36 Gosford St
91 Gosford St
The common word for these craft-plays is pageants, a word of uncertain origin, which is also applied to the vehicle or movable stage whereon the acting took place. These pageants[670]were divided into two parts;the actors dressed—and no doubt waited also, when their presence was not required on the stage—in the under part, where they were concealed by hanging cloths; the play was set forth on the upper part, which was open to the view, and furnished with suitable scenery, and the floor strewn with rushes. Journeymen and other hirelings dragged the pageants from place to place, the play being repeated at convenient points within the city, beginning with Gosford Street. The second and third stations appear to have been at the end of Much Park Street, most likely the corner of Jordan Well, and at the New Gate respectively. Dr Craig thinks that there were ten stations, which would accord well with the number of pageants and of wards within the city, though I cannot think that each of the plays was performed ten times over. Flesh is weak, and it is difficult to see how either actors or spectators could have borne the strain.[671]Moreover even the long light days of May or June would hardly have sufficed for such a stupendous task: when it was once essayed, all the pageants being first played before Richard Wood's door to pleasure Queen Margaret, in 1457, daylight failed, and the performance of "Doomsday" was perforce abandoned. Indeed it seems that this particular play, which naturally concluded the series, was but thrice acted, since the drapers regularly order three "worldys"—for which in 1556 they paid Croo two shillings—one to be destroyed, it appears, in each performance.[672]
OLD HOUSE IN COX STREET
No doubt this mobility of the theatre, and the simultaneous acting of various pageants at different stations was necessitated by the lack of an open space within the city sufficient to contain the throng of spectators. The acting of single plays, not belonging to thetraditional cycle, such as the play of S. Catherine acted in 1491, or that of S. Crytyan or Christian, "magnus ludus vocatus seynt Xpeans pley,"[673]performed at Whitsuntide in 1505, took place in the Little Park where space was ample. That a regular open-air amphitheatre was constructed—such as theplân an guarewhich survives at S. Just in Cornwall, is improbable; the Park-Hollows, where later Lollard and Marian martyrs suffered death, would maybe serve aptly for the purpose. Such an indelible impression did S. Christian's play make on those that beheld it, that years later when divers neighbours and friends were asked to give proof of Walter Smith's age—it was the Walter Smith who was after strangled by means of Dorothy, his faithless wife—they recalled that his baptism took place the year S. Christian's play was played in the Little Park.
There was possibly a convenient station close to the Greyfriars' church, where Henry VII. and his Queen viewed the plays in 1493. This is the explanation, whereat Dr Craig[674]has arrived after a careful sifting of the evidence, of the cryptic saying of some of the annalists that the King and Queen saw the plays actedby the Greyfriars. "In his Mayoralty," says one version, "K.H. 7 came to see the plays acted by theGrey Friersand much commended them"; another version, quoted by Dr Craig, varies the reading to "atthe greyfriers,"the probably correct interpretation.[675]The only other reference to the grey friars' acting comes from Dugdale, who goes further in attributing a particular manuscript to this particular house. The plays were "acted," he says, "with mighty state and reverence by the Friers of this House"; and further "I have been told," he continues, "by some old people, who in their younger years were eye-witnesses of thesePageantsso acted, that the yearly confluence of people to see that shew was extraordinary great, and yeilded no small advantage to this City."[676]Here Homer distinctly nods. Dugdale does not seem to have heard of the craft plays, whereof the regular representation did not cease until 1580,[677]twenty-five years before his birth, and thirty-five years before his entry into Coventry grammar school, but it was clearly to these pageants that the old people aforesaid referred, since any hypothetical acting on the part of the friars must have ceased in 1538 with the suppression of their house, sixty-seven years before Dugdale's birth and seventy-seven years before the beginning of his scholastic life at Coventry.
