Rambles in an Old City Part 4

_Market-place_.-_Present aspect_.-_Visit to its stalls_.-_Norfolk Marketwomen_.-_Christmas Market_.-_Early History_.-_Extracts from old records_.-_Domestic scene of 13th century_.-_Early Crafts_.-_Guilds_.-_Medley of Historical Facts_.-_Extract from Diary of Dr. Edward Browne_.-_The City in Charles the Second's reign_.-_Duke's Palace Gardens_.-_Manufactures_.-_Wool_.-_Worsted_.-_Printing_.-_Caxton_.- _Specimens of Ancient Newspapers_.-_Blomefield_.

The old city, so rich in antiquarian remains, can boast but slow progress in modern architectural developments; nor may it vie with many a younger town in its contrivances for the comfort and conveniences of those most useful members of society-the market-folks. No Grainger has arisen, to rear a monument to his own fame, and of his city's prosperity, in the form of a shelter for this important cla.s.s of the town and country populace. May be, the picturesque beauty of the Flemish scene, with its changeful canopy of "ethereal blue," or neutral tint, toned down at whiles to hues of sombre gloom, beneath the heavy shade of pa.s.sing storms of hail and thunder, or more steady-falling rain and snow, has made the philanthropists of these reforming times conservatives all, on this one point, while model cottages, baths and washhouses, almshouses for freemen, and almost every other scheme ingenuity may devise to testify the care and thought bestowed upon the public weal, are rising up around.

Let the cry of "_Protection_" once again be raised, not for the "distressed agriculturist" salesman, in his handsome corn exchange, but in favour of the "unprotected females" that sit unsheltered from the sun or storm, to vend the produce of the poultry-yards, the dairy-house, and market-garden.

But though no Temple to Commerce of the larder has been erected-a fact to be deplored in a utilitarian sense-it can never be denied that the good old seat of thriving trade can boast as fine a specimen of a genuine old market-place as may well be found in this day of compet.i.tion and rivalry.

Its motley a.s.semblage of buildings, ranged round the open square, of all styles and all ages, jostling against one another, or here and there huddled together into all sorts of inconceivable groups of varied and fantastic outline; the young ones of to-day starting up with bold and saucy front, and verily squeezing out from among them their quaint, old-fashioned, gable-ended kinsfolk of older date, or sometimes creeping out, as it were, from beneath them, content with shewing a modern face in some lower window, decked with all the new-fangled conceits of the latest fashions, and allowing their ancestors quiet resting-place aloft, where to moulder away into decay, are a chronology of history in themselves.

Now and then, the fretted ironwork of some miniature parade, hanging midway in the air, and clinging to the perpendicular of masonry above some new plate-gla.s.sed and glittering front, suggests thoughts of marine villas, moonlight and sea views, and all those pretty poetical fancies a.s.sociated with a lodging at some fashionable watering-place, and one wonders how they ever came to be transported thither, and for why? They that own them tell us that they have their use, in the city, where the love of pageantry is an heir-loom from generations long since pa.s.sed away whose birthright was to minister to the gorgeous magnificence of fraternities and guilds, banquettings and processions, that read like fairy tales in this sober nineteenth century; and we would believe in their utility, were it no other than to afford a bird's eye view of the busy scenes of homely traffic going on upon a market day, amongst the acc.u.mulated heaps of provisions for the daily wants of life.

_The wants of life_! Who amongst us knows the meaning of the words, the _reality_ they hide? Who that has numbered among the wants of life, the gold to purchase luxury or ornament, place or power, the ways and means to shine and glitter in the world, where men are prized by what they _seem_, rather than what they are; the wherewith to pay the idly acc.u.mulated debts, incurred through mean attempts to cover the rags of poverty, or decent homely garments of honesty, with tinsel mockeries of wealth's trappings? Who amongst these knows aught of the meaning of the _wants of life_? Ask him who has known _Hunger_, has been face to face with want and starvation, has shared with loved and loving ones, weak babes, and sick and helpless mothers, the task of driving these unbidden guests away, has felt the gnawing pangs of their demon power, while gazing upon plenty, upon the wealth of food and sustenance displayed before his eyes! Is it not more marvellous and strange, that such piles as a market displays should ever be permitted to lie safe within the arrow-shot of gaunt and wasting poverty, than that the annals of our police reports should now and then record how poverty and crime sometimes go hand in hand?

But to look more in detail at the picture offered on a summer market-day.

There to the left sit congregated together the vendors of the far-famed staple produce of the country farm-yards, sheltered from the heat by the artificial grove of variegated umbrellas, serving, or attempting to serve, the double purpose of protection from the sun in summer, and the rain in winter and summer. The poultry "pads" and b.u.t.ter-stalls are one.

Turkeys, and geese, and fowls, and sausages, and little round white cheeses, share the baskets and benches with eggs and _pints_ of b.u.t.ter, in the land where that commodity is sold by _liquid_ measure, whose equivalent is somewhere near about 1lb. 3 oz.

