_Daily Life in the Town (continued)--Religion and Amusements of the
Townsfolk_
High above market-place and churchyard, above booth and stall, and the
life and movement of a busy crowd, rose a forest of magnificent spires,
three from the cathedral and one from either parish church. And after
the day's chaffer many a busy trader would turn aside and enter the
long aisles to listen to the chanting of vespers or tell his beads
before the image of his patron saint.
In these days of tempered enthusiasm and lukewarm local interest we
can hardly realise what a source of joy and pride these churches were
to the townsfolk. Self-denial had enabled them to raise these goodly
buildings, which they gave of their best to beautify. The painters,
masons, carpenters, and carvers of the city did the work; the red
sandstone, which, alas! so soon crumbles and decays, came from the
local quarries; and though the grand outline of S. Michael's may be
due to some bishop of the thirteenth century,[600] the design of the
building, with which we are now familiar, came from the brain of a
local architect--some parish priest, perhaps, or master mason of the
city. For the churches of Trinity and S. Michael's were practically
built anew from their foundations, neither perhaps by one family
of merchants, but by the whole body of parishioners in the hey-day
of the city's wealth,[601] while the small collegiate church of S.
John the Baptist was raised by the Trinity guild. All these show the
influence of the new "Perpendicular" style; but S. Michael's more than
the rest is a triumph of the amazing lightness and technical skill so
characteristic of the architecture of the fifteenth century--a style
which, though lacking the strength and mystery of the earlier Gothic of
the thirteenth century, has yet a certain majesty of its own.
Having once built the churches, the townsfolk made provision for
continual prayer and supplication to be held therein. With a touching
belief in the efficacy of prayer, even vicarious, and a business-like
intention of making the best of both worlds, these worthy men devoted
large sums to the support of chantry priests, who, while their
patrons were engaged in secular business, prayed for the souls of
the faithful departed and for living members of the town guilds and
brotherhoods.[602] In the lady chapels of S. Michael's the priests of
the Trinity guild chanted daily the "Antiphones of the Virgin" and the
psalm _De Profundis_ on behalf of the founders of the fraternity.[603]
Similarly a priest said mass at the altar of Our Blessed Lady in
Trinity church "for the good estate of King Richard and Anne his Queen,
the whole realm of England, and all those by whom this altar is
sustained ... and for their souls after death," remembering especially
his patrons, the brethren of the Corpus Christi guild.[604] The dyers'
and drapers' priests had their appointed task, so had the chaplains of
S. John the Baptist's and S. Nicholas' churches, while the bedesmen,
as their name implies, in the almshouse offered daily prayers for the
welfare of the members of the Trinity guild.
[Illustration: HOLY TRINITY CHURCH]
But the good folk were not content with offering their supplications by
proxy. Although much of the spiritual fervour of the thirteenth century
died away in the later Middle Ages, the townsfolk were methodical and
regular in their religious observance and attended church with due
decorum on Sunday and holy-days. In the pews sat the city officers and
their wives each in their degree, the various craftsmen occupying no
doubt the special chapels called after their names, and the apprentices
and servants sitting or standing "in the alleys."[605] The walls of
the churches were bright with fresco, where even the most ignorant
could learn the stories taken from the lives of the saints or from Holy
Writ; it is only within living memory that the smoke has blackened a
rediscovered representation of the Last Judgment above the chancel
arch of Trinity church. And when the worshippers lifted their eyes
to the window-glow they beheld amid the company of the saints scenes
taken from local legend, the old compact for the freedom of the market
between Leofric and Godiva, the blazoning of the arms of founders
and benefactors, and the insignia of trade and craft.[606] For the
mediæval artist saw no firm line sundering the things of religion from
the affairs of daily life, and the people did not care to keep their
civic patriotism and inspirations solely for the guild-hall. In the
aisles and chapels lay the most honoured of the city dead; Bond and
Haddon were laid among their fellow drapers, and the tomb of Ralph
Swyllington, recorder, may yet be seen on the mercers' side in S.
Michael's church.
[Illustration: SWILLINGTON'S TOMB, S. MICHAEL'S CHURCH]
The craft companies paid an annual rent for the chapels within
their keeping, whither they repaired at least once a year to keep
the festival of their patron saint and present their offerings.
Thus each of the cappers subscribed twelve pence a year towards the
maintenance of the furniture in S. Thomas's chapel in S. Michael's,
and presented a penny as an offering on the feast of the translation
of the saint.[607] In these chapels, where the glory of goldsmiths'
and artist's work testified to the munificence of the craftsfolk, dead
members of the brotherhood were occasionally buried, and their _obits_
or anniversaries kept.
It was a common practice to bequeath house property to provide funds
for the continual commemoration of the testator's death and prayers for
his soul's peace. Thus in 1492 Richard Clyff, late parson of S. George,
London, bequeathed to the church of Holy Trinity, Coventry, a tenement
in Well Street "to the entent ... that the Wardeyns of the same Church,
for the tyme beinge yerely, for evermore, observe and kepe within the
same Church, in the vigyll of Saynt Alphege, placebo, and dirige over
nyght, by ii well-dysposyd prestys, there to be said devoutly without
note; and on the morowe after, ayther of the same prestys to say messe
of Requiem for the soules of John Cliff, and Margarete hys wyff, hys
ffader and moder, hys own Soule, all hys ffrendys Saulys, and all
Crystyan Saulys." Other features of the obit were the distribution of
alms to the poor, and the feast which followed the service. Thus on the
day whereon Robert Burnell's obit was kept 4s. was given to the poor,
and 3s. 10d. expended in bread and ale.[608]
When a craftsman died, the whole company of his brethren were present
at his burial, which, if he were a noteworthy citizen, would take
place with much solemnity at the Greyfriars' or one of the parish
churches.[609] Funeral masses were invariably said in the cathedral,
the offerings remaining to the use of S. Mary's minster and convent;
the candles also that had burnt about the coffins[610] were left in
the cathedral after the dead had been borne away to their graves.
Whether the people of Coventry disliked this practice we cannot tell,
but it brought the convent into collision with the Greyfriars, who, as
an active and popular body within the town, were rather disposed to
call the authority of the monks in question. The matter of the funeral
candles and offerings touched the former very nearly, for their chapel
was a favourite burial place; and in 1446 Friar John Bredon threw down
his glove. We would fain know if brother John were a mere busybody or a
born reformer; perhaps he belongs rather to the latter than the former
class, as he also appears, it seems, as a champion of the poorer folk
against the deceiving victuallers.[611] Be this as it may, he was a man
of great influence with the citizens, and, together with the prior, had
helped on a former occasion to still the religious excitement which
had followed on the preaching of Grace, the hermit. The enmity between
the friars and the convent was at last the cause of his overthrow.
Concerning this matter of the candles, the friar was so moved to
bitterness that he openly preached and affirmed "in the parish churches
of this same citee ... that alle maner offerynges owen to be yeven
alonely to theyme that mynistren the Sacraments to the parisshens," and
bade the people give these candles to the parish churches; "permytting
my selfe," he says, "to defende theyme that so did." Moreover, the
friar declared "that in Englond was not so bonde a Citee as this Citee
of Coventry is, in keping and observyng the said custome"; and in
bills which he set up on the church doors he "promysed to delyver the
pepull of this same Citee from the thraldom of Pharao." The prior of S.
Mary was not to be daunted by this audacious front, and petitioned the
King against Friar Bredon. In due time sentence was pronounced, and a
form of recantation arrived prescribed by parliament. In presence of
the Forty-eight[612] the friar was compelled to admit that the custom
he had inveighed against "is a custom commendable, and so owyng to be
kept and observed to encrese of mede, by pleasure made to Almighty God,
who graunte to you and me to lif in this world aftir juste lawes and
lawful customs vertuously, soo that we may deserve to rejoyse (enjoy)
hevenly recompense everlastyngly."[613] After which recantation he was
banished the city.
The citizens were as thorough and systematic in their pastimes as in
their prayers, and all sorts of amusements of a vigorous character,
wherein they gladly indulged, were rarely discouraged by the
corporation. The practice of archery was looked on as part of every
man's necessary training, and crafts were ordered to keep butts in good
repair, so that all members of their fellowships could keep their hands
well in use.[614] Bull-baiting, a favourite sport, gave its name to the
Bull-ring hard by Trinity church;[615] but the traces of "le cokfyting
place"[616] and of the bowling-green near the Charter-house[617] have
been lost.
[Illustration: PULPIT, HOLY TRINITY CHURCH]
Bear-baiting was highly popular likewise, and frequent gifts to Sir
Fulk Greville's bearward[618] form a feature in the chamberlains'
accounts in the early days of Elizabeth. Like all the great Queen's
subjects the men of Coventry delighted in theatrical representations,
and now that the local religious drama was dead, their appreciation
of the strolling players' art caused constant inroads to be made
on the public purse. The wardens were frequently called upon for
payments, such as "to the Earle of Darbyes players v_s._," "to the lord
Chamberlain's players x_s._,"[619] items which accord ill with the
payments for sermons at this time.[620] In the end the sermons gained
the day, and it would be hard to find in the Midlands--save Banbury--a
more staunchly Puritan town than Coventry under the Stuarts.
