_Daily Life in the Town--the Merchants and the Market_
At the "beating of the bell called daybell," the townsfolk rose and
began their daily work. Country people, wayfarers and chapmen, bearing
their burdens of merchandise, saw the city in the morning light, with
its ring of walls and upstanding posterns and gates over-topped by
six tall spires, lying in the midst of fields and far-reaching common
grounds in a slight dip in the plain. Entering the newly-opened gates,
they were at once inside the narrow paved[506] streets, bounded on
either side with black and white timbered houses, for travellers from
the Warwick side did not make their entrance by spacious Hertford
Street,[507] but by the Grey Friars' and Warwick Lanes, then part of
the main thoroughfare of the city. Passing up the hill, they found that
the street on a line with these--the Broadgate--belied its name, being
but a very narrow thoroughfare, bounded on the left hand by a block of
houses, whereof the removal in 1820[508] has caused moderns to think
that the open space on the crown of the hill is very rightly named.
Soon after daybreak the streets were alive with the noise and press
of a busy throng. It is true there were many impediments to traffic.
Cattle[509] and ducks wandered hither and thither; fishmongers' stalls
stood in the middle of the streets, greatly to the hindrance of the
passers-by, whether horsemen or pedestrians;[510] while inn signs[511]
had perforce to be limited in length, lest they should strike the heads
of unwary riders in the by-lanes of the city. But the mediæval trader
was well inured to inconvenience. Neither did noise distract him,
though taverners and cooks standing at the door offered good things
hot from the oven to passers-by, each seeking to cry louder than his
neighbour; while in the open places the crier proclaimed the terms of
a recent charter, or newly-made ordinance of leet or council;[512]
and overhead the church bells pealed forth, calling folk to their
prayers, to the market, or, in case of a brawl or riot, to a common
meeting-place.[513]
[Illustration: OLD HOUSE BESIDE S. MARY'S HALL]
Long before curfew the countryman had gone home to his village in the
Arden country or by the London road to Dunsmoor Heath; while the
traveller in his inn and the townsman under his own roof were soon
abed. What light there was in the deserted streets on winter evenings
came from the lamps which hung over the door of every hostelry and
every substantial citizen's house, until nine o'clock,[514] after which
time the city gates were closed,[515] and none were abroad save thieves
and watchmen. Indeed, the very fact of being out after dark was in
itself presumptive evidence of some dishonest purpose on the part of
the belated wayfarer. At any suspicious sight or sound the watch were
on the alert, and prepared to arrest the wanderer; should the prisoner
escape and take to flight, they would instantly give chase, and fill
the dark and empty streets with the echoes of their pursuit. A hue and
cry would be raised, doors open, and householders pour forth to aid the
watch. If the unlucky fugitive were captured, he would be committed to
ward in all haste.[516]
What a crowd of different types of men must have jostled against one
another in the noisy throng! Craftsmen, attired in the livery proper
to their calling, a custom whereof we have this day a relic in the
butcher's blouse; merchants from foreign parts, or natives fresh from a
sea voyage; mayor and aldermen clad maybe in festal scarlet; the crier
and sergeants in the livery of the city; men-at-arms, the retainers
of some great lord, bearing the badge of the Earls of Warwick, or the
Stafford knot; Benedictines, clad in white cassock and black gown
and hood; Franciscans, with their brown habit and knotted girdle;
Carmelites from Whitefriars in white frock and brown scapulary;
Carthusians from the Charter-house, with white cassock and hood;
chantry and parish priests--all these, laymen and clerics, warriors and
traders, met, passed, and gave greeting in the streets.
Strange figures might be seen in the streets or the road neighbouring
the city, such as the hermits, whose dwellings--the one by Bablake
church,[517] the other at Gosford Green--stood at either end of the
highway leading through Coventry. Times had changed; it was now
customary for hermits to build by the highway, and no longer withdraw
into solitary places, and spend their lives in prayer and meditation.
They rather preferred to dwell in "boroughs among brewers," seeking
society and good cheer. Nor did the pilgrims, who might be seen
flocking to the shrine of S. Osburg[518] or to the image of Our Lady in
the Lady Tower on the London Road hard by the Whitefriars' to pay their
devotions, invariably set about their task in a religious spirit. Many
who travelled to the far-famed shrines of S. Thomas of Canterbury, S.
Edmund of Bury, S. Cuthbert of Durham, or to "Our Lady" of Walsingham,
to the Roods of Chester and Bronholme, or the Holy Blood of Hales,
looked on their journey as a holiday jaunt rather than as an act of
devotion. The author of _Piers Plowman_ thought little spiritual good
came from this gadabout religion. The Lollards were wont to condemn
pilgrimages, and one John Blomstone of Coventry, a heretic, examined
in 1485 declared:--
"That it was foolishness to go on a pilgrimage to the image of Our Lady
of Doncaster, Walsingham, or the Tower of Coventry, for a man might as
well worship by the fireside in the kitchen as in the aforesaid places,
and as well might a man worship the Blessed Virgin when he seeth his
mother or sister, as in visiting the images, because they be no more
but dead stocks and stones."
[Illustration: Whitefriar's Lane]
Interesting, too, are several persons occurring in Coventry history,
whose occupations were hardly so legitimate as those of pilgrim or
hermit. We have had a glance at the ruinous house where John de
Nottingham, the necromancer, by means of his waxen effigies wrought
such terrible evil to one of the prior's servants, and revenged the
wrongs of the Coventry men. We would fain know more of John French,
the alchemist, who appears in the _Leet Book_,[519] only to disappear
directly from its pages. We learn in 1477 that he intended, "be his
labor, to practise a true and profitable conclusion in the cunnyng of
transmutacion of meteals to" the "profyte and pleasur" of the King's
grace, and was, so Edward IV. charged the mayor, never to "be letted,
troubled, or vexed of his seid labor and practise, to th' entent that
he at his good liberte may shewe vnto vs, and such as be by vs therfor
appointed, the cler effect of his said conclusion." There can be little
doubt that the citizens looked askance at John French, and whispered
that he dabbled in black magic and had dealings with the Prince of
Darkness. We know not how many years the alchemist spent in his
fruitless labours; or if he imparted his views on the subject of the
"transmutation of metals" to the citizens, or ever journeyed to London
to pour a tale of hope deferred into the ears of the disappointed King.
