Chapter V: Part 5

Let us imagine a by-no-means uncommon event in the years just after the Black Death. A husbandman is working for his master as a free labourer and small cottager. His father before him had also been a free labourer, but his grandfather had in his youth been a serf of the lord of a neighbouring manor. This grandfather of his, because the serfs had increased beyond their lord’s requirements, had been allowed with others to go free; and taking advantage of his freedom he had sought and obtained work as a free labourer under a new master. But now, after the Black Death, labourers are scarce; and the present lord of the manor is causing to be looked up all the descendants of those serfs whom his ancestor had set free. Thus the lord’s bailiff has been making enquiries about our freeman, and has sent two servants to arrest him and take him back to the serfdom that his grandfather had once suffered.

But our freeman is a man of spirit, and will not be taken without resistance. Knives are drawn, and he defends himself. In the scuffle one of his assailants stumbles and falls, and unluckily for himself and for our freeman, he happens to fall upon his own weapon, which pierces his body and so causes his death. His comrade, chicken-hearted, fears to continue the struggle alone, and makes off to the village for help.

What is our freeman to do? If he remains where he is and allows himself to be taken, not only will he be claimed as a serf by the lord of the neighbouring manor, but he will also be charged with causing the death of the lord’s servant.

Little chance is there of his proving himself innocent of his assailant’s death; for the dead man’s companion will not fail to swear that the death-blow was struck by him. In any case he will be thrown into the town jail for an indefinite length of time, perhaps not to come out alive, or to come out maimed for life. Were not three prisoners, two men and a woman, thrown into the jail last year on suspicion of having been concerned in a murder, and were they not kept there till one of the men died, the other lost a foot, and the woman lost both feet, from disease produced by the foul condition of the cell into which they were cast?

So thinks our freeman to himself. It is little comfort to him to remember that when the two prisoners who remained alive were eventually tried, they were found ‘not guilty’ of the charge laid against them, and were told by the justices that they could depart.

* * * * *

What can our freeman do? In a short while the lord of the manor’s other servant will come up with help against him, and he must then be overpowered. He can only flee. But whither? In the distance he can just distinguish the outline of the great church of St. John of Beverley. If he can only reach that church and knock on the small door that holds the sanctuary knocker he will be safe.

_Photo by_] Sanctuary Cross at Bishop Burton. [_C. W. Mason_

]

So off he sets on a six-mile run, with life before him and death behind. He has a good start over his pursuers, whom he can just make out half-a-mile or so away, but will he be able to hold out till he reaches the goal set before him? Nearer and nearer becomes the church, and although his pursuers are gaining on him, yet his heart is cheered by the sight of the boundary cross which tells him he has little more than a mile now to run, and which in itself gives him a certain amount of protection. For should he now be taken, he is under the protection of St. John, and his pursuers will lay hands on him at the risk of a fine of eight pounds payable to the Church.

Spurred on by fresh hope he reaches his goal, and has just sufficient strength to clang the knocker before he falls heavily against the heavy door. ‘Oh that the door may be opened quickly!’ His prayer is answered; for a watching priest has seen the pursuit. He draws back the bolt, drags in the senseless form, and clangs to the door again just as the pursuers reach it.

For a space of thirty days our freeman will now be safe, and during these thirty days he will be fed and lodged by the canons of the Minster. But first he will be required, with his hand placed on the great written copy of the Bible possessed by the Minster, to take an oath read out to him by the Coroner in the following words:—

‘Sir, take hede on your oth—

Ye shalbe trew and feythfull to my Lord Archbisshop of York, Lord
off this towne....

Also ye shall bere gude hert to the Baillie and xij governars of
this town....

Also ye shall bere no poynted wepen, dagger, knyfe, ne none other
wapen, ayenst the Kynges pece.

Also ye shalbe redy at all your power, if ther be any debate or
stryf, or oder sothan case of fyre within the towne, to help to
surcess it.

Also ye shalbe redy at the obite[35] of Kyng Adelstan ... at the
warnyng of the belman of the towne, and doe your dewte in
ryngyng....’

Footnote 35:

A service held in memory of the death of a benefactor.

Then having taken the oath he will be required to ‘kysse the book.’

But in the eyes of the law our freeman is a felon—a man over whose head there hangs a charge of murder, and who will have little chance of proving his innocence of this charge. He must avail himself of the law established of old and confirmed by King Edward II.—

Let the felon be brought to the church door, and there be assigned
unto him a port, near or far off, and a time appointed to him to go
out of the realm, so that in going towards that port he carry a
cross in his hand, and that he go not out of the King’s highway,
neither on the right hand nor on the left, but that he keep it
always until he shall be gone out of the land; and that he shall not
return without special grace of our lord the King.

Such were the rights of sanctuary possessed by the Minster at Beverley. For the space of a mile around the church in every direction the peace of St. John extended, and within this circle—the boundaries of which were marked by the erection of a ‘sanctuary cross’ on each of the roads entering Beverley—partial safety was assured to all fugitives. But the nearer a fugitive got to the high altar of the Minster the safer he became. Seated in the _Frith-Stool_ that stood by the side of the altar he was absolutely safe; for none—not even the King himself—dare violate its sacred peace.

The Beverley frith-stool now stands in the chancel near the north-east transept. A plain, massive seat of stone it is, so massive and so simple in design that its age seems greater than that of the Minster itself. Possibly it dates back to the days of the Saxon King Aethelstan. It was once engraved, we know, with a Latin inscription, the translation of which ran thus:

This stone seat is called FREEDSTOLL, that is, chair of peace, on
reaching which a fugitive criminal enjoys complete safety.

