Probably this resolution served as a quietus of the efforts of the Fitzwalters to establish or re-establish the right of jurisdiction over the citizens of London. It seems likely that these were endeavours to reinstitute ancient privileges rather than to create new. The document in the "Liber Custumarum," used in support of the claims of Robert Fitzwalter in 1303, contains a reference to the Friars Preachers, which would lead to the supposition that it was drawn up at the time; but Riley believes that it was remodelled, perhaps only to the extent of this interpolation, and that otherwise it was a copy of an earlier pronouncement pertaining to the days of the first Robert Fitzwalter, who would have been the actual owner of Baynard Castle.

This has an important bearing on the reality of the dual or reciprocal obligations, which were apparently embodied in a compact between the Mayor and Citizens of London on the one part, and their military chief or champion on the other. Thus it will be necessary to glance at the personal history of the elder Robert Fitzwalter, on which something has been already said. According to the Chronicle of Dunmow and other early records, the principal reason of Fitzwalter's insatiable hatred of King John was that the monarch had attempted the chastity of Matilda, Robert's fair daughter, who, by the way, is identified by Anthony Munday and other Elizabethan playwrights with the Maid Marian of Robin Hood. Dugdale is disposed to accept this story; but, granting that it is true, it hardly suffices to explain Fitzwalter's pre-eminence in the forces of the rebellious Barons. This seems to have been due to his influence with the wealthy citizens of London, who were among the staunchest opponents of the astute and tyrannous sovereign. On May 24, 1215—the Sunday next before Ascension Day, when many of the inhabitants would have been in attendance on Divine service—the army of the Barons, marching from Ware, were permitted to enter the City, unopposed, through the gate of Aldgate. Fitzwalter's position as Castellan, and his connexion with the Priory of Holy Trinity at Aldgate, furnish an easy and natural explanation of this proceeding. In 1217 the citizens of London raised a force of 20,000 men for the assistance of the Dauphin of France against King Henry and his guardian William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke, and Robert Fitzwalter acted as commander. He died in 1234, and was buried before the high altar in the church of Dunmow Priory.

In the description of the banner delivered to Fitzwalter by the Mayor we have the earliest mention of the assumption of any sort of arms by the City of London. It may be noted that the sword is stated by some heraldic authorities to have been argent, whilst by others this detail is omitted. In Saxon times York also had its standard-bearer. The "Great Gate" of St. Paul's was probably the Northern Gate.

Still keeping to the military aspects of the subject—at the commencement of the fourteenth century there was at the west end of St. Paul's Cathedral a waste piece of ground, which was the property of the City; and here it was the custom for the citizens to make a muster of arms under the command or inspection of the lord of Baynard Castle for the defence of the City, "so often as the said citizens might see fit." Moreover, at the east end of the church lay a smaller plot, on which the citizens held folkmotes and made parade of arms for preserving the King's peace. This was perhaps a relic of the Anglo-Saxon institution of Inward, which is mentioned in Domesday, and was designed for the maintenance of order within the walls. Adjacent to this smaller plot was the clochier or campanile of St. Paul's, which was a distinct building from the cathedral proper, and contained the great bell, known as the motbelle, by which the citizens were summoned to the Folkmote or an assembly of arms on occasions "when within the respective bailiwicks of the Aldermen anything unexpected, doubtful, or disastrous against the realm, or the royal crown, chanced suddenly to take place." When the King required the services of the Host of London against foreign enemies or outside the confines of the City, it is natural to suppose that the muster was held on the larger of the two spaces.

The musters and parades of the Host probably lapsed when, by the sale of Baynard Castle, the Fitzwalters ceased to be de facto Castellans of London. This is a fair inference from the circumstance that in 1321 the citizens complained before the Justiciars Itinerant that the Dean and Chapter had unlawfully taken possession of the vacant spaces, enclosed them with walls, and even erected dwelling-houses on the eastern plot. The blazonry of the Banner of St. Paul, which would have been no longer used, was so far forgotten that eighty or a hundred years later nothing remained but the sword, which was supposed to stand for the dagger of that militant mayor, Sir William Walworth, who is said to have terminated therewith the lawlessness of Wat Tyler.



URBAN

CHAPTER XV

GOD'S PENNY

Were we obliged to sum up the difference between town and country in one word, that word would be "trade." In mediaeval, far more than in modern, times country places had their fairs, but London, with its markets open Sundays and week-days, enjoyed all the benefits of a perpetual fair; from which strangers and foreigners, though under some disadvantages compared with freemen, were by no means excluded.

One of the great principles regulating commercial transactions in the Middle Ages and enforced by law and custom was publicity. Bakers, as we have seen, might not sell bread "before their oven," and to this we may add that fishmongers might not take fish into their shops—they had to expose it for sale outside. The object of such arrangements was to ensure fair dealing all round. As Justice is usually figured with a pair of scales, it may be taken for granted that the important question of due weight did not escape the attention of legislators, and it attained considerable prominence in 31 Edward I. (A.D. 1303), in which year the statute De Nova Custuma was promulgated. This statute provided that in every market town and fair throughout the Kingdom there was to be erected in some fixed spot the Royal Beam or Balance, and that both vendor and purchaser were to view the scale before weighing, to see that it was empty. Prior to being used, the arms of the balance had to be exactly equal, and when the tronator was weighing, he had to remove his hands as soon as they were level. It may be observed that the citizens of London refused to accept the "New Custom," stating that it had always been the custom for all buyers of wares, whether archbishops, bishops, earls, barons, or other persons, to have the draught of the beam; but we have learnt by this time that a local custom was not allowed to override the law of the land, and thus it is most improbable that this protest, though it led to the issuing of two Royal mandates, was long persisted in.

But the "New Custom" statute contained another provision—namely, when once a bargain had been ratified, neither of the contracting parties was to recede from it. If they, or either of them, took this course after the weighing process, it would be bringing the Royal Beam into contempt, and such profanation could not be contemplated; but the sacredness of contract had been affirmed by local ordinances or customs before this measure was enacted. A contract was held to be good when God's Penny, or earnest money, had been given and received by the principals. As God's Penny, or that which it symbolized, was the basis of all business, and business was the life of towns, the custom appears worthy of notice in some detail.

The arles, or earnest money, was given to a servant on hiring, as shown by an entry in the Shuttleworth Accounts (printed by the Chetham Society) for September, 1590: "4d., earnest money, was paid unto a cook to serve at the next Assizes." Similarly, in February, 1592: "To John Hay upon earnest to serve for a year as butler and brewster at Smithhills, 4d." Previous entries state that 12d. was paid to John Horebyn "upon erlynges" of a bargain for ditching, and that "3d. was given of erles unto the gardener for his hiring another year."

Mr. Gerald P. Gordon, to whom we are indebted for much valuable information, quotes as an analogous instance the gift of the "King's shilling" to a recruit on enlistment. As regards mercantile transactions he considers that the usage "was not so much a partial or symbolic payment of the price as a distinct payment for the seller's forbearance to deliver to somebody else." This view of the case appears to us extremely doubtful, as it would render the contract binding on one of the parties only—namely, the buyer; whereas Bracton and "Fleta" aver that if the seller default he must pay double the earnest. Mr. Gordon subsequently adduces a Preston decree, that "if a buyer should buy any goods in large or small quantities and give earnest, and he who agreed to sell should rue the bargain, he shall pay the double asked. But if the buyer fingers the goods, he must either take them or pay the seller 5s." We infer, therefore, from his evidence alone, that the payment of earnest was essentially symbolical and served all the purpose of a written contract.

That the act was regarded as expressive of mutual understanding is shown by a Northampton ordinance of about the year 1260: "That if anyone put a penny or any merchandise before the seller be agreed to the bargain, he shall forfeit the penny to the use of the bailiffs." The importance of the due-fulfilment of the contract was recognized by the imposition of a penalty on anyone who delivered the earnest and afterwards declined to make good the bargain. At Waterford about 1300 it was enacted that "whoever gives God's silver and repents, be he who he may, shall pay 10s."; and at Cork in 1614 an ordinance was passed, disfranchising the defaulter of his councillorship and freedom and compelling him to pay a fine of L20.

In the early part of the sixteenth century God's Penny was paid at Waterford on ships' freights; and at Youghal, in 1611, it was paid into court for the right of buying wines on board ship. As may have been noticed in previous examples, the arles did not necessarily consist of a penny. An ordinance of Berwick of the year 1249 declared: "If anyone buy herring or other aforesaid goods and give God's penny or other silver in earnest, he shall pay the merchant from whom he bought the said goods according to the bargain made." But a penny sufficed. Noyes, the Attorney-General of Charles I., is emphatic on this point. "If," he says in his "Maxims," "the bargain be that you shall give me two pounds for my horse, and you do give me one penny in earnest, which I do accept, this is a perfect bargain." The impression left upon one's mind is that the most important contracts as well as the most trifling dealings were settled by the exchange of God's Penny or some equivalent ceremony.