[Illustration: ORIEL WINDOW AND STOCKS. S. MARY'S HALL]
There were many sights in a mediæval city to remind us that men seldom
cared to cloak their brutality in those days. The stocks, where
offenders were held by their feet, the pillory, where they were held
by the head and hands, stood conspicuous, probably in neighbourhood
of the guild-hall. A pillory, a favourite place for the chastisement
of fraudulent bakers, may yet be seen in Coleshill, and stocks stand
yet on many a village green.[520] Here the great punishment lay in
the shame of exposure: the criminal stood for hours unable to move,
a pitiful target for the derision of the multitude. The like penance
was imposed on those who suffered at the cucking-stool, followed by
ducking in water, a highly disagreeable incident in the punishment.
The prisoners in the gaol looked out into the highway, and perhaps
held conversation with their friends as they passed. Now and then a
craftsman might be seen among the debtors pursuing his calling, for
it was not thought expedient to bring a man to utter destitution by
depriving him of the means of livelihood during imprisonment; and
those who chose might cobble shoes or work at the loom during those
monotonous days. Hard by the busy worker might stand a felon, traitor,
or murderer, his mind full of gloomy thoughts of his coming end.[521]
The gallows, naturally reared on high where all men might see them
and their ghastly burden, were probably in sight of the prison; and
rich and poor crowded to see a condemned man drawn in a tumbril, or
executioner's cart, to the gallows, or a woman exposed to open shame.
"It is ordained," an order of leet ran, "that William Rowett, capper,
and his paramour be carried and led through the town in a car, in
example of punishment of sin, and that all other that be proved in the
same sin from this time forward shall have the same pain."[522] But
these were only a few among many unpleasant sights that would attract
the notice of a passing stranger. Heads of traitors stuck on the top
of long poles often adorned the gates. Part of the body of Jack Cade
was sent down in 1450, no doubt to breed terror into all disloyal
beholders, and in 1470 the head of one Chapman[523] was set up on the
Bablake gate; while that of Sir Henry Mountford, an adherent of Perkin
Warbeck, shared the same fate in 1496.[524] Gosford Green was the Tower
Hill, and the Little Park the Smithfield of Coventry. At the former
place Lord Rivers and his son suffered death under Warwick in 1469;
while the latter saw the burning of many martyrs, including the famous
Marian victim, Laurence Saunders.
Many were the efforts made to keep the place clean and wholesome to
live in; but frequent appearances of the plague show that they met
with but partial success. At the awful visitation known as the Black
Death there remained not "the tenth person alive," we are told, to
bury the dead;[525] while in 1479 the plague is said (without doubt
exaggeratively) to have carried off 3300 of the inhabitants.[526]
Filth of every kind was deposited in the Cross Cheaping under the
magnificent cross itself, much incommoding the folk who thronged to the
market-place, "to the danger," the leet jury complained, "of infection
of the plague," and by sweeping the pavement there dust was raised,
which did "deface and corrupt" the said cross.[527] In that half of the
city wherein the prior held sway the people put all the refuse of their
houses just outside the Cook Street gate, with the result that when the
country people did not come to carry it away to manure their fields,
the lord prior could not "have his carriage through his orchard."[528]
According to orders of leet, however, a better system should have
prevailed. The sergeants collected every quarter a penny from each
citizen dwelling in a house with a hall door, and a halfpenny from
every shop, to provide a cart which carried away the filth from the
streets.[529] Moreover all the citizens were enjoined to clean that
portion of the pavement which lay in front of their dwellings every
saint's day under payment of a fine of 12d. This order was hardly a
popular one, and the sergeants were continually taking distress from
those who would not pay the quarterly cart-rate, or raising fines
for the omission of the festal cleaning. For the good folk evaded
all sanitary regulations whenever they might do so with impunity. As
for those misdoers who threw filth into the common river, to inquire
concerning them was a hopeless task.[530] This was, as the mayor and
corporation owned to prior Deram when he loudly complained thereof, one
of the worst evils of the city. Coventry seems, however, never to have
fallen into such an evil plight as Hythe did in the fifteenth century.
Here, owing to the abominable habit of casting refuse into the streets,
to say nothing of blocking them with all imaginable obstructions,[531]
they were more like evil-smelling swamps than highways fit for traffic.
Measures, somewhat primitive in character,[532] were taken to guard
against an outbreak of fire, which so frequently wasted mediæval
cities, where the plaster and timber of the houses, with their
projecting storeys almost touching one another across the narrow
streets, afforded excellent fuel for the flames. A stone house was
a rarity, and in the fifteenth century bricks were as yet not in
general use. The leet forbade the building of wooden chimneys or the
roofing of houses with straw in lieu of tiles.[533] Moreover late
mayors and other officers with "commoners of thrift," were forced to
provide leather buckets, "such as the aldermen think sufficient" to
hold the water wherewith to quench the flames. In order to prevent the
supply of water--brought in a leaden pipe from a spring without the
city[534]--from being exhausted, a lavish use of it was not permitted.
The conduits, whereof there was one in Cross Cheaping, and another,
called the Bull, probably by the Bablake Gate,[535] were kept locked
during the night, and brewers were forbidden to take water thence for
their brewing, or any one to wash linen and clothes therein.[536] The
practice whereby individuals, by means of a grant sealed with the
common seal, obtained a licence to take water continually from the
conduit for their private use, was looked on most unfavourably, and
finally forbidden by the leet.[537] No doubt the people who wished to
obtain this permission were the wealthy brewers and victuallers who
were answerable for so many disturbances in Coventry.
For here as elsewhere this important class of townsfolk made great
profit out of the "pence of the poor," in spite of law and ordinance.
One of the great problems facing mediæval legislators and local
authorities was the task of ensuring the natural price of provisions.