It is also on the slenderest grounds that the historian of Warwickshire attributes the fifteenth century MS. of theLudus Coventriæto the Franciscans of that city. The first possessor of the manuscript was one Robert Hegge of Durham, after whose death in 1629 it appears to have passed into Cotton's possession and is still included in the great Cottonian collection in the British Museum.[678]Cotton's librarian, Richard James, described the MS. on the fly-leaf as scenes from the New Testament,[679]acted by monks or mendicant friars, adding that the book is commonly known as the Coventry playsor Corpus Christi plays.[680]A later librarian in 1696 omitted the Coventry attribution, but still alluded to the plays as represented by mendicant friars.
Here the matter must rest. Probably the last word has still to be said on the subject. Scholars are not agreed on thelocaleof theLudus Coventriæwhich have been assigned to districts as far removed as the northeast midlands and Wiltshire, or to their actors, who have been represented as strolling players, or even Coventry friars "on tour."[681]We might be disposed to accept—with caution—the view, evidently based on some tradition or other, that these plays were acted by friars,[682]but the objection to identifying these friars with the Coventry Franciscans, acting at any rate in Coventry, is that the city was furnished already with well-authenticated craftsmen-acted plays of great renown, whereof some examples are now left, and that it would be impossible for two sets of plays and actors to command attention at the feast of Corpus Christi. Nor is there evidence, so far as I am aware, to connect any of the Coventry religious with the stationary plays acted on occasions at Whitsuntide.[683]
We touch surer ground when we come to examine the craft-plays, whereof we have abundance of evidence. Unlike those of Chester, York and Wakefield, the Coventry plays were few in number, having been fused together, and, it seems, formed a series illustrating the life of Christ, closing with His second coming on the Day of Judgment. The absence of Old Testamentscenes would be a rare feature, and the point has been disputed,[684]but so few of the pageants remain unidentified, and such striking scenes in the life of Christ have no play assigned to them, that there hardly seems room for scenes drawn from the Old Testament. The procession of prophets[685]—Processus Prophetarum—the nucleus whence the Old Testament cycle spread, is likewise very undeveloped in Coventry. None of the prophets are individualized in the plays that have come down to us, except Isaiah, who appears as prologue to the tailors' and sheremen's play of theNativity; others appear as rather "defuce" commentators—to use their own word—further on in the action, and again as prologue to the weavers' play of thePurification.[686]It is impossible to construct the whole series of the Coventry plays, for, save two pageants—that of the sheremen and tailors, and that of the weavers—all are missing, and in some cases the very titles of the plays cannot be recovered. The first pageant set forth was probably that of the guild of the Nativity, the company of tailors and sheremen, representing theAnnunciation, Joseph's Trouble,the Journey to Bethlehem,the Birth of Christ,the Angels and the Shepherds,the Offering of the Magi,the Flight into Egypt,and the Murder of the Innocents. The weavers' pageant, wherein was set forth thePresentation of Christ in the Temple, andChrist and the Doctors, would follow as a matter of course. The titles of four pageants—those of the mercers, tanners, whittawers, and girdlers—are lost, though Dr Craig has made the shrewd guess that the subject of the first was theAssumption.[687]The story ofChrist's Trial and Crucifixionwas the theme of the smiths' show, theBurialor the "taking down ofGod from the Cross" was played by the pinners and needlers, theHarrowing of Helland theResurrectionwas enacted on the stage furnished by the cardmakers, later cappers, and this, with the drapers'Doomsday, closes the list of the plays that are known to us. It will thus be seen that the inferior clothing crafts represented the Christmas cycle, and the workers in iron, smiths, pinners, cardmakers, the Passion-Resurrection one, so that we may suppose that the subject of the girdlers' pageant, since they were workers in iron, would be a subject nearly connected with this latter group—possibly the "Maundy" andthe Agony in the Garden.
