The English: A Social History, 1066–1945 (Text Only) Read online

  Natural disasters were, however, not so common as attacks by highwaymen and gangs of robbers, particularly in times of civil war and general social unrest. ‘There is no country in the world where there are so many thieves and robbers as in England,’ an Italian envoy recorded; ‘insomuch that few venture to go alone into the country excepting in the middle of the day, and fewer still in the towns at night, and least of all in London.’40 In 1348 the House of Commons deplored the dangers of roads ‘throughout all the shires of England’ on which ‘robbers, thieves and other malefactors, both on foot and horseback, ride in divers places, committing larcenies and robberies’.41

  A few years earlier the servants of some Staffordshire merchants had been attacked by robbers in Cannock Wood in an incident which was not considered at all out of the ordinary. The gang of marauders was led by Sir Robert de Rideware who took the servants and their masters’ goods to the grounds of Lappeley Priory where he divided the booty among his men and some accomplices, ‘each one a portion, according to his degree’. The gang then rode on to a nunnery at Blythebury where, being refused shelter, they broke down the door, fed their horses and spent the night. By now, however, one of the robbed servants had managed to escape and had run for help. A pitched battle ensued. Four of the highwaymen were taken prisoner and beheaded on the spot; but Sir Robert escaped and, with some of his men, lived to terrorize the servants once they had returned home to Lichfield ‘so that they dared not go anywhere out of the said town’.42

  The Coroners’ Rolls of the period are full of accounts like this, of stories of robberies, of murders, of ambushes, of such fates as that which befell a certain Walter Ingham who, being waylaid, was ‘grievously beat and wounded, as well upon his head as upon his legs, and other full grievous strokes and many upon his back, so that he is maimed upon his right leg, and fain to go on crutches, and so must do all the days of his life to his utter undoing’.43 Other reports describe travellers being attacked with knives, shot with arrows, struck on the head with pole-axes, dragged into churchyards where their toes were cut off, or fighting back successfully like Nicholas Cheddleton who ‘while going along the King’s highway with linen and cloth and other goods’, according to the report of a coroner’s inquest at Marston, Staffordshire, was ‘met by certain thieves who tried to kill and rob him. And the said Nicholas, in self-defence, struck one of the robbers right over the head with a staff worth a penny, of which blow he died forthwith.’44

  The Paston Letters well indicate how apprehensive people were about their own safety and that of their families and friends when a journey had to be undertaken. ‘Beware how you ride or go, for naughty and ill-disposed fellowships,’ Margaret Paston warns her husband. ‘I should send you money,’ another letter runs, ‘but I dare not put it in jeopardy, there be so many thieves stirring … John Loveday’s man was robbed unto his shirt as he came homeward.’ Margaret Paston’s anxiety was only too well justified. Her uncle, Philip Berney, was shot by robbers who ambushed him ‘in the highway under Thorpe wood’ and then ‘over-rode him and took him and beat him and spoiled him’. He never recovered from his wounds and, after fifteen months’ illness, ‘passed to God with the greatest pain’.45

  Repeatedly measures were taken to make travelling less dangerous. An Act of 1285, intended to protect wayfarers from ambush, ordered that on highways between market towns ‘there be neither dyke, tree or bush whereby a man may lurk to do hurt within two hundred feet on either side of the way’.46 When fairs were held mounted guards were often placed on the major roads approaching them to encourage traders to attend them; and, on their own account, merchants with valuable loads would always hire a guard to accompany them upon their journeys. Oxford undergraduates, forbidden to bear arms during term time, were permitted to do so on their journeys to and from the university, a journey which they often made in a carrier’s cart, as cheap and safe if not as comfortable a method of transportation as any other.47

  In most towns curfews were imposed. At Norwich ‘all men dwelling in the city, of whatever condition they may be, shall warn their servants that they shall not be absent outside the houses of their masters after the eighth hour, under the penalty of imprisonment’.48 And at Beverley, imprisonment might also be imposed upon any inhabitant wandering ‘in the street beyond the franchises by night after nine o’clock’, and upon any stranger after eight o’clock ‘without a light and reasonable cause’.49

  There was safety, of course, in numbers; and, whenever they could, medieval wayfarers contrived to travel in large parties, ideally in the wake of the well-guarded royal household which was constantly on the move from one part of the kingdom to another. It might be travelling from one of the numerous castles in royal hands to the next, there being about sixty of these to choose from in the twelfth century, or to a monastery, or to the castle of some magnate whose dues included firma unius noctis – one night’s entertainment for the immense and peripatetic household of the king.