"No police of the Middle Ages," says Thorold Rogers, "would allow a
producer of the necessaries of life to fix his charges by the needs
of the individual, or, in economical language, to allow supplies to
be absolutely interpreted by demand. The law did not fix the price of
the raw material, wheat or barley. It allowed this to be determined by
scarcity or plenty--interpreted, not by the individual's needs, but by
the range of the whole market. But it fixed the value of the labour
which must be expended on wheat and barley in order to make them into
bread and ale."[538] The central government ordained what weight of
bread was to be sold for a certain sum, and what price should be given
for a gallon of ale; and the enforcing of the law was the business of
the local authority. The local rulers themselves fixed the price of
other provisions--fish, meat, poultry, and wine--allowing for profits
according to a certain scale on their resale by victuallers.[539]
Stringent rules were laid down against the enhancement of price by
"forestalling and regratery," that is intercepting merchandise on the
way to market and selling it at an increased price. For example, native
fishmongers, it was feared, would lay in wait for travelling salesmen
bringing in "panyers" of salt fish, and, after buying the same, would
ask a higher price for it before the next fasting day. So to guard
against this contingency, strangers selling fish were forbidden to be
"osted or inned" in the house of a native brother of the craft, but to
pass the night at inns at the mayor's "limitation," and after "making
relation" to him of the kind of fish they brought, to sell the same
openly in the common market-place.[540] A multitude of regulations were
also made to ensure the good quality of provisions, the mayor examined
all fish brought by foreign fishmongers, whilst ale-tasters, appointed
by the bailiff, summoned by each brewer to taste his new beer, received
"a gallon of the best ale" at the detection of any default. In
addition to all these expedients for regulating price and quality, the
statute-book provided for the giving of a just quantity to the buyer at
the conclusion of every bargain. On each opening day of a new mayoralty
all shopkeepers and victuallers delivered up their weights and measures
for the mayor's inspection, and after comparison with the standard
model, kept in the town chest, they were sealed if found correct, or,
if faulty destroyed.
On his entry into office, the mayor's "crye" or proclamation informed
all and sundry of these regulations, and of the perils consequent on
their infringement.
Here we learn the price of "coket" bread[541] and horse-bread at
that time; how white wine of Rochelle was to be sold at 6d. a gallon,
Malvoisey at 16d., and "no derer upon the peyn of xx_s._ at every
trespas," and that on Oseney, Algarbe and Bastarde the "mayor and his
peres" would set a price when any occasion of selling offered.[542]
The "crye" tells us what penalties were laid on those who made use
of fraudulent measures, "coppes and bollys" unsealed,[543] and how
informers were stimulated by the promise that whosoever gave notice to
the mayor of this abuse should "have iiii_d._ for his travayll and a
galon of the best ale" and also what hard punishments were meted out to
those who practised forestalling and regratery.[544]
But in spite of all these regulations the task of curtailing profits
seemed a hopeless one, and again and again the worthy men of the leet
confess that the law remains a dead letter through the frauds of the
victuallers. These, we are told, holding their heads high, refused to
sell their wares at the "limited" price, "and in maner destitucion the
seid cite of wyne and vitayle" to the manifest hurt of the inhabitants
and of all people "confluent to the same." While, when the mayor
insisted that the bakers should obey the orders of leet regulating
their trade, the whole craft "struck" with the greatest unanimity, and
leaving the city "destitute of bread," took sanctuary at Bagington, a
village about four miles distant. Night, however, brought counsel, and
they submitted next day to the mayor, paying for their lawlessness a
fine of £10.[545] As for the brewers in the sixteenth century, they
found their calling so lucrative that others were thereby encouraged
to forsake their occupations and take up this profitable trade. At
that time, said the worthy men of the leet in 1544, "divers of the
said brewers nothing regarding the displeasure of God, the danger of
the laws of the realm nor the love and charity which they ought to
bear to their neighbours nor the commonwealth of this city, for their
own private lucre ... do ... regrate and forestall barley coming into
this city to be sold," and sell ale at excessive and unreasonable
prices.[546]
Regulations, however, affected this powerful and wealthy class but
little, and in listening to the ever-renewed complaints against them we
begin to realize the universal detestation in which they are held in
the Middle Ages. Mediæval imagination, with its love of the grotesque,
delighted to picture the unhappy end of those who bade defiance to the
laws of God and man. How hardly shall an alewife, thought the Ludlow
artist, "enter the kingdom of Heaven," and in carving the _miserere_ of
the parish church he shadowed forth her fate. "A demon is bearing away
the deceitful one; she carries nothing about her but her gay head-dress
and her false measure; he is going to throw her into hell-mouth, while
another demon is reading her offences as entered in his roll, and
another is playing on the bag-pipes by way of welcome."[547] A pleasant
man was that Ludlow artist,--one, we may fancy, who abhorred cheating,
and dearly loved his glass.
Ordinances of leet were frequently passed upon the order to be
maintained upon a market day, for there was but scanty room for traffic
in the Cross Cheaping, even though the carts can have been no wider
than trollies, taking up but "the brede of a yard" in passing by.
Stalls and boards were a great encumbrance. "No fishmonger," runs an
order of leet, "(can) have his board standing forth at large in the
street for to let cart, horse or man, but that there be a reasonable
space left ... between their houses and their boards."[548] Round
about the market-place were clustered the dwellings of provision
merchants and the lesser craftsmen. Ironmonger Row, Butcher Row or the
Poultry, Cook Street, and the Spicer-Stoke[549] tell by their names
the calling of those who lived or chiefly trafficked there;[550] while
the drapers made their homes hard by the Drapery, in Bayley Lane and
Earl Street.[551] On market days this neighbourhood was crowded with
the overflow of stall-holders and salesmen; the poulterers standing
before the Priory gates, and round about the Bull-ring "usque finem de
le Litel Bochery,"[552] while the fishmongers and leather sellers had
stalls within the Cheaping itself.[553] Other stalls were placed in the
procession way in S. Michael's churchyard, and the sellers of cloth had
an illicit market in the church porch opposite the Drapery door, until
it was made forbidden ground by a leet ordinance. For all merchants
and chapmen resorting to the city on the Friday were forced by this
authority to sell all their mercery, cloth, and linen inside the
Drapery;[554] and all sellers of wool to have their merchandise weighed
at the Wool-hall hard by, and pay a fee for the weighing thereof at the
"Beam" or public weighing machine.
Equally stringent were the orders of leet, which curtailed the
privileges of the "foreyn," who came to buy or sell within the city.
He was not allowed to purchase corn in the market until mid-day,
three hours after the townsfolk had been admitted to make their
bargains.[555] A certain time of sale was assigned him,[556] and very
frequently his goods were examined by the mayor ere he could dispose
of them in the market. If his trade competed in any serious degree
with that of the city craftsmen, there was no end to the restrictions
wherewith he was hampered. Urged by a spirit of local monopoly, the
authorities regulated the trade in hides and tallow in favour of
the dealers of the city, though on the butchers' assertion that the
country tanners would give a better price for the hides than their
town brethren, the rules were somewhat relaxed. No chandler, however,
was permitted to sell more than twelve pounds of candles out of the
city[557] to one purchaser.
