Our Legal Heritage Part 60

The guilds were being replaced by a.s.sociations for the investment of capital. In a.s.sociations, journeymen were losing their chance of rising to be a master. Compet.i.tion among a.s.sociations was starting to supplant custom as the mainspring of trade.

The cloth exporters, who were mostly mercers, were unregulated and banded together for mutual support and protection under the name of Merchant Adventurers of London. The Merchant Adventurers was chartered in 1407. It was the first and a prototype of regulated companies. That is the company regulated the trade. Each merchant could ship on his own a certain number of cloths each year, the number depending on the length of his membership in the company. He could sell them himself or by his factor at the place where the company had privileges of market. Strict rules governed the conduct of each member. He was to make sales only at certain hours on specified days. All disagreements were to be settled by the company's governor, or his deputy in residence, and those officials dealt with such disputes as arose between members of the company and continental officials and buyers. A share in the ownership of one of their vessels was a common form of investment by prosperous merchants.

By 1450, the merchant adventurers were dealing in linen cloths, buckrams [a stiffened, coa.r.s.e cloth], fustians [coa.r.s.e cloth made of cotton threads going in one direction and linen threads the other], satins, jewels, fine woolen and linen wares, threads, potions, wood, oil, wine, salt, copper, and iron. They began to replace trade by alien traders.

The history of the "Merchant Adventurers" was a.s.sociated with the growth of the mercantile system for more than 300 years. It eventually replaced the staples system.

Paved roads in towns were usually gravel and sometimes cobble. They were frequently muddy because of rain and spillage of water being carried. Iron-shod wheels and overloaded carts made them very uneven.

London was the first town with paviors. They cleaned and repaired the streets, filling up potholes with wood chips and compacting them with hand rams. The paviors were organized as a city company in 1479. About 1482, towns besides London began appointing salaried road paviors to repair roads and collect their expenses from the householders because the policy of placing the burden on individual householders didn't work well. London streets were lighted at night by public lanterns, under the direction of the mayor. The residents were to light these candle lanterns in winter from dusk to the 9 p.m. curfew. There were fire-engines composed of a circular cistern with a pump and six feet of inflexible hose on wheels pulled by two men on one end and pushed by two men on the other end. In 1480 the city walls were rebuilt with a weekly tax of 5d. per head.

In schools, there was a renaissance of learning from original sources of knowledge written in Greek and rebirth of the Greek pursuit of the truth and scientific spirit of inquiry. There was a striking increase in the number of schools founded by wealthy merchants or town guilds. Every cathedral, monastery, and college had a grammar school. Merchants tended to send their sons to private boarding schools, instead of having them tutored at home as did the n.o.bility. Well-to-do parents still sent sons to live in the house of some n.o.ble to serve them as pages in return for being educated with the n.o.ble's son by the household priest. They often wore their master's coat of arms and became their squires as part of their knightly education. Sometimes girls were sent to live in another house to receive education from a tutor there under the supervision of the lady of the house. Every man, free or villein, could send his sons and daughters to school. In every village, there were some who could read and write.

In 1428, Lincoln's Inn required barristers normally resident in London and the county of Middles.e.x to remain in residence and pay commons during the periods between sessions of court and during vacations, so that the formal education of students would be continuous. In 1442, a similar requirement was extended to all members.

The book "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" was written about an incident in the court of King Arthur and Queen Guenevere in which a green knight challenges Arthur's knights to live up to their reputation for valor and awesome deeds. The knight Gawain answers the challenge, but is shown that he could be false and cowardly when death seemed to be imminent. Thereafter, he wears a green girdle around his waist to remind him not to be proud.

Other literature read included "London Lickpenny", a satire on London and its expensive services and products, "Fall of Princes" by John Lydgate, social history by Thomas Hoccleve, "The Cuckoo and the Nightengale", and "The Flower and Leaf" on morality as secular common sense. King James I of Scotland wrote a book about how he fell in love.