A frith-stool very similar to the Beverley one exists at Hexham Abbey in Northumberland, and in the village church of Halsham in our East Riding there is what is thought to be another. Here, however, the ‘chair of peace’ is built into the wall of the chancel between the sedilia and the priests’ door. No other examples are known in Yorkshire.

Of sanctuary knockers still existing the finest is the Norman one on the north door of Durham Cathedral, but nearer home there is a good example on a door of All Saints’ Church at York. That which once existed, and which was so freely used, on a door of Beverley Minster has long ago disappeared, nor is there any known example in the East Riding.

_Photo by_] [_W. Watson_

Sanctuary Knocker on a Door of All Saints’ Church, York.

]

As an instance of the protection afforded to the people by the existence of this right of sanctuary, and of the power of the Church over the minds of even such Kings as William the Conqueror, may be given the story told by Alured,[36] a priest of the Minster of St. John in the reign of William’s son, Henry I.:—

At the time when William was engaged on his ‘Wasting of the North’
he had once pitched his camp seven miles from Beverley, and had
caused all the people of the district to flee to the church for
protection. Certain soldiers coming up intent on plunder made their
way to the church, and their leader, Toustain by name, did not
hesitate to spur his horse within its open door. But the vengeance
of St. John came down upon him for his impious deed, his horse
stumbled on the threshold, and Toustain fell with broken neck.
Moreover, when his men picked him up, his head was found to be
twisted towards his back, and his feet and hands were distorted like
those of a mis-shapen monster. Fear came upon all the Norman
soldiers, and when William was informed of the miracle that had
happened, fear came also upon him; so that he confirmed all the
privileges of the church, gave it a grant of lands at Sigglesthorne,
and decreed that the lands of the blessed Saint John should be
everywhere spared from the ‘Wasting.’

Footnote 36:

An old spelling of ‘Alfred.’

In affording protection to the innocent, the injured, and the oppressed, the Church was carrying on a good work. But we must remember that the same protection was afforded to those actually guilty of all possible crimes. The registers kept at Beverley show that during a space of sixty years in the reigns of King Edward IV., Richard III., Henry VII. and Henry VIII., those who claimed the right of sanctuary included:—

186 who were charged with murder,
54 ” ” ” ” felony,
1 ” was ” ” horse-stealing,
1 ” ” ” ” treason,
1 who was charged with receiving stolen goods,
7 ” were ” ” coining,
208 ” ” ” ” debt,
35 ” ” ” ” other crimes.
—--
493 who were charged with various offences.

In the Beverley registers there are 469 entries, of which all but a few are written in Latin. One of the English entries will give an idea of the kind of record kept:—

John Spret, Gentilman.

Memorandum, that John Spret, of Barton upon Umber, in the Counte of
Lyncoln, gentilman, com to Beverlay, the ferst day of October, the
vij yer of the reen of Keing Herry the vij, and asked the lybertes
of Saint John of Beverlay, for the dethe of John Welton, husbondman,
of the same town, and knawleg[37] hymselff to be at the kyllyng of
the saym John with a dagarth,[38] the xv day of August.

Footnote 37:

Acknowledged.

Footnote 38:

Dagger.

It is evident from these 469 entries that the Beverley Sanctuary must have been of special repute. For the criminals who asked the liberties of Saint John of Beverley came from parts of Britain as wide apart as Lowestoft, Honiton, Haverfordwest, Anglesey, and Durham. No fewer than thirty came from London, Beverley itself provided five, _Preston in Holdernes_ three, and _Kyngestone super Hull_ ten; while others came from _Heydon_, _Hezell_, _Hoton Cransewik_, _Hogett super le Wolde_, _Otteryngham_, _Wetherwyk_, and fifty other towns and villages in the East Riding.

All ranks and conditions of life are represented among these entries, from the _armiger_ or knight, and _generosus_ or person of noble birth, down to the common _laborer_. The _goldsmyth_, the _surgyon_, the _grosiar_—an alderman of London—the _yoman_, the _chapman_, the _shepard_, and the _husbondman_ are there. So, sad to relate, is the _capellanus_, or chaplain; and among the tradesmen there are the _berbrower_, _bocher_, _bowyer_, _brykemaker_, _capper_, _coke_, _flecher_,[39] _fysshemonger_, _payntour_, _pewterer_, _plommer_, _pursor_, _pynner_, _saddiler_, _salter_, _syngyngman_, and _tawlowchaunler_.

Footnote 39:

A _flecher_, or _fletcher_, was an arrow-maker.

* * * * *

Under such circumstances as these, it is not wonderful that complaints
of the misuse of sanctuary rights became frequent. In 1324 ten
prisoners escaped from Newgate Jail, of whom five took refuge in one
or other of the London churches, and thence escaped out of the
country. In 1376 Parliament complained to the King that certain people
got money or goods on loan, made pretended gifts of all their property
to their friends, then went into sanctuary, and stayed there till
their creditors were glad to accept some small portion of the debt in
payment for the whole; after which they came out, received back their
pretended gifts, and lived merrily on their ill-gotten wealth. Cases
even occurred in which thieves and murderers left their place of
sanctuary at nightfall, committed fresh crimes during the night, and
returned to the ‘chair of peace’ again before daybreak.

