One Snowy Night Part 10

"Can't tell how you come by all your notions!" said Stephen, scratching his head.

"Notions of all kinds have but two sources," was the reply: "the Word of G.o.d, and the corruption of man's heart."

"Come, now, that won't do!" objected Stephen. "You've built your door a mile too narrow. I've a notion that gra.s.s is green, and another that my new boots don't fit me: whence come they?"

"The first," said Gerhardt drily, "from the Gospel of Saint Mark; the second from the Fourteenth Psalm."

"The Fourteenth Psalm makes mention of my boots!"

"Not in detail. It saith, 'There is none that doeth good,--no, not one.'"

"What on earth has that to do with it?"

"This: that if sin had never entered the world, both fraud and suffering would have tarried outside with it."

"Well, I always did reckon Father Adam a sorry fellow, that he had no more sense than to give in to his wife."

"I rather think he gave in to his own inclination, at least as much. If he had not wanted to taste the apple, she might have coaxed till now."

"Hold hard there, man! You are taking the woman's side."

"I thought I was taking the side of truth. If that be not one's own, it is quite as well to find it out."

Stephen laughed as he turned away from the door of the Walnut Tree.

"You're too good for me," said he. "I'll go home before I'm infected with the complaint."

"I'd stop and take it if I were you," retorted Isel. "You're off the better end, I'll admit, but you'd do with a bit more, may be."

"I'll leave it for you, Aunt Isel," said Stephen mischievously. "One shouldn't want all the good things for one's self, you know."

The Queen did not remain for even a month at Woodstock. In less than three weeks she returned to London, this time without pa.s.sing through Oxford, and took her journey to Harfleur, the pa.s.sage across the Channel costing the usual price of 7 pounds, 10 shillings equivalent in modern times to 187 pounds, 10 shillings.

Travelling seems to have been an appalling item of expense at that time.

The carriage of fish from Yarmouth to London cost 9 shillings (11 pounds, 5 shillings); of hay from London to Woodstock, 60 shillings (75 pounds); and of the Queen's robes from Winchester to Oxford, 8 shillings (10 pounds). Yet the Royal Family were perpetually journeying; the hams were fetched from Yorkshire, the cheeses from Wiltshire, and the pearmain apples from Kent. Exeter was famous for metal and corn; Worcester and London for wheat; Winchester for wine--there were vineyards in England then; Hertford for cattle, and Salisbury for game; York for wood; while the speciality of Oxford was knives.

An old Jew, writing to a younger some thirty years later, in the reign of Henry Second, and giving him warning as to what he would find in the chief towns of southern England, thus describes such as he had visited: "London much displeases me; Canterbury is a collection of lost souls and idle pilgrims; Rochester and Chichester are but small villages; Oxford scarcely (I say not satisfies, but) sustains its clerks; Exeter refreshes men and beasts with corn; Bath, in a thick air and sulphurous vapour, lies at the gates of Gehenna!"

But if travelling were far more costly than in these days, there were much fewer objects on which money could be squandered. Chairs were almost as scarce as thrones, being used for little else, and chimneys were not more common. [Note 5.] Diamonds were unknown; lace, velvet, and satin had no existence, samite and silk being the costly fabrics; and the regal ermine is not mentioned. Dress, as has been said, was not extravagant, save in the item of jewellery, or of very costly embroidery; cookery was much simpler than a hundred years later. Plate, it is true, was rich and expensive, but it was only in the hands of the n.o.bles and church dignitaries. On the other hand, fines were among the commonest things in existence. Not only had every breach of law its appropriate fine, but breaches of etiquette were expiated in a similar manner. False news was hardly treated: 13 shillings 4 pence was exacted for that [Pipe Roll, 12 Henry Third] and perjury [Ibidem, 16 ib] alike, while wounding an uncle cost a sovereign, and a priest might be slain for the easy price of 4 shillings 9 pence [Ibidem, 27 ib]. The Prior of Newburgh was charged three marks for excess of state; and poor Stephen de Mereflet had to pay 26 shillings 8 pence for "making a stupid reply to the King's Treasurer"! [Pipe Roll, 16 Henry Third] It was reserved for King John to carry this exaction to a ridiculous excess, by taking bribes to hold his tongue on inconvenient topics, and fining his courtiers for not having reminded him of points which he happened to forget. [Misae Roll, I John.]

Note 1. A long undergarment then worn by men and women alike.

Note 2. "For gilding the King's bit (_frenum_), 56 shillings." (Pipe Roll, 31 Henry First.)

Note 3. Reckoned according to modern value, these prices stand about thus:--Bacon pig, 2 pounds, 10 shillings; porkers, 5 pounds; sheep, 5 shillings 3 pence; quarter of beans, 25 shillings; load of flour, 30 shillings.

Note 4. "_Dieu L'encroisse_," a translation of Gedaliah, and a very common name among the English Jews at that time. This incident really occurred about twenty-five years later.

Note 5. Some writers deny the existence of chimneys at this date; but an entry, on the Pipe Roll for 1160, of money expended on "the Queen's chamber and chimney and cellar," leaves no doubt on the matter.

