Our Legal Heritage Part 87

The fear of witchcraft grew with Puritanism. Poor decrepit old defenseless women, often deformed and feeble-minded, were thought to be witches. Their warts and tumors were thought to be teats for the devil to suck or the devil's mark. Cursing or ill-tempers, probably from old age pains, or having cats were further indications of witchery.

When the king learned in 1618 that the English Puritans had prevented certain recreations after the Sunday service, he proclaimed that the people should not be restrained from lawful recreations and exercise such as dancing, May-games, Whitsunales, Morris-dances, May-pole sports, archery for men, leaping, and vaulting. Also women could carry rushes to decorate the church as they had done in the past. His stated purpose was to prevent people such as Catholics from being deterred from conversion, to promote physical fitness for war, and to keep people from drinking and making discontented speeches in their ale houses. Still unlawful on Sunday were bear and bull baitings and bowlings.

Besides the Puritans, there were other Independent sects, such as the Congregationalists, whose churches gathered together by the inspiration of Jesus. This sect was started by English merchants residing in Holland who set up congregations of Englishmen under their patronage there; they kept minister and elders well under their control. The Baptists emerged out of the Independents. They believed that only adults, who were capable of full belief, and not children, could be baptized. They also believed that it was the right of any man to seek G.o.d's truth for himself in the scriptures and that obedience to the state should not extend beyond personal conscience.

One fourth of all children born did not live to the age of ten, most dying in their first year. Babies had close caps over their head, a rattle, and slept in a st.u.r.dy wood cradle that rocked on the floor, usually near the hearth. Babies of wealthier families had nurses. The babies of ladies were suckled by wet nurses. Parents raised children with affection and tried to prepare them to become independent self-sustaining adults. There was less severity than in Tudor times, although the maxim "spare the rod and spoil the child" was generally believed, especially by Puritans, and applied to even very young children. In disciplining a child, an admonition was first used, and the rod as a last resort, with an explanation of the reasons for its use.

There were nursery rhymes and stories such as "Little Bo-Peep", "Jack and the Beanstalk", "Tom Thumb", "Chicken Little", and Robin Hood and King Arthur tales, and probably also "Puss in Boots", "Red Ridinghood", "Cinderella", "Beauty and the Beast", "Bluebeard" and Aesop's Fables.

"Little Jack Horner" who sat in a corner was a satire on the Puritan aversion to Christmas pudding and sense of conscious virtue. Toys included dolls, b.a.l.l.s, drums, and hobby horses. Children played "hide and seek", "here we go around the Mulberry bush", and other group games.

School children were taught by "horn books". This was a piece of paper with the alphabet and perhaps a religious verse, such as the Paternoster prayer, that was mounted on wood and covered with thin horn to prevent tearing. Little girls cross-st.i.tched the alphabet and numerals on samplers. Block alphabets were coming into use. Most market towns had a grammar school which would qualify a student for university. They were attended by sons of n.o.blemen, country squires [poor gentlemen], merchants, and substantial yeomen, and in some free schools, the poor.

School hours were from 6:00 a.m. to noon or later. Multiplication was taught. If affordable, families had their children involved in education after they were small until they left home at about fifteen for apprenticeship or service. Otherwise, children worked with their families from the age of seven, e.g. carding and spinning wool, until leaving home at about fifteen.

There were boarding schools such as Winchester, Eton, Westminster, St.

Paul's, and Merchant Taylors'. There, senior boys selected for conduct and ability supervised younger boys. They thereby got experience for a future in public life. The system was also a check on bullying of the weak by the strong. The curriculum included Lilly's "Grammar"; Aesop; Terence's Roman comic plays; Virgil's "Aeneid", the national epic of Rome; Cicero's "Letters" reflecting Roman life; Sall.u.s.t's histories showing people and their motives; Caesar's "Commentaries" on the Gallic and civil wars; Horace's "Epistles" about life and poetry; poet Ovid's "Metamorphoses" on adventures and love affairs of deities and heroes, "Fasti" on Roman religious festivals and customs; Donatus' grammar book; and other ancient Latin authors. Football, with hog bladders, and tennis were played. These schools were self-supporting and did their own farming.

