
masters living) do come to great welth, in somuch that manie of them
are able and doo buie the lands of unthriftie gentlemen, and often
setting their sonnes to the schooles, to the universities, and to the
Ins of the court; or otherwise leaving them sufficient lands whereupon
they may live without labour, doo make them by those meanes to become
gentlemen: these were they that in times past made all France afraid.
And albeit they be not called master, as gentlemen are, or sir as to
knights apperteineth, but onelie John and Thomas, &c.: yet have they
beene found to have doone verie good service: and the kings of England
in foughten battels, were woont to remaine among them (who were their
footmen) as the French kings did amongst their horssemen: the prince
thereby shewing where his chiefe strength did consist."[99:A]
After this description of the rank which the farmer held in society,
we shall proceed to state the mode in which he commonly lived in the
age of Elizabeth; and in doing this we have chosen, as usual, to adopt
at considerable length the language of our old writers; a practice to
which we shall in future adhere, while detailing the manners, customs,
&c. of our ancestors, a practice which has indeed peculiar advantages;
for the authenticity of the source is at once apparent, the diction
possesses a peculiar charm from its antique cast, and the expression
has a raciness and force of colouring, which owes its origin to actual
inspection, and which, consequently, it is in vain to expect, on such
subjects, from modern composition.
The houses or cottages of the farmer were built, in places abounding
in wood, in a very strong and substantial manner, with not more than
four, six, or nine inches between stud and stud; but in the open and
champaine country, they were compelled to use more flimsy materials,
with here and there a girding to which they fastened their splints, and
then covered the whole with thick clay to keep out the wind. "Certes
this rude kind of building," says Harrison, "made the Spaniards in
quéene Maries daies to wonder, but chéeflie when they saw what large
diet was used in manie of these so homelie cottages, in so much that
one of no small reputation amongst them said after this manner: 'These
English (quoth he) have their houses made of sticks and durt, but
they fare commonlie so well as the king.' Whereby it appeareth that
he liked better of our good fare in such coarse cabins, than of their
owne thin diet in their prince-like habitations and palaces."[100:A]
The cottages of the peasantry usually consisted of but two rooms on
the ground-floor, the outer for the servants, the inner for the master
and his family, and they were thatched with straw or sedge; while the
dwelling of the substantial farmer was distributed into several rooms
above and beneath, was coated with white lime or cement, and was very
neatly roofed with reed; hence Tusser, speaking of the farm-house,
gives the following directions for repairing and preserving its thatch
in the month of May:
"Where houses be reeded (as houses have need)
Now pare of the mosse, and go beat in the reed:
The juster ye drive it, the smoother and plaine,
More handsome ye make it, to shut off the raine."[100:B]
A few years before the era of which we are treating, the venerable
Hugh Latimer, describing in one of his impressive sermons the economy
of a farmer in his time, tells us that his father, who was a yeoman,
had no land of his own, but only "a farm of three or four pounds by
the year at the utmost; and hereupon he tilled so much as kept half a
dozen men. He had a walk for an hundred sheep; and my mother milked
thirty kine. He kept his son at school till he went to the university,
and maintained him there; he married his daughters with five pounds or
twenty nobles a piece; he kept hospitality with his neighbours, and
some alms he gave to the poor; and all this he did out of the said
farm."[101:A]
Land let, at this period, it should be remembered, at about a shilling
per acre; but in the reign of Elizabeth its value rapidly increased,
together with a proportional augmentation of the comfort of the farmer,
who even began to exhibit the elegancies and luxuries of life. Of the
change which took place in rural economy towards the close of the
sixteenth century, the following faithful and interesting picture has
been drawn by the pencil of Harrison, who, noticing the additional
splendour of gentlemen's houses, remarks,—"In times past the costlie
furniture staied _there_, whereas now it is descended yet lower, even
unto manie farmers, who by vertue of their old and not of their new
leases, have for the most part learned also to garnish their cupbords
with plate, their ioined beds with tapistrie and silke hangings, and
their tables with carpets and fine naperie, whereby the wealth of our
countrie (God be praised therefore, and give us grace to imploie it
well) dooth infinitlie appeare. Neither doo I speake this in reproch
of anie man, God is my judge, but to shew that I do rejoise rather, to
see how God hath blessed us with his good gifts; and whilest I behold
how that in a time wherein all things are growen to most excessive
prices, and what commoditie so ever is to be had, is daily plucked from
the commonaltie by such as looke in to everie trade, we doo yet find
the means to obtein and atchive such furniture as here to fore hath
beene unpossible. There are old men yet dwelling in the village where
I remaine, which have noted three things to be marvellouslie altered in
England within their sound remembrance; and other three things too too
much encreased. _One_ is, the multitude of chimnies latelie erected,
wheras in their yoong daies there were not above two or three, if so
manie in most uplandish townes of the realme, (the religious houses,
and manor places of their lords alwaies excepted, and peradventure some
great personages) but ech one made his fire against a rere dosse in the
hall, where he dined and dressed his meat.
"The _second_ is the great (although not generall) amendment of
lodging, for (said they) our fathers (yea and wee ourselves also)
have lien full oft upon straw pallets, on rough mats covered onlie
with a shéet, under coverlets made of dagswain or hop harlots (I use
their owne termes) and a good round log under their heads instead of
a bolster or pillow. If it were so that our fathers or the good man
of the house, had within seven yeares after his mariage purchased
a matteres or flockebed, and thereto a sacke of chaffe to rest his
head upon, he thought himselfe to be as well lodged as the lord of
the towne, that peradventure laie seldome in a bed of downe or whole
fethers; so well were they contented, and with such base kind of
furniture: which also is not verie much amended as yet in some parts
of Bedfordshire, and elsewhere further off from our southerne parts.
Pillowes (said they) were thought méet onelie for women in child
bed. As for servants, if they had anie shéet above them it was well,
for seldome had they anie under their bodies, to kéepe them from the
pricking straws that ran oft through the canvas of the pallet, and
rased their hardened hides.
"The _third_ thing they tell of, is the exchange of vessell, as of
treene platters into pewter, and wodden spoones into silver or tin. For
so common was all sorts of tréene stuff in old time, that a man should
hardlie find four péeces of pewter (of which one was peradventure a
salt) in a good farmer's house, and yet for all this frugalitie (if it
may so be justly called) they were scarce able to live and paie their
rents at their daies without selling of a cow, or an horsse, or more,
although they paid but foure pounds at the uttermost by the yeare. Such
also was their povertie, that if some one od farmer or husbandman had
béene at the alehouse, a thing greatlie used in those daies, amongst
six or seven of his neighbours, and there in a braverie to shew what
store he had, did cast downe his purse, and therein a noble or six
shillings in silver unto them (for few such men then cared for gold
because it was not so readie paiment, and they were oft inforced to
give a penie for the exchange of an angell) it was verie likelie that
all the rest could not laie downe so much against it: whereas in my
time, although peradventure foure poundes of old rent be improved to
fortie, fiftie, or an hundred pounds, yet will the farmer as another
palme or date trée thinke his gaines verie small toward the end of
his terme, if he have not six or seven yeares rent lieing by him,
therewith to purchase a new lease, beside a faire garnish of pewter on
his cupbord, with so much in od vessell going about the house, thrée
or foure feather beds, so manie coverlids and carpets of tapistrie, a
silver salt, a bowle for wine (if not an whole neast) and a dozzen of
spoones to furnish up the sute."[103:A]
To this curious delineation of the furniture and household
accommodation of the farmer, it will be necessary, in order to complete
the sketch, to add a few things relative to his diet and hospitality.
Contrary to what has taken place in modern times, the hours for meals
were later with the artificer and the husbandman than with the higher
order of society; the farmer and his servants usually sitting down to
dinner at one o'clock, and to supper at seven, while the nobleman and
gentleman took the first at eleven in the morning, and the second at
five in the afternoon.
It would appear that, from the cottage to the palace, good eating was
as much cultivated in the days of Elizabeth as it has been in any
subsequent period; and the rites of hospitality, more especially in the
country, were observed with a frequency and cordiality which a further
progress in civilisation has rather tended to check, than to increase.