In the sixteenth century the corporation appear to have become
disquieted at the reckless lives and illicit amusements of those over
whom they ruled. A new era was about to dawn, wherein mediæval barriers
would be broken down; and it seems as if the discreet and worthy
burghers were afraid of the lawlessness and unrest which had entered
into the spirit of society, and which in itself was the sign of coming
change. Orders directed against gaming,[621] or intercourse, especially
on the part of apprentices, with women of evil fame had always been a
feature of the regulations passed by the leet; but as time goes on the
mention of "unlawful games" becomes more and more frequent. As early
as 1510 the aldermen of the several wards were charged to make search
"for all them that keep misrule," who on being discovered were to be
committed to ward, or, if they persisted in their evil ways, to be
banished the city.[622] In 1516 this command was followed up by a fresh
ordinance enjoining them to make inquiry for vagabonds, "as well women
as men," suspected alehouses, "blynde ynnes," unlawful games, and the
like.[623] But the evil appeared to increase as the century advanced,
and in 1548 a complaint of leet reveals a state of things which has
quite a modern look, so little change has human nature and human
habit undergone these three hundred and fifty years. Many, we learn,
passed their time drinking in taverns, and "playnge at the cardes and
tables,[624] and spende all that they can gett prodigally upon theym
selfes to the highe displeasure of God and theyre owne ympovershyng,
whereas," the worthy men of the leet were of opinion, "if it were
spente at home in theyre owne houses theyre wiffes and childerne shulde
have part therof."[625] It was forthwith decreed that any of these
prodigals, whether "labourer, journeyman, or apprentice," if discovered
resorting to any alehouse on a work day should be imprisoned for a day
and night.
In those days, as in our own time, the lower classes had the keenest
appreciation of all that appertained to sport, and the loafer loved to
roam the country lanes with a dog at his heels. Long time since the
prior had complained how the citizens hunted and hawked in his warren,
and in the sixteenth century the corporation were hard put to it to
keep this passion within the bounds prescribed by the statutes of the
realm. People, we hear in the eighteenth year of Henry VIII., who did
not possess the necessary qualification, a 40s. freehold, presumed
to keep birds and dogs, whereby idleness "is greatly encreased";
henceforward they were forbidden to keep hawk, hound, greyhound, or
ferret, or to presume to hunt with the same under a heavy penalty.[626]
Other practices in which the citizens indulged were looked upon with an
unfavourable eye by the rulers of the town, brawling being expressly
forbidden. No one was allowed to carry defensive weapons through the
streets, and hosts were charged to bid their stranger guests leave
their swords behind them, when they had occasion to leave the hostels
wherein they had taken lodging.[627] The penalty for smiting "with
a knife drawyn" was half a mark, unless the smiter were "himself
defendant." "No man of craft," another order runs, "bear no bills,
nor gysarnes, nor great staves," upon pain of forfeiture of the same
weapons. Those who were driving cattle to market could, however, carry
a small staff in their hands.[628] These orders did not suffice by any
means to abolish brawls, and sometimes lords, knights and squires, the
"mighty" men of the country round, fought out their ancient family
quarrels among the dwellings of the burgher folk;[629] at others the
citizens had their own grievances to urge against one or other of
these mighty men, and drew sword upon him and his retainers. In these
cases there would be, most likely, death or shedding of blood, while
in disputes arising among the citizens themselves merely blows and
beatings would be given on either side, but with such violence that
combatants were afterwards often spoken of as "in despair of their
lives" from the injuries they had received.
Troubles of this kind were a feature of the times when the gentry
flocked into the city to see the far-famed Corpus Christi shows, or
to be near the Court, for Henry VI. and his Queen tarried frequently
at Coventry. On Corpus Christi even in the year 1448 Sir Humphrey
Stafford and his son Richard were attacked in the Broadgate[630] after
nightfall, as they came from Lady Shrewsbury's[631] lodging, by Sir
Robert Harcourt and his men. Richard was slain and his father wounded
in the darkness and confusion, while two of the Harcourt faction died
also in the fray. All this took place, says John Northwood, writing
to Viscount Beaumont, "as men say, in a Paternoster while." It was a
terrible business; Northwood, evidently striving to be exact, could
hardly describe how it happened. The two chief enemies, he says, "fell
in handes togyder, and Sir Robert smot hym (Sir Humphrey) a grette
stroke on the hed with hys sord, and Richard with hys dagger hastely
went toward hym, and as he stombled on of Harcourts men smot hym in the
bak with a knyfe, men wotte not ho hytt was reddely; hys fader hard
noys and rode toward hem and hys men ronne before hym thyderward, and
in the goyng downe of hys hors, on, he wotte not ho,[632] be hynd hym
smot hym on the hede with a nege tole,[633] men know not with us with
what wepone, that he fell downe and hys son fell downe be fore hym as
goode as dede." And the whole affray--characteristically enough--was
"be cawse of an old debate that was betwene heme for takyng of a
dystres as hyt is told." The law was not always prompt in bringing
gentlefolk to account, and Sir Robert Harcourt at that time escaped
justice, only to be overtaken by revenge, however, twenty-two years
later, when he died at the hands of the Staffords.[634]
Among the citizens also certain feasts and merry-makings ministered
occasion for riots and quarrels. Such were the Lammas feasts, whereon
the chamberlains, with a tumultuous following, opened out the common
pasture lands that encircled the city. Such again were the three great
processional nights, the vigils of Corpus Christi, of S. John the
Baptist (Midsummer eve) and S. Peter. "The people come at Lammas," runs
an order of Leet, "in excess number and unruly, to ill ensample"; and
it was laid down that only a few from each ward, who had been appointed
by the corporation, should accompany the chamberlains on their annual
ride. Moreover, "great debate and manslaughter and other perils and
sins" fell out on Midsummer eve and S. Peter's night, because so "great
a multitude" was gathered together at that season within the city,
"that it lieth in no man's power ... for to please them all";[635] and
the Church tried to interfere in the interests of peace, but without
success. Occasionally the good folk of the place fell to blows, it
would seem, on ordinary working days, without having their presence
at a merry-making to urge in extenuation of their fault. Thus in 1444
the corvesars, or tanners of leather, fell out about some obscure
point or other with the weavers, and so hotly did the quarrel rage
between them, and so frequent the exchange of deadly blows, that Thomas
Burdeux, weaver, was said to be in "despair of his life" by reason of
the sore beating he had received. The quarrel was allayed, according to
the wisdom of the mayor and his discreet council, by the drinking of
a certain amount of ale among the fellowship of both crafts at their
joint expense.[636]
But few pleasures appealed to the mediæval citizen so strongly as that
of dining well; and besides these peace-promoting drinkings there were
many occasions whereon members of guilds and crafts met together to
feast and do their best to justify the reputation, which still clings
to city folk and aldermen, of loving good cheer. The meals of the
Middle Ages were long and heavy. The highly-flavoured cookery, with
its strange mixture of meat and sweets--fowls stuffed with currants
was a favourite dish--would appear barbarous to modern epicures; but
such as it was, vast preparations and much money were lavished upon it.
The members of each craft fellowship met once a year to hold a feast,
while the brethren of the Trinity guild celebrated the Assumption and
S. Peter's Eve by a banquet and probably also the festival of the
Decollation of S. John. The Corpus Christi had a "Lenton" dinner, a
"goose" dinner in August, and a "venison" one in October,[637] and
in 1492 they spent £26, 0s. 4d. on their feasts, a sum only 13s. less
than the annual stipend due to the five priests supported by the
guild.[638] But the record of common feasting is not yet exhausted. The
members of the Corpus Christi fraternity met together at a breakfast
on the morning of the festival of the Body of Christ, and all the
crafts supped on cakes and ale on the great processional nights. One
dozen spiced cakes, three dozen white cakes, "a seysterne" and a half
of ale with "comfets," and a pound of "marmalet" were ordered for the
carpenters' merry-making on Midsummer eve, 1534.[639] Nor were the
journeymen forgotten on these joyous evenings; they partook of plainer
fare--bread and ale--at their master's expense.
On Midsummer and S. Peter's eves the townsfolk gave themselves up to
mirth and jollity, decorating banqueting-halls, streets, and houses
with birchen boughs and all manner of greenery.[640] This custom
was, Stowe tells us, also observed in London, where every man's door
was "shadowed with Greene Birch, long Fennel, S. John's wort, Orpin,
white Lilies, and such like, garnished with Garlands of beautifull
flowers, and had also Lamps of glasse with Oyle burning in them all
the night."[641] But lamps were not the only means of illumination on
those joyous nights. "On the Vigils of Festivall dayes and on the same
Festivall dayes in the Evenings," continues the London chronicler,
"after the Sun-setting, there were usually made Bone-fires in the
streets, every man bestowing wood or labour towards them. The wealthier
sort also before their doores, neere to the said Bone-fires, would
set out Tables on the vigils, furnished with sweete bread and good
drinke, and on the Festivall days with meats and drinkes plentifully,
whereunto they would invite their neighbours and passengers also to
sit, and be merry with them in great familiarity, praysing God for his
benefits bestowed on them. These were called Bone-fires, as well of
amity amongst neighbours, that being before at controversie, were there
by the labour of others reconciled, and made of bitter enemies loving
friends."[642]
It is good to dwell on this scene of frank gaiety and open-handed
hospitality, the pleasantest, to my thinking, that has come to us from
mediæval times. The dusk lighted by the flicker of the bonfires, the
flower-wreathed houses, the merry groups, the hand-clasp in token of
reconciliation, what a picturesque glimpse we have here of common union
and common joy to which our fêtes and holidays nowadays can afford no
parallel!
