The American Nation: A History Part 14

Finally, the church-wardens were ex-officio overseers of the poor. By the great poor law of 1597 the church-wardens, along with four overseers of the poor appointed each year at Easter by the justices, had the whole charge of the relief of the poor. [Footnote: 8 Leonard, The Poor Law, 76, etc.]

They were to estimate the annual costs and to tax their fellow-townsmen for this purpose. From this time forward taxation for the poor under the control of parish officers became the most important, as it was the heaviest, of local charges. The constant efforts of the Privy Council, through the justices of the peace, to enforce the poor law, kept church-wardens and other overseers of the poor up to their duties and engaged them in constant conferences with the justices and in making reports, as well as in the actual work of poor relief.

A vestry clerk existed in some parishes, and later such an office became quite general and influential, but at this period the records were generally preserved by one of the church-wardens or by the minister. The vestry-clerk is of special interest as being apparently the prototype of the town-clerk in the American colonies. [Footnote: Howard, Local Const.i.tutional History of the U. S., 39.]

Various other petty officers existed, but their duties were either identical with those already described, or insignificant, or so exceptional as not to reward inquiry and description here. Such were the beadle, s.e.xton, haywards, ale-conners, waymen, way-wardens, sidesmen, synodsmen, swornmen, questmen, and perhaps some others.

[Footnote: Discussed in Charming, Town and County Government in the English Colonies (Johns Hopkins University Studies, II.), No. 10, p.

18, etc.]

Such being the officers whose sphere of activity was the parish, it remains to describe the general a.s.sembly of the people of the parish, the vestry. This name arose apparently from the practice of meeting in the part of the church in which the vestments were kept. Ordinarily, all who held house or land in a parish, no matter on what tenure, were members of the vestry of the parish. All inhabitants, therefore--land- owners, free tenants, copy-holders, laborers occupying cottages, even those who held land in the parish but lived somewhere else--were by law at liberty to attend the meetings of the parishioners and to join in the exercise of their functions.

Such a body is of great interest. [Footnote: c.o.ke, 5 Report, 66, 67.]

Those officials whose positions and functions have been discussed in the two preceding chapters drew all their powers from the crown, and the duties that they performed were imposed upon them by statute law or by royal instruction. The same is true of a considerable part of the activity of constables and church-wardens. But the vestry of the parish existed as a body which within certain limits had powers of government of its own, and could impose duties upon parish officials, appoint committees and require services from them, adopt by-laws which bound all the inhabitants, and impose taxes upon the landholders of the parish which they were bound to pay.

Yet evidences of anything like regular meetings of the parishioners are, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, so scanty as to leave considerable doubt as to whether they occurred at all generally. They are not mentioned in the legal text-books of the time, which were, of course, written by men who looked from above downward and were not interested in local inst.i.tutions as such. A few accounts of such vestry meetings remain, [Footnote: E.g., those of Steeple Ashton, quoted in Toulmin Smith, The Parish, chap, vii, SS 12.] but the action taken at them was apparently restricted to the choice of parish officers, the adoption of by-laws for the carrying out of necessary taxation and other distribution of burdens, and for matters connected with the building or repair of the church. The attendance probably consisted only of the more substantial members of the parish and of those who held office and must present reports. The parish life resided more in the activity of its officials than of its a.s.sembly. Vigorous local self-government could not have existed without leaving more distinct traces than it has done, and our study of the political system of the time will have made it clear that much local independence was not suited to the period of the Tudors and Stuarts. [Footnote: See Toulmin Smith, The Parish, chaps, ii., iv., vii.; and Gneist, Self-Government, book III., chap, ix., S 115.] Such was the provision for the carrying out of those matters of local concern in the county, the hundred, and rural parish which were not performed by immediate officials or commissioners of the central government. It is evident that in the early seventeenth century the motive power for almost all government, local as well as general, emanated from the national government--from the king, Privy Council, and Parliament. It was a vigorous, a.s.sertive, centralized administration, eager to carry out its will and enforce order, uniformity, and its own ideas upon all persons and bodies in England. No shade of doubt of their own wisdom or reluctance to override local or individual liberty of action troubled the thought or weakened the resolution of the Tudor and Stuart sovereigns and their ministers. Nor were their Parliaments antagonistic to the principle of centralized government, even when they wished to curb unrestrained royal control of it. Strong government was in entire consonance with the spirit of the time.