There is a legend that one who sits here is the heroine of an old tale, which goes to the effect that "once upon a time," when the inspector came his round to test the weights of all the measured pints, the old lady was observed slily to slip a half crown into the end of a certain pint, and hand it forward to bear the scrutiny; a bystander, who watched the trick, a moment after laid his finger on the identical pint and begged to purchase it, resisting all evasion on the part of the discomfited saleswoman, who, compelled to submit, turned out eventually the "biter bit."

Thronging around this neighbourhood, and proffering their services with most a.s.siduous perseverance, are a host of most amiable-looking porter women, liveried in white ap.r.o.ns and sleeves, with a pair of huge peck baskets dangling on their arms. Tumbling, and b.u.mping, and jostling among them, drowning their pleadings in a deafening chorus of discordant cries, come the itinerant venders of small wares-"lucifers three boxes a penny," "cabbage-nets only a penny," "reels of cotton two for a penny,"

little dangling bunches of skewers, ranged in progressive order on queer and mysteriously twisted holders, that seem designed to puzzle any mechanical skill to get them off again, "only a penny;" laces, and saucepans, and stationery, and kettles, thrust into notice as though haberdashers, and tinmen, and stationers were simultaneously rushing off to the gold diggings, and disposing of their goods piecemeal by auction.

Ere the next range of stalls may be explored, the pathway is obstructed by some "literate" specimen of the blind, with an attendant concourse of listeners eagerly drinking in the t.i.tles of his sheet of hundred songs for a penny. "There's a good time coming," "All's lost now," "My bark is on the sh.o.r.e," and "I'm on the Sea," &c. &c.; or should any great tragedy or judicial murder have occurred recently, to furnish him with a still more profitable stock in trade, such as a "last dying speech and confession," or "full, true, and particular account" of some "shocking and brutal outrage," somewhat may be seen and heard of how the minds and tastes of the ignorant are vitiated, and the morbid cravings of diseased imaginations fed; and the hawker of this food for the million, forms living evidence that the eye is not the only member through whose aid vice may gain entrance to the soul. But there is little time or opportunity to philosophize amid the din of importunity that is ringing upon the ears, "What d'ye luke for? fine guse? butifull fowill?" And there stands one who claims especial notice-the merry bacon woman, amid her throng of earnest customers. There she stands, or rather moves; stillness is a state to which she must be a total stranger, we could fancy. "Good day, ma'am." "What's for you, sir?" "Nice pork, _dear_?

black meat? I'll wait _of ye_ this minute, sir." "Yes, ma'am, beautiful ham; did you please to want any? Oh, thank you; very well, another day I shall be _proud_ to wait _of ye_." "No harm in asking," she adds, turning apologetically to her more profitable customers. And so she goes on, ever moving, ever talking, ever cheerful, civil, and attentive, one never-ending strain of courtesy and kindness pouring from her lips, while her hands are ever busy cutting and weighing, and folding up in fine white linen cloths, her sausages and bacon, and black meat, and still nicer white juvenile-looking pork, just fresh from the pickle. Probably she has a home somewhere, but her sphere of usefulness and theatre of glory must be at the market-stall; she must have been born and bred a market-woman. Further on, there sits a melancholy and original old lady, proprietress of a heterogeneous kind of heap, composed of small quant.i.ties of the choicest produce of various sources of supply-stray joints of pork, trifling displays of b.u.t.ter, a few eggs, and an occasional specimen of poultry; but her fame is built upon her unrivalled "tatoes," hidden up in pads, and carefully concealed from the eyes of chance pa.s.sengers; their discovery is a mine of wealth to the privileged few, especially in bad seasons. Dealing forth sparingly, like a miser counting out his treasures, the queen of murphies compensates for the reserve that would seem to imply her belief that her purchasers were begging favours of her, by the involuntary boon she confers upon the lover of idioms, in her quaint displays of her county's dialect. The ordinary greeting of "How d'ye do?" will be met by the a.s.surance that she "don't _fare to feel_ no matters," or she "_fares to_ feel _right muddled_," or "_no how_," or that she is scarce fit to be "abroad." Her "tatoes" she will recommend as eating like b.a.l.l.s of flour, if cooked _enow_ (a word indiscriminately used to express quant.i.ty and degree).

