The Customs of Old England Part 18

[3] This was a counsel of perfection. The bedels certainly received fees (see below).

[4] It is, nevertheless, a fact that high dignitaries of the Church--e.g., Cardinal Pole--are represented with beards; and St.

Benedict himself is depicted with this virile appendage!

[5] These pet.i.tions are taken from a large and valuable collection translated by Miss Lucy Toulmin Smith and contributed to the _Collectanea_ (Third Series) of the Oxford Historical Society. They are copied substantially as she gives them; but curiously enough the accomplished lady stumbles over the word "brais," for which she proposes "arms" as the translation, evidently thinking of _bras_ and quite forgetting that _braies_ is the French for "breeches."

[6] In 1334 a number of masters and scholars migrated to Stamford and attempted to found a University there. This is known as the Stamford Schism.

[7] The University of Cambridge is believed to have been founded in consequence of a migration from Oxford in 1209. The relative s.p.a.ce a.s.signed to Oxford, as the typical English University of the Middle Ages, in the present work, may be justified by some words of Mr.

Blakiston: "The University of Cambridge, occupying a less central and more unhealthy situation, and having less powerful protectors, did not compete in popularity and privileges with the older society before the sixteenth century. It was not even formally recognized till it received the licence of Pope John XXII. in 1318.... Oxford schools were renowned as a 'staple product' at a time when Cambridge was famous only for eels."

[8] The Common Serjeant was for long to the City what the King's Serjeant was to the Crown. The appointment lay with the Court of Common Council, and till 1824 the custom was to elect the senior of the Common Pleaders in the Mayor's Court. He was originally rather an advocate than a judge. The office goes back at least as far as the commencement of the fourteenth century, being mentioned in the civic records of that date.

[9] This and the other prayers cited are translated from the "Formulae Liturgicae," published by Gengler and Roziere, and included in Henderson's "Select Doc.u.ments" (Bell).

[10] The "Dialogus de Scaccario" contains the following legendary account of the origin of this custom, which, like so many others, was an Anglo-Saxon usage continued under the Normans:

"Now in the primitive state of the kingdom after the Conquest those who were left of the Anglo-Saxon subjects secretly laid ambushes for the suspected and hated race of the Normans, and here and there, when opportunity offered, killed them secretly in the woods and in remote places: as vengeance for whom--when the Kings and their ministers had for some years with exquisite kinds of tortures, raged against the Anglo-Saxons; and they, nevertheless, had not, in consequence of these measures altogether desisted--the following plan was. .h.i.t upon: that the so-called "hundred," in which a Norman was found killed in this way--when he who had caused his death was not to be found, and it did not appear from his flight who he was--should be condemned to a large sum of tested silver for the fisc; some indeed to _l._36, some to _l._44, according to the different localities, and the frequency of the slaying.

"And they say that this is done with the following end in view, namely, that a general penalty of this kind might make it safe for the pa.s.sers-by, and that each person might hasten to punish so great a crime and to give up to justice him through whom so enormous a loss fell on the whole neighbourhood."--Henderson's "Select Doc.u.ments," p. 66.

[11] In Norman times the prosecutor was compensated _twofold_ out of the chattels of the tried and convicted thief; the rest of his goods went to the King.

[12] Except in the matter of succession. See p. 219.

[13] "Common town bargains" were the rule also at Dublin.

[14] This and the whole of the following evidence, with few exceptions, was derived from the appendices to the reports of the Munic.i.p.al Corporations Commission of 1835; and it is not likely that the state of things thus revealed continues, in all cases, to exist.

[15] "Obviously strips in the common arable field" (Cunningham).

[16] It is difficult to estimate the proportion of bond to free; Seebohm holds that the former comprised the bulk of the population.

[17] For the cultivation of the demesne, perhaps a fourth of the entire manor.

[18] It is impossible within our present limits to specify the relative duties of this formidable array of officers and serving-men, although materials for the task are available, notably in "The Booke of Orders and Rules" of Anthony Viscount Montague, printed in vol. vii. of the "Suss.e.x Archaeological Collections." From this we learn that the Steward was expected to keep a "perfect checkroll" of his lordship's household and retainers in order that he might "with more certainty make the proportion of liveries and badges for them." Yeomen waiters attended their master in the streets of London and at his table there in their liveries, with handsome swords or rapiers at their sides; and this was also the rule in the country at the solemn feasts of Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide, and on other special occasions. When the Lord and Lady went a journey, the Steward and all the higher members of the household rode immediately in front of them, and the Gentlemen Usher led the cavalcade bareheaded through towns and cities.