Town Life in the Fifteenth Century, Volume 2

68

Hist. MSS. Com. v. 540. Boys’ Sandwich, 498.

69

The brokers were paid by a fixed tax on the merchants’ goods which passed through their hands. Boys’ Sandwich, 497, 506-7.

70

Hist. Preston Guild, 16.

71

Blomefield, iii. 168. Gross, ii. 43, 175, 220. Nott. Records, i. 445-6, 159, 201; ii. 47, 241. See also the serjeant-at-mace in Sandwich (Boys, 504-5), at Nottingham (Rec. iii. 73).

72

For typical market rules see Reading, Gross, ii. 204-7. Southampton, Ibid. 220.

73

See Schanz, i. 621-2.

74

The loaf was changed in weight not in price with the price of corn; the lowest rate conceived by ancient writers was 12d. a quarter of corn; the unit of bread was 1/4d. loaf. (Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 175.) Twelve kinds are mentioned in the fifteenth century, but in the Assize only three sorts were recognized – Wastel or white or well-baked bread; Coket (seconds); Simnel, twice baked bread, used only in Lent. (English Guilds, 102. Boys’ Sandwich, 543.)

75

Manorial Pleas, Selden Soc. xxxviii. For control of bread and beer at the time of Domesday see Rep. on Markets, 18. In Norwich supervisors of bread were appointed before 1340. The system seems to have worked well, for no troubles as to the assize of bread are recorded, as in other towns. Leet. Jur. of Norwich, Selden Soc. xxxvi.

76

Rep. on Markets, 25.

77

Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 288. In certain departments, as in the fixing of the prices of bread and ale, in measures, in various rules about buying and selling, the towns simply carried out laws made by the central government; while in other things such as the regulation of the price of meat, poultry, fish, and wine, they were from time to time given authority to fix their own standard.

78

Andover, Gross, ii. 310. Cutts’ Colchester, 154-7.

79

In 1383 the price of unsweetened wine was practically left to the towns for about a hundred years. Schanz, i. 647. For common consumption wine was sweetened with honey and flavoured with blackberries. Archæol. Cantiana, vi. 328.

80

Liber Albus, 289, 373-86, 686-91, Liber Custumarum, 117-120, 385-6. Statutes 22 Edward IV. cap. 2. Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 172.

81

Ricart’s Kalendar, 81-84.

82

Piers Ploughman. Pass. xxii. 398-404.

83

Nott. Rec. iii. 357.

84

Select Pleas of the Crown, Selden Soc. 88-9. Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 172. Gross, i. 45. English Guilds, 353, 381-4.

85

English Guilds, 353.

86

Journ. Arch. Ass. xxvii. 476. English Guilds, 392.

87

Gross, ii. 1 175. Rep. on Markets, 16.

88

English Guilds, 390, 392, 406.

89

The town liberties did not always extend over the whole town territory. The liberties of Carlisle were confined to a small district in the centre of the modern town, and did not extend beyond the limits of this “ancient city.” Hereford up till 1830 was divided into two parts, the In-Borough where the inhabitant householders had the elective franchise and the Out-Borough comprising all beyond the In-Borough that was under the corporate jurisdiction. Papers relating to Parl. Representation, 1829-32.

90

Collectanea, ii. (Oxford. Hist. Soc.), 13.

91

Freeman’s Exeter, 143.

92

Gross, ii. 262. Rot. Hund. i. 356, 3 Ed. i. When an unusual press of people was drawn to the town by some festival or public occasion orders were issued to allow country dealers to bring food within the walls and sell it without paying toll or any other manner of charge. Davies’ York, 167.

93

Hist. MSS. Com. v. 606-7. Gross, i. 48-9. See Vol. I. p. 182, n. 4. Sometimes the monopoly was given to the townspeople (Gross, i. 46; ii. 28, 46, 205, 255); in other cases to the Merchant Guild which had power to enroll non-residents among its numbers. (Gross, i. 47, 52, 122, 139, 153, 191, 218.) In cases of abuse there was an appeal to the king. (Rep. on Markets, 25, 60.)

94

Picton’s Municipal Records of Liverpool, i. 17, 18, 28. It is evident that the system of protection was not universally popular, for when in 1515 a commission was sent to examine why Liverpool had so decayed that its contributions to the Exchequer had fallen off, a complaint was made that the mayor had caused the decline in the customs revenue by the enfranchisement of strangers living in the borough, who were thus freed from the payment of dues that had once gone to the Crown. (Picton’s Memorials, i. 38.) Leland writing in 1533 says: “Irish merchants come much thither as to a good haven,” and in the margin he adds, “at Liverpool is a small custom paid that causeth merchants to resort.” The trade of later days had even then begun: “Good merchants at Liverpool, much Irish yarn that Manchester men do buy there.” (Ibid. i. 46.)

