Our Legal Heritage Part 18

The absence of fresh food during the winter made scurvy prevalent; in the spring, people eagerly sought "scurvy gra.s.s" to eat. Occasionally there would be an outbreak of a nervous disorder due to the ergot fungus growing in the rye used for bread. This manifested itself in apparent madness, frightening hallucinations, incoherent shouting, hysterical laughing, and constant scratching of itching and burning sensations.

The villein and his wife and children worked from daybreak to dusk in the fields, except for Sundays and holydays. He had certain land to farm for his own family, but had to have his grain milled at his lord's mill at the lord's price. He had to retrieve his wandering cattle from his lord's pound at the lord's price. He was expected to give a certain portion of his own produce, whether grain or livestock, to his lord.

However, if he fell short, he was not put off his land. The villein, who worked the farm land as his ancestor ceorl had, now was so bound to the land that he could not leave or marry or sell an ox without his lord's consent. If the manor was sold, the villein was sold as a part of the manor. When his daughter or son married, he had to pay a "merchet" to his lord. He could not have a son educated without the lord's permission, and this usually involved a fee to the lord. His best beast at his death, or "heriot", went to his lord. If he wanted permission to live outside the manor, he paid "chevage" yearly. Woodpenny was a yearly payment for gathering dead wood. Sometimes a "tallage" payment was taken at the lord's will. The villein's oldest son usually took his place on his land and followed the same customs with respect to the lord. For an heir to take his dead ancestor's land, the lord demanded payment of a "relief", which was usually the amount of a year's income but sometimes as much as the heir was willing to pay to have the land. The usual aids were also expected to be paid.

A large village also had a smith, a wheelwright, a millwright, a tiler and thatcher, a shoemaker and tanner, a carpenter wainwright and carter.

Markets were about twenty miles apart because a farmer from the outlying area could then carry his produce to the nearest town and walk back again in the daylight hours of one day. In this local market he could buy foodstuffs, livestock, household goods, fuels, skins, and certain varieties of cloth.

The cloth was crafted by local weavers, dyers, and fullers. The weaver lived in a cottage with few and narrow windows and little furniture. He worked in the main, and sometimes the only, room. First the raw wool was washed with water at the front door to remove the grease. Then its fibers were disentangled and made fine with hand cards with thistle teeth, usually by the children. Then it was spun by a spinning wheel into thread, usually by the wife. On a double frame loom, a set of parallel threads was strung lengthwise. A device worked by a pedal lifted half of these threads --every other thread--while the other half remained in place. Between the lifted threads and the stationary threads a shuttle was thrown by the weaver from one hand to another. Then the threads which had remained stationary were raised by a second pedal and the shuttle thrown back. The shuttle carried a spool so that, as it moved, it left a thread behind it running crosswise or at right angles to the lengthwise threads and in and out between them. The lengthwise threads were called the "warp"; the shuttle thread was the "woof" or the "weft".In making cloth, it was the warp which, as the loom moved, took the worst beating. With the constant raising and lowering, these treads would wear and break, whereas the weft on which there was little strain remained intact. None of the cotton yarn which the old-fas.h.i.+oned wheels had spun was strong enough for warp. So it was necessary to use linen thread for the warp.

Since one loom could provide work for about six spinners, the weaver had his wool spun by other spinners in their cottages. Sometimes the master weaver had an apprentice or workman working and living with him, who had free board and lodging and an annual wage. Then a fuller made the cloth thick and dense by was.h.i.+ng, soaping, beating, and agitating it, with the use of a community watermill which could be used by anyone for a fixed payment. The cloth dried through the night on a rack outside the cottage. The weaver then took his cloth, usually only one piece, to the weekly market to sell. The weavers stood at the market holding up their cloth. The cloth merchant who bought the cloth then had it dyed or dressed according to his requirements. Its surface could be raised with teazleheads and cropped or sheared to make a nap. Some cloth was sold to tailors to make into clothes. Often a weaver had a horse for travel, a cow for milk, chickens for eggs, perhaps a few cattle, and some grazing land. Butchers bought, slaughtered, and cut up animals to sell as meat.

Some was sold to cooks, who sold prepared foods. The hide was bought by the tanner to make into leather. The leather was sold to shoemakers and glovemakers. Millers bought harvested grain to make into flour. Flour was sold to bakers to make into breads. Wood was bought by carpenters and by coopers, who made barrels, buckets, tubs, and pails. Tilers, oilmakers and rope makers also bought raw material to make into finished goods for sale. Wheelwrights made ploughs, harrows, carts, and later wagons. Smiths and locksmiths worked over their hot fires.

Games with dice were sometimes played. In winter, youths ice- skated with bones fastened to their shoes. They propelled themselves by striking the ice with staves shod with iron. On summer holydays, they exercised in leaping, shooting with the bow, wrestling, throwing stones, and darting a thrown spear. The maidens danced with timbrels. Since at least 1133, children's toys included dolls, drums, hobby horses, pop guns, trumpets, and kites.

The cold, indoors as well as outdoors, necessitated that people wear ample and warm garments. Men and women of position dressed in long full cloaks reaching to their feet, sometimes having short full sleeves. The cloak generally had a hood and was fastened at the neck with a brooch.

Underneath the cloak was a simple gown with sleeves tight at the wrist but full at the armhole, as if cut from the same piece of cloth. A girdle or belt was worn at the waist. When the men were hunting or working, they wore gown and cloak of knee length. Men wore stockings to the knee and shoes. The fas.h.i.+on of long hair on men returned.

