Our Legal Heritage Part 66

The villages were still isolated from each other, so that a visitor from miles away was treated as warily as a foreigner. Most people lived and died where they had been born. A person's dialect indicated his place of origin. The life of the village still revolved around the church. In some parishes, its activities were highly organized, with different groups performing different functions. For example, the matrons looked after a certain altar; the maidens raised money for a chapel or saw to the gilding of the images; the older men collected money for church repair; and the younger men organized the church ales and the church plays. Wills often left property or rents from leased land to the church. Church cows and sheep given could be leased out to villagers. Church buildings given could be leased out, turned over to the poor, used to brew ale or bake bread for church ales, or used in general as a place for church activities. Church ales would usually a good source of income; alehouses would be closed during the ceremonies and paris.h.i.+oners would contribute malt for the ale and grain, eggs, b.u.t.ter, cheese, and fruits.

The largest town, London, had a population of about 70,000. Other towns had a population less than 20,000. The population was increasing, but did not reach the level of the period just before the black death.

In most large towns, there were groups of tailors and hatmakers, glovers, and other leatherworkers. Some towns had a specialization due to their proximity to the sources of raw materials, such as nails, cutlery, and effigies and altars. Despite the spread of wool manufacturing to the countryside, there was a marked increase of industry and prosperity in the towns. The princ.i.p.al streets of the larger towns were paved with gravel. Guild halls became important and imposing architecturally.

A large area of London was taken up by walled gardens of the monasteries and large mansions. There were some houses of stone and timber and some mansions of brick and timber cl.u.s.tered around palaces.

In these, bedrooms increased in number, with rich bed hangings, linen sheets, and bolsters. Bedspreads were introduced. Nightgowns were worn.

Fireplaces became usual in all the rooms. Tapestries covered the walls.

Carpets were used in the private rooms. Some of the great halls had tiled floors. The old trestle tables were replaced by tables with legs.

Benches and stools had backs to lean on. A long gallery was used for exercise, recreation such as music and dancing, and private conversations. Women and men wore elaborate headdresses. On the outer periphery are taverns and brothels, both made of mud and straw. Houses are beginning to be built outside the walls of London along the Thames because the collapse of the power of the great feudal lords decreased the fear of an armed attack on London. The merchants introduced this idea of living at a distance from the place of work so that they could escape living in the narrow, damp, and dark lanes of the City and have more light and s.p.a.ce. Indeed no baronial army ever threatened the king again. East of London were cattle pastures, flour mills, bakers, cloth-fulling mills, lime burners, brick and tile makers, bell founders, and s.h.i.+p repairing. There was a drawbridge on the south part of London Bridge for defense and to let s.h.i.+ps through. Water sports were played on the Thames such as tilting at each other with lances from different boats.

The Tailors' and Linen Armorers' Guild received a charter in 1503 from the king as the "Merchant Tailors" to use all wares and merchandise, especially wool cloth, as well wholesale as retail, throughout the nation. Some schooling was now being made compulsory in certain trades; the goldsmiths' company made a rule that all apprentices had to be able to read and write. There are guilds of ironmongers, salters, and haberdashers [hats and caps]

A yeoman was the second-rank person of some importance, below a knight, below a gentleman, below a full member of a guild. In London, it meant the journeyman or second adult in a small workshop. These yeomen had their own fraternities and were often on strike. Some yeomen in the large London industries, e.g. goldsmiths, tailors, cloth workers, who had served an apprentices.h.i.+p started their own businesses in London suburbs outside the jurisdiction of their craft to search them.

The Merchant Adventurers created a London fellows.h.i.+p confederacy to make members.h.i.+p of their society and compliance with its regulations binding on all cloth traders and to deal with common interests and difficulties such as taxation, relations with rulers, and dangers at sea. They made and enforced trading rules, chartered fleets, and organized armed convoys when the seas were unsafe and coordinated policies with Henry VII. Members.h.i.+p could be bought for a large fee or gained by apprentices.h.i.+p or by being the son of a member.