The frequent enactment of these and similar regulations in the early
sixteenth century shows the terror with which the townsfolk looked on
the spread of industry in country districts. Owing to the conversion of
arable land to pasture for sheep farming, agricultural labourers had
been thrown out of work; many therefore were employed in handicrafts
in their own houses and their competition was thought to seriously
threaten the prosperity of their town neighbours.[558]
At the Corpus Christi fair all was bustle and activity in Coventry, and
the mayor had doubtless much ado to settle all the disputes arising
from differences of currency or hard driving of bargains at the
pypowders court, for all the world of the neighbourhood came to lay
in stores for the year, and merchants from far and near to sell their
wares. Eight weeks a year of a farmer's life is said to have been spent
more or less at fairs and markets,[559] and undoubtedly a merchant
employed a far longer period in travel to and from these centres of
trade. Our forefathers were not altogether such simple stay-at-homes as
we love to picture, but, rather, experienced travellers, and in those
days travelling meant experience, and was not as it is now--at least
in civilized countries--a method for getting from place to place which
puts no tax on the body, and the least possible on the mind of the
traveller. All manner of men and of merchandise[560] were to be seen at
the fair. Irish traders brought druggets from Drogheda; coarse cloth
came from the west country;[561] Frenchmen brought dyes for cloth;
Bristol traders wine from Guienne and Spain; country gentlemen and
local graziers bales of wool for export or home manufacture.
It is true that in spite of its popularity, the Corpus Christi fair
never equalled the S. Giles' fair at Winchester, the centre of trade
between the southern counties and France, or that of Stourbridge,
near Cambridge, the great mart for horses, and the centre of commerce
between the eastern counties and Flanders. To many, however, the fair
at Coventry, the centre of traffic on the great road to the north-west,
was the chief event of the whole year. The local makers displayed to
the utmost advantage the bales of Coventry cloth, and the blue thread,
to which the skill of the native dyers gave the colour which was the
envy of the whole country. This merchandise could be bought openly by
the strangers, who jostled against one another before the stalls in
the Drapery. But many transactions, which the dealers hoped would not
come to light, must have taken place unnoticed in the busy crowd. The
prior of Sulby, in terror of the rapacity of Henry VIII., sold his
cross-staff to the wife of a London goldsmith at Coventry fair one
Corpus Christi day, just as the monks of Stoneley--provident men--about
this time disposed of a silver censer, and other things "worth £14 or
thereabouts," to Master John Calans, goldsmith, of Coventry.[562] Maybe
the spare scholar might there be seen, as at the fair of S. Frideswide,
at Oxford, counting the few coins his purse contained to find out
if they would avail to purchase a book he coveted greatly. While in
Elizabeth's days Puritan purchasers, who found the "Martin Marprelate"
tracts edifying reading, could obtain these locally printed attacks on
the episcopate from some discreet salesmen.[563] But the bulk of the
buyers were local folk: farmers on the look-out for a good horse, or
intent on replenishing the stock of sheep-dressing, and their wives
keenly enjoying a bargain over some pewter vessels, or article of
"mercery," a gay belt or kerchief for the daughters at home.
More important transactions than these frequently took place, and
not at fair time only but throughout the year, as the records of
the mayor's court of Statute Merchant clearly show. The amount of
the various purchases was, when viewed from a mediæval standpoint,
very large; a "gentilman" of Attleborough, for instance, in 1415,
acknowledges that he is bound to certain Hinckley folk and others "in
ducentis libris" (£200 sterling), while a Dublin merchant, Dodenhall,
without doubt a connection and kinsman of the Coventry mayors of that
name, owed in 1394 a fellow-merchant of the latter place £210, money
which he did pay before distress was levied upon him. The following,
however, would be a more usual example of recognition of debt: "On
the eighteenth day of the month of February, in the third year of
King Henry the Fifth after the Conquest, at Coventry, William Lyberd,
hosier, of Coventry, acknowledges that he is bound ("recognoscit se
teneri") to Thomas Dawe of Coventry, passenger, in sixteen pounds
sterling, payable at Coventry at the feast of S. Michael the Archangel
next ensuing."[564]
When all the bargaining was over, when the debt had been duly paid, or
the amount enrolled at the mayor's court, men thought of other things.
The "commons" of Coventry could discuss the everlasting "Lammas"
question with the Nottingham men, while those who took more interest in
national politics whispered to one another complaints against abuses
in Church and State. They hinted darkly at the cause of the death
of the "good" Duke Humphrey, condemned the malice of the Yorkists,
the scandals of the archdeacon's court, or lifting their eyes to the
defaced monastery and cathedral, spoke of the high-handed character of
the "King's Proceedings."[565]
The nightly sojourn at inns was a great feature of the wayfaring
merchant's life, for it was only in sparsely-peopled districts that
monasteries afforded hospitality to the travelling trader.[566]
"Strangers and baggers of corn between Yorkshire, Lancashire, Kendal,
and Westmoreland and the bishopric," the people of the north declared
at the dissolution, "were greatly helped both horse and man by the
said abbeys; for never was in these parts denied either horse-meat
or man's meat, so that the people were greatly refreshed by the said
abbeys, where now they have no such succour."[567] But the majority of
wayfarers sought shelter either at inns or at _herbergeors'_ houses,
for the private citizens, even the richer merchants, frequently
increased their gains by the entertainment of travellers. The public
inns were often the scene of gambling and intrigue, and unwary guests,
who had not the wherewithal to discharge the heavy bills they had been
induced to contract, frequently found their baggage seized to several
times the amount of the debt. "The greater barons and knights were
in the custom of taking up their lodgings with herbergeors, rather
than going to the public hostels; and thus a sort of relationship was
formed between particular nobles or kings and particular burghers, on
the strength of which the latter adopted the arms of their habitual
lodgers as their signs."[568] It might still be possible to learn
the story of the connection between certain noble houses and the
inhabitants of a given district by means of inn-sign heraldry; while
from the same source we could gather a hint of popular political
feeling at a later date. The jubilant cavalier would swing his sign of
the _Royal Oak_ at the Restoration, and the staunch adherent of the
"Great Commoner" flaunt his _Old King of Prussia_ in the next century,
just as surely as the mediæval inn-keeper decorated his sign with the
_White Hart_, _White Boar_, or _Bear and Baculus_, in honour of his
patrons Richard II., Richard III., or the Earl of Warwick. Famous old
inns in Coventry were the _Crown_, in "platea vocata Brodeyatys" hard
by the Langley's inn, the _Cardinal's Hat_, in Earl Street.[569] The
_Peacock_, still existing in the last century, was in the Broad Gate,
