MERRY ENGLAND
"In the holidays all the summer the youths are exercised in leaping,
dancing, shooting, wrestling, casting the stone, and practising their
shields; the maidens trip in their timbrels, and dance as long as they
can well see. In winter, every holiday before dinner, the boars
prepared for brawn are set to fight, or else bulls and bears are
baited. When the great fen, or moor, which watereth the walls of the
city on the north side, is frozen, many young men play upon the ice;
some, striding as wide as they may, do slide swiftly; others make
themselves seats of ice, as great as millstones; one sits down, many
hand in hand to draw him, and one slipping on a sudden, all fall
together; some tie bones to their feet and under their heels; and
shoving themselves by a little piked staff, do slide as swiftly as a
bird flieth in the air, or an arrow out of a cross-bow. Sometime two
run together with poles, and hitting one the other, either one or both
do fall, not without hurt; some break their arms, some their legs, but
youth desirous of glory in this sort exerciseth itself against the
time of war."--FITZSTEPHEN'S "Description of London," translated by
John Stow.
Where in the meantime was Merry England? In the sense in which the phrase
is often used, as a mere political or social catchword, it lay for
Chaucer, as for us, in the haze of an imaginary past. Englishmen were even
then more fortunate in their lot than many continental nations; but they
had already serious responsibilities to bear. The glory of that age lies
less in thoughtless merrymaking than in a brave and steady struggle--with
the elements, with circumstances, and with fellow-man. Even in Chaucer's
time Englishmen took their pleasures sadly in comparison with Frenchmen
and Italians. We cannot say that our forefathers enjoyed life less than we
do, but we can certainly say that theirs was a life which we could enjoy
only after a process of acclimatization; and they lacked almost
altogether one of the most valued privileges of modern civilization--the
undisturbed conduct of our own little house and our own small affairs, the
established peace and order under cover of which even an artisan may now
pursue his own hobbies with a sense of personal independence and a
tranquil certitude of the morrow for which Roger Bacon would cheerfully
have sacrificed a hand or an eye. Such tranquillity might conceivably be
bought at the price of nobler virtues, but it is in itself one of the most
justly prized conquests of civilization, and we may seek it vainly in our
past.
However, as life was undoubtedly more picturesque in the 14th century, so
the enjoyment also was more on the surface. Fitzstephen's brief catalogue
of the Londoners' relaxations is charming; and, even when we have made all
allowance for the poetical colours lavished by an antiquary who saw
everything through a haze of distant memory and regret, Stow's
descriptions of city merrymakings are among the most delightful pages of
history. Hours of labour were long,[257] and for village folk there was no
great choice of amusements; yet there is a whole world of delight to be
found in the most elementary field sports. Moreover, the most expansive
enjoyment is often natural to those who have otherwise least freedom;
witness the bank-holiday excitement of our own days and the negro passion
for song and dance. The holy-days on which the Church forbade work
amounted to something like one a week; and though there are frequent
complaints that these were ill kept, equally widespread and emphatic is
the testimony to noisy merriment on them; they bred more drunkenness and
crime, we are assured by anxious Churchmen, than all the rest of the
year.[258] Indeed, it is from judicial records that we may glean by far
the fullest details about the games of our ancestors; and a brilliant
archivist like Simeon Luce, when he undertakes to give a picture of
popular games in the France of Chaucer's day, draws almost exclusively on
Royal proclamations and court rolls.[259]
From the Universities, sacred haunts of modern athleticism, down to the
smallest country parish, we get the same picture of sports flourishing
under considerable discouragement from the powers in being, but
flourishing all the same, and taking a still more boisterous tinge from
the injudicious attempts to suppress them altogether. "Alike in the
Universities and out of them," writes Dr. Rashdall on the subject of
games, "the asceticism of the medieval ideal provoked and fostered the
wildest indulgence in actual life." Even chess was among the "noxious,
inordinate, and unhonest games" expressly forbidden to the scholars of New
College by William of Wykeham's Statutes,[260] and indeed throughout the
Middle Ages this was a pastime which led to more gambling and quarrels
than most others. A very curious quarrel at cudgel-play outside the walls
of Oxford is recorded in the "Munimenta Academica" (Rolls Series, p. 526).