95

Fosbrooke’s Gloucestershire, i. 204-8. For the trade with Wales, ibid. 156-7. See also the rovers of the Forest of Dean and the troubles of Tewkesbury and Gloucester, in Stat. 8 Henry the Sixth, cap. 27. There were similar disputes between Shrewsbury and Worcester as to the limits of their jurisdiction over the Severn. (Owen’s Shrewsbury, i. 300.)

96

To encourage the carriage of corn in some places, probably in many, while the toll on every horse laden with a pack of marketable goods was 1d[.], a corn-laden beast was charged only one farthing. (Materials for Hist. Henry VII. vol. ii. 332.) For a case of toll illegally levied on victuals see Rep. on Markets 57.

97

Collectanea (Oxford Hist. Soc.), ii. 120; 50-51. In the sixteenth century when the victuallers’ laws were no longer enforced to any extent, other measures were found necessary to keep a constant supply of corn in the bigger towns.

98

See Collectanea (Oxford Hist. Soc.), ii. 49.

99

Riley’s Mem. 180.

100

Ibid. 181.

101

Nottingham Records, iii. 354. Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 172-5. Ibid. v. 531.

102

Preamble of Canterbury regulations for brewers and bakers drawn up in 1487. (Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 173.)

103

Ibid. For suburban trades see girdlers and embroiderers in London. (Schanz i. 608. Rolls Parl. iv. 73.)

104

For the attempt at free trade in Winchester in 1430, following the example of Coventry and New Sarum, see Gross, ii. 261. Another rule of the assembly in the same direction was passed in 1471, apparently in the attempt to find a new source of income for payment of the ferm. Ibid. 262.

105

Muniments of Canterbury. In Southampton there was a class of Out-burgesses who did not live in the town; they were allowed to vote for a mayor and members of Parliament, but might not be present at a common council. (Davies’ Southampton, 197.)

106

Preston Guild Rolls, xvi. xx.

107

For breach of this custom see Rep. on Markets, 57 (Wallingford), 60-61. (Bosworth, Lafford.)

108

Preston Guild Rolls, xii.

109

Ibid. xii. xxiv. xxix. xxx.

110

Rep. on Markets, 61.

111

In 1209 there were fifty-six foreigners in the Shrewsbury Guild; forty years later they had increased to 234. (Hibbert’s Influence and Development of English Gilds, 18.)

112

Many merchants of Lynn were made freemen of Canterbury and also admitted to the Brotherhood of the Monastery, by letters of fraternity which gave them a share in certain spiritual benefits. Is it possible that any trading privileges were connected with this?

113

As far away as Nottingham oxen and sheep were forestalled and sold to butchers of London. Nott. Rec. iii. 48.

114

Leet Jurisdiction of Norwich (Selden Soc.), lxxiv.

115

Select Pleas of the Crown (Selden Soc.), 88-9.

116

Case of the Abbot of Westminster against Southampton. Rot. Parl. i. 20-21. Trial before the King’s Bench at Westminster in 1201 where the Burgesses of Northampton claim that unjust toll is taken from them by the Abbot of Thorney, which he defends by virtue of custom and an older charter than Northampton. Select Civil Pleas (Selden Soc.), i. 11. See a case at Plymouth, 1495; Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 273. Leicester and Nottingham; Ibid. viii. 416-417. Southampton and Bristol; Report on Markets, 56. Winchester; Ibid. 55. See also Ibid. 62; Gross, ii. 257-8; 177-182; 147; 379. A merchant from the Cinque Ports who insisted on the privilege of burgesses to pay no toll with regard to some wool in Blackwell Hall, in the time of Henry the Eighth, had to defend his rights and won his case.

117

Retaliation in taking of toll is expressly mentioned in the charter of London. Stubbs’ Select Charters, 104.

118

1238. Gross, ii. 173-174.

119

Gross, ii. 256.

120

Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, p. 16. For agreement between Southampton and Portsmouth 1239, Marlborough 1239, Bristol 1260, Netley Abbey 1288, Bishop of Winchester 1312, Lymington 1324, New Sarum 1329, Coventry 1456, see Davies’ Southampton, 225-228; Abbot of Westminster Rot. Parl. i. 20-21. Other instances Rep. on Markets, 40-41. Select Civil Pleas (Selden Soc.), i. 11. Nottingham Rec. i. 55, ii. 349, 362. Gross, ii. 389-90, Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 212.