The shearmen and tailors' pageant of theNativityand the weavers'Presentation in the Temple, both plays whereof the text has been preserved, were discovered by the antiquary, Thomas Sharp, and printed early in the last century, a fortunate circumstance, since the former with all Sharp's collection perished in the fire at Birmingham in 1879. One manuscript alone remains, now in the possession of the broad weavers and clothiers, a small volume of seventeen leaves, one missing, bound in ancient boards and leather, with end-papers of Holbeinesque wood-cuts. The whole—save two songs at the end—is in the handwriting of Robert Croo, by whom it was "newly translate" in 1534.
Both these plays are written in many metres, and obviously show the workmanship of many hands. Rhythm and versification often betray the 'prentice; indeed on the whole it is but clumsy writing; and yet here and there that wonderful instrument, the English language, gives out its music though it be stricken with an unsure and careless hand. Isaiah's prologue, the scenes between Simeon and Anna,[688]—even the lines of that sublime braggart, Herod, have a hint of that wonderful quality to which English verse attained when Spenserwrote it. The kernel of the story is told in rough, simple quatrains; here and there—particularly in the comic parts—a rollicking stanza, derived apparently from one employed in the Chester cycle, breaks in; while some portions of the piece have been so worked over that the verse defies metrical analysis.[689]
There is no comedy connected with the shepherds' scenes in the Coventry Christmas plays, such as occurs in the Towneley (Wakefield) cycle, where the sheep-stealing episode is the work of a master-hand. Nor is the presentation of their gifts to the Child as charming as the "bob of cherries" passage in the northern dramatist's verses, still the scene is full of the tender feeling, which it never fails to draw forth.
"I have nothing," says the first shepherd to Mary,—
"I haue nothyng to present withthi chyldeBut my pype; hold, hold, take yt in thy hond;Where-in moche pleysurethat I haue fond;And now, to oonowre thy gloreose byrthe,Thow schallt yt haue to make the myrthe.II.Pastor.Now, hayle be thow, chyld,andthy dame!For in a pore loggyn here art thow leyde,Soo the angell seydeandtolde vs thy name;Holde, take thow here my hat on thy hedde!And now off won thyng thow art well sped,For weddur thow hast noo nede to complayne,For wynd, ne sun, hayle, snoo and rayne.III.Pastor.Hayle be thou, Lorde ouer watur and landis!For thy cumyng all we ma make myrtheHave here my myttens to pytt on thi hondis.Other treysure have I non to present the with."
A pipe, a hat, a pair of mittens! How homely it sounds! In theYork Playsthe Child receives a broach with a tin bell, two cob-nuts on a string, and a horn spoon that can hold forty pease!
In the Nativity scene Joseph warms the Child at the breath of the beasts in the manger.
Mare.A! Josoff, husebond, my chyld waxith cold,And we haue noo fyre to warme hym with.Josoff.Now in my narmys I schall hym fold,Kyng of all kyngis be fyldandbe fryth;He myght haue had bettur,andhym-selfe wold,Then the breythyng of these bestis to warme hymwith.Mare.Now, Josoff, my husbond, fet heddur my chyld,The Maker off man and hy Kyng of blys.Josoff.That schalbe done anon, Mare soo myld,For the brethyng of these bestis hath warmyd [hym] well, i-wys.
The comic element in the preserved plays is represented by Joseph, a weariful old husband, and natural grumbler, who becomes exceedingly fretful when bidden by Mary to find some doves for the Purification offering at the Temple.
"Swette Josoff," says Mary, "fuffyll ye owre Lordis hestes."
"Why," says her husband ruefully,
"Whyandwoldist th[o]u haue me to hunt bridis nestis?I pray the hartely, dame, leve thosse jestisAnd talke of thatt wol be.For, dame, woll I neuervast my wyttis,To wayte or pry where the wodkoce syttis;Nor to jubbard among the merle pyttis,For thatt wasse neyuermy gyse.Now am I woldandma not well goo:A small twyge wold me ouerthroo;And yche[690]were wons lyggyd aloo,Full yll then schulde I ryse."[691]
Finding the task inevitable, he murmurs that "the weakest go ever to the wall," and appeals for sympathy to the audience, particularly to the husbands of youngand headstrong wives in the traditional manner beloved by mediæval play-goers,
"How sey ye all this companyThatt be weddid asse well asse I?I wene that ye suffer moche woo;For he that weddyth a yonge thyngMust fullfyll all hir byddyng,Or els make his handis wryng,Or watur his iis when he wold syng;And thatt all you do know."[692]
Finally he subsides helplessly upon a "lond" or furrow, till the angel appears and thrusts the birds into his hands. No mention is made to Mary of the miraculous interposition when Joseph has hurried home, pluming himself upon the capture.