But the chief glory of these festal nights was the setting forth of the
armed watch.[643] This was not such an imposing spectacle in Coventry
as in London, where the route extended, says Stowe, "to 3200 Taylors
yards of assize." The procession way was lighted by 700 cressets, and
the marching watch numbered 2000 men. Yet the Coventry folk made great
preparation for their humbler show, which was undertaken, so said the
drapers' craft with pardonable pride, "to the lawde and prayse of God
and the worship of this city." All the craft fellowships met together
to consult as to ways and means some days beforehand, "at the mayor's
commandment," and dire penalties were laid on those who should refuse
to attend on Midsummer night when the chief master sent his "clerk or
sumoner" to warn them.[644] When all was ready for the procession, the
worthy folk rode forth, two by two, each man in the livery proper to
his calling, the least important brotherhood going first, the others
following, each in their degree, until the train of fellowships closed
with the mercers, the senior craft.[645] The journeymen, perhaps on
foot, followed their masters, and the chief folk of the corporation
rode conspicuous in their scarlet cloaks, each one having an attendant
torchbearer.[646] But the chief glory of the procession was the sight
of the watch riding in shining armour, and bearing battle-axes, swords
and guns. Thus the dyers sent forth two clad in complete white armour,
and four in brigandines, the drapers four "in almayne revetts," while
the smiths among others hired four, and the butchers made provision
for six armed men.[647] Moreover, a crowd of minstrels and hirelings
bearing cressets, torches, spears gay with pennons and bells,[648]
streamers whereon were depicted the arms of the various crafts,[649]
and mirth-provoking figures of giants and giantesses,[650] caused the
streets to fill with colour, light, music, and laughter. The citizens
in the dusk of those June evenings beheld a right gallant show. There
was the sound of minstrelsy, broken by a sudden discharge of guns,[651]
with the murmur of many voices and the tramp of many feet, and between
the rows of densely packed crowd the torchlights glinted on the bright
advancing line of the armed watch, or glowed on the stately figures
of my masters the mayor, sheriffs and aldermen, arrayed in scarlet,
bringing up maybe the rear of the train. In this manner did the good
folk of Coventry celebrate the vigils of S. John the Baptist and S.
Peter, according to the ancient custom of the city, until the changes
of the sixteenth century, or the growth of Puritan feeling, or poverty,
or a combination of all these, caused the observance to be laid aside.
The riding on S. Peter's eve was discontinued after 1549,[652] though
Midsummer eve was still celebrated by a procession for some years after
that date.
On the morning of the Corpus Christi festival, before the Mystery Plays
were acted, another procession of the crafts, more strictly religious
in character than those we have described, also took place. Following
the train of companies of traders and artificers came the members or
priests of the Trinity guild bearing the Host, the various religious
bodies of the city probably walking behind the Sacrament. The Corpus
Christi guild provided gorgeous vessels, wherein the consecrated
elements were placed, and four burgesses hired by the fraternity
carried a canopy of costly material over the same, while the effect of
the religious ceremonial was heightened by banner and crucifix coming
from the treasuries of the guilds. A pageant setting forth scenes in
the life of the Virgin, the Annunciation, which, on account of its
mystical meaning, was highly appropriate to the occasion, and the
Assumption also figured in the train, and the records of the Corpus
Christi guild show the payments made to the persons who represented S.
Gabriel bearing the lily,[653] the Virgin with a crown of great price
upon her head, the twelve apostles, including S. Thomas of India,
eight virgins, S. Margaret and S. Catherine. And the smiths caused the
actor who was to represent Herod in their pageant to ride on horseback
in a gorgeously painted coat in the procession. After this portion
of the festival was over, the craftsfolk set forth the famous plays
or pageants, whereof the fame filled Coventry from time to time with
royal and noble visitors, and all the good folk of the surrounding
country. Henry V. in 1416, Margaret of Anjou in 1457, Richard III. in
1485, Henry VII. in 1487, and again with his Queen, Elizabeth of York,
in 1493,[654] witnessed these shows, which in the fifteenth and early
sixteenth centuries were at the height of their popularity.
Among the everyday people who came at this season in crowds to
Coventry, merchants combined business with religious edification,
since the fair followed hard on the plays,[655] with others the latter
counted most. "If you believe not me," says a preacher in the _Hundred
Merry Tales_, at the conclusion of his sermon on the Creed, "then for
a more surety and sufficient authority, go your way to Coventry and
there ye shall see them all played in Corpus Christi play."[656] We
may take it that the dramatic illusion was notably sustained in these
plays, and that they "fortified the unlearned in their faith." The men
of this midland city had a passion for acting; they performed on every
occasion; such adepts were they at their art that we hear of their
playing at Court in 1530, at Bristol and Abingdon in 1570, and four
times in Leicester between 1564 and 1571-2.[657] In this manner did
Warwickshire folk prepare for Shakespeare's coming. The soil on which
the Elizabethan drama grew with such luxuriance, had been tilled for
well-nigh two hundred years by nameless actors, who set forth on local
stages the tragedy, which for simple dignity, has no peer among the
tragedies of the world.
The famous Corpus Christi pageants were not of lay but of clerical
origin. The church was the earliest theatre; clerks the first actors;
and the earliest plays grew out of the dramatic rendering of parts
of the Easter and Christmas services--a colloquy between those
representing the angel at the sepulchre and the women bearing precious
ointment,[658] or the singing by a choirboy "in the similitude of an
angel" perched "in excelso"--aloft--of glad tidings to personators of
the shepherds of Bethlehem,[659] or the successive utterance of clerks
in the character of Isaiah, Habakkuk and other prophets of appropriate
testimony to the coming of Christ. From such simple, liturgical sources
there developed first in clerical, then in lay, hands, a religious
drama which ultimately covered the whole field of Christian history
from the Creation to the Day of Doom. In view of the near connection
between the Coventry monks and the Lichfield canons, it is of great
interest to note that the _Peregrini_--the appearance of Christ to the
travellers at Emmaus--an early development of the Easter cycle, and the
_Pastores_, or the Christmas Shepherds' play, were regularly performed
at Lichfield under Bishop Hugh of Nonant.[660] Of other plays, called
_Miracula_ or Miracles, whereof the source was not the liturgy, but
rather the life of a saint, there is frequent mention; such an one in
honour of S. Catherine was performed before 1119 at a monastic school
at Dunstable on the road between London and Coventry. Nearly 400 years
later a "miracle" on the same subject was seen in the "Little Park"
just outside the walls of the midland city.
As the liturgical plays grew long and elaborate they ceased to be
included in the church service; and gradually it came about that the
churchyard, since it would admit of more spectators than the church,
was deemed a more fitting place for their representation, as at
Beverley, where about 1220 a crowd assembled to witness a play on the
Resurrection.[661] Thence, so greatly did the laity love these shows,
they passed to convenient greens and highways, somewhat to the scandal
of rigider moralists, who held that, though clerks might act in church
plays, it was a "sight of sin" for them to hold these performances in a
more secular neighbourhood. It was probably in response to this feeling
that the regular clergy--save on occasions the friars--gradually
withdrew from out door plays, and that lay performers, controlled by
the growing and wealthy craft-guilds, practically replaced clerks. The
vulgar tongue ousted Latin, and plays proper to Easter and Christmas,
linked together into one whole religious story, were acted on the great
processional feasts, when daylight is longest, Corpus Christi or,
less frequently, Whitsuntide. The process, still somewhat obscure to
us, whereby the performances passed under secular control, would seem
to be complete in the fourteenth century. Local tradition places the
earliest representation at Chester in 1328, while we have more certain
knowledge of them at Beverley in 1377, York in 1378 and Coventry in
1392. What part, if any, was played by the professional entertainers,
wandering "mimes," minstrels and jugglers in the gradual secularization
of the plays we know not, neither is there definite information about
the earliest dramatic authors, save that tradition points to Ralph
Higden of _Polychronicon_ fame as author of the Chester cycle. Plays,
however, were so frequently revised and expanded by local folks, clerks
and laymen, that they sometimes became, like the Coventry craft-plays,
affairs of metrical patchwork. The last redaction these special dramas
underwent was at the hands of Robert Croo, a jack-of-all-trades
theatrical, by whom they were "neuly translate" or "neuly correcte" in
1535.[662]
[Illustration: OLD HOUSE IN COX STREET]
Each Coventry craft was required by the authorities to contribute
towards the setting forth of a pageant at the festival. The more
important fraternities--such as the mercers and drapers--were able
to bear the expenses of furnishing stage scenery, paying actors, and
providing suitable accessories without any aid from bodies outside
their ranks. But among the lesser crafts it was usual for two, three,
four, or more to band together in order to lessen the individual
burden,[663] while in all cases the journeymen probably contributed
towards the expenses of their masters' pageant.[664] The task of
adjusting these payments according to the means of the various inferior
craft companies, was a delicate one, and often brought trouble upon
the corporation. None of them cared to undertake the expenses and
responsibility involved in the provision of a play. The smiths in 1428
petitioned the leet to be released from the burden;[665] the dyers in
1494 could not be induced to take the load upon their shoulders;[666]
while for many years the skinners, fishmongers, cappers, corvesars,
butchers, and others contrived to evade payment towards the support of
a pageant, until a complaint arose from some of the contributory crafts
that they were over-burdened with charges consequent thereon.