Yet this ambitious central government was working with very inadequate and unsuitable instruments. Instead of a body of efficient and responsible officials, directly and immediately dependent upon their superiors, receiving wages and hoping for promotion, such as successful centralized governments have usually possessed, the king and council made use of the old and c.u.mbrous machinery of local self-government as they found it. It was quite unsuited to their purposes. Sheriffs, coroners, high and petty constables, church-wardens, even justices of the peace, had come down from a period when government was of quite another and more primitive character, in which the central power counted for far less, local powers for far more. Most of the local officials were unpaid, and the others were dependent on insignificant fees for such money reward as they obtained. The labors imposed upon them were performed only from a sense of duty, loyalty, or necessity, not as a fair return for remuneration received.

There was little provision for a wise selection of office-holders, so far as regarded their suitability to the objects of the central administration. The county and hundred officials were taken from one restricted cla.s.s, the rural gentry; the township and parish officials were chosen by their neighbors from their own number. In a word, the government of Elizabeth, James, and Charles was trying to carry on an ambitious, centralized administration by means of an unpaid, untrained, and carelessly selected group of local officials, whose offices had been established and whose characters had been formed for a system of much more limited powers and of more independent local life.

At certain times, as in the period of personal government of Charles I., something like a hierarchy seemed about to develop itself, in which the Privy Council, speaking in the name of the king, gave instructions to the justices of a.s.size, the justices of a.s.size to the sheriffs and justices of the peace, the justices of the peace to the high-constable of the hundred, and the high-constable to the petty constable, church- wardens, and other township or parish officials. But no such regularity was attained; the council frequently communicated directly with the justices of the peace, the sheriff with the parish officers; and the administration became no more systematic as time went on.

The primary governmental division of the country, the shire, was the sphere of much activity; but it was not automatic, and acted wholly or almost wholly in response to pressure from above. The ultimate unit of local government, the parish, township, or manor, had many and interesting functions, but they were for the most part either declining survivals of earlier powers, or new forms of activity imposed upon it from above. It had the necessary officials and the political rights to enable it to do a great deal, but it showed few signs of vigorous life.

Thus government in England in the early seventeenth century was so organized that at the top was an energetic national government, midway an active but dependent county organization, and at the bottom the parish with a residuum of ancient but unutilized powers of self- government.

No greater contrast could be noted in the position of men than that between the Englishman at home, in the early seventeenth century, and the Englishman who emigrated to America. Almost all the conditions that surrounded the former were reversed in the case of the latter. The pressure of central government was immediately and almost completely withdrawn. Many of the most urgent activities of government in England, such as the administration of the poor law and the restriction of vagabondage, almost ceased in the colonies. The cla.s.s of settled rural gentry from which most local officials were drawn in England did not exist in America. On the other hand, the wilderness, the Indians, the freedom from restraint, the religious liberty, the opportunity for economic and social rise in the New World made a set of conditions which had been quite unknown in the mother-country.

As a result, the colonists had to make a choice from among the inst.i.tutions with which they were familiar at home, of those which were applicable to their new needs. Of such inst.i.tutions of local government in England there were, as has been seen, a considerable number and variety. Naturally, some functions which had been prominent at home were reduced to insignificance in the colonies; some which had been almost forgotten or had remained quite undeveloped in England gained unwonted importance in America. Almost every local official or body which existed in England reappeared in some part or other of the English colonies, although often with much altered powers and duties.