So great did the scandal of this misuse of the privileges afforded by
sanctuaries eventually become, that in 1623 Parliament passed a law
that:

No sanctuarie or priviledge of sanctuary shal be hereafter admitted
or allowed in any case.

The law was again passed in 1697, but it was not until the reign of
George I. that the last sanctuary in our country was demolished.

XVII.
HOW TWO KINGS OF ENGLAND LANDED
AT SPURN.

In the old Norse account of the life of Harold Hardrada it is stated that after the battle of Stamford Bridge Olaf, the King’s son, ‘led the fleet from England, setting sail from _Hrafnseyri_.’ This is the earliest mention that we have of the bank of sand and shingle which is known to-day as Spurn Point, and the name of the place—‘Hrafn’s gravel-bank’—is evidence of both its general appearance and its ownership in the year 1066.

For two centuries after this we have no mention of it, but in the meanwhile there had grown up two settlements to each of which the name Ravenser was attached. _Ald Ravenser_—that is, Old Ravenser—was ‘inland, distant both from the sea and the Humber’; while _Ravenserodd_, or as we should write it, Ravenser Point, lay ‘between the waters of the sea and those of the Humber,’ and was ‘distant from the main land a space of one mile and more.’ Connecting the two was a sandy road ‘covered with round and yellow stones, thrown up in a little time by the height of the floods, having a breadth which an archer can scarcely shoot across, and wonderfully maintained by the tides of the sea on its east side, and the ebb and flow of the Humber on its west side.’

Of the birth of the former of these towns we know nothing, but the birth of the latter was described by one of the jurors in a lawsuit brought in the year 1290 by the men of Grimsby against the men of Ravenserodd. Several years before a ship had stranded on a sand bank, and the wreck had been taken possession of by an enterprising fellow who used it as a store for meat and drink which he sold to sailors and merchants. Then others came to dwell on the sand-bank, and in 1235 or thereabouts the Earl of Albemarl, Lord of Holderness, began there the building of a town.

* * * * *

The growth of this town must have been rapid; for in 1251 the King granted to the Earl of Albemarl the right to hold in Ravenserodd a weekly market and a fair lasting sixteen days. Then trouble began between the men of the town and the men of Grimsby, and the latter complained that

the men of the said town of Ravenserodd go out with their boats into
the high sea, where there are ships carrying merchandise, and
intending to come to Grimsby with their merchandise. The said men
hinder those ships from coming to Grimsby, and lead them to Ravenser
by force when they cannot amicably persuade them to go thither.

So we see that ‘peaceful picketing’ was not altogether unknown in these parts six hundred years ago.

At intervals during the reigns of Edward II. and Edward III. the men of Ravenser were called upon to provide a ship for the King’s wars against Scotland. In each case the ship was to be furnished with from thirty to a hundred of ‘the stoutest and strongest men of the town, with armour, victuals, and other necessaries.’ In 1332, also, an expedition of five hundred men-at-arms and two thousand archers set sail from Ravenser for Scotland, having on board Edward Baliol, Lord Beaumont, Lord de Wake, and others who wished to see Baliol crowned as King of Scotland. Their wishes were fulfilled, for the expedition was successful and Baliol was crowned at Scone.

From about this time the fortunes of Ravenser began to decline. Probably the superior privileges granted by King Edward to his _Kyngstown-svper-Hvll_ provided very largely the cause of the decline. The climax of its misfortunes came with a succession of extremely high tides about the year 1356—tides which ‘sometimes exceeding beyond measure the height of the town, and surrounding it like a wall on every side,’ caused its absolute destruction. In 1400 Ravenserodd was recorded to be ‘altogether consumed,’ while nothing remained of Ald Ravenser but a single manor-house.

* * * * *

Such was the condition of the once prosperous port when in the month of June, 1399, Henry, Duke of Lancaster, and grandson of King Edward the Third, landed on its site with sixty followers. As Henry of Bolingbroke, Earl of Hereford, he had in 1398 been banished by King Richard II. for a term of six years, in order that a duel between him and the Duke of Norfolk might be prevented. As Henry, Duke of Lancaster, he now returned to claim the estates of his father, John of Gaunt, which estates Richard had confiscated on their holder’s death.

When Henry of Lancaster landed at _Ravenserespourne_, he found its sole occupant to be a hermit, by name Matthew Danthorpe. This hermit was engaged in building a chapel on the desolate bank of shingle; and great must have been his surprise when a ship carrying a company of well-armed men bore down upon his hermitage instead of passing up the river, as ships were accustomed to do.

Still greater must his surprise have been when he found that the ship belonged to a royal Duke, and that its arrival was shortly followed by arrivals from inland of the great Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, and the Earl of Westmorland. His surprise was, probably, not unmixed with fear. For he was building his chapel without having obtained a license from the King, and rumours were soon flying about that Henry of Lancaster had come to claim something more than the estates which were his by right of descent.

These flying rumours soon became certainties. Other lords and barons rallied round the standard of Henry, and before long his sixty followers had become as many thousands. At the time of his landing King Richard was in Ireland; and when, after being long delayed by contrary winds, he landed on the coast of Wales, he soon fell into the hands of Henry and was taken a prisoner to the Tower of London. On the 30th of September Henry, addressing the Members of Parliament, spoke as follows:

‘In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, I, Henry of
Lancaster, challenge this realm of England ... as I am descended by
right line of the blood coming from the good lord King Henry the
Third.’

Then Parliament declared the abdication of King Richard the Second and the accession of King Henry the Fourth.