"I am full glade I haue them fond.Am nott I a good husbonde?"
says the saint with glee. It is a delicious scene, and its writer was a comedian of no mean order.
Herod was the popular favourite of the Christmas play cycle, for the predecessors of Shakespeare's groundlings loved to have their ears split by his noisy arrogance. He "ragis in the pagond and in the strete also," according to a stage direction, and it is possible that his buffoonery was tinged with the memory of the wild frolic of the ancient Christmas festivals, the feast of the Ass and the feast of Fools.[693]
"It out-herods Herod," says Shakespeare, the professional player, in scorn of the amateur of the old régime. But the rant Herod utters is gorgeous rant.
How the children shuddered when he wielded his "bright brond" or terrible sword, and how his great voice rang out through the streets when he cried:—
"For I am evyn he thatt made bothe hevin and hell,And of my myghte power holdith up this world rownd.Magog and Madroke, bothe them did I confounde."
What megalomania! "Magog and Madroke," are undeniably fearsome names and suit well with Herod's vizor, his falchion and towering crest.
"I am the cawse," he cries out,—
"I am the cawse of this grett lyght and thunder;Ytt ys throgh my furethat the[694] soche noyse dothe make.My feyrefull contenancethe clowdis so doth incumburThat oftymisfor dredether-of the verre yerth doth quake.Loke, when I withmales this bryght brond doth schake,All the whole world from the north tothe sowtheI ma them dystroie withwon worde of my mowthe!
Behold my contenance and my colur,Bryghtur then the sun in the meddis ofthe dey.Where can you haue a more grettur succurThen to behold my person that ys soo gaye?My fawcunandmy fassion, withmy gorgis araye,—He thatt had the grace all-weyther-on to thynke,Lyve the[694]myght all-wey with-owt othur meyte or drynke."[695]
There was another Herod in the smiths' play of the Passion, which has not survived, but he was outshone by Pilate, who received 4s. for his hire from the same company, whereas his fellow, the personator of Herod, received but 3s. 8d.; the former, too, drank wine in the intervals between the proformances, while the minor players were refreshed with mere ale for the nonce. Both these above named were rampant characters, Pilate always possessing the organ of Stentor. He appears again in the cappers' play of the Resurrection, and evidently became very terrific, laying about him with his club or mall when the soldiers brought news that Christ had risen from the dead. Years after in 1790 when even the tradition of the pageants was almostforgotten, Sharp, the antiquary, found Pilate's mall in an old chest in the cappers' chapel in S. Michael's church.[696]It was made of leather and stuffed with wool, and had evidently served as the head of a staff. Pilate's "balls," also made of leather, and possibly the forerunners of the fool's bauble, also ministered occasion for noise and laughter. Both Herod, Pilate, and the demons had vizors or masks, hence the smiths' entry, "paid to Wattis for dressyng of the devells hede viiid."[697]The devil—sometimes in the plural—appears in at least three Coventry plays, theTrial, where no doubt he whispered the dream to "Dame Procula," Pilate's wife, as he did at York,[698]theHarrowing of Hell, and Doomsday. In the last two pageants there would be much by-play with Hell-mouth and the souls in the infernal place. I cannot tell in which particular piece the devil, whom John Heywood, interlude-writer, claimed as an "old acquaintance," was an actor, but it undoubtedly was in one of them, since in hisFoure P.P.Heywood says:—
"Oft in the play of Corpus Christi,He had played the deuyll at Coventry."