121

Journ. Arch. Ass. xxvii. 416-7. When a gun was made for Lydd, metal for it was bought at Winchelsea and Hastings. (Hist. MSS. Com. v. 516-517, 521.) The Nottingham founder sent to Lincolnshire for his bell metal. (Nott. Rec. ii. 143, 145).

122

Ibid. ii. 179; iii. 19, 21, 29.

123

Hist. MSS. Com. viii. 414.

124

Select Pleas of the Crown (Selden Soc.), i. 89. Rep. on Markets, 50-52.

125

See Calendar of Letters from Corporation of London. 1350-1370, ed. by Dr. Sharpe.

126

Piers Ploughman. Pass vii. 250.

127

These can be traced from 1285 to the time of James I.; they were probably Jews who had come with the Conqueror and were allowed to get land. Survey of Birmingham, 50.

128

For example William Hollingbroke of Romney, whose wife Joanna sold blankets in 1373, was one of the members sent to Parliament and headed the list of taxpayers in a ward named after him Hollingbroke Ward from 1384 till 1401. Then his widow took his place till she retired from business in 1404, and the once opulent family, for a time represented by a single trader Stephen, seems finally to have become extinct in 1441. The chief position in local trade then passed to the Stuppeneys who settled in the town in 1436 and whose local fame is still recalled by the fact that even now the yearly election of the Mayor of Romney takes place in the church of S. Nicholas at the tomb of one of them who was Jurat of the town.

129

Hist. MSS. Com. v. 523-531.

130

Between 1353 and 1380. Ibid. vi. 545. Ibid. iv. 1, 424-8. Ibid. v. 533. The mayor of Liverpool, who in 1380 had property to the value of £28 6s. 4d., made up of domestic utensils, grain in store, wheat sown, nine oxen and cows, six horses, and eighteen pigs, was no doubt a very rich man in his own borough. Picton’s Mem. Liverpool, i. 30.

131

Hist. MSS. Com. v. 534, 535, 536, 539, 541-3.

132

Piers Ploughman. Pass. iv. 83. A prosperous cook at Oxford in 1400 married his daughter to one Lelham “Dominus de Grove.” By the marriage contract the cook was to give to Lelham twenty marks to be paid at intervals; to the bride and bridegroom he was to give three tenements in Oxford; he was to make provision for them in his own house for eight years, and when after that they were to be set up in a house of their own he was to provide them with a bed, blankets, sheets, and all other furniture needful for the same bed, a vessel for water, a wine vase, two tablecloths, two towels, twelve silver spoons, two cups, two brass pots, one chawfre, four plates, one dozen vessels for garnishing the supper, two salts, two candle-sticks. Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 75-6.

133

See Nott. Rec. iii. 74-76, 342, 353, 358-60, 461, 463. The holding offices of all kinds by victuallers and brewers was forbidden (Stat. 12, Ed. II. cap. 6. 6 Ri. II. st. 1, cap. 9, H.M.C. ix. 174, xi. 3, 19), as a protection to the people from fraudulent administration of the laws concerning food; but these statutes were everywhere broken.

134

(See pp. 352-3.)

135

H.M.C. ix. 173-4.

136

According to Thorold Rogers (Agric. and Prices, iv. 502-5) about 20 per cent. in excess. Skilled workmen, such as architects, artists, trained clerks, &c., were paid at very modest rates, though sometimes they were given honour by being boarded as gentlemen.

137

Statutes, 12 Richard II. cap. 3.

138

Riley’s Liber Albus, 261-2.

139

For particulars of truck wages see Stat. 4 Edward IV. cap. 1. This payment on the truck system was spoken of as a new thing in the middle of the fifteenth century (Wright’s Political Songs, ii. 285), and is referred to in Libel of English Policy. It was forbidden by town ordinance in Winchester and Worcester. (English Guilds, 352, 383.)

140

Piers Ploughman. Pass. vii. 213-14.

141

Piers Ploughman. Passes vii. 215-249.

142

For a description of the various deceits practised in cloth-making see 3 Richard II. stat. cap. 2. Stat. of Westminster 7 Richard II. cap. 9; 15 Richard II. cap. 10. In 1221 the jurors of Worcester were already complaining that the assize of the breadth of cloth was not observed. Select Pleas of the Crown, Selden Soc. 97.

