“There wiste no wight that he was in debt.”
“There wiste no wight that he was in debt.”
Workmen weary of a thankless task found a pretext in a pilgrimage for going off on the quest of a new master. An idle apprentice had an excuse ready at hand for exchanging the dull city workshop for a week in the Kentish orchards. A villein might succeed in reaching some distant town where he could live unbeknown by his lord for the necessary year and a day which meant permanent freedom. Statutes were passed over and over again to restrain these abuses, but they were all evaded. The pilgrimage was aninstitution hallowed from time immemorial, and none could gainsay the right of every Christian man to take in hand his scrip and staff.
Imagine the motley procession almost ceaseless from morn till eve on the Roman roads to the North through St. Albans, Eastward to Canterbury, or Westward by Reading or Salisbury towards the favoured resort. Ladies of rank in their horse-litters or rich tapestried carriages; peasants in their springless two-wheeled dog-carts. Then a company of middle-class people on horseback, all of them, men and women alike, well able to manage their steeds. The very poor travelled on foot, and many better class trod barefoot some portion of the Walsingham green way as a penitential exercise. Lame, halt and blind negotiated their journey as best they could. The pilgrim roads were fairly good; Watling Street ran almost straight as an arrow as it was set out by the Roman engineers from Deptford to Canterbury. All roads were said to lead to Walsingham, and that through Ware and Newmarket, if not Roman, was nearly as direct. Pilgrims on horseback from the West of England might utilize the so-called “Pilgrims’ Way” to Canterbury,but by the fourteenth century the Kentish portion had been broken up into a series of feeders to the Watling Street. A similar bridle path ran from Newmarket towards Fakenham on the Walsingham route.
When night fell these wayfarers would tax all available resources for their shelter and sustenance. At the manor-house they were very unwelcome; the lord had good cause to detest the idea of poor people going on pilgrimage. The monastery could only receive a small proportion. Many needed nursing as well as rest. And so a special form of lodging-house—half inn, half charitable institution had to be devised. The great Hospice at Jerusalem, which provided for fully a thousand visitors at one time, was regarded as the model, but the idea is much older. At Cebrero, in Northern Spain, there is aHospicio Real, founded in 836 by King Alphonso II, for pilgrims crossing the pass of Piedrafita on the way from Segovia to St. James of Compostella. St. John’s Hospital at Winchester claims to have been originally founded by St. Brinstan about the year 930 for sick and poor pilgrims to St. Swithin.
For the Canterbury pilgrims there were many of these hospices. That at Rochester,a private benefaction, we have already mentioned. TheGeorge Inn, which still can show a fine Early English crypt, may also be described as a pilgrims’ inn, though, perhaps, like that at St. Albans, for the better class of people. There was a pilgrims’ resting house at Bapchild, near Sittingbourne. Ospringe, near Faversham, takes its name not from the spring which used to babble so pleasantly along the water lane, but from the great hospice founded by Henry III. By a similar “derangement of epitaphs” the hospice at Colnbrook has developed into theOstrich Inn. A considerable portion of the hospice at Ospringe survives to this day in half-timbered buildings around theCrown Inn, and the chapel is said to form the foundations of theShip Innon the opposite side of the road. It is more likely that this inn stands on the site of the separate establishment provided for lepers. This hospice must have been of great extent and provided accommodation for rich and poor alike. A master and three regular brethren of the Order of the Holy Cross were to superintend the work of hospitality and nursing. Owing to an outbreak of the plague in the reign of Edward IV the brethren forsook the place in a panicand died without taking care to choose their successors. The property escheated to the Crown; hence the presence of theCrown Inn.
Canterbury abounded in hospices of various kinds, some specially reserved for the poorer clergy. The fourteenth century façade and vaulted lower storey of one of these still survives in the High Street. Originally established by St. Thomas himself, it was rebuilt by Archbishop Stratford, whose regulations provided that every pilgrim in health should have one night’s lodging to the cost of fourpence (about five shillings in modern money); the weak and infirm were to be preferred to the hale, and women upwards of forty years were to attend to the bedding and administer medicaments to the sick.
At Maidstone, there was a large hospice for pilgrims travelling to Canterbury by Malling and Charing. St. Peter’s Church was formerly the Chapel of this institution. At Reading the hospice was founded by Abbot Hugh about 1180 and dedicated to St. John the Baptist. A sisterhood of eight widows ministered to the wants of the pilgrims. We may mention also the hospitals of St. Giles and St. Ethelbert at Hereford, both ofvery ancient date. At the latter alms were distributed to a hundred poor people daily.
Under the sign of theGeorge Innwe can often detect the successor to a pilgrims’ hostel dedicated to St. George of the Dragon. TheGeorge, at Glastonbury, the very finest existing example of an inn built in stone during the Perpendicular period, was founded by Abbot Selwood in 1489, and provided board and lodging to pilgrims free of charge for two days. TheGeorgeat St. Albans, is more suggestive in its present state of a cosy well-ordered coaching inn of the Georgian period, with nothing visible of antiquity except its panelled staircase and beautiful old furniture. But its records carry us back to 1401, and in 1448 it received a licence from the Abbot for the celebration of low mass in the private chapel on account of the many noble and worthy personages who resorted thither when on pilgrimage to the Cathedral. At another George and Dragon hospice at Wymondham, the Saint has succumbed to the reptile, and theGreen Dragonpresides alone on the signboard.
Pilgrims to shrines beyond sea were not forgotten. At Dover theMaison Dieuwas built and endowed by Hubert de Burgh,the great Justiciary, in the reign of Edward III; and on crossing to Calais the adventurer found anotherMaison Dieu, the first of a long chain of resting-places on the way to Rome, the Three Kings at Cologne, or Rocamadour, in Guyenne, according as his fancy or devotion might direct him.
THE RISE OF THE TOWNS
Every high road leads sooner or later to a market town, and in that town the tourist may be sure of finding aWhite Hart Inn. TheWhite Hartis the commonest of signs all through England. Half-timbered and rambling, with the marks of decrepit old age and long service writ large all over it, this inn is in evidence near the market-place, often in a street of the same name, to remind us of its importance in the days gone by. Sometimes, as at Guildford and Brentwood, the old building lies hidden behind a more modern front. When the builder has laid violent hands on aWhite Hart, title-deeds or other authentic records of its antiquity are in nearly every case available.