  The household had to be peripatetic not only because so large a retinue of men and animals could neither be satisfactorily fed nor hygienically accommodated in one place for too long, but also because the king’s court was the government of the country and it was necessary for it to rule, and to show itself to be ruling, elsewhere than in London. Edward I, in the twenty-eighth year of his reign, moved his household no less than seventy-five times.50 The household had also to be large, for all its many officers had attendant clerks and servants; and they, as well as the king, had to be provided with food and drink, with chaplains and guards, with limners and ushers and clerks, with hornblowers, archers, watchmen and cooks. There was the Lord High Chancellor to consider, the Lord High Steward and the Lord High Treasurer, the Lord President of the Council, the Lord Great Chamberlain, the Lord High Constable, the Keepers of the Seals and the King’s Marshals. In the separate departments of the Keepers of the Cups and of the Dishes, of the Master Steward of the Larder and the Usher of the Spithouse, of the Chamberlain of the Candles, of the Keeper of the Gazehounds and the Keeper of the Brachs, of the Cat Hunters and Wolf Catchers and of the Keeper of the Tents, there were bakers and butchers and confectioners, poulterers and fruiterers, servitors and butlers, scullions and kennelmen, grooms and storekeepers. There were heralds and actors, singers, buffoons and barbers, express messengers whose duty it was to give warning of the court’s approach and to order tenants and owners of estates on the route to collect provisions or provide accommodation. There was a ‘Clerke of Markette’ who according to the regulations drawn up for the household of Edward IV, ‘ridith in the contries before the Kinges commyng to warn the people to bake, to brewe, and to make redy other vytale and stuffe in to their logginges’.51

  There was a washerwoman to wash the king’s clothes and a water-carrier to give him his bath. And, straggling for miles along the roads, splashing through the mud in winter, in clouds of dust in summer, were the sprawling lines of horses and pack animals, the carriages and carts piled high with leather pouches and bundled bags, with boxes and chests, with barrels of coins and caskets of jewels, cases of documents, kitchen utensils, hunting spears, altar cloths and chalices, tables and feather-beds, quills and parchment, chamber pots and scent bottles.

  As the cavalcade approached the place where a halt was to be made for the night, twenty-four archers leading the way, the king’s marshals marked with chalk those houses considered most suitable for requisition as lodgings. They also made sure that all suspected malefactors within twelve leagues of the castle were arrested and that the castle itself was cleared of harlots. The Inner Marshal, who was responsible for the security of the castle, fined each whore who remained 4d for the first time he arrested her. If she were to return she was brought before the steward and given a solemn warning never to approach a royal castle again. Were she to do so, she would be thrown into prison and her hair cut off. A fourth offence would result in the loss of her upper lip. Severe punishments were also inflicted upon disorderly hangers-on, those ‘laundre
sses and gamesters’, as Peter of Blois described them in the reign of Henry II, ‘perfumiers and hucksters, vassals, mimes and barbers’, as well as tiresome suitors, petitioners and parties with lawsuits who hoped to have their cases attended to when the king’s law officers sat to dispense justice.

