_Prior's-half and Earl's-half_
In Coventry we now enter upon a period where the townsmen not only
sought to make good the privileges they had already won, but strove
to gain, either by fair means or foul, such fresh concessions as they
deemed necessary for their comfort and prosperity. The story of the
struggle for liberty in English towns, though little known, is one of
great interest. Though the whole thing is on a small scale, yet the
narrative of events is no less stirring than the account of the revolt
of a great nation. There was as fierce a conflict at S. Alban's among
a score or two of men in 1327 as among tens of thousands in Paris at
the Revolution. Few leaders of forlorn hopes have shown more desperate
courage than the good folk of Dunstable, who were ready to brave not
only the terrors of punishment in this world, but in the world to come,
for, being cursed with bell, book, and candle by the bishop and their
prior, they said that they recked nothing of this excommunication, but
were resolved rather "to descend into hell altogether" than submit to
the prior's extortions. And conceiving that they were likely to be
worsted in the quarrel, they covenanted with a neighbouring lord for
forty acres of land, preparing to leave their houses and live in tents
ere they would pay the arbitrary tolls and taxes the prior had laid
upon them.[95] It is true there were no philosophic fervour about the
mediæval burgher, no enthusiasm about liberty in the abstract. What he
wanted was some small practical advantage his masters denied him.[96]
All the townsman of S. Alban's asked at the beginning of the quarrel
was, that he should be allowed to grind his corn at home instead of at
the abbot's mill. But wanting this strongly and sorely, and seeing a
chance of victory, he was willing to fight for it perhaps to the death.
The struggle for freedom is, in Coventry, at first interwoven with an
old quarrel existing between the tenants of the two lords who held
the town between them: for we have seen that Coventry was divided
into two lordships; on the one hand lay the property of the earls of
Chester, the Earl's-half; on the other the Prior's-half, or the convent
estate. The government of these two manors was absolutely distinct. The
Prior's-men had no lot or part in the privileges conferred in Ranulf's
charter, and the Earl's-men none in those the convent won from Henry
III. The customs practised by the Earl's-men on one side of the street,
and those followed by the prior's tenants on the other, might differ
to a considerable extent. They attended different courts; some were
compelled to pay dues from which their neighbours were exempt; the
prior's tenants might be forced to carry their lord's harvest, or work
on his estate; while the Earl's-men, as free burghers, had long since
discontinued feudal labour. A priory tenant would stand in his lord's
pillory, or hang on his gallows; an Earl's-man met his punishment at
the castle, or the sheriff's court. While the convent tenants could
very likely bring their butter, horse provender, or coarse cloth to
sell in the market free of toll, another owing the earl fealty might
have to pay a penny or more before his stall could be set up in the
market-place. These differences of tenure, custom, and privilege,
naturally bred disputes among the townsfolk, a frequent occurrence in
those places wherein different lords held sway, dividing the allegiance
of the inhabitants.
[Illustration: 40 far Gosford St.]
There appears to have been some ill-feeling arising from a trading
jealousy between Earl's-folk and Prior's-folk. The former were
disposed, as early as the days of Henry II., to entertain some grudge
with regard to the ordering of the market in the Prior's-half,[97]
but we know no particulars of the grievance. So hotly, however, did
the quarrel rage between them, that there were "debates, contentions,
namelie killing of divers men,"[98] in the streets. Doubtless, in the
interests of peace, it was better that one or other of the contending
parties should become predominant within the town, and force the
other to consent to a compromise. The last Earl of Chester being
dead, and his successors, the De Montalts, men of little mark, the
chance lay with S. Mary's convent; and an enterprising prior, William
of Brightwalton, was not slow to avail himself of the opportunity.