The nation grew with the increase of population, the development of towns, and the growing mechanization of craft industries. There were watermills for crafts and for supplying and draining water in all parts of the nation. In flat areas, slow rivers could be supplemented by creating artificial waterfalls, for which water was raised to the level of reservoirs. There were also some iron- smelting furnaces. Coal mining underground began as a family enterprise. Stone bridges over rivers could accommodate one person traveling by foot or by horseback and were steep and narrow. The wheelbarrow came into use to cart materials for building castles and cathedrals.

Merchants, who had come from the low end of the knightly cla.s.s or high end of the villein cla.s.s, settled around the open market areas, where main roads joined. They had plots narrow in frontage along the road and deep. Their shops faced the road, with living s.p.a.ce behind or above their stores. Town buildings were typically part stone and part timber as a compromise between fire precautions and expense.

Towns, as distinct from villages, had permanent markets. As towns grew, they paid a fee to obtain a charter for self-government from the king giving the town judicial and commercial freedom. They were literate enough to do accounts. So they did their own valuation of the sum due to the crown so as not to pay the sheriff any more than that. These various rights were typically expanded in future times, and the towns received authority to collect the sum due to the crown rather than the sheriff.

This they did by obtaining a charter renting the town to the burghers at a fee farm rent equal to the sum thus deducted from the amount due from the county. Such a town was called a "borough" and its citizens or landholding freemen "burgesses". The freemen were ?free of the borough?, which meant hey had exclusive rights and privileges with respect to it. Selling wholesale could take place only in a borough.

Burgesses were free to marry. They were not subject to defense except of the borough. They were exempt from attendance at county and hundred courts. The king a.s.sessed a tallage [ad hoc tax] usually at ten per cent of property or income. In the boroughs, merchant and manufacturing guilds controlled prices and a.s.sured quality. The head officer of the guild usually controlled the borough, which excluded rival merchant guilds. A man might belong to more than one guild, e.g. one for his trade and another for religion.

Craft guilds grew up in the towns, such as the tanners at Oxford, which later merged with the shoemakers into a cordwainers' guild. There were weavers' guilds in several towns, including London, which were given royal sanction and protection for annual payments (twelve pounds of silver for London). They paid an annual tribute and were given a monopoly of weaving cloth within a radius of several miles. Guild rules covered attendance of the members at church services, the promotion of pilgrimages, celebration of ma.s.ses for the dead, common meals, relief of poor brethren and sisters, the hours of labor, the process of manufacture, the wages of workmen, and technical education. King Henry standardized the yard as the length of his own arm.

Trades and crafts, each of which had to be licensed, grouped together by specialty in the town. Cloth makers, dyers, tanners, and fullers were near an accessible supply of running water, upon which their trade depended. Streets were often named by the trade located there, such as Butcher Row, Pot Row, Cordwainer Row, Ironmonger Row, Wheeler Row, and Fish Row. Hirers of labor and sellers of wheat, hay, livestock, dairy products, apples and wine, meat, poultry, fish and pies, timber and cloth all had a distinct location. Some young men were apprenticed to craftsmen to a.s.sist them and learn their craft.

London had at least twenty wards, each governed by its own alderman.

Most of them were named after people. London was ruled by sixteen families linked by business and marriage ties. These businesses supplied luxury goods to the rich and included the goldsmiths [sold cups, dishes, girdles, mirrors, purses knives, and metal wine containers with handle and spout], vintners [wine merchants], mercers [sold textiles, haberdashery, combs, mirrors, knives, toys, spices, ointments, and potions], drapers, and pepperers, which later merged with the spicers to become the "grocers", skinners, tanners, shoemakers, woolmen, weavers, fishmongers, armorers, and swordsmiths. There were bakehouses at which one could leave raw joints of meat to be cooked and picked up later.

These businesses had in common four fears: royal interference, foreign compet.i.tion, displacement by new crafts, and violence by the poor and escaped villeins who found their way to the city. When a non-freeholder stayed in London he had to find for frankpledge, three sureties for good behavior. Failure to do so was a felony and the ward would eject him to avoid the charge of harboring him with its heavy fine. The arrival of s.h.i.+ps with cargoes from continental ports and their departure with English exports was the regular waterside life below London Bridge. Many foreign merchants lived in London. Imports included timber, hemp, fish, and furs. There was a fraternal organization of citizens who had possessed their own lands with sac and soke and other customs in the days of King Edward. There were public bathhouses, but they were disreputable. A lady would take an occasional bath in a half cask in her home. The church warned of evils of exposing the flesh, even to bathe.

Middles.e.x County was London's territory for hunting and farming. All London craft work was suspended for one month at harvest time. London received this charter for self-government and freedom from the financial and judicial organization of the county:

"Henry, by the grace of G.o.d, King of England, to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the bishops, abbots, earls, barons, justiciars, sheriffs and all his loyal subjects, both French and English, throughout the whole of England - greeting.

1. Be it known to you that I have granted Middles.e.x to my citizens of London to be held on lease by them and their heirs of me and my heirs for 300 pounds paid by tale [yearly], upon these terms: that the citizens themselves [may] appoint a sheriff, such as they desire, from among themselves, and a justiciar, such as they desire, from among themselves, to safeguard the pleas of my Crown [criminal cases] and to conduct such pleas. And there shall be no other justiciar over the men of London.

2. And the citizens shall not take part in any [civil] case whatsoever outside the City walls.

1) And they shall be exempt from the payment of scot and danegeld and the murder fine.

2) And none of them shall take part in trial by combat.

3) And if any of the citizens has become involved in a plea of the Crown, he shall clear himself, as a citizen of London, by an oath which has been decreed in the city.

4) And no one shall be billeted [lodged in a person's house by order of the King] within the walls of the city nor shall hospitality be forcibly exacted for anyone belonging to my household or to any other.

5) And all the citizens of London and all their effect [goods] shall be exempt and free, both throughout England and in the seaports, from toll and fees for transit and market fees and all other dues.