All the familiar names are to be found, though sometimes with new meanings and always more or less considerably adapted to new conditions. Moreover, the choice was in the main restricted to familiar English inst.i.tutions, for in the great variety of system in different parts of the colonies there was scarcely an official or body which did not have its prototype in England. [Footnote: Howard, Local Const.i.tutional History of the U. S.; Channing, Town and County Government in the English Colonies; Adams, Germanic Origin of New England Towns. Cf. also Tyler, England in America; Andrews, Colonial Self-Government; Greene, Colonial Commonwealth (American Nation Series), IV., V., VI.]

In this as in other matters, the foundations of America were laid in European conditions and occurrences. European needs sent explorers on their voyages of discovery, and European ambitions equipped adventurers for their expeditions of conquest; the commercial projects of England, France, Holland, and Sweden led to the establishment of the princ.i.p.al New-World colonies; the economic exigencies and the political and religious struggles of Europe sent a flood of settlers to people them; the inst.i.tutions of Spain, France, Holland, and England all found a lodgment in the western continent; and those of England became the basis of the great nation which has reached so distinct a primacy in America.

CHAPTER XVII

CRITICAL ESSAY ON AUTHORITIES

BIBLIOGRAPHIES

No general bibliography of the whole field of this volume exists, although two comprehensive publications (both described below) have special bibliographic sections: The Cambridge Modern History has full lists of books, less well a.n.a.lyzed than the systematic and useful bibliographies in Lavisse et Rambaud, Histoire Generale.

GENERAL SECONDARY WORKS

Several general histories of Europe covering the field of this volume have been published in recent years or are now appearing. The most important are: Lavisse et Rambaud, Histoire Generale (12 vols., 1893- 1901), of which vols. III. and VI. apply most nearly to the subjects included in this book; The Cambridge Modern History (to be in 12 vols., 1902-), especially vols. I.-IV.; H. H. Helmolt, History of the World, translated from the German (to be in 8 vols., 1902-), especially vols.

I. and VII. Helmolt differs from all other general histories by its arrangement in accordance with ethnographical and geographical divisions rather than historical epochs; he pays also especial attention to economic phenomena. The following three volumes in the series ent.i.tled Periods of European History, give an account of this period in somewhat shorter form: Richard Lodge, The Close of the Middle Ages, 1272-1494 (1901); A. H. Johnson, Europe in the Sixteenth Century, 1494-1598 (1897); H. O. Wakeman, Europe, 1598-1715 (1904).

Two excellent histories of the period of discovery are O. F. Peschel, Geschichte des Zeitalters der Entdeckungen (1858), and Sophus Ruge, Geschichte des Zeitalters der Entdeckungen (1881). More recent works are S. Gunther, Das Zeitalter der Entdeckungen (1901), and Carlo Errera, L'Epoca delle Grandi Scoperti Geografiche (1902).

SPECIAL QUESTION ON COLUMBUS

The seemingly well-established view that Columbus when he discovered America was in search of a direct western route to the East Indies and Cathay, and that he had been led to form this plan by correspondence with the Florentine scholar Toscanelli, was attacked by Henry Vignaud, La Lettre et la Carte de Toscanelli sur la Route des Indes par L'Orient (1901), and in a translation and extension of the same work under the t.i.tle Toscanelli and Columbus (1902). Vignaud considers the letter of Toscanelli a forgery, and the object of Columbus in making the voyage the discovery of a certain island of which he had been informed by a dying pilot. His work elicited many replies in the form of book reviews or more extended works. Of the former may be mentioned those of E. G.

Bourne (American Historical Review, January, 1903) and Sophus Ruge (Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft fur Erdkunde zu Berlin, 1902); among the latter, the monumental work, Christopher Columbus, His Life, His Work, His Remains, by John Boyd Thacher (I., 1903). Few scholars seem to have been convinced by the arguments of Vignaud, but the whole question must be considered as still undetermined. The last word is E. G. Bourne, Spain in America (The American Nation, III., 1904).

SOURCES

A large number of the contemporary accounts of the early expeditions of discovery and adventure are published by the Hakluyt Society. These volumes are provided with introductions of great value and with numerous maps, glossaries, and other material ill.u.s.trative of the time.