but the locality of the _Angel_, where Stafford, Duke of Buckingham,
lodged, is unknown. One authority speaks also of the _White Rose_, of
late years the _Roebuck_, still standing in Little Park Street, where
the Yorkists held rendezvous, and the _Red Rose_ in Much Park Street,
a meeting-place for Lancastrians.[570] The herbergeors frequently
received distinguished guests. Henry VII., after a triumphal entry into
Leicester on his way from Bosworth field, came to Coventry, and took
up his lodging in the house of Robert Onley, the mayor, at the Bull,
in Smithfield Street, a visit he repeated in two years' time, when he
conferred on his host the honour of knighthood.[571]
The Coventry merchants, like their fellows in other towns, had
plentiful dealings with the outside world. The Botoners, whom tradition
credits with the building of S. Michael's spire and chancel, held
intercourse, it seems, with the men of Bristol, for they married a
daughter of their house to a native of those parts, and she became
the mother of the chronicler, William Worcester.[572] As the traders
of a later generation, the Botoners, most likely, conveyed their wine
and wax in vessels towed up the River Severn, a journey beset with
difficulties, as the towing-path was overgrown with brushwood, and
private landowners and corporate towns on the river bank demanded tolls
from the passers-by.[573] The Bristol men, too, were not averse from
straining a point in the matter of tolls, and in spite of the grants of
freedom the Coventry men possessed, demanded "cayage" from them,[574]
when their goods were upon the landing stage. Many times did Adam and
William Botoner serve in the mayor's office, and their donations to the
church, to town guilds, murage funds, and the like are numberless. As
for the great tower of S. Michael's steeple that the brothers built,
tradition credits them with spending £100 every year for twenty-one
years upon the work.[575] In the early part of the fifteenth century
the family entered the ranks of the country landowners by the purchase
of an estate at Withybrook. Not only at Bristol, but at Southampton,
the chief port of the south, where French dyes were sold, did Coventry
men carry on a great part of their trade. And William Horseley, mayor
in 1483 and member of the dyers' craft, brought about an agreement
between the men of this port and his fellow-citizens in 1456, whereby
mutual freedom of tolls was secured.[576]
But the trading enterprise of these inland-dwelling townsfolk was
not confined to their native country merely. Another family, the
Onleys, whereof one John Onley, the founder, was mayor of the Calais
Staple,[577] had dealings with merchants beyond the sea. This foreign
intercourse was often beset with danger to life and limb. John Onley,
son of the above, was apprenticed to one Thomas Aleyn, a London
mercer. When travelling to Bruges in 1413, where the chief staple for
cloth then was, on his master's errand, this apprentice fell into the
hands of a goldsmith of that place, who, because he could not obtain
redress for the treatment he and his goods had received from an English
"roberdesman" in the neighbourhood of Dover, kidnapped and kept John
Onley as hostage. At last the good folk of Bruges, fearing the anger of
the English, forced him to let the apprentice go.[578] Our sympathies
are divided between the innocent lad and the outraged goldsmith, for
in the wilder parts of England "roberdesmen" were a veritable scourge
to the foreign trader. Did not Henry III. hang more than sixty of the
brigands of Alton, who had plundered certain merchants of Brabant,
though the whole county of Hants conspired to ensure the acquittal
of the accused?[579] Occasionally the highwaymen also attacked
English folk. In the days of the third Edward, there was a pretty
gang, composed chiefly of "gentlemen born," who beneath the shelter
of Cannock Chase did much harm to the merchants of Lichfield, and
apportioned what spoil they took "to each according to his rank."[580]
But foreigners were quick at reprisal when debts were owing to them, or
any injury had been done by English merchants. And the proud traders
of Lübeck and Bergen, members of the Hanseatic League, who warred with
and dictated to kings, were especially sensitive in this respect.
This may be seen by the fate which befell Laurence Cook, afterwards
twice mayor of Coventry, in the days of his apprenticeship to William
Bedforth, and Thomas Walton, servant to John Cross, another local
merchant, who aided in the erection of S. Mary's Hall. For in 1398, as
they lay in the ship of one Thomas Herman, of Boston, in the port of
Stralsund, certain allies of the League, who had some grudge against
the English traders, fell upon the apprentices, beat and wounded them
_minus juste_, taking moreover from the ship 240 dozen pieces of
cloth of divers colours, Bedforth's property, valued at £200; "much
merchandise" belonging to Cross, worth half the sum, and other pieces
of cloth, exported by a third Coventry merchant, valued at £50.[581]
Such incidents as these were not uncommon in the lives of mediæval
merchants, and for the making of a successful trader it was necessary
that a man should have a dash of the warrior and a great deal of the
adventurer in his composition. Trained by exposure to such perils by
land and sea as nowadays only explorers undergo, it is little wonder
that they proved themselves keen, energetic, and resourceful in their
civic life.
The servant of one Mr Wheatley had a happier adventure than Laurence
Cook when in the sixteenth century he undertook a journey to Spain.
For, wishing to purchase steel gads, he bought a chest at a fair,
and lo! when it was opened it was found to contain ingots of silver,
treasure brought perhaps from over the Spanish main. The servant, not
knowing of whom he bought them, Mr Wheatley--honest man--kept them
for a time, but as no inquiry was ever made, he gave the profits,
amounting with contributions from the city to £96 a year, to the
maintenance of twenty-one boys at a school at Bablake, an institution
which exists and thrives even to this day. This benefactor, the "Dick
Whittington" of Coventry, is a person of whom we would gladly learn
more. The real Sir Richard, "thrice Lord Mayor of London," was, as
historians tells us, not the poor friendless wanderer of legend, but
the hopeful son of a well-to-do family of the country gentry, and was
apprenticed to a wealthy London merchant by his kinsfolk after the
orthodox fashion.[582] But as yet no historian has deemed it necessary
to investigate Mr Wheatley's early career, and we still believe that
he came to Coventry as a nameless adventurer, "a poor boy in a white
coat," as Dugdale says. He died a bachelor, and bequeathed his fortune
to charity.[583]
[Illustration: OLD BABLAKE SCHOOL]
But Mr Wheatley was not the only benefactor the city knew. Wealthy
merchants were generous givers, and the education of youth and
provision for the sick and needy were not matters held to be solely
within the Church's province. The names of Richard Whittington and John
Carpenter[584] of London, and of Cannynges of Bristol, deserve ever to
be held in remembrance, and there are hundreds of other half-forgotten
donors entitled to an equal fame. Thomas Bond, merchant of the Staple,
founded at Bablake a hospital for ten men "and one woman to look after
them," the candidates to be chosen on a general day of the Trinity
guild, and, as bedesmen of this omnipotent fraternity, to repeat
three times a day Our Lady's Psalter for the brethren of the guild.