And what meanwhile of the hermit of _Ravenserespourne_? Had Henry forgotten him? On the last day of September Henry was proclaimed King, on the first day of October he signed at Westminster a royal license making known that:

Of our special grace we have pardoned and remitted to the said
Matthew all manner of trespasses and mistakes committed by him in
this matter....

And moreover, of our more abundant grace, we have given and granted
to the said Matthew the aforesaid place, to hold to his successors,
the hermits of the aforesaid place, together with the chapel
aforesaid, when it shall be built and finished, and also the wreck
of the sea, and waifs, and all other profits and commodities
contingent to the sands for two leagues round the same place, for
ever.

The landing of King Henry IV. at Ravenser Spurn was commemorated by the erection of a cross at the place of landing. Was it a grateful Matthew Danthorpe who erected it? Very possibly. At any rate it was erected within fourteen years of Henry’s landing. Many years afterwards it was removed to Kilnsea; later still it was removed to Burton Constable, and finally to Hedon, where it stands to-day in the garden of Holyrood House.

* * * * *

The reign of Henry IV. was followed by that of his son and that of his grandson. Then came in 1471 one of the most curious parallels in history that it is possible to imagine. The ‘Wars of the Roses’ had been discomforting the land for sixteen years. Henry VI. had been deposed in 1461, and Edward IV. had been elected in his place. But in 1470 Henry had once more been placed upon the throne and Edward had fled to Holland. A year later the latter returned, and landed on the same spot where Henry Bolingbroke had landed seventy-two years earlier.

The parallel, however, does not end with his landing. As Henry of Lancaster proclaimed that he had come merely to claim his ancestral lands, so Edward of York proclaimed that he had returned for this same purpose only. As a Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, was the chief supporter of Henry of Lancaster, so a Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, came to the support of Edward of York. And as Henry of Lancaster was fated to depose and put to death King Richard II., so Edward of York was fated to overthrow and cause to be murdered King Henry VI.

It had been Edward’s intention to land on the coast of Norfolk. But finding a landing there impossible because of the guard kept by the Earls of Warwick and Oxford, he had headed his four large and fourteen small ships for the mouth of the Humber. The following is part of the account of his landing given by Ralph Holinshed, a chronicler living in the reign of Queen Elizabeth:—

The same night following, a great storme of winds and weather rose,
sore troubling the seas, and continued till the fourteenth day of
that moneth being thursday, on the which day with greater danger, by
reason of the tempestuous rage and torment of the troubled seas, he
arriued at the head of Humber, where the other ships were scattered
from him, each one seuered from other; so that of necessitie they
were driuen to land in sunder where they best might, for doubt to be
cast awaie in that perillous tempest. The king with the lord
Hastings his chamberleine, and other to the number of fiue hundred
men being in one ship, landed within Humber on Holdernesse side, at
a place called Rauenspurgh, euen in the same place where Henrie erle
of Derbie, after called king Henrie the fourth landed, when he came
to depriue king Richard the second of the crowne, and to vsurpe it
to himselfe.

Richard, duke of Glocester, and three hundred men in his companie,
tooke land in another place foure miles distant from thence, where
his brother king Edward did land. The earle Riuers, and with him two
hundred men, landed at a place called Pole, fourteene miles from the
hauen where the king came on land. The residue of his people landed
some here, some there, in place where for their suerties they
thought best. On the morrow, being the fifteenth of March, now that
the tempest ceased, and euerie man being got to land, they drew from
euerie of their landing places towards the king, who for the first
night was lodged in a poore village, two miles from the place where
he first set foot on land.

_Photo by_] [_C.W. Mason_

Henry of Lancaster’s Cross.
Now in the garden of Holyrood House, Hedon.

]

The landing of Edward IV. at Ravenser Spurn was not entirely to the liking of the men of Holderness. At first he was opposed by forces raised by ‘Syr John Westerdale,’ the vicar of Keyingham, and by a certain Martin atte See, or Martin de la Mare, a descendant of the first inhabitant of Ravenserodd. The vicar of Keyingham was afterwards cast into a London prison for his opposition, but Martin de la Mare was won over to Edward’s side, and was knighted eleven years later.

By his will Sir Martin de la Mare directed that he should be ‘beried in the queere of the parissh churche of Alhalowes in Barneston in Holdernes;’ and on the left-hand side of the chancel in this church there is an altar tomb, with a beautiful alabaster effigy, which until recently was thought to be his. It is, however, now known to be that of another knight who was buried at Barmston some fifty years before the death of Sir Martin de la Mare.

XVIII.
LIFE IN A MEDIÆVAL TOWN.

PRESENT SEAL OF THE
BOROUGH OF HEDON.
]

What sort of life did the townsfolk lead five centuries ago? Suppose the townsfolk of to-day could suddenly be transported back five hundred years, what would be the things likely to strike them as most strange?

One of these would certainly be the way in which the town was cut off, as it were, from the surrounding district. Thus Hedon was cut off by two Havens, one natural, the other artificial, and by another artificial watercourse called the Town Moat. Beverley was entirely surrounded by a similar moat, part of which remains in our own day, and entrance to the town was gained by _Bars_ spanning the roads. Those at Beverley were known respectively as the North Bar, Newbiggyn Bar, Keldgate Bar, Norwood Bar, and South Bar.