Now, it is evident on the face of it that the transactions must have taken place in the presence of witnesses; otherwise a man who had made an awkward bargain would have found it easy to escape from his dilemma by denying that he had either given or received the penny. In early times, before writing became a common accomplishment, and when, as now, men might be eager to clinch a bargain without loss of time, it was desirable in the interests of common honesty that such agreements should be made in the light of day and in the face of the world. This custom appears to have continued to a late date. Thus, if O'Keeffe the dramatist may be believed, there was in the centre of Limerick Exchange a pillar with a circular plate of copper, about three feet in diameter, called "the nail," on which the earnest of all Stock Exchange bargains had to be paid. At Bristol there are said to have been four pillars called "the nails" in front of the Exchange, the purpose being the same; and similarly, at Liverpool, bargains were completed on a plate of copper, also called "the nail," and standing in front of the Exchange. It is probable, however, as Mr. Gordon observes, that, the phrase "payment on the nail" did not originate from circumstances like these, but was an adaptation of the Latin super unguem or the French sur l'ongle, by which is meant "paying down into a man's hand." It might thus stand for a bargain the opposite of that of which God's Penny was the usual symbol. It appears to have been the custom at Ipswich in 1291 for traders not to make writings or tallies if two witnesses were in attendance to prove that the undertaking was to pay on a near day ou freschement sur le ungle. The notion of immediate payment is still conveyed by the expression, and would cover the entire amount, not merely God's Penny. However, that payment was undoubtedly made "on the nail;" hence some confusion may have arisen, especially where plates and pillars were provided for the deposit of earnest money.

In all this there is much to remind us of the Roman mancipatio, a method of sale which demanded the presence of five witnesses, and in which the buyer took possession of his new purchase by holding in his hand a bronze ingot and repeating the formula: "This man [i.e., a slave] I claim as belonging to me by right quiritary; and be he [or he is] purchased to me by this ingot and this scale of bronze [i.e., that in which the purchase money had been weighed out]."

We have expressed the opinion that the payment of God's Penny was a symbolical act, and this opinion is supported by the fact that there were in mediaeval England hand-clasp bargains. Marbeck, a musician and theologian of the sixteenth century, remarks: "As ye see: after all bargaines there is a signe thereof made, eyther clapping of hands or giving earnest." Among the provisions of the Grimsby charter of 1259 is one to the effect that only buyers of the said town might make bargains by hand-clasp for herring or other fish or for corn. To this was added that hand-clasp bargains were to be valid, unless the merchandise, which was the subject of such a bargain, should be inferior to that agreed upon—a question which has to be determined by men worthy of credit. In Shakespeare's "Henry V." we meet with the saying: "Give me your answer, i' faith, do; and so clasp hands and a bargain; how say you, lady?" This recalls that the joining of hands in the marriage ceremony is in the highest degree symbolical; and it is, of course, the common token of faith in friendship. Judging by these parallels, the payment of God's Penny was not less symbolical than its equivalent, the clapping or clasping of hands.



URBAN

CHAPTER XVI

THE MERCHANT AND HIS MARK

In the course of the preceding chapter reference was made to the illiteracy of our ancestors in its bearing upon trade usages. In the present chapter we propose to supplement this allusion by drawing attention to a feature of commercial life which was certainly influenced by, if not actually due to, the prevailing lack of education. The combination "Merchants' Marks" is so familiar as to suggest that such marks were used by merchants alone. This was by no means the case. Farmers also had their marks. "When a yeoman," says Mr. Williams, "affixed a mark to a deed, he drew a signum by which his land, cattle, etc., were identified"; and in Sussex, we are informed, the post-mortem inquisitions from the time of Henry VII. to that of Charles II. exhibit a large number of yeomen's marks—"other than crosses"—which were employed as signatures. Masons' and printers' marks are further varieties of the same mode of identification.

All these are distinctively trade uses, but the astonishing thing is that, in Germany at any rate, marks were affixed, in conjunction with regular signatures, by ecclesiastical dignitaries and secular nobles, probably as an additional guarantee. They were also used on shields, and in England were frequently impaled with the owners' arms.

Marks, then, were in no sense the exclusive characteristic of the merchant class; and yet, owing to the fact that these devices were necessarily more used by traders, they may be considered on the whole as belonging to their domain. As we have seen, every baker in the City was obliged to stamp his loaves with his own proper mark; and in other branches of commerce men would value their mark as a means of advertisement. As persons engaged in commerce were commonly debarred from the privilege of armorial bearings, marks were freely employed not only in relation to special callings, but also for ornamentation or commemoration in any and every sphere in which merchants desired to leave the impress of their personality and interest. They were to be found on the fronts of houses, over the fireplace in halls, on seals, on sepulchral slabs and monumental brasses, and on painted windows. In his description of a Dominican convent—printed in full in Prof. Skeat's "Specimens of English Literature" (a.d. 1394-1579)—the author of "Peres the Ploughman's Crede" speaks as follows:

Than I munt me forth the minster to knowen And awayted a wone wonderly well y-built, With arches on every hall & belliche [beautifully] y-carven With crochets on corners, with knots of gold, Wide windows y-wrought, y-written full thick, Shyning with shapen shields to shewen about, With marks of merchants y-meddled between, Mo than twenty and two, twice y-numbered; There is none herald that hath half such a roll, Right as a ragman hath reckoned them new.

Another circumstance has to be noted—namely, that merchants' marks were entirely distinct from shop signs, such as that of the Golden Fleece, which, though serving the same purpose of aiding or enlightening the unlearned, were more pictorial in character. Dr. Barrington, in his "Lectures on Heraldry," defines merchants' marks as "various fanciful forms, distorted representations of initials of names," which, he says, were "placed upon articles of merchandise, because armorial ensigns could not have been so placed without debasement."

To those merchants who had no arms—and they were doubtless the vast majority—the mark served as a substitute, and was regarded with the same feelings of pride and attachment as the ensigns of the nobility and gentry. But unquestionably its chief value was strictly commercial, as is proved by an instance of litigation in the twenty-second year of Queen Elizabeth's reign, which is thus narrated by Mr. Justice Doddridge: "An action was brought upon the case in common pleas by a clothier, that, whereas he had gained reputation by the making of his cloth, by reason whereof he had great utterance to his great benefit and profit, and that he used to set his mark to his cloth, another clothier, perceiving it, used the same mark to his ill-made cloth on purpose to deceive him, and it was resolved that an action did lie."

Merchants' marks appear to have been especially common in towns depending on the manufacture of wool. It so happens that one of those towns was that in the immediate neighbourhood of which these chapters were written; and, agreeably to what has been stated, the Church of St. Peter, Tiverton, which owed much to the munificence of the old merchants, carries a number of such marks. East Anglia is particularly rich in such marks, as is shown by Mr. W. C. Ewing's papers in the "Transactions of the Norfolk and Norwich Archaeological Society" (vol. iii.). Mr. Dawson Turner, in his Historical Introduction to Colman's "Engravings of Sepulchral Brasses in Norfolk and Suffolk," after stating that merchants or burgesses were probably the only classes except the military that were represented on monuments, goes on to observe that "these are chiefly to be found in borough towns or the parochial churches of large commercial counties where the woollen manufacture flourished." And, as we have pointed out, the merchant's mark very often accompanied him to his grave.

We have now reached the borderland, where from urban customs we pass to those of the country; and it will form a natural transition if we conclude the chapter and the section with some remarks on the rural use of marks, which is still common in regard to stock. In this Connexion they are generally styled yeomen's marks; and, from the circumstances of the case, it seems certain that the adoption of such symbols took place on the farm long before they were employed on the mart. The point has been raised whether so-called "pictorial marks" are, and have always been, nothing more than rude drawings of familiar objects. Mr. J. H. Scott has dealt with this problem in an examination of Homeyer's theory that marks were originally runic forms, and he expresses the opinion that, assuming this to be true of certain types of marks, "they lost their character at an early period and were regarded merely as signs or symbols not as letters of an alphabet." As regards "pictorial marks," he holds that the similarity to various objects is accidental. If so, this is rather in favour of Homeyer's derivation of marks from runes, the forms in some cases being identical. Moreover, as Homeyer notes, "signa" for identifying cattle, horses, trees, clothes, and as boundary marks, are referred to in the Lex Salica, the Edictum Rotharis, and the Anglo-Saxon laws, so that we have here something like a pedigree of the custom.



RURAL

CHAPTER XVII

RUS IN URBE

Urban customs appear of more interest and importance than rural usages by reason of the greater complexity of relations implied by the interdependence of members of a populous community. In the country the organization of society is more simple, and the life of the fields, if more tranquil, must always be less vivid, and, if the term may be allowed, less conscious than that of the town. Nothing, however, is more certain than that the formation of towns came after and was in most instances the progeny of rural conditions. It is an amazing circumstance that not until the middle of the last century did the great city of Manchester emancipate itself from the last traces of feudal subjection by the purchase of manorial and market rights. Just as the word pecunia is derived from pecus, just as the merchant's mark is in all likelihood descended from that of the yeoman, even so in many municipal appointments there is strong evidence of the once all-prevalent agricultural element.

If we turn to London, we shall discover that its administration was conducted, to a large extent, on country and manorial lines. The necessary result was chaos. As Mr. J. H. Round observes, "The genius of the Anglo-Saxon system was ill adapted, or rather wholly unsuitable, to urban life ... while of unconquerable persistence and strength in small manageable rural communities, it was bound to, and did, break down when applied to large and growing towns, whose life lay not in agriculture, but in trade. In a parish, in a hundred, the Englishman was at home, but in a town, and still more in such a town as London, he found himself at his wits' end." But the practical spirit, the common sense of our race, successfully asserted itself—e.g., in the case of the Sheriffs, who in London are elected by the citizens. In general, sheriffs are appointed by the Crown, and, as the name implies, they are strictly county officers. In the case of the special franchise of the Fitzwalters we have seen how eagerly the Corporation embraced the opportunity afforded by the sale of Baynard Castle to secure greater freedom and homogeneity in the government of the City.