Among the cappers' list of actors there is one which has about it a certain Miltonic grandeur; it is the "Mother of Death."[699]It is to be regretted thatDoomsdayhas not survived, for the names of the persons represented are very suggestive; two demons, two spirits were among them, two "worms of conscience," three black—or damned—souls, and three white—or saved—souls, and a Pharisee.[700]The details of the stage property and payments abound innaïfand grotesque allusions. Thus we learn that a "new hook" for hanging Judas was purchased at the cost of 6d.;[701]and one Fawston received 4d. for "coc croyng," presumably"to startle the penitent Peter."[702]Adam's spade, "Eve's distaff," and the "apple tree,"[703]
"the fruitOf that forbidden tree, whose mortal tasteBrought Death into the world and all our woe,"
are part of the stage furnishing of theHarrowing of Hell, since therein Christ drew out from limbo our first parents. Everything about these pageants must have been terrifying especially to sensitive or guilty consciences. A hireling was paid fourpence "for kepyng of fier at hell mothe"[704]from the drapers. This craft also purchased a "baryll," whereof the rolling might imitate the sound of the "yerthequake" on the Judgment Day.[705]
There is a good deal of information about the dresses of the actors in the pageants. Annas and Caiaphas wore "mitres,"[706]Christ and Peter wigs of a gold colour.[707]The tormentors who took part in the scourging had jackets of "blake bokeram" ... with nayles and dysse (dice) upon them.[708]It was the custom for actors to paint their faces.[709]InDoomsdaythe "saved souls" were clothed in white leather, while those damned were made hideous by blackened faces, and—it seems—a parti-coloured dress of black and yellow, the yellow being so combined as to represent flame.[710]It sounds crude but effective; and effective also, no doubt, was the blare of trumpets when the four angels of the judgment standing on their "pulpits" or raised platform called on the dead to appear before the judgment-seat.
No doubt the artist who painted the blackened and all but invisible fresco of the judgment day over the chancel arch of Trinity church, saw in his mind's eye as he painted Christ seated on the rainbow, with saints and angels, lost and saved souls to His left and right, the rudeand realistic representation enacted on the drapers' pageant at Corpus Christi-tide.
Another procession took place on S. George's day,[711]but there is no evidence that any play was acted on this occasion. S. George, however, had a legendary connection with Coventry; and he appears in two occasional pageants, the welcome to Prince Edward in 1474 and that to Prince Arthur in 1498; in the former case with elaborate stage setting, so that there may have been a play in his honour. Another dragon-slayer, S. Margaret, walked in the Corpus Christi procession,[712]and it is possible she may have had a part in the play, as also the other six champions of Christendom, who greeted Queen Margaret in 1457, but here all is conjecture. S. George's long dramatic life in the Mummers' Christmas play in Warwickshire has, of course, only ceased in our time.