_Photo by_] North Bar Without, Beverley. [_C.W. Mason_

]

How early these Bars were built we do not know, but there have recently been discovered the complete accounts for the rebuilding of North Bar in 1409. This is the Bar which exists to-day, and it has, in its five hundred years’ existence, undergone little change, except for the cutting through it of two side-passages for foot traffic. It still has the massive oak folding doors which were shut every night at sunset, and the groove can yet be seen in which the portcullis worked. If you ride on through the Bar to York, you will enter that city by the Walmgate Bar, and above your head as you pass through this you may see the bottom spikes of its still remaining portcullis.

Hull was defended even more strongly than Beverley; for in 1322 the King granted to its townsfolk leave to defend themselves with a wall as well as a moat. A portion of the wall which they built is represented on the old plan of Hull reproduced in part on the opposite page.

This plan shows the town as it was about the year 1380, and makes very clear the difference between a town and a village five centuries ago. On the left bank of the river Hull is the village of _Dripole_, with its church and few scattered houses; on the right bank is the town of _Kyngeston-upon-Hull_, with its churches, houses, and gardens closely packed together within a castellated wall, and protected by a riverside battery armed with three small cannon. The shipping on the river is seen to be also protected, and this with an iron chain drawn across the mouth of the river.

In the part of the plan not here given, there is shown a more ominous sign of authority. Outside the Beverley Gate stands a gibbet on which hang the bodies of three culprits as warnings of the fate that comes to evil-doers.

* * * * *

To those accustomed to the wide and well-paved streets of our modern towns, the streets of a mediæval town would appear very strange. On the plan of Hull the two main streets, then known as _Aldgate_ and _Lowgate_, are shown fairly wide. But _High Street_, which follows regularly in its course the windings of the river Hull, is much narrower; and the by-streets of the town are so narrow as not to appear at all.

HIGH STREET, HULL.
Showing the ancient _King’s Head Inn_, now pulled down.
]

Streets in mediæval times were astonishingly narrow. The ‘High Street’ of Hull has changed little during the last five hundred years, and to-day there are portions in which two carts cannot pass each other. The extreme width of the western half of Grimsby Lane, one of the by-streets connecting High Street and the Market Place, named after Simon de Grymesby, Mayor of Hull in 1391, is only nine feet. So also the main street in Beverley now barely allows two vehicles to pass each other, and some of the side lanes entering it, such as Laundress Lane and Tindall Lane, are even narrower than the Grimsby Lane just mentioned.

In all these cases the roadway has remained practically the same width for a space of five centuries. But five centuries ago the condition of the road and the amount of air-space above it were very different from what they are to-day. Mediæval houses were built of thick beams of timber, with the intervening spaces filled in with brick and plaster, and security of the floors was obtained by making the second story project a foot or two beyond the first, and the third project similarly beyond the second. The result was a very firmly built house, but a very narrowly confined roadway.

The difference between the mediæval and the modern style of road planning is shown in the above diagram, which gives to scale the building-lines of High Street and King Edward Street—the oldest and the newest business streets in the city of Hull.

Mediæval streets were paved with round cobble stones—such stones as still form the pavement of the market-places of Beverley and Hedon. It is on record that in the year 1400 two Dutch ships brought into Hull cargoes of these stones amounting to 56,000 in number. But the method of drainage was then exactly the opposite of what it is to-day; for the middle of the road was the gutter, or _kennel_. If we imagine that there were then no ‘dust-carts,’ and that each householder got rid of refuse by the simple process of casting it out into the kennel for the next shower of rain to wash away, we shall come to some idea of the general condition of the streets in a mediæval town.

Little wonder that in mediæval towns were bred foul diseases that broke out at intervals and sometimes carried off half the population in the course of a few months. In 1349—the year of the ‘Black Death’—1361, 1369, and 1451 the _Plague_ visited the East Riding, and there are to be seen in the chancel floor of Holy Trinity Church, Hull, the tombstone and brasses of a merchant named Richard Byll, who was one of its victims in the last-mentioned year.

* * * * *

Five centuries ago one of the privileges of a free borough was the holding of a market for the sale of goods by people who were not burgesses of the town. Every free borough had its market-place, which usually lay under the shadow of the parish church, as it does to-day at Beverley, Driffield, Hedon, Howden and Hull. The markets were held on certain fixed days of the week, and Tuesdays and Fridays have been the market-days at Hull since the granting of King Edward I.’s charter in the year 1299.

While the position of the market, and probably also its general appearance, have not altered during all these centuries, certain of its adornments have entirely disappeared. Beverley is the only town in the East Riding that has preserved its market cross. From all the towns of the East Riding have disappeared the stocks, the pillory, and the ducking-stool.

To the stocks and the pillory went in former times such men and women as ‘John Fleshewer, butcher,’ of Hedon, who in 1420 was brought before the town bailiffs on the charge that he ‘did sell flesh not useable, old, useless, and worthless,’ and ‘Agnes, wife of John Piese, schipman,’ also of Hedon, who ‘did sell two penny wheat loaves of bread, not useable and fusty.’ In the ducking-stool went to the town moat or the river the scolding woman whose temper and tongue were equally beyond their owner’s control. So the stocks, pillory, and ducking-stool proved themselves to be not only ornamental but also very useful.

The daily work of wage-earners five hundred years ago was very different from what it is to-day. There were then no such things as our huge factories in which thousands of ‘hands’ are employed day after day at the same monotonous toil. Work was more varied and the conditions were much freer. But hours were longer and pay was considerably less. The legal hours of the day labourer from March to September were 5 a.m. to 7 p.m., with two hours allowed for breakfast and dinner. On the other hand, ‘Bank Holidays’—or Holy-Days, as they were then called—were far more numerous. _Holy-days_, in fact, reduced the working-days of the year to only 264 in number.