At Cambridge it was forbidden under penalty of forty pence to play tennis
in the town. At Oxford we find four citizens compelled to abjure the same
game solemnly before the vice-chancellor; and readers both of Froissart
and of the preface to "Ivanhoe" will remember violent feuds arising from
it.[261] In 1446 the Bishop of Exeter, while pleading that he has always
kept open the doors of the cathedral cloisters at all reasonable times,
adds, "at which times, and in especial in time of divine service,
ungodly-ruled people (most customably young people of the said Commonalty)
within the said cloister have exercised unlawful games, as the top, queke,
penny-prick, and most at tennis, by the which all the walls of the said
cloister have been defouled and the glass windows all to-burst."[262]
As early as 1314, the laws of London forbade playing at football in the
fields near the city; and this was among the games which, by Royal
proclamation of 1363, were to give place to the all-important sport of
archery. Others forbidden at the same time were quoits, throwing the
hammer, hand-ball, club-ball, and golf. Indeed, from this ancient and
royal game down to leap-frog and "conquerors," nearly all our present
sports were familiar, in more or less developed forms, to our ancestors.
In 1332, Edward III. had to proclaim "let no boy or other person, under
pain of imprisonment, play in any part of Westminster Palace, during the
Parliament now summoned, at bars [_i.e._ prisoners' base] or other games,
or at snatch-hood"; and John Myrc instructs the parish clergy to forbid to
their parishioners in general all "casting of ax-tree and eke of stone ...
ball and bars and suchlike play" in the churchyard.[263] Wrestling, again,
was among the most popular sports, and one of those which gave most
trouble to coroners. The two great wrestling matches in 1222 between the
citizens of London and the suburbans ended in a riot which assumed almost
the dignity of a rebellion. Fatal wrestling-bouts, like fatal games of
chess, are among the stock incidents of medieval romance; whether the
enemy was to be got rid of through the hands of a professional champion
(as in the quasi-Chaucerian "Tale of Gamelyn") or by such foul play as is
described in the Pardoner's Tale--
Arise, as though thou wouldest with him play,
And I shall rive him through the sides way,
While that thou strugglest with him as in game;
And with thy dagger look thou do the same.
Moreover, the same tragedy might only too easily be played
unintentionally, as in the ballad of the "Two Brothers"--
They warsled up, they warsled down
Till John fell to the ground;
A dirk fell out of Willie's pouch,
And gave him a deadly wound.
Or, as it is recorded in the business-like prose of an assize-roll:
"Richard of Horsley was playing and wrestling with John the Miller of
Tutlington; and by mishap his knife fell from its sheath and wounded the
aforesaid John without the aforesaid Richard's knowledge, so that he died.
And the aforesaid Richard fled and is not suspected of the death; let him
therefore return if he will, but let his chattels be confiscated for his
flight. (N.B. He has no chattels)."[264] In this same assize-roll, out of
forty-three accidental deaths, three were due to village games, and three
more to sticks or stones aimed respectively at a cock, a dog, and a pig,
but finding their fatal billet in a human life. Ecclesiastical
disciplinarians endeavoured frequently, but with indifferent success, to
put down the practice of wrestling in churchyards, with the scarcely less
turbulent miracle-plays or dances, and the markets which so frequently
stained the holy ground with blood. Even the State interfered in the
matter of churchyard fairs and markets "for the honour of Holy Church";
but they went on gaily as before. Dances, as I have already had occasion
to note, were condemned with a violence which is only partially explained
even by Chaucer's illuminating lines about the Parish Clerk--
In twenty manners could he skip and dance,
(After the School of Oxenforde, though,)
And with his legges casten to and fro.[265]
To quote here again from Dr. Rashdall, "William of Wykeham found it
necessary for the protection of the sculpture in the Chapel reredos to
make a Statute against dancing or jumping in the Chapel or adjoining Hall.