Subordinate to the sheriff in the administration of a county are various classes of bailiffs; and the bailiff bore to the lord of a fee much the same relation as the sheriff did to the King. For one or other of these reasons the mayors of provincial towns were, in the early days of local autonomy, termed bailiffs. By a charter granted in 1200 King John permitted the citizens of Lincoln to elect two of their number "well and faithfully to maintain the provostship (praeposituram) of the city." Twenty-two years afterwards the persons holding this office were called upon to represent the city in a dispute with the burgesses of Beverley—"Ballivi civitatis Lincolnie summoniti fuerunt ad respondendum burgensibus de Beverlaco." The record continues: "Et Major Lincolnie et Robertus filius Eudonis ballivi Lincolnie veniunt et defendunt," etc. Maitland, in his edition of Bracton's "Note-Book," in which these particulars occur, suggests that the name of one of the bailiffs has been omitted, but Mr. Round is doubtless right in holding that the senior bailiff was the "Mayor of Lincoln." Stevenson's "Report on the Gloucester Corporation Records" (9th Appendix to the 12th Report on Hist. MSS.) renders it certain that the titles were interchangeable. "A noteworthy circumstance," he says, "is that although the office of Mayor of Gloucester was not created until 1483, one Richard the Burgess is frequently described in the witness clauses as 'tunc Majore de Glouc.' The dates of these deeds range between circa 1220 and circa 1240. Sometimes this appears to be the title of the senior Bailiff, as Richard Burgess and Thomas Ouenat are described as Bailiffs in a deed circa 1230, but in another deed of the same date Burgess is called 'Major' and Ouenat 'Bailiff.'"

In some boroughs the old royal officer, the Portreeve—the title is a hybrid compounded of the Anglo-Saxon gerefa and the Latin porta (not portus), alluding to the gate, where the markets were held—bore sway. At Tiverton, which was incorporated in 1614, the offices of Mayor and Portreeve existed side by side, and down to the year 1790 the latter exercised the power of summoning certain people to attend the septennial perambulation of the Town Lake—a stream of water the property of the inhabitants. On such occasions the Portreeve completely effaced the Mayor, who is not mentioned by name in connexion with the proceedings. The following extracts from a record in the Court Leet books of the proceedings on September 1, 1774, will demonstrate that the celebration, which took place entirely within the confines of the borough, was a survival of a state of things anterior to the grant of a charter.

"A procession and survey of the ancient rivulet, watercourse, or town lake, running from a spring rising near an ash pollard in and at the head of a certain common called Norwood Common, within the said Hundred, Manor, and Borough to Coggan's Well near the Market Cross in the town of Tiverton aforesaid, belonging to the inhabitants of, and others his Majesty's liege subjects, living, sojourning, and residing in the town of Tiverton aforesaid, for their sole use and benefit, was made and taken by Mr. Martin Dunsford (Portreeve), Henry Atkins, Esq. (Steward), Thomas Warren and Philip Davey (water bailiffs) and the Rev. Mr. William Wood ... and divers other persons, free suitors, tenants and inhabitants of the said town, parish, and hundred of Tiverton, by the order of the honourable Sir Thomas Carew, baronet, Dame Elizabeth Carew and Edward Colman, Esq., Lords of the Hundred, Manor and Borough aforesaid, the first day of September in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and seventy-four.

"The Portreeve and Free Suitors, having adjourned the Court Baron, which was this day held, proceeded from the Court or Church House in the following order:—The Bailiff of the Hundred with his staff and a basket of cakes; the children of the Charity School and other boys two and two; the two water bailiffs with white staves; music; Freeholders and Free Suitors two and two; the Steward; the Portreeve with his staff; other gentlemen of the town, &c., who attended the Portreeve on this occasion; the Common Cryer of the Hundred, Manor, and Borough aforesaid, as assistant to the Bailiff of the Hundred with his staff.

"In this manner they proceeded at first to the Market Cross, and there at Coggan's Well, the Cryer with his staff in the well made the following proclamation in the usual and ancient form—'Oyez! Oyez!! Oyez!!! I do hereby proclaim and give notice that by order of the Lords of this Hundred, Manor, and Borough of Tiverton, and on behalf of the inhabitants of this town and parish, the Portreeve and inhabitants now here assembled, publicly proclaim this stream of water, for the sole use and benefit of the inhabitants of the town of Tiverton and other his Majesty's liege subjects there being and sojourning, from the Market Cross in Tiverton to Norwood Common." They then proceeded in the same order through the Back Lane, in every part as it ran and through the ancient path of the water bailiffs time out of mind and made the like proclamation at the following places.... The Portreeve and free suitors and others that attended them in their way noted every diversion and nuisance that seemed to affect the Lake, and afterwards returned to Tiverton and dined at the Vine Tavern, where they gave the following charity children and other poor boys that attended them twopence a-piece....

These duties are now performed by the Mayor and Corporation, but the custom was observed in the traditional manner at least as late as 1830. We have ascertained that not only did the Portreeve take the lead on these occasions, but, like the Mayor and other members of the Corporation, he was ex officio guardian of the poor of the town and parish—a privilege which he shared with them alone. We have here, therefore, an instance of dual authority lasting well into the nineteenth century, or nearly six hundred years after London had purged itself of the feudal element in its administration. To appreciate its full significance we have to remember that there existed, side by side with corporate towns, others which were not actually corporate, but were known, nevertheless, as free boroughs or liberties, the reason being that the owners of tenements in them held of the lord by burgage tenure in the same way as the freemen of Liverpool held of the King, and that there were manorial courts, which exempted the burgesses from the jurisdiction of the Sheriff's Hundred Court, the Sheriff's County Court, and even the higher courts of the Crown.

The executive officers, the Portreeve and the Bailiffs exercised functions probably as old as the borough itself, and therefore, in almost every instance, to be traced to the freer times preceding the Norman Conquest. Stoford, in Somerset, a good type of such a town, retained its constitution until the middle of the eighteenth century. In the reign of Edward I. it included no fewer than seventy-four burgages; and the burgesses set such store by their privileges that they would not permit an inquisition to be taken by the jury of the county save in conjunction with a jury of their own. The borough had a guildhall, the "Zuldhous," for which a rent of 2s. was paid to the lord of the fee by certain Representatives of the "Commonalty." Commenting on this circumstance, the late Mr. John Batten, F.S.A., remarks: "It proves that the burgesses had not acquired the true element of a corporation, by which the Guildhall would have passed by law to the members for the time being; but that it was necessary to convey it to certain persons as feoffees or trustees." Stoford, however, had its official seal, bearing the ungrammatical, but intelligible, legend,

"S. COMMVNE BVRGENTES STOFORD."

This may seem rather an example of urbs in rure than of rus in urbe, for it was on such half-emancipated towns that corporate boroughs like Hereford looked down (see above, p. 177), and precisely because of their subjection to a lord. Stoford, and similar places, were deemed, and were, wholly, or almost wholly, rural, and the real question is how far the term urbs is applicable to them. As used in this connexion, it is intended to denote precisely what the term "borough" did in its widest signification—namely, a self-governing community; and the "free" but non-corporate boroughs were clearly more allied to ordinary manors than to towns and cities priding themselves on their independence.

The terms "portreeve" and "bailiff" are extremely familiar, and the offices they denote are by no means extinct; but, in addition to these functionaries, there has been perpetuated a whole family of minor ministers even more closely associated with the agricultural aspects of town life. Mr. G. L. Gomme, F.S.A., so well known for his labours in various fields of antiquarian interest, has devoted particular attention to this matter, and for what follows we are indebted entirely to his industrious research. He points out that "the old village community was organized and self-acting," and "possessed a body of officers and servants which made it independent of outside help." These officers and servants were, in fairly numerous instances, retained long after the village had outgrown its primitive limits. In quite a variety of places we meet with pound-keepers, pound-drivers, and pinders; and the hayward also has been found in as many as fifteen different towns. In the same list are included the brookwarden of Arundel, the field-grieve of Berwick-on-Tweed, the grass-men of Newcastle-on-Tyne, the warreners of Scarborough, the keeper of the greenyard in London, the hedge-lookers of Lancaster and Clitheroe, the molecatcher of Arundel, Leicestershire, and Richmond, the field-driver of Bedford, the herd, the nolts-herds, the town swine-herds of Alnwick, Newcastle, Shrewsbury, and Doncaster, the pasture-masters of Beverley and York, the moss-grieves of Alnwick, the moormen and mossmen of Lancaster, the moor-wardens of Axbridge, the fen-reeves of Beccles and Southwold, and the woodwards of Havering and Nottingham.

It will occur to most people that, if these offices were maintained, the reason must have been something more than the mere force of conservatism, great as that has been in the steady evolution of English life; and such was undoubtedly the case in most of, if not all, the cases cited. In other words, the townsmen, individually, as a body, or in the persons of a limited number of elect, continued to enjoy certain rights, and to hold a financial stake, in the soil surrounding that on which their town was planted. The officers were often paid not in cash, but in kind, either a quantity of grain being allotted to them or a piece of land. The latter form of remuneration, which was the more common, is exemplified at Doncaster, where there is a field called the Pinder's Balk, which the pinder cultivated for his own profit. At Malmesbury, it appears, he occupied the position of honour held in other towns by the Mayor, and his salary is represented by a piece of land called the Alderman's Kitchen.