The White Hart, Brentwood
A vague tradition attempts to explain these inns as royal posting-houses, it being supposed that stations to supply fresh horses for the royal journeys were first established during the last years of Edward III. Undoubtedly theWhite Hartinns all date from the beginning of the reign of Richard II. After the scandals and misrule during the long dotage of his father, the nation centred all their hopes in the young king who showed promise of becoming a wise and able ruler.The policy of the good Parliament would once more govern in the council, and it seemed a happy omen when he took for his badge the white stag with a collar of gold around his neck. This legend, portrayed on so many signboards, was a delight of the mediæval romantic writers: the white hart was never to be taken alive except by one who had conquered the whole world. Its oldest form appears in the pages of Aristotle who relates how Diomedes consecrated a white stag to Diana; and how it lived for a thousand years before it was killed by Agathocles, King of Sicily. Pliny gives Alexander the Great, and later writers Julius Cæsar and Charlemagne, as the Emperors who captured the young white stag and released it after decorating it with the golden band. On the Dorchester road, near Stowminster, there used to be an inn with this kingly stag painted for a sign, and underneath the following lines translated from a mediæval quatrain by some not very conscientious scholar who has imported Cæsar, stag and all, into the West of England:
“When Julius Cæsar landed here,I was then a little deer,When Julius Cæsar reigned King,Round my neck he put this ring;Whoever shall me overtake,Spare my life for Cæsar’s sake!”
“When Julius Cæsar landed here,I was then a little deer,When Julius Cæsar reigned King,Round my neck he put this ring;Whoever shall me overtake,Spare my life for Cæsar’s sake!”
But when we begin to inquire into the actual title-deeds of theWhite Hartinns, we find ourselves in the midst of movements of far deeper import than the outburst of national loyalty on the signboards. The story of a great mediæval fiscal policy; the birth of home manufactures; the struggle of the towns for municipal rights. The sign of the White Hart marks a turning-point in the great social and industrial revolution which was to bring to the great body of Englishmen prosperity and freedom.
No country could compare with England, during the Middle Ages, for the production of wool. From the twelfth century onwards wool was almost the only export and the principal source of wealth for landowners and farmers. So important a trade was bound to receive the attention of Chancellors in search of a new tax. Accordingly, early in the thirteenth century, a system was devised by which no wool could possibly be exported until it had contributed its quota to the royal treasury. Wool, as well as some other raw materials, such as skins, lead and tin, had tobe brought for sale to an appointed place called the Staple, where the trade was under the superintendence of a special corporation whose seal must appear on every bale. The Staple was at first fixed at Bruges, the chief seaport of the Flemish cloth manufacturer, but during the reign of Edward III, it was moved to England, and then finally, in 1390, established at Calais. Thither every dealer was obliged to carry his bales by certain approved routes, through Boston, London, Sandwich, Winchester, or Southampton, and these towns became subsidiary centres of the Staple.Staple Inn, in Holborn, was an inn for merchants of the Staple before it became a resort for the lawyers. In the end the merchants of the Staple grew into a ring of powerful monopolists, who controlled prices, regulated times of sale, and even secured the carrying trade in their own hands. The sale of English sheep abroad, either for breeding or for shearing, was also forbidden under very heavy penalties.
All these vexatious formalities in getting his wool to Calais, and the rapacity of the merchants of the Staple, disgusted the English farmer. As early as 1258 Simon de Montfort urged that England ought to be a centre ofmanufacture, and not merely a source of raw material. Edward III, while with one hand consolidating the power of the monopolists who controlled the Staple, on the other hand stimulated the obvious remedy. He invited Flemish weavers to settle in this country. By the end of his reign the whirring sound of the looms might be heard all through Norfolk, Essex and Kent. From a country of farmers which exported wool, England was soon to be transformed into a country of manufacturers who exported cloth. The sale of wool at the Staple dwindled away, while Yorkshire tweeds and Cotswold broadcloths were winning the preference for price and quality in the most distant markets.
The commercial prosperity of England is generally said to have been built up on the industries arising out of the woolpack. But in the fourteenth century capital was already being found for the development of many other enterprises. In 1307 there were complaints about London fog, owing to the use of coal as fuel. In the Sussex weald and the Forest of Dean the iron trade was so busy that it was necessary to import a considerable portion of the ore from Sweden and Spain. The excellence of English guns, it is said,contributed largely to the victories of Henry V in France.[4]The lost art of brickmaking was reintroduced by the Flemings. Cheaper labour and materials induced copper-founders from Dinant and bell-founders from Liege to transfer their trades hither. Instead of bringing beer from Prussia the shipmasters found it more profitable to export Maidstone ales into Flanders.
Meanwhile, the towns from a position of semi-servitude had been step by step attaining to liberty, wealth and the political franchise. London led the way owing to the presence of merchants from Rouen and Caen who settled there immediately after the Conquest and took the position of a governing class prepared to treat with the King for privileges. The steps by which the various boroughs secured their rights of self-government, free speech in free meeting and equal justice would need several volumes to describe. They were won by steady solid perseverance, by customs allowed to grow up unnoticed during the quarrels between the barons and the royal favourites, by a direct bargain with the lord of the manor, or in afew instances by less ingenuous methods. Most of the towns, like London, were situated on the royal demesne. With these the work was comparatively easy. Secure of his ultimate supremacy, and indifferent to small sources of power, the king was generally willing to surrender local claims for a fixed payment in money. A Corporation was a better security for the payment of dues than petty officers given to peculation. Accordingly, from the reign of Henry I, charters were granted giving a progressive degree of liberty, although until the reign of John the King retained the nomination of the portreeve or mayor.
The feudal baron was not so willing to part with his supremacy. But the nobility were rapidly becoming poorer; and the issue of the battle was ultimately with the strong. Either the powerful merchants’ guild, returning unwearied to the fray after each rebuff, by its steady dogged agitation ended in forcing a compromise, or else the traders deserted the place and let it dwindle away into a poverty-stricken village. Sometimes an ancient charter was alleged to exist and prescriptive rights claimed before a commission in the King’s Courts; and the longest purse could fee the most persistent counsel.
Much less hopeful were the prospects of citizens whose lord was a religious house. The monasteries were rich, well acquainted with forms of law, and as trustees not justified in parting with their hereditary assets. Hitherto promoters of progress, the monks now began, to be regarded as a stumbling-block on the path towards freedom. And from this arose the smouldering hatred of the monasteries that underlies so much of the literature of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. During the great revolt of the villeins the monasteries and bishops’ palaces on the route of the insurgents were all burnt and sacked by the mob. At St. Albans, Cirencester, and even in the cinque port of Romney, the struggles of the townsfolk to burst their thraldom were endless and always futile. It was organised force in conflict with organised authority, and the result was that the latter prevailed. At Coventry the motto of the two contending bodies wasdivide et impera. The Merchant Guild became the Guild of the Holy Trinity and shared with the Corpus Christi Guild (of which the Prior and other Churchmen were members) all authority in the town, nominating the Mayor and all the important officials.
Simon de Montfort, “the father of English liberty,” was the first to recognise the growing importance of the commercial middle classes by summoning two burgesses from each of the town boroughs to his Parliament in 1264, and their presence was treated as a matter of course in subsequent Parliaments, though they formed a comparatively insignificant factor. In the reign of Edward III, when the Knights of the Shire associated with them to form the future House of Commons, their growing wealth and ability to make terms with the King as a condition of granting supplies was recognised and a marked increase of parliamentary activity commenced. Their “petitions” became on the assent of the Crown Statutes of the Realm, and henceforward the Lower House was to initiate nearly all legislation.
And now we can return to ourWhite Hartinns. They were the first inns to be built by the corporations, or at least under their licence. Secure in the possession of their charter, proud of their ever-increasing commerce, hopeful of the future privileges and reforms that were likely to be obtained by their burgesses in Parliament, the towns began to provide new inns of a superior kindfor the merchants who came regularly to their markets. They were held direct from the King, and to the reigning king alone they looked for any future marks of favour. Hence these inns almost invariably bear the badge of the reigning king. When Richard II was deposed the White Hart gave place to the White Swan of Henry IV, and this latter is nearly as common on the signboards. Barons and earls might dispute and make war on one another as to who was the sovereignde jure; the concern of the towns was with the kingde facto. The Commons regardedeach change of dynasty from Plantagenet to red rose and from red rose to white rose with the complacency of the Vicar of Bray. The old aristocracy ruined themselves and died out amid these political disputes; meanwhile the burghers grew rich and their posterity formed the nucleus of a new aristocracy of English race and of more patriotic instincts.
The Swan, Felstead
The signboards tell the same tale all through the fifteenth century. The Antelope of Henry VI, the White Lion of Edward IV, and the White Boar of Richard III each take their turn. The changes they represented meant little more than incidental gossip to the burghers. All the real life of the citizens was in their home and trade, in their craft guilds, in treaties with neighbouring towns, or in the little controversies of the town council.
We know only a few incidental details about the internal comforts of the White Hart inns. The majority of the guests slept in large rooms, on couches or wooden bedsteads. Only a few very important grandees were accorded a privatecamera. The bed was a long sack-like mattress stuffed with straw or hay; great folk would carrywith them their own bed on their journeys. Most people lay in their ordinary clothes on the bed, though counterpanes and linen were just coming into use. Carpets were chiefly employed like tapestry for hanging on the walls and diminishing the continual draughts. The women had their special apartments; the serving men slept on the rushes of the hall, while the grooms were left to make the best of stable and barn. Meals were taken at fixed hours, at a long movable table on trestles in the hall, guests and servants sitting down together, but placed according to rank. Some of the dishes would not commend themselves to fastidious moderns, but at least, there was never any lack of good wholesome fare; loaves, joints and meat pasties all on a gargantuan scale. Wines of British as well as foreign extraction competed with the nut brown ale. Essex was in those days the vineyard of England.
How much we have fallen off in the capacity of our stomachs from the good old times of open-air life and daily exercise on horseback may be judged from the following allowance of provisions granted to Lady Lucy, one of the maids of honour to Queen Katherine of Aragon:
“Breakfast—A chine of beef, a loaf, a gallon of ale.Luncheon—Bread and a gallon of ale.Dinner—A piece of boiled beef, a slice of roast meat, a gallon of ale.Supper—Porridge, mutton, a loaf, and a gallon of ale.”
“Breakfast—A chine of beef, a loaf, a gallon of ale.
Luncheon—Bread and a gallon of ale.
Dinner—A piece of boiled beef, a slice of roast meat, a gallon of ale.
Supper—Porridge, mutton, a loaf, and a gallon of ale.”
When the Warden of Merton College travelled with two of his fellows and four servants from Oxford to Durham in 1331, the season being winter, their average bill was 2d. for beds for the whole party, or for the servants alone, one halfpenny; at the town inns of fifty years later the price of a bed was one penny, and the increased comfort warranted the higher charge.[5]The private rooms, instead of being numbered, received names according to the subject portrayed on the tapestry hangings. This custom continued in old-fashioned inns up to quite recent times, and has served as the basis of stage humour of a sort:
Scene.A Country Inn.Timothy.What rooms have you disengaged, Waiter?Waiter.Why sir, there’s the Moon: but I forget—there’s a man in that.Timothy.Eh! A man in the Moon! Oh then we’ll not go there.Waiter.There’s the Waterloo Subscription, Sir; that’s full—there’s the Pope’s Head; that’s empty, etc., etc.[6]
Scene.A Country Inn.
Timothy.What rooms have you disengaged, Waiter?
Waiter.Why sir, there’s the Moon: but I forget—there’s a man in that.
Timothy.Eh! A man in the Moon! Oh then we’ll not go there.
Waiter.There’s the Waterloo Subscription, Sir; that’s full—there’s the Pope’s Head; that’s empty, etc., etc.[6]
In the minute books of the Grey Coat Hospital, a very valuable religious educational charity, we come across a rather startling entry. On Epiphany, 1698, “After prayers and sermon in church, the children and their parents dined in Hell.” Heaven and Hell were two public dining rooms adjoining the old Palace of Westminster, and so named either from the hangings or other pictorial decoration.
THE CRAFT GUILDS AND TRADERS’ INNS
Of the writing of books about the mediæval guilds there seems to be no end, and each new contribution serves to mystify rather than to throw light on the difficulties of the subject. From the earliest times, it was an inherent tendency of the Teutonic races to combine and form guilds. There were guilds for the building of bridges, for the relief of poor pilgrims, and for almost every imaginable purpose, ranging from the organisation of a municipality to the Saxon “frith-gild,” which undertook the punishment of thieves and the exacting of compensation for homicides. As to the craft guilds of the Middle Ages, some are content to regard them as trade unions, others as similar to our modern clubs, and a third class of writers assert that they were purely religious. As a matter of fact, they were capable of becoming all three in turn.
No doubt the original motive of these guilds was to create a monopoly and artificialcontrol over the particular trade, and also to obtain that security which only an organised association is able to give against tyranny and corruption. They comprised all ranks, wage-earners, manufacturers, and merchants. The weakness of such a body was that there was no community of interests as regards the internal economy of the industry. That is to say, the merchants and masters would not be induced to improve the position of their apprentices or to raise the wages of journeymen. The only common ground would lie in attempts to assert the interests of the trade at large against the whole body of consumers, or against competing trades.
On the other hand, the Corporation itself was originally a guild which had succeeded in obtaining a charter and thus becoming the administrative authority. It would regard with anxiety the creation of other bodies which might follow in its footsteps and become very dangerous rivals. Charters, indeed, were in the twelfth century being bought from the King, which rendered fraternities dependent for their existence on the royal will alone. The weavers of London lived in a quarter by themselves, with their own courts and raised their own taxes,suffering no intrusion from the City officials. Only by an expensive process of boycotting was this abuse brought to an end. When once the municipalities perceived their danger, they proceeded ruthlessly to reduce the craft guilds into subjection and to limit the purposes for which they were permitted to combine.
And this brings us to the second period in the history of the craft guilds, when we find each trade forming itself into an association to provide a burial fund for its deceased members, masses for the repose of their souls, and to organise a solemn procession and miracle play on the annual festival. Behind the religious association the union for trade purposes remained. When the secular powers of the craft guild were more clearly defined, in the fifteenth century, under the style of a company, the observance of the mystery was often allowed to fall into desuetude. The Companies became mere trustees of the endowments belonging to the religious guilds and treated with equanimity the abolition of these trusts at the Reformation.
In the third period the craft guilds as Companies became a useful adjunct of theCorporation, protecting the community from overcharges, settling disputes in the trade, and generally forming courts of reference on technical matters. The City companies of to-day, though not under any compulsion to do so, still occasionally render service of a kindred nature. The work of the Plumbers’ Company, a few years ago, in arranging for the examination and registration of plumbers will be called to mind; the Apothecaries’ Company has also done good service. Out of the guilds of the Holy Trinity at Hull and at Deptford has grown the Corporation of Trinity House, that wealthy philanthropic body that builds lighthouses, licenses pilots, and ministers in various ways to the welfare of our merchant shipping.
At Headcorn and Cranbrook, in the Weald of Kent, and again at Lavenham and Sudbury, in Suffolk, may be seen many beautiful examples of the halls of the craft guilds now derelict and converted to less noble purposes. Part of theKing’s Headat Aylesbury is supposed by experts to have been anciently a Guildhall. We shall refer more fully to this building in another chapter.
We have seen that the guilds affordedvery few advantages to the wage-earners, and according to the natural tendency of all such bodies, they ended in becoming aristocratic and exclusive. They were for a long period masters of the labour of the country, preventing any attempts at strikes, and securing that all disputes as to the rate of pay should be settled by the arbitration of their own warden. Vainly the serving-men of the Saddlers strove to form a guild of their own on the harmless pattern of a religious body with their own festival at Our Lady of Stratford-le-Bow. It was complained of them that in thirteen years their hire had more than doubled the ordinary rate, and their meetings were ruthlessly repressed. The May-Day festival of the Journeymen Shearers in Shrewsbury was suppressed for a similar reason.[7]
Only one refuge remained for the oppressed workmen—the inn, which for centuries was to be the place where he could hold these more or less illegal meetings with his comrades. In the houses of call for artisans, the workers discussed their grievances, hatched conspiracies and strikes, or devisedless drastic methods for the betterment of their condition. At Kidderminster there is an inn calledThe Holy Blaise, after the patron of weavers; another,Bishop Blaise, exists in the heart of the City of London in New Inn Yard. TheBoar’s Head, by the way, was a commonly accepted emblem of St. Blaise. ManySt. CrispinsorJolly Crispinssurvive to represent the shoemaker. St. Hugh was another patron of the shoe trade, and there was once aSt. Hugh’s Bonesin Clare Market.Simon the Tanneris an old house in LongLane, Bermondsey. A later age absurdly re-named inns frequented by the labouring class asThe Weavers’ Arms,Carpenters’ Arms,Bricklayers’ Arms, etc., etc. These inns, a common occurrence in every large town, are often of old foundation, and incidentally commemorate the fact that in the public-house it was that the wage-earners first learnt the art of combination for their own betterment. Here the earliest trade unions found a welcome and a home, with which many of their successors are still content. The club room at the inn was the cradle of the Friendly Societies. The Freemasons have given name to a whole series of taverns. All the numerous and generally well managed benefit Societies on the pattern of the Foresters, Hearts of Oak and Oddfellows owe their very existence to the public-house.
Bricklayers’ Arms, Caxton
It was anciently the custom for workmen to be paid at the nearest inn, and out of this, during the bad period at the beginning of the nineteenth century grew a very serious abuse. Those to whom was entrusted the duty of engaging and paying various forms of precarious and unskilled labour, such as coal whippers and porters, found it profitable to become owners of public-houses where theunfortunate men were kept waiting for a job which was generally awarded to the individual whose score was the largest. When the men returned from their work they were expected to spend a considerable portion of their earnings for the good of the house. The Truck Act of 1843 put an end to this heartless scandal.
Golden Fleece, South Weald
TheWoolpackandFleecewere, of course, the signs of inns frequented by the merchants who came to buy wool. At Guildford all the alehouses were at one time required to exhibita Woolpack as a token of the leading commodity in the town. There is a very fine oldGolden Fleece Innat South Weald in Essex, broad-fronted and roomy, Jacobean in style, but fallen sadly from its old estate since the coach traffic ceased on the Ipswich road.
TheThree Kingswas anciently the sign of the mercers, because in the Middle Ages linen thread materials brought from Cologne had the highest reputation, and were probably stamped either with the figures of the three wise men, or with three crowns. But theThree Crownsare asserted to be more commonly emblematic of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland. TheGolden Ballwas another mercers’ sign, from the arms of Constantinople, which was formerly the centre of the silk trade. TheElephant and Castlewas the crest of the Cutlers’ Company. However, theElephant and Castle, at the corner of Newington Causeway, has a quite different origin. The skeleton of an elephant was discovered while digging a gravel-pit near this spot in 1714. Elephants in mediæval heraldry were invariably represented as carrying a solidly-built castle, a traveller’s exaggeration of the Indian palanquin. TheLion and Castleindicated a dealer in Spanish wines,because sherry casks were stamped with the brand of the Spanish arms.
Foresters resorted for company to theGreen Man, and the survival of many old taverns of that name reminds us that there were numerous forests in the neighbourhood of London. The Northwood, or Norwood, extended from near theGreen Manat Dulwich to Croydon, where there is anotherGreen Man Inn. TheGreen Manat Leytonstone stands on the verge of Epping Forest. Wherever a painted sign exists on one of these houses it generally represents either an archer or a forester clad in Lincoln green.
TheTwo Brewersdoes not denote that the ale of the two rival tradesmen is on sale, but the manner in which beer was anciently carried about before the invention of brewers’ drays. Two porters are shown bearing the precious barrel slung between them on a pole.
Last of all to be mentioned among the inns which remind us of disappearing occupations are those found usually where the ancient green ways join the main roads to London. The drover and his herd of tired wild-eyed cattle is no longer a feature on the roadside. It is cheaper and more convenient to send oxen to market by cattle-train. But the longgreen lanes, touching here and there a market town, extend through the Eastern and Midland counties, right up to the North of England. Lonely and deserted, practicable only by the pedestrian or the rider of a sure-footed pony, scarcely ever used except by the county officials, whose duty it is to maintain the right of way, they remain as an ideal hunting ground for the naturalist. When the explorer, tired and hungry after many miles of rough journeying, finds shelter at theDrover’s Call,Butcher’s Arms, orJolly Drovers, the purpose of these old half-forgotten by-roads is made clear to him, and he can meditate during his hour of rest on the changes which fifty years have made in the methods of transport.
CHURCH INNS AND CHURCH ALES
We had occasion a year or two ago to visit a small country town where several public-houses were scheduled previous to being closed under the Licensing Act. It was impossible to defend the continuance of the licences. The high road which ran through the lower part of the town was well provided with inns for the passing traveller. These condemned inns, nine or ten in number, were all in a side street leading to the church at the top of the hill. We inquired of a local antiquary, an enthusiast on the subject of inns, whether he could account for the existence of so many in a situation apparently ill-adapted for a prosperous trade, and received a surprising explanation.
Porch, Chalk Church, Kent
“They loved God in those days,” muttered the old gentleman, with a sigh of regret, “and loving God each man loved his brother also. In the church they learnt the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven; the public-house gave them the opportunity of realising theKingdom of Heaven in the practice of brotherly love. It is a survival of the early Christian Agape. ‘Exercise hospitality one to another,’ says the Apostle—for this is the full meaning of προσλαμβάνεσθαι in Romans xv, 7. In the good old days men did not go into a public-house to drown their wits in gin, but to buy each other good wholesome ale in Christian fellowship. And as every man went to church—of course, there had to be many alehouses!”
We have since discovered a less picturesque though much more plausible origin of these superfluous inns which will be given in another chapter. Nevertheless, allowing for our good friend’s flamboyant enthusiasm, there is an element of truth in his contention. Wherever there is a church we may be certain of finding an old inn hard by. In pre-reformation times the Church, while not exactly countenancing the alehouse, looked not sourly on drinking customs when indulged in with discretion. The training of the character in self-restraint is a great ideal of the Catholic Church. The alternation of festival and fast is one integral feature of the process. Fasting alone is insufficient. Continual abstinence results in self-mutilation; the appetiteis merely distorted thereby. It is a great secret of the higher life that where there is no temptation there can be no victory. And so the Church enjoined on our forefathers the duty of feasting heartily and fasting conscientiously each in their due season. A great doctor of the Church gave the maxim that to be fasting after the fifth hour of a holy-day was to beipso factoexcommunicate.
Before inns became common the parish clergy were expected to entertain travellers. It must be borne in mind that until the thirteenth century many of the secular priests were married men. The Rolls of Parliament for 1379 contain a complaint that owing to the non-residence of the clergy this duty of affording shelter to benighted wayfarers was in danger of lapsing. In our own boyhood it was still the traditional custom for travellers in remote districts to put up at the rectory, and this may help to account for the unnecessary size of rectories in sparsely populated country parishes. But obviously the unmarried priest of the fifteenth century found it more convenient to all parties when an inn was built on his glebe, where it would be more or less under his control, and he could be answerable for its good conduct.
Again, parishioners from outlying districts were expected on high festivals to attend morning and afternoon services at their mother church. In licensing a chapel at Smallhythe in 1509 “on account of the badness of the roads and the dangers which the inhabitants underwent from the waters being out,” Archbishop Warham was careful to stipulate that the people of Smallhythe were not thereby released from their duties at the parish church of Tenterden. Some accommodation was necessary where those coming from a distance could rest and have their midday meal during the interval between High Mass and Vespers. At Lurgashall, in Sussex, there is a very ancient closed porch of wood extending the whole length of the South aisle which local tradition declares to have been built for this express purpose. Perhaps also the large parvise to the west of the tower at Boxley, like in form to the antechapels in the colleges at Oxford and Cambridge, was a shelter of this kind. Mr. Baring-Gould thinks that the deep porches in the French cathedrals were intended to shelter the peasants during the midday hours. But by the fifteenth century the increase in the standard of comfort would demand an inn, ratherthan these exposed and draughty places for shelter.
Church Ales were a special institution of the mediæval Church to the intent that no parishioner by reason of poverty should lack the means of feasting to his heart’s content on the greater holy-days; all were to assemble and make merry together. “In every parish,” says Aubrey, in the introduction to his “Natural History of Wiltshire,” “there was a Church House, to which belonged spits, crocks, and other utensils for dressing provisions. Here the housekeepers met. The young people were there, too, and had dancing, bowling, shooting at butts, etc., the ancients sitting gravely by and looking on. All things were civil and without scandal.” Whitsuntide was the great feast of early summer before haymaking began, and so these feasts were popularly known as Whitsun-Ales, but Easter and Christmas were not forgotten. From an old Breton legend we learn incidentally that it was customary for the three masses of Christmas to be said consecutively by anticipation, after which all adjourned for a gorgeous feast in the neighbouring Church House. Sometimes two parishes united for the celebration of the Church Ale. In Dodsworth’smanuscripts there is an old indenture preserved, an agreement between the parishioners of Elveston and Okebrook, in Derbyshire, to brew four ales, and every ale of one quarter of malt between Easter and the feast of St. John the Baptist; every inhabitant of the two parishes to attend the several ales. Charitable folks bequeathed funds for the maintenance of these parish banquets on particular festivals.
Church House, Penshurst
Just above the western door of Chalk Church, near Gravesend, squats carved in stone a grotesque goblin figure, cross-legged and grinning with a most jovial expression as he grasps a flagon of ale. Charles Dickens in his latter years never omitted to stop and have greeting with this comical old monster. Now, this sculpture commemorates agive ale, bequeathed by William May, in 1512, that there should be “every year for his soull, an obit, and to make in bread six bushells of wheat, and in drink ten bushells of malt, and in cheese twenty pence, to give to poor people for the health of his soull.”
After the Reformation the Church Ales were continued, chiefly in order that the Churchwardens might by the sale of the liquor secure funds for the repair of the fabric. “There were no rates for the poor in my grandfather’s days,” says Aubrey. “But for Kingston St. Michael (no small parish) the Church Ale of Whitsuntide did the business.” Abuses rapidly crept in. Stubbs, the author of the “Anatomie of Abuses,” complains in1583, that the ales were kept up for six weeks on end, or even longer. In the West of England instances are related of the South aisle of the church being filled with beer casks and men busy supplying all comers. The sale of liquor went on during morning service greatly to the disturbance of the officiating minister. Bishops’ injunctions, ecclesiastical canons, and orders of the justices fulminated vainly against the degenerated Church Ales. Not till the time of the Commonwealth were they finally abolished.
The Punch Bowl, High Easter
Bishop Hobhouse traces the growth of the Church House into a regular tavern at Tintinhull in Somersetshire. First, there was a small bakehouse for the making of thepain bénit. In time this had developed into a bakery supplying the whole neighbourhood with bread. From brewing ale for Church festivals, the brewhouse undertook the regular sale of malt liquor; and it was a very profitable business for the churchwardens; so that municipal trading was not quite unknown in the olden time.
The only examples of an undoubted Church House that we have come across are the “Church Loft” at West Wycombe, in Bucks, and the exquisite half-timbered building over the Lych Gate at Penshurst. TheCastle Innat Hurst, in Berkshire, is traditionally known as the Church House. The bowling-green behind this inn is one of the best in England and of great antiquity. There are many inns and other old houses near churchyards which probably began their career as Church Houses; the half-timbered “Priest house” at Langdon, in Essex, and the long plastered and tiled tudor structure over the porch at Felstead, opposite theSwan Inn, and formerly used as the Grammar School,may both be of this category. ThePunch Bowlat High Easter is actually in the churchyard; its interior framing—a marvellous piece of joinery—and the richly-moulded beams show it to have been built at the same time as part of the church, perhaps by the same craftsmen. By the way, Mr. James Stokes, the landlord for many years of thePunch Bowl, a worthy, good-hearted man, was in size the nearest rival of Daniel Lambert we ever met. His huge proportions were not by any means due to indolent habits. Hewas a thatcher by trade, and noted in the district for his activity and skill.
The Punch Bowl, High Easter
In the absence of documents it is not easy to discriminate between the Church Inn and the Church House. Old inns near the church bearing ecclesiastical names may be of either origin, or may have served for both. TheBellis very common all over England. It is always found near the church, and the sign is of the highest antiquity. Chaucer tells us that theTabardin Southwark was “juste by the Belle.” TheBellat Finedon, in Northamptonshire, puts in a claim to be one of the very oldest in the country, and the oldBell Tavernwhich formerly stood in King Street, Westminster, is mentioned in the expenses of Sir John Howard, Jockey of Norfolk, in 1466. At theBell, in Warwick Lane, died the good Archbishop Leighton in 1684. “He often used to say that if he were to choose a place to die in, it should be an inn; it looks like a pilgrim’s going home, to whom this world was all as an inn, and who was weary of the noise and confusion in it.... And he obtained what he desired.”[8]
Not unusual in this situation is aLamb Inn. TheLambat Eastbourne has a small butwell-proportioned crypt, vaulted and groined. There is aLamb and Flagnear the old parish church at Brighton, Sudbury, and at Swindon; and aLamb and Anchorin Bristol. These owe their origin to a carving of theAgnus Dei, but may sometimes point to a house of the Knights Templars, for theAgnus Deiappeared on their coat of arms. TheBleeding Heartis an emblem of the five sorrowful mysteries of the Rosary, and theHeart, generally found as theGolden Heart, is in honour of the Blessed Virgin. TheAnchoris suggestive of a church inn, but we have not been able to trace a house bearing this sign to any very remote period. At Hartfield, there is anAnchor Innclose to the church, evidently ancient, and having a delightful old-fashioned garden. It was formerly occupied by a church institution where the poor were fed and housed in return for such labour as their age and skill would permit, founded by the Rev. Richard Randes, a rector of the parish some two hundred and fifty years ago. The house contains evidence of having existed long before this date.
At least one church has, by the vicissitudes of time, become an inn; theGeorge Hotelat Huntingdon, itself very old and picturesque, enshrines in its cellars and lower walls all thatis left of St. George’s Church. The stones of St. Benedict’s Church in the same town were used two centuries ago in building theBarley Mow Innat Hartford, and some figures and panelling may be seen in the tap-room of theQueen’s Head, close by where this church stood. At theOld Red House, about four miles north of Newmarket on the road to Brandon, the bar-counter is formed out of the rood-screen turned out of the neighbouring church at a “Restoration” about five-and-twenty years ago.
In a corner of Romford churchyard a fifteenth-century chantry-house, founded by Avery Comburgh, Squire of the Body to Henry VI, and Under-Treasurer to Henry VII, became after the Reformation theCock and Bell Inn. Through the kindness of Messrs. Ind, Coope & Co., the present Bishop of Colchester was enabled to regain possession for religious uses, and after three hundred and sixty years of alienation this building, still possessing its original oak ceiling beams and panelling has been converted into a Church House for the parish, and a hall for meetings, corresponding in style, has now been added from the design of Sir Charles Nicholson, Bart.
Among the pleasantest memories of a pilgrimage to Walsingham, is that of a Sunday spent at a little Suffolk village, where after service Pastor and flock alike adjourned to our inn for a half an hour’s gossip. The old custom would be difficult to restore nowadays, but much of the social influence of the Church over the labouring classes was lost when rectors left off occupying, at least once a week, the chair in the village inn parlour. For it is not without good reason that church and inn stand so frequently side by side. Each ministers alike to the natural and common needs of man, and each in its own way has its lesson to teach us in the gospel of the larger life. They have stood together through the ages as a protest against the wayward theories of man-made puritanism; for they belong to the Commandment which is “exceeding broad.”
COACHING INNS
A hundred years ago, everybody who had occasion for inland travelling was perforce obliged to use the road; that is, unless he preferred a canal boat or barge, and navigable waters lay in the desired direction. Rich people travelled in their private carriage with four horses which were changed every few miles at the posting-houses. Those without means had to content themselves with carriers’ carts or the stage broad-wheeled waggons; a few resorted to dog-carts, then a tiny four-wheeled contrivance actually drawn by dogs. But the great majority of passengers were conveyed in the coaches or mails. In 1825 it was calculated that no less than 10,000 persons were daily on the road in mail-coaches, so closely timed that if a driver were to be ten minutes late in arriving at an important centre many corresponding services would be seriously upset. The average speed, allowing for changing horses, was about ten miles an hour on the fast day coaches.
All this vast organisation had grown up since the time of Queen Elizabeth, when the coach was introduced from France by Fitz-Alan, Earl of Arundel. Only in her old age would this queen leave her horse for the effeminate conveyance, and the Judges continued to ride on horseback to Westminster Hall, almost until the Restoration. In the year 1672, when there were only six stage-coaches in daily running, a Mr. John Cresset, of the Charterhouse, published a pamphlet urging their suppression on the ground that “These stage-coaches make gentlemen come to London on every small occasion, which otherwise they would not do, but upon urgent necessity; nay the convenience of the passage makes their wives often come up, who rather than come such long journeys on horseback would stay at home. Then, when they come to town, they must presently be in the mode, get fine clothes, go to plays and treats, and by these means get such a habit of idleness and love of pleasure, as to make them uneasy ever after.”
The coaches started on their journey each morning and evening from great inn yards surrounded by tiers of galleries one above the other. Sometimes, as at theBull andMouthin St. Martins le Grand, or theOxford Armsin Warwick Lane, there were four stories of these galleries. It is not easy to trace the various steps by which the plan of the coaching inn was evolved from the “corrall” of migrating tribes, who when resting for the night arranged their waggons in a hollow square, with their cattle in the centre. But the idea underlying the coaching inn was a species of fortress entered only by the great archway with massive doors strongly barred at closing time. The bedchambers of the guests all opened into the galleries overlooking the yard. When an alarm was raised each owner of waggons or cattle in the yard could at once hurry out to the defence of his property. Later on, the traveller would be bound to hear the note of the guard’s horn, warning him that the coach in which he had booked a place was preparing to start.
“Heads, heads,—take care of your heads!” is the cry as the Pickwick Club pass on the top of the Rochester coach through the low inn archway. “Terrible place—dangerous work—other day—five children—mother—tall lady eating sandwiches—forgot the arch—crash—knock—children look round—mother’s head off—sandwich in her hand—nomouth to put it in—head of a family off—shocking, shocking!” And it was no invention of the ingenious Mr. Jingle—for the accident actually happened at theWhite Hartat St. Albans.
Yard of White Hart, St. Albans
Just as the coaching system had reached its highest perfection, the railway came and the coach vanished—more suddenly than the horse vehicle has disappeared from the Strand with the advent of the taxi-cab and motor omnibus. The landlord of the coaching inn and the posting-house found his occupation gone almost as abruptly as the guard and driver. Gone are all the coaching inns of London, although their names survive as receiving offices of the railway carriers. In country towns on the main roads, like Sittingbourne or Godalming, huge forlorn wrecks present their face to the roads converted into shops or tenements. Some of them continue to maintain a precarious existence in country villages like Buckden in Huntingdonshire, scarcely visited by the traveller of to-day, whereas seventy years ago their vast size was often insufficient to accommodate the daily arrivals of guests. They linger on in the hope that motorists may bring them a new popularity. Others, tired of emptyrooms and dwindling local trade have retired into private life. At Caxton, on the old North Road, theGeorge, a very large inn of a lonely country village, is now a comfortable private residence, and the old gateway arch would hardly be recognized in the French window opening on the front garden.
Coach Gallery at the Bull, Long Melford
Gone are the old galleried yards. We do not know of one complete instance, except the little disusedCoach and Horsesin York Street, Westminster, which is neither large nor beautiful. Fragments of galleries exist at the oldGeorge Innin the Borough, where they are in several stories; at theGeorgeat Huntingdon; theGolden Lionat St. Ives, and theNew Innat Gloucester; but the finest remaining gallery is at theBullat Dartford. TheBullat Long Melford owns a glazed gallery, running along the side of the yard next the inn, said to have served to facilitate the loading of luggage on the coaches.
But in provincial towns the coaching inn is not quite left desolate; it is the place of departure and arrival for the carrier’s van. One need only search any local directory to discover the enormous number of these conveyances and the various inns from which they start. The rustic still prefers this method of travel to any other, and if the tourist is not in a hurry the box seat of a carrier’s cart is the ideal place from which to study rural affairs. The carrier knows everybody in the district and he is often a dry kind of philosopher, if not an archæologist or naturalist. Win his heart and he will divulge unexpected secrets, besides securing for you the most comfortable night’s lodging. His recommendation will prove a passport admitting into every grade of village society.
When the world proves unkind, when theloneliness and disappointments of life press hard upon you—if Fortune has dealt you a humiliating rebuff—then, if you have a few shillings left, one night spent in an old wayside coaching inn will brace your system up and give you heart to face your troubles once more with a new courage. The world you have left may have despised you. Within the walls of this old hostelry, landlord, waiter, chambermaid, exist only to obey your lightest whim. You are the luminary round which this little world revolves—the “gentleman in the parlour.” As Washington Irving so well puts it: “To a homeless man there is a momentary feeling of independence as he stretches himself before an inn fire; the armchair is his throne, the poker is his sceptre, and the little parlour his undisputed empire.” If you condescend to join the company in the tap-room, still further honour awaits you. Your pronouncements on things temporal or things eternal have acquired an acknowledged value; your opinion is invited and universally deferred to; and the oldest inhabitant will for your special benefit invent a new series of reminiscences. In short, you will feel the truth of all that Dr. Johnson has laid down on the subject: “At a tavernthere is a general freedom from anxiety. You are sure you are welcome; and the more noise you make, the more trouble you give, the more good things you call for, the welcomer you are. No servants will attend you with the alacrity which waiters do, who are incited by the prospects of an immediate reward in proportion as they please. No, sir; there isnothing which has been contrived by man by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn.”
The White Hart, Witham
A few minutes’ gossip with the landlord after closing time, and you sink to rest in the depth of a feather bed, which removes the last vestiges of the care that has beset you. Early in the morning you rise refreshed and vigorous, ready after a walk round the old-fashioned garden to devour unlimited supplies of ham and eggs washed down by coffee. It is only in real old coaching inns that they possess the secret of brewing old English coffee—a beverage that owes nothing to the poisonous intoxicating berry of Arabia, discovered by the brothers Shirley. We believe it is manufactured by roasting and grinding some species of scarlet runner. As a breakfast drink it is unequalled. This coffee is the last of a series of exhilarating experiences before you go your way rejoicing and awake to all the graces of life. The bill will not be exorbitant—that is, if you have been reasonable in your demands—and the landlord contemplates with pleasure your return on a future occasion.
We love the coaching inn, not only as the home of practical good cheer, but for theromantic memories that cling to it. Scarcely one of them but has its story of the eloping couple, whose chaise slipped out at the back gate just as the heroine’s father alighted to make inquiries at the front door; the details vary, but the lovers always escape in the nick of time with the connivance of Boniface. In a corner of the gallery of one old inn near Huntingdon, a narrow door is shown, fitting so exactly that when closed no person except those in the secret could trace it. Here some Dick Turpin or Claude Duval might lie in wait and peep over the balcony to choose his prey among the passengers stopping for the night; or find safe hiding from the Bow Street runners. Romance easily gathered around the journey by coach. Whereas a railway acquaintance ends when the passengers each go his or her own way from the arrival platform, the companions on the coach-top met again in the coffee-room, and might renew their intimacy at breakfast next morning. Between London and York there was ample time and opportunity for any suitable young couple to arrive at a good understanding with one another.
None of the coaching inns had a more remarkable history than theCastle InnatMarlborough. Built by Francis, Lord Seymour, in the reign of Charles II from the reputed designs of Webb, Inigo Jones’ pupil and son-in-law, this sumptuous manor-house was the favourite residence of the Seymour family. During its occupation by Frances, Countess of Hertford, and afterwards Duchess of Somerset, in the early years of the eighteenth century, many of the leading wits and scholars of the age were invited here. Dr. Watts, the hymn-writer, James Thomson, author of “The Seasons,” and Elizabeth Rowe are all said to have composed their lays in the grottoes and extravagantly-arranged gardens. When the house passed by marriage into the hands of the Northumberland family it was neglected as a superfluous residence, and at last was let on lease as an inn to a Mr. Cotterell. It was a broad-fronted stately mansion, the most splendid and best appointed hotel in England during that age. Before the grand portico no less than forty coaches changed horses every day. The service was magnificent. A dinner of twenty-two covers could, if necessary, be served up on silver.
The great Lord Chatham once stayed several weeks at theCastle Inn. He was detainedthere on his way back to London from Bath, by a relapse of gout. His own suite demanded twenty rooms, and the exigencies of State during that time strained the resources of the hotel to the utmost. He required the whole staff, waiters, ostlers and boot-boys to wear his livery. Mr. Stanley Weyman has seized on just this critical moment, and has woven round theCastle Innthe sweetest and most enthralling of his many novels.
Other romances of real life are associated with it. Driving through Marlborough and halting at theCastle Inn, a certain Duke of Chandos heard screams in the inn-yard. Hastening to the spot he found a beautiful girl being brutally beaten by an ostler. When the Duke interfered, the ostler declared that the young woman was his wife, and therefore that he had an indefeasible right to beat her. However, he was willing to compromise the matter by selling his wife for £20. The Duke paid the money, took the young woman away, and, so we are told, afterwards made her Duchess of Chandos.
Old Coaching Inns, St Albans
Water has continued to flow under the bridge that spans the Kennett for many generations since Sir George Soane sat on the parapet and wooed Julia, the college porter’sdaughter. The old Bath Road knows no more the coaches, curricles, wigs and hoops, holstered saddles or the beaux and fine ladies, and gentleman’s gentlemen whose environment they were. We drift half-unconsciously into the language of the novelist who has recalled these old days so vividly. TheCastle Innis now part of Marlborough College, founded in 1843. TheRose Innat Wokingham has been refronted since “With pluvial patter for refrain,” Gay, Pope, Swift andArbuthnot spent a rainy afternoon there vying their verses in praise of Molly Moy, the fair daughter of their host, who in spite of her beauty lived to be an old maid of seventy. Yet the wayfarer will discover that innkeeper’s daughters are as pretty as they were in the days gone by. Romance is not the exclusive property of any one generation. Where youth and beauty are to be found there lurks the romance; and it belongs as much to the inns of our own time as when highwaymen, patches, puffs, wigs, and knee breeches were the prevailing fashion.
Botolph’s Bridge Inn, Romney Marsh