Other occasional pageants, noted in the annals, afford us glimpses of tantalising brevity of dramatic shows and gorgeous preparations for the reception of royalty. Thirteen years after Arthur's visit, the prince's brother, King Henry VIII., and Queen Catharine, who must have entered on the eastern side of the city, found at Jordon Well three pageants, embellished with the "nine orders of angels," to greet them. There were others, with "divers beautiful damsels," and "goodly stage play" upon them, but we have no record of the verses composed in the King's honour.[713]While the mercers' pageant stood gallantly trimmed at the Cross Cheaping in 1526 to welcome the Princess Mary. This was before the divorce question had become the talk of Europe,and the daughter of Catherine of Arragon was still held in high honour; so that the citizens made great preparations for her coming, even taking down the heads and quarters of traitors from the gates lest they should annoy the lady's sight.[714]
Fifty years later another sovereign witnessed a memorable performance of the Coventry men. On Hox Tuesday—the Tuesday after the second Sunday after Easter—certain folk-games were held to commemorate, so the historians of the sixteenth century declared, the defeat of the Danes in the eleventh.[715]These games, "invented"—so say the annals—in 1416, fell into disuse soon after the Reformation, but were revived on the occasion of Elizabeth's visit to Kenilworth in 1575. At that time certain "good harted men of Couentree," led on by Captain Cox, alecunner and mason, presented the "olld storiall sheaw" before the Queen, "whereat," Laneham tells us in his delightful letter, quoted in Gascoigne'sPrincely Pleasures of Kenilworth Castle, "her Maiestie laught well," while the players "wear the iocunder ... becauz her highnes had giuen them too buckes and fiue marke in mony to make mery togyther." The play consisted in a sham fight between the English and the Danish "launsknights," but whether accompanied by folk-rymes or no we cannot tell. "Eeuen at the first entree," says Laneham, who greatly enjoyed the fun, "the meeting waxt sumwhat warm.... A valiant captain of great prowez az fiers az a fox assauting a gooz, waz so hardy to give the first stroke: then get they grisly togyther: that great waz the activitee that day too be seen thear a both sidez: ton[716]very eager for purchaz of pray, toother[717]utterlystoout for redemption of libertie: thus, quarrell enflamed fury a both sidez. Twise the Danes had yebetter, but at the last conflict, beaten down, ouercom, and many led captiue for triumph by our English weemen." The last detail was no doubt well liked by her majesty, who was certainly proving that she shared in the mettle of these women of long ago, and who could laugh well—that great royal Tudor laugh—at the rude performances of her subjects.
Music was always a great feature of these pageants and processions. "Mynstralcy of harp and lute," or of "small pypis," or that of "orgon pleyinge," formed a part of the greeting which came to Prince Edward from the stages whereon S. Edward, the prophets, or "the iii Kyngs of Colen" or "seint George" were shadowed forth. There were four chosen minstrels or city waits, and it may be remembered how on one occasion the mayor and aldermen sent for these and bade them go before the throng making their way from Whitley to the city, "which is by the space of a mile largely or more," and pipe and play as they went, "like as the people had done a great conquest or victory." The waits played also on less stirring occasions than the opening of Bristow's meadows, being greatly in request at the banquets of the guilds and crafts,[718]and much sought after in all the country round. They wore silver chains and badges charged with the arms of the city,[719]and besides occasional fees given for their performance during feasts, they received a regular "quarteredge," that is to say, a penny from every citizen having "a hallplace," and a halfpenny from every one dwelling in a cottage four times a year for their maintenance.[720]
The citizens themselves delighted in music; somemust have been practised singers, as the representation of the Corpus Christi pageants was diversified by songs. One of these, a lullaby from the tailors' and sheremen's play, is so pretty that it will well bear quotation.
"Lully, lulla, thow littell tine child,By by, lully lullay, thow littell tyne child,By by lully lullay.O sisters too, how may we doFor to preserve this dayThis pore yongling, for whom we do singe,By by lully lullay?Herod, the king, in his ragingChargid he hath this dayHis men of might in his owne sightAll yonge children to slay.That wo is me, pore child, for thee,And ever morne and mayFor thi parting nether say nor singeBy by, lully lullay."
The provision of these games, pageants and processions must have entailed great cost and labour, yet every member of the various fellowships helped to support them, and bore as well his part in the common labours and duties involved in his citizenship. Every one was compelled to obey the mayor's summons under penalty of a fine, whether called upon to come to the leet, or the council, or to help in the common labour of the town. In 1451, when wars were threatening, the call went round for all to come and aid in the work of cleansing the town ditch.[721]The summons went twice round the town according to the watch, we are told, in "right great charge and in special" to the poor folk, who had to leave their other occupations in consequence, besides paying their quota towards the taxes, which were necessarily heavy at that time. And the council hearing thereof ordered that £12, 10s. should be collected from"thrifty" men to pay for the work, and the poor people spared, save that labourers earning 4d. a day were to pay 1d. or 2d. towards the required sum. In addition to their labour in the common defence, all citizens were required to make one of the company of watchmen when their turn came round, or to find a substitute. Fifteen men usually kept the nightly watch, but in times of disturbance their number was increased; thus in 1450 it was enacted that "forty men of decent, good and honest communication and strong in body ... shall nightly watch and guard the city from the ninth hour until the beating of the bell called daybell,"[722]and the light enabled all to see thief or enemy approach.