They cover a long period of time and include many lines of travel not referred to in this book; but many of them refer to the early expeditions to the southeast, west, and northwest which had much to do with the discovery and exploration of America. Some of the most important publications of this character in the series are the following: Select Letters of Columbus, edited by R. H. Major (II, and XLIII, 1849 and 1870); Narratives of Early Voyages to the Northwest, edited by Thomas Rundall (V., 1851); India in the Fifteenth Century, edited by R. H. Major (XXII., 1859); The Commentaries of the Great Afonso Dalboquerque, edited by Walter de Gray Birch (LIII., LV., LXII., LXIX., 1875, 1880, and 1883); The Voyage of John Huyghen van Linschoten to the East Indies, edited by A. C. Burnell and P. A. Tiele (LXX. and LXXI., 1884); The Journal of Christopher Columbus, edited by C. R.

Markham (Lx.x.xVI., 1892); The Discovery and Conquest of Guinea, Written by Gomes Eannes de Azurara, edited by C. R. Beazley and Edgar Prestage (XCV. and C., 1896 and 1900); The First Voyage of Vasco da Gama, edited by E. G. Ravenstein (XCIX., 1898); Texts and Versions of John de Piano Carpini and William de Rubruquis, edited by C. R. Beazley (1903).

The standard editions of the narratives of the early land travellers in eastern Asia are those of the Recueil de Voyages et de Memoires publie par la Societe de Geographie, including (IV., 1839) Relations des Voyages de Guillaume de Rubruk, Jean du Plan Carpin, etc. (edited by M.

A. R. D'Avezac); and Schafer et Cordier, Recueil de Voyages et de Doc.u.ments pour Servir a L'Histoire de la Geographie, especially "Voyages en Asie ... du ... Odoric de Pordenone" (edited by Henri Cordier). English translations of Rubruquis and Pordenone also appear as an appendix in Travels of Sir John Mandeville, edited by A. W.

Pollard (1900). Sir John Mandeville is worthless as an historical source, as his genuine material is all drawn from these sources and from Marco Polo, and there is no probability that he ever travelled in the East. His own additions are usually mendacious. The standard edition of Marco Polo is that of Sir Henry Yule (2 vols., 1871). This has just been reprinted with additional editorial notes by Henri Cordier, under the t.i.tle, The Book of Ser Marco Polo the Venetian, Concerning the Kingdoms and Marvels of the East, etc. (1903). A valuable collection of narratives of early discovery is M. F. de Navarrete, Coleccion de los Viages y Descubrimientos (5 vols., 1825- 1837). Those of particular interest to England are in Richard Hakluyt, Princ.i.p.al Navigations, Voyages, and Discoveries (1589, reprinted 1903, to be in 12 vols.).

GEOGRAPHY AND COMMERCE

Among the standard histories of mediaeval and modern geography are Joachim Lelewel, Geographie du Moyen Age (4 vols., 1852-1857); Vivien de St. Martin, Histoire de la Geographie et des Decouvertes Geographiques (1873); M. F. Vicomte de Santarem, Essai sur L'Histoire de la Cosmographie pendant le Moyen Age (3 vols., 1849-1852); and C. R.

Beazley, The Dawn of Modern Geography (vols. I. and II., 1897 and 1901). A full account of the history and development of maps, especially of the form known as portolani, is to be found in the two works translated from the Swedish of A. E. Nordenskiold: Facsimile Atlas to the Early History of Cartography (1889), Periplus, an Essay on the Early History of Charts and Sailing-Directions (1 vol. and an atlas, 1897); G. Wauverman, Histoire de L'Ecole Cartographique Belge et Anversois du 16 degrees Siecle (2 vols., 1895).

The state of geographical knowledge at the beginning of the period of explorations is well described in C. R. Beazley, Introduction to the volume of the Hakluyt Society's publications for 1899. F. Kunstmann, Die Kenntniss Indiens in XV. Jahrhunderts (1863); and G. H. Pertz, Der Aelteste Versuch zur Entdeckung des Seeweges nach Ostindien (1859), describe two important phases of that subject.