143

Piers Ploughman. Pass. i. 33-4.

144

Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 259; xi. 3, 70-73, 111. Davies’ Southampton, 82. Hunt’s Bristol, 74, 97-8.

145

Survey of Birmingham, 50, 51, 52. See above, p. 63.

146

Journ. Archæol. Ass. xxvii. 110-148. This as one among many proofs tends to show how wealth was passing not so much to the mere land-owners as to the new tenants who were combining the cloth trade with big sheep farms – the enterprising speculators who were on the watch for the cheap lands of ruined lords to increase their own business.

147

Members of the Pepperers Company began to replace the Jews at the King’s exchange in the thirteenth century (Kingdon’s Grocers’ Company, i. x-xii.)

148

Von Ochenkowski, 112, 125. The upgrowth of the true class of merchants is shewn in the Hull Guild whose ordinances date from 1499 (Lambert’s Guild Life, 157-160) and the York Mistery of Mercers of 1430, (Ibid. 167).

149

For the forbidding of exportation of gold and silver and the consequent regulations about travellers by sea, see 5 Richard II. St. i. cap. 2.

150

The Chancellor of England was given power to enquire and judge on dealings of “dry exchange,” and also Justices of the Peace of the neighbouring counties. Stat. 3 Henry VII. cap. 6. Compare Luchaire, Communes Françaises, 242-4.

151

When in the parable of Piers Ploughman the wicked Lady Mede defends corrupt gain by the argument that merchandise cannot exist without meed or reward the answer of Conscience is that trade is nothing but pure barter.

“In merchandise is no meed I may it well avow

It is a permutation apertelich [evidently] one penny-worth for another.

” – Piers Ploughman. Pass. iv. 282, 315, 316.

See also the limits set even on barter —

“For it is simony to sell what sent is of grace

That is wit and water, wind, and fire the forth:

These four should be free to all folk that it needeth.”

Ibid. Pass. x. 55-7. Here, however, he has doubtless in his mind the lord’s mill on the hill or by the stream, the rights of turbary and of gathering wood in the forest, and the great need of the people – protection in the law-courts.

152

Von Ochenkowski, 165, 167, 245-9.

153

Piers Ploughman. Passus x. 26.

154

“And though they wend by the way the two together,

Though the messenger make his way amid the wheat

Will no wise man wroth be, nor his wed take;

Is not hayward yhote [ordered] his wed for to take;

But if the merchant make his way over men’s corn,

And the hayward happen with him for to meet,

Either his hat or his hood, or else his gloves

The merchant must forego, or the money of his purse.”

– Piers Ploughman. Pass. xiv. 42-50.

155

Hist. MSS. Com. v. 443. For merchants’ marks in S. George’s Church, Doncaster, see Hunter’s Deanery of Doncaster, i. 14.

156

Plummer’s Fortescue, 235.

157

Piers Ploughman. Pass. vii. 278-285.

158

Ibid. Pass. xiv. 50-51.

159

See Ship of Fools, Barclay, 43, st. 4.

160

Lib. Eng. Pol. Wright’s Political Poems, ii. 178.

161

Hist. MSS. Com. v. 601-4.

162

Hunt’s Bristol, 75, 93-5; 126-8.

163

Hunt’s Bristol, 94-5, 108. A Bristol grocer left 350 ounces of silver plate to be divided among his children. Ibid. 108. The first fork we hear of in England in 1443 belonged to a citizen family in York. “Unum par cultellorum vocat’ ‘karving knyves’ et unum par forpicum argenteorum.” (Plumpton Correspondence, xxxiv.)

164

Piers Ploughman. Passus, xv. 90. For Wood’s account of Oxford houses, see Boase’s Oxford, 48-9.

165

Boys’ Sandwich, 149, 185, 186.

166

The plate of S. Mary’s, Sandwich, amounted to about 724 ounces of silver, and there was a good deal of silver gilt; it had splendid brocade of gold of Venice and of Lucca, and a mass of vestments of white damask powdered with gold of Venice, and blue velvet powdered with fleurs de lis, or with moons and stars, and so on. (Boys’ Sandwich, 375.) A burgess of Wycombe, Redehode, fitted up the church with beautiful screens of carved wood, and added other gifts to its store of jewels and gilt crowns for Our Lady, and other ornaments of amber, silver, jet, turquoises, with rich garments and ermine fur, damasks, velvets, silks, a baldachino bearing green branches with birds of gold, magnificent robes of cloth of gold, &c., and splendid plate. (Hist. MSS. Com. v. 554-5.)