Let us now turn to the communities themselves. At Nottingham resident burgesses have a right, falling to them in order of seniority, to the "burgess part"—i.e., a piece of land, either field or meadow, for which each pays a small ground rent to the Corporation.[14] These "parts" number 254, and they are of varying value, so that, as Mr. Gomme puts it, they constitute "a sort of lottery." At Manchester there are 280 allotments, each about an acre in extent, in which all the commoners have an interest. To forty-eight landholders is assigned an acre each, and twenty-four assistant (?) burgesses have each of them an additional acre. At Berwick-on-Tweed there are two portions of land, of which one is demised, under the name of "treasurer's farms," by the mayor, bailiff, and burgesses to tenants. The other part includes sundry parcels called meadows ranging from 1 1/4 to 2 1/2 acres; and every year at a meeting of the burgesses—the "meadowguild," as it is termed—the lands vacated by the death or departure of those last in occupation go to the oldest burgesses or burgesses' widows eligible by residence, the right of choice depending on seniority.

The land belonging to the Corporation of Langharne is similarly allocated. When an occupier dies, the profits accruing from his share are kept by his representatives, and at the ensuing Michaelmas Court the burgess next in age to the deceased is presented by the jury, and obtains the share previously held by him. Mr. Gomme points out that the reverence for age discoverable in so many of these customs is characteristic of the Teutonic races and of primitive communities in general. An interesting feature of this case is that corn is sown in 330 acres for three years in succession and during the next three years they are grassed out.

The heading of the chapter is "Rus in Urbe," and, still following Mr. Gomme's guidance, we have now to trace a transition that occurred in the use of these public lands as the urban element became more and more preponderant. It seems that while there are boroughs with common pasture only, there has been found no instance of a borough having arable and meadow allotments, and no common pasture. The inference is that, as the community grew more addicted to mercantile pursuits, they were less able to devote themselves to the cares of husbandry, and, accordingly, the lands ceased to be cultivated. But they were still of considerable value for grazing purposes. The merchants' cattle and horses might be placed in them—the latter, perhaps, being subsequently entered in the service of trade. Existing arrangements in boroughs which have abandoned agriculture afford clear indications that at one time allotments were carried out and rules enforced with regard to cultivation and the annual crops.

The history of many towns shows that they formerly enjoyed rights of common which they no longer enjoy, and the manner in which these became lost is in numerous instances a mystery. When, from being lands of which the tenants were virtually seised for life, they passed through some evolution into being the property of the corporation let to freemen or others as the case might be, they might not improbably be sold for the good of the community at large. In earlier days the right may have been surrendered by timid or ignorant townspeople under the pressure of a local lord of the manor strong enough to set the law at defiance, or a compromise may have been effected between him and those in temporary enjoyment of the benefit. These, as we have observed, sometimes consisted of no more than a fraction of the inhabitants, and, as the population increased, this would be a diminishing fraction, with the result that outsiders would be apathetic regarding the fate of the common. Where there was a special qualification, it was not necessarily seniority. At Huntingdon, for example, it was the freemen dwelling in "commonable" houses who were privileged to use the common.

There were other restrictions than those already named. In the locality just mentioned "commonable" burgesses, if we may imitate their manner of speech, might depasture two cows and one horse from Old May-day till Martinmas, and four sheep from Martinmas till Candlemas. At Coventry, in what are called Lammas Lands, the allowance is two horses and one cow. How very wise and necessary these limitations were may be gleaned from the following extract from a decree in Chancery in 42 Elizabeth. The bill—we have modernized the spelling—recites that,

"Divers years past sundry godly and well-disposed persons having commiseration of the poor estate of the said town and parish, did in sundry times in divers kings' reigns assure certain lands, tenements, rents, common of pasture, of profits of markets and fairs and other annual commodities under divers and sundry persons for the ease and relief of the same poor inhabitants of the said town and parish, and namely one William, sometimes Lord of the Town and Borough of Torrington Magna aforesaid, by his deed did assure unto the free burgesses of the said town, and some others of his free tenants of his said manor dwelling in the parish of Torrington aforesaid, common of pasture for their beasts and cattle in and throughout his waste grounds within his manor of Great Torrington, lying within the aforesaid parish and known by divers names there, by the name of the Wester Common and one other by the name of Hatchmoor Common with, others, which waste grounds in the whole do contain about five hundred acres of land and are lying very near adjoining to the said town on each side thereof, the which hath been and so might continue and be very profitable and commodious for all the poor inhabitants of the said town and other free tenants of the said manor that by the same grant ought to have common of pasture therein, if the same were used in any reasonable rate or with any indifferency according to the good and charitable mind and intent of the said granter thereof, but in what form or what the words of the deeds are the said complainants could not express.

"They, or some of them [the defendants], do continually oppress and surcharge with their beasts, sheep, and cattle the common grounds, so as the poor inhabitants cannot well keep a cow or horse thereupon for their use and commodity in any good estate, whereas if the same were used with any indifferency according to the true intent of the donor thereof, every inhabitant within the said town that hath any ancient burgage to which the said common of pasture was granted might well keep two kine or a cow and a gelding or a horse beast with little or no charge. All which was devoured and eaten up by six or eight of the richest greedy persons of the same town and the inhabitants thereof."

But the benefit of common was sometimes not merely attenuated by the action of a powerful and covetous few, but, as was before observed, wholly or partially lost. The following passage from the same bill throws some light on the point:

"And also the said Roger Ley under colour of a lease, which he himself with the residue of his consorts made of certain tenements, parcel of the said lands and tenements, unto certain of the children of the said Ley wherein he had cunningly inserted parcel of the same common ground contrary to the knowledge and weeting of the residue of his cofeoffees or some of them had entered upon parcel of the said common ground called Hatchmoor or lying in Hatchmoor, wherein the said complainants, having burgages within the said town, and all other that dwell in the ancient burgages or dwelling-houses within the said town, ought and had used time out of mind to have common of pasture, without any colour of lawful right had enclosed and tilled two parcels thereof containing about fourteen or sixteen acres and made divers leases thereof to persons unknown, and had shut up an ancient lane or way, commonly called Dark Lane, leading from the said town to the said common of Hatchmoor, through which the inhabitants of the said town had always time out of mind, until the said enclosure, used go and drive to the said common, to the great hindrance, hurt, and damage of the said complainants, and to the disinherison of the said town for ever."

That towns, and even great towns, abode by the traditions of country life, is now abundantly manifest, but the indications above given shed only partial light on rural conditions in their earliest and fullest form. These will furnish the theme of the following chapter, which, it is hoped, will furnish the clue to much that is mysterious in the data thus far supplied.



RURAL

CHAPTER XVIII

COUNTRY PROPER

The state of things exhibited in the previous chapter is essentially transitional. What we have there seen is the town emerging out of the country, or, to put it another way, the country merging, through the principle of attraction, into the focus of the town. This method of viewing the subject is necessarily partial and incomplete. The existence of a common in association with a town or village or group of villages is not a self-evident proposition, to be taken for granted. It is clearly part of a system which it now becomes our business to investigate.

To all appearances many of the arrangements found in the course of, and to the close of, the Middle Ages, and even (in a decaying and disappearing form) almost to our own generation, were descended from that well-nigh immemorial antiquity, in which our forefathers were colonists in what was to them a new world—a world of forest and of fen, of man-eating beasts, and alien foemen as fierce or fiercer than they. These conditions determined the course of action of the men who lived under them. For safety, men of one blood dwelt together in a stockaded village or tun. They and their stock, however, had to subsist on their labour and the bounty of the earth; and therefore around the village a tract of cultivable land was appropriated to the use of the community. Until some degree of security was attained it was futile to dream too much of individual rights; the inhabitants would have been only too glad of the co-operation of their neighbours, and whilst some worked others no doubt stood to arms. Within this area seem to have lain fenced fields for the shelter of calves and other young animals, but this was probably the only exception. Beyond the arable land lay a ring of meadow land; beyond that the stinted pasture; and beyond that again the forest or waste.

By the term "common" is generally understood common of pasture; it is not unusual to meet with the phrase "cow commons," as though cows were the principal, if not the sole, objects which rendered commons of service. This may well have been the case in later times. In early days however, there went along with it common tillage, examples of which are still to be found on the Continent. Traces of the open-field system exist also in various parts of England, notably between Hitchin and Cambridge, where there are huge turf balks dividing the fields. It is said that within the last century the country lying between Royston and Newmarket was entirely unenclosed, and till quite late in the century parishes like Lexton, in Northamptonshire, retained this characteristic. Other examples occur at Swanage in Dorset and Stogursey in West Somerset.

BOROUGH ENGLISH

Before proceeding to describe the methods of cultivation employed, it is desirable to glance at a custom which, there is reason to suppose, is connected with that remote period when the English were not de jure masters of the soil, but occupied the position of colonists, who either expropriated the original inhabitants or entered upon possession of land as res nullius, to which they had established no solid claim by prescription. We have already referred to that valuable repertoire of national customs, so judiciously edited as to merit the higher praise invaluable—the Year-Books. The reports of the pleas in the Common Bench for 1293 include the following:

"One A. brought a writ of entry against B., saying, 'Into which he had not entry except by such an one who had tortiously, &c, disseised his father Robert.' And he laid the descent thus: 'From Robert descended the right, &c, to Adam the present demandant, as his youngest son and heir, according to the custom of such a place, &c.'

"Asseby: 'Sir, we tell you that Adam has an elder brother named N., who is legitimate and is alive, and whom they have omitted. Judgment of the omission.'

"Sutton: 'Sir, even if he had made a quit-claim to him, yet that could not be a bar to us, because by the custom of the country the youngest shall have his inheritance, wherefore there is no need to make mention of him.'

"Asseby: 'Sir, he has brought a writ at common law; judgment if he ought not to be answered at common law, and if he (the demandant) can allege the custom.'