CHAPTER FOUR.

THE FAIR OF SAINT FRIDESWIDE.

"That's what I always say--if you wish a thing to be well done, You must do it yourself, you must not leave it to others."

Longfellow.

The month of May was the liveliest and gayest of the year at Oxford, for not only were the May Day games common to the whole country, but another special attraction lay in Saint Frideswide's Fair, held on Gloucester Green early in that month. Oxford was a privileged town, in respect of the provision trade, the royal purveyors being forbidden to come within twenty miles of that city. In those good old times, the King was first served, then the n.o.bility, lay and clerical, then the gentry, and the poor had to be content with what was left. It was not unusual, when a report of anything particularly nice reached the monarch--such as an import of wine, a haul of fish, or any other dainty,--for the Sheriff of that place to receive a mandate, bidding him seize for the royal use a portion or the whole thereof. Prices, too, were often regulated by proclamation, so that tradesmen not unfrequently found it hard to live.

If a few of our discontented and idle agitators (I do not mean those who would work and cannot) could spend a month or two in the olden time, their next speeches on Tower Hill might be somewhat differently flavoured.

Saint Frideswide's Fair was a sight to see. For several days before it was held, a mult.i.tude of carpenters were employed in putting up wooden booths and stalls, and Gloucester Green became a very lively place.

Fairs in the present day, when they are held at all, are very different exhibitions from what they were seven hundred years ago. The stalls then were practically shops, fully stocked with goods of solid value.

There was a butcher's row, a baker's row, a silversmith's row, and a mercer's row--ironmongers, saddlers, shoemakers, vintners, coopers, pelters (furriers), potters, hosiers, fishmongers, and cooks (confectioners)--all had their several streets of stalls. The Green-- larger than now--became a town within a town. As the fair was held by licence of Saint Frideswide, and was under her especial protection, the Canons of that church exacted certain dues both from the Crown and the stall-holders, which were duly paid. From the Crown they received 25 shillings per annum. It was deemed a point of honour to keep the best of everything for the fair; and those buyers who wished to obtain good value for their money put off their purchases when it grew near fair time. When the third of May came, they all turned out in holiday costume to lay in necessaries, so far as possible, for the year--meat excepted, which could be purchased again at the cattle fair in the following September.

There was one serious inconvenience in shopping at that time, of which we know nothing at the present day. With the exception of the penny and still smaller coins (all silver) there was no money. The pound, though it appears on paper, was not a coin, but simply a pound weight of pence; the mark was two-thirds, and the n.o.ble (if used so early) one-third of that amount. When a woman went out to buy articles of any value, she required to carry with her an enormous weight of small silver cash.

Purses were not therefore the toys we use, but large bags of heavy leather, attached to the girdle on the left side; and the aim of a pickpocket was to cut the leather bag away from its metal fastening-- hence the term _cut-purse_.

Every woman in Kepeharme Lane--and it might be added, in Oxford-- appeared in the street with a basket on her arm as soon as daylight had well dawned. The men went at their own time and convenience. For many of them a visit to the fair was merely amus.e.m.e.nt; but the ladies were on business. Even Derette followed her mother, armed with a smaller basket than the rest. Little Rudolph was left with Countess, who preferred him to the fair; and such is the power of habit that our friends had now become quite accustomed to this, and would give a nod and a smile to Countess when they met, just as they did to any other neighbour. This does not mean that they entertained an atom less of prejudice against Jews in general; they had merely got over their prejudice in the case of that one Jewish girl in particular.

Isel's business was heavy enough. She wanted a pig, half an ox, twenty ells of dark blue cloth, a cloak for herself and capes for her daughters, thirty pairs of slippers--a very moderate allowance for three women, for slippers were laid in by the dozen pairs in common--fifty cheeses (an equally moderate reckoning) [Note 1], a load of flour, another of oatmeal, two quarters of cabbage for salting, six bushels of beans, five hundred herrings, a barrel of ale, two woollen rugs for bedclothes, a wooden coffer, and a hundred nails. She had already bought and salted two sheep from Martin, so mutton was not needed.

"Now, Agnes, what do you want?" she asked.

Agnes, who was following with another basket, replied that she wanted some stuff for a dress, some flannel for Rudolph, and a few pairs of shoes. Shoes must have worn only a very short time, considering the enormous quant.i.ty of them usually bought at once.

"And you, Ermine?"

"Nothing but a hood, Mother Isel."

"You're easily satisfied. Well, I'll go first after my pig."

They turned into the Butcher's Row, where in a minute they could scarcely hear each other speak. The whole air seemed vocal with grunts, lowing, and bleating, and, the poulterers' booths lying close behind, crowing and cackling also.

"How much for a good bacon pig?" screamed Isel to a fat butcher, who was polishing a knife upon a wooden block.

"Hertford kids? I have none."

"Bacon pig!" screamed Isel a little louder.

"Oh! Well, look you, there's a nice one--twenty pence; there's a rare fine one--twenty-two; there's a--"

"Bless thee, man! dost thou think I'm made of money?"