Of the larder of the cotter and the shepherd, and of the hospitality
of the former, a pretty accurate idea may be acquired from the simple
yet beautiful strains of an old pastoral bard of Elizabeth's days, who,
describing a nobleman fatigued by the chase, the heat of the weather,
and long fasting, adds that he—
"Did house him in a peakish graunge,
Within a forrest great:
Wheare, knowne, and welcom'd, as the place
And persons might afforde,
Browne bread, whig, bacon, curds, and milke,
Were set him on the borde:
A cushion made of lists, a stoole
Half backed with a houpe,
Were brought him, and he sitteth down
Besides a sorry coupe.
The poor old couple wish't their bread
Were wheat, their whig were perry,
Their bacon beefe, their milke and curds
Weare creame, to make him mery."[104:A]
The picture of the shepherd youth is so exquisitely drawn that, though
only a portion of it is illustrative of our subject, we cannot avoid
giving so much of the text as will render the figure complete.
"Sweet growte, or whig, his bottle had
As much as it might hold:
A sheeve of bread as browne as nut,
And cheese as white as snowe,
And wildings, or the season's fruite,
He did in scrip bestow:
And whil'st his py-bald curre did sleepe,
And sheep-hooke lay him by,
On hollow quilles of oten strawe
He piped melody:—
— — — — — — — With the sun
He doth his flocke unfold,
And all the day on hill or plaine
He merrie chat can hold:
And with the sun doth folde againe;
Then jogging home betime,
_He turnes a crab_, or tunes a round,
Or sings some merrie ryme:
_Nor lackes he gleeful tales to tell,
Whil'st round the bole doth trot_;
And sitteth singing care away,
Till he to bed hath got.
Theare sleeps he soundly all the night,
Forgetting morrow cares,
Nor feares he blasting of his corne
Nor uttering of his wares,
Or stormes by seas, or stirres on land,
Or cracke of credite lost,
Not spending franklier than his flocke
Shall still defray the cost.
Wel wot I, sooth they say that say:
More quiet nightes and daies
The shepheard sleepes and wakes than he
Whose cattel he doth graize."[105:A]
The lines in Italics allude to the favourite beverage of the peasantry,
and the mode in which they recreated themselves over the spicy bowl.
To _turne a crab_ is to roast a wilding or wild apple in the fire for
the purpose of being thrown hissing hot into a bowl of nut-brown ale,
into which had been previously put a toast with some spice and sugar.
To this delicious compound Shakspeare has frequently referred; thus in
_Love's Labour's Lost_ one of his designations of winter is,
"When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl:"[105:B]
and Puck, describing his own wanton tricks in _Midsummer Night's
Dream_, says—
"And sometime lurk I in a gossip's bowl,
In very likeness of a roasted crab,
And when she drinks, against her lips I bob."[106:A]
The very expression to _turn a crab_ will be found in the following
passages from two old plays, in the first of which the good man says he
will
"Sit down in _his_ chaire by _his_ wife faire Alison,
And _turne a crabbe_ in the fire;"[106:B]
and in the second, Christmas is personified
—— "sitting in a corner _turning crabs_,
Or coughing o'er a warmed pot of ale."[106:C]
Nor can we omit, in closing this series of quotations, the following
stanza of a fine old song in the curious comedy of _Gammer Gurton's
Needle_, first printed in 1575:
"I love no rost, but a nut brown toste,
and _a crab layde in the fyre_;
A lytle bread shall do me stead,
much bread I not desyre.
No froste nor snow, no winde, I trow,
can hurte me if I wolde,
I am so wrapt, and throwly lapt
of joly good ale, and olde.
Back and syde go bare, go bare,
booth foote and hande go colde;
But belly, God sende thee good ale ynoughe,
whether it be newe or olde."[106:D]
To tell gleeful tales, "whilst round the bole doth trot," was an
amusement much more common among our ancestors, during the age of
Elizabeth, and the subsequent century, than it has been in any later
period. The _Winter's Tale_ of Shakspeare owes its title to this
custom, of which an example is placed before us in the first scene of
the second act.
_Her._ Come Sir—
—— Pray you, sit by us,
And tell 's a _tale_.
_Mam._ Merry, or sad, shal't be?
_Her._ As merry as you will.[107:A]
And Burton, the first edition of whose Anatomy of Melancholy was
published in 1617, enumerates, among the ordinary recreations of
Winter, "merry tales of errant knights, queens, lovers, lords, ladies,
giants, dwarfs, thieves, cheaters, witches, fayries, goblins, friars,
&c.—which some delight to hear, some to tell; all are well pleased
with;" and he remarks shortly afterwards, "when three or four good
companions meet, they tell old stories by the fire-side, or in the sun,
as old folks usually do, remembering afresh and with pleasure antient
matters, and such like accidents, which happened in their younger
years."[107:B] Milton also, in his _L'Allegro_, first printed in 1645,
gives a conspicuous station
—— "to the spicy nut-brown ale,
With stories told of many a feat:"
and adds,
"Thus done the tales, to bed they creep,
By whispering winds soon lull'd to sleep."[107:C]
The farmer's daily diet may be drawn with sufficient accuracy from
the curious old Georgic of Tusser, a poem which, more than any other
that we possess, throws light upon the agricultural manners and customs
of the age. In Lent, says this entertaining bard, the farmer must in
the first place consume his red herring, and afterwards his salt fish,
which should be kept in store, indeed, and considered as good even when
Lent is past, and with these leeks and peas should be procured for
pottage, with the view of saving milk, oatmeal, and bread: at Easter
veale and bacon are to be the chief articles; at Martilmas salted beef,
"when country folk do dainties lack:" at Midsummer, when mackrel are
out of season, grasse (that is sallads, &c.) fresh beef and pease: at
Michaelmas fresh herring and fatted [108:A]crones: at All Saints pork
and souse, sprats and spurlings: at Christmas he enjoins the farmer
to "plaie and make good cheere," and he concludes by advising him, as
was the custom in Elizabeth's time, to observe Fridays, Saturdays, and
Wednesdays as fish-days; to "keep embrings well and fasting dayes,"
and of fish and fruit be scarce, to supply their want with butter and
cheese.[108:B] To these recommendations he adds, in another place, that
"Good ploughmen look weekly of custom and right,
For rostmeat on sundaies, and thursday at night:"
and he subsequently gives directions for writing what he terms
"husbandlie posies," that is, economical proverbs in rhyme, to be hung
up in the Hall, the parlour, the Ghest's chamber, and the good man's
own bed chamber.[108:C]
If the farmer have a visitor, our worthy bard is not illiberal in
his allowance, but advises him to place three dishes on his table at
dinner, well dressed, which, says he, will be sufficient to pleese
your friend, and will _become_ your Hall.[109:A]
On days of feasting and rejoicing, however, it appears to have been
a common custom for the guests to bring their victuals with them,
forming as it were a pic-nic meal; thus, Harrison, describing the
occasional mirth and hospitality of the farmer, says,—"In feasting
the husbandmen doo exceed after their maner: especiallie at bridales,
purifications of women, and such od meetings, where it is incredible
to tell what meat is consumed and spent, ech one bringing such a dish,
or so manie with him as his wife and he doo consult upon, but alwaies
with this consideration, that the léefer fréend shall have the better
provision. This also is commonlie séene at these bankets, that the good
man of the house is not charged with any thing saving bread, drink,
sauce, houseroome, and fire. (He then gives us the following naïve
and pleasing picture of their festivity and content.) The husbandmen
are sufficientlie liberall, and verie fréendlie at their tables, and
when they méet, they are so merie without malice, and plaine without
inward Italian or French craft and subtiltie, that it would doo a
man good to be in companie among them. Herein only are the inferiour
sort somewhat to be blamed, that being thus assembled, their talke is
now and then such as savoureth of scurrilitie and ribaldrie, a thing
naturallie incident to carters and clowns, who thinke themselves not to
be merie and welcome, if their foolish veines in this behalfe be never
so little restreined. This is moreover to be added in these meetings,
that if they happen to stumble upon a péece of venison, and a cup of
wine or verie strong beere or ale (which latter they commonlie provide
against their appointed daies) they thinke their chéere so great, and
themselves to have fared so well, as the lord Maior of London, with
whome when their bellies be full they will not often sticke to make
comparison, (saying, _I have dined so well as my lord maior_) because
that of a subject there is no publike officer of anie citie in Europe,
that may compare in port and countenance with him during the time of
his office."[109:B]
The dress of the farmer during the middle of the sixteenth century
was plain and durable; consisting, for common purposes, of coarse gray
cloth or fustian, in the form of trunk-hose, frock, or doublet.