Both Bond's almshouse and that erected by William Ford, merchant, and
William Pisford, at Greyfriars, still remain, and are among the few
perfect specimens of domestic architecture of the sixteenth century
that we possess. The latter, first enriched by Ford's will in 1509,
contained six men and their wives, the nominees of the Trinity guild,
each couple receiving 7-1/2d. a week for their maintenance.[585]
[Illustration: FORD'S HOSPITAL]
But it was not the welfare of the aged alone which absorbed the charity
of these merchants. To John Haddon, draper, is due the honour of
initiating the system of granting loans to young freemen to aid them
in beginning commercial life. By his will (1518) he bequeathed £100 to
be distributed among men of the drapers' fellowship--poor clothmakers
the _Leet Book_ calls them--in loans of £5 each, to enable them to buy
wool or cloth, for the cloth trade at that time was undergoing a period
of great depression in Coventry, and £100 to be similarly divided in
£4 loans among young freemen of all occupations; all loans, free of
interest, to be repaid at the end of first year.[586] His example
had numerous imitators;[587] but undoubtedly the gifts of Sir Thomas
White, mayor of London and founder of S. John's College, Oxford,
whom Mary knighted for his loyalty at the time of Wyatt's rebellion,
surpassed the rest. At the time of their greatest need, in 1543, he
lent the corporation £1400, wherewith they purchased certain lands and
tenements confiscated at the Reformation, and they agreed to distribute
£40 arising from the rents of the tenements in loans to apprentices
of the city for nine years' use.[588] From some cause or other,
probably by reason of his great and numerous acts of benevolence, and
the backwardness of the corporation in paying a promised annuity, Sir
Thomas fell into poverty in his later years, and seems to have been
utterly cast down by the thought that his wife would be left without
provision. "Whereas I have gently written unto you heretofore," he
writes in 1566 to the mayor and corporation, "to let my wife have her
annuity of £46 for part of her jointure, I require you as you shall
answer before God at the day of judgment that you lett my wife have £24
assured to her during her life." Two days after another letter betrays
his unbearable anxiety on this subject. If the mayor and corporation
are not able to perform the undertaking with regard to the jointure, "I
shall even," he says desperately, "cast my colledge for ever ... so am
I utterly shamed in this world and the world to come."[589] Happily for
the cause of "true religion and sound learning," the college was not
abandoned, and we will hope the Coventry folk fulfilled their contract.
Long before the Reformation and Mr Wheatley's gift the sons of the
Coventry burghers attended school, for it is an error to suppose that
the education of the laity began with the grammar schools founded
by Edward VI. Indeed these foundations were but the "fresh and very
inadequate supply of that which had been so suddenly and disastrously
extinguished"[590] at the Reformation. Nor was the occupation of
teaching confined to the monasteries. The trading-class in or before
the fifteenth century threw themselves heartily into the work of
providing schools for the coming generations. In most cases the support
of these institutions was committed to the leading local guild. In
London alone nine grammar schools were set up in the reign of Henry
VI.,[591] and in many other places the bounty of some well-to-do bishop
or merchant enriched country towns with the endowment of a grammar
school. At Coventry there was, it is true, a school at the priory for
the "children of the aumbry,"[592] but it appears that there were other
"teachers of grammar" in the city, whose well-being was a source of
anxiety to the leet, and to these, perhaps, the citizens preferred
to send their children to be instructed in the Latin tongue. In 1426
it was enacted by leet that "John Barton shall come to the city of
Coventry, if he will, to keep a grammar school there."[593] Barton,
however, if he came at all, probably soon made way for a successor,
for in 1429 we find an order of leet to the effect that "Mayster
John Pynshard, skolemayster of grammer, shall have the place that he
dwellethe inne for xls. (40s.) be yere, whyles that he dwellethe in
hit, and holdyth gramer skole hym self ther inne."[594] The prior
appears to have looked upon these teachers as the rivals of the
conventual schoolmasters, but the corporation did their best to soothe
his jealousy, and in 1439 the mayor and six of the council, at the
request of the leet, went to the prior to "commune" with him concerning
this matter, "wylling hym to occupye a skole of gramer, yffe he lyke
to teche hys brederen and childerun off the aumbry, and that he wolnot
gruche ne move the contrari, but that every man of this cite be at
hys fre chosse (choice) to sette his chylde to skole at what techer
of gramer that he likyth, as reson askyth."[595] No doubt the town
school continued to prosper, for we find at the time of the suppression
of the chantries of 1543 that the Trinity guild paid £6, 13s. 4d. as
a yearly salary to the schoolmaster. All this general activity in
education goes to prove that the men of the later Middle Ages were not
the illiterate boors historians have loved to imagine. The knowledge of
reading, writing and Latin, or, as they called it, grammar, was surely
very widely diffused, when not only a multitude of scribes, but farm
bailiffs could make, audit and balance accounts in that language.[596]
Not only were the citizens called on to support by their charity
almshouses and schools, and to furnish loans for youthful enterprise,
but the poor made a constant demand on their bounty, and in the
sixteenth century poverty was greatly on the increase. The town rulers
were confronted with a problem which, then and subsequently, has been
found incapable of solution--the problem of the "unemployed." In the
reign of Henry VIII. a terrible influx of vagabonds from the country
set in, well-nigh driving the local rulers to distraction. Here we
first gain some glimpses of a surplus population of shiftless,
landless, moneyless folk, driven by the decay of tillage to seek
work in the towns. These families, together with the whole labouring
class, were later reduced to unspeakable poverty by the debasement of
the coinage and depreciation of silver, circumstances which, while
affecting wages but little, greatly increased the price of food. This
difficulty was at first unfamiliar to men's minds. Society had been
hitherto somewhat stationary. Individuals lived and worked where their
fathers had lived and worked before them, or at least remained in
a town where they had been able by a seven years' appenticeship or
by purchase to obtain civic rights. But townspeople were jealous of
granting freedom to any but the well-to-do, who would be able to share
the burden of taxation, and the wanderer, who by quitting home had
dropped out of the framework of local society, became one of a herd of
vagabonds liable to be punished according to the utmost rigour of the
law.
The town rulers did not attempt to solve this question, they shelved
it. This wretched population was perpetually ordered to "pass on."
"And those bygge beggers," says an order of leet passed in 1518, "that
wilnot worke well to gete their levyng, but lye in the felds and breke
hedges and stele mannys fruyte ... let theym be banysshed the town,
or els punysshe theym so without favor, that they shalbe wery to byde
therin."[597] And again and again aldermen were exhorted to cause
"lusty beggars and vagabonds" to "voyde out of their ward" upon pain
of imprisonment.[598] Only such impotent and needy beggars as were
licensed, and had the city seal, the sign of the elephant, on their
bags, were allowed to remain and demand charity.[599] But the worthy
men of the leet did not refuse to aid those who suffered undeservedly
from the acutest misery. "If any by infirmity or multitude of children
be not able by his labour to sustain his family," the aldermen were
ordered to provide for their sustenance out of the town chest.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 506: Rough stones were used for paving (Riley, _Liber Albus_,
xliv.). The _Chamberlain's Accounts_ (Corp. MS. A. 7) contain frequent
allusions to paving: "Item, paid for paving within the Bablake gate,
iii_s._" "Item, ii lods pebuls for the same, xviii_d._"]
[Footnote 507: Built 1812 (Poole, _Coventry_, 345).]
[Footnote 508: Poole, 345.]
[Footnote 509: "Daily hurt" comes from having goats at large (_Leet
Book_, 361). In London only the swine of S. Antony's hospital were
allowed to be at large in the streets, and "chiens gentilz," _i.e._
dogs belonging to the gentry (Riley, _Liber Albus_, xlii.).]
[Footnote 510: _Leet Book_, 306.]
[Footnote 511: In London the length of inn-signs was limited to seven
feet (_Liber Albus_, lxv.). Signs were also affixed to shops to attract
the eye; of this custom the barber's pole is a relic. Merchandise was
usually kept in cellars partly underground beneath the solar or front
dwelling-room. In great thoroughfares goods were displayed in covered
sheds projecting in front of the dwelling-place (Turner, _Dom. Arch._
i. 96; iv. 34). Shops were usually open rooms on the ground floor, with
wide windows closed with shutters (_Liber Albus_, xxxviii.).]
[Footnote 512: _Leet Book_, 272, 100.]
[Footnote 513: We hear of the "daybell" rung probably at dawn, and the
curfew rung by the clerks of S. Michael's and Trinity churches (_Ib._,
338). A "larum bell" was rung on the occasion of the quarrel between
Somerset's servants and the watch (_Paston Letters_, i. 408). Probably
there was a recognised "change" in the ringing for each of the various
summonses. The ringing of changes is said to have been peculiar to this
country. Bells, before they were hung up, were baptized and anointed
with holy oil, blessed and exorcised. Their uses were expressed in the
Latin lines:
"Laudo Deum verum--plebem voco--congrego clerum
Defunctos ploro--pestum fugo--festa decoro."
(Strutt, _Sports and Pastimes_, 291, 292.)]
[Footnote 514: _Leet Book_, 234.]
[Footnote 515: In 1450 the chamberlains requested that four men should
be appointed out of each ward to guard the gates, and these four were
to choose one man to keep the keys and close them every night at nine
(_ib._, 254).]
[Footnote 516: Jusserand, _Wayfaring Life_, 169.]
[Footnote 517: Sharp, _Antiq._ 131. In 1362 licence was given to a
recluse, Robert de Worthin, to inhabit a dwelling adjoining the church.]
[Footnote 518: Miracles were worked at S. Osburg's shrine, and her
birthday was a local holiday. Palmer Lane and the Pilgrim's Rest
preserve in their names token of ancient customs. For the wooden image
of our Lady of the Tower see Fretton, _Memorials of the Whitefriars'
Monastery_, Harris, _Troughton Sketched_, 6.]
[Footnote 519: _Leet Book_, 422.]
[Footnote 520: There is a specimen at Berkswell, near Coventry, and at
Malvern.]
[Footnote 521: _Leet Book_, 643. The prisoners paid the gaoler 1d. a
week for their lodging when they had their own bed, 3d. a week if the
gaoler provided them with one; over and above, debtors paid the gaoler
5d. for fee, if the debt for which they were liable exceeded 40d.]
[Footnote 522: _Ib._, 192. See also for punishment of immorality,
_Ib._, 219]
[Footnote 523: Harl. MS. 6388, f. 22. The other lists have Eliphane. I
have no doubt that the right reading is Clapham. This man was an ally
of Warwick, and led the rabble of Northampton to the battle of Edgecote
in 1469. He was beheaded next year.]
[Footnote 524: _Ib._, f. 25.]
[Footnote 525: Harl. MS. 6388, f. 8. A slight exaggeration, no doubt.]
[Footnote 526: _Ib._, f 23.]
[Footnote 527: _Leet Book_, 775.]
[Footnote 528: _Ib._, 447]
[Footnote 529: _Ib._, f. 11. The filth and street sweepings were
ordered to be carried "beyond the stake set in the dyke beyond the
Friars' Gate," or to pits without the gates (_ib._, 30).]
[Footnote 530: _Leet Book_, 455. The worthy men of the leet besought
the mayor that there might be certain citizens appointed to have
oversight of the river, each in their several district, and that the
rules for cleaning it should be duly kept (_ib._, 108).]
[Footnote 531: Such as timber frames for houses, trunks of trees, etc.
(Green, ii. 29, 30).]
[Footnote 532: In London the bedels of each ward had a hook to tear
down burning houses (Riley, _Liber Albus_, xxxiv.).]
[Footnote 533: _Leet Book_, 389.]
[Footnote 534: The spring was called Cunduit Head (Corp. MS. C. 227).]
[Footnote 535: There is still a yard called Cunduit Yard close to
Bablake church.]
[Footnote 536: _Leet Book_, 208, 338.]
[Footnote 537: _Ib._, 157.]
[Footnote 538: Rogers, _Six Cent._ 140.]
[Footnote 539: Green, _Town Life_, ii. 36. Profits on wine were in some
cases 2d., in others 4d. a gallon.]
[Footnote 540: _Leet Book_, 33.]
[Footnote 541: _Leet Book_, 23. The three most common kinds of bread
were _wastel_,--bread of the finest quality; _coket_ (seconds); and
_simnel_, twice-baked bread, used in Lent (Green, ii. 35).]
[Footnote 542: _Leet Book_, 24.]
[Footnote 543: _Ib._, 25.]
[Footnote 544: _Ib._]
[Footnote 545: _Ib._, 518-9.]
[Footnote 546: _Leet Book_, 771.]
[Footnote 547: Wright, _Domestic Manners_, 337.]
[Footnote 548: _Leet Book_, 306. Probably carts made for town use were
always narrow; see illustration in Wright's _Domestic Manners_, 344.
Compare the trollies made for the "Rows" at Yarmouth.]
[Footnote 549: The old name for the thoroughfare between Trinity church
and Butcher Row. A spicer is equivalent to the modern grocer.]
[Footnote 550: Cf. Milk Street, Fish Street and S. Margaret Pattens in
the city of London; Bridlesmith Gate and Fletcher Gate (fletcher = an
arrow maker) in Nottingham. See on this subject Mr Addy's _Evolution of
the House_. It was customary for the members of each calling to live
close together.]
[Footnote 551: Poole, 396.]
[Footnote 552: _Leet Book_, 233]
[Footnote 553: _Ib._, 798.]
[Footnote 554: See Corp. MS. B. 75 for description of the Trinity guild
lands, of which the Drapery was a parcel. The annual rent payable to
the Trinity guild of a half bay in the Great Drapery was 6s. 8d. (C.
194).]
[Footnote 555: _Leet Book_, 666. All people dwelling outside the town
liberties were called "foreign."]
[Footnote 556: For regulations concerning "foreign" bakers, _ib._, 717,
799.]
[Footnote 557: _Leet Book_, 646.]
[Footnote 558: Rogers, _Six Cent._, 340.]
[Footnote 559: Rogers, _op. cit._ 152. In Leicester there were no pleas
held when the great merchants were absent at fairs (Green, ii. 25).]
[Footnote 560: Merchants from Dublin, Drogheda, London, and
Kingston-on-Hull, were members of the Corpus Christi guild; so were
many local country gentlemen and yeomen.]
[Footnote 561: Devon and Ireland supplied coarse cloth sold in the
Drapery (Burton MS. f. 98-103).]
[Footnote 562: Gasquet, _Monasteries_, ii. 285. This took place shortly
before the dissolution.]
[Footnote 563: The "Marprelate" printing press was for some time
at Coventry (Morley, _Sketch of Literature_, 431). Rogers thinks
unlicensed books were sold at fairs. "I cannot conceive how the
writings of such an author as Prynne could have been disposed of except
at the places which were at once so open and so secret" (_Six Cent._,
149).]
[Footnote 564: Corp. MS. E. 6. This court was kept in accordance with
the Statute of Merchants of 1283. A merchant had the power of bringing
a debtor before the mayor, when the debtor bound himself to pay the
debt by a certain day; if he failed to do so, the mayor caused all his
movables to be seized to the amount of the debt and sold. If, however,
he had no movables within the mayor's jurisdiction, application was
made to the chancellor, who caused a writ to be sent to the sheriff
within whose county the debtor had movables, ordering these to be
seized. If the debtor had no movables, he was detained in prison until
terms were made, the creditor meanwhile providing him with bread and
water, the cost of which was added to the amount of the debt (Ashley,
_Econ. Hist._ pt. I. 204).]
[Footnote 565: Rogers thinks that rebellions were often planned at fair
time.]
[Footnote 566: Rogers _Six Cent._ 136-7; Ashley, _Econ. Hist._ pt. I.
98.]
[Footnote 567: Gasquet, _Monasteries_, ii. 96. It seems that the amount
of assistance rendered to wayfarers by monasteries has been much
exaggerated.]
[Footnote 568: Wright, _Domestic Manners_, 333-4. Larwood and Hotten
assign another reason for this practice. Great men's town houses
were frequently let during their absences from home (_History of
Signboards_, 4).]
[Footnote 569: Corp. MS. C. 202; _Leet Book_, 386.]
[Footnote 570: Fretton, _Mayors of Coventry_, 10.]
[Footnote 571: _Ib._, 12; Poole 403.]
[Footnote 572: _Paston Letters_ (ed. Gairdner), I. cxiii. Worcester
often preferred to call himself by his mother's maiden name.]
[Footnote 573: _Rot. Parl._, v. 569.]
[Footnote 574: _Leet Book_, 550.]
[Footnote 575: Sharp, _Antiq._, 61. It seems an incredible sum, and the
statement should be received with caution.]
[Footnote 576: _Leet Book_, 302.]
[Footnote 577: Harl. MS. 6388, f. 13. Onley is said to have been the
first Englishman born in Calais after it was taken by Edward III.; his
father was a standard-bearer in the English army.]
[Footnote 578: _Proceedings Privy Council_, i. 355.]
[Footnote 579: Rogers, _Six Cent._, 99.]
[Footnote 580: _Archæological Journal_, iv. 69.]
[Footnote 581: Sheppard, _Litteræ Cantuarienses_ (Rolls Series, 85),
iii. 81.]
[Footnote 582: Besant and Rice, _Sir Richard Whittington_.]
[Footnote 583: Dugdale, i. 194.]
[Footnote 584: The City of London school was founded on Carpenter's
devise.]
[Footnote 585: Poole, 292-301.]
[Footnote 586: _Leet Book_, 658; Fretton, _Mayors_, 14.]
[Footnote 587: Thomas White, alderman and vintner, of Coventry, Henry
Over, and others.]
[Footnote 588: Poole, 303]
[Footnote 589: Corp. MS. A. 79, f. 63.]
[Footnote 590: Rogers, _Six Cent._, 165. Leach in his _Schools of the
Reformation_ gives this theory substantial support.]
[Footnote 591: Green, ii. 13-16. The drapers had a school at
Shrewsbury, the merchant-tailors in London. The guild of S. Laurence
of Ashburton had charge of the grammar school, founded by Bishop
Stapeledon in 1314. Other schools--as far as we know--not immediately
connected with guilds were at Hull, Rotherham, Ewelme, Canterbury,
Reading, Appleby, Preston, Liverpool, Cambridge.]
[Footnote 592: _Leet Book_, 190; _Vict. Coun. Hist. Warw._ ii., 318.]
[Footnote 593: _Ib._, 101.]
[Footnote 594: _Leet Book_, 118.]
[Footnote 595: _Ib._, 190.]
[Footnote 596: Rogers, _Six Cent._, 165; _Agric. and Prices_, iv. 502.
Even artizans could draw up accounts.]
[Footnote 597: _Leet Book_, 658.]
[Footnote 598: _Ib._, 652.]
[Footnote 599: _Ib._, 677. "A token of ther bagge of the signe of the
Olyfaunt."]