"Sutton: 'In many places in England a woman demands her dower by the writ "Unde nihil habet," which is a writ at common law, and yet, according to the custom of the country, she will recover for her dower a moiety of the tenements which belonged to her husband, where by common law she would have only the third part, and also in the case of tenements in some countries which are holden by knight-service the lord can avow the taking as good for cornage according to the law of the country; and yet the writ is at common law. And also in Gavelkind according to the custom [of Kent] the younger brother shall have as much as the elder; and yet one brother shall recover against the other brother by right "De rationabile parte," and by the "Nuper obiit," which are writs at common law. So in the present case.'

"Metingham [the judge]: 'Asseby, answer.'"

Now what was this custom? It is that known as "Borough English," and the reader will have already inferred from the report of the action that, wherever it prevailed, the youngest son claimed to succeed to his father's estate. It is therefore the antithesis of the right of primogeniture, whereby real estate falls to the eldest son. An old record given to print by the late Mr. Robert Dymond, F.S.A., exhibits in great detail the customs of the Manor of Braunton, in Devonshire, and among them is that of Borough English, or, as it is termed in local parlance, "cradle-land." This testimony is of peculiar interest, since the document comprises a provision for the assignment of the property in the not wholly improbable event of the family consisting entirely of daughters. The section touching upon Borough English is thus formulated:

"HEIRS OF THE YOUNGEST HOLDING

"Item, the Custome ys in every of the sayd manors that if eny manner of person or persons be seased of eny manner of land or tenements, rents or premises of the yonger holdyng liying withyn eny of the seid manors or liberties in fee symple or in fe tayle, in demeane or in usu, and have divers sonnys by dyvers venters, viz. by dyvers wyvys, or women by divers men, and dye, that then the yonger son of them shall inherite the seid lands and tenements with other the premyses in fe symple as in fe tayle that so descendith in the seid yonger holdyng in demeane or in use, except ther be any other estate made & proved to the contrary by wryting & if the[y] have no yssue butt all doughters that then the seid inheritance [is] to be parted betwene theym except any lawful wryting or state made to the contrary after the custom."

Neither of these rules of succession was in any way confined to the West of England. Indeed, the late Mr. T. W. Shore, who appears to have been quite an authority on the subject, affirms that "in a general way it may be said that the further we go from Kent the less numerous become the instances in any county of England." This statement is confirmed by a yet greater authority. "Borough English," says Elton, "was most prevalent in the S.E. districts, in Kent, Sussex, and Surrey, in a ring of manors encircling ancient London, and, to a less extent, in Essex and the East Anglian kingdom." Mr. E. A. Peacock, however, points out that there are in Lincolnshire seven places where the custom is still abiding—viz., Hibaldstow, Keadby, Kirton-in-Lindsey, Long Bennington, Norton (Bishops), Thoresby and Wathall; and he further calls attention to the fact, which is certainly most important, that the custom may be traced over nearly all Europe with the exception of Spain and Italy, and up to the boundaries of China and Arracan. The German name is jungsten-recht; and the practice for which it stands existed, amongst other places, at Rettenburg in Westphalia. How then did it become known as Borough English? The reason is suggested by the two sorts of tenure—Burgh Engloyes and Burgh Francoyes—which are found in different parts of the town of Nottingham in the reign of Edward III. Borough English was the native custom which had succeeded in holding its ground against the effects of the Norman Conquest.

As has been said, Borough English was in vogue all around London—at Lambeth, Vauxhall, Croydon, Streatham, Leigham Court, Shene or Richmond, Isleworth, Sion, Ealing, Acton, and Earl's Court. In some of these places—Fulham, Wimbledon, Battersea, Wandsworth, Barnes and Richmond—the "yonger holding" descended not only to males but to females; and at Lambeth (and at Kirton-in-Lindsey, in Lincolnshire) there existed the identical arrangement which has been found at Braunton, in Devon. This equal division between daughters Mr. Shore regards as an "intermediate stage between Borough English and Gavelkind." The latter is distinctively the "custom of Kent," and signifies that the land was "partible," and inherited by the sons in equal shares, the youngest son retaining the homestead, and making compensation to his brethren for this addition to his share. Borough English and gavelkind, therefore, though not the same, are near akin; and it is an interesting question which of the two was prior to the other. It may be that gavelkind is the older, and that Borough English is a remnant or distortion of what appears, on the face of it, a more equitable condition of things. On the other hand, gavelkind may have been, so to speak, grafted on a more simple usage which the community, through change of circumstances, had outgrown, and had ceased to possess the same justification as at first.

Why should the youngest son take the inheritance? One explanation is that he was presumed to be least able to provide for himself. This, however, expresses only half the truth. The other half has, we think, been furnished by Mr. Peacock:

"The most popular explanation in the last [eighteenth] century was the calumny known as mercheta mulierum, now known as a malignant fable popularized by novelists and playwrights. Another suggestion is that it is a custom that has survived from some prehistoric race; a third that it has grown up at different points...." Mr. Peacock regards the last as the most likely. "It is only when the population becomes relatively dense that land, apart from what it produces, is of any value. A time, however, would soon be reached when land would have a value of its own. The good soil would soon be taken up, and in the days of a primitive mode of culture third-rate land would be valueless. Then the house-father would be forced by circumstances to make provision, ere his death, for the sons sharing the ancestral domain between them.

"Here we have the origin of gavelkind—a form of devolution more widely spread than even ultimo-geniture or Borough English. Gavelkind, however, could be but a temporary provision. As the population grew, so it would be absolutely necessary that the young men of the household should make new settlements for themselves. This fact accounts in its measure for the vast shifting of the population that took place when the Roman Empire was in its protracted death-agony. The torrents of human beings which poured in on the decaying Empire were considered by the older historians as evidence of nomadic barbarism. We, with our present lights, say rather that they indicate a population too dense for their own homes to support.

"It would be a matter of course that the elder sons should go forth and carve out for themselves new homes in the West; but when the swarm departed, all the sons would not go forth from the shelter of the native roof-tree. One at least, commonly the youngest, would stay behind. On him would devolve the duty of looking after the old folk and his unmarried sisters. On him would devolve in due time the duties of the sacrifices connected with the sacred hearth; and when the father died to him would devolve the paternal dwelling, with its ploughland, its meadow, and its rights of wood and water. Here is, we believe, the key to the origin of Borough English."

THE OPEN FIELD

We now pass to the methods of cultivation observed in the open field—the conditions of early agriculture. There is reason to believe that at the time of the English settlement extensive tillage must have existed, at any rate to some degree; but this was soon superseded by intensive culture. Certain fields, that is to say, were allocated for the raising of particular crops, the limits being marked by large balks or banks. Beside these arable fields there was a tract of meadow land, from which the cattle would have been excluded during the time necessary for the growth and carrying of hay. After harvesting operations had been completed, and all through the winter, the cattle were allowed to range at will among the stubble of the arable fields, and over the meadow land, as also over the waste, which was more properly their domain.

As it was impossible to raise crops year after year from the same fields without gravely impoverishing the soil, this system was exchanged in some places for another—that of cropping one or two fields and allowing the other to lie fallow. This modification was not always judged requisite to prevent the exhaustion or deterioration of the land; and thus there arose a third—what is termed the "three-field" system, by which out of three arable fields two were under cultivation at the same time, one lying fallow. The third plan was that which ultimately met with most favour. In the early autumn the field that had lain fallow through the summer was ploughed and sown with wheat, rye, or other corn; and in the spring the stubble of the field that had yielded the last crop of wheat was ploughed up, and barley or oats sown in it. The third field, in which the previous crop had been barley, retained the stubble till the early days of June. It was then ploughed up and left in that condition until a fresh crop was sown in the autumn. Professor Cunningham, whose account we here follow, has furnished a convenient chart or diagram which we venture to reproduce as an aid to the comprehension of the subject:

I. II. III. Wheat (or rye) Stubble of Stubble of Jan sown wheat barley (or oats) Sow March barley Plough and June leave fallow Reap August Plough and October sow wheat Wheat Barley stubble stubble

This chart represents one year's labours. In the following year the first field would take the place of the second, the second that of the third, and the third that of the first. The process would be repeated in the third year, and in this way the rotation would continue to be maintained. There were districts in which the three-field ousted the two-field system; and others in which neither entirely displaced the other. Both eventually gave way to the more modern method of four-course husbandry. The three-field style of agriculture may date back to the remote reign of King Ine, when, it seems certain, open-field cultivation in some form was the rule. This being the case, it was necessary that the fields in which corn and grass were growing should be fenced off for the time being; and one of King Ine's laws has reference to the recognition or neglect of this neighbourly duty:

"If churls have a common meadow or other partible land[15] to fence, and some have fenced their part, and some have not, and (cattle stray in and) eat up their common corn or grass; let those go who own the gap and compensate to the others who have fenced their part the damage which there may be done, and let them demand such justice on the cattle, as it may be right. But if there be a beast which breaks hedges, and goes in everywhere, and he who owns it cannot restrain it, let him who finds it in his field take it and slay it, and let the owner take its skin and flesh, and forfeit the rest."

The picture this law presents is that of fields divided by temporary fences, in which, if the three-field system were in use, two would be under cultivation and the third fallow. One great field of thirty acres would have sixty distinct strips, with a narrow margin of turf serving in each case as the line of demarcation. To each servile holding in the Confessor's time the landlord assigned a pair of oxen with which to work it; and these may have been combined into a powerful team of eight or twelve, similar to manorial teams, though plough-teams varying in numerical strength are recorded, and the efficiency of some of them may well be doubted.