Hoping, so the convent folk afterwards declared, to allay the strife
by uniting the two manors whereof the town was composed under one
lord, he proposed to purchase the earl's estate, a scheme to which
Roger de Montalt, being in need of money for a Crusade, was fain to
agree. So in 1249 the latter resigned the manor into the prior's hand
in return for a yearly rent of £100, with ten marks to the nuns of
Polesworth, and by this means the head of the convent became lord of
the Earl's-half,[99] Prior's-men and Earl's-men alike holding of him
house and land, and owing him rent and accustomed services. Thus the
lay lords of this great family slip out of the city's history; the
ruling power in the town is the great religious corporation which owed
its existence to Saxon piety.
Whatever changes this transfer may have brought about, one thing is
certain, it did not establish peace in Coventry. Twenty years later
the old jealousy flamed up anew. About 1267 both townsmen and convent
took advantage of Henry III.'s necessities to negotiate for a charter,
but with a different result. The former obtained a bare confirmation
of their ancient liberties,[100] the prior, on the other hand, owing,
belike, to his superior command of the purse, or in return for help he
may have rendered the King in the late wars, was able to purchase fresh
concessions for himself and his men. He was allowed to appoint coroners
for the town, and further, licence was given to form a merchant guild
among his tenants.[101] The grant of these graces brought about an
outbreak in the Earl's-half. Hitherto, it may be supposed, Earl's-folk
and Prior's-folk had carried on their trade on fairly equal terms,
but the new charter would bring about a revolution. The object of the
formation of a merchant guild was to confine the trade of the district
to its members; they would become local commercial monopolists. No
wonder the Earl's-men resisted the foundation of this society. If it
were once established, and they were excluded from its ranks, what a
blow would be dealt to their prosperity.
The guildsmen would make it impossible for them to trade under
anything like favourable conditions. They might be mulcted by tolls;
subjected to the annoying supervision of the guild officials in respect
to the weight or quality of their goods; restrictions affecting the
time, place, or manner of their selling might be imposed on them; or
they might have to relinquish bargains they had closed in favour of the
members of the guild merchant.
So when the terms of this new charter were known the Earl's-folk rose
in tumult, withstood the priory coroner when he attempted to see the
body of a man, slain, no doubt, in these brawls, and prevented their
neighbours in the Convent-half from forming the guild according to the
permission vouchsafed to them. Nor could the sheriff's officer, sent
by the royal order at the prior's request to proclaim these charters
and liberties in Coventry, bring the unruly townspeople to obedience.
"Certain men, we learn," ran the King's writ, "from those parts with
others, armed with force, took Gilbert, clerk to the said sheriff,
sent thither to this end, and imprisoned him, and broke" the royal
"rolls and charters, and beat and ill-treated the men of the prior
and convent."[102] What was the end of the tumult, or the fate of the
luckless clerk, we cannot tell, but, as we hear no more of the prior's
guild, it seems that this outbreak of the Coventry men "with others"
prevented its establishment.
We now enter upon a fresh phase of the quarrel. It is no longer the
Prior's-men but the prior himself who is the Earl's-men's enemy. Their
whole energy is absorbed in the effort to free their trade from the
restrictions the present lord of the Earl's-half has laid down for
them to observe. For the Earl's-men appeared ill-content with the
change of masters. Did the prior encroach upon the rights of the
townsfolk? Probably not; previously established customs founded on
the charter of Ranulf would bar his claims. But though the law may
not alter, the interpretation of it may vary from time to time; so
may the circumstances under which it is administered. It was so with
the customs which had hitherto regulated the Earl's-men's lives. They
and their present masters were disposed to differ as to the meaning
these could bear, and hence a way was opened for numerous quarrels and
lawsuits. Moreover, restraints, which had been borne without complaint
in early days under the Chester lordship, were found unendurable when
the townsfolk's commerce, and with it their desire for freedom, had
increased.