Chaucer, Cicero, Ovid, and Aesops's Fables were widely read. Malory's new version of the Arthurian stories was popular. Margery Kempe wrote the first true autobiography. She was a woman who had a normal married life with children, but one day had visions and voices which led her to leave her husband to take up a life of wandering and praying in holy possession. There were religious folk ballads such as "The Cherry Tree Carol", about the command of Jesus from Mary's womb for a cherry tree to bend down so that Mary could have some cherries from it. The common people developed ballads, e.g. about their love of the forest, their wish to hunt, and their hatred of the forest laws.

About 30% of Londoners could read English. Books were bought in London in such quant.i.ties by 1403 that the craft organizations of text-letter writers, illuminators, bookbinders, and book sellers was sanctioned by ordinance. "Unto the honorable lords, and wise, the mayor and aldermen of the city of London, pray very humbly all the good folks, freemen of the said city, of the trades of writers of text-letter, limners [illuminator of books], and other folks of London who are wont to bind and to sell books, that it may please your great sagenesses to grant unto them that they may elect yearly two reputable men, the one a limner, the other a text- writer, to be wardens of the said trades, and that the names of the wardens so elected may be presented each year before the mayor for the time being, and they be there sworn well and diligently to oversee that good rule and governance is had and exercised by all folks of the same trades in all works unto the said trades pertaining, to the praise and good fame of the loyal good men of the said trades and to the shame and blame of the bad and disloyal men of the same. And that the same wardens may call together all the men of the said trades honorably and peacefully when need shall be, as well for the good rule and governance of the said city as of the trades aforesaid.

And that the same wardens, in performing their due office, may present from time to time all the defaults of the said bad and disloyal men to the chamberlain at the Guildhall for the time being, to the end that the same may there, according to the wise and prudent discretion of the governors of the said city, be corrected, punished, and duly redressed.

And that all who are rebellious against the said wardens as to the survey and good rule of the same trades may be punished according to the general ordinance made as to rebellious persons in trades of the said city [fines and imprisonment]. And that it may please you to command that this pet.i.tion, by your sagenesses granted, may be entered of record for time to come, for the love of G.o.d and as a work of charity."

Gutenberg's printing press, which used movable type of small blocks with letters on them, was brought to London in 1476 by a mercer: William Caxton. It supplemented the text-writer and monastic copyist. It was a wood and iron frame with a mounted platform on which were placed small metal frames into which words with small letters of lead had been set up. Each line of text had to be carried from the type case to the press.

Beside the press were pots filled with ink and inking b.a.l.l.s. When enough lines of type to make a page had been a.s.sembled on the press, the b.a.l.l.s would be dipped in ink and drawn over the type. Then a sheet of paper would be placed on the form and a lever pulled to press the paper against the type. Linen usually replaced the more expensive parchment for the book pages.

The printing press made books more accessible to all literate people.

Caxton printed major English texts and some translations from French and Latin. He commended different books to various kinds of readers, for instance, for gentlemen who understand gentleness and science, or for ladies and gentlewomen, or to all good folk. There were many cook books in use. There were convex eyegla.s.ses for reading and concave ones for distance to correct near-sightedness. The first public library in London was established from a bequest in a will in 1423.

Many carols were sung at the Christian festival of Christmas. Ballads were sung on many features of social life of this age of disorder, hatred of sheriffs, but faith in the King. The legend of Robin Hood was popular, as were town miracle plays on leading incidents of the Bible and morality plays. Vintners portrayed the miracle of Cana where water was turned into wine and Goldsmiths ornately dressed the three Kings coming from the east. In York, the building of Noah's Ark was performed by the Shipwrights and the Flood performed by the Fishery and Mariners.

Short pantomimes and disguising, forerunners of costume parties, were good recreation. Games of cards became popular as soon as cards were introduced. The king, queen, and jack were dressed in contemporary clothes. Men bowled, kicked footb.a.l.l.s, and played tennis. In London, Christmas was celebrated with masques and mummings. There was a great tree in the main market place and evergreen decorations in churches, houses, and streets. There were also games, dances, street bonfires in front of building doors, and general relaxation of social controls.

Sometimes there was drunken licentiousness and revelry, with peasants gathering together to make demands of lords for the best of his goods.