If there were oxen, it is clear that provision must have been made for their support; and this consisted in the hay from the meadow, in the pasture of the common waste, and that of the fallow field and the other fields in the interval between harvest and seed-time. The question whether the tillers were bond or free probably made no difference to the way in which agricultural operations were conducted.

The collapse of this system may be attributed to the scarcity of labour brought about especially by the Black Death. When men could not be had in sufficient number, the necessary consequences was the expansion of pasture and the contraction of tillage; and this dual process was assisted by the stampede of labourers to the towns and the policy of enclosure to which landowners resorted as a remedy. Deprived of their quit-rents, and not having resources for the payment of wages on an adequate scale, supposing that labour was obtainable on reasonable terms, the landholders fell back upon the only expedients that remained to them. They had land, and they had stock; and, as an escape from absolute ruin, they let the land to tenants who took over the stock and, probably, as the need arose, replaced it with their own beasts. This revolution, already in full swing in the fourteenth century, paved the way for the present order of things, under which the tenant pays a fixed rent for the use of land and buildings, and finds the capital for farming.

THE WASTE

We have next to deal with the waste. The meaning of the term is clear—it signifies land which, from the poverty of the soil or other reasons, had never been brought under cultivation. The commons that still survive are mostly of that description, the more valuable land having been resumed during one of the successive periods of enclosure, or—piecemeal.

Originally, there is little doubt, such land belonged to the family or sept, by whom it was used as forest for game or as pasturage for cattle. Unlike the arable field or the common meadow, it was not distributed into sets, but enjoyed in common by all who possessed the right of stocking it. In a genial article in the "Antiquary" describing how the world wagged in his parish of Blewbury, Berks, in the eighteenth century, the Rev. N. L. Whitchurch observes: "There were 'cow commons' on the downs in those days, and a road from the village is still called the 'cow way.' In the early morning a man would collect the various cows of the village, which he drove to pasture for the day. The ancient bell which he rang at the foot of the 'cow road' is still preserved in the village."

In Saxon times the purchase of stock by an individual was a matter of general concern to the community in which he lived. By a law of King Edgar, if a man in the course of a journey bought cattle, he was required on his return to turn them out into the common pasture, "with the witness of the township." If he omitted to do so within five nights, the townsmen were to acquaint the hundred elder, and the cattle were forfeited, the lord receiving one-half and the hundred the other. If the townsmen failed in their duty, their herdsman was subjected to a flogging. For the purchase of cattle the witness of the township was not enough. Twelve standing witnesses were appointed for every hundred, and the buyer had to make it his business to seek out two or three of them so as to secure their presence at the transaction.

Whatever the primitive constitution of society may have been, in historical times three parties possessed an interest in the waste. Blackstone defines common as "a profit which a man hath in the land of another, as to feed his beasts, to catch fish, to dig turf, to cut wood, and the like." In theory, the waste belonged to the King, who vested portions of it in individual lords or religious houses, and they thus became recognized owners of the soil. In case of outlawry or attainder, the waste reverted to the Crown, which, according to custom, held possession of it for a year and a day. Thirdly, the use of the soil, for various specified purposes, resided in the inhabitants of certain townships or hundreds, was appendant to certain tenements, or was reserved as easement on the sale of the land.

Some very interesting questions, arising out of this joint occupancy, were raised in the courts at the close of the thirteenth century—notably the right of search for the object of ascertaining whether there were on the common more animals than any of the parties was entitled to place there, and, if so, of impounding them. Was this right appurtenant to the manor, or was it also appendant to a frank tenement in a particular vill? In one case where the lord had depastured an excess of beasts, the court decided against him, and in favour of a commoner whom he accused of "tortiously" taking his cattle. But, notwithstanding this judgment, there is some uncertainty on the point, as appears from the report of an action tried in the Middlesex Iter of 1294.

"Robert Fitznel brought the Replegiare against Richard, the son of John, saying that he had tortiously taken his beasts in the wood of the Abbat of Horwede, formerly the forest of King Henry, by whom it was given as a chace to N., ancestor of Richard."

"Warwick: 'Sir, we offer to aver that Robert and all those who have held the land in N., which he holds have been seised for all time, &c, of the common in the wood where his taking was made as appurtenant to their frank tenement....'

"Gosefield imparted, and returned and said: 'Sir, we will tell you the truth of this matter; and we tell you that the place where the taking was made was King Henry's forest; and Henry granted what was the forest to our ancestor by way of chace; and that in that chace, according to the custom of the chace, no person could put to common more beasts than could be fed or wintered on the produce of the land which he held in the same chace; and because Robert brought his beasts from his lands which he held elsewhere, which beasts could not be fed or wintered on the land which he held within the chace, contrary to the usage and custom of the said chace, he (Richard) took them, &c....'

"Warwick: 'Sir, first of all they avowed the taking, and said that we ought not to have any kind of common; and now they have admitted our right of common partially, viz. as to beasts which can be wintered ...'

"Gosefield: 'The assise of forest is notorious and well-known to all, viz., that no man can have therein more beasts to common than can be fed off the said land.'

"Warwick (he spoke then for the King): 'Richard, do you claim to have assise of forest?'

"Gosefield: 'Nay, sir. But King Henry granted and gave it to us to hold as a chace in the same manner as he held it while it was a royal forest; and we have three swain-motes yearly for searching and inquiring whether anyone puts more beasts therein than he ought to put; and, inasmuch as King Henry granted it to us to hold like as he held it, it seems to us that there is no need to take the Inquest.'

"Hertford [the judge]: 'Do you accept the averment or not?'

"Gosefield (being obliged to accept the averment) said: 'Sir, they were never seised of common for more beasts than could be wintered and fed and supported on the growth of the said land.'"

There is appended to this report a note which lays down the law in a different sense from that before stated. It is as follows:

"It is not sufficient for anyone who avows distress to say that he avows the taking, &c., for that he found the beasts in his chace of such a place, or in the common of such a place, where he had no right of common; for it may be that neither party had a right of common; and thus it is not sufficient but he must say that he found them in his several pasture, or must say some other thing that touches himself and gives him a right to impound what he found. For no man can avow a distress in a common pasture save the lord of the soil of the common pasture. For if any of the commoners were to make avowry for beasts taken in the common pasture it would then follow that if the Inquest were to pass against the plaintiff, he who avowed the taking in the common pasture would have the return of the beasts and the amends, and not the lord of the pasture, and that would be improper. But this does not hold good where the King is the lord of the common pasture, and several persons holding of him in socage have common, because in that case anyone having common may avow a good distress. The reason is because the King will not be a party in such case or distrein anyone."

In mediaeval country life, then, commons might be either manorial or forestal. Bishop Stubbs in his "Constitutional History" affirms that "neither the hundreds of England nor the shires appear ever to have had common lands." As regards hundreds, on the enclosure of a common, allotments were made to several townships of Knaresborough, and Stubbs himself allows that "it seems a fair instance of common lands of a hundred." Similarly, there is in the hundred of Coleness in Suffolk a pasture common to all the inhabitants. But in each instance we have probably to distinguish between use and ownership; and the same distinction applies to counties, otherwise the case of the Devonshire Commons might seem to refute the dictum.

The Devonshire Commons are not to be confused with the Forest of Dartmoor. They constitute rather the purlieus, and, in general, afford better pasturage than the forest itself. Neither are they identical with the commons of the separate vills—the manorial or parochial commons. The whole of the inhabitants of the county may be regarded as possessing an interest in the Devonshire Commons, with the exception of the people of Barnstaple and Totnes, the reason being that those districts not having been afforested with the rest of the county, the residents acquired no new privileges when Devonshire was disafforested. The other inhabitants retained whatever rights they had previously enjoyed not only in respect of the Devonshire Commons, but of the Forest of Dartmoor, of which, at some early period—before the era of perambulations, in which they were not included—those commons had no doubt formed part. One effect of the wide extent of the right of common was that the rule of levant and couchant did not obtain here. Naturally, when all Devonshire men were entitled to the use of the land, it was impossible to fix a limit to the number of the beasts that might be turned out throughout the length and breadth of the county.

Mention was made above of royal forests as occupying, in some respects, a different position from other lands in which a right of common was exercised. Dartmoor, although the property of the Prince of Wales as Duke of Cornwall, may be taken as, to all intents and purposes, answering to that description; and thus peculiar interest attaches to the usages which prevailed, and still prevail, within its bounds.

The question of "Venville Rights on Dartmoor" is one that engaged the attention of a very capable writer as well as an accomplished antiquary, the late Mr. W. F. Collier; and although the subject has been handled by other investigators, it is from him that we have derived the bulk of our information on this very remarkable aspect of commonage. First, as to the name. "Venville" is a provincial corruption of fines villarum, each vill paying a larger or smaller sum for the right of pasturage; and certain parishes or manors on the outskirts of the forest were said to be "in venville." "The perambulation [of 1224]," says Mr. Birkett, "establishes three important facts: viz., that the moor was originally part of a royal forest; that the Commons of Devon, and surrounding parishes were once part of the forest; and that the moor is not waste of a manor." The townships were grouped into four bailiwicks—North, South, East, and West; and the fines payable compose too long a list to be given entire. The following, however, are specimens: The township of Trulegh (Throwleigh), 2s. 6d.; the parish of South Tawton, 7s. 4 1/2d.; the township of Sele (South Zeal), 6 1/2d.; the hamlet of Lowyngton, in the parish of Meavy, 2d.; the township of Gadamewe (Godameavy), in the same parish, 2d.; the township of Chagford, 12d.; the hamlet of Teigncombeham, with [within?] the parish of Chagford, 4s. This was in 1506-7. In return for these payments the commoners have certain "venville" rights, which extend over the forest proper and the Devonshire Commons, and include the taking of stone and sand for their own use. But the most valued is that of agistment or pasturage, especially of ponies. The Duchy, on its part, claims and exercises the right of "drift"—a picturesque survival on which we may well bestow some regard.