This primary difficulty being overcome, the crafts took no little pains
to make the representations as perfect as possible. They provided the
dresses and stage furniture from their own funds, each company having
a pageant-house[667] usually in Mill Lane, now Cox Street, wherein
these properties were stored. They paid the composer of the piece,
if need were, or the copyist; the actors also, who were maybe lower
craftsfolk, had a fixed hire, with "bread and ale" at rehearsals,
and between the repetition of the performance on the festival day in
different quarters of the town. All were required by order of leet to
play "well and sufficiently," "lest any impediment should arise" in the
performance, under pain of 20s. to the town wall,[668] and in order
that they might be perfect in their several parts, there were usually
two, or in the case of a new play no less than five, rehearsals before
the festival,[669] some of these taking place in the presence of the
assembled fellowship, while the "keeper of the play book" attended, no
doubt in the capacity of prompter.
[Illustration:
36 Gosford St]
[Illustration:
91 Gosford St]
The common word for these craft-plays is pageants, a word of uncertain
origin, which is also applied to the vehicle or movable stage whereon
the acting took place. These pageants[670] were divided into two parts;
the actors dressed--and no doubt waited also, when their presence was
not required on the stage--in the under part, where they were concealed
by hanging cloths; the play was set forth on the upper part, which
was open to the view, and furnished with suitable scenery, and the
floor strewn with rushes. Journeymen and other hirelings dragged the
pageants from place to place, the play being repeated at convenient
points within the city, beginning with Gosford Street. The second and
third stations appear to have been at the end of Much Park Street, most
likely the corner of Jordan Well, and at the New Gate respectively. Dr
Craig thinks that there were ten stations, which would accord well with
the number of pageants and of wards within the city, though I cannot
think that each of the plays was performed ten times over. Flesh is
weak, and it is difficult to see how either actors or spectators could
have borne the strain.[671] Moreover even the long light days of May
or June would hardly have sufficed for such a stupendous task: when it
was once essayed, all the pageants being first played before Richard
Wood's door to pleasure Queen Margaret, in 1457, daylight failed,
and the performance of "Doomsday" was perforce abandoned. Indeed
it seems that this particular play, which naturally concluded the
series, was but thrice acted, since the drapers regularly order three
"worldys"--for which in 1556 they paid Croo two shillings--one to be
destroyed, it appears, in each performance.[672]
[Illustration: OLD HOUSE IN COX STREET]
No doubt this mobility of the theatre, and the simultaneous acting of
various pageants at different stations was necessitated by the lack
of an open space within the city sufficient to contain the throng
of spectators. The acting of single plays, not belonging to the
traditional cycle, such as the play of S. Catherine acted in 1491, or
that of S. Crytyan or Christian, "magnus ludus vocatus seynt Xpeans
pley,"[673] performed at Whitsuntide in 1505, took place in the Little
Park where space was ample. That a regular open-air amphitheatre was
constructed--such as the _plân an guare_ which survives at S. Just in
Cornwall, is improbable; the Park-Hollows, where later Lollard and
Marian martyrs suffered death, would maybe serve aptly for the purpose.
Such an indelible impression did S. Christian's play make on those that
beheld it, that years later when divers neighbours and friends were
asked to give proof of Walter Smith's age--it was the Walter Smith
who was after strangled by means of Dorothy, his faithless wife--they
recalled that his baptism took place the year S. Christian's play was
played in the Little Park.
There was possibly a convenient station close to the Greyfriars'
church, where Henry VII. and his Queen viewed the plays in 1493. This
is the explanation, whereat Dr Craig[674] has arrived after a careful
sifting of the evidence, of the cryptic saying of some of the annalists
that the King and Queen saw the plays acted _by the Greyfriars_. "In
his Mayoralty," says one version, "K.H. 7 came to see the plays acted
by the _Grey Friers_ and much commended them"; another version, quoted
by Dr Craig, varies the reading to "_at_ the greyfriers," the probably
correct interpretation.[675] The only other reference to the grey
friars' acting comes from Dugdale, who goes further in attributing a
particular manuscript to this particular house. The plays were "acted,"
he says, "with mighty state and reverence by the Friers of this House";
and further "I have been told," he continues, "by some old people,
who in their younger years were eye-witnesses of these _Pageants_
so acted, that the yearly confluence of people to see that shew was
extraordinary great, and yeilded no small advantage to this City."[676]
Here Homer distinctly nods. Dugdale does not seem to have heard of the
craft plays, whereof the regular representation did not cease until
1580,[677] twenty-five years before his birth, and thirty-five years
before his entry into Coventry grammar school, but it was clearly
to these pageants that the old people aforesaid referred, since any
hypothetical acting on the part of the friars must have ceased in 1538
with the suppression of their house, sixty-seven years before Dugdale's
birth and seventy-seven years before the beginning of his scholastic
life at Coventry.
It is also on the slenderest grounds that the historian of Warwickshire
attributes the fifteenth century MS. of the _Ludus Coventriæ_ to the
Franciscans of that city. The first possessor of the manuscript was
one Robert Hegge of Durham, after whose death in 1629 it appears to
have passed into Cotton's possession and is still included in the great
Cottonian collection in the British Museum.[678] Cotton's librarian,
Richard James, described the MS. on the fly-leaf as scenes from the
New Testament,[679] acted by monks or mendicant friars, adding that
the book is commonly known as the Coventry plays or Corpus Christi
plays.[680] A later librarian in 1696 omitted the Coventry attribution,
but still alluded to the plays as represented by mendicant friars.
Here the matter must rest. Probably the last word has still to be said
on the subject. Scholars are not agreed on the _locale_ of the _Ludus
Coventriæ_ which have been assigned to districts as far removed as
the northeast midlands and Wiltshire, or to their actors, who have
been represented as strolling players, or even Coventry friars "on
tour."[681] We might be disposed to accept--with caution--the view,
evidently based on some tradition or other, that these plays were acted
by friars,[682] but the objection to identifying these friars with the
Coventry Franciscans, acting at any rate in Coventry, is that the city
was furnished already with well-authenticated craftsmen-acted plays of
great renown, whereof some examples are now left, and that it would be
impossible for two sets of plays and actors to command attention at the
feast of Corpus Christi. Nor is there evidence, so far as I am aware,
to connect any of the Coventry religious with the stationary plays
acted on occasions at Whitsuntide.[683]
We touch surer ground when we come to examine the craft-plays,
whereof we have abundance of evidence. Unlike those of Chester, York
and Wakefield, the Coventry plays were few in number, having been
fused together, and, it seems, formed a series illustrating the life
of Christ, closing with His second coming on the Day of Judgment.
The absence of Old Testament scenes would be a rare feature, and
the point has been disputed,[684] but so few of the pageants remain
unidentified, and such striking scenes in the life of Christ have no
play assigned to them, that there hardly seems room for scenes drawn
from the Old Testament. The procession of prophets[685]--_Processus
Prophetarum_--the nucleus whence the Old Testament cycle spread,
is likewise very undeveloped in Coventry. None of the prophets are
individualized in the plays that have come down to us, except Isaiah,
who appears as prologue to the tailors' and sheremen's play of the
_Nativity_; others appear as rather "defuce" commentators--to use
their own word--further on in the action, and again as prologue to the
weavers' play of the _Purification_.[686] It is impossible to construct
the whole series of the Coventry plays, for, save two pageants--that
of the sheremen and tailors, and that of the weavers--all are missing,
and in some cases the very titles of the plays cannot be recovered. The
first pageant set forth was probably that of the guild of the Nativity,
the company of tailors and sheremen, representing the _Annunciation,
Joseph's Trouble_, _the Journey to Bethlehem_, _the Birth of Christ_,
_the Angels and the Shepherds_, _the Offering of the Magi_, _the Flight
into Egypt_, _and the Murder of the Innocents_. The weavers' pageant,
wherein was set forth the _Presentation of Christ in the Temple_, and
_Christ and the Doctors_, would follow as a matter of course. The
titles of four pageants--those of the mercers, tanners, whittawers,
and girdlers--are lost, though Dr Craig has made the shrewd guess
that the subject of the first was the _Assumption_.[687] The story of
_Christ's Trial and Crucifixion_ was the theme of the smiths' show, the
_Burial_ or the "taking down of God from the Cross" was played by the
pinners and needlers, the _Harrowing of Hell_ and the _Resurrection_
was enacted on the stage furnished by the cardmakers, later cappers,
and this, with the drapers' _Doomsday_, closes the list of the plays
that are known to us. It will thus be seen that the inferior clothing
crafts represented the Christmas cycle, and the workers in iron,
smiths, pinners, cardmakers, the Passion-Resurrection one, so that we
may suppose that the subject of the girdlers' pageant, since they were
workers in iron, would be a subject nearly connected with this latter
group--possibly the "Maundy" and _the Agony in the Garden_.
The shearmen and tailors' pageant of the _Nativity_ and the weavers'
_Presentation in the Temple_, both plays whereof the text has been
preserved, were discovered by the antiquary, Thomas Sharp, and printed
early in the last century, a fortunate circumstance, since the former
with all Sharp's collection perished in the fire at Birmingham in
1879. One manuscript alone remains, now in the possession of the broad
weavers and clothiers, a small volume of seventeen leaves, one missing,
bound in ancient boards and leather, with end-papers of Holbeinesque
wood-cuts. The whole--save two songs at the end--is in the handwriting
of Robert Croo, by whom it was "newly translate" in 1534.
Both these plays are written in many metres, and obviously show the
workmanship of many hands. Rhythm and versification often betray the
'prentice; indeed on the whole it is but clumsy writing; and yet here
and there that wonderful instrument, the English language, gives out
its music though it be stricken with an unsure and careless hand.