The matter of the merchant guild was only the forerunner of more
serious trouble. The townspeople were rapidly growing rich, whether
by soap-making,[103] or the manufacture of woollen cloth, or the
entertainment of travellers, or a happy combination of all three
sources of wealth. Under Edward I. they were able to pave their
city,[104] which had now risen to a sufficiently important position to
be accounted a borough, and to return two members to the Parliament of
1295.[105] Its prosperity attracted the notice of Edward I., who in
1303 summoned two Coventry merchants to attend a council;[106] and of
Edward II., who asked the inhabitants for a loan of 500 marks for the
prosecution of the Scotch war. It is small wonder if the townsfolk
were jealous lest this growing prosperity should be checked by the
petty regulations the prior chose to lay on them. Was their wealth to
be curtailed because, forsooth, the convent officials charged them, not
to sell here, or make there, to relinquish a favourable bargain, or
never to open stall or shop for sale of goods during certain hours of
the day?
The prior in the days of Edward II. was Henry Irreys, and his hand lay
heavy on the townsmen. They were not able to live, they complained,
"by reason of his oppression." Moreover, like the jolly, illiterate
Abbot of S. Alban's named Hugh, who "feared nothing so much as the
Latin tongue,"[107] and so oppressed his tenants, Prior Irreys was
an ally of Edward II., for it was by "maintenance of the King and of
Spencer, Earl of Winchester" (_i.e._ Despenser), that he was enabled
to keep the malcontents in check. In his days arose a second dispute
concerning traffic, but at what date we cannot tell. The Friday market
had always been held in the Prior's-half, and there only were the
Earl's-men permitted to sell their wares on that day.[108] Now certain
of them broke through the prior's order, and sold openly in their
own houses[109] during market hours. Appeal was made to the law. In
vain the townsmen pleaded that by virtue of the clause in Ranulf's
charter, giving them the same liberties as the Lincoln folk, they were
free to sell their goods when or where they would. Vainly, too, they
tried to strengthen their case by declaring that before the prior had
purchased the Chester estate they had been wont to hold a fair in the
Earl Street, where now their shops stood. These pleas availed nothing,
and a verdict was returned for the prior with £60 damages, the Earl's
men being forbidden to sell anywhere but in the Prior's-half during
market hours. The prescribed payment must have well-nigh ruined William
Grauntpee and other traders concerned in the struggle, for £60 was then
accounted a great sum.[110]
It was in 1323 that the townsfolk sought, after a very novel fashion,
to rid themselves of their oppressors. Their enemies accused them,
whether truly or untruly we cannot tell, of having recourse to the
black art, and strange rumours were afloat concerning the unlawful
dealings of the citizens with one Master John de Nottingham, limb
of Satan and necromancer, who inhabited a ruinous house in the
neighbourhood of the town. Witchcraft was not then considered an
ecclesiastical offence, but one against the common law, and it was,
it seems, before the Court of King's Bench that the approver, Robert
le Mareshall, told his story. He had been living, he said, with one
Master John de Nottingham, necromancer, of Coventry. To whom, on the
Wednesday next before the feast of S. Nicholas, in the seventeenth
year of the King's reign, came certain men of the town, citizens of
good standing, and promised them great profit--to the necromancer,
£20, and "his subsistence in any religious house in England,"[111] and
to Robert le Mareshall, £15--if they would compass the lives of the
King and others by necromancy. Having received part of the promised
payment as earnest at the hands of John le Redclerk, hosier, and John,
son of Hugh de Merington, apprentice of the law, with seven pounds of
wax and two yards of canvas, the magicians began their work. On the
Sunday after the feast of S. Nicholas they fashioned seven magical
images in the respective likenesses of Edward II., with his crown,
the elder and younger Despenser, Prior Henry, Nicholas Crumpe, his
steward, the cellarer of the convent, and Richard Sowe, probably one
of the priory underlings who had made himself unpopular. As far as the
last-named enemy upon the list was concerned--for upon him they chose
to experiment "to see what might be done with the rest"--they were
entirely successful. On the Friday before the feast of the Holy Rood
about midnight John de Nottingham gave his helper, Robert le Mareshall,
a leaden bodkin, with command to thrust it into the forehead of the
figure of Richard Sowe. The effect was well-nigh instantaneous. When
the necromancer sent Robert on the morrow to inquire how Richard did,
the messenger found him crying "Harrow," and mad as mad could be. And
on the Wednesday before the Ascension, John having on the previous
Sunday removed the bodkin from the forehead of the figure and thrust it
into its heart, Richard Sowe died.[112]
Meanwhile the necromancer and the accused gave themselves up in court,
consenting to plead before a jury. All, save the necromancer, were
admitted to bail.[113] He no doubt looked to receive no mercy, and
when after sundry delays the trial came on, the marshal certified that
Master John de Nottingham was dead. Another of the accused, Piers
Baroun, who had been a burgess at the Parliament of 1305,[114] died
also during the interval.