167

An ironmonger, Richard Fallande, set up a tablet in Hospital Hall to remind the townsfolk of the dangers and terrors of the old ford, of passengers drowned, of poor people pitilessly turned back, or wayfarers robbed of hood or girdle to satisfy the ferry-men’s greed. People were constantly drowned and

“Few folke there were coude that way wende

But they waged a wed or payed of her purse

And if it were a begger had breed in her bagge

He schulde be ryght soone i bid for to goo aboute

And of the poor penyles the hireward wold habbe

A hood or a girdel and let him goo withoute.”

(English Illustrated Magazine, May 1889, p. 951.) For Rochester Bridge, see Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 285.

168

Davies’ Southampton, 115.

169

Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 247. For similar bequests, Ibid. x. 4, p. 529-30. Ibid. ix. 208-10. The Common Weal (ed. E. Lamond), 18, 19.

170

Ibid. xi. 7, 169, 174, 175, 180-1. Ibid. ix. 57, 275, 137, 145. Davies’ Walks through York, 30-1.

171

Piers Ploughman. Pass. i. 22.

172

See the surprising lists of these stores in the Paston Letters, iii. 312, 270-4, 297-8, 282-9, 436, 313. Compare vol. i. p. 259.

173

Hist. MSS. Com. x. 4, 297. Paston Letters, iii. 23, 35, 46, 49, 219, 258. See vol. i. 260-2.

174

Paston Letters, iii. 114-15.

175

Paston Letters, iii. 194. Hist. MSS. Com. vii. 599.

176

Richard the Redeless, Passus iii. 145, &c.

177

Plumpton Correspondence, xxxix. xl.

178

Sometimes their servants also reached posts of importance. John Russel, one of Fastolf’s servants, paid a sum down to be appointed Searcher at Yarmouth. And Thomas Fry, a steward of the Berkeleys under Henry the Seventh and Henry the Eighth, was “raised by them to be of principal authority and in commission of the peace of the city of Coventry, and a steward of great power in that Corporation.” (Berkeleys, ii. 215.)

179

The Poles of Hull were rising into importance. (Paston Letters, ii. 210.) Sir John Fastolf possibly sprang from this class, for his relation Richard Fastolf was a London tailor. (Hist. MSS. Com. viii. 265.) Two London drapers, a mercer and a grocer were among the forty-seven Knights of the Bath created at the coronation of Elizabeth, queen of Edward the Fourth. (Three XV. century Chronicles, 80.) See the marriage of Whittingham, Mayor of London, whose son entered the Royal Household (Verney Papers, 15-17); of Verney, mayor in 1465 and knighted in 1471 (Ibid. 13, 22); of Sir William Plumpton (Plumpton Correspondence, xxvii.); of Sir Maurice Berkeley (Hunt’s Bristol, 101).

180

Paston Letters, iii. 383.

181

For the whole story see Paston Letters, ii. 341, 347, 350, 363-5.

182

Paston Letters, iii. 109, 219, 278.

183

Nottingham Records, i. 169.

184

Plumpton Correspondence, 12. The lady was sister to Godfrey Green, who seems to have been of good family, possibly a connexion of Sir William Plumpton (17 note). Green did a good deal of business for Plumpton (22-3), and was one of the trustees of a settlement, lxxii. note.

185

See Clément, Jacques Cœur.

186

Ibid. 134.

187

Clément, Jacques Cœur.

188

(See p. 327).

189

See Hist. of Eng. People, ii. 142-3, 151, 164-6, 170-2, 188. Brinklow’s writings afford a very good illustration of the radical temper in politics which at this time was developed in the towns.

190

Stat. 3 Henry VII. cap. 11. The Common Weal, 88-90.

191

It was often forbidden to employ any woman save the wife or daughter of the master (Hunt’s Bristol, 82; Riley’s Mem. 217).

192

Lambert’s Guild Life, 238-9; Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, p. 11, 87.

193

Kent had sunk from the fifth to the tenth place in wealth among counties during the Hundred Years’ War. In 1454 the wool of Lincolnshire, Shropshire, and the Cotswolds, represented the best, and that of Kent almost the worst quality; this may account for the decline of Canterbury. The difference in quality would of course tell much more on the prosperity of a district when the home manufacture of cloth was developed.

194

Schanz, i. 610-11 (1455); 33 Henry VI. cap. 4; Rot. Parl. v. 324.