The building-accounts for the Beverley North Bar in 1409 give a record of all the wages paid; and from these we find that the wages of a bricklayer were 6d. per day, of a labourer 4d., and of a carter with his horse and cart 12d.[40] What would the ‘British workman’ of to-day think of the following scale of wages, which formed the _statute yearly wages_ in 1444:—

With food and
clothing.

s. d. s. d.

Bailiff of husbandry 23 4 or 5 0

Hind, carter, shepherd 20 0 ” 4 0

Labourer 15 0 ” 3 4

Woman servant 10 0 ” 4 0

Child under 14 6 0 ” 3 0

Footnote 40:

The total cost of the building operations, from the surveying of the
ground to the ‘roseynyng’ of the doors, was £96 17s. 4½d.—about £2000
in our money.

The work of the _Trade Gilds_ in regulating the trade and industries of a town will be described in another chapter, but here is the place to refer to the work of the RELIGIOUS or SOCIAL GILDS which were so prominent a feature of mediæval town life. These were voluntary associations of men and women, who undertook to pay sums of money into a common fund, on which all members could draw during old age or during periods of sickness. In other words they were the Friendly Societies—the ‘Hearts of Oak,’ ‘Ancient Order of Foresters,’ and ‘Oddfellows’—of our own times.

At Hull there were six of these Gilds, the most important being the Gild of St. John Baptist, the Gild of Corpus Christi, and the Gild of the Holy Trinity. In the case of the first of these a member undertook to pay two shillings of silver each year, in four instalments, and derived the following benefits, on becoming ‘infirm, bowed, blind, deaf, dumb, maimed, ... either in youth or age.’:—

(1) weekly, one halfpenny of silver;

(2) at the Festival of St. Martin in winter 5s. of silver for one
garment.

The entrance fee to this Gild was 13s. 4d., but that to the Gild of Corpus Christi was 3 lbs. of silver. Here, however, the ‘sick pay’ was correspondingly higher, being 14d. weekly; and if any brother or sister was in need 20s. was ‘granted on loan.’

In the reign of Edward VI. nearly all the Religious Gilds came to an end. Henry VIII. had intended their suppression, but it fell to the lot of Protector Somerset to be their actual destroyer. On the plea that they were engaged in religious services not in accordance with Government ideas, they suffered the fate of the monasteries; and their property in lands, houses, and plate—their invested funds we should call it to-day—was diverted to other purposes.

Of the Gilds at Hull the sole one to survive was the _Gild of the Holy Trinity_, which was founded in 1369 and later became identical with the _Shipman’s Gild_. This identity with the Shipman’s Gild in 1547 saved its life, and in place of being swept away its privileges were increased. It had many private benefactors, chief among whom was Thomas Ferries, who in 1631 gave it the estate of the Whitefriars on which its buildings now stand. King Charles II. granted it a charter in which it is stated that the Gild

hath much tended to the furtherance of Navigation, the increase of
shipping, and the well breeding of Seamen in that Town and Port.

The Corporation of the HULL TRINITY HOUSE consists of twelve Elder Brethren, six Assistants, and an indefinite number of Younger Brethren. From the Elder Brethren two Wardens are chosen annually. They maintain several almshouses for mariners and their dependents, and one of the best navigation schools in the country; they also grant out-pensions to a large number of worn-out seamen.

* * * * *

We have dealt with the work of the townsfolk in the fifteenth century, but what of their amusements? Here they were certainly nothing like so well off as their descendants of the twentieth century. Of theatres and kinematograph shows they had none. Football matches they had occasionally. But it was with this difference—that a football match then was not one in which thirty men played while thirty thousand looked on and yelled their applause or disapproval. A football match in those days meant one in which the ‘field’ was the main street of the town, the ‘goals’ were the town wall or moat at either end of the street, and the ‘players’ were the whole body of townsfolk. Such a match is still played annually in at least one town of Northern England.

For the rest the people had their Church-Ales, their Miracle Plays, and their Fairs. CHURCH-ALES were parish feasts held in and around the church on the eve of the church’s saint’s-day; and to them each parishioner contributed his share—a dozen loaves, a cheese, or a few gallons of ale—the whole being then sold as required, while all present made merry. Church-Ales were, in other words, the ‘Parish-Teas’ and the ‘Knife-and-Fork Suppers’ of our own degenerate days.

As has been said, there were in mediæval towns no theatres. Still the townsfolk had their plays. In very early times the play-house was the church, the plays were representations of events recorded in the Scriptures, and the performers were the clergy.

In the thirteenth century, however, it became the custom for these MIRACLE-PLAYS, as they were called, to be performed no longer in the church, but on moveable platforms, known as ‘pageants,’ in streets and market-places, or on village greens, at the different fairs and festivals throughout the country. Yorkshire seems to have taken a prominent share in their creation; for we have to-day a manuscript of forty-eight plays performed regularly at York for two hundred years, and another of thirty plays performed at Wakefield. We know also that at Beverley such plays were produced each year on the festival of Corpus Christi—the Thursday after Trinity Sunday—from 1407 to 1604, and that at Hull the play of _Noah_ was performed in the streets once each year for a space of three centuries.