To this account of the farmer's mode of living, it will be proper to
add a brief description of his coadjutor in domestic economy, the
English housewife, a personage of no small importance; for, as honest
Tusser has justly observed,
"House keping and husbandry, if it be good,
must love one another, as cousinnes in blood.
The wife to, must husband as well as the man,
or farewel thy husbandry, doe what thou can."[110:A]
Of the qualifications necessary to constitute this useful character,
Gervase Markham has given us a very curious detail, in his work
entitled "The English Housewife;" which, though not published until the
close of the Shakspearian era, appears, from the dedication to Frances,
Countess Dowager of Exeter, to have been written long anterior to its
transmission to the press; for it is there said, "That much of it was
a manuscript which many years ago belonged to an honourable Countess,
one of the greatest glories of our[110:B] kingdom." It is a delineation
which, as supposed of easy practical application, does honour to the
sex and to the age. After expatiating on the necessity of a religious
example to her household, on the part of the good housewife, he thus
proceeds:
"Next unto her sanctity and holiness of life, it is meet that our
_English_ Housewife be a woman of great modesty and temperance, as
well inwardly as outwardly; inwardly, as in her behaviour and carriage
towards her husband, wherein she shall shun all violence of rage,
passion and humour, coveting less to direct than to be directed,
appearing ever unto him pleasant, amiable and delightful; and, tho'
occasion of mishaps, or the mis-government of his will may induce her
to contrary thoughts, yet vertuously to suppress them, and with a
mild sufferance rather to call him home from his error, than with the
strength of anger to abate the least spark of his evil, calling into
her mind, that evil and uncomely language is deformed, though uttered
even to servants; but most monstrous and ugly, when it appears before
the presence of a husband: outwardly, as in her apparel, and dyet, both
which she shall proportion according to the competency of her husband's
estate and calling, making her circle rather strait than large: for it
is a rule, if we extend to the uttermost, we take away increase; if we
go a hairs bredth beyond, we enter into consumption: but if we preserve
any part, we build strong forts against the adversaries of fortune,
provided that such preservation be honest and conscionable: for as
lavish prodigality is brutish, so miserable covetousness is hellish.
Let therefore the Housewife's garments be comely and strong, made as
well to preserve the health, as to adorn the person, altogether without
toyish garnishes, or the gloss of light colours, and as far from the
vanity of new and fantastick fashions, as near to the comely imitation
of modest matrons. Let her dyet be wholesome and cleanly, prepared at
due hours, and cook'd with care and diligence, let it be rather to
satisfie nature, than her affections, and _apter_ to kill _hunger_ than
revive _new_ appetites; let it proceed _more_ from the provision of
her own yard, than the furniture of the markets; and let it be rather
esteemed for the familiar acquaintance she hath without it, than for
the strangeness and rarity it bringeth from other countries.
"To conclude, _our English_ Housewife must be of chast thoughts,
stout courage, patient, untired, watchful, diligent, witty, pleasant,
constant in friendship, full of good neighbour-hood, wise in discourse,
but not frequent therein, sharp and quick of speech, but not bitter
or talkative, secret in her affairs, comfortable in her counsels, and
generally skilful in the worthy knowledges which do belong to her
vocation."[111:A]
These knowledges, he then states, should consist in an intimacy with
domestic physic, with cookery, with the distillation of waters,
with the making and preserving of wines, with the making and dying
of cloth, with the conduct of dairies, and with malting, brewing,
and baking; for all which he gives very ample directions. Markham,
indeed, seems to have taken the greater part of this picture from his
predecessor Tusser, in whose poems on husbandry may be found, among
many others, the following excellent precepts for the conduct of the
good house-wife:—
"In Marche and in Aprill from morning to night:
in sowing and setting good huswives delight.
To have in their garden or some other plot:
to trim up their house and to furnish their pot.
Have millons at Mihelmas, parsneps in lent:
in June, buttred beanes, saveth fish to be spent.
With those and good pottage inough having than:
thou winnest the heart of thy laboring man.
From Aprill begin til saint Andrew be past:
so long with good huswives their dairies doe last.
Good milche bease and pasture, good husbandes provide:
good huswives know best all the rest how to guide.
But huswives, that learne not to make their owne cheese:
with trusting of others, have thes for their feese.
Their milke slapt in corners their creame al to sost:
their milk pannes so flotte, that their cheeses be lost.
Where some of a kowe maketh yerely a pounde:
these huswives crye creake for their voice will not sounde.
The servauntes suspecting their dame, lye in waighte:
with one thing or other they trudge away straight.
Then neighbour (for god's sake) if any such be:
if you know a good servant, waine her to me.
Such maister, suche man, and such mistres such mayde:
such husbandes and huswives, suche houses araide.
For flax and for hemp, for to have of her owne:
the wife must in May take good hede it be sowne.
And trimme it and kepe it to serve at a nede:
the femble to spin and the karle for her fede.
Good husbandes abrode seketh al wel to have:
good huswives at home seketh al wel to save.
Thus having and saving in place where they meete:
make profit with pleasure suche couples to greete.[113:A]"
But it is in "The points of _Huswifry_ united to the comfort of
_Husbandry_," of the good old poet, that we recognise the most perfect
picture of the domestic economy of agricultural life in the days of
Elizabeth. This material addition to the husbandry of our author
appeared in 1570, and embraces a complete view of the province of the
_Huswife_, with all her daily labours and duties, which are divided
into—1st, _Morning Works_; 2dly, _Breakfast Doings_; 3dly, _Dinner
Matters_; 4thly, _Afternoon Works_; 5thly, _Evening Works_; 6thly,
_Supper-Matters_; and 7thly, _After-Supper Matters_.
From the details of this arrangement we learn, that the servants in
summer rose at four, and in winter at five o'clock; that in the latter
season they were called to breakfast on the appearance of the day-star,
and that the huswife herself was the carver and distributer of the
meat and pottage. We find, likewise, and it is the only objectionable
article in the admonitions of the poet, that he recommends his dame
not to scold, but to thrash heartily her maids when refractory; and he
adds a circumstance rather extraordinary, but at the same time strongly
recommendatory of the effects of music, that
"Such servants are oftenest painfull and good,
That sing in their labour, as birds in the wood."
Dinner, he enjoins, should be taken at noon; should be quickly
dispatched; and should exhibit plenty, but no dainties.
The bare table, he observes, will do as well, as if covered with a
cloth, which is liable to be cut; and that wooden and pewter dishes and
tin vessels for liquor are the best, as most secure; and then, with his
accustomed piety, he advises the regular use of grace—
"At dinner, at supper, at morning, at night,
Give thanks unto God."
As soon as dinner is over, the servants are again set to work, and he
very humanely adds,
"To servant in seikness, see nothing ye grutch,
A thing of a trifle shall comfort him much."
Many precepts, strictly economical, then follow, in which the huswife
is directed to save her parings, drippings, and skimmings for the sake
of her poultry, and for "medicine for cattle, for cart, and for shoe;"
to employ the afternoon, like a good sempstress, in making and mending;
to keep her maids cleanly in their persons, to call them quarterly to
account, to mark and number accurately her linen, to save her feathers,
to use little spice, and to make her own candle.
The business of the evening commences with preparations for supper,
as soon as the hens go to roost; the hogs are then to be served, the
cows milked, and as night comes on, the servants return, but none
empty-handed, some bringing in wood, some logs, &c. The cattle, both
without and within doors, are next to be attended to, all clothes
brought into the house, and no door left unbolted, and the duties of
the evening close with this injunction:
"Thou woman, whom pity becometh the best,
Grant all that hath laboured time to take rest."