She will occasionally detail particulars of her market-horse's "_trickiness_" when he "_imitated_" to kick on the road, and how she "_gots_" him on as well as she could. Her breakfast jug she will designate a _gotch_, and many other like specimens will she afford of the contents of the vocabulary of East Anglia. A traveller may with little difficulty fancy he is listening to some native of the distant county Devon; and, strange to say, the _guse_, _fule_, and _enow_, and other striking similarities of brogue and dialect, are not the only features of resemblance these two counties bear to each other. The ancient rood screens of the Norfolk churches have many of them been found exactly to correspond with those found in Devonshire, and only there. In the celebrated rebellions of Edward the Sixth's reign, many remarkable features of resemblance were observed in the character of the outbreaks at these distant points,-so much so, as to suggest the idea of secret communication being kept up between them. Whether both alike owe their peculiarities to the common parentage of the Iceni, a tribe of whom have been said to have settled in Devonshire as well as Pembrokeshire, or they are referable to any less remote link of connection, antiquarians may perhaps at some future day make clear. Certain it is, the "southron" is apt to be easily beguiled into the belief that he has met a fellow-countryman or woman among the folks who deem themselves another race than the people of the "_sheeres_."

But we have here wandered far aside in our market trip; next come in due order the butcher-stalls, taking a higher rank in the social scale of market society than the humbler _pads_, though their wares may not compete with their neighbours for a world-wide fame-south-down mutton, prime little scot, and short-horn beef, with the usual attendant displays of calves' white heads with staring eyes, and mangled feet hanging to dismembered legs and shoulders by little strings of sinew, looking as though they were carelessly left on by accident, _not_ to affect the weight, and other mysterious manifestations of the internal anatomy of oxen and sheep, and queer-looking conglomerations of odds and ends, transmogrified by some cooking process into very greasy imitations of brawn, and selling by the name of pork cheeses,-these make up the attractions of the butcher department, not over-inviting to look upon, even to those who are far from objecting to well-disguised appeals to their carnivorous propensities in the form of savoury dishes.

The lover of beauty will soon permit his eye to wander on and rest upon the treasures of the market-garden, where it may revel in a perfect sea of "Bremer" lusciousness; asparagus-seakale-peas, marafats and blues-beans, kidneys dwarfs, and windsor-salads and cresses-radishes in radiating bunches and globular bunches-cabbages and cauliflowers, that may perplex cooks and boilers by their magnitude-cuc.u.mbers and melons, and all the pumpkin tribe. Fruit-shining heaps of cherries-trays of bright glistening currants, with their little seeds peeping through as "natural" as the gems in the great Russian cabinet-strawberries and raspberries on their wooden trays, with the little skimmer-like spades to shovel them up, and the choice ones packed up in their little pints, sheltered from the sun by the fresh green leaf tied over-and sundry and divers wares from foreign parts lending new features to the home department, since the tariff of the "people's friend" came into operation. But the crowning glory of the picture is the sovereign of the stall, the st.u.r.dy market-gardener, full of strength and sinew, the evidence of honest healthful labour meeting its due reward,-a fitting representative of the great base upon whose soundness rests the column of wealth, and capitol of rank, that with it form the pillar of our nation's social prosperity. He knows not what it is to seek for work, but rather needs to pluralise himself to satisfy the demands upon his skill, and time, and taste; and fairly has he earned his reputation both in horti and floriculture. His rustic little home, with its thatched roof, and ivy and clematis twined verandah, lies in the very midst of a city of gardens almost of his own creation, watched and tended by him with a care that has rendered them the fairest line of beauty art ever devised to grace a road-side pathway through the suburbs of a city; and who ever saw or tasted wares that could rival the produce of his own little profitable domain? But the good-humoured smile of conscious superiority in his profession, that plays upon his features, is the market-gardener's peculiar fascination. Talk to him of chemical manures or rich guano, how he will smile! and what a tale will he unfold of roses all burnt up, geraniums run to leaf, polyanthuses converted into cabbages, without the advantage of being edible; auriculas dying, &c. "May do _somewheres_, but not for flower or market-gardens." Beyond him, lies spread out a rich carpet of flowers, grouped by the hands of younger and humbler ones, whom one might almost call the lay floricultural professors. Geraniums, and fuchsias, and bright blue salvias, verbenas of every hue, from deep maroon, through crimson, up to white; sweet-scented heliotrope, and richly shaded primroses, that make the tenants of the woods look pale with envy. A pity it seems to disturb the harmony of colour, so perfect a parterre does it form, with the back-ground of shrubs that stand in such rich cl.u.s.ters behind them, all waiting to be transplanted to new homes. In the very midst of them rises a mysterious-looking little ark of canva.s.s, resting from its weekly labour of perambulating the streets and suburbs through which it has been borne, sedan fashion, by the pair of uncla.s.sical-looking hobbledehoys that own the gay treasures it is formed to shelter, and whose lips can manage to send forth a string of nomenclature that may fairly shake the nerves of any modest purchaser.

Sweet simple-looking little floral gems, they will recommend to notice as Gilea rosea adorata, Clarkia fimbricata, Coreopsis nigra, speciosa, Colinsea rubra, all hardy annuals; and with the utmost nonchalance describe some trembling little creeper as Troplum Campatica Fuchsia Carolinae, Campanula Campatica, and Lobelia ramosa, all safely meant, we presume, to conceal the relationship of the owners to the familiar tenants of the cottage border. A novice must seize in desperation upon some one that, shorn of its _ishii_ or _osum_, may chance to be remembered, lest his fate should resemble that of the fair lady, who once professed to own in her garden the "aurora borealis" and "delirium tremens."