What the performance of a Miracle Play was like may be judged pretty well from the accompanying illustration. The pageant was a large ‘two-decker’ vehicle, which could be drawn by men or horses from one ‘station’ to another.

NOAH’S ARK.
(_From an old French Miracle Play_).
]

It was the custom at York for the first play in the series—_God the Father Almighty Creating and Forming the Heavens_—to begin on Corpus Christi morning at 5 o’clock. This was at the gates of the Priory of Holy Trinity. When this part of the Creation had been satisfactorily got through, its pageant passed on to take up its second station ‘at the door of Robert Harpham’; while another play showing _God the Father Creating the Earth_ took its place. And so on through the whole series, each play being thus performed at twelve different stations during the course of the day.

The performers of these plays were the members of the various Trade Gilds of a town. So far as the number of plays allowed, each Gild might have its own play, and the plays were as far as possible appropriately distributed. Thus at York the Goldsmiths had allotted to them _The Three Kings Coming from the East_, the Vintners had _The Turning of Water into Wine_, and the Butchers had _The Crucifixion_. At both York and Hull the Shipmen, or Mariners, had the play of _Noah_.

Stage properties were well looked after. The ‘ark’ used in a French performance of _The Deluge_ is here shown, while that used in the corresponding play produced each ‘Plough Monday’[41] by the Hull Shipmen was equally elaborate though built more in resemblance to an ordinary ship. It had mast and rigging, and pictures of the animals that ‘went in two by two’ hung round its sides painted on boards. From one festival to another it remained suspended from the roof of Holy Trinity Church.

Footnote 41:

The first Monday after ‘Twelfth Night,’ _i.e._ the Monday following
January 6th.

Some curious items occur in the old accounts of the Hull Trinity House in this connection:—

To Robert Brown, playing God 6d.

To Noah and his wife 1s. 6d.

To a shipwright for clinking Noah’s
ship, one day 7d.

For three skins for Noah’s coat, making
it, and a rope to hang the ship in the
kirk 2s. 5d.

When, in 1494, the Gild of the Holy Trinity had to purchase a new Ark, the accounts show also that the cost amounted to the tremendous sum of £7 4s. 11d.

The lower stage of the pageant is, in the illustration, shown to be curtained off. This lower stage was the actors’ dressing-room, and also served very conveniently as the ‘lower regions’ from which through a trap-door the Devil would emerge with horns and tail complete. God was stationed on a raised platform at the back of the upper stage, and appeared in the full dress of a Pope, saints had gilded hair and beards, and angels were dressed in white surplices through which their gilded wings projected.

Most impressive and realistic these must have seemed in the eyes of the beholders. But there were also ‘realistic effects’ to be seen—lightning, earthquakes, and the destruction of the world by fire—as the following items show:—

Payd for the baryll for the yerthequake iiij_d._
Payd for starche to make the storm vj_d._
Payd for settynge the world of fyer v_d._

How realistic also must have been the crossing of the Red Sea! For the children of Israel did actually cross it in the sight of all. ‘Halfe a yard of Rede Sea’—there it is down in black and white among the properties belonging to _Israel in Egypt_.

* * * * *

A FOURTEENTH CENTURY ‘SHOW.’
(_From an old Manuscript_).
]

The mediæval Miracle Plays have long been dead in our country, but we still have with us the remains of the great mediæval FAIRS. In the days when few people travelled if they could possibly stay at home, and when for the whole of the winter months the state of the country roads prohibited all travelling except that on horseback, fairs were a necessity. The right to hold an annual fair was therefore an eagerly sought privilege.

Thus Beverley, Bridlington, Hedon, Howden, Hull—all these towns very early obtained the right to hold annual fairs. The Hedon townsfolk had their fair every year ‘on the feast of St. Mary Magdalen, and for seven days after,’ from the year 1162; and this fair continued to be held on Magdalen Hill down to 1878. The charter for the holding of a fair at Hull was granted in 1299, and the eleventh day of October, 1911, saw Hull Fair still in full swing.

To these mediæval fairs would come a large concourse of merchants, minstrels, pedlars, jugglers, and rogues. To them would come also householders and the stewards of manor-house and castle, eager to buy cloth, silks, ribbons, pots and pans, boots and shoes, wine, wax, malt, a store of butter to last over the winter, or a store of salt for preparing the winter meat supply.

BEAR-BAITING.
A fifteenth century wood-carving in St. Mary’s Church, Beverley.
]

Among the entertainment providers would come the owner of the ‘wild beast show’—the show consisting of a solitary elephant or dromedary, or, much more frequently, an ape and a bear. If it is a bear that is the showman’s stock-in-trade, then there will be a chance for dogs that have grown sated with indulgence in the sport of bull-baiting to experience a new sensation.[42]

Footnote 42:

The old ‘bull ring’ to which bulls were tethered at a bull-baiting in
the market-place of Kilham is now built into the bank of the
churchyard wall.

Hither also would come that strange product of the middle ages—the pardoner. He professes to have from the Pope power to grant pardons for sins committed, or even for sins to be committed, if only satisfactory payment is forthcoming. To prove his genuineness he has a wallet full of parchments, brought straight from Rome, and all duly stamped with large seals. And if that is not enough for his credulous audience he has holy relics to show—a piece of the sail of St. Peter’s boat, and a feather from the wing of the angel Gabriel.