Isaiah's prologue, the scenes between Simeon and Anna,[688]--even the
lines of that sublime braggart, Herod, have a hint of that wonderful
quality to which English verse attained when Spenser wrote it. The
kernel of the story is told in rough, simple quatrains; here and
there--particularly in the comic parts--a rollicking stanza, derived
apparently from one employed in the Chester cycle, breaks in; while
some portions of the piece have been so worked over that the verse
defies metrical analysis.[689]
There is no comedy connected with the shepherds' scenes in the Coventry
Christmas plays, such as occurs in the Towneley (Wakefield) cycle,
where the sheep-stealing episode is the work of a master-hand. Nor is
the presentation of their gifts to the Child as charming as the "bob of
cherries" passage in the northern dramatist's verses, still the scene
is full of the tender feeling, which it never fails to draw forth.
"I have nothing," says the first shepherd to Mary,--
"I haue nothyng to present with thi chylde
But my pype; hold, hold, take yt in thy hond;
Where-in moche pleysure that I haue fond;
And now, to oonowre thy gloreose byrthe,
Thow schallt yt haue to make the myrthe.
II. Pastor. Now, hayle be thow, chyld, and thy dame!
For in a pore loggyn here art thow leyde,
Soo the angell seyde and tolde vs thy name;
Holde, take thow here my hat on thy hedde!
And now off won thyng thow art well sped,
For weddur thow hast noo nede to complayne,
For wynd, ne sun, hayle, snoo and rayne.
III. Pastor. Hayle be thou, Lorde ouer watur and landis!
For thy cumyng all we ma make myrthe
Have here my myttens to pytt on thi hondis.
Other treysure have I non to present the with."
A pipe, a hat, a pair of mittens! How homely it sounds! In the _York
Plays_ the Child receives a broach with a tin bell, two cob-nuts on a
string, and a horn spoon that can hold forty pease!
In the Nativity scene Joseph warms the Child at the breath of the
beasts in the manger.
Mare. A! Josoff, husebond, my chyld waxith cold,
And we haue noo fyre to warme hym with_.
Josoff. Now in my narmys I schall hym fold,
Kyng of all kyngis be fyld and be fryth;
He myght haue had bettur, and hym-selfe wold,
Then the breythyng of these bestis to warme hym with.
Mare. Now, Josoff, my husbond, fet heddur my chyld,
The Maker off man and hy Kyng of blys.
Josoff. That schalbe done anon, Mare soo myld,
For the brethyng of these bestis hath warmyd [hym] well, i-wys.
The comic element in the preserved plays is represented by Joseph, a
weariful old husband, and natural grumbler, who becomes exceedingly
fretful when bidden by Mary to find some doves for the Purification
offering at the Temple.
"Swette Josoff," says Mary, "fuffyll ye owre Lordis hestes."
"Why," says her husband ruefully,
"Why _and_ woldist th[o]u haue me to hunt bridis nestis?
I pray the hartely, dame, leve thosse jestis
And talke of thatt wol be.
For, dame, woll I neuer vast my wyttis,
To wayte or pry where the wodkoce syttis;
Nor to jubbard among the merle pyttis,
For thatt wasse neyuer my gyse.
Now am I wold and ma not well goo:
A small twyge wold me ouerthroo;
And yche[690] were wons lyggyd aloo,
Full yll then schulde I ryse."[691]
Finding the task inevitable, he murmurs that "the weakest go ever to
the wall," and appeals for sympathy to the audience, particularly to
the husbands of young and headstrong wives in the traditional manner
beloved by mediæval play-goers,
"How sey ye all this company
Thatt be weddid asse well asse I?
I wene that ye suffer moche woo;
For he that weddyth a yonge thyng
Must fullfyll all hir byddyng,
Or els make his handis wryng,
Or watur his iis when he wold syng;
And thatt all you do know."[692]
Finally he subsides helplessly upon a "lond" or furrow, till the angel
appears and thrusts the birds into his hands. No mention is made to
Mary of the miraculous interposition when Joseph has hurried home,
pluming himself upon the capture.
"I am full glade I haue them fond.
Am nott I a good husbonde?"
says the saint with glee. It is a delicious scene, and its writer was a
comedian of no mean order.
Herod was the popular favourite of the Christmas play cycle, for the
predecessors of Shakespeare's groundlings loved to have their ears
split by his noisy arrogance. He "ragis in the pagond and in the strete
also," according to a stage direction, and it is possible that his
buffoonery was tinged with the memory of the wild frolic of the ancient
Christmas festivals, the feast of the Ass and the feast of Fools.[693]
"It out-herods Herod," says Shakespeare, the professional player, in
scorn of the amateur of the old régime. But the rant Herod utters is
gorgeous rant.
How the children shuddered when he wielded his "bright brond" or
terrible sword, and how his great voice rang out through the streets
when he cried:--
"For I am evyn he thatt made bothe hevin and hell,
And of my myghte power holdith up this world rownd.
Magog and Madroke, bothe them did I confounde."
What megalomania! "Magog and Madroke," are undeniably fearsome names
and suit well with Herod's vizor, his falchion and towering crest.
"I am the cawse," he cries out,--
"I am the cawse of this grett lyght and thunder;
Ytt ys throgh my fure that the[694] soche noyse dothe make.
My feyrefull contenance the clowdis so doth incumbur
That oftymis for drede therof the verre yerth doth quake.
Loke, when I with males this bryght brond doth schake,
All the whole world from the north to the sowthe
I ma them dystroie with won worde of my mowthe!
* * * * *
Behold my contenance and my colur,
Bryghtur then the sun in the meddis of the dey.
Where can you haue a more grettur succur
Then to behold my person that ys soo gaye?
My fawcun and my fassion, with my gorgis araye,--
He thatt had the grace all-wey ther-on to thynke,
Lyve the[694] myght all-wey with-owt othur meyte or drynke."[695]
There was another Herod in the smiths' play of the Passion, which has
not survived, but he was outshone by Pilate, who received 4s. for
his hire from the same company, whereas his fellow, the personator
of Herod, received but 3s. 8d.; the former, too, drank wine in the
intervals between the proformances, while the minor players were
refreshed with mere ale for the nonce. Both these above named were
rampant characters, Pilate always possessing the organ of Stentor. He
appears again in the cappers' play of the Resurrection, and evidently
became very terrific, laying about him with his club or mall when
the soldiers brought news that Christ had risen from the dead. Years
after in 1790 when even the tradition of the pageants was almost
forgotten, Sharp, the antiquary, found Pilate's mall in an old chest
in the cappers' chapel in S. Michael's church.[696] It was made of
leather and stuffed with wool, and had evidently served as the head
of a staff. Pilate's "balls," also made of leather, and possibly the
forerunners of the fool's bauble, also ministered occasion for noise
and laughter. Both Herod, Pilate, and the demons had vizors or masks,
hence the smiths' entry, "paid to Wattis for dressyng of the devells
hede viii_d_."[697] The devil--sometimes in the plural--appears in at
least three Coventry plays, the _Trial_, where no doubt he whispered
the dream to "Dame Procula," Pilate's wife, as he did at York,[698] the
_Harrowing of Hell, and Doomsday_. In the last two pageants there would
be much by-play with Hell-mouth and the souls in the infernal place.
I cannot tell in which particular piece the devil, whom John Heywood,
interlude-writer, claimed as an "old acquaintance," was an actor, but
it undoubtedly was in one of them, since in his _Foure P.P._ Heywood
says:--
"Oft in the play of Corpus Christi,
He had played the deuyll at Coventry."
Among the cappers' list of actors there is one which has about it a
certain Miltonic grandeur; it is the "Mother of Death."[699] It is to
be regretted that _Doomsday_ has not survived, for the names of the
persons represented are very suggestive; two demons, two spirits were
among them, two "worms of conscience," three black--or damned--souls,
and three white--or saved--souls, and a Pharisee.[700] The details
of the stage property and payments abound in _naïf_ and grotesque
allusions. Thus we learn that a "new hook" for hanging Judas was
purchased at the cost of 6d.;[701] and one Fawston received 4d. for
"coc croyng," presumably "to startle the penitent Peter."[702] Adam's
spade, "Eve's distaff," and the "apple tree,"[703]
"the fruit
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought Death into the world and all our woe,"
are part of the stage furnishing of the _Harrowing of Hell_, since
therein Christ drew out from limbo our first parents. Everything about
these pageants must have been terrifying especially to sensitive or
guilty consciences. A hireling was paid fourpence "for kepyng of
fier at hell mothe"[704]from the drapers. This craft also purchased
a "baryll," whereof the rolling might imitate the sound of the
"yerthequake" on the Judgment Day.[705]
There is a good deal of information about the dresses of the actors
in the pageants. Annas and Caiaphas wore "mitres,"[706] Christ and
Peter wigs of a gold colour.[707] The tormentors who took part in the
scourging had jackets of "blake bokeram" ... with nayles and dysse
(dice) upon them.[708] It was the custom for actors to paint their
faces.[709] In _Doomsday_ the "saved souls" were clothed in white
leather, while those damned were made hideous by blackened faces,
and--it seems--a parti-coloured dress of black and yellow, the yellow
being so combined as to represent flame.[710] It sounds crude but
effective; and effective also, no doubt, was the blare of trumpets when
the four angels of the judgment standing on their "pulpits" or raised
platform called on the dead to appear before the judgment-seat.
No doubt the artist who painted the blackened and all but invisible
fresco of the judgment day over the chancel arch of Trinity church,
saw in his mind's eye as he painted Christ seated on the rainbow, with
saints and angels, lost and saved souls to His left and right, the rude
and realistic representation enacted on the drapers' pageant at Corpus
Christi-tide.
Another procession took place on S. George's day,[711] but there is
no evidence that any play was acted on this occasion. S. George,
however, had a legendary connection with Coventry; and he appears in
two occasional pageants, the welcome to Prince Edward in 1474 and
that to Prince Arthur in 1498; in the former case with elaborate
stage setting, so that there may have been a play in his honour.
Another dragon-slayer, S. Margaret, walked in the Corpus Christi
procession,[712] and it is possible she may have had a part in the
play, as also the other six champions of Christendom, who greeted Queen
Margaret in 1457, but here all is conjecture. S. George's long dramatic
life in the Mummers' Christmas play in Warwickshire has, of course,
only ceased in our time.
Other occasional pageants, noted in the annals, afford us glimpses of
tantalising brevity of dramatic shows and gorgeous preparations for the
reception of royalty. Thirteen years after Arthur's visit, the prince's
brother, King Henry VIII., and Queen Catharine, who must have entered
on the eastern side of the city, found at Jordon Well three pageants,
embellished with the "nine orders of angels," to greet them. There
were others, with "divers beautiful damsels," and "goodly stage play"
upon them, but we have no record of the verses composed in the King's
honour.[713] While the mercers' pageant stood gallantly trimmed at the
Cross Cheaping in 1526 to welcome the Princess Mary. This was before
the divorce question had become the talk of Europe, and the daughter
of Catherine of Arragon was still held in high honour; so that the
citizens made great preparations for her coming, even taking down the
heads and quarters of traitors from the gates lest they should annoy
the lady's sight.[714]
Fifty years later another sovereign witnessed a memorable performance
of the Coventry men. On Hox Tuesday--the Tuesday after the second
Sunday after Easter--certain folk-games were held to commemorate,
so the historians of the sixteenth century declared, the defeat of
the Danes in the eleventh.[715] These games, "invented"--so say the
annals--in 1416, fell into disuse soon after the Reformation, but were
revived on the occasion of Elizabeth's visit to Kenilworth in 1575. At
that time certain "good harted men of Couentree," led on by Captain
Cox, alecunner and mason, presented the "olld storiall sheaw" before
the Queen, "whereat," Laneham tells us in his delightful letter, quoted
in Gascoigne's _Princely Pleasures of Kenilworth Castle_, "her Maiestie
laught well," while the players "wear the iocunder ... becauz her
highnes had giuen them too buckes and fiue marke in mony to make mery
togyther." The play consisted in a sham fight between the English and
the Danish "launsknights," but whether accompanied by folk-rymes or no
we cannot tell. "Eeuen at the first entree," says Laneham, who greatly
enjoyed the fun, "the meeting waxt sumwhat warm.... A valiant captain
of great prowez az fiers az a fox assauting a gooz, waz so hardy to
give the first stroke: then get they grisly togyther: that great waz
the activitee that day too be seen thear a both sidez: ton[716] very
eager for purchaz of pray, toother[717] utterly stoout for redemption
of libertie: thus, quarrell enflamed fury a both sidez. Twise the Danes
had ye better, but at the last conflict, beaten down, ouercom, and
many led captiue for triumph by our English weemen." The last detail
was no doubt well liked by her majesty, who was certainly proving that
she shared in the mettle of these women of long ago, and who could
laugh well--that great royal Tudor laugh--at the rude performances of
her subjects.
Music was always a great feature of these pageants and processions.
"Mynstralcy of harp and lute," or of "small pypis," or that of "orgon
pleyinge," formed a part of the greeting which came to Prince Edward
from the stages whereon S. Edward, the prophets, or "the iii Kyngs of
Colen" or "seint George" were shadowed forth. There were four chosen
minstrels or city waits, and it may be remembered how on one occasion
the mayor and aldermen sent for these and bade them go before the
throng making their way from Whitley to the city, "which is by the
space of a mile largely or more," and pipe and play as they went,
"like as the people had done a great conquest or victory." The waits
played also on less stirring occasions than the opening of Bristow's
meadows, being greatly in request at the banquets of the guilds and
crafts,[718] and much sought after in all the country round. They wore
silver chains and badges charged with the arms of the city,[719] and
besides occasional fees given for their performance during feasts, they
received a regular "quarteredge," that is to say, a penny from every
citizen having "a hallplace," and a halfpenny from every one dwelling
in a cottage four times a year for their maintenance.[720]
The citizens themselves delighted in music; some must have been
practised singers, as the representation of the Corpus Christi pageants
was diversified by songs. One of these, a lullaby from the tailors' and
sheremen's play, is so pretty that it will well bear quotation.
"Lully, lulla, thow littell tine child,
By by, lully lullay, thow littell tyne child,
By by lully lullay.
O sisters too, how may we do
For to preserve this day
This pore yongling, for whom we do singe,
By by lully lullay?
Herod, the king, in his raging
Chargid he hath this day
His men of might in his owne sight
All yonge children to slay.
That wo is me, pore child, for thee,
And ever morne and may
For thi parting nether say nor singe
By by, lully lullay."
The provision of these games, pageants and processions must have
entailed great cost and labour, yet every member of the various
fellowships helped to support them, and bore as well his part in the
common labours and duties involved in his citizenship. Every one was
compelled to obey the mayor's summons under penalty of a fine, whether
called upon to come to the leet, or the council, or to help in the
common labour of the town. In 1451, when wars were threatening, the
call went round for all to come and aid in the work of cleansing the
town ditch.[721] The summons went twice round the town according to the
watch, we are told, in "right great charge and in special" to the poor
folk, who had to leave their other occupations in consequence, besides
paying their quota towards the taxes, which were necessarily heavy
at that time. And the council hearing thereof ordered that £12, 10s.
should be collected from "thrifty" men to pay for the work, and the
poor people spared, save that labourers earning 4d. a day were to pay
1d. or 2d. towards the required sum. In addition to their labour in the
common defence, all citizens were required to make one of the company
of watchmen when their turn came round, or to find a substitute.
Fifteen men usually kept the nightly watch, but in times of disturbance
their number was increased; thus in 1450 it was enacted that "forty men
of decent, good and honest communication and strong in body ... shall
nightly watch and guard the city from the ninth hour until the beating
of the bell called daybell,"[722] and the light enabled all to see
thief or enemy approach.
Neither were the citizens permitted to shirk the common military
duties. At the "view of arms" all the freemen appeared in military
accoutrement as suited their degree, and the threat of a siege turned
artisans into soldiers and aldermen and councillors "for savegard of
the cite" into captains of the wards and guardians of the gates. In
1469--the year of the battle of Edgcote--the city was changed into a
very arsensal and barracks, so lively were the military preparations
going forward at that time. The city accounts show the heavy charges
which the distribution of arms and armour entailed upon the public
purse.
"Item," says the _Leet Book_, "delyvered to Robert Onley on Maudelyn
day a serpentyne ... for the Newe yate and a honde gunne with a pyke
in the ynde and a fowler." To John Hadley for Bishop Gate "i staffe
gunne." "Item delyvered to William Saunders, meyr, ii staffe gunnes
and a grett gunne with iii chamburs, iii jacks and xxiv arowys." "Item
... to John Wyldgris i gunne with iii chamburs." There also follows
the mention of the distribution of jacks and arrows to the various
captains,[723] until possibly the supplies ran short, and the last
obtained but "i newe jacke and a olde." In the "Lenton" of 1471 the
scene was repeated. Guns and pelettes were again delivered to the
captains for the gates, and money was hastily collected throughout the
wards for the company of soldiers who followed my lord of Warwick to
Barnet Field, whereby the citizens incurred King Edward's enmity and
great displeasure.
The provision of soldiers according to the terms of the commissions
of array, so common in civil warfare, were a heavy tax on municipal
resources. When the city officers were ordered by the King's commission
to send the local forces to join the royal army, the corporation
had to "reteyn" their contingent, provide their dresses, badges
and equipment, appoint a captain, and collect money, according to
assessment, throughout the wards for their pay. At the beginning of the
civil war all went merrily enough, and the citizens threw themselves
with right good will into the equipment of the soldiers who were to
have gone to St Alban's. But in a few years the artizans, called from
their homes and business, were heartily weary of the continual strife,
and clamoured for 12d. a day in payment. The hiring of recruits must
have become a more difficult matter as time went on, though, like the
clinching of all bargains in the Middle Ages, it was accompanied by
plentiful drinking. The _Leet Book_ records the following items in
July 1470, after Edward IV. had summoned a company of archers to a
rendezvous at Nottingham: "dedit ad le sowders ad bibendum xvid.," ...
"a gallon wyne vid.," ... "pro ale to the sowders vi_d._"[724] But even
after the Wars of the Roses were over we have a sorry picture of the
numerous inconveniences attending the hiring of troops. In February
1481, Edward IV. sent commissioners to find out what money or what
number of men the burghers would provide in the event of an invasion
of Scotland in the summer. After various discussions, commandings and
countermandings, it was finally agreed that sixty men should be waged
for the royal service for a quarter of a year at a cost of £148, 6s.
6d.; recruits were found and arrows and salets distributed amongst
them. More, however, was to be wrung from the reluctant burghers; £40
was collected from 180 of the "most sufficient" men of the town to
provide horses and jackets for the soldiery.[725] But sixty archers
were not deemed a sufficient contingent by the Court; and when in
the following June Lord Rivers came to know if the number could be
increased, the mayor called a "Hall" of divers out of every ward to
know what the common will was in this matter, and it was finally
ordained that the citizens should equip and pay forty additional men,
bringing up the number to 100. As all the recruits could not be drawn
from the ranks of the townsfolk, the worthy men enlisted the service
of strangers, and these had to be kept together, housed and fed, at
great trouble and cost[726] until the time for departure. In the end,
however, the levy was countermanded, and the troops thus laboriously
collected were merely dispersed;[727] a statement of facts the town
clerk may be pardoned for recording in a murmuring and discontented
spirit.
But however onerous these duties may have been, the Coventry men were
loyally proud of their city and citizenship. Albeit a traveller, the
mediæval merchant loved, as he loved nothing else on earth, the small
stretch of land enclosed by the walls of his native town. He or his
ancestors had won and maintained at great cost the city's liberties,
and he and they spared no pains to make it beautiful. Historians are
wont to despise the English burgher of the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries, by reason of his insignificance and poverty, and his
neglect of the highest forms of art, and pointedly contrast his small
achievements with those of the merchant princes of Italy, or the
proud and daring members of the Hanseatic League. It is true he was a
commonplace person, living in what was for his country a commonplace
age; nevertheless his doings are worthy of remembrance. If the English
townsfolk never produced a Van Eyck or a Da Vinci, a Peter Fischer or a
Donatello, they patronised all the local forms of art they knew. They
had the same great delight in the common possession of a beautiful
object as the people of the Italian republics. Though they lacked
wealth to build themselves tall and stately houses like their brethren
on the Continent, the English burghers could raise tall steeples,
build vast churches, adorn their common halls, and rear exquisite
crosses in the market place. The fifteenth century glass in S. Mary's
Hall, Coventry, still attests the skill of John Thornton, a native
of the city, and one of the first acts of the council of Forty-eight
was to decree that a cross should be set up in the Cheaping, which
was done, though at a cost of £50.[728] In Coventry, as elsewhere,
the rich merchants and craftsmen set carvers to carve the miserere
seats--enjoying the grim humour these sometimes display, a quality
which crops up everywhere in the fifteenth century, even now and
then in legal documents--and bade the engraver commemorate the dead
by tracing their effigies on brass, or the mason by fashioning their
portraits in stone.
Neither should we regard as contemptible the Englishman's achievements
in trade and travel. The Merchant Adventurers, in the teeth of the
opposition of the Staplers and the Hanseatic League, first by piracy
and chance trading and then by organised and chartered commerce,
filled the North Sea with their ships, founded settlements at Bergen
and Antwerp, and on the ruins of their rivals built up one of the most
successful trading companies of northern Europe. English merchants
carried from Crete or Lisbon the precious stores of eastern wine and
spices, and brought their bales of wool to the port of Pisa to supply
the makers of Florentine cloth, or to the ports of Normandy to supply
the looms of northern France.[729]
But it is not for his patronage of art or for his enterprise in foreign
trade that the English burgher is chiefly noteworthy, but rather
for his "politic guiding" of the cities in which he lived. Pirates,
perhaps, on the Narrow Seas, he and his fellows were at home, for the
most part, law-abiding men. A certain innate conservatism, a truly
British love of appeal to custom and precedent, marks their rule,
and, although the populace was frequently unquiet and discontented,
the result was, on the whole, happy and successful. If the dangers of
foreign commerce made them hardy and fearless, their political and
civic life, with its manifold responsibilities, taught them a prudence
and worldly wisdom, which appears in all their transactions. Never
were men who paid such heed to the Gospel precept, "Be ye wise as
serpents." Liable to be deserted or oppressed by the King, thwarted
by the open violence or secret maintenance of some great noble or the
factiousness of some fellow-burgher, their self-reliance turned these
necessities to "glorious gain." It is true that we meet with little
heroism, and few distinct types of character. The men of this class
can boast of no individuals who can be rightly considered as important
historical figures. Like the great Gothic architects, these men, who
built up such a flourishing and successful society, have been chary of
leaving their names to us. Now and then, however, a bit of grimy and
neglected parchment reveals a striking history. We see the clothes
they wore and hear the words they said. The quarrel resounds once more
in the guild-hall. The stern recorder testifies against the supposed
factiousness of Laurence Saunders; and the aged men, lifting up their
hands, swear to the ancient extent of the common pasture. These are
not heroic or world-known scenes, but they represent the life of the
citizens of an old-time city, men whose labours are not entirely
forgotten.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 600: Perhaps to Bishop Patteshull, who died 1238. Beresford,
_Diocesan Hist. Lichfield_, 127.]
[Footnote 601: In 1391 the prior agreed to pay an annual pension of
100s. for eight years and to provide six trees if the parishioners
would rebuild the chancel of Trinity church at their own charge,
providing the materials and paying for workmanship (Sharp, _Antiq._,
71).]
[Footnote 602: Besides parochial chaplains there were six chantry
priests at S. Michael's in 1522; two at Trinity; a warden and seven
secular priests at Bablake; and, at the Reformation, according to one
account, fourteen or fifteen chaplains at S. Nicholas' church (_ib._,
5, 72, 129, 132).]
[Footnote 603: _Ib._, 25.]
[Footnote 604: Sharp, 81.]
[Footnote 605: Green, i. 154.]
[Footnote 606: The scissors of the shearmen may yet be seen in a
clear-story window in S. Michael's.]
[Footnote 607: Sharp, _Antiq._, 30. The girdelers paid 3s. for their
chapel to the churchwardens (_ib._, 33). The company of the cappers is
still in existence; and one day in every year the members repair to the
parvise adjoining the chapel and eat bread and butter and drink wine
there.]
[Footnote 608: Sharp, _Antiq._, 92.]
[Footnote 609: The drapers, mercers, dyers, cardmakers, and saddlers
(later the cappers), smiths, and girdlers had chapels in S. Michael's
church; the butchers, dyers, and tanners in Trinity. The fullers held
the chapel of S. George on the Gosford Gate. Some of the inferior
crafts, viz. the pinners, tilers, and coopers, had their annual mass
and drinking at Whitefriars.]
[Footnote 610: This matter of the candles seems to have roused
dissensions at an early date. In 1282 the corpse of a woman to be
buried in the friars' cemetery at Dunstable was first conveyed to the
priory church there for the funeral mass. The monks boasted that out of
eight candles they only gave two to the Franciscans, keeping all the
rest for themselves (_Cornh. Mag._, vi. 835.)]
[Footnote 611: The MS. annals note that in 1438 "Friar Bredon got the
old strike again" (Harl. MS. 6388, f. 18).]
[Footnote 612: _Leet Book_, 228.]
[Footnote 613: Leland, _Collectanea_, v. 304; Sharp, _Antiq._, 207.]
[Footnote 614: _Leet Book_, 338. The old archery ground is commemorated
in "the Butts," now a street, but once outside the walls. A "butt" is
properly a mound on which the target is set up. In Edward IV's reign
butts were ordered to be made in every township, and the inhabitants
were to shoot on all feast days under pain of 1/2d. at every omission
(Strutt, _Sports and Pastimes_, 57).]
[Footnote 615: Chamberlains to make a ring for the "baiting of bulls as
heretofore" (_Leet Book_, 83).]
[Footnote 616: No one to shoot arrows in "le cokfyting place" (_ib._,
196).]
[Footnote 617: _Ib._, 656.]
[Footnote 618: _Chamberlains' and Wardens' Accounts_ (Corp. MS. A. 7b,
f. 2). "Paid to Sir ffoulke Grevile Bearewarde iii_s._ iiii_d._"]
[Footnote 619: Corp. MS. A. 7_b_, ff. 2, 8.]
[Footnote 620: "Paid for 3 sermons of Mr Butler's and ringing to them
35s. 3d." (_ib._, f. 1).]
[Footnote 621: _Leet Book_, 271.]
[Footnote 622: _Ib._, 629.]
[Footnote 623: _Ib._, 652. "Blind inns" were secret taverns, where, of
course, all sorts of irregular proceedings went on.]
[Footnote 624: _i.e._ Draughts.]
[Footnote 625: _Leet Book_, 786.]
[Footnote 626: _Ib._, 690.]
[Footnote 627: _Leet Book_, 28.]
[Footnote 628: _Ib._, 28.]
[Footnote 629: See below, the Harcourt and Stafford quarrel.]
[Footnote 630: Sharp, _Mysteries_, 169.]
[Footnote 631: Wife of the famous Talbot.]
[Footnote 632: _i.e._ Who.]
[Footnote 633: _i.e._ Edge tool.]
[Footnote 634: _Paston Letters_, i. 73.]
[Footnote 635: Sharp, _Mysteries_, 180.]
[Footnote 636: _Leet Book_, 204.]
[Footnote 637: Corp. MS. A. 6. _Corpus Christi Guild Accounts_, ff. 54,
56, 80.]
[Footnote 638: Corp. MS. A. 6. _Corpus Christi Guild Accounts_, f. 43.]
[Footnote 639: The smiths spent money recklessly at this season until
1472, when it was ordained that the master of the craft should be
allowed 5s. on Midsummer, and 3s. 6d. on S. Peter's eve, "and not a
penny more," wherewith to provide supper (Sharp, _Mysteries_, 183).]
[Footnote 640: _Ib._, 179.]
[Footnote 641: _Ib._, 176.]
[Footnote 642: See quotation from Stowe in Sharp, _Mysteries_, 175.]
[Footnote 643: This was a universal custom, but there were special
local feasts. For instance, at Canterbury, on the eve of the
Translation of S. Thomas, a watch was kept. At Chester, Shrove Tuesday
was a day for general merry-making (Green, i. 149).]
[Footnote 644: Among the dyers, the penalty was 13s. 4d.(Sharp, _op.
cit._, 183).]
[Footnote 645: _Ib._, 160.]
[Footnote 646: _Ib._, 184.]
[Footnote 647: _Ib._, 193-4.]
[Footnote 648: _Ib._, 194.]
[Footnote 649: _Ib._, 196.]
[Footnote 650: The cappers paid 9d. for canvas to make a new skirt for
the giant, and "for mendyng of hys head and arme, xvi_d_." (_ib._,
201). The dyers also furnished a pageant wherein a hart and a herdsman
blowing a horn figured. Perhaps this was a cause why they had been so
long allowed to escape from providing a pageant on Corpus Christi day.
See above, p. 220.]
[Footnote 651: Sharp, 193. Drapers' Accounts, 1555, "payd to xviij
gonnarys lxii_s_. iiij_d_.; payd for xijli of gonepother, xij_s_.
vj_d_."]
[Footnote 652: Sharp, _Mysteries_, 184.]
[Footnote 653: "To gabriell for beryng the lilly iiij_d_." (_ib._,
162).]
[Footnote 654: The frequent mistakes in chronology made by all writers
who depend on Sharp or the printed versions of the Annals for dates of
these visits make it important to insist on them.]
[Footnote 655: The Shrewsbury mercers' guild imposed a fine on such of
its members who missed the local procession through absence at Coventry
fair. Chambers, _Mediæval Stage_, ii. 110.]
[Footnote 656: C. Mery Talys, lvi. (quoted Chambers, ii. 358).]
[Footnote 657: Chambers, _op. cit._, ii. 362. Bateson, _Leicester_,
III. 111, 120, 127, 137.]
[Footnote 658: For this and the singing of the _Quem quæritis_, "whom
seek ye?" we have a "stage direction" in the _Regularis Concordia_ of
S. Ethelwold as early as Edgar's reign (959-79). See Chambers, ii. App.
O.]
[Footnote 659: _Ib._, ii. 41.]
[Footnote 660: Bishop, 1188-1198. See Chambers, _op. cit._, ii. 36.
_Cf._ the matter of the "castel of Emaus" in the cappers' play at
Coventry, Sharp, 48.]
[Footnote 661: _Furnivall misc._, 206-7.]
[Footnote 662: See Hardin Craig, _Two Coventry Corpus Christi Plays_,
Early English Text Society, to which I am much indebted. The older work
on this subject is Sharp's _Dissertation on the Dramatic Mysteries_.
Chambers' _Mediæval Stage_ is very rich in Coventry material.]
[Footnote 663: See _Leet Book_, 205, for the case of the cardmakers,
saddlers, painters and masons.]
[Footnote 664: _Ib._, 94, The case of the weavers' journeymen, who paid
4d. a piece, is the only one on record.]
[Footnote 665: Sharp, 8.]
[Footnote 666: _Ib._, 9, 10. There is no record that the dyers ever
contributed to the Mystery Plays. In 1539 the Mayor of Coventry told
Cromwell that the poor commons were at such expense with their plays
and pageants that they fared the worse all the year after. Chambers,
_op. cit._, ii. 358.]
[Footnote 667: Mr Chambers' surmise that the common lands were enclosed
to build pageant-houses on is untenable. The rents derived from the
enclosed lands was devoted to the upkeep of the pageants.]
[Footnote 668: Sharp, _op. cit._, 9.]
[Footnote 669: _Ib._, 20.]
[Footnote 670: See illustrations in _Furnivall Misc._ taken from MS.
Bodl. 264 ff. 54_b_, 76_a_. These pageants do indeed look like a
glorified Punch and Judy show, as Mr Chambers has said.]
[Footnote 671: It is difficult to say what they may not have endured.
At Skinnerswell in 1411, a play lasted for seven days! There were
twelve to sixteen stations at York; but the York plays were far shorter
than the Coventry ones.]
[Footnote 672: Sharp, _op. cit._, 73.]
[Footnote 673: By the kindness of the editor of the _Victoria County
History_, I am permitted to include this note from an unprinted MS.,
Inq. p.m. 19 H. 8, 46-45 (_P.R._O.) proof of age of Walter Smith of
Coventry. It is important as furnishing proof that S. Christian is the
right reading instead of S. Catherine, which Dr Craig would substitute.
For S. Christianus, bishop of Auxerre in the ninth century, and S.
Christiana, virgin, of Jermunde in Flanders, who flourished in the
eighth century, see Smith and Wall, _Dict. Chr. Biog._ Miss Toulmin
Smith, thinks that S. Christina and S. Christiana were distinct
persons. There was a play in honour of the former at Bethersden in
Kent. _York Plays_, lxv.]
[Footnote 674: Craig, _op. cit._ xxi.-ii.]
[Footnote 675: See Chambers, ii., 419-20.]
[Footnote 676: Dugdale, _op. cit._, i. 183.]
[Footnote 677: They may have been performed as late as 1591.]
[Footnote 678: Cott. Vesp D., viii. ed. by Halliwell Phillips.]
[Footnote 679: An error, since Old Testament scenes are also included.]
[Footnote 680: "Vulgo dicitur hic liber Ludus Coventriæ, sive ludus
Corporis Christi."]
[Footnote 681: See Chambers, _op. cit._, ii. 416-22; Gayley, _Plays of
Our Forefathers_, 135-9, 325-7; Shelling, _Eliz. Drama_, 20-1; Leach in
_Furnivall Misc._, 232-3.]
[Footnote 682: See _Camb. Lit. Hist._ v. 13 for the York friar, who
described himself as a "professor of pageantry."]
[Footnote 683: Mr Chambers suggests that, as the crafts admittedly
altered and revised their plays, the _Ludus Coventriæ_ may be a
discarded version.]
[Footnote 684: Leach in _Furnivall Misc._, 232.]
[Footnote 685: Craig, xviii.]
[Footnote 686: On the _Prophetae_, see Chambers, ii. 52, 70; Craig,
xviii.]
[Footnote 687: Craig, xvi. This certainly was the subject of a play;
see payment to S. Thomas of India above, p. 287.]
[Footnote 688: Particularly in the fragment of--probably--an earlier
version, see Craig, _op. cit._, 119-122.]
[Footnote 689: See Craig, _op. cit._, xxiv.-v.]
[Footnote 690: Yche = I. And I were laid low. Jubbard = jeopard.]
[Footnote 691: Craig, 47.]
[Footnote 692: Craig, 48.]
[Footnote 693: See on this point and on Balaam's ass, Chambers, _op.
cit._, ii. 57.]
[Footnote 694: _i.e._ they.]
[Footnote 695: Craig, 18.]
[Footnote 696: Sharp, 51.]
[Footnote 697: _Ib._, 31.]
[Footnote 698: York Plays, 277.]
[Footnote 699: Sharp, 47.]
[Footnote 700: _Ib._, 66-7.]
[Footnote 701: _Ib._, 37.]
[Footnote 702: Sharp, 36.]
[Footnote 703: Craig, 94, 97.]
[Footnote 704: Sharp, 73.]
[Footnote 705: _Ibid._]
[Footnote 706: _Ib._, 55.]
[Footnote 707: _Ib._, 26.]
[Footnote 708: _Ib._, 33.]
[Footnote 709: Craig, 90.]
[Footnote 710: Sharp, 70, 71.]
[Footnote 711: _Leet Book_, 589.]
[Footnote 712: Sharp, 166. For the riding of the George at Norwich,
Leicester, Stratford, and elsewhere, _v._ Chambers, i. 221-3. Plays in
honour of S. George were performed at Lydd, New Romney, Bassingbourne
(_ib._, ii. 132).]
[Footnote 713: Harl. MS. 6388, f. 26 _dorso_.]
[Footnote 714: Sharp, _op. cit._, 158.]
[Footnote 715: Rous (_Hist. Regum Angliæ_, 105-6) ascribes it to the
rejoicings on the death of Hardicanute. On Hock-tide, see Chambers, i.
154-5.]
[Footnote 716: The one.]
[Footnote 717: The other.]
[Footnote 718: The carpenters in 1464 paid 8d. to the minstrels at the
feast (Sharp, 213); the dyers paid 2d. (_ib._, 214).]
[Footnote 719: _Ib._, 209]
[Footnote 720: _Ib._, 207.]
[Footnote 721: _Leet Book_, 258.]
[Footnote 722: _Leet Book_, 253.]
[Footnote 723: _Ib._, 345.]
[Footnote 724: _Leet Book_, 357.]
[Footnote 725: _Leet Book_, 476-481.]
[Footnote 726: 6d. a week was collected from all the citizens of the
mayor's rank, and 4d. and 2d. from those of the sheriff's and warden's
rank respectively to pay for the soldiers' board.]
[Footnote 727: _Leet Book_, 488.]
[Footnote 728: _Leet Book_, 57, 68.]
[Footnote 729: Green, i. 90-120.]