Among the scientific nurseries that clothe almost every outskirt of the city, may perhaps be found grander exotics, or more luxuriant varieties of floral beauty; but these fragments of botanic skill and lore are fair specimens of the inheritance bequeathed to the sons of the soil by those great master-minds whose gardens once drew Evelyn from the metropolis upon a visit to this then pre-eminent seat of wealth and magnificence.

"My Lord's Gardens," that skirted the water-side, whose quadrangle contained a bowling-green, a wilderness, and garden, with walks of forty feet in breadth surrounding them, have pa.s.sed away, a fragment of the wilderness alone remains to mark the site of the glorious displays of wealth and fashion once paraded among them; but the name, a.s.sociated with the memory of the times, is a star of the first magnitude, in the galaxy of the city's firmament of great men.

Sir Thomas Browne, the philosopher, the physician, the naturalist, the antiquarian, and the botanist, the a.s.sociate and friend of the most eminent men that graced the age in which he lived, and the historian whose works have enriched the literature of the world, stands first in the long list of names that are linked with the beauties of the vegetable kingdom; a city that has sent forth a Lindley, a Hooker, and a Smith, to be professors in the great world of science, as his followers, has cause, indeed to honour the memory of him who sowed the first seeds in the garden, that has reared such giants from its soil.

But there is yet another picture to be viewed of homely traffic; the Christmas market-day, when the old place and people seem to be in the zenith of their glory. Each poultry-stall overflowing with the turkeys, geese, and fowls, that have not found an exit through the myriad avenues opened for their flight to every province, town, and city in the land.

There they lie in state, sharing the sovereignty of the season, with bright-gemmed holly boughs and pearly mistletoe, that deck and garnish every pad, and stall, and bench, and lie heaped up in shining stacks of magnitude that may well suggest to the young novice a question as to how the slow-growing holly and rare parasite could have been found year after year in such profusion. Country walks, holly-skirted lanes, and park enclosures, may tell something of the one; and alas! for the poetry of the Druids and the oaks, the apple orchards now claim almost the sole honour of giving shelter to the other-the ancient deity of the woods; they will scarce allow the king of the forest a partial share in the tribute offerings to merry Christmas.

The bustling eve, when midnight surprises the scrambling teems of "Trotty Vecks," gathering up the fragments left from rich folk's caterings, that they too may have a savour of something more than the compliments of the season; when the remnants of the bountiful display that has been h.o.a.rded up for the highest bidders through the busy day, are auctioned off at the buyer's own price, and fall thus perchance within the compa.s.s of the weaver's earnings, then is the hour to see the spirit of peace and good-will towards men stalking abroad, and lifting from men's hearts and faces the load of weariness and veil of care, trans.m.u.ting by his magic touch the poor man's copper into gold, and giving to his little stores a widow's cruise-like power to cheer and comfort happy living hearts. No one who dwells in the old city should deem it fruitless toil to wend their way through the old market-place on Christmas Eve, and take a poet's lesson from the scene!

But there are other pictures still to be seen within the quaint old Elizabethan frame-work of the city's market-place than scenes of merchandise, in these days of monster meetings. Who can forget the human gatherings that have many a time and oft, within the limits of even childhood's memory, been witnessed here, when gable roofs, and parapets, windows, and balconies, church towers, and Guildhall leads, have swarmed with living thousands; gay dressed "totties" and dames, aye, and sober-minded lords of the creation too! all eager and intent to watch from safe quarters some common object of attraction that has drawn together a mighty mult.i.tude of the people, with their proverbial love of sight-seeing, an inheritance bequeathed to them by their ancestral pageantries. Slight stimulus is needed to send the heart's blood of the city through every vein and artery to this centre, where it pulsates in deep and heavy throbs of joy, or hope, or anger, as the case may be; true, in these modern days the common wants and common blessings that have bound the sympathies of the million into one, cause the spectacle of tumultuous hate and bitterness, knocking together of heads, &c, to be a rare manifestation of popular enthusiasm; more frequently one desire, one feeling animates the body aggregate, be it to see the mammoth train of a Hughes or Van Amburgh, the _entree_ of a royal duke, the failure of a promised fountain bid to play by a new water company, the more successful display of fireworks at the same behest, the popping of some threescore pensioners in honour of some royal birthday, or the advent of some political election. On each and all of such occasions, and many more, the filling up of the frame-work is a picture of life, of concentrated human power, will, and pa.s.sion, full of effect; may be, it needs an adequate cause to give it full strength, but everywhere it is full of interest, and the good old city's market-place would not be fairly chronicled were its monster meetings of sight-seers deemed unworthy a pa.s.sing comment. Pageantry has been numbered among the chartered rights of the citizens, from the days of "mysteries," when the itinerant stage, with its sacred drama provided by the church, was the only theatre known, through the age of tournaments, the season of royal visits, Elizabethan processions, and triumphal arches, of guilds, of Georges and dragons, down to the last relic of the spirit of olden times-the chairing of its members; and not even the scant nourishment offered in this nineteenth century, has yet sufficed to starve and wither the seeds thus sown and fostered in the very nature of the people.