May Day was celebrated with crowns and garlands of spring flowers. The village May Day pageant was often presided over by Robin Hood and Maid Marion.

People turned to mysticism to escape from the everyday violent world.

They read works of mystics, such as "Scale of Perfection" and "Cloud of Unknowing", the latter describing how one may better know G.o.d. They believed in magic and sorcery, but had no religious enthusiasm because the church was engendering more disrespect. Monks and nuns had long ago resigned spiritual leadership to the friars; now the friars too lost much of their good reputation. The monks became used to life with many servants such as cooks, butlers, bakers, brewers, barbers, laundresses, tailors, carpenters, and farm hands. The austerity of their diet had vanished. The schedule of divine services was no longer followed by many and the fostering of learning was abandoned. Into monasteries drifted the lazy and miserable. Nunneries had become aristocratic boarding houses. The practice of taking sanctuary was abused; criminals and debtors sought it and were allowed to overstay the 40-day restriction and to leave at night to commit robberies. There were numerous chaplains, who were ordained because they received pay from private persons for saying ma.s.ses for the dead; They had much leisure time for mischief because they had to forego wife and family. Church courts became corrupt, but jealously guarded their jurisdiction from temporal court encroachment. Peter's Pence was no longer paid by the people, so the burden of papal exaction fell wholly on the clergy. But the church was rich and powerful, paying almost a third of the whole taxation of the nation and forming a majority in the House of Lords. Many families had kinsmen in the clergy. Even the lowest cleric or clerk could read and write in Latin.

People relied on saint's days as reference points in the year, because they did not know dates of the year. But townspeople knew the hour and minute of each day, because clocks driven by a descending weight on a cord were in all towns and in the halls of the well-to-do. This increased the sense of punctuality and lifted standards of efficiency.

These weight-driven clocks replaced water clocks, which had a problem of water freezing, and sandclocks, which could measure only small time intervals.

A linguistic unity and national pride was developing. London English became the norm and predominated over rural dialects. Important news was announced and spread by word of mouth in market squares and sometimes in churches. As usual, traders provided one of the best sources of news; they maintained an informal network of speedy messengers and accurate reports because political changes so affected their ventures. News also came from peddlers, who visited villages and farms to sell items that could not be bought in the local village. These often included scissors, eyegla.s.ses, colored handkerchiefs, calendars, fancy leather goods, watches, and clocks. Peddling was fairly profitable because of the lack of compet.i.tion. But peddlers were often viewed as tramps and suspected of engaging in robbery as well as peddling.

A royal post service was established by relays of mounted messengers.

The first route was between London and the Scottish border, where there were frequent battles for land between the Scotch and English.

The inland roads from town to town were still rough and without signs.

A horseman could make up to 40 miles a day. Common carriers took pa.s.sengers and parcels from various towns to London on scheduled journeys. Now the common yeoman could order goods from the London market, communicate readily with friends in London, and receive news of the world frequently. Trade with London was so great and the common carrier so efficient in transporting goods that the medieval fair began to decline. First the Grocers and then the Mercers refused to allow their members to sell goods at fairs. There was much highway robbery.

Most goods were still transported by boats along the coasts, with trading at the ports.

Embroidery was exported. Imported were timber, pitch, tar, potash [for cloth dying], furs, silk, satin, gold cloth, damask cloth, furred gowns, gems, fruit, spices, and sugar. Imports were restricted by national policy for the purpose of protecting native industries.

English single-masted ships began to be replaced by two or three masted ships with high pointed bows to resist waves and sails enabling the ship to sail closer to the wind. 200 tuns was the usual carrying capacity.

The increase in trade made piracy, even by merchants, profitable and frequent until merchant vessels began sailing in groups for their mutual protection. The astrolabe, which took alt.i.tude of sun and stars, was used for navigation.

Consuls were appointed to a.s.sist English traders abroad.

Henry IV appointed the first admiral of the entire nation and resolved to create a national fleet of warships instead of using merchant ships.

In 1417, the war navy had 27 ships. In 1421, Portsmouth was fortified as a naval base. Henry V issued the orders that formed the basic law of English admiralty and appointed surgeons to the navy and army.