  The ordinances of the household of Edward IV paid particular attention to these troublesome hangers-on, decreeing that masterless men who followed the court should be put in irons for forty days on bread and water, that female camp-followers should be branded on the forehead, and that all those whose duties compelled them to accompany the royal household should leave their wives at home. These ordinances also dealt minutely with the duties of all the king’s officers, with those of the Treasurer of the Household, who had to keep the accounts, of the Marshal of the Hall, who had to ensure that no intruders, dogs or lepers found their way into any of the apartments under his control, and of the Chamberlain who had, amongst other duties, ‘to arrange decently for the King’s bed, and to see that the rooms be arranged with carpets and benches’.52

  It was customary for the marshal to consult the mayor and sheriffs and other town officers when quarters were required for the court; and if this were not done there could be trouble. In the reign of Edward II, when the king was himself established in the Tower of London, the people of his household were quartered, without previous arrangements, in various nearby houses, the mansion of a distinguished sheriff being marked with chalk and occupied by the king’s secretary. When the sheriff came home and found this royal official in his chamber, strange servants in his kitchen and numerous horses in his stables, he had them all thrown out and with his own hands rubbed the chalk marks off his walls. He was cited to appear before the king’s steward and required to pay an indemnity of at least £1000. But he refused to submit and appealed to the mayor and citizens who produced charters of the city’s privileges in his defence. These charters were quite clear on the subject and could not be denied. The matter was quietly dropped.53

  Towns less powerful than London, however, had to put up with much inconvenience not only from the king but also from the households of great lords, whose retinues were sometimes almost as large, and even from bishops on the move in their dioceses. A rich baronial household was likely to move almost as often as the king’s; and it would contain a similar hierarchy, with a marshal to arrange about supplies; a clerk of the marshalcy to deal with the horses, the purchase of oats and straw and horseshoes and the payment of the smith and the grooms; another official to keep an eye on the sumpter-horses and the carts; and messengers to deliver urgent letters and give warning of the retinue’s approach.

  The size of these rich households made it impossible for them to be accommodated at such inns as then existed; but hospitality was usually offered at castles and large houses where men of rank received each other with a readiness which would seem highly eccentric today. When special rooms for guests were available these would be offered to the lord and his lady, or the lord might be invited to spend the night in his host’s own chamber, while the visiting servants would be provided with places to sleep in the hall on the rushes covering the floor or on mattresses thrown over them. Accommodation was also available in monasteries, rooms in the monastery itself being allotted to those of high rank, the rest normally being shown to a guest-house, many of which had bedrooms radiating from a central hall.

  For smaller parties with enough money to spare there were inns where travellers would be shown to rooms containing several beds which they were likely to be asked to share with another or even two other guests. Yet these places were usually more expensive than most travellers could afford, and complaints of outrageous charges were extremely common. From time to time statutes were promulgated in an effort to force ‘hostelers et herbergers’ to sell food at reasonable prices; one in the reign of Edward III endeavoured to put an end to the ‘great and outrageous cost of victuals kept up in the realm by inn-keepers and other retailers of victuals, to the great detriment of the people travelling all over the country’.54

  It was, however, possible to travel without incurring expense as the experiences of the Warden and two Fellows of Merton College showed when they made a winter journey on horseback in 1331 with four servants from Oxford to Durham and Newcastle. Their expenses for one day, a Sunday, at an inn at Alfreton, were fairly typical. The total cost was 2s 3¼d, 10d of this being spent on fodder for the horses, and only 2d for beds. Bread came to 4a, beer to 2d, wine to 1½d, meat to 5½d and potage to ¼d. They spent 2d on fuel and VW on candles. Once they got lost and had to employ a guide, but his charge was no more than id. Their most expensive day was that upon which they had to cross the Humber, a wide river and in winter a difficult one to navigate; and for this crossing they had to pay 8d.55

  A few years earlier a party of twenty-six Cambridge scholars had travelled from their university to York. They found the cost of beds even cheaper than the Oxford men, never paying more than 8d for the whole group.56

  By the end of the Middle Ages it was generally agreed that English inns had much improved and there was little need for those fourteenth-century phrasebooks taken on foreign travels that gave the French for such snatches of conversation as the following:

  ‘I hope there are no fleas, landlord, nor bugs nor other vermin.’