Others had fled from justice, though of these one Richard Grauntpee,
without doubt a near relative of the man who had lost his suit with
the prior in the matter of the market, afterwards came and surrendered
himself in court. Either the sympathy of the neighbourhood was with
the accused, or it was thought that Robert's tale was unworthy of
belief, for a jury taken from the neighbourhood returned a verdict
of acquittal. But the trial greatly embittered the feelings of the
citizens, and when the tide turned, and they were able to do the prior
hurt, they availed themselves of the opportunity gladly.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 95: "Prior Richard and Monks" in _Cornh. Mag._, vi. 840.]
[Footnote 96: Thomson, _Municipal History_.]
[Footnote 97: Earl Hugh forbade his tenants to meddle with the prior's
markets (Dugdale, _Warw._, i. 159).]
[Footnote 98: Burton MS. f. 109_a_.]
[Footnote 99: Dugdale, i. 138.]
[Footnote 100: Quoted in _Inspeximus_, 17 Ed. II. (Corp. MS. B. 4); the
date there given is Jan. 30, 52 H. III. (1268).]
[Footnote 101: Dugdale, _Warw._, i. 162.]
[Footnote 102: Merewether and Stephens, _Hist. Boroughs_, i. 469. The
transcript of the MS. is given in Gross, _Gild Merchant_, ii. 365. The
expression "with others" is very significant; these were probably men
from the country, who had hitherto been allowed to trade in the town,
and feared the establishment of the guild.]
[Footnote 103: Soap was made in the neighbourhood of Coventry about
1300. "Sope about Couentre." Robert of Gloucester, _Chron._, i. 143.]
[Footnote 104: Dugdale, _Warw._, i. 138.]
[Footnote 105: _Parl. Writs_, i. lii.]
[Footnote 106: Lawrence de Shepey summoned to attend a council of
merchants at York in 1303 (_Ibid._ i. 135). He had been burgess for
Coventry in 1300.]
[Footnote 107: Froude, _Short Studies_, iii. 54. Edward II.'s overthrow
was the signal for a rising against this abbot.]
[Footnote 108: Dugdale, _Warw._, i. 162.]
[Footnote 109: It is probable that there were no shops, in our sense,
in the fourteenth century. The traders' goods were kept in a cellar
below the ground floor (Turner, _Domestic Architecture_, iii. 36). See
also, Dormer Harris, _Troughton Sketches_, 53.]
[Footnote 110: The value of £60 would represent more than £700 at the
present time. In the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries the
average price of an ox was 13s. 1-1/4d,; of a sheep, 1s. 5d.; of a cow,
9s. 5d.; and a fowl, 1d. (Rogers, _Agriculture and Prices_, i. 361-3).]
[Footnote 111: Probably a corrody or daily allowance of food from the
monastic table during the life of an individual. This ensured for the
individual who held it a share in the prayers of the brethren, and
sometimes included lodging within the monastery.]
[Footnote 112: Lansd. MS. 290, f. 533. It is the earliest trial for
witchcraft extant in England. See also _Parl. Writs_, ii. Div. 2, App.
269-70.]
[Footnote 113: Divers natives of Warwickshire and citizens of London
went bail for them.]
[Footnote 114: _Parl. Writs_, i. ii.]