Neither were the citizens permitted to shirk the common military duties. At the "view of arms" all the freemen appeared in military accoutrement as suited their degree, and the threat of a siege turned artisans into soldiers and aldermen and councillors "for savegard of the cite" into captains of the wards and guardians of the gates. In 1469—the year of the battle of Edgcote—the city was changed into a very arsensal and barracks, so lively were the military preparations going forward at that time. The city accounts show the heavy charges which the distribution of arms and armour entailed upon the public purse.
"Item," says theLeet Book, "delyvered to Robert Onley on Maudelyn day a serpentyne ... for the Newe yate and a honde gunne with a pyke in the ynde and a fowler." To John Hadley for Bishop Gate "i staffe gunne." "Item delyvered to William Saunders, meyr, ii staffe gunnes and a grett gunne with iii chamburs, iii jacks and xxiv arowys." "Item ... to John Wyldgris i gunne with iii chamburs." There also follows the mention of the distribution of jacks and arrows to the various captains,[723]until possibly the supplies ran short, and the last obtained but "i newe jacke and aolde." In the "Lenton" of 1471 the scene was repeated. Guns and pelettes were again delivered to the captains for the gates, and money was hastily collected throughout the wards for the company of soldiers who followed my lord of Warwick to Barnet Field, whereby the citizens incurred King Edward's enmity and great displeasure.
The provision of soldiers according to the terms of the commissions of array, so common in civil warfare, were a heavy tax on municipal resources. When the city officers were ordered by the King's commission to send the local forces to join the royal army, the corporation had to "reteyn" their contingent, provide their dresses, badges and equipment, appoint a captain, and collect money, according to assessment, throughout the wards for their pay. At the beginning of the civil war all went merrily enough, and the citizens threw themselves with right good will into the equipment of the soldiers who were to have gone to St Alban's. But in a few years the artizans, called from their homes and business, were heartily weary of the continual strife, and clamoured for 12d. a day in payment. The hiring of recruits must have become a more difficult matter as time went on, though, like the clinching of all bargains in the Middle Ages, it was accompanied by plentiful drinking. TheLeet Bookrecords the following items in July 1470, after Edward IV. had summoned a company of archers to a rendezvous at Nottingham: "dedit ad le sowders ad bibendum xvid.," ... "a gallon wyne vid.," ... "pro ale to the sowders vid."[724]But even after the Wars of the Roses were over we have a sorry picture of the numerous inconveniences attending the hiring of troops. In February 1481, Edward IV. sent commissioners to find out what money or what number of men the burghers would provide in the event of an invasion of Scotland inthe summer. After various discussions, commandings and countermandings, it was finally agreed that sixty men should be waged for the royal service for a quarter of a year at a cost of £148, 6s. 6d.; recruits were found and arrows and salets distributed amongst them. More, however, was to be wrung from the reluctant burghers; £40 was collected from 180 of the "most sufficient" men of the town to provide horses and jackets for the soldiery.[725]But sixty archers were not deemed a sufficient contingent by the Court; and when in the following June Lord Rivers came to know if the number could be increased, the mayor called a "Hall" of divers out of every ward to know what the common will was in this matter, and it was finally ordained that the citizens should equip and pay forty additional men, bringing up the number to 100. As all the recruits could not be drawn from the ranks of the townsfolk, the worthy men enlisted the service of strangers, and these had to be kept together, housed and fed, at great trouble and cost[726]until the time for departure. In the end, however, the levy was countermanded, and the troops thus laboriously collected were merely dispersed;[727]a statement of facts the town clerk may be pardoned for recording in a murmuring and discontented spirit.