  ‘No, sir, please God, for I make bold that you shall be well and comfortably lodged here – save that there is a great peck of rats and mice …’

  ‘William [addressed to a servant], undress and wash your legs, and then dry them with a cloth, and rub them well for the love of fleas, that they may not leap on your legs, for there is a peck of them lying in the dust under the rushes. Hi! The fleas bite me so! And do me great harm for I have scratched my shoulders till the blood flows.’

  Most English inns were, indeed, comparatively clean and wholesome. William Harrison praised them in the warmest terms:

  Those townes that we call throwfares have great and sumptuous innes builded in them for the receiving of such travellers and strangers as pass to and fro. The manner of harbouring wherein is not like that of some countries, in which the host or goodman of the house doth challenge a lordlie authoritie over his ghests, but clean otherwise, with everie man may use his inne as his owne house in England, and have for his money how great or how little varietie of vittels or what other service himself shall think expedient to call for. Our innes are also very well furnished with naperie, bedding and tapisterie especiallie with naperie … Each comer is sure to lie in clean sheets, wherein no man hath beene lodged since they came from the laundresse … It is a word to see how each owner contendeth with other for goodnesse of enterteinement of their ghests, as about finesse and change of linnen, furniture of bedding, beautie of roomes, service at the table, costliness of plate, strengthe of drink, varietie of wines or well using of horses.57

  Inns were still not for the poor, however, and while merchants, the better-paid messengers and more prosperous itinerant packmen could afford to stay in them regularly, most tinkers, pedlars and chapmen, who went about selling everything from pins and gloves to rabbit skins, could not. Nor could many pilgrims and nor could drovers who, covering about twelve miles a day, moved flocks and herds of animals, cows, ewes, lambs, or swine, from manor to manor and one part of the country to another. These men, when they could afford a roof over their heads at all, had to be content with what comfort and warmth could be found in an alehouse, an establishment readily recognized by the pole with a bush at the end of it sticking out of the wall, often so far across the highway that riders struck their heads against them until an Act of 1375 restricted their length to seven feet. But few alehouses, it seems, offered accommodation; and a traveller was lucky to find one with a spare bed. They were principally drinking places and so favoured a haunt of pilgrims that William Thorpe, the Lollard, complained of their wasting their time there, ‘spending their goods upon vitious hostelars, which are oft women uncleane of their bodies’.58

  Pilg
rims generally travelled in groups for safety as Chaucer’s did; and they were commonly as colourful and lively a band as that which the miller in The Canterbury Tales led out of Southwark, blowing his bagpipes while the monk’s bridle jingled ‘as loud as doth the chapel-belle’. Among them would be men like the friar, ‘a wanton one and merry’; or the monk ‘who was not pale like a tormented soul’; or the summoner who loved ‘drinking strong red wine till all was hazy’ and ‘would shout and jabber as if crazy’; or the franklin who ‘lived for pleasure and had always done, for he was Epicurus’ very son’.

  In the opinion of William Thorpe, there were far too many pilgrims like these.

  They will ordain beforehand to have with them both men and women that can well sing wanton songs [he complained]. And some other pilgrims will have with them bagpipes; so that every town they come through, what with the noise of their singing and with the sound of their piping, and with the jangling of their Canterbury bells, and with the barking out of dogs after them, they make more noise than if the King came there, with all his clarions and many other minstrels.59

  Some were on foot, carrying the characteristic pilgrim’s staff with its pointed iron base like that of an alpenstock and its knob at the other end, perhaps inscribed with an encouraging motto such as, ‘May this safely guide thee on thy way’. Others were on horseback or in carts. Several were on their way abroad, their expenses partially paid by a trade guild like the fourteenth-century Taylors’ Guild at Lincoln whose statutes provided that ‘if anyone desire to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, each brother and sister shall give him a penny; and if to St James of Galicia or Rome, a halfpenny; and they shall go out with him outside the gates of Lincoln; and on his return they shall meet him again and go with him to his mother-church.’60