Supper now is spread, and the scene opens with an excellent persuasive
to cheerfulness and hospitality:
"Provide for thy husband, to make him good cheer,
Make merry together, while time ye be here.
A-bed and at board, howsoever befall,
Whatever God sendeth, be merry withall.
No taunts before servants, for hindering of fame,
No jarring too loud, for avoiding of shame."
The servants are then ordered to be courteous, and attentive to each
other, especially at their meals, and directions are given for the next
morning's work.
The last section, entitled "After-supper matters," is introduced and
terminated in a very moral and impressive manner. The first couplet
tells us to
"Remember those children, whose parents be poor,
Which hunger, yet dare not to crave at thy door;"
the bandog is then ordered to have the bones and the scraps; the
huswife looks carefully to the fire, the candle, and the keys; the
whole family retire to rest, at nine in winter, and at ten in summer,
and the farmer's day closes with four lines which ought to be written
in letters of gold, and which, if duly observed, would ensure a great
portion of the happiness obtainable by man:
"Be lowly, not sullen, if aught go amiss,
What wresting may lose thee, that win with a kiss.
Both bear and forbear, now and then as ye may,
Then wench, God a mercy! thy husband will say."[115:A]
Frugality and domestic economy were not, however, the constant
attributes of the farmer's wife in the age of which we are treating;
the luxury of dress, both in England and Scotland, had already
corrupted the simplicity of country-habits. Stephen Perlet, who
visited Scotland in 1553, and Fines Moryson, who made a similar tour
in 1598[118:A], agree in describing the dress of the common people
of both countries as nearly if not altogether the same; the picture,
therefore, which Dunbar has given us of the dress of a rich farmer's
wife, in Scotland, during the middle of the sixteenth century, will
apply, with little fear of exaggeration, to the still wealthier dames
of England. He has drawn her in a robe of fine scarlet with a white
hood; a gay purse and gingling keys pendant at her side from a silken
belt of silver tissue; on each finger she wore two rings, and round her
waste was bound a sash of grass-green silk, richly embroidered with
silver.[118:B] To this rural extravagancy in dress, Warner will bear an
equal testimony; for, describing two old gossips cowering over their
cottage-fire, and chatting how the world was changed in their time,
"When we were maids (quoth one of them)
Was no such new found pride:
Then wore they shooes of ease, now of
An inch-broad, corked hye:
Black karsie stockings, worsted now,
Yea silke of youthful'st dye:
Garters of lystes, but now of silke,
Some edged deep with gold:
With costlier toyes, for courser turns,
Than us'd, perhaps of old.
Fring'd and ymbroidered petticoats
Now begge. But heard you nam'd,
Till now of late, busks, perrewigs,
Maskes, plumes of feathers fram'd,
Supporters, posters, fardingales
Above the loynes to waire,
That be she near so bombe-thin, yet
She crosse-like seems foure-squaire?
Some wives, grayheaded, shame not locks
Of youthfull borrowed haire:
Some, tyring arte, attyer their heads
With only tresses bare:
Some, (grosser pride than which, think I,
No passed age might shame)
By arte, abusing nature, heads
Of antick't hayre doe frame.
Once starching lack't the tearme, because
Was lacking once the toy,
And lack't we all these toyes and tearmes,
It were no griefe but joy.—
Now dwels ech drossell in her glas:
When I was yong, I wot,
On holly-dayes (for sildome els
Such ydell times we got)
A tubb or paile of water cleere
Stood us in steede of glas."[119:A]
Luxury and extravagance soon spread beyond the female circle, and the
_Farmer's Heir_ of forty pounds a year, is described by Hall, in 1598,
as dissipating his property on the follies and fopperies of the day.
"Vilius, the wealthy farmer, left his heire
Twice twenty sterling pounds to spend by yeare:—
But whiles ten pound goes to his wife's new gowne,
Nor little lesse can serve to suit his owne;
Whiles one piece pays her idle waiting-man,
Or buys an hoode, or silver-handled fanne,
Or hires a Friezeland trotter, halfe yard deepe,
To drag his tumbrell through the staring Cheape;
Or whiles he rideth with two liveries,
And's treble rated at the subsidies;
One end a kennel keeps of thriftlesse hounds;
What think ye rests of all my younker's pounds
To diet him, or deal out at his doore,
To coffer up, or stocke his wasting store?"[119:B]
In contrast to this character, who keeps a pack of hounds, and sports
a couple of liveries, it will be interesting to bring forward the
picture of the _poor copyholder_, as drawn by the same masterly pencil;
the description of the wretched hovel is given in all the strength of
minute reality, and the avidity of the avaricious landlord is wrought
up with several strokes of humour.
"Of one bay's breadth, God wot, a silly cote,
Whose thatched spars are furr'd with sluttish soote
A whole inch thick, shining like black-moor's brows,
Through smoke that downe the headlesse barrel blows.
At his bed's feete feeden his stalled teame,
His swine beneath, his pullen o'er the beame.
A starved tenement, such as I guesse
Stands straggling on the wastes of Holdernesse:
Or such as shivers on a Peake hill side, &c.—
Yet must he haunt his greedy landlord's hall
With often presents at each festivall:
With crammed capons everie new-yeare's morne,
Or with greene cheese when his sheepe are shorne:
Or many maunds-full of his mellow fruite,
To make some way to win his weighty suite.—
The smiling landlord shews a sunshine face,
Feigning that he will grant him further grace;
And leers like Esop's foxe upon the crane,
Whose neck he craves for his chirurgian."[120:A]
We shall close these characters, illustrative of rural manners, as they
existed in the reigns of Elizabeth and James 1st, with a delineation
of the _plain Country Fellow or down right Clown_, from the accurate
pen of Bishop Earle, who has touched this homely subject with singular
point and spirits.
"A _plain country fellow_ is one that manures his ground well, but
lets himself lye fallow and untilled. He has reason enough to do his
business, and not enough to be idle or melancholy. He seems to have
the punishment of _Nebuchadnezzar_, for his conversation is among
beasts, and his tallons none of the shortest, only he eats not grass,
because he loves not sallets. His hand guides the plough, and the
plough his thoughts, and his ditch and land-mark is the very mound of
his meditations. He expostulates with his oxen very understandingly,
and speaks gee, and ree, better than English. His mind is not much
distracted with objects, but if a good fat cow come in his way, he
stands dumb and astonished, and though his haste be never so great,
will fix here half an hour's contemplation. His habitation is some poor
thatched roof, distinguished from his barn by the loop-holes that let
out smoak, which the rain had long since washed through, but for the
double ceiling of bacon on the inside, which has hung there from his
grandsire's time, and is yet to make rashers for posterity. His dinner
is his other work, for he sweats at it as much as at his labour; he
is a terrible fastner on a piece of beef, and you may hope to stave
the guard off sooner. His religion is a part of his copy-hold, which
he takes from his land-lord, and refers it wholly to his discretion:
yet if he give him leave he is a good Christian to his power, (that
is,) comes to church in his best cloaths, and sits there with his
neighbours, where he is capable only of two prayers, for rain, and
fair weather. He apprehends God's blessings only in a good year, or a
fat pasture, and never praises him but on _good ground_. Sunday, he
esteems a day to make merry in, and thinks a bag-pipe as essential to
it as evening prayer, where he walks very solemnly after service with
his hands coupled behind him, and censures the dancing of his parish.
His compliment with his neighbour is a good thump on the back, and his
salutation commonly some blunt curse. He thinks nothing to be vices,
but pride and ill husbandry, from which he will gravely dissuade the
youth, and has some thrifty hob-nail proverbs to clout his discourse.