The division of the forest into four quarters still continues, each being in charge of a moorman; and over these wide tracts and the adjacent Commons sheep, bullocks, and ponies are turned out by the tenants to graze at will. In the autumn the animals are driven to a traditional spot, in order that they may be claimed by their owners. There is a bullock drift, and a pony drift, of which the former is the earlier; and each quarter has its own drift days, which are usually different. In any case, no notice is given, but about two o'clock in the morning the moorman is apprised by a messenger that he must "drive" his quarter for bullocks or ponies. Thereupon, according to the regular procedure, he ascends the tors and blows his horn as an intimation to the tenants to assist in the drift. In the western quarter there was formerly a stone, through a hole in which it was the custom to blow the horn, but this stone now graces a wall in a hedge.

The drift to Merrivale Bridge is accomplished by men on horseback and men on foot, and dogs, to the accompaniment of horns and halloos; and when all the animals have been gathered, an official of the Duchy takes his stand on an ancient stone and reads a proclamation, which done the owners are summoned to claim, let us say, their ponies. The venville tenants identify their beasts, making no payment; but other persons—and in no case, apparently, is the right of pasturage disputed, nearly the whole of Devonshire having been forest—have to render a fine for each animal. They have also to meet a trivial charge for night rest, which is supposed to have arisen from an old custom that debarred anyone from remaining on the forest by night, with the consequent temptation to deer-poaching. An unclaimed animal is driven to Dunnebridge Pound and there kept for some weeks, at the expiration of which, if he is still unclaimed, or if the owner refuses to pay for poundage, etc., he is sold for the benefit of the Duchy.

Each quarter of the moor has its peculiar earmark for ponies, consisting of a round hole at the base or the tip on the near or off ear, through which a piece of string is tied, there being thus four distinct marks.

Some of these ancient usages have fallen into desuetude. The last occasion on which the horn was sounded was in 1843; and the four quarters are now let to as many "moormen," who endeavour to make as much profit as possible out of them. To this day, however, neither on Dartmoor nor on the Devonshire Commons, is any man denied pasturage for his ponies or cattle.

BONDMEN

From vills we may naturally turn to those who in ancient days—the word has another meaning now—were named after them villeins. More than once in the course of this work we have had occasion to refer to the existence of an unfree class in England, on which prouder and more happily circumstanced persons looked with considerable disdain, and therefore our account would fail of a necessary element of completeness if it omitted to deal, in some measure, with this striking phenomenon of mediaeval English life. The subject is too wide and complex to be discussed with any approach to thoroughness, but some aspects of it may be introduced, and indeed must be introduced, being, as we have said, complementary to statements of social relationships already set down.

The position of those who rested under the stigma of servitude is brought home to us pretty forcibly by a report of proceedings in the Middlesex Iter of 1294:

"One A. brought a writ of imprisonment against B.

"Heilham (for B.): 'He ought not to be answered, for he is our villein.'

"A.: 'A free man and of free condition, ready, etc.'

"Heilham said as before.

"Metingham [the judge]: 'He cannot give a higher answer in a writ of Neifty.'

"Heilham: 'We will tell you the truth; his father was our villein, and held of us in villeinage land in the vill mentioned in his count, and where he was taken; and he begot this A., and also one B., his brother, of whom we are now seised, as of our villein; and this A. went out of the limits of the villeinage, and afterwards returned, and we found him at his hearth in his own nest, and we took him as our villein, as every lord may well do; and we pray judgment.'

"Metingham: 'If my villein beget a child on my land which is in villeinage, and the child so begotten go out of the limits of my land, and six or seven or more years after return to the same land, and I find him in his own nest and at his own hearth, I can take him and tax him as my villein for the reason that his return brings him to the same condition as he was when he went.'

"Heilham: 'He fell into the pit which he hath digged.'"

We must beware of attributing this doctrine of Neifty to the Norman Conquest, which merely supplied names; in definiteness and cruelty nothing could exceed the practice of serfage under the Saxons. "The slave," says Green, "became part of the live stock of the estate, to be willed away at death with the horse or the ass, whose pedigree was kept as carefully as his own. His children were bondmen, like himself; even the freeman's children by a slave-mother inherited the mother's taint. 'Mine is the calf that is born of my cow,' ran the English proverb." In the same passage he points out that the number of the serfs was being continually augmented from various concurrent causes—war, crime, debt, and poverty all assisting to drive men into a condition of perpetual bondage.[16] Degradation of freemen into serfs remained a disagreeable possibility as long as the system endured.

The agricultural population actually consisted of three elements. First there was the lord; secondly, his free tenants; and thirdly, the villeins or serfs. The main difference between the two latter classes was that the free tenants had proprietary rights in their holdings and chattels. They could buy, sell, or exchange without the lord's intervention; and, in the event of a dispute, they could sue him or anyone in the courts. Nevertheless, they stood in some degree of subjection to the lord, since the geld due to the State was paid through the lord as responsible to the sheriff for all who held land within the manor.

Another very important distinction between the free tenants and the villeins was the payment of merchet on the marriage of daughters, which signified that the offspring of such marriages would be the lawful property of the lord. From this payment, and all that it implied, the free tenants were exempt.

Predial services, on the other hand, might be rendered as well by free tenants as by villeins. This is shown by an entry in Domesday:

"De hac terra [Longedune] tempore Regis Edwardi tenebant ix liberi homines xviii hidas et secabant uno die in pratis domini sui et faciebant servitium sicut eis precipiebatur."

Much would depend on the capital possessed by the free tenant, who might elect to make good any deficiency by corporal labour. The villein had no capital, and was simply an instrument, like the cattle of which he had charge, in the working of the estate. He was bound to the soil with which all his interests were linked; and he was regarded in the light of an investment, in which the lord had a perpetual stake. It was the lord who furnished him with the means of gaining a livelihood, and, in return for this accommodation, the lord demanded from him, and his children after him, lifelong service.

From the "Rectitudines Singularum Personarum," an eleventh-century document, we learn that the cotsetle, for his holding of about five acres, was required to labour for his lord on one day a week all through the year,[17] and this was known as week-work. He had also to give what was called boon-work—namely, three days a week in harvest. Another type of unfree tenant was the gebur, who held a yardland of some thirty or forty acres, which, upon his entrance, was stocked with two oxen, one cow, six sheep, tools and household utensils. His week-work amounted to two or three days a week, as the season required; in winter, he had "to lie at his lord's fold," when bidden; and he had to contribute his quota of boon-work. Certain payments also had to be made.

The first attempt to regulate wages was made in the statute of 12 Richard II., cc. 3-7, the preamble of which affirms that "the servants and labourers will not, nor by a long season would, serve and labour without outrageous and excessive hire, and much more hath been given to such servants and labourers than in any time past, so that for scarcity of the said servants and labourers the husbands and land tenants may not pay their rents nor unnethes live upon their lands, to the great damage and loss as well of their lords as of all the commons; also the hires of the said servants in husbandry have not been put in certainty before this time."

The "hires" were now defined, and this act penalized masters who paid labourers at a higher rate than was allowed under it. The scale of wages varied in different reigns. Here we may confine ourselves to the provisions of the statute of 11 Henry VII., which not only determined the maximum payments, but sanctioned reductions on legitimate grounds. Thus regard was had to the current wages in the locality, which the employer was under no obligation to exceed. Less was to be paid at holiday than at other times; and if a man were lazy in the morning or lingered over his meals, he might be mulcted at his master's discretion.

Premising that the purchasing power of a penny in the fifteenth century was about twelve times as much as it is now, we are able to form some idea of the economic position of the different classes which were the subjects of this legislation. The bailiff, it appears, might have a salary of 26s. 8d.; the common servant in husbandry cost 16s. 8d. and 4s. for clothes; and the artisan received per day 5d. in the summer and 6d. in the winter. This brings us to the hours of labour, which depended on the season, and were also regulated by statute. These were from 5 a.m. till between 7 and 8 p.m. from the middle of March to the middle of September, half an hour being allowed for breakfast, and an hour and a half for dinner and a siesta—an indulgence countenanced from May to August. During the winter, the rule was that work was to be carried on whilst there was daylight.

Mention has been made of holidays. These, though inevitable, were evidently regarded as seasons of danger, since the favourite recreations of labourers, if left to their own devices, were poaching and politics. Against these twin evils the King's counsellors took precautions in an act (13 Rich. II., st. I., c. 13), of which the preamble ran:

"Forasmuch as divers artificers, labourers, servants, and grooms, keep greyhounds and other dogs, and on the holy days, when Christian people be at church hearing Divine service, they go a-hunting in parks, warrens, and coningries of lords and others to the very great destruction of the same, and sometimes under such colour they make their assemblies, conferences, and conspiracies for to rise and disobey their allegiance, &c."

Hence none but laymen with 40s. and clerks with L10 were suffered to keep dogs or use ferrets, nets, harepipes, cords, or other engines to destroy deer. Instead of engaging in such perilous diversions, servants and labourers were ordered to "have bows and arrows and to use the same on Sundays and holy days, and leave all playing at tennis or football and other games called quoits, dice, casting of the stone, kailes (skittles) and other importune games." Swords and daggers were prohibited "but in time of war for the defence of the realm of England"—a wise measure when the country was infested with vagrants and there were so many liveried retainers prompt to resent a real or imaginary affront.



