“_On Bartholomew Day for the Wrastling._
“So many aldermen as doe dine with the lord maior, and the sheriffes,
are apparelled in their _scarlet_ gownes lined; and after dinner, their
horses are brought to them where they dined. And those aldermen which
dine with the sheriffes, ride with them to the lord maior’s house for
accompanying him to the wrastlings. When as the wrastling is done, they
mount their horses, and ride backe againe thorow the Fayre, and so in at
Aldersgate, and then home againe to the lord maior’s house.”
“_The Shooting Day._
“The next day, (if it be not Sunday,) is appointed for the shooting, and
the service performed as upon Bartholomew-day; but if it bee Sunday, the
Sabbath-day, it is referred to the Munday then following.”
Ben Jonson’s mention, in his “Bartholomew Fair,” of “the western man who
is come to wrestle before the lord mayor anon,” is clearly of one who
came up to the annual wrestling on Bartholomew’s-day. Concerning this
“annual wrastling,” it is further noticed by Stow in another place, that
about the feast of St. Bartholomew, wrestling was exhibited before the
lord mayor and aldermen, at Skinnerswell near Clerkenwell, where they
had a large tent for their accommodation. He speaks of it as having been
a practice “of old time;” and affirms that “divers days were spent in
the pastime, and that the officers of the citie, namely the sheriffes,
serjeants, and yeomen, the porters of the king’s beame, or weigh-house,
(now no such men,” says Stow,) “and other of the citie were challengers
of all men in the suburbs, to wrestle for games appointed: and on other
days, before the said mayor, aldermen, and sheriffes, in Fensbury-field,
to shoot the standard, broad arrow, and flight, for games. But now of
late yeeres,” Stow adds, “the wrestling is only practiced on
Bartholomew-day in the afternoone, and the shooting some three or foure
days after, in one afternoone and no more.” Finally, the old chronicler
laments, that “by the means of closing in of common grounds, our
archers, for want of roome to shoot abroad creepe into bowling-alleys,
and ordinarie dicing houses, neerer home, where they have roome enough
to hazzard their money at unlawful games, and there I leave them to take
their pleasures.” Another narrator tells of the wrestlers before the
lord mayor, aldermen, &c. on Bartholomew’s-day that they wrestled “two
at a time;” he says “the conquerors are rewarded by them by money thrown
from the tent; after this a parcel of wild rabbits are turned loose in
the crowd, and hunted by boys with great noise, at which the mayor and
aldermen do much besport themselves.”[287]
* * * * *
It was on St. Bartholomew’s-eve that the London scholars held logical
disputations about the principles of grammar. “I myself,” says Stow,
“have yeerely seen the scholars of divers grammar-schools, repaire unto
the churchyard of St. Bartholomew, the priory in Smithfield, where, upon
a banke boorded about under a tree, some one scholler hath stepped up,
and there hath opposed and answered, till he were by some better
scholler overcome and put downe; and then the overcommer taking the
place, did like as the first; and in the end, the best opposers and
answerers had rewards.” These disputations ceased at the suppression of
the priory, but were revived, though, “only for a yeare or waine,” under
Edward VI., where the best scholars received bows, and arrows of
silver, for their prizes.
* * * * *