He is a niggard all the week, except only market-day, where, if his
corn sell well, he thinks he may be drunk with a good conscience. He
is sensible of no calamity but the burning a stack of corn or the
overflowing of a meadow, and thinks Noah's flood the greatest plague
that ever was, not because it drowned the world, but spoiled the
grass. For death he is never troubled, and if he get in but his harvest
before, let it come when it will, he cares not."[122:A]
The _nine_ characters which have now passed in brief review before us,
namely, the _Rural Squire_; the _Rural Coxcomb_; the _Rural Clergyman_;
the _Rural Pedagogue_; the _Farmer_ or _substantial Yeoman_; the
_Farmer's Wife_; the _Farmer's Heir_; the _Poor Copyholder_, and the
mere _Ploughman_ or _Country Boor_, will, to a certain extent, point
out the personal manners, condition, and mode of living of those
who inhabited the country, during the period in which Shakspeare
flourished. They have been given from the experience, and, generally,
in the very words of contemporary writers, and may, therefore, be
considered as faithful portraits. To complete the picture, a further
elucidation of the customs of the country, as drawn from its principal
occurrences and events, will be the subject of the ensuing chapter, in
which the references to the works of our immortal bard will be more
frequent than could take place while collecting mere out-line draughts
of rural character.
FOOTNOTES:
[68:A] Holinshed's Chronicles, edit. of 1807, in six vols. 4to. vol. i.
p. 276.
[68:B] Holinshed, vol. i. p. 273.
[69:A] Taming of the Shrew, act ii. sc. 1.
[70:A] Of the very rare tract from which these extracts are taken, the
following is the entire title-page:—"The Gentleman's Academie; or,
the Booke of St. Albans: containing three most exact and excellent
Bookes: the first of Hawking, the second of all the proper Termes of
Hunting, and the last of Armorie: all compiled by Juliana Barnes, in
the Yere from the Incarnation of Christ 1486. And now reduced into a
better method, by G. M. London. Printed for Humphrey Lownes, and are to
be sold at his shop in Paules Church-yard, 1595." This curious edition
of the _Booke of St. Albans_, accommodated to the days of Shakspeare,
contains 95 leaves 4to. and I shall add the interesting dedication:
"To the Gentlemen of England:
and all good fellowship
of Huntsmen and
Falconers.
"Gentlemen, this booke, intreting of Hawking, Hunting, and Armorie;
the originall copie of the which was doone at St. Albans, about what
time the excellent arte of printing was first brought out of Germany,
and practised here in England: which booke, because of the antiquitie
of the same, and the things therein contained, being so necessarie and
behovefull to the accomplishment of the gentlemen of this flourishing
ile, and others which take delight in either of these noble sports, or
in that heroicall and excellent study of Armory, I have revived and
brought again to light the same which was almost altogether forgotten,
and either few or none of the perfect copies thereof remaining, except
in their hands, who wel knowing the excellency of the worke, and the
rarenesse of the booke, smothered the same from the world, thereby to
inrich themselves in private with the knowledge of these delights.
Therfore I humbly crave pardon of the precise and judicial reader,
if sometimes I use the words of the ancient authour, in such plaine
and homely English, as that time affoorded, not being so regardful,
nor tying myself so strictly to deliver any thing in the proper and
peculiar wordes and termes of arte, which for the love I beare to
antiquitie, and to the honest simplicitie of those former times, I
observe as wel beseeming the subject, and no whit disgracefull to the
worke, our tong being not of such puritie then, as at this day the
poets of our age have raised it to: of whom, and in whose behalf I wil
say thus much, that our nation may only thinke herself beholding for
the glory and exact compendiousnes of our longuage. Thus submitting our
academy to your kind censures and friendly acceptance of the same, and
requesting you to reade with indifferency, and correct with judgement;
I commit you to God.
G. M."
From this dedication we learn that the original edition of the Booke
of St. Albans was as scarce towards the close of the sixteenth century
as at the present day; that "few or none of the perfect copies" were
to be obtained; for that those were in the hands of _Bibliomaniacs_
who (like too many now existing) "smother'd them from the world." We
have, therefore, every reason to conclude, from "the rarenesse (and
consequent value) of the booke" of 1486, that the copy of Juliana's
work in the library of Shakspeare, was the edition by Markham of
1595. I shall just add, that the copy now before me, was purchased at
the Roxburgh sale, for 9_l._ 19_s._ 6_d._! It is, notwithstanding,
probable, from the _peculiarities_ attending Markham's re-impression,
that this sum, great as it may appear, will be exceeded at some future
sale.
The attachment of _Gervase Markham_ to the subjects which employed
the pen of his favourite Prioress, is very happily introduced by Mr.
Dibdin, while alluding to the similar propensities of the _modern
Markham_, Mr. Haslewood. "Up starts FLORIZEL, and blows his
bugle, at the annunciation of any work, new or old, upon the
diversions of _Hawking_, _Hunting_, or _Fishing_! Carry him through
CAMILLO'S cabinet of Dutch pictures, and you will see how
instinctively, as it were, his eyes are fixed upon a sporting piece by
Wouvermans. The hooded hawk, in his estimation, hath more charms than
Guido's Madonna:—how he envies every rider upon his white horse!—how
he burns to bestride the foremost steed, and to mingle in the fair
throng, who turn their blue eyes to the scarcely bluer expanse of
heaven! Here he recognises _Gervase Markham_, spurring his courser; and
there he fancies himself lifting _Dame Juliana_ from her horse! Happy
deception! dear fiction! says Florizel—while he throws his eyes in an
opposite direction, and views every printed book upon the subject, from
_Barnes_ to _Thornton_." Bibliomania, p. 729, 730.
The following very amusing description of "the difference twixt
Churles and Gentlemen," will prove an adequate specimen of Markham's
edition, will be appropriate to the subject in the text, and may be
compared with the accurate reprint of the edition of W. De Worde by Mr.
Haslewood.
"There was never gentleman, nor churle ordained, but hee had father and
mother: Adam and Eve had neither father nor mother, and therefore in
the sonnes of Adam and Eve, first issued out both gentleman and churle.
By the sonnes of Adam and Eve, to wit, Seth, Abell, and Caine, was the
royall blood divided from the rude and barbarous, a brother to murder
his brother contrary to the law, what could be more ungentlemanly or
vile? in that, therefore, became Caine and al his ofspring churles,
both by the curse of God, and his owne father. Seth was made a
gentleman through his father and mother's blessing, from whose loynes
issued Noah, a gentleman by kind and linage. Noah had three sonnes
truely begotten, two by the mother, named Cham and Sem, and the third
by the father called Japhet, even in these three, after the world's
inundation, was both gentlenes and vilenes discerned, in Cham was
grose barbarisme founde towardes his owne father in discovering his
privities, and deriding from whence hee proceeded. Japhet the yongest
gentlemanlike reproved his brother, which was to him reputed a vertue,
where Cham for his abortive vilenes became a churle both through the
curse of God and his father Noah. When Noah awoke, hee said to Cham his
sonne knowest not thou how it is become of Caine the sonne of Adam, and
of his churlelike blood, that for them all the worlde is drowned save
eight persons, and wilt thou nowe begin barbarisme againe, whereby the
world in after ages shall be brought to consummation? well upon thee it
shall bee and so I pray the Great one it maye fall out, for to thee I
give my curse, and withall the north part of the world, to draw thine
habitation unto, for there shall it be where sorrow, care, colde, and
as a mischievous and unrespected churle thou shall live, which part
of the earth shall be termed Europe, which is the country of churles.
Japhet come hither my sonne, on thee will I raine my blessing, deare
insteede of Seth: Adams sonne, I make thee a gentleman, and thy renowne
shall stretch through the west part of the world, and to the end of
the Occident, where wealth and grace shall flourish, there shall be
thine habitation, and thy dominion shall bee called Asia, which is the
cuntrie of gentlemen. And Sem my sonne, I make thee a gentleman also,
to multiply the blood of Abell slaine so undeservedlie, to thee I give
the orient, that part of the world which shal be called Africa, which
is the country of temperateres: and thus divided Noah the world and
his blessings. From the of-spring of gentlemanly Japhet came Abraham,
Moyses, Aaron and the Prophets, and also the king of the right line of
Mary, of whom that only absolute gentleman Jesus was borne, perfite God
and perfite man, according to his manhood king of the lande of Juda and
the Jewes, and gentleman by his mother Mary princesse of coat armor."
Fol. 44.
[72:A] Holinshed, vol. i. p. 316.
[73:A] Holinshed, vol. i. p. 315.
[73:B] Holinshed, vol. i. p. 315. 317.