But however onerous these duties may have been, the Coventry men were loyally proud of their city and citizenship. Albeit a traveller, the mediæval merchant loved, as he loved nothing else on earth, the small stretch of land enclosed by the walls of his native town. He or his ancestors had won and maintained at great cost the city's liberties, and he and they spared no pains to makeit beautiful. Historians are wont to despise the English burgher of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, by reason of his insignificance and poverty, and his neglect of the highest forms of art, and pointedly contrast his small achievements with those of the merchant princes of Italy, or the proud and daring members of the Hanseatic League. It is true he was a commonplace person, living in what was for his country a commonplace age; nevertheless his doings are worthy of remembrance. If the English townsfolk never produced a Van Eyck or a Da Vinci, a Peter Fischer or a Donatello, they patronised all the local forms of art they knew. They had the same great delight in the common possession of a beautiful object as the people of the Italian republics. Though they lacked wealth to build themselves tall and stately houses like their brethren on the Continent, the English burghers could raise tall steeples, build vast churches, adorn their common halls, and rear exquisite crosses in the market place. The fifteenth century glass in S. Mary's Hall, Coventry, still attests the skill of John Thornton, a native of the city, and one of the first acts of the council of Forty-eight was to decree that a cross should be set up in the Cheaping, which was done, though at a cost of £50.[728]In Coventry, as elsewhere, the rich merchants and craftsmen set carvers to carve the miserere seats—enjoying the grim humour these sometimes display, a quality which crops up everywhere in the fifteenth century, even now and then in legal documents—and bade the engraver commemorate the dead by tracing their effigies on brass, or the mason by fashioning their portraits in stone.
Neither should we regard as contemptible the Englishman's achievements in trade and travel. The Merchant Adventurers, in the teeth of the opposition of the Staplers and the Hanseatic League, first by piracy and chancetrading and then by organised and chartered commerce, filled the North Sea with their ships, founded settlements at Bergen and Antwerp, and on the ruins of their rivals built up one of the most successful trading companies of northern Europe. English merchants carried from Crete or Lisbon the precious stores of eastern wine and spices, and brought their bales of wool to the port of Pisa to supply the makers of Florentine cloth, or to the ports of Normandy to supply the looms of northern France.[729]
But it is not for his patronage of art or for his enterprise in foreign trade that the English burgher is chiefly noteworthy, but rather for his "politic guiding" of the cities in which he lived. Pirates, perhaps, on the Narrow Seas, he and his fellows were at home, for the most part, law-abiding men. A certain innate conservatism, a truly British love of appeal to custom and precedent, marks their rule, and, although the populace was frequently unquiet and discontented, the result was, on the whole, happy and successful. If the dangers of foreign commerce made them hardy and fearless, their political and civic life, with its manifold responsibilities, taught them a prudence and worldly wisdom, which appears in all their transactions. Never were men who paid such heed to the Gospel precept, "Be ye wise as serpents." Liable to be deserted or oppressed by the King, thwarted by the open violence or secret maintenance of some great noble or the factiousness of some fellow-burgher, their self-reliance turned these necessities to "glorious gain." It is true that we meet with little heroism, and few distinct types of character. The men of this class can boast of no individuals who can be rightly considered as important historical figures. Like the great Gothic architects, these men, who built up such a flourishing and successful society, have been chary of leaving their names to us. Now and then, however, a bit of grimy and neglected parchment reveals a strikinghistory. We see the clothes they wore and hear the words they said. The quarrel resounds once more in the guild-hall. The stern recorder testifies against the supposed factiousness of Laurence Saunders; and the aged men, lifting up their hands, swear to the ancient extent of the common pasture. These are not heroic or world-known scenes, but they represent the life of the citizens of an old-time city, men whose labours are not entirely forgotten.