Private schools for girls were founded in and around London. They were attended by daughters of the well-to-do merchant cla.s.s, n.o.bility, and gentry. They were taught singing, playing of instruments, dancing, French, fine sewing, embroidery, and sometimes arithmetic. There were not many girls' boarding schools. Fewer served in the house of some n.o.ble lady as before. Most commonly, the sons and daughters of gentlemen and n.o.bles were taught by private tutors. A tutor in the house educated the girls to the same extent as the boys. Frequently, the mother educated her daughters. A considerable number of girls of other backgrounds such as the yeomanry and the town citizenry somehow learned to read and write.

Boys began at university usually from age 14 to 18, but sometimes as young as 12. The universities provided a broad-based education in the cla.s.sics, logic and rhetoric, history, theology, and modern languages for gentlemen and gave a h.o.m.ogenous national culture to the ruling cla.s.s. There was a humanist ideal of a gentleman scholar. The method of study was based largely on lectures and disputations. Each fellow had about five students to tutor. In many cases, he took charge of the finances of his students, paying his bills to tradesmen and the college.

His reimburs.e.m.e.nt by the students' fathers put them into friendly contact with the family. The students slept in trundle beds around his bed and had an adjacent room for study. Aristotle, whose authority was paramount, remained the lynch pin of university studies, especially for logic and dialectic. The study of rhetoric was based on Quintilian, the Latin writer, and the Greek treatise of Hermogenes of Tarsus. Also studied was Cicero's orations as models of style. Examination for degrees was by disputation over a thesis of the student. The B.A. degree was given after four years of study, and the M.A. after three more.

There were advanced degrees in civil law, which required seven more years of study, medicine, seven years, divinity, more than seven years, and music. Many of the men who continued for advanced degrees became fellows and took part in the teaching. Most fellowships were restricted to clerics. Oxford and Cambridge Universities operated under a tutorial system. Access to grammar schools and universities was closed to girls of whatever cla.s.s. Oxford University now had the Bodleian Library. In the universities, there were three types of students: poor scholars, who received scholarships and also performed various kinds of service such as kitchen work and did errands for fellows such as carrying water and waiting on tables; commoners, who paid low fees and were often the sons of economical gentlemen or businessmen; and the Fellow Commoners, a privileged and well-to-do minority, usually sons of n.o.blemen or great country gentlemen. The Fellow Commoners paid high fees, had large rooms, sometimes had a personal tutor or servant, and had the right to eat with the Fellows at High Table. Here, gentlemen made friends with their social equals from all over the country. Students wore new- fashioned gowns of many colors and colored stockings. They put on stage plays in Latin and English. The students played at running, jumping, and pitching the bar, and at the forbidden swimming and football. They were not to have irreligious books or dogs. Cards and dice could be played only at Christmas time. Students still drank, swore, and rioted, but they were disallowed from going into town without special permission. Those below a B.A. had to be accompanied by a tutor or an M.A. They were forbidden from taverns, boxing matches, dances, c.o.c.k fights, and loitering in the street or market. Sometimes a disputation between two colleges turned into a street brawl. Punishment was by flogging. Each university had a chancellor, usually a great n.o.bleman or statesman, who represented the university in dealings with the government and initiated policies. The vice-chancellor was appointed for a year from the group of heads of college. He looked out for the government of halls, enforced the rules of the university, kept its courts, licensed wine shops, and shared control of the town with the mayor.

Tutors were common. They resided at the boy's house or took boys to board with them at their houses in England or on the continent. The tutor sometimes accompanied his student to grammar school or university.

Puritans frequently sent their sons to board in the house of some Frenchman or Swiss Protestant to learn the Calvinist doctrines or on tour with a tutor. Certain halls in the universities were predominately Puritan. Catholics were required to have their children taught in a home of a Protestant, a relative if possible.

The Inns of Court were known as "the third university". It served the profession of law, and was a training ground for the sons of n.o.bility and the gentry and for those entering the service of the commonwealth.

The Inns were self-governing and ruled by custom. Students were to live within the Inn, two to a room, but often there were not enough rooms, so some students lived outside the quadrangles. Every student was supposed to partake of Commons or meals for a certain fraction of the year - from eight weeks to three months and there to argue issues in cases brought up by their seniors. In hall the students were not allowed to wear hats, though caps were permitted, nor were they to appear booted or spurred or carrying swords. For the first two years, they would read and talk much of the law, and were called Clerks Commoners. After two years they became Mootmen or Inner Barristers. In five or six years they might be selected to be called to the bar as Utter Barristers, whose number was fixed. There was no formal examination. The Utter Barrister spent at least three more years performing exercises and a.s.sisting in directing the studies of the younger men. After this time, he could plead in the general courts at Westminster, but usually carried on law work in the offices of other men and prepared cases for them. Partic.i.p.ating in moots (practice courts) was an important part of their education. Lectures on statutes and their histories were given by Readers.

Physicians were licensed by universities, by the local bishop, or in London, by the College of Physicians and Surgeons. Most were university graduates, and because of the expense of the education, from well-to-do families. For the B.A., they emphasized Greek. For the M.A., they studied the works of Greek physicians Galen and Hippocrates, Roman physician Claudius, and perhaps some medieval authorities. After the M.A., they listened to lectures by the Regius Professor of Medicine and saw a few dissections. Three years of study gave them a M.B., and four more years beyond this the M.D. degree. A physician's examination of a patient cost 10s. The physician asked about his symptoms and feelings of pain, looked at his eyes, looked at his body for spots indicative of certain diseases, guessed whether he had a fever, felt his pulse, and examined his urine and stool. There were no laboratory tests. Smallpox was quickly recognized. Wrapping red cloth around the person and covering the windows with red cloth being promoted healing without scarring. Gout was frequent. Syphilis was common in London and other large centers, especially in Court circles. It was ameliorated by mercury. An imbalance of the four humors: blood, phlegm, choler, bile was redressed by bloodletting, searing, draining, and/or purging. Heart trouble was not easily diagnosed and cancer was not recognized as a life-threatening disease. Childbirth was attended by physicians if the patient was well-to-do or the case was serious. Otherwise women were attended only by midwives. They often died in childbirth, many in their twenties.

A visit by a physician cost 13s.4d. Melancholia, which made one always fearful and full of dread, and mania, which made one think he could do supernatural things, were considered to be types of madness different from infirmities of the body. Despite a belief held by some that anatomical investigation of the human body was a sin against the holy ghost, physicians were allowed to dissect corpses. So there were anatomy textbooks and anatomy was related to surgery. Barber-surgeons extracted teeth and performed surgery. The white and red striped barber pole initially indicated a place of surgery; The red represented blood and the white bandages.

The theory of nutrition was still based on the four humors and deficiency diseases were not understood as such. Physician William Harvey, son of a yeoman, discovered the circulation of the blood from heart to lungs to heart to body about 1617. He had studied anatomy at Padua on the continent and received an M.D. there and later at Cambridge. Then he accepted a position at the hospital of St.

Bartholomew to treat the poor who came there at least once a week for a year. He agreed to give the poor full benefit of his knowledge, to prescribe only such medicines as should do the poor good without regard to the pecuniary interest of the apothecary accompanying him, to take no reward from patients, and to render account for any negligence on his part. He also dissected animals. One day he noted when stroking downward on the back of one hand with the finger of the other, that a vein seemed to disappear, but that it reappeared when he released his finger. He surmised that there was a valve preventing the blood?s immediate return to the vein. Then he ascertained that the heart was a pump that caused pulses, which had been thought to be caused by throbbing of the veins. He tied the arteries and found that the arterial blood flowed away from the heart. He tied the veins and found that venal blood flowed into the heart. He found that the blood flowed from the lungs to the left side of the heart, and from thence was pumped out to the body.

Blood also flowed from the body to the right side of the heart, from which it was pumped to the lungs. The two contractions closely followed one another, rather than occurring at the same time. The valves in the veins prevented backflow. It was now clear why all the blood could be drained away by a single opening in a vein. It was also clear why a tight ligature, which blocked the arteries, made a limb bloodless and pale and why a looser ligature, which pressed only on the veins, made a limb swell turgid with blood. Multiplying an estimate of the amount of blood per beat with the number of beats, he concluded that the amount of blood did not change as it circulated. He concluded that the only purpose of the heart was to circulate the blood. This diminished the religious concept that the heart was the seat of the soul and that blood had a spiritual significance and was sacred.

