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William Harrison (1534-1593) |
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Introductory Note Near the beginning of Elizabeth's reign, Reginald Wolfe, the Queen's
Printer, with the splendid audacity characteristic of that age, planned
to publish a "universal Cosmography of the whole world, and therewith
also certain particular histories of every known nation." Raphael
Holinshed had charge of the histories of England, Scotland, and Ireland,
the only part of the work ever published; and these were issued in 1577,
and have since been known as "Holinshed's Chronicles." From
them Shakespeare drew most of the material for his historical plays. Among Holinshed's collaborators was one William Harrison, chaplain
to Lord Cobham, and later Rector of Radwinter in Essex and Canon of Windsor.
To him was allotted the task of writing the "Descriptions of Britain
and England" from which the following chapters are drawn. He gathered
his facts from books, letters, maps, conversations, and, most important
of all, his own observation and experience; and he put them loosely together
into what he calls "this foul frizzled treatise." Yet, with
all his modesty, he claims to "have had an especial eye to the truth
of things"; and as a result we have in his pages the most vivid and
detailed picture in existence of the England into which Shakespeare was
born. In 1876 Dr. Furnivall condensed Harrison's chapters for the New Shakespeare
Society, and these have since been reprinted by Mr. Lothrop Withington
in the modern dress in which the most interesting of them appear here.
No apology is needed for thus selecting and rearranging, since in their
original form they were without unity, and formed part of a vast compilation. Harrison's merit does not lie in the rich interest of his matter
alone. He wrote a racy style with a strong individual as well as Elizabethan
flavor; and his personal comment upon the manners of his time serves as
a piquant sauce to the solid meat of his historical information.
Chapter I: Of Degrees Of People
In The Commonwealth Of Elizabethan England
We in England, divide our people commonly into four sorts, as gentlemen,
citizens or burgesses, yeomen, and artificers or labourers. Of gentlemen
the first and chief (next the king) be the prince, dukes, marquesses,
earls, viscounts, and barons; and these are called gentlemen of the greater
sort, or (as our common usage of speech is) lords and noblemen: and next
unto them be knights, esquires, and, last of all, they that are simply
called gentlemen. So that in effect our gentlemen are divided into their
conditions, whereof in this chapter I will make particular rehearsal. The title of prince doth peculiarly belong with us to the king's eldest
son, who is called Prince of Wales, and is the heir-apparent to the crown;
as in France the king's eldest son hath the title of Dauphin, and is named
peculiarly Monsieur. So that the prince is so termed of the Latin word
Princeps, since he is (as I may call him) the chief or principal next
the king. The king's younger sons be but gentlemen by birth (till they
have received creation or donation from their father of higher estate,
as to be either viscounts, earls, or dukes) and called after their names,
as Lord Henry, or Lord Edward, with the addition of the word Grace, properly
assigned to the king and prince, and now also by custom conveyed to dukes,
archbishops, and (as some say) to marquesses and their wives. 2
. . .
Unto this place I also refer our bishops, who are accounted honourable,
called lords, and hold the same room in the Parliament house with the
barons, albeit for honour sake the right hand of the prince is given unto
them, and whose countenances in time past were much more glorious than
at this present it is, because those lusty prelates sought after earthly
estimation and authority with far more diligence than after the lost sheep
of Christ, of which they had small regard, as men being otherwise occupied
and void of leisure to attend upon the same. Howbeit in these days their
estate remaineth no less reverend than before, and the more virtuous they
are that be of this calling the better are they esteemed with high and
low. They retain also the ancient name ("lord") still, although
it be not a little impugned by such as love either to hear of change of
all things or can abide no superiors. For notwithstanding it be true that
in respect of function the office of the eldership 3 is equally
distributed between the bishop and the minister, yet for civil government's
sake the first have more authority given unto them by kings and princes,
to the end that the rest may thereby be with more ease retained within
a limited compass of uniformity than otherwise they would be if each one
were suffered to walk in his own course. This also is more to be marvelled
at, that very many call for an alteration of their estate, crying to have
the word "lord" abolished, their civil authority taken from
them, and the present condition of the church in other things reformed;
whereas, to say truly, few of them do agree upon form of discipline and
government of the church succeedent, wherein they resemble the Capuans
(of whom Livy doth speak) in the slaughter of their senate. Neither is
it possible to frame a whole monarchy after the pattern of one town or
city, or to stir up such an exquisite face of the church as we imagine
or desire, sith our corruption is such that it will never yield to so
great perfection; for that which is not able to be performed in a private
house will be much less be brought to pass in a commonwealth and kingdom,
before such a prince be found as Xenophon describeth, or such an orator
as Tully hath devised. 4 . . .
Dukes, marquesses, earls, viscounts, and barons either be created of
the prince or come to that honour by being the eldest sons or highest
in succession to their parents. For the eldest ton of a duke during his
father's life is an earl, the eldest son of an earl is a baron, or sometimes
a viscount, according as the creation is. The creation I call the original
donation and condition of the honour given by the prince for good service
done by the first ancestor, with some advancement, which, with the title
of that honour, is always given to him and his heirs males only. The rest
of the sons of the nobility by the rigour of the law be but esquires;
yet in common speech all dukes' and marquesses' sons and earls' eldest
sons be called lords, the which name commonly doth agree to none of lower
degree than barons, yet by law and use these be not esteemed barons. The barony or degree of lords doth answer to the degree of senators of
Rome (as I said) and the title of nobility (as we used to call it in England)
to the Roman Patricii. Also in England no man is commonly created baron
except he may dispend of yearly revenses a thousand pounds, or so much
as may fully maintain and bear out his countenance and port. But viscounts,
earls, marquesses, and dukes exceed them according to the proportion of
their degree and honour. But though by chance he or his son have less,
yet he keepeth this degree: but if the decay be excessive, and not able
to maintain the honour (as Senatores Romani were amoti a senatu), so sometimes
they are not admitted to the upper house in the parliament, although they
keep the name of "lord" still, which cannot be taken from them
upon any such occasion. The most of these names have descended from the French invention, in
whose histories we shall read of them eight hundred years past. 5
. . .
Knights be not born, neither is any man a knight by succession, no, not
the king or prince: but they are made either before the battle, to encourage
them the more to adventure and try their manhood; or after the battle
ended, as an advancement for their courage and prowess already shewed,
and then are they called Milites; or out of the wars for some great service
done, or for the singular virtues which do appear in them, and then are
they named Equites Aurati, as common custom intendeth. They are made either
by the king himself, or by his commission and royal authority given for
the same purpose, or by his lieutenant in the wars. 6 . . .
Sometime diverse ancient gentlemen, burgesses, and lawyers are called
unto knighthood by the prince, and nevertheless refuse to take that state
upon them, for which they are of custom punished by a fine, that redoundeth
unto his coffers, and (to say truth) is oftentimes more profitable unto
him than otherwise their service should be, if they did yield unto knighthood.
And this also is a cause wherefore there be many in England able to dispend
a knight's living, which never come unto that countenance, and by their
own consents. The number of the knights in Rome was also uncertain: and
so is it of knights likewise, with us, as at the pleasure of the prince.
And whereas the Equites Romani had Equum Publicum of custom bestowed upon
them, the knights of England have not so, but bear their own charges in
that also, as in other kind of furniture, as armour meet for their defence
and service. This nevertheless is certain, that whoso may dispend forty
pounds by the year of free land, either at the coronation of the king,
or marriage of his daughter, or time of his dubbing, may be informed unto
the taking of that degree, or otherwise pay the revenues of his land for
one year, which is only forty pounds by an old proportion, and so for
a time be acquitted of that title. 7 . . .
At the coronation of a king or queen, there be other knights made with
longer and more curious ceremonies, called "knights of the bath."
But howsoever one be dubbed or made knight, his wife is by-and-by called
"Madam," or "Lady," so well as the baron's wife: he
himself having added to his name in common appellation this syllable "Sir,"
which is the title whereby we call our knights in England. His wife also
of courtesy so long as she liveth is called "my lady," although
she happen to marry with a gentleman or man of mean calling, albeit that
by the common law she hath no such prerogative. If her first husband also
be of better birth than her second, though this latter likewise be a knight,
yet in that she pretendeth a privilege to lose no honour through courtesy
yielded to her sex, she will be named after the most honourable or worshipful
of both, which is not seen elsewhere. The other order of knighthood in England, and the most honourable, is
that of the garter, instituted by King Edward the Third, who, after he
had gained many notable victories, taken King John of France, and King
James of Scotland (and kept them both prisoners in the Tower of London
at one time), expelled King Henry of Castille, the bastard, out of his
realm, and restored Don Pedro unto it (by the help of the Prince of Wales
and Duke of Aquitaine, his eldest son, called the Black Prince), he then
invented this society of honour, and made a choice out of his own realm
and dominions, and throughout all Christendom of the best, most excellent,
and renowned persons in all virtues and honour, and adorned them with
that title to be knights of his order, giving them a garter garnished
with gold and precious stones, to wear daily on the left leg only; also
a kirtle, gown, cloak, chaperon, collar, and other solemn and magnificent
apparel, both of stuff and fashion exquisite and heroical to wear at high
feasts, and as to so high and princely an order appertaineth. . . . The order of the garter therefore was devised in the time of King Edward
the Third, and (as some write) upon this occasion. The queen's majesty
then living, being departed from his presence the next way toward her
lodging, he following soon after happened to find her garter, which slacked
by chance and so fell from her leg, unespied in the throng by such as
attended upon her. His grooms and gentlemen also passed by it, as disdaining
to stoop and take up such a trifle: but he, knowing the owner, commanded
one of them to stay and reach it up to him. "Why, and like your grace,"
saith a gentleman, "it is but some woman's garter that hath fallen
from her as she followed the queen's majesty." "Whatsoever it
be," quoth the king, "take it up and give it me." So when
he had received the garter, he said to such as stood about him: "You,
my masters, do make small account of this bule garter here," and
therewith held it out, "but, if God lend me life for a few months,
I will make the proudest of you all to reverence the like." And even
upon this slender occasion he gave himself to the devising of this order.
Certes, I have not read of anything that having had so simple a beginning
hath grown in the end to so great honour and estimation. 8
. . .
There is yet another order of knights in England called knights bannerets,
who are made in the field with the ceremony of cutting away the point
of his pennant of arms, and making it as it were a banner, so that, being
before but a bachelor knight, he is now of an higher degree, and allowed
to display his arms in a banner, as barons do. Howbeit these knights are
never made but in the wars, the king's standard being unfolded. 9
. . .
Moreover, as the king doth dub knights, and createth the barons and higher
degrees, so gentlemen whose ancestors are not known to come in with William
Duke of Normandy (for of the Saxon races yet remaining we now make none
accounted, much less of the British issue) do take their beginning in
England, after this manner in our times. Whosoever studieth the laws of the realm, whoso abideth in the university
(giving his mind to his book), or professeth physic and the liberal sciences,
or beside his service in the room of a captain in the wars, or good counsel
given at home, whereby his commonwealth is benefited, can live without
manual labour, and thereto is able and will bear the port, charge, and
countenance of a gentleman, he shall for money have a coat and arms bestowed
upon him by heralds (who in the charter of the same do of custom pretend
antiquity and service, and many gay things thereunto, being made so good
cheap, be called master (which is the title that men give to esquires
and gentlemen), and reputed for a gentleman ever after, which is so much
less to be disallowed of for that the prince doth lose nothing by it,
the gentleman being so much subject to taxes and public payments as is
the yeoman or husbandman, which he likewise doth bear the gladlier for
the saving of his reputation. Being called also to the wars (for with
the government of the commonwealth he meddleth little), whatsoever it
cost him, he will both array and arm himself accordingly, and shew the
more manly courage, and all the tokens of the person which he representeth.
No man hath hurt by it but himself, who peradventure will go in wider
buskins than his legs will bear, or, as our proverb saith, "now and
then bear a bigger sail than his boat is able to sustain." Certes the making of new gentlemen bred great strife sometimes amongst
the Romans, I mean when those which were Novi homines were more allowed
of for their virtues newly seen and shewed than the old smell of ancient
race, lately defaced by the cowardice and evil life of their nephews and
descendants, could make the other to be. But as envy hath no affinity
with justice and equity, so it forceth not what language the malicious
do give out, against such as are exalted for their wisdoms. This nevertheless
is generally to be reprehended in all estates of gentility, and which
in short time will turn to the great ruin of our country, and that is,
the usual sending of noblemen's and mean gentlemen's sons into Italy,
from whence they bring home nothing but mere atheism, infidelity, vicious
conversation, and ambitious and proud behaviour, whereby it cometh to
pass that they return far worse men than they went out. A gentleman at
this present is newly come out of Italy, who went thither an earnest Protestant;
but coming home he could say after this manner: "Faith and truth
is to be kept where no loss or hindrance of a future purpose is sustained
by holding of the same; and forgiveness only to be shewed when full revenge
is made." Another no less forward than he, at his return from thence,
could add thus much: "He is a fool that maketh account of any religion,
but more fool that will lose any part of his wealth or will come in trouble
for constant leaning to any; but if he yield to lose his life for his
possession, he is stark mad, and worthy to be taken for most fool of all
the rest." This gay booty got these gentlemen by going into Italy;
and hereby a man may see what fruit is afterward to be looked for where
such blossoms do appear. "I care not," saith a third, "what
you talk to me of God, so as I may have the prince and the laws of the
realm on my side." Such men as this last are easily known; for they
have learned in Italy to go up and down also in England with pages at
their heels finely apparelled, whose face and countenance shall be such
as sheweth the master not to be blind in his choice. But lest I should
offend too much, I pass over to say any more of these Italianates and
their demeanour, which, alas! is too open and manifest to the world, and
yet not called into question. Citizens and burgesses have next place to gentlemen, who be those that
are free within the cities, and are of some likely substance to bear office
in the same. But these citizens or burgesses are to serve the commonwealth
in their cities and boroughs, or in corporate towns where they dwell,
and in the common assembly of the realm wherein our laws are made (for
in the counties they bear but little sway), which assembly is called the
High Court of Parliament: the ancient cities appoint four and the borough
two burgesses to have voices in it, and give their consent or dissent
unto such things as pass, to stay there in the name of the city or borough
for which they are appointed. In this place also are our merchants to be installed as amongst the citizens
(although they often change estate with gentlemen, as gentlemen do with
them, by a mutual conversion of the one into the other), whose number
is so increased in these our days that their only maintenance is the cause
of the exceeding prices of foreign wares, which otherwise, when every
nation was permitted to bring in her own commodities, were far better,
cheaper, and more plentifully to be had. Of the want of our commodities
here at home, by their great transportation of them into other countries,
I speak not, sith the matter will easily betray itself. Certes among the
Lacedaemonians it was found out that great numbers of merchants were nothing
to the furtherance of the state of the commonwealth: wherefore it is to
be wished that the huge heap of them were somewhat restrained, as also
of our lawyers, so should the rest live more easily upon their own, and
few honest chapmen be brought to decay by breaking of the bankrupt. I
do not deny but that the navy of the land is in part maintained by their
traffic, and so are the high prices of wares kept up, now they have gotten
the only sale of things upon pretence of better furtherance of the commonwealth
into their own hands: whereas in times past, when the strange bottoms
were suffered to come in, we had sugar for fourpence the pound, that now
at the writing of this Treatise is well worth half-a-crown; raisins or
currants for a penny that now are holden at sixpence, and sometimes at
eightpence and tenpence the pound; nutmegs at twopence halfpenny the ounce,
ginger at a penny an ounce, prunes at halfpenny farthing, great raisins
three pounds for a penny, cinnamon at fourpence the ounce, cloves at twopence,
and pepper at twelve and sixteen pence the pound. Whereby we may see the
sequel of things not always, but very seldom, to be such as is pretended
in the beginning. The wares that they carry out of the realm are for the
most part broad clothes and carsies 10 of all colours, likewise
cottons, friezes, rugs, tin, wool, our best beer, baize, bustian, mockadoes
(tufted and plain), rash, lead, fells, etc.: which, being shipped at sundry
ports of our coasts, are borne from thence into all quarters of the world,
and there either exchanged for other wares or ready money, to the great
gain and commodity of our merchants. And whereas in times past their chief
trade was into Spain, Portugal, France, Flanders, Danske [Denmark], Norway,
Scotland, and Ireland only, now in these days, as men not contented with
these journeys, they have sought out the East and West Indies, and made
now and then suspicious voyages, not only unto the Canaries and New Spain,
but likewise into Cathay, Muscovy, and Tartaria, and the regions thereabout,
from whence (as they say) they bring home great commodities. But alas!
I see not by all their travel that the prices of things are any whit abated.
Certes this enormity (for so I do account of it) was sufficiently provided
for (Ann. 9 Edward III.) by a noble statute made in that behalf, but upon
what occasion the general execution thereof is stayed or not called on,
in good sooth, I cannot tell. This only I know, that every function and
several vocation striveth with other, which of them should have all the
water of commodity run into her own cistern.
Yeomen are those which by our law are called Legales homines, free men
born English, and may dispend of their own free land in yearly revenue
to the sum of forty shillings sterling, or six pounds as money goeth in
our times. Some are of the opinion, by Cap. 2 Rich. 2 Ann. 20, that they
are same which the Frenchmen call varlets, but, as the phrase is used
in my time, it is very unlikely to be so. The truth is that the word is
derived from the Saxon term Zeoman, or Geoman, which signifieth (as I
have read) a settled or staid man, such I mean as, being married and of
some years, betaketh himself to stay in the place of his abode for the
better maintenance of himself and his family, whereof the single sort
have no regard, but are likely to be still fleeting now hither now thither,
which argueth want of stability in determination and resolution of judgment,
for the execution of things of any importance. This sort of people have
a certain pre-eminence, and more estimation that labourers and the common
sort of artificers, and these commonly live wealthily, keep good houses,
and travel to get riches. They are also for the most part farmers to gentlemen
(in old time called Pagani, et opponuntur militibus, and therefore Persius
calleth himself Semipaganus), or at the leastwise artificers, and with
grazing, frequenting of markets, and keeping of servants (not idle servants,
as the gentlemen do, but such as get both their own and part of their
masters' living), do come to great wealth, insomuch that many of them
are able and do buy the lands of unthrifty gentlemen, and often setting
their sons to the schools, to the universities, and to the Inns of the
Court, or, otherwise leaving them sufficient lands whereupon they may
live without labour, do make them by those means to become gentlemen.
These were they that in times past made all France afraid. And albeit
they be not called "Master," as gentlemen are, or "Sir,"
as to knights appertaineth, but only "John" and "Thomas,"
etc., yet have they been found to have done very good service. The kings of England in foughten battles were wont to remain among them
(who were their footmen) as the French kings did amongst their horsemen,
the prince thereby shewing where his chief strength did consist. The fourth and last sort of people in England are day-labourers, poor
husbandmen, and some retailers (which have no free land) copyholders,
and all artificers, as tailors, shoemakers, carpenters, brickmakers, masons,
etc. 11
As for slaves and bondmen, we have none; nay, such is the privilege of
our country by the especial grace of God and bounty of our princes, that
if any come hither from other realms, so soon as they set foot on land
they become so free of condition as their masters, whereby all note of
servile bondage is utterly removed from them, wherein we resemble (not
the Germans, who had slaves also, though such as in respect of the slaves
of other countries might well be reputed free, but) the old Indians and
the Taprobanes, 12 who supposed it a great injury to Nature
to make or suffer them to be bond, whom she in her wonted course doth
product and bring forth free. This fourth and last sort of people therefore
have neither voice nor authority in the commonwealth, but are to be ruled
and not to rule other: yet they are not altogether neglected, for in cities
and corporate towns, for default of yeomen, they are fain to make up their
inquests of such manner of people. And in villages they are commonly made
churchwardens, sidesmen, aleconners, now and then constables, and many
times enjoy the name of head boroughs. Unto this sort also may our great
swarms of idle serving-men be referred, of whom there runneth a proverb,
"Young servingmen, old beggars," because service is none heritage.
These men are profitable to none; for, if their condition be well perused,
they are enemies to their masters, to their friends, and to themselves:
for by them oftentimes their masters are encouraged unto unlawful exactions
of their tenants, their friends brought unto poverty by their rents enhanced,
and they themselves brought to confusion by their own prodigality and
errors, as men that, having not wherewith of their own to maintain their
excesses, do search in highways, budgets, coffers, mails, and stables,
which way to supply their wants. How divers of them also, coveting to
bear an high sail, do insinuate themselves with young gentlemen and noblemen
newly come to their lands, the case is too much apparent, whereby the
good natures of the parties are not only a little impaired, but also their
livelihoods and revenues so wasted and consumed that, if at all, yet not
in many years, they shall be able to recover themselves. It were very
good therefore that the superfluous heaps of them were in part diminished.
