Medieval London (Vol. 1&2). Walter Besant

price 48s.; 12 swans, price 60s.;—these being bought of the said John Brid and John Scot:—3 stone of wax, price £11: 19: 5¼; 2 barrels of sturgeon, price £6; also, 3 pike and 3 eels, price 66s. 8d.

      Sum total paid for the gift aforesaid, £95: 13: 6.”

      Nine years later, at the meeting of Parliament, held in London, the City voted a great number of gifts to the King, the Queen, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishops of London and Durham and many great Lords. To some, money was given, to others, silver plate, silk cloths, gloves for holding the marks. Apparently, the gifts were intended to buy their favour, for the City got a charter which secured their liberties, although they had appeared in danger from the new statutes about the Staple.

      While mentioning these presents we may state that in the year 1363 we find a dozen trades uniting to send a small present of money, amounting in all to no more than £40, to the King. Four companies also present King John of France, then a captive, with money amounting in all to £24: 6: 8; and in the year 1371 a magnificent present of plate costing, for the time, a vast sum of money, was given to the Black Prince on his return from Gascony.

      In 1357 the King, evidently from his own observation, called attention to the lay stalls and filth allowed to accumulate on the banks of the river, and gave orders that all should be cleaned up without delay. In the same year he ordered the streets to be kept free of such impediments. And, which shows a glimmering of sanitary science, he orders that this refuse shall be put into carts and taken out of the City, or into the dung boats which were probably intended to carry the refuse down the river; but nothing was to be thrown into the river. When one remembers the uses to which the Walbrook and the Fleet, together with the banks of the Thames, had been put, it is easy to understand that it was necessary to do something. At the same time, the Thames is a broad river, and capable of cleansing itself from a good deal of corruption.

      In some cases of robbery or violence the King interfered himself. Thus in 1359 the King ordered the Mayor to make Inquisition into a robbery committed at the House of the Crutched Friars in Hart Street, Aldgate, and to send him the result of his Inquisition. The case is curious, one that implicated certain Brethren of the House. The things stolen consisted of a chalice, two sets of vestments, many valuable books and other goods, the whole valued at £87: 13: 4, i.e. over £1200 of our money. The robbers were Robert de Stannowe, John de Dunmowe, and Richard de Evesham, all Brethren of the Holy Cross. The witnesses, John Bretoun and eleven others, swore that these three were all malefactors and disturbers of the Peace of our Lord the King, and that they stole these things and “committed other enormities.” What became of the sacrilegious three is not known. Possibly the Bishop’s prison could reveal the secret.

      There is also a proclamation against sturdy vagrants who get alms “which would otherwise go to many poor folk, such as lepers, blind, halt, and persons oppressed with old age and divers other maladies.” They are ordered to be put in the stocks and then to forswear the City for ever. Nothing is as yet said about whipping vagrants through the streets.

      There is a proclamation against evening markets. Nothing was to be sold after sunset because it is easy in the dark to pass off old things for new.

      Another scare of a French descent took place in 1370, when it was reported that certain galleys were lying off the Foreland of Thanet. It was ordered that a watch should be kept every night between the Tower and Billingsgate, to consist of 40 men-at-arms and 60 archers. The companies were to form the watch in the following order:—

       Sunday. The Ironmongers, the Armourers, and the Cutlers.

       Monday. The Tawyers, the Spurriers, the Bowyers, and the Girdlers.

       Tuesday. The Drapers and the Tailors.

       Wednesday. The Mercers and the Apothecaries.

       Thursday. The Fishmongers and the Butchers.

       Friday. The Pelterers and the Vintners.

       Saturday. The Goldsmiths and the Saddlers.

      The bad government of London at this time is illustrated by the decay of archery. The recent victories in France had proved the immense superiority of the archers to the mounted knights in battle: yet we find the youth of London allowed to neglect a weapon which could only be serviceable if its practice was encouraged and ordered. On this subject we find that the King sent the following letter to the Sheriffs of London in the year 1365:—

      “The King to the Sheriffs of London, greeting.

      Because the People of our Realm, as well of good Quality as mean, have commonly in their Sports before these Times exercised the Skill of shooting Arrows; whence it is well known, that Honour and Profit have accrued to our whole Realm, and to us, by the Help of God, no small Assistance in our warlike Acts; and now the said Skill being, as it were, wholly laid aside, the same People please themselves in hurling of Stones and Wood and Iron; and some in Hand-ball, Foot-ball, Bandy-ball, and in Cambuck, or Cockfighting; and some also apply themselves to other dishonest Games, and less Profitable or useful; whereby the said Realm is likely, in a short time, to become destitute of Archers:

      We, willing to apply a seasonable Remedy to this, command you, that in Places in the foresaid City, as well within the Liberties as without, where you shall see it expedient, you cause publick Proclamation to be made, that every one of the said City, strong in Body, at leisure Times on Holidays, use in their Recreations Bows and Arrows, or Pellets, or Bolts, and learn and exercise the Art of Shooting; forbidding all and singular on our Behalf, that they do not after any Manner apply themselves to the throwing of Stones, Wood, Iron, Hand-ball, Foot-ball, Bandy-ball, Cambuck, or Cockfighting, nor such other like vain Plays, which have no Profit in them, or concern themselves therein, under Pain of Imprisonment. Witness the King at Westminster, the twelfth Day of June.”

      In the same year the City was visited by a company of Flagellants. They were Dutch and a hundred and twenty in number. They marched through the streets stripped to the waist, wearing hats with one red cross before and one behind: in their hands they carried whips. They sang a Litany as they walked, and then began to flagellate each other till the blood ran down their bodies. This they are said to have done twice a day either in the streets or in St. Paul’s.

      In the disturbances and quarrels which marked the conclusion of the third Edward’s reign and the commencement of Richard’s, it is difficult to separate the part taken by London from the general history of the country. It was a gloomy time for London as well as for the nation: the conquests and the vast possessions acquired by Edward had been lost more quickly than they were won. In 1372 the English fleet was destroyed off Rochelle: in 1373 Poitiers was lost and the English army destroyed: in 1374 Aquitaine was lost: our holding in France was reduced to certain strong places, as Bordeaux and Calais: the King was falling into dotage: the Black Prince was dying: not only the pride of the country was humiliated, but her wealth was impoverished and her trade diminished.

      New ideas were rising up in all directions, precursors of the Reformation. Wyclyf wanted a return to simpler external forms and the lowering of the pride and wealth and power of the Church. Piers Plowman spoke for the inarticulate: Chaucer shows the kindly and good-humoured contempt of the well-to-do bourgeois for Friar and Monk: the commons demanded the dismissal of the Clergy from Civil Service: a few years later they petitioned the King (Henry IV.) to suppress all the monastic Houses. And the most powerful noble in the land, John of Gaunt, espoused the popular side and stood forth as the protector of Wyclyf and of John of Northampton.

      Unfortunately John of Gaunt meddled with trade. Probably in ignorance of what he was doing he placed himself in the hands of a merchant named Richard Lyons in whom he seems to have had great confidence. Lyons was clearly the predecessor of many who have followed him in the endeavour to make fortune by short cuts; he got from John permission to ship his wool without taking it first to the Staple, thus avoiding the tax; he got himself made farmer of customs at Calais and levied higher duties than those imposed by Parliament; he bought up the King’s debts at a large reduction and made the Council pay him in full; he made corners, obtained and sold monopolies.

      In 1376, the year before the old King’s death, the Good Parliament sat.