[74:A] Bacon's Essayes or Counsels, 4to. edit., 1632, p. 260.
[74:B] Act v. sc. 2.
[74:C] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xv. p. 184. note 5. by Steevens.
[75:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. ix. p. 236.
[75:B] Ancient British Drama, vol. i. p. 531.
[75:C] Massinger's Plays, _apud_ Gifford, vol. iv. p. 7.
[76:A] From a MS. of Aubrey's in the Ashmole Museum, as quoted by Mr.
Malcolm in his Anecdotes of the Manners and Customs of London, part i.
p. 220. 4to.
[76:B] Aubrey's MS. Malcolm, p. 221, 222.
[79:A] Henry IV. part ii. act v. sc. 1.
[79:B] Holinshed, vol. i. p. 281. The particulars of the diet of our
ancestors in the age of Shakspeare will be given in a subsequent part
of the work.
[80:A] City Madam, act ii. sc. 1.
Gervase Markham in his English House-Wife, the first edition of which
was published not long after Shakspeare's death, after mentioning in
his second chapter, which treats of cookery, the manner of "ordering
great feasts," closes his observations under this head, with directions
for "a more humble feast, or an ordinary proportion which any good man
may keep in his family, for the entertainment of his true and worthy
friend;" this _humble feast_ or _ordinary proportion_, he proceeds
to say, should consist for the first course of "sixteen full dishes,
that is, dishes of meat that are of substance, and not empty, or for
shew—as thus, for example; first, a shield of brawn with mustard;
secondly, a boyl'd capon; thirdly, a boyl'd piece of beef; fourthly, a
chine of beef rosted; fifthly, a neat's tongue rosted; sixthly, a pig
rosted; seventhly, chewets bak'd; eighthly, a goose rosted; ninthly,
a swan rosted; tenthly, a turkey rosted; the eleventh, a haunch of
venison rosted; the twelfth, a pasty of venison; the thirteenth, a
kid with a pudding in the belly; the fourteenth, an olive-pye; the
fifteenth, a couple of capons; the sixteenth, a custard or dowsets. Now
to these full dishes may be added sallets, fricases, quelque choses,
and devised paste, as many dishes more which make the full service no
less than two and thirty dishes, which is as much as can conveniently
stand on one table, and in one mess; and after this manner you may
proportion both your second and third course, holding fulness on one
half of the dishes, and shew in the other, which will be both frugal in
the spendor, contentment to the guest, and much pleasure and delight to
the beholders." P. 100, 101. ninth edition of 1683, small 4to.
[80:B] Henry IV. part ii. act v. sc. 3.
[81:A] Holinshed, vol. i. p. 287.
[81:B] Puttenham's Art of English Poesie, p. 69, reprint of 1811.
[81:C] Ibid. p. 33.
[82:A] Macbeth, act ii. sc. 2.
[82:B] Merry Wives of Windsor, act i. sc. 4.
[82:C] Merry Wives of Windsor, act v. sc. 5.
[82:D] Heywood's Edward II. p. 1.
[82:E] Jonson's Every Man in his Humour, act i. sc. 1. Acted in the
year 1598.
[83:A] Holinshed, vol. i. p. 290.
[84:A] Chalmers' Poets, vol. iv. p. 435, 436. Drayton, Fourth Eclogue.
[84:B] "A term in hawking, signifying the short straps of leather which
are fastened to the hawk's legs, by which he is held on the fist, or
joined to the leash." Bliss.
[85:A] Earle's Microcosmography; or a Piece of the World discovered, in
Essays and Characters. Edition of 1811, by Philip Bliss.
[85:B] Hall's Satires, book v. sat. 2. printed in 1598.
[86:A] Lodge's Illustrations of British History, Biography, and
Manners, in the Reigns of Henry VIII., Edward VI., Mary, Elizabeth, and
James I., vol. ii. p. 383.
That this evil kept gradually increasing during the reign of James
I., may be proved from the testimony of Peacham and Brathwait; the
former, in his _Compleat Gentleman_, observes,—"Much doe I detest
that effeminacy of the most, that burne out day and night in their
beds, and by the fire side; in trifles, gaming, or courting their
yellow mistresses all the winter in a city; appearing but as cuckoes
in the spring, one time in the yeare to the countrey and their
tenants, leaving the care of keeping good houses at Christmas, to
the honest yeomen of the countrey;" (p. 214.) and the latter, in his
_English Gentleman_, addressing the rural fashionables of his day,
exclaims,—"Let your countrey (I say) enjoy you, who bred you, shewing
there your hospitality, where God hath placed you, and with sufficient
meanes blessed you. I doe not approve of these, who fly from their
countrey, as if they were ashamed of her, or had committed something
unworthy of her. How blame-worthy then are these _Court-comets_,
whose onely delight is to admire themselves? These, no sooner have
their bed-rid _fathers_ betaken themselves to their last home, and
removed from their crazie couch, but they are ready to sell a mannor
for a coach. They will not take it as their fathers tooke it: their
countrey houses must bee barred up, lest the poore passenger should
expect what is impossible to finde, releefe to his want, or a supply
to his necessity. No, the cage is opened, and all the birds are fled,
not one crum of comfort remaining to succour a distressed poore one.
Hospitality, which was once a _relique_ of _gentry_, and a knowne
_cognizance_ to all ancient houses, hath lost her title, meerely
through discontinuance: and _great houses_, which were at first founded
to releeve the poore, and such needfull passengers as travelled by
them, are now of no use but onely as _waymarkes_ to direct them. But
whither are these _Great ones_ gone? To the _Court_; there to spend in
boundlesse and immoderate riot, what their provident ancestors had so
long preserved, and at whose doores so many needy soules have beene
comfortably releeved." Second edition, 1633. p. 332.
In the margin of the page from which this extract is taken, occurs the
following note:—"This is excellently seconded by a Princely pen, in
a pithy poem directed to all persons to ranke or quality to leave the
Court, and returne into their owne countrey."
[86:B] In confirmation of this remark, I shall beg leave to give,
for the entertainment of my readers, the two following sketches of
country-squires, as they existed towards the middle of the seventeenth,
and commencement of the eighteenth century. "Mr. Hastings," relates
Gilpin from Hutchin's History of Dorsetshire, "was low of stature, but
strong and active, of a ruddy complexion with flaxen hair. His cloaths
were always of green cloth, his house was of the old fashion; in the
midst of a large park, well stocked with deer, rabbits, and fish-ponds.
He had a long narrow bowling green in it; and used to play with round
sand bowls. Here too he had a banquetting room built, like a stand, in
a large tree. He kept all sorts of hounds, that ran buck, fox, hare,
otter, and badger: and had hawks of all kinds, both long and short
winged. His great hall was commonly strewed with marrow bones; and full
of hawk-perches, hounds, spaniels, and terriers. The upper end of it
was hung with fox-skins, of this and the last year's killing. Here and
there a pole-cat was intermixed; and hunter's poles in great abundance.
The parlour was a large room, compleatly furnished in the same style.
On a broad hearth, paved with brick, lay some of the choicest terriers,
hounds and spaniels. One or two of the great chairs had litters of cats
in them, which were not to be disturbed. Of these, three or four always
attended him at dinner, and a little white wand lay by his trencher, to
defend it, if they were too troublesome. In the windows which were very
large, lay his arrows, cross-bows, and other accoutrements. The corners
of the room were filled with his best hunting and hawking poles. His
oyster table stood at the lower end of the room, which was in constant
use twice a day, all the year round; for he never failed to eat oysters
both at dinner and supper; with which the neighbouring town of Pool
supplied him. At the upper end of the room stood a small table with a
double desk; one side of which held a CHURCH BIBLE; the other the BOOK
OF MARTYRS. On different tables in the room lay hawk's-hoods, bells,
old hats, with their crowns thrust in, full of pheasant eggs; tables,
dice, cards, and store of tobacco pipes. At one end of this room was a
door, which opened into a closet, where stood bottles of strong beer
and wine; which never came out but in single glasses, which was the
rule of the house; for he never exceeded himself nor permitted others
to exceed. Answering to this closet, was a door into an old chapel;
which had been long disused for devotion; but in the pulpit, as the
safest place, was always to be found a cold chine of beef, a venison
pasty, a gammon of bacon, or a great apple-pye, with thick crust well
baked. His table cost him not much, though it was good to eat at. His
sports supplied all, but beef and mutton; except on Fridays, when he
had the best of fish. He never wanted a London pudding; and he always
sang it in with "_My part lies therein-a_." He drank a glass or two of
wine at meals; put syrup of gilly-flowers into his sack; and had always
a tun glass of small beer standing by him, which he often stirred about
with rosemary. He lived to be an hundred; and never lost his eye sight,
nor used spectacles. He got on horseback without help; and rode to
the death of the stag, till he was past four score." Gilpin's Forest
Scenery; vol. ii. p. 23. 26.
Mr. Dibdin, in the second edition of his Bibliomania, the most pleasing
and interesting book which Bibliography has ever produced, has quoted
the above passage, and thus alludes, in his text, to the character
which it describes:—"But what shall we say to Lord Shaftesbury's
eccentric neighbour, HENRY HASTINGS? who, in spite of his hawks,
hounds, kittens, and oysters, could not forbear to indulge his
book-propensities, though in a moderate degree! Let us fancy we see
him, in his eightieth year, just alighted from the toils of the chase,
and listening, after dinner, with his 'single glass' of ale by his
side, to some old woman with 'spectacle on nose,' who reads to him a
choice passage out of John Fox's _Book of Martyrs_! A rare old boy was
this Hastings." Bibliomania, p. 379.
Mr. Grose, the antiquary, has given us, in his sketches of some
worn-out characters of the last age, a most amusing portrait of the
country squire of Queen Anne's days: "I mean," says he, "the little
independant gentleman of three hundred pounds per annum, who commonly
appeared in a plain drab or plush coat, large silver buttons, a
jockey cap, and rarely without boots. His travels never exceeded the
distance of the county town, and that only at assize and session time,
or to attend an election. Once a week he commonly dined at the next
market town, with the attornies and justices. This man went to church
regularly, read the Weekly Journal, settled the parochial disputes
between the parish officers at the vestry, and afterwards adjourned to
the neighbouring ale-house, where he usually got drunk for the good of
his country. He never played at cards but at Christmas, when a family
pack was produced from the mantle-piece. He was commonly followed by
a couple of grey-hounds and a pointer, and announced his arrival at a
neighbours house by smacking his whip, or giving the view-halloo. His
drink was generally ale, except on Christmas, the fifth of November, or
some other gala days, when he would make a bowl of strong brandy punch
garnished with a toast and nutmeg. A journey to London was, by one of
these men, reckoned as great an undertaking, as is at present a voyage
to the East Indies, and undertaken with scarce less precaution and
preparation.
"The mansion of one of these 'Squires was of plaister striped with
timber, not unaptly called callimanco work, or of red brick, large
casemented bow windows, a porch with seats in it, and over it a study;
the eaves of the house well inhabited by swallows, and the court set
round with holly-hocks. Near the gate a horse-block for the conveniency
of mounting.
"The hall was furnished with flitches of bacon, and the mantle-piece
with guns and fishing rods of different dimensions, accompanied by the
broad sword, partizan, and dagger, borne by his ancestor in the civil
wars. The vacant spaces were occupied by stag's horns. Against the
wall was posted King Charles's Golden Rules, Vincent Wing's Almanack,
and a portrait of the Duke of Marlborough; in his window lay Baker's
Chronicle, Fox's Book of Martyrs, Glanvil on Apparitions, Quincey's
Dispensatory, the Complete Justice, and a Book of Farriery.
"In the corner, by the fire side, stood a large wooden two-armed chair
with a cushion; and within the chimney corner were a couple of seats.
Here, at Christmas, he entertained his tenants assembled round a
glowing fire made of the roots of trees, and other great logs, and told
and heard the traditionary tales of the village respecting ghosts and
witches, till fear made them afraid to move. In the mean time the jorum
of ale was in continual circulation.
"The best parlour, which was never opened but on particular occasions,
was furnished with Turk-worked chain, and hung round with portraits
of his ancestors; the men in the character of shepherds, with their
crooks, dressed in full suits and huge full-bottomed perukes: others in
complete armour or buff coats, playing on the base viol or lute. The
females likewise as shepherdesses, with the lamb and crook, all habited
in high heads and flowing robes.
"Alas! these men and these houses are no more!"
_Grose's Olio_, 2nd edit. 1796. p. 41-44.
[89:A] Richard Berket Reader, æt. 74. MS. note.
[89:B] In the margin is a MS. note seemingly in the hand-writing of
Bishop Nicholson, who gave these volumes to the library:
"Since I can remember there was not a reader in any chapel but was
called _Sir_."
[90:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. v. p. 8. note.
[90:B] Twelfth Night, act iii. sc. 4.
[91:A] Holinshed, vol. i. p. 233, 234.
[92:A] Holinshed, vol. i. p. 231.
[93:A] Lodge's Illustrations, vol. iii. p. 391.
[93:B] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xx. p. 221. note 7.
[95:A] The Compleat Gentleman. Fashioning him absolut, in the most
necessary and commendable Qualities concerning Minde or Body that may
be required in a Noble Gentleman. By Henry Peacham Master of Arts:
Sometime of Trinitie Colledge in Cambridge.
This book, which is written in an easy and elegant style, was
published in 1622, and has been several times reprinted; it is a work
of considerable interest and amusement, and throws much light on the
education and literature of its times.
[95:B] Hall's Satires, Book ii. sat. 6.
[96:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. xx. p. 451.
[96:B] The Staple of Newes, the third Intermeane after the third act.
[96:C] Act v. sc. 1.
[96:D] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. vii. p. 132. note 7.
[97:A] Compleat Gentleman, p. 22. edit. of 1634.
[97:B] Ibid. p. 25.
[97:C] Instruction of a Christian Woman, 4to. edit. of 1557.
[98:A] Compleat Gentleman, p. 26, 27.
[99:A] Holinshed, vol. i. p. 275.
[100:A] Holinshed, vol. i. p. 315.
[100:B] Three editions of Tusser's Poem on Husbandry are now before
me; the first printed in 1557, entitled _A Hundreth good Pointes of
Husbandrie_; the 4to. edition of 1586, termed _Five Hundred Pointes
of Good Husbandrie_; and _Tusser Redivivus_, by Daniel Hilman, first
published in 1710, and again in 1744; the quatrain just quoted is from
the copy of 1744, p. 56.
[101:A] Gilpin's Life of Latimer, p. 2.
[103:A] Holinshed, vol. i. p. 317, 318.
[104:A] Warner's Albion's England, chap. 42. Chalmers's English Poets,
vol. iv. p. 602.
[105:A] Warner in Chalmers's Poets, vol. iv. p. 552, 553.
[105:B] Act v. sc. 2. Song at the conclusion.
[106:A] Act ii. sc. 1.
[106:B] Damon and Pithias, 1582.
[106:C] Summer's Last Will and Testament, by Nash, 1600.
[106:D] Introductory Song to the second acte. Vide Ancient British
Drama, vol. i.
[107:A] Reed's Shakspeare, vol. ix. p. 255.
[107:B] Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, p. 172, 173., eighth edition of
1676.
[107:C] Milton's Poems by Warton, second edition, p. 56. 61.
[108:A] Crones are ewes whose teeth are so worn down, that they can no
longer live in their sheep-walk; but will sometimes, if put into good
pasture, thrive exceedingly.
[108:B] Tusser, 4to. edit. 1586., chap. 12. fol. 25, 26.
[108:C] Tusser, 4to. edit. 1586., fol. 138. 144, 145.
[109:A] Tusser, 4to. of 1586. fol. 133.
[109:B] Holinshed, vol. i. p. 282.
[110:A] Tusser, first edit. of 1557. title-page.
[110:B] The English House-Wife, containing the inward and outward
vertues which ought to be in a Compleat Woman. Ninth edition, 1683.
Dedication.
[111:A] English House-Wife, p. 2, 3, 4.
[113:A] Tusser, first edit. p. 14, 15.
[115:A] Mayor's Tusser, p. 247. ad p. 270.
Even this, and every other description of the duties of the Huswife,
may be traced to "The Book of Husbandry," written by Sir Anthony
Fitzherbert, of Norbury, in Derbyshire.
This gentleman, who was a Judge of the Common Pleas, in the reign of
Henry the Eighth, is justly entitled to the appellation of "the father
of English Husbandry." His work, the first edition of which was printed
by Richard Pynson, in 1528, 4to., underwent not less than eleven
editions during the sixteenth century, and soon excited among his
countrymen a most beneficial spirit of emulation. Notwithstanding these
numerous impressions, there are probably not ten complete copies left
in the kingdom.
One of these is, however, now before me included in a thick duodecimo,
of which the _first article_ is "Xenophon's treatise of householde,"
black letter, title wanting; the colophon, "Imprinted At London in
fletestrete in the house of Thomas Berthelet. Cum privilegio ad
imprimendum solum." No date. The _second article_ is "The booke of
Husbandrye verye profitable and necessary for all maner of persons,
newlye corrected and amended by the auctor fitzherbard, with dyvers
addicions put thereunto. Anno do. 1555," black letter. Colophon,
"Imprinted at London in Flete strete at the signe of the Sunne over
agaynst the Conduit by John Weylande." Sixty-one leaves, exclusive of
the table. The _third article_ is entitled "Surveyinge," An. 1546.
Colophon, "Londini in ædibus Thome Berthelet typis impress. Cum
privilegio ad imprimendum solum." Contains sixty leaves, black letter.
From "The booke of husbandrye," I shall extract the detail of huswifely
duties, as a specimen of the work, and as a proof of the assertion at
the commencement of this note.
"What workes a wyfe shoulde doe in generall.
"First in the mornyng when thou art wakēd and purpose to rise, lift
up thy hand, and blis the and make a signe of the holy crosse. In
nomine patris et filii et spiritus sancti. Amen. In the name of the
father y{e} sonne, and the holy gost. And if thou saye a Paternoster,
an Ave and a Crede, and remembre thy maker thou shalte spede much the
better, and when thou art up and readye, then firste swepe thy house;
dresse up the dysshe bord, and set al thynges in good order within
thy house, milke y{e} kie, socle thy calves, sile by thy milke,
take up thy children, and aray them, and provide for thy husbande's
breakefaste, diner, souper, and for thy children and servauntes, and
take thy parte wyth them. And to ordeyne corne and malt to the myll,
to bake and brue withal when nede is. And mete it to the myl and fro
the myl, and se that thou have thy mesure agayne besides the tole or
elles the mylner dealeth not truly wyth the, or els thy corne is not
drye as it should be, thou must make butter and chese when thou may,
serve thy swine both mornynge and eveninge, and give thy polen meate
in the mornynge, and when tyme of yeare cometh thou must take hede
how thy henne, duckes and geese do ley, and to gather up their egges
and when they waxe broudy to set them there as no beastes, swyne, nor
other vermyne hurt them, and thou must know that al hole foted foule
wil syt a moneth and all cloven foted foule wyll syt but three wekes
except a peyhen and suche other great foules as craynes, bustardes,
and suche other. And when they have brought forth theyr birdes to se
that they be well kepte from the gleyd, crowes fully martes and other
vermyn, and in the begynyng of March, or a lytle before is time for
a wife to make her garden and to get as manye good sedes and herbes
as she can, and specyally such as be good for the pot and for to eate
and as ofte as nede shall require it must be weded, for els the wede
wyll over grow the herbes, and also in Marche is time to sowe flaxe
and hempe for I have heard olde huswyves say, that better is Marche
hurdes than Apryll flaxe, the reason appereth, but howe it shoulde bee
sowen, weded, pulled, repealed, watred, washen, dried, beten, braked,
tawed, hecheled, spon, wounden, wrapped and oven, it nedeth not for me
to shewe, for they be wyse ynough, and thereof may they make shetes,
bordclothes, towels, shertes, smockes, and suche other necessaryes, and
therefore lette thy dystaffe be alwaye redy for a pastyme, that thou
be not ydell. And undoubted a woman can not get her livinge honestly
with spinning on the dystaffe, but it stoppeth a gap and must nedes be
had. The bolles of flaxe when they be rypled of, must be rediled from
the wedes and made dry with the sunne to get out the sedes. Now be it
one maner of linsede called loken sede wyll not open by the sunne, and
therefore when they be drye they must be sore brusen and broken the
wyves know how, and then wynowed and kept dry til peretime cum againe.
Thy femell hempe must be pulled fro the chucle hempe for this beareth
no sede and thou must doe by it as thou didest by the flaxe. The chucle
hempe doth beare sede, and thou must be ware that birdes eate it not as
it groweth, the hempe thereof is not so good as the femel hempe, but
yet it wil do good service. It may fortune sometime that thou shalte
have so many thinges to do that thou shalte not wel know where is best
to begyn. Then take hede which thing should be the greatest losse if it
were not done and in what space it woulde be done, and then thinke what
is the greatest los and ther begin. But I put case that, that thing
that is of the greatest losse wyll be longe in doing, that thou might
do thre or iiij other thinges in the meane whyle then loke wel if all
these thinges were set togyther whiche of them were greatest losse, and
yf these thynges be of greater losse, and may be al done in as shorte
space as the other, then do thy many thinges fyrst. It is convenient
for a husbande to have shepe of his owne for many causes, and then may
his wife have part of the wooll to make her husbande and her selfe sum
clothes. And at the least waye she may have the lockes of the shepe
therwith to make clothes or blankets, and coverlets, or both. And if
she have no wol of her owne she maye take woll to spynne of cloth
makers, and by that meanes she may have a convenient living, and many
tymes to do other workes. It is a wives occupacion to winow al maner of
cornes, to make malte wash and wring, to make hey, to shere corne, and
in time of nede to helpe her husbande to fyll the mucke wayne or donge
carte, dryve the plough, to lode hey corne and such other. Also to go
or ride to the market to sell butter, chese, mylke, egges, chekens,
kapons, hennes, pygges, gees, and al maner of corne. And also to bye al
maner of necessary thinges belonging to a houshold, and to make a true
rekening and accompt to her husband what she hath receyved and what
she hathe payed. And yf the husband go to the market to bye or sell as
they ofte do, he then to shew his wife in lyke maner. For if one of
them should use to disceive the other, he disceyveth himselfe, and he
is not lyke to thryve, and therfore they must be true ether to other.
I could peraventure shew the husbande of divers pointes that the wives
disceve their husbandes in, and in like maner how husbandes deceve
their wives. But yf I should do so, I shuld shew mo subtil pointes of
disceite then other of them knew of before. And therfore me semeth best
to holde my peace, leste I shuld do as the knight of the tower did the
which had many faire doghters, and of fatherlie love that he oughte to
them he made a boke unto a good intent that they mighte eschewe and
flee from vices and folowe vertues in the which boke he sheweth that
yf they were woed, moved, or styrred by any man after such a maner as
is there shewed that they shuld withstande it, in the which booke he
shewed so manye wayes how a man shuld attaine to his purpose to bryng a
woman to vice, the which waies were so naturall and the wayes to come
to theyr purpose was so subtylly contrived and craftely shewed that
hard it wolde be for any woman to resist or deny their desyre. And by
the sayd boke hath made both the man and the woman to know mo vyces
subtylty and crafte then ever they shoulde have knowen if the boke had
not bene made, the which boke he named him selfe the knighte of the
tower. And thus I leave the wyves to use theyr occupations at theyr
owne discression." Fol. 45, 46, 47.
[118:A] See Antiquarian Repertory, vol. i. p. 236; and Moryson's
Itinerary, part iii. fol. 1617.
[118:B] The Freirs of Berwick; Pinkerton's Ancient Scotish Poems, 12mo.
2 vols. 1786. v. 2. p. 70.
[119:A] Warner's Albion's England, book ix. chap. xlvii.
[119:B] Hall's Satires, book v. satire 4.
[120:A] Hall's Satires, book v. satire 4.
[122:A] Earle's Microcosmography, p. 64. et seq. edit. of 1811, by
Philip Bliss.