And since necessity enforceth to have some, yet let wisdom moderate their
numbers, so shall their masters be rid of unnecessary charge, and the
commonwealth of many thieves. No nation cherisheth such store of them
as we do here in England, in hope of which maintenance many give themselves
to idleness that otherwise would be brought to labour, and live in order
like subjects. Of their whoredoms I will not speak anything at all, more
than of their swearing; yet is it found that some of them do make the
first a chief pillar of their building, consuming not only the goods but
also the health and welfare of many honest gentlemen, citizens, wealthy
yeomen, etc., by such unlawful dealings. But how far have I waded in this
point, or how far may I sail in such a large sea? I will therefore now
stay to speak any more of those kind of men. In returning therefore to
my matter, this furthermore among other things I have to say of our husbandmen
and artificers, that they were never so excellent in their trades as at
this present. But as the workmanship of the latter sort was newer, more
fine, and curious to the eye, so was it never less strong and substantial
for continuance and benefit of the buyers. Neither is there anything that
hurteth the common sort of our artificers more than haste, and a barbarous
or slavish desire to turn the penny, and, by ridding their work, to make
speedy utterance of their wares: which enforceth them to bungle up and
despatch many things they care not how so they be out of their hands,
whereby the buyer is often sore defrauded, and findeth to his cost that
haste maketh waste, according to the proverb.
Oh, how many trades and handicrafts are now in England whereof the commonwealth
hath no need! How many needful commodities have we which are perfected
with great cost, etc., and yet many with far more ease and less cost be
provided from other countries if we could use the means! I will not speak
of iron, glass, and such like, which spoil much wood, and yet are brought
from other countries better cheap than we can make them here at home;
I could exemplify also in many other. But to leave these things and proceed
with our purpose, and herein (as occasion serveth) generally, by way of
conclusion, to speak of the commonwealth of England, I find that it is
governed and maintained by three sorts of persons
Chapter II: Of Cities And Towns
In England As in old time we read that there were eight-and-twenty flamines and
archflamines in the south part of this isle, and so many great cities
under their jurisdiction, so in these our days there is but one or two
fewer, and each of them also under the ecclesiastical regiment of some
one bishop or archbishop, who in spiritual cases have the charge and oversight
of the same. So many cities therefore are there in England and Wales as
there be bishoprics and archbishoprics. 1 For, notwithstanding
that Lichfield and Coventry and Bath and Wells do seem to extend the aforesaid
number unto nine-and-twenty, yet neither of these couples are to be accounted
but as one entire city and see of the bishop, sith one bishopric can have
relation but unto one see, and the said see be situate but in one place,
after which the bishop doth take his name. 2 . . .
Certes I would gladly set down, with the names and number of the cities,
all the towns and villages in England and Wales with their true longitudes
and latitudes, but as yet I cannot come by them in such order as I would;
howbeit the tale of our cities is soon found by the bishoprics, sith every
see hath such prerogative given unto it as to bear the name of a city
and to use Regaleius within her own limits. Which privilege also is granted
to sundry ancient towns in England, especially northward, where more plenty
of them is to be found by a great deal than in the south. The names therefore
of our cities are these: London, York, Canterbury, Winchester, Carlisle,
Durham, Ely, Norwich, Lincoln, Worcester, Gloucester, Hereford, Salisbury,
Exeter, Bath, Lichfield, Bristol, Rochester, Chester, Chichester, Oxford,
Peterborough, Llandaff, St. Davids, Bangor, St. Asaph, whose particular
plots and models, with their descriptions, shall ensue, if it may be brought
to pass that the cutters can make desp tch of them before this history
be published. Of towns and villages likewise thus much will I say, that there were
greater store in old time (I mean within three or four hundred years passed)
than at this present. And this I note out of divers records, charters,
and donations (made in times past unto sundry religious houses, as Glastonbury,
Abingdon, Ramsey, Ely, and such like), and whereof in these days I find
not so much as the ruins. Leland, in sundry places, complaineth likewise
of the decay of parishes in great cities and towns, missing in some six
or eight or twelve churches and more, of all which he giveth particular
notice. For albeit that the Saxons builded many towns and villages, and
the Normans well more at their first coming, yet since the first two hundred
years after the latter conquest, they have gone so fast again to decay
that the ancient number of them is very much abated. Ranulph, the monk
of Chester, telleth of general survey made in the fourth, sixteenth, and
nineteenth of the reign of William Conqueror, surnamed the Bastard, wherein
it was found that (notwithstanding the Danes had overthrown a great many)
there were to the number of 52,000 towns, 45,002 parish churches, and
75,000 knights' fees, whereof the clergy held 28,015. He addeth moreover
that there were divers other builded since that time, within the space
of a hundred years after the coming of the Bastard, as it were in lieu
or recompense of those that William Rufus pulled down for the erection
of his New Forest. For by an old book which I have, and some time written
as it seemeth by an under-sheriff of Nottingham, I find even in the time
of Edward IV. 45,120 parish churches, and but 60,216 knights' fees, whereof
the clergy held as before 28,015, or at the least 28,000; for so small
is the difference which he doth seem to use. Howbeit, if the assertions
of such as write in our time concerning this matter either are or ought
to be of any credit in this behalf, you shall not find above 17,000 towns
and villages, and 9210 in the whole, which is little more than a fourth
part of the aforesaid number, if it be thoroughly scanned. 3
. . .
In time past in Lincoln (as the same goeth) there have been two-and-fifty
parish churches, and good record appeareth for eight-and-thirty; but now,
if there be four-and twenty, it is all. This inconvenience hath grown
altogether to the church by appropriations made unto monasteries and religious
houses - a terrible canker and enemy to religion. But to leave this lamentable discourse of so notable and grievous an
inconvenience, growing as I said by encroaching and joining of house to
house and laying land to land, whereby the inhabitants of many places
of our country are devoured and eaten up, and their houses either altogether
pulled down or suffered to decay little by little, although some time
a poor man peradventure doth dwell in one of them, who, not being able
to repair it, suffereth it to fall down - and thereto thinketh himself
very friendly dealt withal, if he may have an acre of ground assigned
unto him, wherein to keep a cow, or wherein to set cabbages, radishes,
parsnips, carrots, melons, pompons, 4 or such like stuff, by
which he and his poor household liveth as by their principal food, sith
they can do no better. And as for wheaten bread, they eat it when they
can reach unto the price of it, contenting themselves in the meantime
with bread made of oats or barley: a poor estate, God wot! Howbeit, what
care our great encroachers? But in divers places where rich men dwelled
some time in good tenements, there be now no houses at all, but hop-yards,
and sheds for poles, or peradventure gardens, as we may see in Castle
Hedingham, and divers other places. But to proceed.
It is so that, our soil being divided into champaign ground and woodland,
the houses of the first lie uniformly builded in every town together,
with streets and lanes; whereas in the woodland countries (except here
and there in great market towns) they stand scattered abroad, each one
dwelling in the midst of his own occupying. And as in many and most great
market towns, there are commonly three hundred or four hundred families
or mansions, and two thousand communicants (or peradventure more), so
in the other, whether they be woodland or champaign, we find not often
above forty, fifty, or three score households, and two or three hundred
communicants, whereof the greatest part nevertheless are very poor folks,
oftentimes without all manner of occupying, sith the ground of the parish
is gotten up into a few men's hands, yea sometimes into the tenure of
one or two or three, whereby the rest are compelled either to be hired
servants unto the other or else to beg their bread in misery from door
to door. There are some (saith Leland) which are not so favourable, when they
have gotten such lands, as to let the houses remain upon them to the use
of the poor; but they will compound with the lord of the soil to pull
them down for altogether, saying that "if they did let them stand,
they should but toll beggars to the town, thereby to surcharge the rest
of the parish, and lay more burden upon them." But alas! these pitiful
men see not that they themselves hereby do lay the greatest log upon their
neighbours' necks. For, sithethe prince deth commonly loose nothing of
his duties accustomable to be paid, the rest of the parishioners that
remain must answer and bear them out: for they plead more charge other
ways, saying: "I am charged already with a light horse; I am to answer
in this sort, and after that matter." And it is not yet altogether
out of knowledge, that, where the king had seven pounds thirteen shillings
at a task gathered of fifty wealthy householders of a parish in England,
now, a gentleman having three parts of the town in his own hands, four
households do bear all the aforesaid payment, or else Leland is deceived
in his Commentaries, lib. 13, lately come to my hands, which thing he
especially noted in his travel over this isle. A common plague and enormity,
both in the heart of the land and likewise upon the coasts. Certes a great
number complain of the increase of poverty, laying the cause upon God,
as though he were in fault for sending such increase of people, or want
of wars that should consume them, affirming that the land was never so
full, etc.; but few men do see the very root from whence it doth proceed.
Yet the Romans found it out, when they flourished, and therefore prescribed
limits to every man's tenure and occupying. Homer commendeth Achilles
for overthrowing of five-and-twenty cities: but in mine opinion Ganges
is much better preferred by Suidas for building of three score in India,
where he did plant himself. I could (if need required) set down in this
place the number of religious houses and monasteries, with the names of
their founders, that have been in this island: but, sith it is a thing
of small importance, I pass it over as impertinent to my purpose. Yet
herein I will commend sundry of the monastical votaries, especially monks,
for that they were authors of many goodly borowes and endwares, 5
near unto their dwellings although otherwise they pretended to be men
separated from the world. But alas! their covetous minds, one way in enlarging
their revenues, and carnal intent another, appeared herein too, too much.
For, being bold from time to time to visit their tenants, they wrought
oft great wickedness, and made those endwares little better than brothel-houses,
especially where nunneries were far off, or else no safe access unto them.
But what do I spend my time in the rehearsal of these filthinesses? Would
to God the memory of them might perish with the malefactors! My purpose
was also at the end of this chapter to have set down a table of the parish
churches and market towns throughout all England and Wales; but, sith
I cannot perform the same as I would, I am forced to give over my purpose;
yet by these few that ensue you shall easily see what I would have used
according to the shires, if I might have brought it to pass. ---Table 1.: Table of Shires, Market Towns and Parishes]
And these I had of a friend of mine, by whose travel and his master's
excessive charges I doubt not but my countrymen ere long shall see all
England set forth in several shires after the same manner that Ortelius
hath dealt with other countries of the main, to the great benefit of our
nation and everlasting fame of the aforesaid parties.
After such time as Calais was won from the French, and that our countrymen
had learned to trade into divers countries (whereby they grew rich), they
began to wax idle also, and thereupon not only left off their former painfulness
and frugality, but in like sort gave themselves to live in excess and
vanity, whereby many goodly commodities failed, and in short time were
not to be had amongst us. Such strangers also as dwelled here with us,
perceiving our sluggishness, and espying that this idleness of ours might
redound to their great profit, forthwith employed their endeavors to bring
in the supply of such things as we lacked continually from foreign countries,
which yet more augmented our idleness. For, having all things at reasonable
prices (as we supposed) by such means from them, we thought it mere madness
to spend either time or cost about the same here at home. And thus we
became enemies to our own welfare, as men that in those days reposed our
felicity in following the wars, wherewith we were often exercised both
at home and other places. Besides this, the natural desire that mankind
hath to esteem of things far sought, because they be rare and costly,
and the irksome contempt of things near hand, for that they are common
and plentiful, hath borne no small sway also in this behalf amongst us.
For hereby we have neglected our own good gifts of God, growing here at
home, as vile and of no value, and had every trifle and toy in admiration
that is brought hither from far countries, ascribing I wot not what great
forces and solemn estimation unto them, until they also have waxen old,
after which they have been so little regarded, if not more despised, amongst
us than our own. Examples hereof I could set down many and in many things;
but, sith my purpose is to deal at this time with gardens and orchards,
it shall suffice that I touch them only, and show our inconstancy in the
same, so far as shall seem and be convenient for my turn. I comprehend
therefore under the word "garden" all such grounds as are wrought
with the spade by man's hand, for so the case requireth. Of wine I have written already elsewhere sufficiently, which commodity
(as I have learned further since the penning of that book) hath been very
plentiful in this island, not only in the times of the Romans, but also
since the Conquest, as I have seen by record; yet at this present have
we none at all, (or else very little to speak of), growing in this island,
which I impute not unto the soil, but the negligence of my countrymen.
Such herbs, fruits, and roots also as grow yearly out of the ground, of
seed, have been very plentiful in this land, in the time of the first
Edward, and after his days; but in process of time they grew also to be
neglected, so that from Henry the Fourth till the latter end of Henry
the Seventh and beginning of Henry the Eighth, there was little or no
use of them in England, but they remained either unknown or supposed as
food more meet for hogs and savage beasts to feed upon than mankind. Whereas
in my time their use is not only resumed among the poor commons, I men
of melons, pompons, gourds, cucumbers, radishes, skirets, 1
parsnips, carrots, cabbages, navews, 2 turnips, and all kinds
of salad herbs - but also fed upon as dainty dishes at the tables of delicate
merchants,gentlemen, and the nobility, who make their provision yearly
for new seeds out of strange countries, from whence they have them abundantly.
Neither do they now stay with such of these fruits as are wholesome in
their kinds, but adventure further upon such as are very dangerous and
hurtful, as the verangenes, mushrooms, etc., as if nature had ordained
all for the belly, or that all things were to be eaten for whose mischievous
operation the Lord in some measure hath given and provided a remedy.
Hops in time past were plentiful in this land. Afterwards also their
maintenance did cease. And now, being revived, where are any better to
be found? Where any greater commodity to be raised by them? Only poles
are accounted to be their greatest charge. But, sith men have learned
of late to sow ashen kexes in ashyards by themselves, that inconvenience
in short time will be redressed. Madder hath grown abundantly in this island, but of long time neglected,
and now a little revived, and offereth itself to prove no small benefit
unto our country, as many other things else, which are now fetched from
us: as we before time, when we gave ourselves to idleness, were glad to
have them other. If you look into our gardens annexed to our houses, how wonderfully is
their beauty increased, not only with flowers, which Columella calleth
Terrena sydera, 3 saying,
"Pingit et in varios terrestria sydera flores," 4 and variety of curious and costly workmanship, but also with rare and
medicinable herbs sought up in the land within these forty years: s brought
from far, is most folly of all: for it savoureth of ignorance, or at the
leastwise of negligence, and therefore worthy of reproach.
Among the Indians, who have the most present cures for every disease
of their own nation, there is small regard of compound medicines, and
less of foreign drugs, because they neither know them nor can use them,
but work wonders even with their own simples. With them also the difference
of the clime doth show her full effect. For, whereas they will heal one
another in short time with application of one simple, etc., if a Spaniard
or Englishman stand in need of their help, they are driven to have a longer
space in their cures, and now and then also to use some addition of two
or three simples at the most, whose forces unto them are thoroughly known,
because their exercise is only in their own, as men that never sought
or heard what virtue was in those that came from other countries. And
even so did Marcus Cato, the learned Roman, endeavour to deal in his cures
of sundry diseases, wherein he not only used such simples as were to be
had in his own country, but also examined and learned the forces of each
of them, wherewith he dealt so diligently that in all his lifetime he
could attain to the exact knowledge but of a few, and thereto wrote of
those most learnedly, as would easily be seen if those his books were
extant. For the space also of six hundred years the colewort only was
a medicine in Rome for all diseases, so that his virtues were thoroughly
known in those parts.* * * For my part, I doubt not if the use of outlandish drugs had not blinded
our physicians of England in times past, but that the virtues of our simples
here at home would have been far better known, and so well unto us as
those of India are to the practitioners of those parts, and thereunto
be found more profitable for us than the foreign either are or may be.
This also will I add, that even those which are most common by reason
of their plenty, and most vile because of their abundance, are not without
some universal and special efficacy, if it were known, for our benefit:
sith God in nature hath so disposed his creatures that the most needful
are the most plentiful and serving for such general diseases as our constitution
most commonly is affected withal. Great thanks therefore be given unto
the physicians of our age and country, who not only endeavour to search
out the use of such simples as our soil doth yield and bring forth, but
also to procure such as grow elsewhere, upon purpose so to acquaint them
with our clime that they in time, through some alteration received from
the nature of the earth, may likewise turn to our benefit and commodity
and be used as our own. The chief workman (or, as I may call him, the founder of this device)
is Carolus Clusius, the noble herbarist whose industry hath wonderfully
stirred them up into this good act. For albeit that Matthiolus, Rembert,
Lobell, and others have travelled very far in this behalf, yet none hath
come near to Clusius, much less gone further in the finding and true descriptions
of such herbs as of late are brought to light. I doubt not but, if this
man were in England but one seven years, he would reveal a number of herbs
growing with us whereof neither our physicians nor apothecaries as yet
have any knowledge. And even like thanks be given unto our nobility, gentlemen,
and others, for their continual nutriture and cherishing of such homeborne
and foreign simples in their gardens: for hereby they shall not only be
had at hand and preserved, but also their forms made more familiar to
be discerned and their forces better known than hitherto they have been. And even as it fareth with our gardens, so doth it with our orchards,
which were never furnished with so good fruit nor with such variety as
at this present. For, beside that we have most delicate apples, plums,
pears, walnuts, filberts, etc., and those of sundry sorts, planted within
forty years past, in comparison of which most of the old trees are nothing
worth, so have we no less store of strange fruit, as apricots, almonds,
peaches, figs, corn-trees 6 in noblemen's orchards. I have
seen capers, oranges, and lemons, and heard of wild olives growing here,
beside other strange trees, brought from far, whose names I know not.
So that England for these commodities was never better furnished, neither
any nation under their clime more plentifully endued with these and other
blessings from the most high God, who grant us grace withal to use the
same to his honour and glory! And not as instruments and provocations
into further excess and vanity, wherewith his displeasure may be kindled,
lest these his benefits do turn unto thorns and briers unto us for our
annoyance and punishment, which he hath bestowed upon us for our consolation
and comfort.
We have in like sort such workmen as are not only excellent in grafting
the natural fruits, but their artificial mixtures, whereby one tree bringeth
forth sundry fruits, and one and the same fruit of divers colours and
tastes, dallying as it were with nature and her course, as if her whole
trade were perfectly known unto them: of hard fruits they will make tender,
of sour sweet, of sweet yet more delicate, bereaving also some of their
kernels, other of their cores, and finally enduing them with the savour
of musk, amber, or sweet spices, at their pleasures. Divers also have
written at large of these several practices, and some of them how to convert
the kernels of peaches into almonds, of small fruit to make far greater,
and to remove or add superfluous or necessary moisture to the trees, with
other things belonging to their preservation, and with no less diligence
than our physicians do commonly show upon our own diseased bodies, which
to me doth seem right strange. And even so do our gardeners with their
herbs, whereby they are strengthened against noisome blasts, and preserved
from putrefaction and hindrance: whereby some such as were annual are
now made perpetual, being yearly taken up, and either reserved in the
house, or, having the ross pulled from their roots, laid again into the
earth, where they remain in safety. With choice they make also in their
waters, and wherewith some of them do now and then keep them moist, it
is a world to see, insomuch that the apothecaries' shops may seem to be
needful also to our gardens and orchards, and that in sundry wise: nay,
the kitchen itself is so far from being able to be missed among them that
even the very dish-water is not without some use amongst our finest plants.
Whereby, and sundry other circumstances not here to be remembered, I am
persuaded that, albeit the gardens of the Hesperides were in times past
so greatly accounted of, because of their delicacy, yet, if it were possible
to have such an equal judge as by certain knowledge of both were able
to pronounce upon them, I doubt not but he would give the prize unto the
gardens of our days, and generally over all Europe, in comparison of those
times wherein the old exceeded. Pliny and others speak of a rose that
had three score leaves growing upon one button: but if I should tell of
one which bare a triple number unto that proportion, I know I shall not
be believed, and no great matter though I were not; howbeit such a one
was to be seen in Antwerp, 1585, as I have heard, and I know who might
have had a slip or stallon thereof, if he would have ventured ten pounds
upon the growth of the same, which should have been but a tickle hazard,
and therefore better undone, as I did always imagine. For mine own part,
good reader, let me boast a little of my garden, which is but small, and
the whole area thereof little above 300 foot of ground, and yet, such
hath been my good luck in purchase of the variety of simples, that, notwithstanding
my small ability, there are very near three hundred of one sort and other
contained therein, no one of them being common or usually to be had. If
therefore my little plot, void of all cost in keeping, be so well furnished,
what shall we think of those of Hampton Court, Nonsuch, Tibaults, Cobham
Garden, and sundry others appertaining to divers citizens of London, whom
I could particularly name, if I should not seem to offend them by such
my demeanour and dealing. Chapter IV: Of Fairs And Markets
There are (as I take it) few great towns in England that have not their
weekly markets, one or more granted from the prince, in which all manner
of provision for household is to be bought and sold, for ease and benefit
of the country round about. Whereby, as it cometh to pass that no buyer
shall make any great journey in the purveyance of his necessities, so
no occupier shall have occasion to travel far off with his commodities,
except it be to seek for the highest prices, which commonly are near unto
great cities, where round 1 and speediest utterrance 2
is always to be had. And, as these have been in times past erected for
the benefit of the realm, so are they in many places too, too much abused:
for the relief and ease of the buyer is not so much intended in them as
the benefit of the seller. Neither are the magistrates for the most part
(as men loath to displease their neighbours for their one year's dignity)
so careful in their offices as of right and duty they should be. For,
in most of these markets, neither assizes of bread nor orders for goodness
and sweetness of grain and other commodities that are brought thither
to be sold are any whit looked unto, but each one suffered to sell or
set up what and how himself listeth: and this is one evident cause of
dearth and scarcity in time of great abundance.
I could (if I would) exemplify in many, but I will touch no one particularly,
sith it is rare to see in any country town (as I said) the assize of bread
well kept according to the statute; and yet, if any country baker happen
to come in among them on the market day with bread of better quantity,
they find fault by-and-by with one thing or other in his stuff, whereby
the honest poor man (whom the law of nations do commend, for that he endeavoureth
to live by any lawful means) is driven away, and no more to come there,
upon some round penalty, by virtue of their privileges. Howbeit, though
they are so nice in the proportion of their bread, yet, in lieu of the
same, there is such heady ale and beer in most of them as for the mightiness
thereof among such as seek it out is commonly called "huffcap,"
"the mad dog," "Father Whoreson," "angels' food,"
"dragon's milk," "go-by-the-wall," "stride wide,"
and "lift leg," etc. And this is more to be noted, that when
one of late fell by God's providence into a troubled conscience, after
he had considered well of his reachless life and dangerous estate, another,
thinking belike to change his colour and not his mind, carried him straight
away to the strongest ale, as to the next physician. It is incredible
to say how our maltbugs lug at this liquor, even as pigs should lie in
a row lugging at their dame's teats, till they lie still again and be
not able to wag. Neither did Romulus and Remus suck their she-wolf or
shepherd's wife Lupa with such eager and sharp devotion as these men hale
at "huffcap," till they be red as cocks and little wiser than
their combs. But how am I fallen from the market into the ale-house? In
returning therefore unto my purpose, I find that in corn great abuse is
daily suffered, to the great prejudice of the town and country, especially
the poor artificer and householder, which tilleth no land, but, labouring
all the week to buy a bushel or two of grain on the market day, can there
have none for his money: because bodgers, loaders, and common carriers
of corn do not only buy up all, but give above the price, to be served
of great quantities. Shall I go any further? Well, I will say yet a little
more, and somewhat by mine own experience. At Michaelmas time poor men must make money of their grain, that they
may pay their rents. So long then as the poor man hath to sell, rich men
bring out none, but rather buy up that which the poor bring, under pretence
of seed corn or alteration of grain, although they bring none of their
own, because one wheat often sown without change of seed will soon decay
and be converted into darnel. For this cause therefore they must needs
buy in the markets, though they be twenty miles off, and where they be
not known, promising there, if they happen to be espied, (which, God wot,
is very seldom), to send so much to their next market, to be performed
I wot not when. If this shift serve not (neither doth the fox use always one track for
fear of a snare), they will compound with some one of the town where the
market is holden, who for a pot of "huffcap" or "merry-go-down,"
will not let to buy it for them, and that in his own name. Or else they
wage one poor man or other to become a bodger, and thereto get him a license
upon some forged surmise, which being done, they will feed him with money
to buy for them till he hath filled their lofts, and then, if he can do
any good for himself, so it is; if not, they will give him somewhat for
his pains at this time, and reserve him for another year. How many of
the like providers stumble upon blind creeks at the sea coast, I wot not
well; but that some have so done and yet do under other men's wings, the
case is too, too plain. But who dare find fault with them, when they have
once a license? yes, though it be but to serve a mean gentleman's house
with corn, who hath cast up all his tillage, because he boasteth how he
can buy his grain in the market better cheap than he can sow his land,
as the rich grazier often doth also upon the like device, because grazing
requireth a smaller household and less attendance and charge. If any man
come to buy a bushel or two for his expenses unto the market cross, answer
is made: "Forsooth, here was one even now that bade me money for
it, and I hope he will have it." And to say the truth, these bodgers
are fair chapmen; for there are no more words with them, but "Let
me see it! What shall I give you? Knit it up! I will have it - go carry
it to such a chamber, and if you bring in twenty seme 3 more
in the week-day to such an inn or sollar 4 where I lay my corn,
I will have it, and give you ( ) pence or more in every bushel for six
weeks' day of payment than another will." Thus the bodgers bear away
all, so that the poor artificer and labourer cannot make his provision
in the markets, sith they will hardly nowadays sell by the bushel, nor
break their measure; and so much the rather for that the buyer will look
(as they say) for so much over measure in the bushel as the bodger will
do in a quarter. Nay, the poor man cannot oft get any of the farmer at
home, because he provideth altogether to serve the bodger, or hath an
hope, grounded upon a greedy and insatiable desire of gain, that the sale
will be better in the market, so that he must give twopence or a groat
more in the bushel at his house than the last market craved, or else go
without it, and sleep with a hungry belly. Of the common carriage of corn
over unto the parts beyond the seas I speak not; or at the leastwise,
if I should, I could not touch it alone, but needs must join other provision
withal, whereby not only our friends abroad, but also many of our adversaries
and countrymen, the papists, are abundantly relieved (as the report goeth);
but sith I see it not, I will not so trust mine ears as to write it for
a truth. But to return to our markets again.
By this time the poor occupier hath sold all his crop for need of money,
being ready peradventure to buy again ere long. And now is the whole sale
of corn in the great occupiers' hands, who hitherto have threshed little
or none of their own, but bought up of other men as much as they could
come by. Henceforth also they begin to sell, not by the quarter or load
at the first (for marring the market), but by the bushel or two, or a
horseload at the most, thereby to be seen to keep the cross, either for
a show, or to make men eager to buy, and so, as they may have it for money,
not to regard what they pay. And thus corn waxeth dear; but it will be
dearer the next market day. It is possible also that they mislike the
price in the beginning for the whole year ensuing, as men supposing that
corn will be little worth for this, and of better price the next year.
For they have certain superstitious observations whereby they will give
a guess at the sale of corn for the year following. And our countrymen
do use commonly for barley, where I dwell, to judge after the price at
Baldock upon St. Matthew's day; and for wheat, as it is sold in seed time.
They take in like sort experiment by sight of the first flocks of cranes
that flee southward in winter, the age of the moon in the beginning of
January, and such other apish toys as by laying twelve corns upon the
hot hearth for the twelve months, etc., whereby they shew themselves to
be scant good Christians; but what care they, so that they come by money?
Hereupon also will they thresh out three parts of the old corn, towards
the latter end of the summer, when new cometh apace to hand, and cast
the same in the fourth unthreshed, where it shall lie until the next spring,
or peradventure till it must and putrify. Certes it is not dainty to see
musty corn in many of our great markets of England which these great occupiers
bring forth when they can keep it no longer. But as they are enforced
oftentnmes upon this one occasion somewhat to abate the price, so a plague
is not seldom engendered thereby among the poorer sort that of necessity
must buy the same, whereby many thousands of all degrees are consumed,
of whose death (in mine opinion) these farmers are not unguilty. But to
proceed. If they lay not up their grain or wheat in this manner, they
have yet another policy, whereby they will seem to have but small store
left in their barns: for else they will gird their sheaves by the band,
and stack it up anew in less room, to the end it may not only seem less
in quantity, but also give place to the corn that is yet to come into
the barn or growing in the field. If there happen to be such plenty in
the market on any market day that they cannot sell at their own price,
then will they set it up in some friend's house, against another on the
third day, and not bring it forth till they like of the sale. If they
sell any at home, beside harder measure, it shall be dearer to the poor
man that buyeth it by twopence or a groat in a bushel than they may sell
it in the market. But, as these things are worthy redress, so I wish that
God would once open their eyes that deal thus to see their own errors:
for ts yet some of them little care how many poor men suffer extremity,
so that they fill their purses and carry away the gain. It is a world also to see how most places of the realm are pestered with
purveyors, who take up eggs, butter, cheese, pigs, capons, hens, chickens,
hogs, bacon, etc., in one market under pretence of their commissions,
and suffer their wives to sell the same in another, or to poulterers of
London. If these chapmen be absent but two or three market days then we
may perfectly see these wares to be more reasonably sold, and thereunto
the crosses sufficiently furnished of all things. In like sort, since
the number of buttermen have so much increased, and since they travel
in such wise that they come to men's houses for their butter faster than
they can make it, it is almost incredible to see how the price of butter
is augmented: whereas when the owners were enforced to bring it to the
market towns, and fewer of these butter buyers were stirring, our butter
was scarcely worth eighteen pence the gallon that now is worth three shillings
fourpence and perhaps five shillings. Whereby also I gather that the maintenance
of a superfluous number of dealers in most trades, tillage always excepted,
is one of the greatest causes why the prices of things became excessive:
for one of them do commonly use to outbid another. And whilst our country
commodities are commonly bought and sold at our private houses, I never
look to see this enormity redressed or the markets well furnished. I could say more, but this is even enough, and more peradventure than
I shall be well thanked for: yet true it is, though some think it no trespass.
This moreover is to be lamented, that one general measure is not in use
throughout all England, but every market town hath in manner a several
bushel; and the lesser it be, the more sellers it draweth to resort unto
the same. Such also is the covetousness of many clerks of the market,
that in taking a view of measures they will always so provide that one
and the same bushel shall be either too big or too little at their next
coming, and yet not depart without a fee at the first, so that what by
their mending at one time, and impairing the same at another, the country
is greatly charged, and few just measures to be had in any steed. It is
oft found likewise that divers unconscionable dealers have one measure
to sell by and another to buy withal; the like is also in weights, and
yet all sealed and branded. Wherefore it were very good that these two
were reduced unto one standard, that is, one bushel, one pound, one quarter,
one hundred, one tale, one number: so should things in time fall into
better order and fewer causes of contention be moved in this land. Of
the complaint of such poor tenants as pay rent corn unto their landlords,
I speak not, who are often dealt withal very hardly. For, beside that
in measuring of ten quarters for the most part they lose one through the
iniquity of the bushel (such is the greediness of the appointed receivers
thereof), fault is found also with the goodness and cleanness of the grain.
Whereby some piece of money must needs pass unto their purses to stop
their mouths withal, or else "My lord will not like of the corn,"
"Thou art worthy to lose thy lease," etc. Or, if it be cheaper
in the market than the rate allowed for it is in their rents, then must
they pay money and no corn, which is no small extremity. And thereby we
may see how each one of us endeavoureth to fleece and eat up another. Another thing there is in our markets worthy to be looked into, and that
is the recarriage of grain from the same into lofts and cellars, of which
before I gave some intimation; wherefore if it were ordered that every
seller should make his market by an hour, or else the bailey or clerk
of the said market to make sale thereof, according to his discretion,
without liberty to the farmers to set up their corn in houses and chambers,
I am persuaded that the prices of our grain would soon be abated. Again,
if it were enacted that each one should keep his next market with his
grain (and not to run six, eight, ten, fourteen, or twenty miles from
home to sell his corn where he doth find the highest price, and thereby
leaveth his neighbours unfurnished), I do not think but that our markets
would be far better served than at this present they are. Finally, if
men's barns might be indifferently viewed immediately after harvest, and
a note gathered by an estimate, and kept by some appointed and trusty
person for that purpose, we should have much more plenty of corn in our
town crosses than as yet is commonly seen: because each one hideth and
hoardeth what he may, upon purpose either that it will be dearer, or that
he shall have some privy vein by bodgers, who do accustomably so deal
that the sea doth load away no small part thereof into other countries
and our enemies, to the great hindrance of our commonwealth at home, and
more likely yet to be, except some remedy be found. But what do I talk
of these things, or desire the suppression of bodgers, being a minister?
Certes I may speak of them right well as feeling the harm in that I am
a buyer, nevertheless I speak generally in each of them. To conclude therefore, in our markets all things are to be sold necessary
for man's use; and there is our provision made commonly for all the week
ensuing. Therefore, as there are no great towns without one weekly market
at least, so there are very few of them that have not one or two fairs
or more within the compass of the year, assigned unto them by the prince.
And albeit that some of them are not much better than Louse fair, 5
or the common kirkemesses, 6 beyond the sea, yet there are
divers not inferior to the greatest marts in Europe, as Stourbridge fair
near to Cambridge, Bristow fair, Bartholomew fair at London, Lynn mart,
Cold fair at Newport pond for cattle, and divers other, all which, or
at leastwise the greatest part of them (to the end I may with the more
ease to the reader and less travel to myself fulfil my task in their recital),
I have set down according to the names of the months wherein they are
holden at the end of this book, where you shall find them at large as
I borrowed the same from J. Stow and the reports of others.
There are now two provinces in England, of which the first and greatest
is subject to the see of Canterbury, comprehending a part of Lhoegres,
whole Cambria, and also Ireland, which in time past were several, and
brought into one by the archbishop of the said see, and assistance of
the pope, who, in respect of meed, did yield unto the ambitious desires
of sundry archbishops of Canterbury, as I have elsewhere declared. The
second province is under the see of York. And, of these, each hath her
archbishop resident commonly within her now limits, who hath not only
the chief dealing in matters appertaining to the hierarchy and jurisdiction
of the church, but also great authority in civil affairs touching the
government of the commonwealth, so far forth as their commissions and
several circuits do extend. In old time there were three archbishops, and so many provinces in this
isle, of which one kept at London, another at York, and the third at Carleon
upon Usk. But as that of London was translated to Canterbury by Augustine,
and that of York remaineth (notwithstanding that the greatest part of
his jurisdiction is now bereft him and given to the Scottish archbishop),
so that of Caerleon is utterly extinguished, and the government of the
country united to that of Canterbury in spiritual cases, after it was
once before removed to St. David's in Wales, by David, successor to Dubritius,
and uncle to King Arthur, in the 519 of Grace, to the end that he and
his clerks might be further off from the cruelty of the Saxons, where
it remained till the time of the Bastard, and for a season after, before
it was annexed to the see of Canterbury. The Archbishop of Canterbury is commonly called the Primate of all England;
and in the coronations of the kings of this land, and all other times
wherein it shall please the prince to wear and put on his crown, his office
is to set it upon their heads. They bear also the name of their high chaplains
continually, although not a few of them have presumed (in time past) to
be their equals, and void of subjection unto them. That this is true,
it may easily appear by their own acts yet kept in record, beside their
epistles and answers written or in print, wherein they have sought not
only to match but also to mate 1 them with great rigour and
more than open tyranny. Our adversaries will peradventure deny this absolutely,
as they do many other things apparent, though not without shameless impudence,
or at the leastwise defend it as just and not swerving from common equity,
because they imagine every archbishop to be the king's equal in his own
province. But how well their doing herein agreeth with the saying of Peter
and examples of the primitive church it may easily appear. Some examples
also of their demeanour I mean in the time of popery - I will not let
to remember, lest they should say I speak of malice, and without all ground
of likelihood.
Of their practices with mean persons I speak not, neither will I begin
at Dunstan, the author of all their pride and presumption here in England.
. . . Wherefore I refer you to those reports of Anselm and Becket sufficiently
penned by other, the which Anselm also making a shew as if he had been
very unwilling to be placed in the see of Canterbury gave this answer
to the letters of such his friends as did make request unto him to take
the charge upon him "Secularia negotia nescio, quia scire nolo, eorum namque occupationes
horreo, liberum affectans animum. Voluntati sacrarum intendo scripturarum,
vos dissonantiam facitis, verendumque est ne aratrum sanctae ecclesiae,
quod in Anglia duo boves validi et pari fortitudine, ad bonum certantes,
id est, rex et archiepiscopus, debeant trahere, nunc ove vetula cum tauro
indomito jugata, distorqueatur a recto. Ego ovis vetula, qui si quietus
essem, verbi Dei lacte, et operimento lanae, aliquibus possem fortassis
non ingratus esse, sed si me cum hoc tauro coniungitis, videbitis pro
disparilitate trahentium, aratrum non recte procedere," etc. Which is in English thus "Of secular affairs I have no skill, because I will not know them;
for I even abhor the troubles that rise about them, as one that desireth
to have his mind at liberty. I apply my whole endeavour to the rule of
the Scriptures; you lead me to the contrary; and it is to be feared lest
the plough of holy church, which two strong oxen of equal force, and both
like earnest to contend unto that which is good (that is, the king and
the archbishop), ought to draw, should thereby now swerve from the right
furrow, by matching of an old sheep with a wild, untamed bull. I am that
old sheep, who, if I might be quiet, could peradventure shew myself not
altogether ungrateful to some, by feeding them with the milk of the Word
of God, and covering them with wool: but if you match me with this bull,
you shall see that, through want of equality in draught, the plough will
not go to right," etc. As followeth in the process of his letters. The said Thomas Becket was
so proud that he wrote to King Henry the Second, as to his lord, to his
king, and to his son, offering him his counsel, his reverence, and due
correction, etc. Others in like sort have protested that they owed nothing
to the kings of this land, but their council only, reserving all obedience
unto the see of Rome, whereby we may easily see the pride and ambition
of the clergy in the blind time of ignorance. And as the old cock of Canterbury did crow in this behalf, so the young
cockerels of other sees did imitate his demeanour, as may be seen by this
one example also in King Stephen's time, worthy to be remembered; unto
whom the Bishop of London would not so much as swear to be true subject:
wherein also he was maintained by the pope . . . Thus we see that kings were to rule no further than it pleased the pope
to like of; neither to challenge more obedience of their subjects than
stood also with their good will and pleasure. He wrote in like sort unto
Queen Maud about the same matter, making her "Samson's calf"
2 (the better to bring his purpose to pass). . .
Is it not strange that a peevish order of religion (devised by man) should
break the express law of God, who commandeth all men to honour and obey
their kings and princes, in whom some part of the power of God is manifest
and laid open unto us? And even unto this end the cardinal of Hostia also
wrote to the canons of Paul's after this manner, covertly encouraging
them to stand to their election of the said Robert, who was no more willing
to give over his new bishopric than they careful to offend the king, but
rather imagined which way to keep it still, maugre his displeasure, and
yet not to swear obedience unto him for all that he should be able to
do or perform unto the contrary. . Hereby you see how King Stephen was dealt withal. And albeit the Archbishop
of Canterbury is not openly to be touched herewith, yet it is not to be
doubtedtbut he was a doer in it, so far as might tend to the maintenance
of the right and prerogative of holy church. And even no less unquietness
had another of our princes with Thomas of Arundel, who fled to Rome for
fear of his head, and caused the pope to write an ambitious and contumelious
letter unto his sovereign about his restitution. But when (by the king's
letters yet extant, and beginning thus: "Thomas proditionis non expers
nostrae regiae majestati insidias fabricavit" 3) the pope
understood the bottom of the matter, he was contented that Thomas should
be deprived, and another archbishop chosen in his stead.
Neither did this pride stay uttermost of their powers. These churches are called cathedral, because the bishops dwell or lie
near unto the same, as bound to keep continual residence within their
jurisdictions for the better oversight and governance of the same, the
word being derived a cathedra - that is to say, a chair or seat where
he resteth, and for the most part abideth. At the first there was but
one church in every jurisdiction, whereinto no man entered to pray but
with some oblation or other toward the maintenance of the pastor. For
as it was reputed an infamy to pass by any of them without visitation,
so it was no less reproach to appear empty before the Lord. And for this
occasion also they were builded very huge and great; for otherwise they
were not capable to such multitude as came daily unto them to hear the
Word and receive the sacraments. But as the number of Christians increased, so first monasteries, then
finally parish churches, were builded in every jurisdiction: from whence
I take our deanery churches to have their original (now called "mother
churches," and their incumbents, archpriests), the rest being added
since the Conquest, either by the lords of every town, or zealous men,
loth to travel far, and willing to have some ease by building them near
hand. Unto these deanery churches also the clergy in old time of the same
deanery were appointed to repair at sundry seasons, there to receive wholesome
ordinances, and to consult upon the necessary affairs of the whole jurisdiction
if necessity so required; and some image hereof is yet to be seen in the
north parts. But as the number of churches increased, so the repair of
the faithful unto the cathedrals did diminish; whereby they now become,
especially in their nether parts, rather markets and shops for merchandise
than solemn places of prayer, whereunto they were first erected. Moreover,
in the said cathedral churches upon Sundays and festival days the canons
do make certain ordinary sermons by course, whereunto great numbers of
all estates do orderly resort; and upon the working days, thrice in the
week, one of the said canons (or some other in his stead) doth read and
expound some piece of holy Scripture, whereunto the people do very reverently
repair. The bishops themselves in like sort are not idle in their callings;
for, being now exempt from court and council, which is one (and a no small)
piece of their felicity (although Richard Archbishop of Canterbury thought
otherwise, as yet appeareth by his letters to Pope Alexander, Epistola
44, Petri Blesensis, where he saith, because the clergy of his time were
somewhat narrowly looked unto, "Supra dorsum ecclesiae fabricant
peccatores," etc.), 4 they so apply their minds to the
setting forth of the Word that there are very few of them which do not
every Sunday or oftener resort to some place or other within their jurisdictions
where they expound the Scriptures with much gravity and skill, and yet
not without the great misliking and contempt of such as hate the Word.
Of their manifold translations from one see to another I will say nothing,
which is not now done for the benefit of the flock as the preferment of
the party favoured and advantage unto the prince, a matter in time past
much doubted of - to wit, whether a bishop or pastor might be translated
from one see to another, and left undecided till prescription by royal
authority made it good. For, among princes, a thing once done is well
done, and to be done oftentimes, though no warrant be to be found therefore.
They have under them also their archdeacons, some one, divers two, and
many four or more, as their circuits are in quantity, which archdeacons
are termed in law the bishops' eyes; and these (beside their ordinary
courts, which are holden within so many or more of their several deaneries
by themselves or their officials once in a month at the least) do keep
yearly two visitations or synods (as the bishop doth in every third year,
wherein he confirmeth some children, though most care but a little for
that ceremony), in which they make diligent inquisition and search, as
well for the doctrine and behaviour of the ministers as the orderly dealing
of the parishioners in resorting to their parish churches and conformity
unto religion. They punish also with great severity all such trespassers,
either in person or by the purse (where permutation of penance is thought
more grievous to the offender), as are presented unto them; or, if the
cause be of the more weight, as in cases of heresy, pertinacy, contempt,
and such like, they refer them either to the bishop of the diocese, or
his chancellor, or else to sundry grave persons set in authority, by virtue
of an high commission directed unto them from the prince to that end,
who in very courteous manner do see the offenders gently reformed or else
severely punished if necessity so enforce. Beside this, in many of our archdeaconries, we have an exercise lately
begun which for the most part is called a prophecy or conference, and
erected only for the examination or trial of the diligence of the clergy
in their study of holy Scriptures. Howbeit, such is the thirsty desire
of the people in these days to hear the Word of God that they also have
as it were with zealous violence intruded themselves among them (but as
hearers only) to come by more knowledge through their presence at the
same. Herein also (for the most part) two of the younger sort of ministers
do expound each after other some piece of the Scriptures ordinarily appointed
unto them in their courses (wherein they orderly go through with some
one of the Evangelists, or of the Epistles, as it pleaseth the whole assembly
to choose at the first in every of these conferences); and when they have
spent an hour or a little more between them, then cometh one of the better
learned sort, who, being a graduate for the most part, or known to be
a preacher sufficiently authorised and of a sound judgment, supplieth
the room of a moderator, making first a brief rehearsal of their discourses,
and then adding what him thinketh good of his own knowledge, whereby two
hours are thus commonly spent at this most profitable meeting. When all
is done, if the first speakers have shewed any piece of diligence, they
are commended for their travel, and encouraged to go forward. If they
have been found to be slack, or not sound in delivery of their doctrine,
their negligence and error is openly reproved before all their brethren,
who go aside of purpose from the laity after the exercise ended to judge
of these matters, and consult of the next speakers and quantity of the
text to be handled in that place. The laity never speak, of course (except
some vain and busy head will now and then intrude themselves with offence),
but are only hearers; and, as it is used in some places weekly, in other
once in fourteen days, in divers monthly, and elsewhere twice in a year,
so is it a notable spur unto all the ministers thereby to apply their
books, which otherwise (as in times past) would give themselves to hawking,
hunting, tables, cards, dice, tippling at the alehouse, shooting of matches,
and other like vanities, nothing commendable in such as should be godly
and zealous stewards of the good gifts of God, faithful distributors of
his Word unto the people, and diligent pastors according to their calling. But alas! as Satan, the author of all mischief, hath in sundry manners
heretofore hindered the erection and maintenance of many good things,
so in this he hath stirred up adversaries of late unto this most profitable
exercise, who, not regarding the commodity that riseth thereby so well
to the hearers as speakers, but either stumbling (I cannot tell how) at
words and terms, or at the leastwise not liking to hear of the reprehension
of vice, or peradventure taking a misliking at the slender demeanours
of such negligent ministers as now and then in their course to occupy
the rooms, have either by their own practice, their sinister information,
or suggestions made upon surmises unto other, procured the suppression
of these conferences, condemning them as hurtful, pernicious, and daily
breeders of no small hurt and inconvenience. But hereof let God be judge,
unto the cause belongeth. Our elders or ministers and deacons (for subdeacons and the other inferior
orders sometime used in popish church we have not) are made according
to a certain form of consecration concluded upon in the time of King Edward
the Sixth by the clergy of England, and soon after confirmed by the three
estates of the realm in the high court of parliament. And out of the first
sort - that is to say, of such as are called to the ministry (without
respect whether they be married or not) - are bishops, deans, archdeacons,
and such as have the higher places in the hierarchy of the church elected;
and these also, as all the rest, at the first coming unto any spiritual
promotion do yield unto the prince the entire tax of that their living
for one whole year, if it amount in value unto ten pounds and upwards,
and this under the name and title of first fruits. With us also it is permitted that a sufficient man may (by dispensation
from the prince) hold two livings, not distant either from other above
thirty miles; whereby it cometh to pass that, as her Majesty doth reap
some commodity by the faculty, so that the unition of two in one man doth
bring oftentimes more benefit to one of them in a month (I mean for doctrine)
than they have had before peradventure in many years. Many exclaim against such faculties, as if there were more good preachers
that want maintenance than livings to maintain them. Indeed when a living
is voit there are so many suitors for it that a man would think the report
to be true, and most certain; but when it cometh to the trial (who are
sufficient and who not, who are staid men in conversation, judgment, and
learning), of that great number you shall hardly find one or two such
as they ought to be, and yet none more earnest to make suit, to promise
largely, bear a better shew, or find fault with the stage of things than
they. Nevertheless I do not think that their exclamations, if they were
wisely handled, are altogether grounded upon rumours or ambitious minds,
if you respect the state of the thing itself, and not the necessity growing
through want of able men to furnish out all the cures in England, which
both our universities are never able to perform. For if you observe what
numbers of preachers Cambridge and Oxford do yearly send forth, and how
many new compositions are made in the Court of First Fruits by the deaths
of the last incumbents, you shall soon see a difference. Wherefore, if
in country towns and cities, yea even in London itself, four or five of
the little churches were brought into one, the inconvenience would in
great part be redressed and amended. And, to say truth, one most commonly of those small livings is of so
little value that it is not able to maintain a mean scholar, much less
a learned man, as noting be above ten, twelve, sixteen, seventeen, twenty,
or thirty pounds at the most, toward their charges, which now (more than
before time) do go out of the same. I say more than before, because every
small trifle, nobleman's request, or courtesy craved by the bishop, doth
impose and command a twentieth part, a three score part, or twopence in
the pound, etc., out of the livings, which hitherto hath not been usually
granted, but by the consent of a synod, wherein things were decided according
to equity, and the poorer sort considered of, which now are equally burdened. We pay also the tenths of our livings to the prince yearly, according
to such valuation of each of them as hath been lately made: which nevertheless
in time past were not annual, but voluntary, and paid at request of king
or pope. 5 . . .
But to return to our tenths, a payment first as devised by the pope,
and afterward taken up as by the prescription of the king, whereunto we
may join also our first fruits, which is one whole year's commodity of
our living, due at our entrance into the same, the tenths abated unto
the prince's coffers, and paid commonly in two years. For the receipt
also of these two payments an especial office or court is erected, which
beareth name of First Fruits and Tenths, whereunto, if the party to be
preferred do not make his dutiful repair by an appointed time after possession
taken, there to compound for the payment of his said fruits, he incurreth
the danger of a great penalty, limited by a certain statute provided in
that behalf against such as do intrude into the ecclesiastical function
and refuse to pay the accustomed duties belonging to the same. They pay likewise subsidies with the temporalty, but in such sort that
if these pay after four shillings for land, the clergy contribute commonly
after six shillings of the pound, so that of a benefice of twenty pounds
by the year the incumbent thinketh himself well acquitted if, all ordinary
payments being discharged, he may reserve thirteen pounds six shillings
eightpence towards his own sustentation or maintenance of his family.
Seldom also are they without the compass of a subsidy; for if they be
one year clear from this payment (a thing not often seen of late years),
they are like in the next to hear of another grant: so that I say again
they are seldom without the limit of a subsidy. Herein also they somewhat
find themselves grieved that the laity may at every taxation help themselves,
and so they do, through consideration had of their decay and hindrance,
and yet their impoverishment cannot but touch also the parson or vicar,
unto whom such liberty is denied, as is daily to be seen in their accounts
and tithings. Some of them also, after the marriages of their children, will have their
proportions qualified, or by friendship get themselves quite out of the
book. But what stand I upon these things, who have rather to complain
of the injury offered by some of our neighbours of the laity, which daily
endeavour to bring us also within the compass of their fifteens or taxes
for their own ease, whereas the tax of the whole realm, which is commonly
greater in the champagne than woodland soil, amounteth only to 37,930
pounds ninepence half-penny, is a burden easy enough to be borne upon
so many shoulders, without the help of the clergy, whose tenths and subsidies
make up commonly a double, if not treble sum unto their aforesaid payments?
Sometimes also we are threatened with a Melius inquirendum, as if our
livings were not racked high enough already. But if a man should seek
out where all those church lands which in time past did contribute unto
the old sum required or to be made up, no doubt no small number of the
laity of all states should be contributors also with us, the prince not
defrauded of her expectation and right. We are also charged with armour
and munitions from thirty pounds upwards, a thing more needful than divers
other charges imposed upon us are convenient, by which and other burdens
our ease groweth to be more heavy by a great deal (notwithstanding our
immunity from temporal services) than that of the laity, and, for aught
that I see, not likely to be diminished, as if the church were now become
the ass whereon every market man is to ride and cast his wallet. The other payments due unto the archbishop and bishop at their several
visitations (of which the first is double to the latter), and such also
as the archdeacon receive that his synods, etc., remain still as they
did without any alteration. Only this, I think he added within memory
of man, that at the coming of every prince his appointed officers do commonly
visit the whole realm under the form of an ecclesiastical inquisition,
in which the clergy do usually pay double fees, as unto the archbishop. Hereby then, and by those already remembered, it is found that the Church
of England is no less commodious to the prince's coffers than the state
of the laity, if it do not far exceed the same, since their payments are
certain, continual, and seldom abated, howsoever they gather up their
own duties with grudging, murmuring, suit, and slanderous speeches of
the payers, or have their livings otherwise hardly valued unto the uttermost
farthing, or shrewdly cancelled by the covetousness of the patrons, of
whom some do bestow advowsons of benefices upon their bakers, butlers,
cooks, good archers, falconers, and horse-keepers, instead of other recompense,
for their long and faithful service, which they employ afterward unto
the most advantage. Certes here they resemble the pope very much; for, as he sendeth out
his idols, so do they their parasites, pages, chamberlains, stewards,
grooms and lackeys; and yet these be the men that first exclaim of the
insufficiency of the ministers, as hoping thereby in due time to get also
their glebes and grounds into their hands. In times past bishoprics went
almost after the same manner under the lay princes, and then under the
pope, so that he which helped a clerk unto a see was sure to have a present
or purse fine, if not an annual pension, besides that which went to the
pope's coffers, and was thought to be very good merchandise. To proceed therefore with the rest, I think it good also to remember
that the names usually given unto such as feed the flock remain in like
sort as in times past, so that these words, parson, vicar, curate, and
such, are not yet abolished more than the canon law itself, which is daily
pleaded, as I have said elsewhere, although the statutes of the realm
have greatly infringed the large scope and brought the exercise of the
same into some narrower limits. There is nothing read in our churches
but the canonical Scriptures, whereby it cometh to pass that the Psalter
is said over once in thirty days, the New Testament four times, and the
Old Testament once in the year. And hereunto, if the curate be adjudged
by the bishop or his deputies sufficiently instructed in the holy Scriptures,
and therewithal able to teach, he permitteth him to make some exposition
or exhortation in his parish unto amendment of life. And for so much as
our churches and universities have been so spoiled in time of error, as
there cannot yet be had such number of able pastors as may suffice for
every parish to have one, therebare (beside four sermons appointed by
public order in the year) certain sermons or homilies (devised by sundry
learned men, confirmed for sound doctrine by consent of the divines, and
public authority of the prince), and those appointed to be read by the
curates of mean understanding (which homilies do comprehend the principal
parts of Christian doctrine, as of original sin, of justification by faith,
of charity, and such like) upon the Sabbath days unto the congregation.
And, after a certain number of psalms read, which are limited according
to the dates of the month, for morning and evening prayer we have two
lessons, whereof the first is taken out of the Old Testament, the second
out of the New; and of these latter, that in the morning is out of the
Gospels, the other in the afternoon out of some one of the Epistles. After
morning prayer also, we have the Litany and suffrages, an invocation in
mine opinion not devised without the great assistance of the Spirit of
God, although many curious mind-sick persons utterly condemn it as superstitious,
and savouring of conjuration and sorcery. This being done, we proceed unto the communion, if any communicants be
to receive the Eucharist; if not, we read the Decalogue, Epistle, and
Gospel, with the Nicene Creed (of some in derision called the "dry
communion"), and then proceed unto an homily or sermon, which hath
a psalm before and after it, and finally unto the baptism of such infants
as on every Sabbath day (if occasion so require) are brought unto the
churches; and thus is the forenoon bestowed. In the afternoon likewise
we meet again, and, after the psalms and lessons ended, we have commonly
a sermon, or at the leastwise our youth catechised by the space of an
hour. And thus do we spend the Sabbath day in good and godly exercises,
all done in our vulgar tongue, that each one present may hear and understand
the same, which also in cathedral and collegiate churches is so ordered
that the psalms only are sung by note, the rest being read (as in common
parish churches) by the minister with a loud voice, saving that in the
administration of the communion the choir singeth the answers, the creed,
and sundry other things appointed, but in so plain, I say, and distinct
manner that each one present may understand what they sing, every word
having but one note, though the whole harmony consist of many parts, and
those very cunningly set by the skilful in that science. Certes this translation of the service of the church into the vulgar
tongue hath not a little offended the pope almost in every age, as a thing
very often attempted by divers princes, but never generally obtained,
for fear lest the consenting thereunto might breed the overthrow (as it
would indeed) of all his religion and hierarchy; nevertheless, in some
places where the kings and princes dwelled not under his nose, it was
performed maugre his resistance. Wratislaus, Duke of Bohemia, would long
since have done the like also in his kingdom; but, not daring to venture
so far without the consent of the pope, he wrote unto him thereof, and
received his answer inhibitory unto all his proceeding in the same. .
. . I would set down two or three more of the like instruments passed from
that see unto the like end, but this shall suffice, being less common
than the other, which are to be had more plentifully. As for our churches themselves, bells and times of morning and evening
prayer remain as in times past, saving that all images, shrines, tabernacles,
rood-lofts, and monuments of idolatry are removed, taken down, and defaced,
only the stories in glass windows excepted, which, for want of sufficient
store of new stuff, and by reason of extreme charge that should grow by
the alteration of the same into white panes throughout the realm, are
not altogether abolished in most places at once, but by little and little
suffered to decay, that white glass may be provided and set up in their
rooms. Finally, whereas there was wont to be a great partition between
the choir and the body of the church, now it is either very small or none
at all, and (to say the truth) altogether needless, sith the minister
saith his service commonly in the body of the church, with his face toward
the people, in a little tabernacle of wainscot provided for the purpose,
by which means the ignorant do not only learn divers of the psalms and
usual prayers by heart, but also such as can read do pray together with
him, so that the whole congregation at one instant pour out their petitions
unto the living God for the whole estate of His church in most earnest
and fervent manner. Our holy and festival days are very well reduced also
unto a less number; for whereas (not long since) we had under the pope
four score and fifteen, called festival, and thirty profesti, beside the
Sundays, they are all brought unto seven and twenty, and, with them, the
superfluous numbers of idle wakes, guilds, fraternities, church-ales,
help-ales, and soul-ales, called also dirge-ales, with the heathenish
rioting at bride-ales, are well diminished and laid aside. And no great
matter were it if the feasts of all our apostles, evangelists, and martyrs,
with that of all saints, were brought to the holy days that follow upon
Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide, and those of the Virgin Mary, with
the rest, utterly removed from the calendars, as neither necessary nor
commendable in a reformed church. The apparel in like sort of our clergyment is comely, and, in truth,
more decent than ever it was in the popish church, before the univeristies
bound their graduates unto a stable attire, afterward usurped also even
byt the blind Sir Johns. For, if you peruse well my Chronology ensuing,
you shall find that they went either in divers colours like players, or
in garments of light hue, as yellow, red, green, etc., with their shoes
piked, their hair crisped, their girdles armed with silver, their shoes,
spurs, bridles, etc., buckled with liek metal, their apparel (for the
most part) of silk, and richly, their caps lacede and buttoned with gold,
so that to meet a priest in those days was to behold a peacock that spreadeth
his tail when he danceth before the hen, which noew (I say) is well reformed.
Touching hospitality, there was never any greater used in England, sith
by reason that marriage is permitdted to him that will choosed that kind
of life, their meat and drink is more orderly and frugally dressed, their
furniture of household more convenient and better looked unto, and the
poor oftener fed generally than heretofore they have been, when only a
few bishops and double or treble beneficed men did make good cheer at
Christimas only or otherwise kept great houses for the entertainment of
the rich, which did often see and visit them. It is thought much peradventure
that some bishops e and spiritual men, it grew to be far worse. For they
also, within a while waxing covetous, by their own experience learned
aforehand, raised the markets, and sought after new gains by the gifts
of the greatest livings in that country, wherein (as Machiavelli writeth)
are eighteen archbishoprics, one hundred forty and five bishoprics, 740
abbeys, eleven universities, 1,000,700 steeples (if his report be sound).
Some are of the opinion that, if sufficient men in every town might be
sent for from the universities, this mischief would soon be re edied;
but I am clean of another mind. For, when I consider whereunto the gifts
of fellowship in some places are grown, the profit that ariseth at sundry
elections of scholars out of grammar schools to the posers, schoolmasters,
and preferers of them to our universities, the gifts of a great number
of almshouses builded for the maimed and impotent soldiers by princes
and good men heretofore moved with a pitiful consideration of the poor
distressed, how rewards, pensions, and annuities also do reign in other
cases whereby the giver is brought sometimes into extreme misery, and
that not so much as the room of a common soldier is not obtained oftentimes
without a "What will you give me?" I am brought into such a
mistrust of the sequel of this device that I dare pronounce (almost for
certain) that,aif Homer were now alive it should be said to him: "Tuque licet venias musis comitatus Homere, Si nihil attuleris,
ibis Homere foras!" More I could say, and more I would say, of these and other things, were
it not that in mine own judgment I have said enough already for the advertisement
of such as be wise. Nevertheless, before I finish this chapter, I will
add a word or two (so briefly as I can) of the old estate of cathedral
churches, which I have collected together here and there among the writers,
and whereby it shall easily be seen what they were, and how near the government
of ours do in these days approach unto them; for that there is an irreconcilable
odds between them and those of the Papists, I hope there is no learned
man indeed but will acknowledge and yield unto it. We find therefore in the time of the primitive church that there was
in every see or jurisdiction one school at the least, whereunto such as
were catechists in Christian religion did resort. And hereof, as we may
find great testimony for Alexandria, Antioch, Rome and Jerusalem, so no
small notice is left of the like in the inferior sort, if the names of
such as taught in them be called to mind, and the histories well read
which make report or the same. These schools were under the jurisdiction
of the bishops, and from thence did they and the rest of the elders choose
out such as were the ripest scholars, and willing to serve in the ministry,
whom they placed also in their cathedral churches, there not only to be
further instructed in the knowledge of the world, but also to inure them
to the delivery of the same unto the people in sound manner, to minister
the sacraments, to visit the sick and brethren imprisoned, and to perform
such other duties as then belonged to their charges. The bishop himself
and elders of the church were also hearers and examiners of their doctrine;
and, being in process of time found meet workmen for the Lord's harvest,
they were forthwith sent abroad (after imposition of hands and prayer
generally made for their good proceeding) to some place or other then
destitute of her pastor, and other taken from the school also placed in
their rooms. What number of such clerks belonged now and then to some
one see, the Chronology following shall easily declare; and, in like sort,
what officers, widows, and other persons were daily maintained in those
seasons by the offerings and oblations of the faithful it is incredible
to be reported, if we compare the same with the decays and oblations seen
and practised at this present. But what is that in all the world which
avarice and negligence will not corrupt and impair? And, as this is a
pattern of the estate of the cathedral churches in those times, so I wish
that the like order of government might once again be restored unto the
same, which may be done with ease, sith the schools are already builded
in every diocese, the universities, places of their preferment unto further
knowledge, and the cathedral churches great enough to receive so many
as shall come from thence to be instructed unto doctrine. But one hindrance
of this is already and more and more to be looked for (beside the plucking
and snatching commonly seen from such houses and the church), and that
is, the general contempt of the ministry, and small consideration of their
former pains taken, whereby less and less hope of competent maintenance
by preaching the word is likely to ensue. Wherefore the greatest part
of the more excellent wits choose rather to employ their studies unto
physic and the laws, utterly giving over the study of the Scriptures,
for fear lest they should in time not get their bread by the same. By
this means also the stalls in their choirs would be better filled, which
now (for the most part) are empty, and prebends should be prebends indeed,
there to live till they were preferred to some ecclesiastical function,
and then other men chosen to succeed them in their rooms, whereas now
prebends are but superfluous additiments unto former excesses, and perpetual
commodities unto the owners, which before time were but temporal (as I
have said before). But as I have good leisure to wich for these things,
so it shall be a longer time before it will be brought to pass. Nevertheless,
as I will pray for a reformation in this behold, so will I here conclude
my discourse on the estate of our churches.
The situation of our region, lying near unto the north, doth cause the
heat of our stomachs to be of somewhat greater force: therefore our bodies
do crave a little more ample nourishment than the inhabitants of the hotter
regions are accustomed withal, whose digestive force is not altogether
so vehement, because their internal heat is not so strong as ours, which
is kept in by the coldness of the air that from time to time (especially
in winter) doth environ our bodies. It is no marvel therefore that our tables are oftentimes more plentifully
garnished than those of other nations, and this trade hath continued with
us even since the very beginning. For, before the Romans found out and
knew the way unto our country, our predecessors fed largely upon flesh
and milk, whereof there was great abundance in this isle, because they
applied their chief studies unto pasturage and feeding. After this manner
also did our Welsh Britons order themselves in their diet so long as they
lived of themselves, but after they became to be united and made equal
with the English they framed their appetites to live after our manner,
so that at this day there is very little difference between us in our
diets. In Scotland likewise they have given themselves (of late years to speak
of) unto very ample and large diet, wherein as for some respect nature
doth make them equal with us, so otherwise they far exceed us in over
much and distemperate gormandise, and so ingross their bodies that divers
of them do oft become unapt to any other purpose than to spend their times
in large tabling and belly cheer. Against this pampering of their carcasses
doth Hector Boethius in his description of the country very sharply inveigh
in the first chapter of that treatise. Henry Wardlaw also, bishop of St.
Andrews, noting their vehement alteration from competent frugality into
excessive gluttony to be brought out of England with James the First (who
had been long time prisoner there under the fourth and fifth Henries,
and at his return carried divers English gentlemen into his country with
him, whom he very honourably preferred there), doth vehemently exclaim
against the same in open Parliament holden at Perth, 1433, before the
three estates, and so bringeth his purpose to pass in the end, by force
of his learned persuasions, that a law was presently made there for the
restraint of superfluous diet; amongst other things, baked meats (dishes
never before this man's days seen in Scotland) were generally so provided
for by virtue of this Act that it was not lawful for any to eat of the
same under the degree of a gentleman, and those only but on high and festival
days. But, alas, it was soon forgotten! In old time these north Britons did give themselves universally to great
abstinence, and in time of wars their soldiers would often feed but once
or twice at the most in two or three days (especially if they held themselves
in secret, or could have no issue out of their bogs and marshes, through
the presence of the enemy), and in this distress they used to eat a certain
kind of confection, whereof so much as a bean would qualify their hunger
above common expectation. In woods moreover they lived with herbs and
roots, or, if these shifts served not through want of such provision at
hand, then used they to creep into the water or said moorish plots up
unto the chins, and there remain a long time, only to qualify the heats
of their stomachs by violence, which otherwise would have wrought and
been ready to oppress them for hunger and want of sustenance. In those
days likewise it was taken for a great offence over all to eat either
goose, hare, or hen, because of a certain superstitious opinion which
they had conceived of those three creatures; howbeit after that the Romans,
I say, had once found an entrance into this island it was not long ere
open shipwreck was made of this religious observation, so that in process
of time so well the north and south Britons as the Romans gave over to
make such difference in meats as they had done before. From thenceforth also unto our days, and even in this season wherein
we live, there is no restraint of any meat either for religious sake or
public order in England, but it is lawful for every man to feed upon whatsoever
he is able to purchase, except it be upon those days whereon eating of
flesh is especially forbidden by the laws of the realm, which order is
taken only to the end our numbers of cattle may be the better increased
and that abundance of fish which the sea yieldeth more generally received.
Besides this, there is great consideration had in making this law for
the preservation of the navy and maintenance of convenient numbers of
seafaring men, both which would otherwise greatly decay if some means
were not found whereby they might be increased. But, howsoever this case
standeth, white meats, milk, butter, and cheese (which were never so dear
as in my time, and wont to be accounted of as one of the chief stays throughout
the island) are now reputed as food appertinent only to the inferior sort,
whilst such as are more wealthy do feed upon the flesh of all kinds of
cattle accustomed to be eaten, all sorts of fish taken upon our coasts
and in our fresh rivers, and such diversity of wild and tame fowls as
are either bred in our island or brought over unto us from other countries
of the main. In number of dishes and change of meat the nobility of England (whose
cooks are for the most part musical-headed Frenchmen and strangers) do
most exceed, sith there is no day in manner that passeth over their heads
wherein they have not only beef, mutton, veal, lamb, kid, pork, cony,
capon, pig, or so many of these as the season yieldeth, but also some
portion of the red or fallow deer, beside great variety of fish and wild
fowl, and thereto sundry other delicates wherein the sweet hand of the
seafaring Portugal is not wanting: so that for a man to dine with one
of them, and to taste of every dish that standeth before him (which few
used to do, but each one feedeth upon that mnat him best liketh for the
time, the beginning of every dish notwithstanding being reserved unto
the greatest personage that sitteth at the table, to whom it is drawn
up still by the waiters as order requireth, and from whom it descendeth
again even to the lower end, whereby each one may taste thereof), is rather
to yield unto a conspiracy with a great deal of meat for the speedy suppression
of natural health than the use of a necessary mean to satisfy himself
with a competent repast to sustain his body withal. But, as this large
feeding is not seen in their guests, no more is it in their own persons;
for, sith they have daily much resort unto their tables (and many times
unlooked for), and thereto retain great numbers of servants, it is very
requisite and expedient for them to be somewhat plentiful in this behalf. The chief part likewise of their daily provision is brought in before
them (commonly in silver vessels, if they be of the degree of barons,
bishops, and upwards) and placed on their tables, fall should nothing
hurt it in such manner; yet it might peradventure bunch or batter it;
nevertheless that inconvenience were quickly to be redressed by the hammer.
But whither am I slipped? The gentlemen and merchants keep much about one rate, and each of them
contenteth himself with four, five, or six dishes, when they have but
small resort, or peradventure with one, or two, or three at the most,
when they have no strangers to accompany them at their tables. And yet
their servants have their ordinary diet assigned, beside such as is left
at their master's boards, and not appointed to be brought thither the
second time, which nevertheless is often seen, generally in venison, lamb,
or some especial dish, whereon the merchantman himself liketh to feed
when it is cold, or peradventure for sundry causes incident to the feeder
is better so than if it were warm or hot. To be short, at such times as
the merchants do make their ordinary oo voluntary feasts, it is a world
to see what great provision is made of all manner of delicate meats, from
every quarter of the country, wherein, beside that they are often comparable
herein to the nobility of the land, they will seldom regard anything that
the butcher usually killeth, but reject the same as not worthy to come
in place. In such cases also jellies of all colours, mixed with a variety
in the representation of sundry flowers, herbs, trees, forms of beasts,
fish, fowls, and fruits, and thereunto marchpane wrought with no small
curiosity, tarts of divers hues, and sundry denominations, conserves of
old fruits, foreign and home-bred, suckets, codinacs, marmalades, marchpane,
sugar-bread, gingerbread, florentines, wild fowls, venison of all sorts,
and sundry outlandish confections, altogether seasoned with sugar (which
Pliny calleth mel ex arundinibus, a device not common nor greatly used
in old time at the table, but only in medicine, although it grew in Arabia,
India, and Sicilia), do generally bear the sway, besides infinite devices
of our own not possible for me to remember. Of the potato, and such venerous
roots as are brought out of Spain, Portugal, and the Indies to furnish
up our banquets, I speak not, wherein our mures 1 of no less
force, and to be had about Crosby-Ravenswath, do now begin to have place.
But among all these, the kind of meat which is obtained with most difficulty
and costs, is commonly taken for the most delicate, and thereupon each
guest will soonest desire to feed. And as all estates do exceed herein,
I mean for strangeness and number of costly dishes, so these forget not
to use the like excess in wine, insomuch as there is no kind to be had,
neither anywhere more store of all sorts than in England, although we
have none growing with us upwards, notwithstanding the daily restraints
of the same but yearly to the proportion of 20,000 or 30,000 tun and brought
over unto us, whereof at great meetings there is not some store to be
had. Neither do I mean this of small wines only, as claret, white, red
French, etc., which amount to about fifty-six sorts, according to the
number of regions from whence they came, but also of the thirty kinds
of Italian, Grecian, Spanish, Canarian, etc., whereof vernage, catepument,
raspis, muscadell, romnie, bastard lire, osy caprie, clary, and malmesey,
are not least of all accompted of, because of their strength and valour.
For, as I have said in meat, so, the stronger the wine is, the more it
is desired, by means whereof, in old time, the best was called theologicum,
because it was had from the clergy and religious men, unto whose houses
many of the laity would often send for bottles filled with the same, being
sure they would neither drink nor be served of the worst, or such as was
any ways mingled or brewed by the vinterer: nay, the merchant would have
thought that his soul should have gone straightway to the devil if he
should have served them with other than the best. Furthermore, when these
have had their course which nature yieldeth, sundry sorts of artificial
stuff as ypocras and wormwood wine must in like manner succeed in their
turns, beside stale ale and strong beer, which nevertheless bear the greatest
brunt in drinking, and are of so many sorts and ages as it pleaseth the
brewer to make them. The beer that is used at noblemen's tables in their fixed and standing
houses is commonly a year old, or peradventure of two years' tunning or
more; but this is not general. It is also brewed in March, and therefore
called March beer; but, for the household, it is usually not under a month's
age, each one coveting to have the same stale as he may, so that it be
not sour, and his bread new as is possible, so that it be not hot. The artificer and husbandman makes greatest account of such meat as they
may soonest come by, and have it quickliest ready, except it be in London
when the companies of every trade do meet on their quarter days, at which
time they be nothing inferior to the nobility. Their food also consisteth
principally in beef, and such meat as the butcher selleth - that is to
say, mutton, veal, lamb, pork etc., whereof he findeth great store in
the markets adjoining, beside sows, brawn, bacon, fruit, pies of fruit,
fowls of sundry sorts, cheese, butter, eggs, etc., as the other wanteth
it not at home, by his own provision which is at the best hand, and commonly
least charge. In feasting also, this latter sort, I mean the husbandmen,
do exceed after their manner, especially at bridals, purifications of
women, and such odd meetings, where it is incredible to tell what meat
is consumed and spent, each one bringing such a dish, or so many with
him, as his wife and he do consult upon, but always with this consideration,
that the lesser friend shall have the better provision. This also is commonly
seen at these banquets, that the good man of the house is not charged
with anything saving bread, drink, sauce, house-room, and fire. But the
artificers in cities and good towns do deal far otherwise; for, albeit
that some of them do suffer their jaws to go oft before their claws, and
divers of them, by making good cheer, do hinder themselves and other men,
yet the wiser sort can handle the matter well enough in these junketings,
and therefore their frugality deserveth commendation. To conclude, both
the artificer and the husbandman are sufficiently liberal, and very friendly
at their tables; and, when they meet, they are so merry without malice,
and plain without inward Italian or French craft and subtlety, that it
would do a man good to be in company among them. Herein only are the inferior
sort somewhat to be blamed, that, being thus assembled, their talk is
now and then such as savoureth of scurrility and ribaldry, a thing naturally
incident to carters and clowns, who think themselves not to be merry and
welcome if their foolish veins in this behalf be never so little restrained.
This is moreover to be added in these meetings, that if they happen to
stumble upon a piece of venison and a cup of wine or very strong beer
or ale (which latter they commonly provide against their appointed days),
they think their cheer so great, and themselves to have fared so well,
as the Lord Mayor of London, with whom, when their bellies be full, they
will not often stick to make comparison, because that of a subject there
is no public officer of any city in Europe that may compare in port and
countenance with him during the time of his office. I might here talk somewhat of the great silence that is used at the tables
of the honourable and wiser sort generally over all the realm (albeit
that too much deserveth no commendation, for it belongeth to guests neither
to be muti nor loquaces 2), likewise of the moderate eating
and drinking that is daily seen, and finally of the regard that each one
hath to keep himself from the note of surfeiting and drunkenness (for
which cause salt meat, except beef, bacon, and pork, are not any whit
esteemed, and yet these three may not be much powdered); but, as in rehearsal
thereof I should commend the nobleman, merchant, and frugal artificer,
so I could not clear the meaner sort of husbandmen and country inhabitants
of very much babbling (except it be here and there some odd yeoman), with
whom he is thought to be the merriest that talketh of most ribaldry or
the wisest man that speaketh fastest among them, and now and then surfeiting
and drunkenness which they rather fall into for want of heed taking than
wilfully following or delighting in those errors of set mind and purpose.
It may be that divers of them living at home, with hard and pinching diet,
small drink, and some of them having scarce enough of that, are soonest
overtaken when they come into such banquets; howbeit they take it generally
as no small disgrace if they happen to be cupshotten, so that it is a
grief unto them, though now sans remedy, sith the thing is done and past.
If the friends also of the wealthier sort come to their houses from far,
they are commonly so welcome till they depart as upon the first day of
their coming; whereas in good towns and cities, as London, etc., men oftentimes
complain of little room, and, in reward of a fat capon or plenty of beef
and mutton largely bestowed upon them in the country, a cup of wine or
beer with a napkin to wipe their lips and an "You are heartily welcome!"
is thought to be a great entertainment; and therefore the old country
clerks have framed this saying in that behalf, I mean upon the entertainment
of townsmen and Londoners after the days of their abode, in this manner: "Primus jucundus, tollerabilis estque secundus, Tertius est vanus,
sed fetet quatriduanus."
The bread throughout the land is made of such grain as the soil yieldeth;
nevertheless the gentility commonly provide themselves sufficiently of
wheat for their own tables, whilst their household and poor neighbours
in some shires are forced to content themselves with rye, or barley, yea,
and in time of dearth, many with bread made either of beans, peas, or
oats, or of altogether and some acorns among, of which scourge the poorest
do soonest taste, sith they are least able to provide themselves of better.
I will not say that this extremity is oft so well to be seen in time of
plenty as of dearth, but, if I should, I could easily bring my trial.
For, albeit that there be much more ground eared now almost in every place
than hath been of late years, yet such a price of corn continueth in each
town and market without any just cause (except it be that landlords do
get licences to carry corn out of the land only to keep up the prices
for their own private gains and ruin of the commonwealth), that the artificer
and poor labouring man is not able to reach unto it, but is driven to
content himself with horse corn I mean beans, peas, oats, tares, and lentils:
and therefore it is a true proverb, and never so well verified as now,
that "Hunger setteth his first foot into the horse-manger."
3 If the world last awhile after this rate, wheat and rye will
be no grain for poor men to feed on; and some caterpillars there are that
can say so much already.
Of bread made of wheat we have sundry sorts daily brought to the table,
whereof the first and most excellent is the manchet, which we commonly
call white bread, in Latin primarius panis, whereof Budeus also speaketh,
in his first book De asse; and our good workmen deliver commonly such
proportion that of the flour of one bushel with another they make forty
cast of manchet, of which every loaf weigheth eight ounces into the oven,
and six ounces out, as I have been informed. The second is the cheat or
wheaten bread, so named because the colour thereof resembleth the grey
or yellowish wheat, being clean and well dressed, and out of this is the
coarsest of the bran (usually called gurgeons or pollard) taken. The ravelled
is a kind of cheat bread also, but it retaineth more of the gross, and
less of the pure substance of the wheat; and this, being more slightly
wrought up, is used in the halls of the nobility and gentry only, whereas
the other either is or should be baked in cities and good towns of an
appointed size (according to such price as the corn doth bear), and by
a statute provided by King John in that behalf. 4 The ravelled
cheat therefore is generally so made that out of one bushel of meal, after
two and twenty pounds of bran be sifted and taken from it (whereunto they
add the gurgeons that rise from the manchet), they make thirty cast, every
loaf weighing eighteen ounces into the oven, and sixteen ounces out; and,
beside this, they so handle the matter that to every bushel of meal they
add only two and twenty, or three and twenty, pound of water, washing
also (in some houses) their corn before it go to the mill, whereby their
manchet bread is more excellent in colour, and pleasing to the eye, than
otherwise it would be. The next sort is named brown bread, of the colour
of which we have two sorts one baked up as it cometh from the mill, so
that neither the bran nor the flour are any whit diminished; this, Celsus
called autopirus panis, lib. 2, and putteth it in the second place of
nourishment. The other hath little or no flour left therein at all, howbeit
he calleth it Panem Cibarium, and it is not only the worst and weakest
of all the other sorts, but also appointed in old time for servants, slaves,
and the inferior kind of people to feed upon. Hereunto likewise, because
it is dry and brickle in the working (for it will hardly be made up handsomely
into loaves), some add a portion of rye meal in our time, whereby the
rough dryness or dry roughness thereof is somewhat qualified, and then
it is named miscelin, that is, bread made of mingled corn, albeit that
divers do sow or mingle wheat and rye of set purpose at the mill, or before
it come there, and sell the same at the markets under the aforesaid name.
In champaign countries much rye and barley bread is eaten, but especially
where wheat is scant and geson. As for the difference that it is between
the summer and winter wheat, most husbandmen know it not, sith they are
neither acquainted with summer wheat nor winter barley; yet here and there
I find of both sorts, specially in the north and about Kendal, where they
call it March wheat, and also of summer rye, but in so small quantities
as that I dare not pronounce them to be greatly common among us. Our drink, whose force and continuance is partly touched already, is
made of barley, water, and hops, sodden and mingled together, by the industry
of our brewers in a certain exact proportion. But, before our barley do
come into their hands, it sustaineth great alteration, and is converted
into malt, the making whereof I will here set down in such order as my
skill therein may extend unto (for I am scarce a good maltster), chiefly
for that foreign writers have attempted to describe the same, and the
making of our beer, wherein they have shot so far wide, as the quantity
of ground was between themselves and their mark. In the meantime bear
with me, gentle reader ( beseech thee), that lead thee from the description
of the plentiful diet of our country unto the fond report of a servile
trade, or rather from a table delicately furnished into a musty malthouse;
but such is now thy hap, wherefore I pray thee be contented. Our malt is made all the year long in some great towns; but in gentlemen's
and yeomen's houses, who commonly make sufficient for their own expenses
only, the winter half is thought most meet for that commodity: howbeit
the malt that is made when the willow doth bud is commonly worst of all.
Nevertheless each one endeavoureth to make it of the best barley, which
is steeped in a cistern, in greater or less quantity, by the space of
three days and three nights, until it be thoroughly soaked. This being
done, the water is drained from it by little and little, till it be quite
gone. Afterward they take it out, and, laying it upon the clean floor
on a round heap, it resteth so until it be ready to shoot at the root
end, which maltsters call combing. When it beginneth therefore to shoot
in this manner, they say it is come, and then forthwith they spread it
abroad, first thick, and afterwards thinner and thinner upon the said
floor (as it combeth), and there it lieth (with turning every day four
or five times) by the space of one and twenty days at the least, the workmen
not suffering it in any wise to take any heat, whereby the bud end should
spire, that bringeth forth the blade, and by which oversight or hurt of
the stuff itself the malt would be spoiled and turn small commodity to
the brewer. When it hath gone, or been turned, so long upon the floor,
they carry it to a kiln covered with hair cloth, where they give it gentle
heats (after they have spread it there very thin abroad) till it be dry,
and in the meanwhile they turn it often, that it may be uniformly dried.
For the more it be dried (yet must it be done with soft fire) the sweeter
and better the malt is, and the longer it will continue, whereas, if it
be not dried down (as they call it), but slackly handled, it will breed
a kind of worm called a weevil, which groweth in the flour of the corn,
and in process of time will so eat out itself that nothing shall remain
of the grain but even the very rind or husk. The best malt is tried by the hardness and colour; for, if it look fresh
with a yellow hue, and thereto will write like a piece of chalk, after
you have bitten a kernel in sunder in the midst, then you may assure yourself
that it is dried down. In some places it is dried at leisure with wood
alone or straw alone, in others with wood and straw together; but, of
all, the straw dried is the most excellent. For the wood-dried malt when
it is brewed, beside that the drink is higher of colour, it doth hurt
and annoy the head of him that is not used thereto, because of the smoke.
Such also as use both indifferently do bark, cleave, and dry their wood
in an oven, thereby to remove all moisture that should procure the fume;
and this malt is in the second place, and, with the same likewise, that
which is made with dried furze, broom, etc.: whereas, if they also be
occupied green, they are in manner so prejudicial to the corn as is the
moist wood. And thus much of our malts, in brewing whereof some grind
the same somewhat grossly, and, in seething well the liquor that shall
be put into it, they add to every nine quarters of malt one of headcorn
(which consisteth of sundry grain, as wheat and oats ground). But what
have I to do with this matter, or rather so great a quantity, wherewith
I am not acquainted? Nevertheless, sith I have taken occasion to speak
of brewing, I will exemplify in such a proportion as I am best skilled
in, because it is the usual rate for mine own family, and once in a month
practised by my wife and her maid-servants, who proceed withal after this
manner, as she hath oft informed me. Having therefore ground eight bushels of good malt upon our quern, where
the toll is saved, she addeth unto it half a bushel of wheat meal, and
so much of oats small ground, and so tempereth or mixeth them with the
malt that you cannot easily discern the one from the other; otherwise
these latter would clunter, fall into lumps, and thereby become unprofitable.
The first liquor (which is full eighty gallons, according to the proportion
of our furnace) she maketh boiling hot, and then poureth it softly into
the malt, where it resteth (but without stirring) until her second liquor
be almost ready to boil. This done, she letteth her mash run till the
malt be left without liquor, or at the leastwise the greatest part of
the moisture, which she perceiveth by the stay and soft issue thereof;
and by this time her second liquor in the furnace is ready to seethe,
which is put also to the malt, as the first woort also again into the
furnace, whereunto she addeth two pounds of the best English hops, and
so letteth them seethe together by the space of two hours in summer or
an hour and a half in winter, whereby it getteth an excellent colour,
and continuance without impeachment or any superfluous tartness. But,
before she putteth her first woort into the furnace, or mingleth it with
the hops, she taketh out a vessel full, of eight or nine gallons, which
she shutteth up close, and suffereth no air to come into it till it become
yellow, and this she reserveth by itself unto further use, as shall appear
hereafter, calling it brackwoort or charwoort, and, as she saith, it addeth
also to the colour of the drink, whereby it yieldeth not unto amber or
fine gold in hue unto the eye. By this time also her second woort is let
run; and, the first being taken out of the furnace, and placed to cool,
she returneth the middle woort unto the furnace, where it is stricken
over, or from whence it is taken again, when it beginneth to boil, and
mashed the second time, whilst the third liquor is heat (for there are
three liquors), and this last put into the furnace, when the second is
mashed again. When she hath mashed also the last liquor (and set the second
to cool by the first), she letteth it run, and then seetheth it again
with a pound and a half of new hops, or peradventure two pounds, as she
seeth cause by the goodness or baseness of the hops, and, when it hath
sodden, in summer two hours, and in winter an hour and a half, she striketh
it also, and reserveth it unto mixture with the rest when time doth serve
therefore. Finally, when she setteth her drink together, she addeth to
her brackwoort or charwoort half an ounce of arras, and half a quarter
of an ounce of bayberries, finely powdered, and then, putting the same
into her woort, with a handful of wheat flour, she proceedeth in such
usual order as common brewing requireth. Some, instead of arras and bays,
add so much long pepper only, but, in her opinion and my liking, it is
not so good as the first, and hereof we make three hogsheads of good beer,
such (I mean) as is meet for poor men as I am to live withal, whose small
maintenance (for what great thing is forty pounds a year, computatis computandis,
able to perform?) may endure no deepeer cut, the charges whereof groweth
in this manner. I value my malt at ten shillings, my wood at four shillings
(which I buy), my hops at twenty pence, the spice at twopence, servants'
wages two shillings sixpence, with meat and drink, and the wearing of
my vessel at twenty pence, so that for my twenty shillings I have ten
score gallons of beer or more, notwithstanding the loss in seething, which
some, being loth to forego, do not observe the time, and therefore speed
thereafter in their success, and worthily. The continuance of the drink
is always determined after the quantity of the hops, so that being well
hopt it lasteth longer. For it feedeth upon the hop, and holdeth out so
long as the force of the same continueth, which being extinguished, the
drink must be spent, or else it dieth and becometh of no value. In this trade also our brewers observe very diligently the nature of
the water, which they daily occupy, and soil through which it passeth,
for all waters are not of like goodness, sith the fattest standing water
is always the best; for, although the waters that run by clalk or cledgy
soils be good, and next unto the Thames water, which is the most excellent,
yet the water that standeth in either of these is the best for us that
dwell in the country, as whereon the sun lieth longest, and fattest fish
is bred. But, of all other, the fenny and marsh is the worst, and the
clearest spring water next unto it. In this business therefore the skilful
workman doth redeem the iniquity of that element, by changing of his proportions,
which trouble in ale (sometime our only, but now taken with many for old
and sick men's drink) is never seen nor heard of. Howbeit, as the beer
well sodden in the brewing, and stale, is clear and well coloured as muscadel
or malvesey, or rather yellow as the gold noble, as our pot-knights call
it, so our ale, which is not at all or very little sodden, and without
hops, is more thick, fulsome, and of no such continuance, which are three
notable things to be considered in that liquor. But what for that? Certes
I know some ale-knights so much addicted thereunto that they will not
cease from morrow until even to visit the same, cleansing house after
house, till they defile themselves, and either fall quite under the board,
or else, not daring to stir from their stools sit still pinking with their
narrow eyes, as half sleeping, till the fume of their adversary be digested
that he may go to it afresh. Such slights also have the alewives for the
utterance of this drink that they will mix it with rosen and salt; but
if you heat a knife red-hot, and quench it in the ale so near the bottom
of the pot as you can put it, you shall see the rosen come forth hanging
on the knife. As for the force of salt, it is well known by the effect,
for the more the drinker tippleth, the more he may, and so doth he carry
off a dry drunken noll to bed with him, except his luck be the better.
But to my purpose. In some places of England there is a kind of drink made of apples which
they call cider or pomage, but that of pears is called perry, and both
are ground and pressed in presses made for the nonce. Certes these two
are very common in Sussex, Kent, Worcester, and other steeds where these
sorts of fruit do abound, howbeit they are not their only drink at all
times, but referred unto the delicate sorts of drink, as metheglin is
in Wales, whereof the Welshmen make no less account (and not without cause,
if it be well handled) than the Greeks did of their ambrosia or nectar,
which for the pleasantness thereof was supposed to be such as the gods
themselves did delight in. There is a kind of swish-swash made also in
Essex, and divers other places, with honeycombhs and water, which the
homely country wives, putting some pepper and a little other spice among,
call mead, very good in mine opinion for such as love to be loose bodied
at large, or a little eased of the cough. Otherwise it differeth so much
from the true metheglin as chalk from cheese. Truly it is nothing else
but the washing of the combs, when the honey is wrung out, and one of
the best things that I know belonging thereto is that they spend but little
labour, and less cost, in making of the same, and therefore no great loss
if it were never occupied. Hitherto of the diet of my countrymen, and
somewhat more at large peradventure than many men will like of, wherefore
I think good now to finish this tractation, and so will I when I have
added a few other things incident unto that which goeth before, whereby
the whole process of the same shall fully be delivered, and my promise
to my friend 5 in this behalf performed.
Heretofore there hath been much more time spent in eating and drinking
than commonly is in these days; for whereas of old we had breakfast in
the forenoon, beverages or nunchions 6 after dinner, and thereto
rear suppers generally when it was time to go to rest ( a toy brought
into England by hardy Canutus, and a custom whereof Athenaeus also speaketh,
lib. I, albeit Hippocrates speaks but of twice at the most, lib. 2, De
rat vict. in feb ac). Now, these odd repasts - thanked be God! - are very
well left, and each one in manner (except here and there some young, hungry
stomach that cannot fast till dinner-time) contenteth himself with dinner
and supper only. The Normans, misliking the gormandise of Canutus, ordained
after their arrival that no table should be covered above once in the
day, which Huntingdon imputeth to their avarice; but in the end, either
waxing weary of their own frugality, or suffering the cockle of old custom
to overgrow the good corn of their new constitution, they fell to such
liberty that in often-feeding they surmounted Canutus surnamed the Hardy.
For, whereas he covered his table but three or four times in the day,
these spread their cloths five or six times, and in such wise as I before
rehearsed. They brought in also the custom of long and stately sitting
at meat, whereby their feasts resembled those ancient pontifical banquets
whereof Macrobius speaketh (lib. 3, cap. 13), and Pliny (lib. 10, cap.
10), and which for sumptuousness of fare, long sitting, and curiosity
shewed in the same, exceeded all other men's feasting; which fondness
is not yet left with us, notwithstanding that it proveth very beneficial
for the physicians, who most abound where most excess and misgovernment
of our bodies do appear, although it be a great expense of time, and worthy
of reprehension. For the nobility, gentlemen, and merchantmen, especially
at great meetings, do sit commonly till two or three of the clock at afternoon,
so that with many it is a hard matter to rise from the table to go to
evening prayer, and return from thence to come time enough to supper.
7 . . .
With us the nobility, gentry, and students do ordinarily go to dinner
at eleven before noon, and to supper at five, or between five and six
at afternoon. The merchants dine and sup seldom before twelve at noon,
and six at night, especially in London. The husbandmen dine also at high
noon as they call it, and sup at seven or eight; but out of the term in
our universities the scholars dine at ten. As for the poorest sort they
generally dine and sup when they may, so that to talk of their order of
repast it were but a needless matter. I might here take occasion also
to set down the variety used by antiquity in their beginnings of their
diets, wherein almost every nation had a several fashion, some beginning
of custom (as we do in summer time) with salads at supper, and some ending
with lettuce, some making their entry with eggs, and shutting up their
tables with mulberries, as we do with fruit and conceits of all sorts.
Divers (as the old Romans) began with a few crops of rue, as the Venetians
did with the fish called gobius; the Belgaes with butter, or (as we do
yet also) with butter and eggs upon fish days. But whereas we commonly
begin with the most gross food, and end with the most delicate, the Scot,
thinking much to leave the best for his menial servants, maketh his entrance
at the best, so that he is sure thereby to leave the worst. We use also
our wines by degrees, so that the hostess cometh last to the table: but
to stand upon such toys would spend much time, and turn to small profit.
Wherefore I will deal with other things more necessary for this turn.
An Englishman, endeavouring sometime to write of our attire, made sundry
platforms for his purpose, supposing by some of them to find out one steadfast
ground whereon to build the sum of his discourse. But in the end (like
an orator long without exercise), when he saw what a difficult piece of
work he had taken in hand, he gave over his travel, and only drew the
picture of a naked man. 1 unto whom he gave a pair of shears
in the one hand and a piece of cloth in the other, to the end he should
shape his apparel after such fashion as himself liked, sith he could find
no kind of garment that could please him any while together; and this
he called an Englishman. Certes this writer (otherwise being a lewd popish
hypocrite and ungracious priest) shewed himself herein not to be altogether
void of judgment, sith the phantastical folly of our nation (even from
the courtier to the carter) is such that no form of apparel liketh us
longer than the first garment is in the wearing, if it continue so long,
and be not laid aside to receive some other trinket newly devised by the
fickle-headed tailors, who covet to have several tricks in cutting, thereby
to draw fond customers to more expense of money. For my part, I can tell
better how to inveigh against this enormity than describe any certainty
of our attire; sith pearl, in their ears, whereby they imagine the workmanship
of God not to be a little amended. But herein they rather disgrace than
adorn their persons, as by their niceness in apparel, for which I say
most nations do not unjustly deride us, as also for that we do seem to
imitate all nations round about us, wherein we be like to the polypus
or chameleon; and thereunto bestow most cost upon our arses, and much
more than upon all the rest of our bodies, as women do likewise upon their
heads and shoulders, In women also, it is most to be lamented, that they
do now far exceed the lightness of our men (who nevertheless are transformed
from the cap even to the very shoe), and such staring attire as in time
past was supposed meet for none but light housewives only is now become
a habit for chaste and sober matrons. What should I say of their doublets
with pendant codpieces on the breast full of jags and cuts, and sleeves
of sundry colours? Their galligascons to bear out their bums and make
their attire to fit plum round (as they term it) about them. Their fardingals,
and diversely coloured nether stocks of silk, jerdsey, and such like,
whereby their bodies are rather deformed than commended? I have met with
some of these trulls in London so disguised that it hath passed my skill
to discern whether they were men or women.
Thus it is now come to pass, that women are become men, and men transformed
into monsters; and those good gifts which Almighty God hath given unto
us to relieve our necessities withal (as a nation turning altogether the
grace of God into wantonness, for "Luxuriant animi rebus plerunque fecundis,") not otherwise bestowed than in all excess, as if we wist not otherwise
how to consume and waste them. I pray God that in this behalf our sin
be not like unto that of Sodom and Gomorrah, whose errors were pride,
excess of diet; and abuse of God's benefits abundantly bestowed upon them,
beside want of charity towards the poor, and certain other points which
the prophet shutteth up in silence. Certes the commonwealth cannot be
said to flourish where these abuses reign, but is rather oppressed by
unreasonable exactions made upon rich farmers, and of poor tenants, wherewith
to maintain the same. Neither was it ever merrier with England than when
an Englishman was known abroad by his own cloth, and contended himself
at home with his fine carsey hosen, and a mean slop; his coat, gown, and
cloak of brown, blue, or puke, with some pretty furniture of velvet or
fur, and a doublet of sad tawny, or black velvet, or other comely silk,
without such cuts and garish colours as are worn in these days, and never
brought in but by the consent of the French, who think themselves the
gayest men when they have most diversities of jags and change of colours
about them. Certes of all estates our merchants do least alter their attire,
and therefore are most to be commended; for albeit that which they wear
be very fine and costly, yet in form and colour it representeth a great
piece of the ancient gravity appertaining to citizens and burgesses, albeit
the younger sort of their wives, both in attire and costly housekeeping,
cannot tell when and how to make an end, as being women indeed in whom
all kind of curiosity is to be found and seen, and in far greater measure
than in women of higher calling. I might here name a sort of hues devised
for the nonce, wherewith to please fantastical heads, as goose-turd green,
peas-porridge tawny, popinjay blue, lusty gallant, the devil-in-the-head
(I should say the hedge), and such like; but I pass them over, thinking
it sufficient to have said thus much of apparel generally, when nothing
can particularly be spoken of any constancy thereof.
The greatest part of our building in the cities and good towns of England
consisteth only of timber, for as yet few of the houses of the communalty
(except here and there in the West-country towns) are made of stone, although
they may (in my opinion) in divers other places be builded so good cheap
of the one as of the other. In old time the houses of the Britons were
slightly set up with a few posts and many raddles, with stable and all
offices under one roof, the like whereo else they are ceiled with oak
of our own, or wainscot brought hither out of the east countries, whereby
the rooms are not a little commended, made warm, and much more close than
otherwise they would be. As for stoves, we have not hitherto used them
greatly, yet do they now begin to be made in divers houses of the gentry
and wealthy citizens, who build them not to work and feed in, as in Germany
and elsewhere, but now and then to sweat in, as occasion and need shall
require it. This also hath been common in England, contrary to the customs of all
other nations, and yet to be seen (for example, in most streets of London),
that many of our greatest houses have outwardly been very simple and plain
to sight, which inwardly have been able to receive a duke with his whole
train, and lodge them at their ease. Hereby, moreover, it is come to pass
that the fronts of our streets have not been so uniform and orderly builded
as those of foreign cities sort generally as that they have neither dairy,
stable, nor brew-house annexed unto them under the same roof (as in many
places beyond the sea and some of the north parts of our country), but
all separate from the first, and one of them from another. And yet, for
all this, they are not so far distant in sunder but that the goodman lying
in his bed may lightly hear what is done in each of them with ease, and
call quickly unto his many if any danger should attack him. The ancient manors and houses of our gentlemen are yet and for the most
part of strong timber, in framing whereof our carpenters have been and
are worthily preferred before those of like science among all other nations.
Howbeit such as be lately builded are commonly either of brick or hard
stone, or both, their rooms large and comely, and houses of office further
distant from their lodgings. Those of the nobility are likewise wrought
with brick and hard stone, as provision may best be made, but so magnificent
and stately as the basest house of a baron doth often match in our days
with some honours of a princes in old time. So that, if ever curious building
did flourish in England, it is in these our years wherein our workmen
excel and are in manner comparable in skill with old Vitruvius, Leo Baptista,
and Serlo. Nevertheless their estimation, more than their greedy and servile
covetousness, joined with a lingering humour, causeth them often to be
rejected, and strangers preferred to greater bargains, who are more reasonable
in their takings, and less wasters of time by a great deal than our own. The furniture of our houses also exceedeth, and is grown in manner even
to passing delicacy: and herein I do not speak of the nobility and gentry
only, but likewise of the lowest sort in most places of our south country
that have anything at all to take to. Certes in noblemen's houses it is
not rare to see abundance of arras, rich hangings of tapestry, silver
vessels, and so much other plate as may furnish sundry cupboards to the
sum oftentimes of a thousand or two thousand pounds at the least, whereby
the value of this and the rest of their stuff doth grow to be almost inestimable.
Likewise in the houses of knights, gentlemen, merchantmen, and some other
wealthy citizens, it is not geson to behold generally their great provision
of tapestry, Turkey work, pewter, brass, fine linen, and thereto costly
cupboards of plate, worth five or six hundred or a thousand pounds to
be deemed by estimation. But, as herein all these sorts do far exceed
their elders and predecessors, and in neatness and curiosity the merchant
all other, so in times past the costly furniture stayed there, whereas
now it is descended yet lower even unto the inferior artificers and many
farmers, who, by virtue of their old and not of their new leases, have,
for the most part, learned also to garnish their cupboards with plate,
their joined beds with tapestry and silk hangings, and their tables with
carpets and fine napery, whereby the wealth of our country (God be praised
therefore, and give us grace to employ it well) doth infinitely appear.
Neither do I speak this in reproach of any man, God is my judge, but to
shew that I do rejoice rather to see how God hath blessed us with his
good gifts; and whilst, I behold how (in a time wherein all things are
grown io most excessive prices, and what commodity so ever is to be had
is daily plucked from the communalty by such as look into every trade)
we do yet find the means to obtain and achieve such furniture as heretofore
hath been unpossible. There are old men yet dwelling in the village where I remain which have
noted three things to be marvellously altered in England within their
sound remembrance, and other three things too too much increased. One is the multitude of chimneys lately erected, whereas in their young
days there were not above two or three, if so many, in most uplandish
towns of the realm (the religious houses and manor places of their lords
always excepted, and peradventure some great personages), but each one
made his fire against a reredos in the hall, where he dined and dressed
his meat. The second is the great (although not general) amendment of lodging;
for, said they, our fathers, yea and we ourselves also, have lain full
oft upon straw pallets, on rough mats covered only with a sheet, under
coverlets made of dagswain or hopharlots (I use their own terms), and
a good round log under their heads instead of a bolster or pillow. If
it were so that our fathers or the good man of the house had within seven
years after his marriage purchased a mattress or flock bed, and thereto
a stack of chaff to rest his head upon, he thought himself to be as well
lodged as the lord of the town, that peradventure lay seldom in a bed
of down or whole feathers, so well were they content, and with such base
kind of furniture: which also is not very much amended as yet in some
parts of Bedfordshire, and elsewhere, further off from our southern parts.