DOMESTIC

CHAPTER XIX

RETINUES

At the conclusion of the previous section allusion was made to retinues as constituting a danger to the industrious members of the body politic. In this, our final section, we turn, or rather return, from the life of the fields to that of the hall. Some notice of the interior order of great houses has appeared in earlier chapters—e.g., that on "Children of the Chapel"—but such special reference, involving no more than the religious side of domestic arrangements, leaves a sense of incompleteness, and this void we must now proceed to fill.

Starting with the peril and annoyance involved in the maintenance of retinues, the proposition may be easily demonstrated. Alike in town and country the presence of armed and idle ruffians was a source of well-grounded apprehension. Thus, when the Bishop of Durham attended parliament, he had to obtain a licence before his retainers could be quartered at Stratford-at-Bow; and the manifold inconveniences produced by these satellites in country districts during the reign of Edward I. form the subject of a versified complaint, to be found in Wright's 'Political Songs'. One of the causes of the grievous scarcity of labour is believed to have been that nobles and others, under the pretence of husbandry, kept in their pay able-bodied dependants who, rather than eke out a miserable existence on the land, preferred to follow some warlike lord.

BILLETING

As usual, the trouble began at the fountain-head. Everybody knows the term "billeting" as applied to soldiers on the march, who are compulsorily quartered on licensed victuallers and others at fixed rates. This is really a very ancient custom, which is closely, and indeed lineally, connected with the topic under discussion.

In the early days of royal progresses it was the duty of the Marshal of the King's Household to secure lodgings for the members of the retinue which accompanied him; and this he did by means of a billet, by virtue of which he appropriated for the occasion the best of the houses in the vicinity, marking them with chalk and ruthlessly ejecting the occupiers. The Marshal, it may be observed, did not do the chalking himself—a task which seems to have been delegated to the Sergeant Chamberlain of the Household.

Even London did not escape this intolerable vexation, though its immunity from billeting was expressly laid down in a succession of charters. The royal officials, paying scant heed to the sanctity of these clauses, repeatedly invaded the precincts of the City; and in the reign of Edward II. they went so far as to seize the house of one of the sheriffs, John de Caustone, and quarter therein the King's Secretary, sergeants, horses, and harness. The sheriff acted boldly. He erased the chalk marks, and proceeded to expel the intrusive sergeants—perhaps even the Secretary himself, unless, as Mr. Riley thinks probable, that person "walked quietly away." For this resolute vindication of the liberties of the City, Caustone had to answer before the Seneschal and Marshal of the King's Household, sitting in the Tower, but, as there was no excuse for the insolent aggression, he suffered no harm. The citizens, indeed, were so assured of their rights in this particular, that at some date—probably in the reign of Edward I.—an ordinance had been passed:

"That if any member of the royal household, or any retainer of the nobility, shall attempt to take possession of a house within the City either by main force or by delivery [of the Marshal of the King's Household]; and, if in such attempt he shall be slain by the master of the house, then, and in such case, the master of the house, shall find six of his kinsmen [i.e. as compurgators], who shall make oath, himself making oath as the seventh, that it was for this reason that he so slew the intruder; and thereupon he shall go acquitted."

PRE-EMPTION

The humbler people who escaped billeting might still have cause to regret royal journeys owing to the inconsiderate exercise of the right of pre-emption. Subjects were compelled to sell; and the worst of it was that the King's purveyors were in the habit of paying not in cash down, but by means of an exchequer tally, or a beating! A tally was a hazel rod which had certain notches indicating the amount due. It obtained its name from the circumstance that these rods were in pairs, the creditor having one and the debtor the other, so that they could be used for the purpose of comparison. In practice it was found no easy matter to recover under this system, which lent itself to the worst exactions, and is the subject of numerous complaints in our early popular poetry. Thus in "King Edward and the Shepherd":

"I had catell, now have I none; They take my beasts, and done them slon, And payen but a stick of tree ... They take geese, capons, and hen And all that ever they may with ren And reaves us our catell.... They took my hens and my geese And my sheep with all the fleece And led them forth away."

Somewhat similarly, when a ship arrived in port with a cargo of wine, the prerogative of prise was enforced, whereby the King was entitled to "a tun before and one abaft the mast," or the equivalent in money.

The royal household and those of "the great lords of the land" enjoyed the right of pre-emption not only in the country but in the London markets. Dealers in fish, for example, were not allowed to quit the City in order to meet a consignment "for the purpose of sending it to any great lord or a house of religion, or of regrating it," until the King's purveyors had first purchased what was required for their master's table.

When fish had been brought to the City, no fishmonger might buy "before the good people have bought what they need." It was the same with poultry. Until prime had been sounded at St. Paul's, poulterers were forbidden to buy for resale, the object being that "the buyers for the King and great lords of the land, and the good people of the City may make good their purchases, so far as they shall need."

LIVERY

So much for purveyance. As regards the disposition of the provisions thus obtained, it was expressed by the term "livery," formerly of much wider application than at present. The word comprehended all that was delivered or dispensed by the lord to his underlings or domestics—money, victuals, wine, garments, fuel, and lights; but no doubt it was employed more particularly of external and distinctive garb. The Wardrobe Book of 28 Edward I. and the Household Ordinances show that officers and retainers of the Court were presented with a roba estivalis and hiemalis. The livree des chaperons, so often mentioned, refers to hoods or tippets of a colour sharply contrasting with that of the garment over which they were worn. Subsequently this mark took the form of a round cap, attached to which was a long liripipe, which might be wound round the head, but more usually hung over the arm. In the dress of the City Liverymen traces of it may still be found.

This suggests the remark that livery was used not by the members of great households merely, but by brotherhoods and gentz de mester; hence it is that Chaucer in his Prologue of the "Canterbury Tales" enumerates

A Haberdassher and a Carpenter A Webbe, Dyere, and a Tapicer;

and says of them:

... they were clothed alle in a liveree Of a solempne and great fraternitee.

The statute 7 Henry IV. conceded this privilege to the "trades of the cities of the realm," thus confirming previous acts of the reign of Edward III. and Richard II., which sanctioned the wearing of livery by menials and members of gilds, but prohibited the distribution of badges to adherents who assumed them in testimony of their readiness to aid their patron in any private quarrel. The practice was therefore a grave menace to the King's peace.

The prohibition was renewed 8 Edward IV., c. 2., which inflicted a penalty of one hundred shillings for every person "other than his menial servant, officer, or man learned in the one law or the other," so retained by anyone "of what estate, degree, or condition that he be." The fine was to be repeated for every month "that any such person is so retained by him by oath, writing, indenture or promise," and a similar penalty attached to the person retained. But there were many exceptions—"Provided that this ordinance do not extend to any livery given or to be given at the King's or Queen's coronation, or at the installation of an archbishop or bishop, or erection, creation, or marriage of any lord or lady of estate, or at the creation of Knights of the Bath, or at the commencement of any clerk in any university, or at the creation of serjeants in the law, or by any gild, fraternity, or mystery corporate, or by the mayor and sheriffs of London, or any other mayor, sheriff, or other chief officer of any city, borough, town, or port of this realm of England for the time being, during that time and for executing their office or occupation; nor to any badges or liveries to be given in defence of the King or of this realm of England; nor to the constable and marshal, nor to any of them for giving any badge, livery or token for any such feat of arms to be done within this realm; nor to any of the wardens towards Scotland for any livery, badge, or token of them to be given from Trent northward, at such time only as shall be necessary to levy people for the defence of the said marches, or any of them."

A MEDIAEVAL HOUSEHOLD

The establishment of a great noble or ecclesiastic sometimes embraced a vast category of persons; and if we would learn on what an elaborate scale housekeeping might be conducted by subjects, we cannot do better than turn to Gascoigne's account of Cardinal Wolsey's colossal retinue. After stating that the ambitious churchman had in attendance upon him "men of great possessions and for his guard the tallest yeomen in the realm," he proceeds:

"And first, for his house, you shall understand that he had in his hall three boards, kept with three several officers, that is, a steward that was always a priest; a treasurer that was ever a knight; and a comptroller that was an esquire; also a confessor, a doctor, three marshals, three ushers in the hall, besides two almoners and grooms.

"Then had he in the hall-kitchen two clerks, a clerk-comptroller, and a surveyor over the dresser, with a clerk in the spicery, which kept continually a mess together in the hall; also, he had in the kitchen two cooks, labourers, and children, twelve persons; four men of the scullery, two yeomen of the pastry, with two other paste-layers under the yeomen.

"Then had he in his kitchen a master-cook, who went daily in velvet or satin, with a gold chain, besides two other cooks and six labourers in the same room.

"In the larder, one yeoman and a groom; in the scullery, one yeoman and two grooms; in the buttery, two yeomen and two grooms; in the ewry, so many; in the cellar three yeomen and three pages; in the chandlery, two yeomen; in the wafery, two yeomen; in the wardrobe of beds the master of the wardrobe and twenty persons besides; in the laundry, a yeoman, groom, and thirteen pages; two yeomen purveyors, and a groom purveyor; in the bakehouse, two yeomen and grooms; in the woodyard, one yeoman and a groom; in the barn, one yeoman; porters at the gate, two yeomen and two grooms; a yeoman in his barge, and a master of his horse; a clerk of the stables, and a yeoman of the same; a farrier and a yeoman of the stirrup; a maltlour and sixteen grooms, every one of them keeping four geldings.