The fullest and best work on the relations between the Orient and the Occident, the trade-routes, the objects of trade, and the methods of its administration is Wilhelm Heyd, Geschichte des Levantehandels im Mittelalter (2 vols., 1879). There is a French translation of this work (1885-1887), which is later and has been corrected by the author. There is a valuable article on ancient trade in Encyclopaedia Biblica, IV., 48, etc. Much that is suggestive and informing concerning Eastern commerce and trade-routes can be found in Sir W. W. Hunter, History of British India, I. (1899), and on the products of the East in Sir George Birdwood, Report of Commissioners for the Paris Exhibition of 1878 (1878). Some information concerning trade organization in the Mediterranean Sea and throughout Europe can be found in William Cunningham, An Essay on Western Civilization in Its Economic Aspects (2 vols., 1898-1900). H. H. Helmolt, General History, VII., pt. i., pp. 1- 139, has a long and valuable chapter on "The Economic Development of Western Europe Since the Time of the Crusades," by Dr. Richard Mayr.

John Fiske, The Discovery of America (2 vols., 1892), contains an interesting popular account of the trade conditions of the time and of those explorations which were directed westward.

The formation of the later commercial companies is described and the provisions of their charters a.n.a.lyzed in P. Bonna.s.sieux, Les Grandes Compagnies de Commerce (1892). This work is somewhat superficial, being based, apparently, entirely on works in the French and Latin languages, and using secondary materials where primary sources are attainable; but it stands almost alone in its subject, and has, therefore, considerable importance.

Naval architecture is described in Auguste Jal, Archeologie Navale (2 vols., 1840); and J. P. E. Jurien de la Graviere, Les Manns du XV. et du XVI. Siecle (1879); Sir William Stirling-Maxwell, Don John of Austria (2 vols., 1883).

ITALY AND THE EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN

The best general account of Italy during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries is in Lavisse et Rambaud, Histoire Generale, III., chaps, ix.

and x., and IV., chap. i. For the intellectual and artistic history of Italy as a whole, J. Burckhardt, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (1860, English translation, 2 vols.), is the most satisfactory work. J. A. Symonds, Renaissance in Italy (7 vols., 1875-1886), takes up many sides of the period. A good general history of Venice in small compa.s.s is H. P. Brown, Venice: a Historical Sketch of the Republic (1893).

M. G. Ca.n.a.le, Storia del Commercio dei Viaggi, ... degl' Italiani (1866), and Storia della Republica di Genoa (1858-1864), contain much information about Mediterranean trade and voyages, especially of the Genoese.

The commerce of Venice is described in H. F. Brown, Calendar of State Papers, Venetian, Introduction, I. (1864).

Of the fondaco and the German merchants in Venice a description is given in H. Simonsfeld, Der Fondaco dei Tedeschi in Venedig (2 vols., 1887). Many additional sources are in G. Thomas, Capitolare dei Visdomini del Fontego dei Todechi (1874). A valuable article on the same subject is W. Heyd, "Das Haus der deutschen Kaufleute in Venedig,"

in Historische Zeitschrift, x.x.xII., 193-220.

The standard history of the rise of the Ottoman Empire is J. W.

Zinkeisen, Geschichte des Osmanischen Reichs in Europa (6 vols., 1840).

More modern works are A. La Jonquiere, Histoire de L'Empire Ottoman (1881); and G. F. Herzberg, Geschichte des Bysantischen und des Osmanischen Reiches (1883).

An excellent work on the fifteenth century is Edwin Pears, The Destruction of the Greek Empire and the Story of the Capture of Constantinople by the Turks (2 vols., 1903). For later history, see L.

von Ranke, Die Osmanen in XVI. und XVII. Jahrhundert (1827). A short and good popular account is A. Lane-Poole, Turkey (1886). Good sections are devoted to the Ottoman Turks in the Cambridge Modern History (I., chap, iii., by J. B. Bury); and in Lavisse et Rambaud, Histoire Generale (III., chap, xvi., and IV., chap, xix.), by A. Rambaud.

PORTUGAL IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY