Chapter VI: Mediæval Towns (1)

Mediæval towns in England had one of four origins; some were those of ancient Roman foundation, which had lived through the Saxon invasion, like Lincoln, Chester, and Colchester. Others again grew up gradually in the neighbourhood of a monastery. The monastery was founded in a wilderness, but it had a number of artisans employed about it; travellers resorted to its _hospitium_ as to an inn; it was perhaps a place of pilgrimage; the affairs of the Lord Abbot, and the business of the large estates of the convent, brought people constantly thither; and so gradually a town grew up, as at St. Alban's, St. Edmundsbury, &c. In other cases it was not a religious house, but a castle of some powerful and wealthy lord, which drew a population together under the shelter of its walls--as at Norwich, where the lines of the old streets follow the line of the castle-moat; or Ludlow, on the other side of the kingdom, which gathered round the Norman Castle of Ludlow. But there is a third category of mediæval towns which did not descend from ancient times, or grow by accidental accretion in course of time, but were deliberately founded and built in the mediæval period for specific purposes; and in these we have a special interest from our present point of view.

There was a period, beginning in the latter part of the eleventh and extending to the close of the fourteenth century, when kings and feudal lords, from motives of high policy, fostered trade with anxious care; encouraged traders with countenance, protection, and grants of privileges; and founded commercial towns, and gave them charters which made them little independent, self-governing republics, in the midst of the feudal lords and ecclesiastical communities which surrounded them.

In England we do not find so many of these newly founded towns as on the Continent; here towns were already scattered abundantly over the land, and what was needed was to foster their growth; but our English kings founded such towns in their continental dominions. Edward I. planted numerous free towns, especially in Guienne and Aquitaine, in order to raise up a power in his own interest antagonistic to that of the feudal lords. Other continental sovereigns did the same, _e.g._ Alphonse of Poitiers, the brother of St. Louis, in his dominion of Toulouse. But in England we have a few such cases. The history of the foundation of Hull will afford us an example. When Edward I. was returning from Scotland after the battle of Dunbar, he visited Lord Wakes of Barnard Castle. While hunting one day, he was led by the chase to the hamlet of Wyke-upon-Hull, belonging to the convent of Meaux. The king perceived at once the capabilities of the site for a fortress for the security of the kingdom, and a port for the extension of commerce. He left the hunt to take its course, questioned the shepherds who were on the spot about the depth of the river, the height to which the tides rose, the owner of the place, and the like. He sent for the Abbot of Meaux, and exchanged with him other lands for Wyke. Then he issued a proclamation offering freedom and great commercial privileges to all merchants who would build and inhabit there. He erected there a manor-house for himself; incorporated the town as a free borough in 1299 A.D.; by 1312 the great church was built; by 1322 the town was fortified with a wall and towers; and the king visited it from time to time on his journeys to the north. The family of De la Pole, who settled there from the first, ably seconded the king's intentions. Kingston-upon-Hull became one of the great commercial towns of the kingdom. The De la Poles rose rapidly to wealth and the highest rank. Michael de la Pole "builded a goodly-house of brick, against the west end of St. Mary's Church, like a palace, with a goodly orchard and garden at large, enclosed with brick. He builded also three houses in the town besides, whereof every one hath a tower of brick." Leland the antiquary, of the time of Queen Elizabeth, has left us a description and bird's-eye plan of the town in his day, which is highly interesting. Of our English towns, those which are of Roman origin were laid out at first on a comprehensive plan, and they have the principal streets tolerably straight, and crossing at right angles. The great majority of the towns which grew as above described are exceedingly irregular; but this irregularity, so important an element in the picturesqueness of mediæval towns, is quite an accidental one. When the mediæval builders laid out a town _de novo_, they did it in the most methodical manner; laying out the streets wide, straight, at equal distances, and crossing rectangularly; appropriating proper sites for churches, town-halls, and other public purposes, and regulating the size and plan of the houses. It is to the continental towns we must especially look for examples; but we find when Edward I. was building his free towns there, he sent for Englishmen to lay them out for him. A similar opportunity occurred at Winchelsea, where the same plan was pursued. The old town of Winchelsea was destroyed by the sea in 1287, and the king determined to rebuild this cinque-port. The chief owners of the new site were a knight, Sir J. Tregoz, one Maurice, and the owners of Battle Abbey. The king compounded with them for their rights over seventy acres of land, and sent down the Bishop of Ely, who was Lord Treasurer, to lay out the new town. The monarch accorded the usual privileges to settlers, and gave help towards the fortifications. The town was laid out in streets which divided the area into rectangular blocks; two blocks were set apart for churches, and there were two colleges of friars within the town. Somehow the place did not flourish; it was harried by incursions of the French before the fortifications were completed, people were not attracted to it, the whole area was never taken up, and it continues to this day shrunk up into one corner of its walled area. Three of the old gates, and part of the walls, and portions of three or four houses, are all that remain of King Edward's town.

The woodcut on the preceding page, from a MS. of Lydgate's "Storie of Thebes" (Royal 18 D. II.), gives a general view of a town. The travellers in the foreground are a group of Canterbury pilgrims.

In these mediæval times the population of these towns was not so diverse as it afterwards became; the houses were of various classes, from that of the wealthy merchant, which was a palace--like that of Michael de la Pole at Hull, or that of Sir John Crosby in London--down to the cottage of the humble craftsman, but the mediæval town possessed no such squalid quarters as are to be found in most of our modern towns. The inhabitants were chiefly merchants, manufacturers, and craftsmen of the various guilds. Just as in the military order, all who were permanently attached to the service of a feudal lord were lodged in his castle or manor and its dependencies; as all who were attached to a religious community were lodged in and about the monastery; as in farm-houses, a century ago, the labouring men lived in the house; so in towns all the clerks, apprentices, and work-people lodged in the house of their master; the apprentices of every craftsman formed part of his family; there were no lodgings in the usual sense of the word. In the great towns, and especially in the suburbs, were hostelries which received travellers, adventurers, minstrels, and all the people who had no fixed establishment; and often in the outskirts of the town without the walls, houses of inferior kind sprang up like parasites, and harboured the poor and dangerous classes.

The bird's-eye views of the county towns in the corners of Speed's _Maps of the most famous Places of the World_, are well worth study. They give representations of the condition of many of our towns in the time of Elizabeth, while they were still for the most part in their ancient condition, with walls and gates, crosses, pillories, and maypoles still standing, and indicated in the engravings. Perhaps one of the most perfect examples we have left of a small mediæval town is Conway; it is true, no very old houses appear to be left in it, but the streets are probably on their old lines, and the walls and gates are perfect--the latter, especially, giving us some picturesque features which we do not find remaining in the gates of other towns. Taken in combination with the adjoining castle it is architecturally one of the most unchanged corners of England.

We have also a few old houses still left here and there, sufficient to form a series of examples of various dates, from the twelfth century downwards. We must refer the reader to Turner's "Domestic Architecture" for notices of them. A much greater number of examples, and in much more perfect condition, exist in the towns of the Continent, for which reference should be made to Viollet le Duc's "Dictionary of Architecture." All that our plan requires, and our space admits, is to give a general notion of what a citizen's house in a mediæval town was like. The houses of wealthy citizens were no doubt mansions comparable with the unembattled manor-houses of the country gentry. We have already quoted Leland's description of that of Michael de la Pole at Hull, of the fourteenth century, and Crosby Hall in Bishopsgate Street. St. Mary's Hall, at Coventry, is a very perfect example of the middle of the fifteenth century. Norwich also possesses one or more houses of this character. The house of an ordinary citizen had a narrow frontage, and usually presented its gable to the street; it had very frequently a basement story, groined, which formed a cellar, and elevated the first floor of the house three or four feet above the level of the street. At Winchelsea the vaulted basements of three or four of the old houses remain, and show that the entrance to the house was by a short stone stair alongside the wall; under these stairs was the entrance into the cellar, beside the steps a window to the cellar, and over that the window of the first floor. Here, as was usually the case, the upper part of the house was probably of wood, and it was roofed with tiles. On the first floor was the shop, and beside it an alley leading to the back of the house, and to a straight stair which gave access to the building over the shop, which was a hall or common living-room occupying the whole of the first floor. The kitchen was at the back, near the hall, or sometimes the cooking was done in the hall itself. A private stair mounted to the upper floor, which was the sleeping apartment, and probably was often left in one undivided garret; the great roof of the house was a wareroom or storeroom, goods being lifted to it by a crane which projected from a door in the gable. The town of Cluny possesses some examples, very little modernised, of houses of this description of the twelfth century. Others of the thirteenth century are at St. Antonin, and in the Rue St. Martin, Amiens. Others of subsequent date will be found in the Dictionary of Viollet le Duc, vol. vi., pp. 222-271, who gives plans, elevations, and perspective sketches which enable us thoroughly to understand and realise these picturesque old edifices. Our own country will supply us with abundance of examples of houses, both of timber and stone, of the fifteenth century. Nowhere, perhaps, are there better examples than at Shrewsbury, where they are so numerous, in some parts (_e.g._ in the High Street and in Butcher Row), as to give a very good notion of the picturesque effect of a whole street--of a whole town of them. But it must be admitted that the continental towns very far exceed ours in their antiquarian and artistic interest. In the first place, the period of great commercial prosperity occurred in these countries in the Middle Ages, and their mediæval towns were in consequence larger and handsomer than ours. In the second place, there has been no great outburst of prosperity in these countries since to encourage the pulling down the mediæval houses to make way for modern improvements; while in England our commercial growth, which came later, has had the result of clearing away nearly all of our old town-houses, except in a few old-fashioned places which were left outside the tide of commercial innovations. In consequence, a walk through some of the towns of Normandy will enable the student and the artist better to realise the picturesque effect of an old English town, than any amount of diligence in putting together the fragments of old towns which remain to us. In some of the German towns, also, we find the old houses still remaining, apparently untouched, and the ancient walls, mural towers, and gateways still surrounding them. The illuminations in MSS. show that English towns were equally picturesque, and that the mediæval artists appreciated them. The illustrations in our last chapter on pp. 519, 520, give an idea of the houses inhabited by citizens in such a town as St. Alban's. In the "Roman d'Alexandre," in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, a whole street of such houses is rudely represented, some with the gable to the street, some with the side, all with the door approached by an exterior stair, most of them with the windows apparently unglazed, and closed at will by a shutter. We might quote one MS. after another, and page after page. We will content ourselves with noting, for exterior views, the Royal MS. 18 E. V. (dated 1473 A.D.), at 3 E. V., f. 117 v., a town with bridge and barbican, and the same still better represented at f. 179; and we refer also to Hans Burgmaier's "Der Weise Könige," which abounds in picturesque bits of towns in the backgrounds of the pictures. For exteriors the view of Venice in the "Roman d'Alexandre" is full of interest, especially as we recognise that it gives some of the remaining features--the Doge's Palace, the Cathedral, the columns in the Piazzeta--and it is therefore not merely a fancy picture, as many of the town-views in the MS. are, which are supposed to represent Jerusalem,[418] Constantinople, and other cities mentioned in the text. This Venice view shows us that at that time the city was lighted by lanterns hung at the end of poles extended over the doors of the houses. It gives us a representation of a butcher's shop and other interesting features.

The illustration on the preceding page is also a very interesting street-view of the fifteenth century, from a plate in Le Croix and Seré's "Moyen Age," vol. Corporations et Metiers, Plate 8. Take first the right-hand side of the engraving, remove the forest of picturesque towers and turrets with their spirelets and vanes which appear over the roofs of the houses (in which the artist has probably indulged his imagination as to the effect of the other buildings of the town beyond), and we have left a sober representation of part of a mediæval street--a row of lofty timber houses with their gables turned to the street. We see indications of the usual way of arranging the timber frame-work in patterns; there are also indications of pargeting (_e.g._ raised plaster ornamentation) and of painting in some of the panels. On the ground-floor we have a row of shops protected by a projecting pent-house; the shop-fronts are open unglazed arches, with a bench across the lower part of the arch for a counter, while the goods are exposed above. In the first shop the tradesman is seen behind his counter ready to cry "what d'ye lack" to every likely purchaser; at the second shop is a customer in conversation with the shopkeeper; at the third the shopkeeper and his apprentice seem to be busy displaying their goods. Some of the old houses in Shrewsbury, as those in Butcher Row, are not unlike these, and especially their shops are exactly of this character. When we turn to the rest of the engraving we find apparently some fine building in which, perhaps, again the artist has drawn a little upon vague recollections of civic magnificence, and his perspective is not quite satisfactory. Perhaps it is some market-house or guildhall, or some such building, which is represented; with shops on the ground-floor, and halls and chambers above. The entrance-door is ornamented with sculpture, the panels of the building are filled with figures, which are either painted or executed in plaster, in relief. The upper part of the building is still unfinished, and we see the scaffolds, and the cranes conveying mortar and timber, and the masons yet at work. In the shop on the right of the building, we note the usual open shop-front with its counter, and the tradesman with a pair of scales; in the interior of the shop is an assistant who seems to be, with vigorous action, pounding something in a mortar, and so we conjecture the shop to be that of an apothecary. The costume of the man crossing the street, in long gown girded at the waist, may be compared with the merchants given in our last chapter, and with those in an engraving of a market-place at p. 499. The figure at a bench in the left-hand corner of the engraving may perhaps be one of the workmen engaged upon the building; not far off another will be seen hauling up a bucket of mortar, by means of a pulley, to the upper part of the building; the first mason seems to wear trousers, probably overalls to protect his ordinary dress from the dirt of his occupation. Of later date are the pair of views given opposite from the margin of one of the pictures in "The Alchemy Book" (Plut. 3,469) a MS. in the British Museum of early sixteenth-century date. The nearest house in the left-hand picture shows that the shops were still of the mediæval character; several of the houses have signs on projecting poles. There are other examples of shops in the nearest house of the right-hand picture, a public fountain opposite, and a town-gate at the end of the street. We see in the two pictures, a waggon, horsemen, and carts, a considerable number of people standing at the shops, at the doors of their houses, and passing along the street, which has no foot pavement.

The accompanying cut from Barclay's "Shippe of Fools," gives a view in the interior of a mediæval town. The lower story of the houses is of stone, the upper stories of timber, projecting. The lower stories have only small, apparently unglazed windows, while the living rooms with their oriels and glazed lattices are in the first floor. The next cut, from a MS. in the French National Library, gives the interior of the courtyard of a great house. We notice the portion of one of the towers on the left, the draw-well, the external stair to the principal rooms on the first floor, the covered unglazed gallery which formed the mode of communication from the different apartments of the first floor, and the dormer windows.

A whole chapter might be written on the inns of mediæval England. We must content ourselves with giving references to pictures of the exterior of two country ale-houses--one in the Royal MS. 10 E. IV., at f. 114 v., which has a broom projecting over the door by way of sign; and another in the "Roman d'Alexandre" in the Bodleian--and with reproducing here two pictures of the interiors of hostelries from Mr. Wright's "Domestic Manners and Customs of the Middle Ages." They represent the sleeping accommodation of these ancient inns. In the first, from the "Quatre Fils d'Aymon," a MS. romance of the latter part of the fourteenth century, in the French National Library, the beds are arranged at the side of the apartment in separate berths, like those of a ship's cabin, or like the box beds of the Highlands of Scotland. It is necessary, perhaps, to explain that the artist has imagined one side of the room removed, so as to introduce into his illustration both the mounted traveller outside and the interior of the inn.

In the next woodcut, from Royal MS. 18 D. II., the side of the hostelry next to the spectator is supposed to be removed, so as to bring under view both the party of travellers approaching through the corn-fields, and the same travellers tucked into their truckle beds and fast asleep. The sign of the inn will be noticed projecting over the door, with a brush hung from it. Many houses displayed signs in the Middle Ages; the brush was the general sign of a house of public entertainment. On the bench in the common dormitory will be seen the staves and scrips of the travellers, who are pilgrims.

A fragment of a romance of "Floyre and Blanchefleur," published by the Early English Text Society, illustrates the mediæval inn. We have a little modernised the very ancient original. Floris is travelling with a retinue of servants, in the hope of finding his Blanchefleur:--

"To a riche city they bothe ycome,
Whaire they have their inn ynome[419]
At a palais soothe riche;
The lord of their inn has non his liche,[420]
Him fell gold enough to honde,
Bothe in water and in lande,
He hadde yled his life ful wide."

_i.e._ he had travelled much, had great experience of life, and had gained gold both by sea and land. Besides houses entirely devoted to the entertainment of travellers, it was usual for citizens to take travellers into their houses, and give them entertainment for profit; it would seem that Floris and his servants had "taken up their inn" at the house of a burgess; he is called subsequently, "a burgess that was wel kind and curteis:"--

"This Child he sette next his side,
Glad and blithe they weren alle
So many as were in the halle;
But Floris not ne drank naught,
Of Blanchefleur was all his thought."

The lady of the inn perceiving his melancholy, speaks to her husband about him:--

"Sire takest thou no care
How this child mourning sit
Mete ne drink he nabit,
He net[421] mete ne he ne drinketh
Nis[422] he no marchaunt as me thinketh."

From which we gather that their usual guests were merchants. The host afterwards tells Floris that Blanchefleur had been at his house a little time before, and that--

"Thus therein this other day
Sat Blanchefleur that faire may,
In halle, ne in bower, ne at board
Of her ne herde we never a word
But of Floris was her mone
He hadde in herte joie none."

Floris was so rejoiced at the news, that he caused to be brought a cup of silver and a robe of minever, which he offered to his host for his news. In the morning--

"He took his leave and wende his way,
And for his nighte's gesting
He gaf his host an hundred schillinge."

One feature of a town which requires special mention is the town-hall. As soon as a town was incorporated, it needed a large hall in which to transact business and hold feasts. The wealth and magnificence of the corporation were shown partly in the size and magnificence of its hall. Trade-guilds similarly had their guildhalls; when there was one great guild in a town, its hall was often the town-hall; when there were several, the guilds vied with one another in the splendour of their halls, feasts, pageants, &c. The town-halls on the Continent exceed ours in size and architectural beauty. That at St. Antoine, in France, is an elegant little structure of the thirteenth century. The Belgian town-halls at Bruges, &c., are well known from engravings. We are not aware of the existence of any town-halls in England of a date earlier than the fifteenth century. That at Leicester is of the middle of the fifteenth century. The town-hall at Lincoln, over the south gate, is of the latter half of the century; that at Southampton, over the north gate, about the same date: it was not unusual for the town-hall to be over one of the gates. Of the early part of the sixteenth century we have many examples. They are all of the same type--a large oblong hall, of stone or timber, supported on pillars, the open colonnade beneath being the market-place. That at Salisbury is of stone; at Wenlock (which has been lately restored), of timber. There are others at Hereford, Ross, Leominster, Ashburton, Guildford, &c. The late Gothic Bourse at Antwerp is an early example of the cloistered, or covered courts, which, at the end of the fifteenth century, began to be built for the convenience of the merchants assembling at a certain hour to transact business. The covered bridge of the Rialto was used as the Exchange at Venice.

None of our towns have the same relative importance which belonged to them in the Middle Ages. In the latter part of the period of which we write it was very usual for the county families to have town-houses in the county town, or some other good neighbouring town, and there they came to live in the winter months. When the fashion began we hardly know. Some of the fine old timber houses remaining in Shrewsbury are said to have been built by Shropshire families for their town-houses. The gentry did not in those times go to London for "the season." The great nobility only used to go to court, which was held three times a year; then parliament sat, the king's courts of law were open, and the business of the nation was transacted. They had houses at the capital for their convenience on these occasions, which were called inns, as Lincoln's Inn, &c. But it is only from a very recent period, since increased facilities of locomotion made it practicable, that it has been the fashion for all people in a certain class of society to spend "the season" in London. As a consequence the country gentry no longer have houses in the provincial towns; even the better classes of those whose occupation lies in them live in their suburbs, and the towns are rapidly changing their character, physically, socially, and morally, for the worse. London is becoming rapidly the one great town in England. The great manufacturers have agencies in London; if people are going to furnish a house or to buy a wedding outfit they come up to London; the very artisans and rustics in search of a day's holiday are whirled up to London in an excursion train. While London in consequence is extending so widely as to threaten to convert all England into a mere suburb of the metropolis of the British empire.

INDEX.

Abbesses, costume of, 57

Abbey, infirmary of, 61

Abbey-church, internal arrangement of, 75

Abbot, duties of, 55;
his habit, 57

Abbot-bishop, 5

Abbot's lodgings, 55, 84

Alien Priories, 34

Ampulla, the Canterbury, 171-73

Anchorages, 132

Anchoresses, bequests to, 129;
Judith the foundress and patroness of the order of, 120;
sketch of, 146

Anchorholds, 130, 134, 138

Anchorites, bequests to, 125-27;
rule for, 121;
their mode of life, 121

Angel minstrels, 286-88

Anglo-Saxons, St. Augustine the Apostle of the, 6

Arbalesters, the Genoese famous as, 441

Archers, 438;
corps of enrolled as body guards by Edward III. and French kings, 412;
importance of in battle, 440;
mounted corps of, _ib._;
Norman, equipment of at time of Conquest, 438;
skill of English, 440

Archery, practice of by commonality of England protected and encouraged
by legislation, 445, 446

Armorial bearings, date of invention of, 331

Armour, details of a suit of thirteenth century, 333;
differences in suits of mediæval, 398, 399;
little worn in the reigns of Elizabeth and James I., 458;
many modifications of in fifteenth century, 452;
of King Henry VIII.'s reign, 453;
of the fourteenth century, 338 _et seq._;
of the fifteenth century, 394 _et seq._;
various kinds of early, 329, 330, 335, 336

Arquebusier, 458

Artillery, ancient, 446;
date of first appearance in field disputed, 447;
first evidence as to the existence of, 440, 447

Augustinians, order of the, 18

Austin friars, order of, 44, 94

Banker, the mediæval, 407

Bard, anecdotes concerning the, 271-73;
the father of the minstrels of mediæval Europe, 270

Basilican Institution, introduction of into Africa by St. Augustine, 4;
into France by St. Martin of Tours, _ib._;
into Ireland by St. Patrick, _ib._;
into Syria by Hilarion, _ib._

Battering-ram, 385, 450, 451

Bede houses, 24

Benedictine monks, habit of, 1-7;
orders, 17

Benefices, abuses in connection with, 200

Bonhommes, the, 21

Brigittines (female Order of Our Saviour), 21

Britain, exports of when a Roman province, 463

British Church, early history of the, 4
coinage, date of fast, 463
commerce, the beginnings of, 461

Camaldoli, order of, 17

Canons, Secular, cathedral establishments of, 196;
their costume, 197, 198

Canterbury pilgrimage, chief sign of the, its origin and meaning, 170
_et seq._

Carmelite friars, order of, 43

Carthusian order, founded by St. Bruno, 15;
Charterhouse (Chartreux) principal house of in England, 15

Carthusians, Cistercians, Clugniacs, and the orders of Camaldoli and
Vallambrosa and Grandmont, history of the successive rise of the,
10

Castle, mode of assaulting a, 381;
various methods of attacking a, 392

Castles, counter-mines used by defenders of mediæval, 387;
Greek fire and stinkpots employed in repelling assailants of, 392;
mines used for effecting breaches in walls of, 385;
places of hospitality as well as of trials of arms, 358

Cells, monastic, 89

Chantry chapels, bequests to, 140
priests, 136, 204, 206

Chapels, private, curious internal arrangement of, 211;
establishments of, 208-10

Chaplains, domestic, 208, 210, 212

Christendom, coenobitical orders of, 93

Church of England, date of present organization of, 195

Cinque Ports, 480;
ships of the, frequently at war with those of other ports of the
kingdom, 483

Cistercian order, founded by Robert de Thierry, 16;
introduced into England A.D. 1128, _ib._;
St. Bernard of Clairvaux the great saint of the, 17

Clairvaux, external aspect and internal life of, 12;
founded by St. Bernard, 11

Clergy, comparison between mediæval seculars and modern, 224, 225;
extracts from injunctions of John, Archbishop of Canterbury, on robes
of the, 242, 243, 250, 251;
form of degradation for heresy, 214, 215;
friars a popular order of, 223;
parochial, cause of change in condition of the, 193;
rivalry between friars and secular, 223;
secular, 214;
stories illustrating deference of for squire in olden days, 225, 226;
wills of the, 248, 249

Clerical costume of archbishop, 234-236;
of bishop, 235;
of cardinal, 234;
of minor orders, 214, 215;
of pope, 232, 233

_Clericus_, meaning of the word, 215

Clugniac, order of, 14

Coffin-stones, mediæval, curious symbols on, 193

Combat, a mediæval, 375, 376

Commerce, checked by the Conquest, 468;
discovery of sea-passage to India opens up to a career of adventure,
485;
earliest extant document bearing on Saxon, 464;
of England greatly increased during reign of Edward the Confessor, 467;
receives much attention from Government during fourteenth century, 470;
recovers and surpasses its ancient prosperity in reign of Henry II.,
469;
the pioneers of, 485

Compostella pilgrimage, legend in connection with badge of the, 169;
offerings made by pilgrims on return from, 190

Convent, the, officials of:
abbot, 55;
almoner, 62;
artificers and servants, 65;
cellarer, 60;
chantor, _ib._;
chaplains, 65;
cloister monks, 64;
hospitaller, 61;
infirmarer, 62;
kitchener, 63;
master of the novices, 62;
novices, 65;
porter, 62;
precentor, 58;
prior, 58;
Professed Brethren, 65;
sacrist, 61;
seneschal, 63;
subprior, 60;
succentor, _ib._

Council of Hertford, 195;
differences affecting parochial clergy reconciled at, _ib._

Council of Lyons, suppression of minor mendicant orders by, 44;
red hat of cardinal first given by Innocent VI. at, 234

Counting-board, the, 501

Cross-bow, not used in war till close of twelfth century, 440;
various forms of, _ib._

Croyland, monastery of, 87

Crusades, objects for which they were organised, 159

Crutched friars, order of, 44

Deaconesses, order of, 152

De Poenetentia friars, order of, 44

Dominican friar, Chaucer's, 46
friars, order of, 40

Dunstan, Archbishop, reduces all Saxon monasteries to rule of St.
Benedict, 7

Education, monasteries famous places of, 66

Edwardian period, armour and arms of the, 347

Egyptian Desert, hermits of the, 148

Eremeti Augustini, order of, 94, 96;
their habit, 96

Eremetical life, curious illustration of, 2

Fairs, sole power of granting right to hold exercised by king, 503;
great, 506

Feudal system, introduction of into England by William the Conqueror,
326;
points of difference between Continental and English, 327

Fontevraud, nuns of, 21

Franciscan friars, order of, 40;
the several branches of, 43
nuns, habit of the, 43

Free towns, mediæval, 530;
Hull an example of one of the, _ib._;
manner of laying out, 531-38

Friars, orders of:
Austin, 44;
Carmelites, 43;
Crutched, 44;
de Poenetentia, 44;
Dominicans, 40;
Franciscans, 40
Chaucer's type of a certain class of, 39;
convents of, _ib._;
pictures of ancient customs and manners of, 45;
the principle which inspired them, 36

Gilbertines, founded by Gilbert of Sempringham, 21

Godrie of Finchale, 116

Grandmontines, order of, 17

Greek Church, costume of monks and nuns in the, 4;
rule of St. Basil followed by all monasteries of, _ib._
fire, 449;
used in the Crusades, _ib._

Grimlac, rule of, 120, 121

Guesten-halls, 86, 87

Guild priests, 205;
bequests to, 206;
duties of, _ib._

Guilds of minstrels, 298;
laws regulating them, 299, 300

Hampton Court, shipping of time of Henry VIII. illustrated at, 484

Harper, the mediæval, 271 _et seq._

Henry VIII.'s army, 455;
account of its taking the field, 456;
description of the king's camp, 458

Heresy, form of degradation for, 214, 215

Hermit, a modern, 119;
form of vow made by mediæval, 98;
popular idea of a, 95;
service for habiting and blessing a, 99;
superstition with regard to a, 100;
typical pictures of a, 117-19

Hermitages, localities of, 101;
descriptions of, 111-17

Hermit-saints, traditional histories of the early, 95 n.;
their costume, 98

Hermits, curious history relating to, 104

Holy Land, early pilgrims to the, 158;
pilgrim entitled to wear palm on accomplishment of pilgrimage to, 167;
special sign worn by pilgrims to, _ib._

"Holy Reliques," an account of, 185-87

Horses, equipment of in fifteenth century, 404;
trappings of at tournaments, 433

Hospitals of the Middle Ages, 23, 24;
foreign examples of, 25

Hospitium, contrast between the Cloister and the, 87;
resorted to by travellers, 529

Houses, description of, given by mediæval traders to various churches
and monasteries, 519

Impropriation, evil of, 199

Iona, monastic institution at, 6

Inventories, clerical, 261, 262;
of church furniture, 285

"Isles of Tin," 461

Jewellery, portable, Saxon goldsmiths famous for, 464

Jousting, 348, 349, 365, 411, 415

Judicial combats, anecdotes illustrative of, 419;
various authorities on the subject of, _ib._

Kelvedon Parsonage, 261, 263, 265

Knight, manner of bringing up a, 406;
Chaucer's portrait of a, 409, 410

Knight-errant, armour and costume of a royal, 349, 350;
graphic account of incidents in single combat of a, 373-75;
squire of a, 352

Knight-errantry, romances of, 354 _et seq._

Knighthood, won by deeds of arms in the field and in the lists, 409

Knight Hospitaller, a, 31

Knights of Malta, 33
of St. John of Jerusalem, order of, 29-32
of the Temple, order of, 26, 29, 159

Knights, noblemen and eldest sons of landed gentry made, 408;
ceremony of making essentially a religious one, 409;
equipment of reached its strangest form in reigns of Richard III. and
Henry VII. 452

Knights-errant, 369 _et seq._

Knights of the Middle Ages, armour, arms, and costume of the, 311 _et
seq._;
scarcity of authorities for costume and manners of the, 329;
quaint and poetic phrases in romances of the, 367, 368

Laura, the, 3;
original arrangement of the hermits in their, 107

Lindisfarne, monastic institution at, 6

Long-bow, the national arm of the English, 441;
attains climax of its reputation during fourteenth century, 441

London, burgesses of at battle of Hastings, 467;
date of its becoming chief emporium of Britain, 463;
importance of its citizens previous to Conquest, 467;
interesting account of mediæval, 469;
"mysteries," or trades of, 508;
regulations as to dress of merchants, citizens, and burgesses of the
city of, 525

Lord-monks, 223

Marseilles, as a Greek colony, the chief emporium of the world, 462

Mediæval dance, a, 281, 282
England, inns of and their signs, 540-44;
picturesque aspect of, 489-92;
population of, 503;
town-halls of, 545;
town houses of county families of, _ib._
life and characters, sketches of, from an artist's point of view, 1
shops, descriptions of, 509, 510
towns, 529;
best specimens of to be found in Normandy and Germany, 535;
Conway a perfect example of one of the, 534;
gradual growth of, 529;
houses of, 534, 535;
inhabitants of, 533;
mode of lodging of population of, _ib._;
numerous on the Continent from eleventh to fourteenth centuries, 530;
picturesque views of streets and shops of, 537-40;
some built for specific purposes, 529
trade, 503 _et seq._

Merchant, mediæval, an account of his occupation and way of life, 465,
466;
curious epitaph on a brass relating to a, 525;
effigy of a at Northleach, 523

Merchant guilds, 489
navy, the, 475
ships, early, 470, 471;
king at liberty to impress, 481, 482

Merchants, commerce of England, during thirteenth century, carried on by
foreign, 470;
details of dresses worn by mediæval, 521;
early English, 465;
law conferring rank on, 465;
munificence of the mediæval, 495;
private naval wars carried on between, 482, 483;
provision in charter of King John as to, 469;
social position of the mediæval, 487, 488;
various classes of distinguished by costume, 487

Middle Ages, armour of the, 329-36;
archers of England famous during the, 439;
combats of the, 411;
consecrated widows of the, 152;
costume of tradespeople of the, 519;
description of the combat between King Arthur and a knight of the,
365, 366;
drill and tactics of the soldiers of the, 377-79;
engines of war of the, 382, 383;
habitations of secular clergy in the, 252-54;
harper the most dignified of the minstrel craft throughout the, 271;
hermits and recluses of the, 93 _et seq._;
hospitals of the, 23-25;
hospitium of a monastery in the, 87;
houses of the, 519, 520;
itinerant traders of the, 513, 517;
manner of bringing up a youth of good family in the, 406;
merchant navy of the, 475;
merchant princes of the, 493, 494;
merchants of the, 461 _et seq._;
minstrels part of regular establishment of nobles and gentry of the,
275;
monks of the, 1 _et seq._;
primitive mode of life of rural English population of the, 513;
ships of the, 470-71;
sketch of life led by a country parson in the, 262, 263;
sumptuary laws regulating dress of merchants of the, 525;
system of Pluralities in the, 200

Military engines, 382 _et seq._
exercises and encounters, 410 _et seq._
orders:
Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, 29;
Knights of the Temple, 26;
Our Lady of Mercy, 32;
Teutonic Knights, _ib._;
Trinitarians, 32-34

Minstrels, mediæval, assist in musical part of divine service, 285;
costume of, 304-309;
curious anecdotes concerning, 294, 295;
duties of, 275 _et seq._;
female, 302, 303;
incorporated in a guild, 297;
marriage processions attended by, 282, 283;
often men of position and worth, 294, 295;
part of regular establishment of nobles and gentry, 275-77;
patronised by the clergy, 288;
singular ordinance relating to, 296;
tournaments enlivened by the strains of, 291, 292;
welcome guests at the religious houses, 289, 290

"Minstrels unattached," 293, 294

Miracle-plays, parish clerks took an important part in, 220;
survival of in Spain, 221

Minstrelsy, in high repute among the Normans, 274;
Grostête of Lincoln a great patron of, 288;
Israelitish compared with music of mediæval England, 267

Mitre, earliest form of the, 236;
transition shape of the from twelfth century, _ib._

Monachism, origin of, 1-5

Monasteries, Benedictine, 9;
British, 5;
Saxon, 7;
suppression of, 52

Monastery, arrangement of a Carthusian, 71;
description of a, 72 _et seq._;
graphic sketch of the arrival of guests at a, 87

Monastic orders, traditionary histories of the founders and saints of,
1 _et seq._;
their suppression in England, 52

Monk, cell of a Carthusian, 123;
pilgrim, 188

Monks, abodes of, 70;
lord, 223

Monumental brasses, 19, 57, 276, 494, 495, 497, 521, 527;
_minutiæ_ of costume of middle ages supplied from, 521;
peculiar features in, 526

Movable tower, a, 387

Music, sketch of the earliest history of, 267-70

Musical instruments, date of invention of, 267;
occasions when used, _ib._;
names of, _ib._ _et seq._;
used in the colleges of the prophets, 269;
Saxon, 273;
learned essays on mediæval, 274;
used in celebration of divine worship, 285;
forms of, 309, 310

Order for the Redemption of Captives, 33, 34;
their habit, 34;
their rules, _ib._

Ostiary, costume of an, 215 n.

Our Lady of Mercy, order of, 32

Our Lady of Walsingham, shrine of, 180, 181;
a relic from, _ib._

Pachomius, written code of laws by, 4

Palmers, 189, 190;
graves of three holy, 193

Parish clerk, frequently the recipient of a legacy, 217;
his duties, 218, 220;
office of an ancient, _ib._;
worth of his office, 220
priests, early handbooks for, 227;
instructions for, 162 n.;
points of difference between monks and friars and the, 222

Parochial clergy, 195, 196;
domestic economy of the early, 263-65;
organization of the established by Archbishop of Canterbury, 195

Parsonage houses, early, 254 _et seq._;
description of, 259;
furniture of, 261, 262

Pastoral staff, earliest examples of the, 237

Pedlars, their mode of dealing in mediæval times, 513, 515, 517

Pilgrim, an equestrian, 168;
the female, 188;
the penitential, 178

Pilgrimage, chief sign of the Canterbury, 170;
chief signs of the Roman, 168;
Holy Land first object of, 175;
mendicant, 176;
palmers, on return from, received with ecclesiastical processions, 189;
practice to return thanks on returning from, 189;
relics of, 191, 192;
saying of Jerome as to, 157;
special roads to the great shrines of, 178;
sign of the Compostella, 169;
usual places for, 159

Pilgrimages, a pleasant religious holiday, 176;
gathering cry of, 178;
popular English, 161, 162

Pilgrims, 159, 160;
costume of, 164, 177;
description of staff and scrip of, 164-66;
graphic sketch of a company of passing through a town, 179;
insignia of, 164, 192, 193;
office of, 162-64;
special signs of, 167;
singers and musicians employed by, 179;
vow made by, 164

Pioneers of commerce, the, 485

Piracy, prevalence of in mediæval times, 483, 484

Plate armour, first introduction of, 336

"Pleasure fairs," 507

Priest-hermits, costume of, 97

Priesthood, curious history of way in which many poor men's sons
attained to the, 201

Prior, functions of, 59

Prioress, Chaucer's description of a, 58

Recluse, service for enclosing a, 148, 150

Recluses, bequests to, 128, 129;
canons concerning, 121;
cells of female, 142;
curious details of the life of, 130;
dress of female, 97;
giving of alms to, 123;
hermitages for female, 130, 131;
popular idea as to the life of, 121;
sketch of, 146-48

Reclusorium, the, 124, 125, 132

Rectors, Saxon, 198, 199

Reformed Benedictine orders, 17

Regular Canons, Premonstratensian branch of, founded by St. Norbert, 21

Rettenden, reclusorium at, 135, 137

Richard of Hampole, life of, 107-10

Rome, pilgrimage to, 168;
number of pilgrims visiting, 168;
description of relics at, 182, 183 n.

Sacred music, 284

Salby abbey, staff of servants at, 66

Saxon soldiers, costume of, 312-18, 322-24;
ornaments of, 324, 325;
romantic fancies in connection with swords of, 320;
weapons used by, 316, 318, 319, 321

Saxons, the, a musical people, 272;
a pastoral rather than an agricultural race, 466;
corn not exported by the, _ib._;
famous throughout Europe for goldsmiths' work and embroidery, _ib._;
rage among the for foreign pilgrimages, 464;
traffic in slaves considerable during time of the, 466

Scottish Archers of the Guard, enrolment of the, 442

Secular clergy, comparison between costume of and that of mediæval
merchants, 528;
costume of the, 232 _et seq._

Shrines, pictures of, 187

Siege, interesting points in a mediæval, 442

Solitaries, mediæval, 94;
curious incident relating to two, 105

Spenser's description of a typical hermit and hermitage, 118, 119

Squires, duties of, 352

St. Anthony, coenobite system attributed to, 4;
monks of, _ib._

St. Augustine, Canons Secular of, 18;
their costume, _ib._;
Canons Regular of, 20;
Chaucer's pen-and-ink sketch of one of the order, 19

St. Basil, abuse of great church festivals mentioned by, 513;
introduction of Monachism into Asia Minor by, 4;
rule of, _ib._

St. Benedict, his rule, 6, 7;
Archbishop Dunstan reduces all Saxon monasteries to rule of, 7

St. Clare, foundress of the female order of Franciscans, 43

St. Edmund's Bury, abbey of, 65

St. Francis, character of, 37

St. Jean-les-Bons-hommes, priory of, 89

St. John the Hermit, 148

St. Mary, Winchester, abbey of, 66

Sumptuary laws, 525;
civil costume regulated by, 527, 528

Teutonic Knights, order of, 32

Tilting-ground, remains of, to be seen at Carisbrook Castle, 359

Timber fort, 444;
used by William the Conqueror, 391

Tournament, 412;
a miniature, 415;
an historical example of the, 429, 430;
description of encounter between French and English knights at a, 432;
directions for the, 415-17;
form of challenge for a, 431;
form of proclamation inviting to a, 412, 413;
habiliments required by knights at a, _ib._;
incidents relating to a, 424, 430;
manner of arranging a, 423;
mode of arming knights for the, 413;
pictures illustrating various scenes of the, 432, 433;
prizes of the, 427;
the _joute à outrance_, 412;
the _joute à plaisance_, _ib._;
weapons used at a, 415

Tournaments, feasting and merriment usual at, 424;
the mediæval romances safe authorities on all relating to the subject
of, 423;
unusual deeds performed at, 426, 427

Town-halls, architectural beauty of continental, 544;
date of earliest English, 545

Towns, provincial, market-days in mediæval, 511, 572;
specimens of various in time of Edward III., 508-10

Traveller, religious houses chiefly the resting-places of the, 103, 490

Trinitarians, order of, 32-34

Vallombrosa, order of, 17

Vestments, mediæval official, description of, 237-241;
abandoned at time of Reformation, 250

Wager of Battle, account of a mediæval, 420-22

Walter of Hamuntesham, beating of by rabble, 64

War-ships, cannon of both iron and brass employed on board English, A.D.
1338, 447;
costume of sailors and soldiers of mediæval, 477;
description of early, 475 _et seq._;
list of English, A.D. 1205, and where stationed, 481

Waverley, Cistercian abbey of, 65

Westminster Abbey, grants made by Henry VIII. to, 79

Whale fishing, early, 474

Widowhood, description of a lady who took the vows of, 155, 156

Widows, order of, 152;
dress worn by, 156;
profession or vow of, 154;
service for consecration of, 152, 153

William of Swynderby, 140

Wills, inventories attached to ancient, 211, 212 n.

Wool merchants, costume of mediæval, 523, 525

THE END.

THE RIVERSIDE PRESS LIMITED, EDINBURGH

FOOTNOTES:

[1] We cannot put down all these supernatural tales as fables or impostures; similar tales abound in the lives of the religious people of the Middle Ages, and they are not unknown in modern days: _e.g._, Luther's conflict with Satan in the Wartzburg, and Colonel Gardiner's vision of the Saviour. Which of them (if any) are to be considered true supernatural visions, which may be put down as the natural results of spiritual excitement on the imagination, which are mere baseless legends, he would be a very self-confident critic who professed in all cases to decide.

[2] Besides consulting the standard authorities on the archæology of the subject, the student will do well to read Mr. Kingsley's charming book, "The Hermits of the Desert."

[3] Strutt's "Dress and Habits of the People of England."

[4] This is the computation of Tanner in his "Notitia Monastica;" but the editors of the last edition of Dugdale's "Monasticon," adding the smaller houses or cells, swell the number of Benedictine establishments in England to a total of two hundred and fifty-seven.

[5] If a child was to be received his hand was wrapped in the hanging of the altar, "and then," says the rule of St. Benedict, "let them offer him." The words are "Si quas forte de nobilibus offert filium suum Deo in monasterio, si ipse puer minore ætate est, parentes ejus faciant petitionem et manum pueri involvant in pallu altaris, et sic eum offerunt" (c. 59). The Abbot Herman tells us that in the year 1055 his mother took him and his brothers to the monastery of which he was afterwards abbot. "She went to St. Martin's (at Tournay), and delivered over her sons to God, placing the little one in his cradle upon the altar, amidst the tears of many bystanders" (Maitland's "Dark Ages," p. 78). The precedents for such a dedication of an infant to an ascetic life are, of course, the case of Samuel dedicated by his mother from infancy, and of Samson and John Baptist, who were directed by God to be consecrated as Nazarites from birth. A law was made prohibiting the dedication of children at an earlier age than fourteen. At f. 209 of the MS. Nero D. vii., is a picture of St. Benedict, to whom a boy in monk's habit is holding a book, and he is reading or preaching to a group of monks.

[6] Engraved in Boutell's "Monumental Brasses."

[7] Probably this means that he had "clocks"--little bell-shaped ornaments--sewn to the lower margin of his tippet or hood.

[8] Mrs. Jameson, "Legends of the Monastic Orders," p. 137.

[9] Viollet le Duc's "Dictionary of Architecture," vol. vi. p. 104.

[10] Ibid. vi. 107.

[11] Ibid. vi. 112.

[12] Ibid. vi. 112.

[13] All its houses were called Temples, as all the Carthusian houses were called Chartereux (corrupted in England into Charterhouse).

[14] Of the four round churches in England, popularly supposed to have been built by the Templars, the Temple Church in London was built by them; that of Maplestead, in Essex, by the Hospitallers; that of Northampton by Simon de St. Liz, first Norman Earl of Northampton, twice a pilgrim to the Holy Land; and that of Cambridge by some unknown individual.

[15] The order was divided into nations--the English knights, the French knights, &c.--each nation having a separate house, situated at different points of the island, for its defence. These houses, large and fine buildings, still remain, and many unedited records of the order are said to be still preserved on the island.

[16] An order, called our Lady of Mercy, was founded in Spain in 1258, by Peter Nolasco, for a similar object, including in its scope not only Christian captives to the infidel, but also all slaves, captives, and prisoners for debt.

[17] Afternoons and mornings.

[18] As an indication of their zeal in the pursuit of science it is only necessary to mention the names of Friar Roger Bacon, the Franciscan, and Friar Albert-le-Grand (Albertus Magnus), the Dominican. The Arts were cultivated with equal zeal--some of the finest paintings in the world were executed for the friars, and their own orders produced artists of the highest excellence. Fra Giacopo da Turrita, a celebrated artist in mosaic of the thirteenth century, was a Franciscan, as was Fra Antonio da Negroponti, the painter; Fra Fillippo Lippi, the painter, was a Carmelite; Fra Bartolomeo, and Fra Angelico da Fiesole--than whom no man ever conceived more heavenly visions of spiritual loveliness and purity--were Dominicans.

[19]

"By his (_i.e._ Satan's) queyntise they comen in,
The curates to helpen,
But that harmed hem hard
And help them ful littel."--_Piers Ploughman's Creed._

[20] The extract from Chaucer on p. 46, lines 4, 5, 6, seem to indicate that an individual friar sometimes "farmed" the alms of a district, paying the convent a stipulated sum, and taking the surplus for himself.

[21] In France, Jacobins.

[22] Wives of burgesses.

[23] Stuffed.

[24] Musical instrument so called.

[25] Piers Ploughman (creed 3, line 434), describing a burly Dominican friar, describes his cloak or cope in the same terms, and describes the under gown, or kirtle, also:--

"His cope that beclypped him
Wel clean was it folden,
Of double worsted y-dyght
Down to the heel.
His kirtle of clean white,
Cleanly y-served,
It was good enough ground
Grain for to beren."

[26] A limitour, as has been explained above, was a friar whose functions were limited to a certain district of country; a lister might exercise his office wherever he listed.

[27] Thirty masses for the repose of a deceased person.

[28] Viz., in convents of friars, not in monasteries of monks and by the secular clergy.

[29] He was forbidden to say more.

[30] A convent of friars used to undertake masses for the dead, and each friar saying one the whole number of masses was speedily completed, whereas a single priest saying his one mass a day would be very long completing the number, and meantime the souls were supposed to be in torment.

[31] The usual way of concluding a sermon, in those days as in these, was with an ascription of praise, "Who with the Father," &c.

[32] Cake.

[33] Choose.

[34] Slip or piece.

[35] Hired man.

[36] Trifles.

[37] Requite.

[38] Staff.

[39] Closely.

[40] Part.

[41] Forbidden.

[42] Would not.

[43] The good man also said he had not seen the friar "this fourteen nights:"--Did a limitour go round once a fortnight?

[44] The dormitory of the convent.

[45] Infirmarer.

[46] Aged monks and friars lived in the Infirmary, and had certain privileges.

[47] Wert thou not.