In a work that professes not to follow out the thread of history through all its variable windings, or note consecutively all the beads of truth that have been carved by the hand of time, and strung upon its surface, but only here and there to pause, as some gem more glittering than its fellows meets the eye, or some quaint rude relic of a day gone by lays claim to a pa.s.sing curiosity, wonder, or pity, we feel at liberty to make a kaleidoscope sort of _pattern_ of our gleanings and notes on the old market-place. Interwoven with its progress, and a.s.sociated with its memories, must be almost every historical reminiscence, peculiarly belonging to an important munic.i.p.ality, and thriving mart of commerce and manufactures; from the first simple gatherings in the outer court of the castle, to the days when trades and crafts, brought over by Norman intruders, and flourishing under the skilful tutelage of Flemish refugees, cl.u.s.tered together in groups around the old croft, the saddlers, the hosiers, the tanners, the mercers, the parmenters, the goldsmiths, the cutlers, each with their own _row_, to the time when staples were fixed, or right of wholesale dealing granted-when cloth halls witnessed the measuring and sealing by government inspectors of every manufactured piece of cloth, to ensure fairness of dealing between buyer and seller-when sumptuary laws regulated quant.i.ty, quality, and pattern of the dresses of all dutiful and loyal subjects-down through ages of fluctuating vicissitudes of prosperity and adversity-tremulous shakings-and reviving struggles against the tide of compet.i.tion that has sunk the first and greatest manufacturing city our country once could boast, beneath the level of many a nurseling of yesterday, a mere mushroom in growth and age-from the era of ultra-carnivorous diet, when boars, peac.o.c.ks, venison, and porpoise, were scattered in plentiful profusion on the boards of butchers' stalls, and in the regions of "_Puleteria_,"-when the potato, brocoli, turnip, onion, and radish, were unknown-the tansy, the rampion, cow cabbage, and salsify, their only subst.i.tutes in the days when vegetarians were not;-when quinces, medlars, rude grapes, and mulberries, wild raspberries and strawberries, supplied the place of a modern dessert, with the valuable addenda of hazel, and walnuts, whose beautiful wood even then was prized as an article of manufacture for cups and bowls, under the name of _masere_-down to the scene of the present day, as it has been pictured already.

Manifold have been the fleeting shadows that have peopled its disc, now bright, now dark, its area now traversed by triumphal arches and gorgeous processions, now serving as a platform for a gallows, whereon a Roberts and a Barber suffered for their loyalty to his majesty, Charles the First; in one age witnessing the rise of an oratory in its very midst, and a chaplain to minister to spiritual cravings, in the heart of material abundance; the next echoing to the ruthless hammers of destructive zealots, sweeping from their path every stone or carving that bore trace of the finger of the "scarlet lady."

But although a consecutive detail of its rise and progress may not be within the province of our pen, we may endeavour to trace a few of the leading features of its history since the era of its first rise into existence as a fishing hamlet, when the sea washed its sh.o.r.es, and the huts of a few fishermen, perhaps, were the only habitations scattered over its surface. Here they dwelt, no doubt, in peaceful security, when the huge mound, topped with its towering castle, rose up in their midst, and their sovereigns fixed their dwelling-place within its strongholds, to be succeeded, after the departure of the Romans, by the feudal lords or earls of Danish and Saxon conquerors, in whose time the market-place was the magna crofta or great croft of the castle. At the gates of the ancient castles the markets were continually set, following the precedent of the a.s.semblage of booths that gathered round the gates of the Roman camps. These, from being at first moveable stalls or shelters for goods, grew in after-years into towns, boroughs, and cities, many of them taking their names from the castles or camps, and were called _chesters_. The country people were not allowed to carry provisions into Roman camps; at each gate was a strong guard, that suffered none to enter the camp without licence from the commanding officer: this guard consisted of one _cohort_, and one troop at least, from which sprung the modern term of _court_, or _cohort_, of guard. The commanding officer of the guard at the gate had oversight of the market, punished such as sold by false weights and measures, brought bad provisions, or were guilty of any other offence in the market, and arbitrated in all cases of dispute. The Saxons, those exterminating conquerors, who so liberally parcelled out their neighbours' territory into the famous divisions of the Heptarchy, next figured upon the scene, and the _castellans_ succeeded the officer of the guard in the duties of his office, in later times to be fulfilled by pie-powder courts and clerks of the market. At this period, markets at the castle gates grew so important as to be composed of durable houses, as durable at least as wooden shambles were likely to be; and of such like constructions were the first outlines of the market-place composed, the fishmongers' and butchers' shops of the present day being the nearest similitudes that can be found to ill.u.s.trate their features.

From this time the history of the market-place becomes identified with the progress of the borough, its struggles for growth being somewhat impeded, we fancy, by the t.i.thes and taxes extorted by barons and bishops, between whom we may fancy the poor fisherfolks began to "fare rather sadly," scarcely knowing what was their own, or if, indeed, they had any own at all. To sum up their miseries, old chroniclers record that about this time the sea began to withdraw its arm, which to them had been a great support, and the fishermen, who were bound to pay an annual t.i.the of herrings to the bishops of the _see_, found themselves in much the same plight as the Israelites of old, when doomed to make bricks without straw-in their case to supply herrings without a fishery-and were therefore reduced to the unpleasant necessity of thenceforth purchasing the wherewith to pay the lasting imposition. Notwithstanding all these impediments the progress of the borough was rapid; houses and churches sprung up thick and fast; so that at the time of the survey, in the reign of the "Confessor," we find record of twenty-five parish churches, and one thousand three hundred burgesses; of sheep-walks, mills, and hides of land, (a hide being as much as one plough could till in a year,) of taxes, of honey, and bear dogs.

Churches were owned indiscriminately by bishops, earls, and burgesses; the materials of which they were constructed, chiefly wood, though occasionally rough flints and stones cemented by a durable mortar were subst.i.tuted; the towers were circular, bricks were employed for pavements, and bells were used. The ancients conceived the sound of metal to be an antidote against evil spirits; and the adoption of bells into the Christian church, and their consecration, was but a variation of the practices of the pagans, who at the feasts of Vulcan and Minerva, consecrated trumpets for religious uses.

Such was the condition of the town and market-place, when the Norman Conqueror, whose coming produced such mighty changes in the land, brought over from the continent a host of foreigners, who settled themselves down in almost every part of the kingdom, and introduced trades and crafts of every variety, giving birth to the great manufacturing spirit that has grown to be so distinguishing a feature of our national greatness. Among the foreigners who established themselves in this district, we find the name of _Wimer_, a name yet prefixed to one of the great wards or districts of the city-the Wimer ward. At this period, perhaps the most prominent characteristic of the secular history of the times, especially in connection with trade, is the important position held by the Jews.

The Norman duke had brought with him a great number of this race of people, and although their religion was despised and bitterly hated, they monopolized almost every branch of trade, and so much of the learning of the day, that they took a high place both in commercial and civil transactions. In this city they successively had two extensive synagogues and colleges, where medicine and rabbinical divinity were taught together.

Pharmacy, education, and all monetary transactions of any importance, seem to have come within their province, their utility and wealth preserving them, for the time at least, from anything more than petty persecution. The history, however, of little St. William, given elsewhere, and other similar records that have been handed down, betray the jealousy and ill-will that existed between them and the Christians, even during the season of their prosperity, when royalty, as in the time of Rufus, patronized them.

Meantime the city had become a bishopric; a monastery, three friaries, and a nunnery sprung up in quick succession, betraying the growth of ecclesiastical power, and the presence of a great rival to the secular authority claimed by the ministers of civil justice; itinerant judges had been established for trying great crimes, such as murder or theft, and coroners had been inst.i.tuted to hold inquests upon any persons dying suddenly, or found dead; either to acquit them of self murder, or seize their goods; the citizens were also exempted from the judgment of the law by single combat by Richard I. Among the events of interest bearing very early date is the royal visit of the first Henry, in the day when the king was his own tax-gatherer, and when, failing to receive his dues in lawful coin of the realm, he was wont to take them in kind, and to tarry until himself and suite had eaten up the hogs and sheep, and cows and geese, whose addition to his retinue would have been otherwise very burdensome. So liberal was the entertainment afforded the royal visitor here, that his majesty was pleased to confer upon the citizens many privileges as a mark of grat.i.tude, among which exemption from such like visitations in future was included.

The next visit of royalty is attributed to Edward the First, whose generosity was evidenced by the command issued speedily after his return thither, that the Jews throughout the kingdom should be charged with unlawfully clipping and adulterating the coin of the realm, as an excuse for their persecution, imprisonment, and final extermination. The religious antipathies of the zealous crusader would not suffice to explain these atrocities; but the ambition of the warlike monarch seeking to replenish his exhausted treasury, that he might prosecute expensive foreign enterprises, gives a more satisfactory clue to the origin of cruelties, that led to such important confiscations being made to the crown. In obedience to the royal will, the beautiful college of the Jews in this city was plundered and burnt, its coffers emptied into the royal exchequer, and its tenants banished or imprisoned. An inn, called "Abraham's Hall," was soon after raised in the immediate neighbourhood, to memorialize the event; but an old ricketty gable or two, hidden away behind fair modern frontings of brickwork and stucco, is all that remains of this monument. St. George in combat with the Dragon, now figures on the sign board affixed to the inn that occupies one portion of its site.

It is some credit to the ministers of justice in the city, that we find upon their records, traces of the efforts made to bring to punishment some of the actual perpetrators of the outrages in Jewry, albeit they could perhaps only be deemed instruments in the hands of higher powers.

Extracts from the "Coroners' Rolls," containing accounts of robberies and street frays in this reign and the preceding, prove this fact, and afford in addition curious evidence of the state of society at that period. For the quaint and amusing details they give, we must render thanks to the learned and skilled in antiquarian lore, obsolete orthography, black letter type, &c., but, for whose a.s.sistance in rescuing them from obscurity, and interpreting their meaning, they must to us have remained veiled in an impenetrable incognita.

Amongst them is the record of an "inquisition made of the fire raised in Jewry," and a "precept given to apprehend all the felons concerned."

Another is so graphic, that we feel able to see the whole picture it gives at a glance-the widow sitting beside the bier of her husband, the sanct.i.ty of her sorrow invaded by brute violence, the house pillaged, and the corpse plundered and burnt in the agonised wife's presence. The words of the roll say, "Katharina, the wife of Stephen Justice, accused Ralph, son of Robert Andrew, the gaoler, William Kirby Gaunter, William Crede, Walter de Hereham, John, servant of Nicholas de Ingham, and Nicholas sometime servant of Nicholas de Sopham, and Nicholas de Gayver, that when she was at peace with G.o.d and the king, in the house of Stephen Justice her husband, and the Thursday night after the feast of King Edmund, in the forty-eighth year of the reign of King Henry, the son of King John (1263), they came in the town of Norwich, in Fybriggate, St.

Clement's, and broke the oaken gates, and the hooks and the hinges of iron, with hatchets, bars, wedges, swords, knives, and maces, and flung them down into the court, and feloniously entered; that they then broke the pine wood doors of the hall, and the hinges and iron work of them, and the chains, bolts, and oaken boards of the windows. Afterwards they entered the door of the hall chamber towards the south, and robbed that chamber of two swords, value 3_s._ 6_d._, one ivory handled anlace, value 12_d._, one iron head piece, value 10_d._, an iron staff, value 4_d._; one cow leather quirre (cuira.s.s) with iron plates, value half a mark; and one wambeis (a body garment stuffed with cotton, wool, or tow), and coming thence into the hall, they burnt the body of her husband, as it there lay upon a bier, together with a blanket of 'reins,' value 3_s._; and took away with them a linen cloth, value 18_d._ The said Katharina immediately raised hue and cry, from street to street, from parish to parish, and from house to house, until she came into the presence of the bailiffs and coroners. They also stole a lined cloth of the value of 5_s._, and one hood of _Pers_ (Persian) with squirrel's fur, value 10_s._"

A writer in the Archaeological Journal describes the houses of this period as possessing only a ground floor, of which the princ.i.p.al apartment was the aire, aitre, or hall, into which the princ.i.p.al door opened, and which was the room for cooking, eating, receiving visitors, and the other ordinary uses of domestic life. Adjacent to this, was the chamber which was by day the private apartment and resort of the female portion of the household, and by night the bed room. Strangers and visitors generally slept in the hall, beds being made for them on the floor. A stable was frequently adjacent to the hall, probably on the side opposite to the chamber or bed-room.

Another memorandum on the rolls, records the deaths of Henry Turnecurt and Stephen de Walsham, who "were killed in the parish of St. George, before the gate of the Holy Trinity, St. Philip and James' day, in the same year. The coroners and bailiffs went and made inquisition.

Inquisition then made was set forth in a certain schedule. Afterwards came master Marc de Bunhale, clerk, and Ralph Knict, with many others, threatening the coroners to cut them to pieces, unless the schedule was given up, and then they took Roger the coroner, and by force led him to his own house, with swords and axes, until the said Roger took the schedule from his chest; and then they took him with the schedule to St.

Peter of Mancroft church, and there the aforesaid Ralph tore away the schedule from the hands of Roger, and bore it away, and before his companions, in the manner of fools, cut it into small pieces; and with much ado, Roger the coroner escaped from their hands in great fear and tremor. The coroners say they cannot make inquisition, by reason of the imminence of the war." The disturbances alluded to were the dissensions going on between the king and barons.

Another describes an attack of four men, one of them a priest, upon one man in his shop in the market, where he was killed. Among many other similar accounts of these troubled times, stands the description of various felons, who sheltered themselves within the walls of the sanctuary, a privilege permitted from the time of Alfred, whose laws granted protection for three days and nights to any within the walls of a church; William the Conqueror confirmed and extended the privilege. In the times of feudal tyranny, this refuge was oftentimes of considerable advantage to innocent persons falsely accused, but as frequently was the shelter of crime.

In a case quoted from this authority, the felon professes to have sought refuge from punishment awaiting robberies, of which he acknowledges himself guilty. Upon the church of St. Gregory there yet remains a curious escutcheon, a part of the knocker, always then placed upon the door of a church, for the purpose of aiding those who sought refuge in sanctuary. A curious account of the ceremony of abjuration of the realm by one who had taken refuge in Durham Cathedral, is given in the York volume of the Archaeological Inst.i.tute.

"A man from Wolsingham is committed to prison for theft. He escapes, and seeks refuge in the Cathedral. He takes his stand before the shrine of St. Cuthbert, and begs for a coroner. John Rachet, the coroner of Chester ward, goes to him, and hears his confession. The culprit, in the presence of the sacrist, sheriff, under-sheriff, and others, by a solemn oath renounces the kingdom. He then strips himself to his shirt, and gives up his clothing to the sacrist as his fee. The sacrist restores the clothing-a white cross of wood is put into his hand, and he is consigned to the under-sheriff, who commits him to the care of the nearest constable, who hands him over to the next, and he to the next, in the direction of the coast. The last constable puts him into a ship, and he bids an eternal farewell to his country."

There were usually chambers over the porches of churches, in which two men slept, for the purpose of being ready at all hours to admit applicants. In proof of the expense attending the maintaining of persons in the sanctuary, it is said that "in 1491, the burgesses in parliament acquainted the a.s.sembly that they had been at great expense in getting an ordinance of parliament to authorize them in a quiet way to take one John Estgate out of sanctuary, the said John having entered the churchyard of St. Simon and St. Jude, and there remained for a long time past, during which time, the city being compelled to keep watch on him day and night, lest he should escape, was at great charge and trouble. The ordinance being pa.s.sed, John Pynchamour, one of the burgessess, went to the sanctuary and asked John Estgate whether he would come out and submit to the law, or no; and upon his answering he 'would not,' he in a quiet manner went to him, led him to the Guildhall, and committed him to prison."

Another entry of an event that transpired during the troubled reign of Henry III., bears reference to the memorable disputes between the citizens and the monks of the priory, of which the Ethelbert gateway, leading into the Cathedral Close, is a monument; the citizens having had the penance of erecting it, imposed upon them for their destructive attacks upon the monastery, a great portion of which, including parts of the cathedral, they pillaged and burnt. The record states that "one John Casmus was found slain on the Tuesday next after the feast of St.

Laurence, by William de Brunham, prior of Norwich, at the gates of St.

Trinity, on the eastern side; the said prior having struck him with a certain 'fanchone' on the head, from which blow he instantly died. The coroners are afraid to make inquisition, for fear of a felonious a.s.sault; a result rendered very probable by the known temper of the prior, who, by his violent conduct, is said to have contributed materially to the unhappy disturbances."

Long-cherished bitterness and jealousies respecting their several limits of jurisdiction, had found occasion for outbreak the preceding week to that mentioned in the record, at the annual fair, held on Trinity Sunday, before the gates of the cathedral, on the ground known as Tombland, from having anciently been a burial place. The servants of the monastery, and the citizens, had come into collision at some games that were going on upon the Tuesday, and a violent conflict ensued, which lasted for a considerable time. The writers of the time are divided as to the blameable parties; the monks being accused of aiding and abetting their servants in doing wrong, and _vexing_ the people; the citizens, in their turn, being condemned for transgressing the recognized laws which existed concerning the boundaries of the prior's jurisdiction.

The animosities never fairly could be said to have ceased until the general destruction of all monastic power at the period of the Reformation.

One more curious extract we will make from these coroner's rolls, remarkable as being one of the very few authentic accounts to be met with of a person being restored to life after execution.

"Walter Eye was condemned in the court of Norwich, and hung, and appeared dead, but was afterwards discovered to be alive by William, the son of Thomas Stannard; and the said Walter was carried in a coffin to the church of St. George's, before the gate of St. Trinity, where he recovered in fifteen days, and then fled from that church to the church of the Holy Trinity, and there was, until the king upon his suit pardoned him."

It was formerly a prevalent idea that felons could only be suspended for a certain time, but this was not really the case; so far from it, Hale's "Pleas of the Crown" a.s.serts, "that, in case a man condemned to die, come to life after he is hanged, as the judgment is not executed till he is _dead_, he ought to be hung up again."

Another anecdote, extracted from the books of the corporation, bearing a more recent date, possesses a double interest, from being connected with a memorable disturbance, dignified in local history by the t.i.tle of Gladman's Insurrection, and also from the name and rank of the lady concerned, who was grand-daughter to Chaucer, the poet, and wife of William de la Pole, who succeeded to the earldom of Suffolk upon the death of his brother Michael, A.D. 1415, the second year of the reign of King Henry V.

The only liberty we shall take with the original account is to slightly abridge it, and render it in modern orthography.

Item. It was so, that Alice, d.u.c.h.ess, that time Countess of Suffolk, lately in person came to this city, disguised like a country house-wife.