Pillows (said they) were thought meet only for women in childbed. As for
servants, if they had any sheet above them, it was well, for seldom had
they any under their bodies to keep them from the pricking straws that
ran oft through the canvas of the pallet and rased their hardened hides. The third thing they tell of is the exchange of vessel, as of treen platters
into pewter, and wooden spoons into silver or tin. For so common were
all sorts of treen stuff in old time that a man should hardly find four
pieces of pewter (of which one was peradventure a salt) in a good farmer's
house, and yet for all this frugality (if it may so be justly called)
they were scarce able to live and pay their rents at their days without
selling of a cow, or a horse or more, 1 although they paid
but four pounds at the uttermost by the year. Such also was their poverty
that, if some one odd farmer or husband-man had been at the ale-house,
a thing greatly used in those days, amongst six or seven of his neighbours,
and there in a bravery, to shew what store he had, did cast down his purse,
and therein a noble or six shillings in silver, unto them (for few such
men then cared for gold, because it was not so ready payment, and they
were oft enforced to give a penny for the exchange of an angel), it was
very likely that all the rest could not lay down so much against it; whereas
in my time, although peradventure four pounds of old rent be improved
to forty, fifty, or a hundred pounds, yet will the farmer, as another
palm or date tree, think his gains very small toward the end of his term
if he have not six or seven years' rent lying by him, therewith to purchase
a new lease, beside a fair garnish of pewter on his cupboard, with so
much more in odd vessel going about the house, three or four feather beds,
so many coverlids and carpets of tapestry, a silver salt, a bowl for wine
(if not a whole neast), and a dozen of spoons to furnish up the suit.
This also he takes to be his own clear, for what stock of money soever
he gathereth and layeth up in all his years it is often seen that the
landlord will take such order with him for the same when he reneweth his
lease, which is commonly eight or six years before the old be expired
(sith it is now grown almost to a custom that if he come not to his lord
so long before another shall step in for a reversion, and so defeat him
outright), that it shall never trouble him more than the hair of his beard
when the barber hath washed and shaved it from his chin.
And as they commend these, so (beside the decay of housekeeping whereby
the poor have been relieved) they speak also of three things that are
grown to be very grievous unto them - to wit, the enhancing of rents,
lately mentioned; the daily oppression of copyholders, whose lords seek
to bring their poor tenants almost into plain servitude and misery, daily
devising new means, and seeking up all the old, how to cut them shorter
and shorter, doubling, trebling, and now and then seven times increasing
their fines, driving them also for every trifle to lose and forfeit their
tenures (by whom the greatest part of the realm doth stand and is maintained),
to the end they may fleece them yet more, which is a lamentable hearing.
The third thing they talk of is usury, a trade brought in by the Jews,
now perfectly practised almost by every Christian, and so commonly that
he is accompted but for a fool that doth lend his money for nothing. In
time past it was sors pro sorte-that is, the principal only for the principal;
but now, beside that which is above the principal properly called Usura,
we challenge Foenus-that is, commodity of soil and fruits of the earth,
if not the ground itself. In time past also one of the hundred was much;
from thence it rose unto two, called in Latin Usura, Ex sextante; three,
to wit Ex quadrante; then to four, to wit, Ex triente; then to five, which
is Ex quincunce; then to six, called Ex semisse, etc. As the accompt of
the Assis ariseth, and coming at the last unto Usura ex asse, it amounteth
to twelve in the hundred, and therefore the Latins call it Centesima,
for that in the hundred month it doubleth the principal; but more of this
elsewhere. See Cicero against Verres, Demosthenes against Aphobus, and
Athenaeus, lib. 13, in fine; and, when thou hast read them well, help
I pray thee in lawful manner to hang up such as take Centum pro cento,
for they are no better worthy as I do judge in conscience. Forget not
also such landlords as used to value their leases at a secret estimation
given of the wealth and credit of the taker, whereby they seem (as it
were) to eat them up, and deal with bondmen, so that if the lessee be
thought to be worth a hundred pounds he shall pay no less for his new
term, or else another to enter with hard and doubtful covenants. I am
sorry to report it, much more grieved to understand of the practice, but
most sorrowful of all to understand that men of great port and countenance
are so far from suffering their farmers to have any gain at all that they
themselves become graziers, butchers, tanners, sheepmasters, woodmen,
and denique quid non, thereby to enrich themselves, and bring all the
wealth of the country into their own hands, leaving the communalty weak,
or as an idol with broken or feeble arms, which may in a time of peace
have a plausible shew, but when necessity shall enforce have a heavy and
bitter sequel.
There is no commonwealth at this day in Europe wherein there is not great
store of poor people, and those necessarily to be relieved by the wealthier
sort, which otherwise would starve and come to utter confusion. With us
the poor is commonly divided into thr e sorts, so that some are poor by
impotence, as the fatherless child, the aged, blind, and lame, and the
diseased person that is judged to be incurable; the second are poor by
casualty, as the wounded soldier, the decayed householder, and the sick
person visited with grievous and painful diseases; the third consisteth
of thriftless poor, as the rioter that hath consumed all, the vagabond
that will abide nowhere, but runneth up and down from place to place (as
it were seeking work and finding none), and finally the rogue and the
strumpet, which are not possible to be divided in sunder, but run to and
fro over all the realm, chiefly keeping the champaign soils in summer
to avoid the scorching heat, and the woodland grounds in winter to eschew
the blustering winds. For the first two sorts (that is to say, the poor by impotence and poor
by casualty, which are the true poor indeed, and for whom the Word doth
bind us to make some daily provision), there is order taken throughout
every parish in the realm that weekly collection shall be made for their
help and sustention - to the end they shall not scatter abroad, and, by
begging here and there, annoy both town and country. Authority also is
given unto the justices in every county (and great penalties appointed
for such as make default) to see that the intent of the statute in this
behalf be truly executed according to the purpose and meaning of the same,
so that these two sorts are sufficiently provided for; and such as can
live within the limits of their allowance (as each one will do that is
godly and well disposed) may well forbear to roam and range about. But
if they refuse to be supported by this benefit of the law, and will rather
endeavour by going to and fro to maintain their idle trades, then are
they adjudged to be parcel of the third sort, and so, instead of courteous
refreshing at home, are often corrected with sharp execution and whip
of justice abroad. Many there are which, notwithstanding the rigour of
the laws provided in that behalf, yield rather with this liberty (as they
call it) to be daily under the fear and terror of the whip than, by abiding
where they were born or bred, to be provided for by the devotion of the
parishes. I found not long since a note of these latter sort, the effect
whereof ensueth. Idle beggars are such either through other men's occasion
or through their own default - by other men's occasion (as one way for
example) when some covetous man (such, I mean, as have the cast or right
vein daily to make beggars enough whereby to pester the land, espying
a further commodity in their commons, holds, and tenures) doth find such
means as thereby to wipe many out of their occupyings and turn the same
unto his private gains. 1 Hereupon it followeth that, although
the wise and better-minded do either forsake the realm for altogether,
and seek to live in other countries, as France, Germany, Barbary, India,
Muscovia, and very Calcutta, complaining of no room to be left for them
at home, do so behave themselves that they are worthily to be accounted
among the second sort, yet the greater part, commonly having nothing to
stay upon, are wilful, and thereupon do either prove idle beggars or else
continue stark thieves till the gallows do eat them up, which is a lamentable
case. Certes in some men's judgment these things are but trifles, and
not worthy the regarding. Some also do grudge at the great increase of
people in these days, thinking a necessary brood of cattle far better
than a superfluous augmentation of mankind. But I can liken such men best
of all unto the pope and the devil, who practise the hindrance of the
furniture of the number of the elect to their uttermost, to the end the
authority of the one upon the earth, the deferring of the locking up of
the other in everlasting chains, and the great gains of the first, may
continue and endure the longer. But if it should come to pass that any
foreign invasion should be made - which the Lord God forbid for his mercies'
sake! - then should these men find that a wall of men is far better than
stacks of corn and bags of money, and complain of the want when it is
too late to seek remedy. The like occasion caused the Romans to devise
their law Agraria: but the rich, not liking of it, and the covetous, utterly
condemning it as rigorous and unprofitable, never ceased to practise disturbance
till it was quite abolished. But to proceed with my purpose.
Such as are idle beggars through their own default are of two sorts,
and continue their estates either by casual or mere voluntary means: those
that are such by casual means are in the beginning justly to be referred
either to the first or second sort of poor afore-mentioned, but, degenerating
into the thriftless sort, they do what they can to continue their misery,
and, with such impediments as they have, to stray and wander about, as
creatures abhorring all labour and every honest exercise. Certes I call
these casual means, not in the respect of the original of all poverty,
but of the continuance of the same, from whence they will not be delivered,
such is their own ungracious lewdness and froward disposition. The voluntary
means proceed from outward causes, as by making of corrosives, and applying
the same to the more fleshy parts of their bodies, and also laying of
ratsbane, spearwort, crowfoot, and such like unto their whole members,
thereby to raise pitiful and odious sores, and move the hearts of the
goers-by such places where they lie, to yearn at their misery, and thereupon
bestow large alms upon them. How artificially they beg, what forcible
speech, and how they select and choose out words of vehemence, whereby
they do in manner conjure or adjure the goer-by to pity their cases, I
pass over to remember, as judging the name of God and Christ to be more
conversant in the mouths of none and yet the presence of the Heavenly
Majesty further off from no men than from this ungracious company. Which
maketh me to think that punishment is far meeter for them than liberality
or alms, and sith Christ willeth us chiefly to have a regard to Himself
and his poor members. Unto this nest is another sort to be referred, more sturdy than the rest,
which, having sound and perfect limbs, do yet notwithstanding sometime
counterfeit the possession of all sorts of diseases. Divers times in their
apparel also they will be like serving men or labourers: oftentimes they
can play the mariners, and seek for ships which they never lost. But in
fine they are all thieves and caterpillars in the commonwealth, and by
the Word of God not permitted to eat, sith they do but lick the sweat
from the true labourers' brows, and bereave the godly poor of that which
is due unto them, to maintain their excess, consuming the charity of well-disposed
people bestowed upon them, after a most wicked and detestable manner. It is not yet full threescore years since this trade began: but how it
hath prospered since that time it is easy to judge, for they are now supposed,
of one sex and another, to amount unto above 10,000 persons, as I have
heard reported. Moreover, in counterfeiting the Egyptian rogues, they
have devised a language among themselves, which they name "Canting,"
but others, "pedler's French," a speech compact thirty years
since, of English and a great number of odd words of their own devising,
without all order or reason, and yet such is it as none but themselves
are able to understand. The first deviser thereof was hanged by the neck
- a just reward, no doubt, for his deserts, and a common end to all of
that profession. A gentleman also of late hath taken great pains to search out the secret
practices of this ungracious rabble. And among other things he setteth
down and describeth three and twenty sorts of them, whose names it shall
not be amiss to remember whereby each one may take occasion to read and
know as also by his industry what wicked people they are, and what villainy
remaineth in them. The several disorders and degrees amongst our idle vagabonds. 1. Rufflers. 2. Uprightmen. 3. Hookers or anglers. 4. Rogues. 5. Wild
rogues. 6. Priggers or pransers. 7. Palliards. 8. Fraters. 9. Abrams.
10. Freshwater mariners or whipiacks. 11. Drummerers. 12. Drunken tinkers.
13. Swadders or pedlers. 14. Jarkemen or patricoes. Of the women kind. 1. Demanders for glimmar or 2. Bawdy-baskets. [fire. 3. Mortes. 4. Autem
mortem. 5. Walking mortes. 6. Doxies. 7. Dells. 8. Kinching mortes. 9.
Kinching cooes. The punishment that is ordained for this kind of people is very sharp,
and yet it cannot restrain them from their gadding: wherefore the end
must needs be martial law, 2 to be exercised upon them, as
upon thieves, robbers, despisers of all laws, and enemies to the commonwealth
and welfare of the land. What notable robberies, pilferies, murders, rapes,
and stealings of young children, burning, breaking, and disfiguring their
limbs to make them pitiful in the sight of the people, I need not to rehearse;
but for their idle rogueing about the country, the law ordaineth this
manner of correction. The rogue being apprehended, committed to prison,
and tried in the next assizes (whether they be of gaol delivery or sessions
of the peace), if he happen to be convicted for a vagabond, either by
inquest of office or the testimony of two honest and credible witnesses
upon their oaths, he is then immediately adjudged to be grievously whipped
and burned through the gristle of the right ear with a hot iron of the
compass of an inch about, as a manifestation of his wicked life, and due
punishment received for the same. And this judgment is to be executed
upon him except some honest person worth five pounds in the queen's books
in goods, or twenty shillings in land, or some rich householder to be
allowed by the justices, will be bound in recognisance to retain him in
his service for one whole year. If he be taken the second time, and proved
to have forsaken his said service, he shall then be whipped again, bored
likewise through the other ear, and set to service: from whence if he
depart before a year be expired, and happen afterwards to be attached
again, he is condemned to suffer pains of death as a felon (except before
excepted) without benefit of clergy or sanctuary, as by the statute doth
appear. Among rogues and idle persons, finally, we find to be comprised
all proctors that go up and down with counterfeit licences, cozeners,
and such as gad about the country, using unlawful games, practisers of
physiognomy and palmestry, tellers of fortunes, fencers, players, minstrels,
jugglers, pedlers, tinkers, pretended scholars, shipmen, prisoners gathering
for fees, and others so oft as they be taken without sufficient licence.
From among which company our bearwards are not excepted, and just cause:
for I have read that they have, either voluntarily or for want of power
to master their savage beasts, been occasion of the death and devouration
of many children in sundry countries by which they have passed, whose
parents never knew what was become of them. And for that cause there is
and have been many sharp laws made for bearwards in Germany, whereof you
may read in other. But to our rogues. Each one also that harboureth or
aideth them with meat or money is taxed and compelled to fine with the
queen's majesty for every time that he doth succour them as it shall please
the justices of peace to assign, so that the taxation exceed not twenty,
as I have been informed. And thus much of the poor and such provision
as is appointed for them within the realm of England.
The air (for the most part) throughout the island is such as by reason
in manner of continual clouds is reputed to be gross, and nothing so pleasant
as that of the main. Howbeit, as they which affirm these things have only
respect to the impediment or hindrance of the sunbeams by the interposition
of the clouds and of ingrossed air, so experience teacheth us that it
is no less pure, wholesome, and commodious than is that of other countries,
and (as Caesar himself hereto addeth) much more temperate in summer than
that of the Gauls, from whom he adventured hither. Neither is there any
thing found in the air of our region that is not usually seen amongst
other nations lying beyond the seas. Wherefore we must needs confess that
the situation of our island (for benefit of the heavens) is nothing inferior
to that of any country of the main, wheresoever it lie under the open
firmament. And this Plutarch knew full well, who affirmeth a part of the
Elysian Fields to be found in Britain, and the isles that are situated
about it in the ocean. The soil of Britain is such as by the testimonies and reports both of
the old and new writers, and experience also of such as now inhabit the
same, is very fruitful, and such indeed as bringeth forth many commodities,
whereof other countries have need, and yet itself (if fond niceness were
abolished) needless of those that are daily brought from other places.
Nevertheless it is more inclined to feeding and gazing than profitable
for tillage and bearing of corn, by reason whereof the country is wonderfully
replenished with neat and all kind of cattle; and such store is there
also of the same in every place that the fourth part of the land is scarcely
manured for the provision and maintenance of grain. Certes this fruitfulness
was not unknown unto the Britons long before Caesar's time, which was
the cause wherefore our predecessors living in those days in manner neglected
tillage and lived by feeding and grazing only. The graziers themselves
also then dwelled in movable villages by companies, whose custom was to
divide the ground amongst them, and each one not to depart from the place
where his lot lay (a thing much like the Irish Criacht) till, by eating
up of the country about him, he was enforced to remove further and seek
for better pasture. And this was the British custom, as I learn, at first.
It hath been commonly reported that the ground of Wales is neither so
fruitful as that of England, neither the soil of Scotland so bountiful
as that of Wales, which is true for corn and for the most part; otherwise
there is so good ground in some parts of Wales as is in England, albeit
the best of Scotland be scarcely comparable to the mean of either of both.
Howbeit, as the bounty of the Scotch doth fail in some respect, so doth
it surmount in other, God and nature having not appointed all countries
to yield forth like commodities. But where our ground is not so good as we would wish, we have - if need
be - sufficient help to cherish our ground withal, and to make it more
fruitful. For, beside the compest that is carried out of the husbandmen's
yards, ditches, ponds, dung-houses, or cities and great towns, we have
with us a kind of white marl which is of so great force that if it be
cast over a piece of land but once in three-score years it shall not need
of any further compesting. Hereof also doth Pliny speak (lib. 17, cap.
6, 7, 8), where he affirmeth that our marl endureth upon the earth by
the space of fourscore years: insomuch that it is laid upon the same but
once in a man's life, whereby the owner shall not need to travel twice
in procuring to commend and better his soil. He calleth it marga, and,
making divers kinds thereof, he finally commendeth ours, and that of France,
above all other, which lieth sometime a hundred foot deep, and far better
than the scattering of chalk upon the same, as the Hedui and Pictones
did in his time, or as some of our days also do practice: albeit divers
do like better to cast on lime, but it will not so long endure, as I have
heard reported. There are also in this island great plenty of fresh rivers and streams,
as you have heard already, and these thoroughly fraught with all kinds
of delicate fish accustomed to be found in rivers. The whole isle likewise
is very full of hills, of which some (though not very many) are of exceeding
height, and divers extending themselves very far from the beginning; as
we may see by Shooter's Hill, which, rising east of London and not far
from the Thames, runneth along the south side of the island westward until
it come to Cornwall. Like unto these also are the Crowdon Hills, which,
though under divers names (as also the other from the Peak), do run into
the borders of Scotland. What should I speak of the Cheviot Hills, which
reach twenty miles in length? of the Black Mountains in Wales, which go
from ( ^*) to ( ^*) miles at the least in length? of the Clee Hills in
Shropshire, which come within four miles of Ludlow, and are divided from
some part of Worcester by the Leme? of the Crames in Scotland, and of
our Chiltern, which are eighteen miles at the least from one end of them,
which reach from Henley in Oxfordshire to Dunstable in Bedfordshire, and
are very well replenished with wood and corn, notwithstanding that the
most part yield a sweet short grass, profitable for sheep? Wherein albeit
they of Scotland do somewhat come behind us, yet their outward defect
is inwardly recompensed, not only with plenty of quarries (and those of
sundry kinds of marble, hard stone, and fine alabaster), but also rich
mines of metal, as shall be shewed hereafter.
In this island the winds are commonly more strong and fierce than in
any other places of the main (which Cardane also espied): and that is
often seen upon the naked hills not guarded with trees to bear and keep
it off. That grievous inconvenience also enforceth our nobility, gentry,
and communality to build their houses in the valleys, leaving the high
grounds unto their corn and cattle, lest the cold and stormy blasts of
winter should breed them greater annoyance; whereas in other regions each
one desireth to set his house aloft on the hill, not only to be seen afar
off, and cast forth his beams of stately and curious workmanship into
very quarter of the country, but also (in hot habitations) for coldness
sake of the air, sith the heat is never so vehement on the hill-top as
in the valley, because the reverberation of the sun's beams either reacheth
not so far as the highest, or else becometh not so strong as when it is
reflected upon the lower soil. But to leave our buildings unto the purposed place (which notwithstanding
have very much increased, I mean for curiosity and cost, in England, Wales,
and Scotland, within these few years) and to return to the soil again.
Certainly it is even now in these our days grown to be much more fruitful
than it hath been in times past. The cause is for that our countrymen
are grown to be more painful, skilful, and careful through recompense
of gain, than heretofore they have been: insomuch that my synchroni or
time fellows can reap at this present great commodity in a little room;
whereas of late years a great compass hath yielded but small profit, and
this only through the idle and negligent occupation of such as daily manured
and had the same in occupying. I might set down examples of these things
out of all parts of this island - that is to say, many of England, more
out of Scotland, but most of all out of Wales: in which two last rehearsed,
very other little food and livelihood was wont to be looked for (beside
flesh) more than the soil of itself and the cow gave, the people in the
meantime living idly, dissolutely, and by picking and stealing one from
onother. All which vices are now (for the most part) relinquished, so
that each nation manureth her own with triple commodity to that it was
before time. The pasture of this island is according to the nature and bounty of the
soil, whereby in most places it is plentiful, very fine, batable, and
such as either fatteth our cattle with speed or yieldeth great abundance
of milk and cream whereof the yellowest butter and finest cheese are made.