The physicians turned surgery over to the surgeons, who received a charter in 1605 by which barbers were excluded from all surgical work except bloodletting and the drawing of teeth. Surgeons dealt with skin disease, ulcers, hernia, bladder stones, and broken bones, which they had some skill in setting. They performed amputations, which were without antiseptics or anesthesia. Internal operations usually resulted in death. Caesarian section was attempted, but did not save the life of the mother. Apprenticeship was the route to becoming a surgeon. A College of Surgeons was founded. Students learned anatomy, for which they received the corpses of four executed felons a year.

The apothecaries and grocers received a charter in 1607, but in 1618, the apothecaries were given the sole right to purchase and sell potions, and to search the shops of grocers and stop the sale by them of any potions. In London, the apothecaries were looked over by the College of Physicians to see that they were not selling evil potions or poisons. In 1618 was the first pharmacy book.

There were three hospitals in London, two for the poor, and Bedlam [Bethlehem] Hospital for the insane. Others were treated at home or in the physician's home.

Theaters were shut down in times of plague to prevent spread of disease there. Towndwellers who could afford it left to live in the country.

Shakespeare wrote most of his plays in this period. Most popular reading was still Bibles, prayer books, psalm books, and devotional works. Also popular were almanacs, which started with a single sheet of paper. An almanac usually had a calendar; information on fairs, roads, and posts; farming hints; popularized scientific knowledge; historical information; sensational news; astrological predictions; and later, social, political, and religious comment. Many households had an almanac. Books tried to reconcile religion and science as well as religion and pa.s.sion or sensuality. Walter Ralegh's "History of the World", written while he was in prison, was popular. Ben Johnson wrote poetry and satiric comedies. Gentlemen read books of manners such as James Cleland's "Inst.i.tution of a Young n.o.ble Man" (1607). In 1622, the first regular weekly newspaper was started.

Although there was a large advance in the quality of boys' education and in literacy, the great majority of the people were unable to read fluently. Since writing was taught after one could read fluently, literacy was indicated by the ability to sign one's name. Almost all gentlemen and professional men were literate. About half the yeomen and tradesmen and craftsmen were. Only about 15% of husbandmen, laborers, servants, and women were literate.

The Elizabethan love of madrigal playing gradually gave way to a taste for instrumental music, including organs and flutes. The violin was introduced and popular with all cla.s.ses. Ballads were sung, such as "Barbary Allen", about a young man who died for love of her, after which she died of sorrow. When they were buried next to each other, a rose from his grave grew around a briar from her grave. The ballad "Geordie"

relates a story of a man hanged for stealing and selling sixteen of the king's royal deer. The ballad "Matty Groves" is about a great Lord's fair young bride seducing a lad, who was then killed by the Lord. In the ballad "Henry Martin", the youngest man of three brothers is chosen by lot to turn pirate to support his brothers. When his pirate ship tries to take a merchant ship, there is sea fight in which the merchant ship sinks and her men drown. The ballad "The Trees They Do Grow High" tells of an arranged marriage between a 24 year old woman and the 14 year old son of a great lord. She tied blue ribbons on his head when he went to college to let the maidens know that he was married. But he died at age 16, after having sired a son.

May Day was a holiday with dancing around a Maypole and people dressed up as characters such as Queen of the May, Robin Hood, Little John, Friar Tuck, Maid Marion, the fool, and the piper. New Year's Day was changed to January 1st.

Golf was played in Scotland, and James introduced it into England.

James I was the last monarch to engage in falconry.

Francis Bacon wrote the "Advancement of Learning" and "Novum Organum"

(New Learning) in which he encouraged the use of the inductive method to find out scientific truths and also truths in general, that is reasoning from a sample to the whole. According to him, the only way to arrive at the truth was to observe and determine the correlations of facts. He advocated a process of elimination of hypothesized ideas. First, experiments were made, then general conclusions were drawn from them, and then these generalizations were tested in further experiments. His "New Learning" showed the way out of the scholastic method and reverence for dogma into the experimental method. He wrote "Natural and Experimental History". He studied the effect of cold in preventing animal putrefaction.