Town Life in the Fifteenth Century, Volume 2. Green Alice Stopford

amerce, and redress, as well the masters and all other persons of the said crafts, each after their deserving and trespass, as the case asketh.”[303] Men who offended against the rules of the trade were brought before the town officers for punishment, and half their fines went into the town treasury.[304] Even the wandering artizans who moved from place to place, who had no fixed shops and no complete guild organization, found themselves subjected to the town authorities as soon as they had crossed the borders of the borough. Carpenters, masons, plasterers, daubers, tilers, and paviours had to take whatever wages the law decreed and to accept the supervision of the municipal rulers,[305] and their regulations were framed according to the convenience of the borough. Thus after the big storm of 1362 in London they were forbidden to raise their prices for repairing the citizens’ roofs;[306] and the same ordinances of Worcester which direct that chimneys of timber and thatched houses should be done away with, and stone or brick chimneys and tiled roofs everywhere made by midsummer day, contain regulations for the tilers who must have flocked to the city on such an occasion. They must set up no parliament to make any one of them “as a master and all other tilers to be as his servant and at his commandment, but that every tiler be free to come and go to work with every man and citizen freely as they may accord.” No stranger tiler coming to the city was to be forced to work for any city tiler, but might take whatever work he liked by the day.[307]

      1

      Journ. Arch. Ass. xxvii. 461, 488.

      2

      Freeman’s Exeter, 146-7.

      3

      Book of Precedence, E. E. Text Society, part ii. 8-18, 79, etc. 143, etc. Manners and Meals (E. E. Text Soc.), 175.

      4

      Paston Letters, ii. 319.

      5

      Lamond’s Walter of Henley 123-145. Monum. Franciscana (Rolls Series), i. app. ix.

      6

      Manners and Meals, pp. 250, 251, 252.

      7

      Ibid. 258-260.

      8

      Ibid. 274.

      9

      “Take not every rope’s end with every man that hauls,” ran the warning to the young. “Believe not all men that speak thee fair, Whether that it be common, burgess or mayor.” Manners and Meals, 183. See Songs and Carols (Percy Society, vol. xxiii.) viii. ix. xviii.

      10

      Manners and Meals, 182.

      11

      Percy Society, vol. xxiii. Songs and Carols, see songs xxxii. and xxxv.

      12

      Commonplace book of the fifteenth century edited by Miss Toulmin Smith. Catechism of Adrian and Epotys, p. 40, lines 421-8.

      13

      “Men’s works have often interchange

      That now is nurture sometime had been strange.

      Things whilom used be now laid aside

      And new fetis [fashions] daily be contrived.”

      – Caxton’s Book of Courtesy (E. E. Text Society),

1

Journ. Arch. Ass. xxvii. 461, 488.

2

Freeman’s Exeter, 146-7.

3

Book of Precedence, E. E. Text Society, part ii. 8-18, 79, etc. 143, etc. Manners and Meals (E. E. Text Soc.), 175.

4

Paston Letters, ii. 319.

5

Lamond’s Walter of Henley 123-145. Monum. Franciscana (Rolls Series), i. app. ix.

6

Manners and Meals, pp. 250, 251, 252.

7

Ibid. 258-260.

8

Ibid. 274.

9

“Take not every rope’s end with every man that hauls,” ran the warning to the young. “Believe not all men that speak thee fair, Whether that it be common, burgess or mayor.” Manners and Meals, 183. See Songs and Carols (Percy Society, vol. xxiii.) viii. ix. xviii.

10

Manners and Meals, 182.

11

Percy Society, vol. xxiii. Songs and Carols, see songs xxxii. and xxxv.

12

Commonplace book of the fifteenth century edited by Miss Toulmin Smith. Catechism of Adrian and Epotys, p. 40, lines 421-8.

13

“Men’s works have often interchange

That now is nurture sometime had been strange.

Things whilom used be now laid aside

And new fetis [fashions] daily be contrived.”

– Caxton’s Book of Courtesy (E. E. Text Society), 45.

14

Manners and Meals, 271.

15

Ibid. p. 265.

16

The popularity of the “Ship of Fools,” with its trite, long-winded, and vague moralities, is an excellent indication of the intellectual position of the new middle class.

17

Songs and Carols (Percy Society, xxiii.), song xxx.

18

Songs and Carols (Percy Society, xxiii.) lxxvi.

19

Hist. MSS. Com. ix. 174.

20

Book of Precedence, 106. “Money maketh merchants, I tell you, over all.” Skelton’s Poems (ed. Dyce) i. 277.

21

“‘Though some be clannere than some, ye see well,’ quoth Grace,

That all craft and connyng came of my gift.”

– Passus xxii. 252-3.

22

“Son, if thou wist what thing it were,

Connynge to learn and with thee to bear,

Thou would not mis-spend one hour,

For of all treasure connynge is the flower;

If thou wilt live in peace and rest

Hear and see and say the best.”

Book of Precedence, 69. Another rhyme gives the lesson in ruder form.

“Learn as fast as thou may and can

For our Bishop is an old man

And therefore thou must learn fast

If thou wilt be Bishop when he is past.”

– Manners and

303

Ricart, 78. The examples are too numerous to give. But see the ordinances drawn up in 1448 for the Tailors’ Guild of Lynn by the Mayor and the Council. It was ordered that no new tailor should set up in business unless he was considered “sufficient in conning” not only by the two head men of his craft, but also by the mayor. Every tailor admitted to the guild had to pay a fine as entrance fee to the Mayor and another to the community, as well as his payment to the Guild; and paid a yearly fee to the town for any sewers and apprentices whom he employed. Quarrels between shapers and sewers were to be settled by the Mayor and the head men of the craft. If a tailor sent home an ill-fitting garment the buyer might bring his complaint to the Mayor’s Court, and claim amends before the Mayor and the head men of the craft on condition of paying a fine of 3s. 4d. if he did not prove his case. (Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, 165-6.)

304

Miss Dormer Harris has kindly given me the rules at Coventry as to how a craft was to proceed to the punishment of a member in 1518. The master of the craft was first to ask a “reasonable penalty;” if the offender refused to pay, the master was to apply again after three or four days and have the refusal recorded; and in case the refusal was repeated a second time he and three or four of the “honest men” of the craft were to come to the mayor; and the mayor and one of the justices were to command the offender to pay a double penalty; and if he refused yet again, to commit him to prison until it was paid to the craft. At the same time the offender was to desire the master to be “good master to him and his good lover.” If the penalty were more than would suffice for a pound of wax, the remainder was to go to common box, i. e., the city funds.

305

The tilers were strictly ruled by statute as to how the various tiles should be made, thatch tile, roof tile, gutter tile, and so on; how the earth should be prepared and how big the tiles should be. Justices of the Peace, that is in towns the Mayor and the Aldermen, were to hear the cases against offenders and appoint searchers. (17 Edward IV. cap. 4.)

306

Mem. Lond. 308.

307

English Guilds, 386, 398-9.