His language is suggestive of that untranslatable amusement now known as
'ragging,' which has no doubt formed a large part of the relaxation of
students--at least of English students--in all ages. At the same College
there is a comprehensive prohibition of all 'struggling, chorus-singing,
dancing, leaping, singing, shouting, tumult and inordinate noise, pouring
forth of water, beer, and all other liquids and tumultuous games' in the
Hall, on the ground that they were likely to disturb the occupants of the
Chaplain's chamber below. A moderate indulgence in some of the more
harmless of these pastimes in other places seems to be permitted."[266]
In this, the good bishop was only following the very necessary precedent
of many prelates before him. As early as 1223, when the reform of the
friars had stimulated a great effort to put down old abuses throughout the
Church, Bishop Poore of Salisbury and his diocesan council decreed "we
forbid the holding of dances, or base and unhonest games which provoke to
lasciviousness, in the churchyard.... We forbid the proclaiming of
scot-ales in church by layfolk, or by priests or clerks either in or
without the church." Similar prohibitions are repeated by later councils
with an emphasis which only shows their inefficiency. The University of
Oxford complained to Henry V. in 1414 that fairs and markets were held
"more frequently than ever" on consecrated ground; and the Visitation of
1519 among churches appropriated to York Cathedral elicited the fact that
football and similar games were carried on in two of the churchyards.
These holy places sometimes witnessed rougher sports still; especially
cathedral cemeteries during the great processions of the ecclesiastical
year. "Moreover," writes Bishop Grosseteste in a circular letter to all
his archdeacons, "cause it to be proclaimed strictly in every church that,
when the parishes come in procession for the yearly visitation and homage
to the Cathedral church, no parish shall struggle to press before another
parish with its banners; since from this source not only quarrels are wont
to spring, but cruel bloodshed." Bishop Giffard of Worcester was compelled
for the same reason to proclaim in every church of his diocese "that no
one shall join in the Pentecostal processions with a sword or other kind
of arms"; and a similar prohibition in the diocese of Ely (1364) is based
on the complaint that "both fights and deaths are wont to result
therefrom." Even more were the minds of the best clergy exercised by the
corpse-wakes in churches, which "turned the house of mourning and prayer
into a house of laughter and excess"; and again by "the execrable custom
of keeping the 'Feast of Fools,' which obtains in some churches," and
which "profanes the sacred anniversary of the Lord's Circumcision with the
filth of lustful pleasures"; yet here again the tenacity of popular custom
baffled even the most vigorous prelates.[267]
We must not pass away from popular amusements without one glance at these
above-mentioned scot-ales, which were probably relics of the Anglo-Saxon
semi-religious drinking-bouts. In the later Middle Ages they appear as
forerunners of the modern bazaar or religious tea; a highly successful
device for raising money contributions by an appeal to the convivial
instincts of a whole parish or district. In the early 13th century we find
them denounced among the methods employed by sheriffs for illegal
extortion; and about the same time they were very frequently condemned
from the religious point of view. The clergy were not only forbidden to be
present at such functions, but also directed to warn their parishioners
diligently against them, "for the health of their souls and bodies," since
all who took part at such feasts were excommunicated. But the custom died
hard; or rather, it was probably rebaptized, like so many other relics of
paganism; and the change seems to have taken place during Chaucer's
lifetime. In 1364 Bishop Langham of Ely was still fulminating against
scot-ales; in 1419, if not before, we find an authorized system of
"church-ales" in aid of the fabric. These were held sometimes in the
sacred edifice itself; more often in the Church Houses, the rapid
multiplication of which during the 15th century is probably due to the
equally rapid growth of church-ales. The puritanism of the 13th century
was by this time somewhat out of fashion; parish finances had come far
more under the parishioners' own control; and it was obviously convenient
to make the best of these time-honoured compotations, as of the equally
rough-and-ready hock-day customs, in order to meet expenses for which the
parish was legally responsible. Earnest Churchmen had, all through this
century, more important abuses to combat than these quasi-religious
convivialities; and we find no voice raised against church-ales until the
new puritanism of the Reformation. The Canons of 1603 forbade, among other
abuses, "church ale drinkings ... in the church, chapel, or churchyard."
While Bishop Piers of Bath and Wells testified that he saw no harm in
them, the puritan Stubbes accused the participants of becoming "as drunk
as rats, and as blockish as brute beasts." No doubt the truth lies between
these extremes; but church-ales must not be altogether forgotten when we
read the numerous medieval testimonies to the intimate connection between
holy days and crime.[268]
Perhaps the most widespread and most natural of all country sports was
that of poaching. As Dr. Rashdall has pointed out, it was especially
popular at the two Universities, where the paucity of authorized
amusements drove the students into wilder extremes. We have also abundant
records of clerical poachers; and in 1389 Richard II. enacted at the
petition of the Commons "that no priest or clerk with less than ten pounds
of yearly income should keep greyhounds, 'leetes' or other hunting dogs,
nor ferrets, nets, or snares." The same petition complained that
"artificers and labourers--that is to say, butchers, cobblers, tailors,
and other working-folk, keep greyhounds and other dogs; and at the time
when good Christians are at church on holy-days, hearing their divine
services, these go hunting in the parks, coney-covers, and warrens
pertaining to lords and other folk, and destroy them utterly." It was
therefore enacted that no man with an income of less than forty shillings
should presume to keep hunting dogs or implements.
But in spite of squires and church synods, the working-man did all he
could to escape, in his own untutored fashion, from the dullness of his
working days. Every turn of life, from the cradle to the grave, was seized
upon as an excuse for rough-and-ready sports. When a witness wishes to
give a reason for remembering a christening on a certain day, he testifies
to having broken his leg in the baptismal football match. Bishops
struggled against the practice of celebrating marriages in taverns, lest
the intending bride and bridegroom should plight their troth in liquor;
and weddings in general were so uproarious as to be sometimes ruled out as
too improper not only for a monk's attendance but even for that of serious
and pious layfolk. Similar survivals of barbaric sports clung to the
funeral ceremonies--the _wake-pleyes_ of Chaucer's Knight's Tale; and
Archbishop Thoresby's constitutions of 1367 seem to speak of wrestling
matches held even in the church by the side of the dead man's bier. Such
things could scarcely have happened without some clerical connivance; and
in fact, the sporting parson was as common in Chaucer's as in Fielding's
day. The hunting Monk of his "Prologue" is abundantly vouched for by the
despairing complaints of ecclesiastical disciplinarians; and the parish
parson, so often a peasant by birth, constantly set at naught the
prohibitions of his superiors, to join with tenfold zest in the least
decorous pastimes of his village flock. While archbishops in council
legislated repeatedly and vainly against the hunting and tavern-haunting
priest, swaggering about with a sword at his side or the least decent of
lay doublets and hosen on his limbs, the homely Lollard satirist vented
his scorn on this Parson Trulliber, who contrasted so startlingly with
Chaucer's Parson Adams--
For the tithing of a duck
Or of an apple, or of an ey [egg
They make man swear upon a book;
Thus they foulen Christes fay. [faith
Such bearen evilly heaven's key;
They may assoil, and they may shrive,
With mennes wives strongly play,
With true tillers sturt and strive [struggle
At the wrestling, and at the wake,
And chiefe chanters at the ale;
Market-beaters, and meddling-make,
Hopping and hooting with heave and hale.
At faire fresh, and at wine stale;
Dine, and drink, and make debate;
The seven sacraments set a-sale;
How keep such the keys of heaven gate?
("Political Poems" (R.S.), i., 330).