Tudor government was paternalistic, curtailing cutthroat compet.i.tion, fixing prices and wages, and licensing production under grants of monopoly to achieve a stable and contented society and a fair living for all.

Foreign trade was revived because it was a period of comparative peace.

The nation sought to sell as much as possible to foreign nations and to buy at little as possible and thereby increase its wealth in gold and silver, which could be used for currency.

s.h.i.+ps weighed 200 tons and had twice the cargo s.p.a.ce they had previously. Their bows were more pointed and their high prows made them better able to withstand gales. The mariners' compa.s.s with a pivoting needle and circular dial with a scale was introduced. The scale gave precision to directions. s.h.i.+ps had three masts. On the first was a square sail. On the second was a square sail with a small rectangular sail above it. On the third was a three cornered lateen sail. These sails make it possible to sail in almost any direction. This opened the seas of the world to navigation. At this time navigators kept their knowledge and expertise secret from others. Adventurous seamen went on voyages of discovery, such as John Cabot to North America in 1497, following Italian Christopher Columbus' discovery of the new world in 1492. Ferdinand Magellan of Portugal circ.u.mnavigated the world in 1519, proving uncontrovertedly that the earth was spherical rather than flat.

Theologians had to admit that Jerusalem was not the center of the world.

Sailors overcame their fear of tumbling into one of the openings into h.e.l.l that they believed were far out into the Atlantic Ocean and ceased to believe that a red sunset in the morning was due to a reflection from h.e.l.l. Seamen could venture forth into the darkness of the broad Atlantic Ocean with a fair expectation of finding their way home again. They gradually learned that there were no sea serpents or monsters that would devour foolhardy mariners. They learned to endure months at sea on a diet of salt beef, beans, biscuits, and stale water and the bare deck for a bed. But there were still mutinies and disobedient pilots.

Mortality rates among seamen were high. There are more navy s.h.i.+ps, and they have some cannon.

The blast furnace was introduced in the iron industry. A blast of hot air was constantly forced from a stove into the lower part of the furnace which was heating at high temperature a mixture of the iron ore and a reducing agent that combined with the oxygen released. After the iron was extracted, it was allowed to harden and then reheated and hammered on an anvil to shape it and to force out the hard, brittle impurities. Blast furnace heat was maintained by bellows worked by water wheels. Alchemists sought to make gold from the baser metals and to make a substance that would give them immortality. There was some thought that suffocation in mines, caverns, wells, and cellars was not due to evil spirits, but to bad air such as caused by "exhalation of metals".

In 1502, German Peter Henlein invented the pocket watch and the mainspring inside it.

There were morality plays in which the seven deadly sins: pride, covetousness, l.u.s.t, anger, gluttony, envy, and sloth, fought the seven cardinal virtues: faith, hope, charity, prudence, temperance, justice, and strength, respectively, for the human soul. The play "Everyman"

demonstrates that every man can get to heaven only by being virtuous and doing good deeds in his lifetime. It emphasizes that death may come anytime to every man, when his deeds will be judged as to their goodness or sinfulness. Card games were introduced. The legend of Robin Hood was written down.

The Commons gained the stature of the Lords and statutes were regularly enacted by the "a.s.sent of the Lords spiritual and temporal and the Commons". The Commons now a.s.sented instead merely requested enactments.