He has also the shoulder bone of a holy Jew’s sheep, which is guaranteed to cure disease in any cow, calf, ox, or sheep, if the bone be but washed in a bucket of water and the sick animal’s tongue well cleaned with this water. ‘One penny’ is all his charge. ‘Bring your buckets full of water. Now’s your chance! If you lose it, your sick cow, calf, ox, or sheep may be dead in the morning, and you’ll be sorry ever afterwards that you didn’t take my advice.’

Thus does the rascal do a roaring trade.

XIX.
THE TRADE UNIONS OF THE MIDDLE AGES.

With the Trade Unions of our days almost everyone is to some extent acquainted. Certainly everyone who lives in a town is acquainted with them. For, in the first place, most workmen in a town belong to a trade union; and, in the second place, many who are not ‘workmen’, in the usual meaning of the word, are made uncomfortably aware of the existence of one or other of the Trade Unions when what is called a ‘Strike’ takes place.

Many people, if asked their opinion, would say that Trade Unions are a purely modern institution—that it is only in our own times that workmen have found the usefulness of binding themselves together in a ‘Union’ for the obtaining of benefits which singly they could not expect to gain. But such an opinion would be wrong. Trade Unions, though called by a different name, existed in our country six, seven, and even eight hundred years ago.

What we call by the name of Trade Unions were in former times known as CRAFT GILDS. They had this name because they were clubs, or fraternities, or brotherhoods, of men who were engaged in some branch or branches of handicraft, and who paid a fine—originally known as _gildi_—to obtain the privileges of membership.

In all towns there were found these Craft Gilds. Thus in 1406 Beverley had thirty-eight, and the Craft Gilds of Kingston-upon-Hull in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries included those of the Weavers, the Tailors, the Glovers, the Joiners, the Carpenters, the Shipwrights, the Bricklayers, the Cobblers, the Shoemakers, the Coopers, the Brewers, the Innholders, the Bakers, and the Barber Chirurgeons. Each of these crafts had its own Gild. But, on the other hand, the Goldsmiths, Pewterers, Plumbers, Glaziers, Painters, Cutlers, Musicians, Stationers, Bookbinders, and Basketmakers had to be content with one Gild among them; and a strange medley their Gild must have been.

There was one great difference between these Craft Gilds and our Trade Unions. Whereas the men who belong to the latter are the employed workmen, those who belonged to the former were both the employers and the employed, both the masters and the men. Hence the rules of the Gilds were framed not only to protect the workmen against hard and unjust masters, but also to protect the masters against dishonest and careless workmen, and, in addition, to protect the public from being defrauded by either dishonest masters or idle workmen. How each of these good results was effected will be seen from the following extracts, taken from the rules of different Craft Gilds belonging to Kingston-upon-Hull.

* * * * *

First, we will consider the protection of the workman. Before a _Weaver_ might set up in business for himself he must pay xij_d._ to the Alderman of his Gild for the inspection of his workhouse by the searchers, who would search whether his workhouse were ‘good and able’ or not. If they were satisfied on this point, then the owner was permitted to begin business on payment of an ‘upsett’ of iij_s._ iiij_d._ No woman was allowed to work at this trade within the town upon pain of xl_s._ Nor might a _Tailor_ keep any manner of workman tailor employed within his dwelling-house. Again, no _Joiner_ might withhold his servant’s wages over the space of six days after the same were due. If he did, the servant could get from the Warden an order for their payment, and the master’s penalty for disobeying this order was xij_d._

For the protection of the masters there were corresponding laws:—

If any of the brotherhood of the _Bricklayers_, being at work with
any man, do, in the time of his work, resort unto the alehouse or do
play at dice, cards, or any other unthrifty game, he shall forfeit
and pay for every time so doing viij_d._

So also, in the rules of the _Shipwrights_, a very heavy penalty was imposed upon the workman who for mere caprice threw down his tools and left his work unfinished:—

If any person shall be lawfully retained in work by the day, and
shall unjustly and unlawfully leave or depart from the same until
such time as the same work shall be fully finished, he shall forfeit
and pay to the master warden for every such offence forty shillings
of lawful money of england.

The protection of the public was equally well looked after. No person might set up or keep an Inn, unless he could make and furnish four comely and decent guest beds; and every _Innholder_ was obliged to have in his house, ready-made, four bottles of hay, to be shown to the searchers at all times when they came to make search. Thus the comfort of both man and beast was ensured to travellers.

All manufactured goods were to be open to inspection by the searchers of the particular Gild, and any scamped or fraudulent goods were ‘seized and forfeited.’ Thus a rule of the _Shoemakers’ Gild_ stated that—

The searchers shall well and diligently search and try all boots,
shoes, buskins, slippers and pantoufles,[43] whether they be made of
leather well and truly tanned and curried, and well and
substantially sewed with good thread, well twisted and made and
sufficiently waxed with wax well rosined, and the stitches hard
drawn with hand leathers.

Boots and shoes made under these regulations were intended to last in wear for a substantially long time, and brown paper inner soles and wooden heels would stand a poor chance of passing the inspection of the searchers. On the shelves of the Hull Museum may be seen some pairs of boots made and worn two hundred and fifty years ago, and still almost ‘as good as new.’

Footnote 43:

The French name for slippers.

A rule of the _Brotherhood of Cobblers_ reads quaintly. But, doubtless, it proved a very useful rule:—

If any cobbler shall keep any work brought to him longer than two
days, without consent of the owner, he shall forfeit for every
offence the sum of two shillings and sixpence.

One is bound to imagine that there was in those days a brisk trade in ‘Boots Mended While You Wait.’