- The Law -

Royal proclamations clarifying, refining or amplifying the law had the force of parliamentary statutes. In 1486, the King proclaimed that "Forasmuch as many of the King our sovereign lord's subjects [have] been disposed daily to hear feigned, contrived, and forged tidings and tales, and the same tidings and tales, neither dreading G.o.d nor his Highness, utter and tell again as though they were true, to the great hurt of divers of his subjects and to his grievous displeasure: Therefore, in eschewing of such untrue and forged tidings and tales, the King our said sovereign lord straitly chargeth and commandeth that no manner person, whatsoever he be, utter nor tell any such tidings or tales but he bring forth the same person the which was author and teller of the said tidings or tales, upon pain to be set on the pillory, there to stand as long as it shall be thought convenient to the mayor, bailiff, or other official of any city, borough, or town where it shall happen any such person to be taken and accused for any such telling or reporting of any such tidings or tales. Furthermore the same our sovereign lord straitly chargeth and commandeth that all mayors, bailiffs, and other officers diligently search and inquire of all such persons tellers of such tidings and tales not bringing forth the author of the same, and them set on the pillory as it is above said." He also proclaimed in 1487 that no one, except peace officers, may carry a weapon, e.g. bows, arrows, or swords, in any town or city unless on a journey. He proclaimed in 1498 that no one may refuse to receive silver pennies or other lawful coin as payment regardless of their condition as clipped, worn, thin, or old, on pain of imprisonment and further punishment.

A statute provided that: Lords holding castles, manors, lands and tenements by knight's service of the king shall have a writ of right for wards.h.i.+p of the body as well as of the land of any minor heir of a deceased person who had the use [beneficial enjoyment of a trust] of the land for himself and his heirs as if the land had been in the possession of the deceased person. And if such an heir is of age, he shall pay relief to the lord as if he had inherited possession of the land. An heir in ward shall have an action of waste against his lord as if his ancestor had died seised of the land. That is, lands of "those who use"

shall be liable for execution of his debt and to the chief lord for his relief and heriot, and if he is a bondsman, they may be seized by the lord. The king tried to retain the benefits of feudal incidents on land by this Statute of Uses, but attorneys sought to circ.u.mvent it by drafting elaborate and technical instruments to convey land free of feudal burdens.

Any woman who has an estate in dower, or for a term of life, or in [fee] tail, jointly with her husband, or only to herself, or to her use, in any manors, lands, tenements, or other hereditaments of the inheritance or purchase of her husband, or given to the said husband and wife in tail, or for term of life, by any of the ancestors of the said husband, or by any other person seised to the use of the said husband, or of his ancestors, who, by herself or with any after taken husband; discontinue, alienate, release, confirm with warranty or, by collusion, allow any recovery of the same against them or any other seised to their use, such action shall be void. Then, the person to whom the interest, t.i.tle, or inheritance would go after the death of such woman may enter and possess such premises. This does not affect the common law that a woman who is single or remarried may give, sell, or make discontinuance of any lands for the term of her life only.

All deeds of gift of goods and chattels made of trust, to the use of the giver [grantor and beneficiary of trust], to defraud creditors are void.

It is a felony to carry off against her will, a woman with lands and tenements or movable goods, or who is heir-apparent to an ancestor. This includes taking, procuring, abetting, or knowingly receiving a woman taken against her will.

A vagabond, idle, or suspected person shall be put in the stocks for three days with only bread and water, and then be put out of the town.

If he returns, he shall spend six days in the stocks. (A few years later this was changed to one and three days, respectively.) Every beggar who is not able to work, shall return to the hundred where he last dwelled, is best known, or was born and stay there.

No one may take pheasants or partridges by net snares or other devices from his own warren [breeding ground], upon the freehold of any other person, or else forfeit 200s., one half to the owner of the land and the other half to the suer. No one may take eggs of any falcon, hawk, or swan out of their nest, whether it is on his land or any other man's land, on pain of imprisonment for one year and fine at the King's will, one half to the King, and the other half to the holder of the land, or owner of the swan. No man shall bear any English hawk, but shall have a certificate for any imported hawk, on pain for forfeiture of such. No one shall drive falcons or hawks from their customary breeding place to another place to breed or slay any for hurting him, or else forfeit 200s. after examination by a Justice of the Peace, one half going to the king and one half to the suer.