But where the blue clay aboundeth (which hardly drinketh up the winter's
water in long season) there the grass is speary, rough, and very apt for
bushes: by which occasion it becometh nothing so profitable unto the owner
as the other. The best pasture ground of all England is in Wales, and
of all the pasture in Wales that of Cardigan is the chief. I speak of
the same which is to be found in the mountains there, where the hundredth
part of the grass growing is not eaten, but suffered to rot on the ground,
whereby the soil becometh matted and divers bogs and quickmoors made withal
in long continuance: because all the cattle in the country are not able
to eat it down. If it be accounted good soil on which a man may lay a
wand over night and on the morrow find it hidden and overgrown with grass,
it is not hard to find plenty thereof in many places of this land. Nevertheless
such is the fruitfulness of the afore said county that it far surmounteth
this proportion, whereby it may be compared for batableness with Italy,
which in my time is called the paradise of the world, although by reason
of the wickedness of such as dwell therein it may be called the sink and
drain of hell: so that whereas they were wont to say of us that our land
is good but our people evil, they did but only speak it; whereas we know
by experience that the soil of Italy is a noble soil, but the dwellers
therein far off any virtue or goodness. Our meadows are either bottoms (whereof we have great store, and those
very large, because our soil is hilly) or else such as we call land meads,
and borrowed from the best and fattest pasturages. The first of them are
yearly and often overflown by the rising of such streams as pass through
the same, or violent falls of land-waters, that descend from the hills
about them. The other are seldom or never overflown, and that is the cause
wherefore their grass is shorter than that of the bottoms, and yet is
it far more fine, wholesome, and batable, sith the hay of our low meadows
is not only full of sandy cinder, which breedeth sundry diseases in our
cattle, but also more rowty, foggy, and full of flags, and therefore not
so profitable for store and forrage as the higher meads be. The difference
furthermore in their commodities is great; for, whereas in our land meadowslwe
have not often above one good load of hay, or peradventure a little more
in an acre of ground (I use the word carrucata, or carruca, which is a
wain load, and, as I remember, used by Pliny, lib 33, cap. 2), in low
meadows we have sometimes three, but commonly two or upwards, as experience
hath oft confirmed. Of such as are twice mowed I speak not, sith their later math is not
so wholesome for cattle as the first; although in the mouth more pleasant
for the time: for thereby they become oftentimes to be rotten, or to increase
so fast in blood, that the garget and other diseases do consume many of
them before the owners can seek out any remedy, by phlebotomy or otherwise.
Some superstitious fools suppose that they which die of the garget are
ridden with the nightmare, and therefore they hang up stones which naturally
have holes in them, and must be found unlooked for; as if such a stone
were an apt cockshot for the devil to run through and solace himself withal,
while the cattle go scotfree and are not molested by him! But if I should
set down but half the toys that superstition hath brought into our husbandmen's
heads in this and other behalf, it would ask a greater volume than is
convenient for such a purpose, wherefore it shall suffice to have said
thus much of these things. The yield of our corn-ground is also much after this rate following.
Throughout the land (if you please to make an estimate thereof by the
acre) in mean and indifferent years, wherein each acre of rye or wheat,
well tilled and dressed, will yield commonly sixteen or twenty bushels,
an acre of barley six-and-thirty bushels, of oats and such like four or
five quarters, which proportion is notwithstanding oft abated toward the
north, as it is oftentimes surmounted in the south. Of mixed corn, as
peas and beans, sown together, tares and oats (which they call bulmong),
rye and wheat (named miscelin), here is no place to speak, yet their yield
is nevertheless much after this proportion, as I have often marked. And
yet is not this our great foison comparable to that of hotter countries
of the main. But, of all that I ever read, the increase which Eldred Danus
writeth of in his De imperie Judaeorum in Aethiopia surmounteth, where
he saith that in the field near to the Sabbatike river, called in old
time Gosan, the ground is so fertile that every grain of barley growing
doth yield an hundred kernels at the least unto the owner. Of late years also we have found and taken up a great trade in planting
of hops, whereof our moory hitherto and unprofitable grounds do yield
such plenty and increase that there are few farmers or occupiers in the
country which have not gardens and hops growing of their own, and those
far better than do come from Flanders unto us. Certes the corruptions
used by the Flemings, and forgery daily practised in this kind of ware,
gave us occasion to plant them here at home; so that now we may spare
and send many over unto them. And this I know by experience, that some
one man by conversion of his moory grounds into hopyards, whereof before
he had no commodity, doth raise yearly by so little as twelve acres in
compass two hundred marks - all charges borne towards the maintenance
of his family. Which industry God continue! though some secret friends
of Flemings let not to exclaim against this commodity, as a spoil of wood,
by reason of the poles, which nevertheless after three years do also come
to the fire, and spare their other fuel. The cattle which we breed are commonly such as for greatness of bone,
sweetness of flesh, and other benefits to be reaped by the same, give
place unto none other; as may appear first by our oxen, whose largeness,
height, weight, tallow, hides, and horns are such as none of any other
nation do commonly or may easily exceed them. Our sheep likewise, for
good taste of flesh, quantity of limbs, fineness of fleece, caused by
their hardness of pasturage and abundance of increase (for in many places
they bring forth two or three at an eaning), give no place unto any, more
than do our goats, who in like sort do follow the same order, and our
deer come not behind. As for our conies, I have seen them so fat in some
soils, especially about Meall and Disnege, that the grease of one being
weighed hath peised very near six or seven ounces. All which benefits
we first refer to the grace of goodness of God, and next of all unto the
bounty of our soil, which he hath endued with so notable and commodious
fruitfulness. But, as I mean to intreat of these things more largely hereafter, so
will I touch in this place one benefit which our nation wanteth, and that
is wine, the fault whereof is not in our soil, but the negligence of our
countrymen (especially of the south parts), who do not inure the same
to this commodity, and which by reason of long discontinuance is now become
inapt to bear any grapes almost for pleasure and shadow, much less then
the plain fields or several vineyards for advantage and commodity. Yet
of late time some have essayed to deal for wine (as to your lordship also
is right well known). But sith that liquor, when it cometh to the drinking,
hath been found more hard than that which is brought from beyond the sea,
and the cost of planting and keeping thereof so chargeable that they may
buy it far better cheap from other countries, they have given over their
enterprises without any consideration that, as in all other things, so
neither the ground itself in the beginning, nor success of their travel,
can answer their expectation at the first, until such time as the soil
be brought as it were into acquaintance with this commodity, and that
provision may be made for the more easiness of charge to be employed upon
the same. If it be true that where wine doth last and endure well there it will
grow no worse, I muse not a little wherefore the plantinf of vines should
be neglected in England. That this liquor might have grown in this island
heretofore, first the charter that Probus the Emperor gave equally to
us, the Gauls, and Spaniards, is one sufficient testimony. And that it
did grow here (beside the testimony of Beda, lib. I., cap. I) the old
notes of tithes for wine that yet remain in the accounts of some parsons
and vicars in Kent, elsewhere, besides the records of sundry suits, commenced
in divers ecclesiastical courts, both in Kent, Surrey, etc., also the
enclosed parcels almost in every abbey yet called the vineyards, may be
a notable witness, as also the plot which we now call East Smithfield
in London, given by Canutus, sometime king of this land, with other soil
thereabout, unto certain of his knights, with liberty of a Guild which
thereof was called Knighton Guild. The truth is (saith John Stow, our
countryman and diligent traveller in the old estate of this my native
city) that it is now named Portsoken Ward, and given in time past to the
religious house within Aldgate. Howbeit first Otwell, the archovel, Otto,
and finally Geffrey Earl of Essex, constables of the Tower of London,
withheld that portion from the saidhouse until the reign of King Stephen,
and thereof made a vineyard to their great commodity and lucre. The Isle
of Ely also was in the first times of the Normans called Le Ile des Vignes.
And good record appeareth that the bishop there had yearly three or four
tun at the least given him nomine decimae, beside whatsoever over-sum
of the liquor did accrue to him by leases and other excheats whereof also
I have seen mention. Wherefore our soil is not to be blamed, as though
our nights were so exceeding short that in August and September the moon,
which is lady of moisture and chief ripener of this liquor, cannot in
any wise shine long enough upon the same: a very mere toy and fable, right
worthy to be suppressed, because experience convinceth the upholders thereof
even in the Rhenish wines. The time hath been also that woad, wherewith our countrymen dyed their
faces (as Caesar saith), that they might seem terrible to their enemies
in the field (and also women and their daughters-in-law did stain their
bodies and go naked, in that pickle, to the sacrifices of their gods,
coveting to resemble therein the Ethiopians, as Pliny saith, (lib. 22,
cap. I), and also madder have been (next unto our tin and wools) the chief
commodities and merchandise of this realm. I find also that rape oil hath
been made within this land. But now our soil either will not, or at the
leastwise may not, bear either woad or madder. I say not that the ground
is not able so to do, but that we are negligent, afraid of the pilling
of our grounds, and careless of our own profits, as men rather willing
to buy the same of others than take any pain to plant them here at home.
The like I may say of flax, which by law ought to be sown in every country
town in England, more or less; but I see no success of that good and wholesome
law, sith it is rather contemptuously rejected than otherwise dutifully
kept in any place in England. Some say that our great number of laws do breed a general negligence
and contempt of all good order, because we have so many that no subject
can live without the transgression of some of them, and that the often
alteration of our ordinances doth much harm in this respect, which (after
Aristotle) doth seem to carry some reason withal, for (as Cornelius Gallus
hath) "Eventus varios res. nova semper habet." 1
But very many let not to affirm that the greedy corruption of the promoters
on the one side, facility in dispensing with good laws and first breach
of the same in the lawmakers and superiors and private respects of their
establishment on the other, are the greatest causes why the inferiors
regard no good order, being always so ready to offend without any faculty
one way as they are otherwise to presume upon the examples of their betters
when any hold is to be taken. But as in these things I have no skill,
so I wish that fewer licences for the private commodity but of a few were
granted (not that thereby I deny the maintenance of the prerogative royal,
but rather would with all my heart that it might be yet more honourably
increased), and that every one which by fee'd friendship (or otherwise)
doth attempt to procure ought from the prince that may profit but few
and prove hurtful to many might be at open assizes and sessions denounced
enemy to his country and commonwealth of the land. Glass also hath been made here in great plenty before, and in the time
of the Romans; and the said stuff also, beside fine scissors, shears,
collars of gold and silver for women's necks, cruises and cups of amber,
were a parcel of the tribute which Augustus in his days laid upon this
island. In like sort he charged the Britons with certain implements and
vessels of ivory (as Strabo saith); whereby it appeareth that in old time
our countrymen were far more industrious and painful in the use and application
of the benefits of their country than either after the coming of the Saxons
or Normans, in which they gave themselves more to idleness and following
of the wars. If it were requisite that I should speak of the sundry kinds of mould,
as the cledgy, or clay, whereof are divers sorts (red, blue, black, and
white), also the red or white sandy, the loamy, roselly, gravelly, chalky,
or black, I could say that there are so many divers veins in Britain as
elsewhere in any quarter of like quantity in the world. Howbeit this I
must need confess, that the sand and clay do bear great sway: but clay
most of all, as hath been and yet is always seen and felt through plenty
and dearth of corn. For if this latter (I mean the clay) do yield her
full increase (which it doth commonly in dry years for wheat), then is
there general plenty: weereas if it fail, then have we scarcity, according
to the old rude verse set down of England, but to be understood of the
whole island, as experience doth confirm "When the sand doth serve the clay, Then may we sing well-away;
But when the clay doth serve the sand, Then it is merry with England." I might here intreat of the famous valleys in England, of which one is
called the Vale of White Horse, another of Evesham (commonly taken for
the granary of Worcestershire), the third of Aylesbury, that goeth by
Thame, the roots of Chiltern Hills to Dunstable, Newport Pagnel, Stony
Stratford, Buckingham, Birstane Park, etc. Likewise of the fourth, of
Whitehart or Blackmoor in Dorsetshire. The fifth, of Ringdale or Renidale,
corruptly called Kingtaile, that lieth (as mine author saith) upon the
edge of Essex and Cambridgeshire, and also the Marshwood Vale: but, forsomuch
as I know not well their several limits, I give over to go any further
in their description. In like sort it should not be amiss to speak of
our fens, although our country be not so full of this kind of soil as
the parts beyond the seas (to wit, Narbonne, etc.), and thereto of other
pleasant bottoms, the which are not only endued with excellent rivers
and great store of corn and fine fodder for neat and horses in time of
the year (whereby they are exceeding beneficial unto their owners), but
also of no small compass and quantity in ground. For some of our fens
are well known to be either of ten, twelwe, sixteen, twenty, or thirty
miles in length, that of the Girwies yet passing all the rest, which is
full sixty (as I have often read). Wherein also Ely, the famous isle,
standeth, which is seven miles every way, and whereunto there is no access
but by three causies, whose inhabitants in like sort by an old privilege
may take wood, sedge turf, etc., to burn, likewise hay for their cattle
and thatch for their houses of custom, and each occupier in his appointed
quantity throughout the isle; albeit that covetousness hath now begun
somewhat to abridge this large benevolence and commodity, as well in the
said isle as most other places of this land. Finally, I might discourse in like order of the large commons, laid out
heretofore by the lords of the soil for the benefit of such poor as inhabit
within the compass of their manors. But, as the true intent of the givers
is now in most places defrauded, insomuch that not the poor tenants inhabitating
upon the same, but their landlords, have all the commodity and gain. Wherefore
I mean not at this present to deal withal, but reserve the same wholly
unto the due place, whilst I go forward with the rest, setting down nevertheless
by the way a general commendation of the whole island, which I find in
an ancient monument, much unto this effect "Illa quidem longe celebris splendore, beata, Glebis, lacte, favis,
supereminet insula cunctis, Quas regit ille Deus, spumanti cujus ab ore
Profluit oceanus," etc. And a little after "Testis Lundoniaratibus, Wintonia Baccho, Herefordia grege, Worcestria
frugeredundans, Batha lacu, Salabyra feris, Cantuaria pisce, Eboraca sylvis,
Excestria clara metallis, Norwicum Dacis hybernis, Cestria Gallis, Cicestrum
Norwagenis, Dunelmia praepinguis, Testis Lincolnia gens infinita decore,
Testis Eli formosa situ, Doncastria visu," etc.
With how great benefits this island of ours hath been endued from the
beginning I hope there is no godly man but will readily confess, and yield
unto the Lord God his due honour for the same. For we are blessed every
way, and there is no temporal commodity necessary to be had or craved
by any nation at God's hand that he hath not in most abundant manner bestowed
upon us Englishmen, if we could see to use it, and be thankful for the
same. But alas! (as I said in the chapter precedent) we love to enrich
them that care not for us, but for our great commodities: and one trifling
toy not worth the carriage, coming (as the proverb saith) in three ships
from beyond the sea, is more worth with us than a right good jewel easy
to be had at home. They have also the cast to teach us to neglect our
own things; for, if they see that we begin to make any account of our
commodities (if it be so that they have also the like in their own countries)
they will suddenly abase the same to so low a price that our gain not
being worthy our travel, and the same commodity with less cost ready to
be had at home from other countries (though but for a while), it causeth
us to give over our endeavours and as it were by-and-by to forget the
matter whereabout we went before, to obtain them at their hands. And this
is the only cause wherefore our commodities are oft so little esteemed
of. Some of them can say, without any teacher, that they will buy the
case of a fox of an Englishman for a groat, and make him afterwards give
twelve pence for the tail. Would to God we might once wax wiser, and each
one endeavour that the commonwealth of England may flourish again in her
old rate, and that our commodities may be fully wrought at home (as cloth
if you will for an example) and not carried out to be shorn and dressed
abroad, while our clothworkers here do starve and beg their bread, and
for lack of daily practice utterly neglect to be skilful in this science!
But to my purpose. We have in England great plenty of quicksilver, antimony, sulphur, black
lead, and orpiment red and yellow. We have also the finest alum (wherein
the diligence of one of the greatest favourers of the commonwealth of
England of a subject 1 hath been of late egregriousl abused,
and even almost with barbarous incivility) and of no less force against
fire, if it were used in our parietings, than that of Lipari, which only
was in use sometime amongst the Asians and Romans and whereof Sylla had
such trial that when he meant to have burned a tower of wood erected by
Archelaus, the lieutenant of Mithridates, he could by no means set it
on fire in a long time, because it was washed over with alum, as were
also the gates of the temple of Jerusalem with like effect, and perceived
when Titus commanded fire to be put unto the same. Besides this, we have
also the natural cinnabarum or vermillion, the sulphurous glebe called
bitumen in old time, for mortar, and yet burned in lamps where oil is
scant and geson; the chrysocolla, copperas, and mineral stone, whereof
petrolium is made, and that which is most strange, the mineral pearl,
which as they are for greatness and colour most excellent of all other,
so are they digged out of the main land and in sundry places far distant
from the shore. Certes the western part of the land hath in times past
greatly abounded with these and many other rare and excellent commodities,
but now they are washed away by the violence of the sea, which hath devoured
the greatest part of Cornwall and Devonshire on either side; and it doth
appear yet by good record that, whereas now there is a great distance
between the Scilly Isles and the point of the Land's End, there was of
late years to speak of scarcely a brook or drain of one fathom water between
them, if so much, as by those evidences appeareth, and are yet to be seen
in the hands of the lord and chief owner of those isles. But to proceed.
Of coal-mines we have such plenty in the north and western parts of our
island as may suffice for all the realm of England; and so must they do
hereafter indeed, if wood be not better cherished than it is at this present.
And so say the truth, notwithstanding that very many of them are carried
into other countries of the main, yet their greatest trade beginneth now
to grow from the forge into the kitchen and hall, as may appear already
in most cities and towns that lie about the coast, where they have but
little other fuel except it be turf and hassock. I marvel not a little
that there is no trade of these into Sussex and Southamptonshire, for
want thereof the smiths do work their iron with charcoal. I think that
far carriage be the only cause, which is but a slender excuse to enforce
us to carry them into the main from hence. Besides our coal-mines, we have pits in like sort of white plaster, and
of fat and white and other coloured marble, wherewith in many places the
inhabitors do compest their soil, and which doth benefit their land in
ample manner for many years to come. We have sallpetre for our ordinance
and salt soda for our glass, and thereto in one place a kind of earth
(in Southery; as I ween, hard by Codington, and sometime in the tenure
of one Croxton of London) which is so fine to make moulds for goldsmiths
and casters of metal, that a load of it was worth five shillings thirty
years ago; none such again they say in England. But whether there be or
not, let us not be unthankful to God, for these and other his benefits
bestowed upon us, whereby he sheweth himself a loving and merciful father
unto us, which contrariwise return unto him in lieu of humility and obedience
nothing but wickedness, avarice, mere contempt of his will, pride, excess,
atheism, and no less than Jewish ingratitude. 2
All metals receive their beginning of quicksilver and sulphur, which
are as mother and father to them. And such is the purpose of nature in
their generations that she tendeth always to the procreation of gold;
nevertheless she seldom reacheth unto that her end, because of the unequal
mixture and proportion of these two in the substance engendered, whereby
impediment and corruption is induced, which as it is more or less doth
shew itself in the metal that is produced. . . . And albeit that we have no such abundance of these (as some other countries
do yield), yet have my rich countrymen store enough of both in their purses,
where in time past they were wont to have least, because the garnishing
of our churches, tabernacles, images, shrines, and apparel of the priests
consumed the greatest part, as experience hath confirmed. Of late my countrymen have found out I wot not what voyage into the West
Indies, from whence they have brought some gold, whereby our country is
enriched; but of all that ever adventured into those parts, none have
sped better than Sir Francis Drake, whose success (1582) hath far passed
even his own expectation. One John Frobisher in like manner, attempting
to seek out a shorter cut by the northerly regions into the peaceable
sea and kingdom of Cathay, happened (1577) upon certain islands by the
way, wherein great plenty of much gold appeared, and so much that some
letted not to give out for certainty that Solomon had his gold from thence,
wherewith he builded the temple. This golden shew made him so desirous
also of like success that he left off his former voyage and returned home
to bring news of such things as he had seen. But, when after another voyage
it was found to be but dross, he gave over both the enterprises, and now
keepeth home without any desire at all to seek into far countries. In
truth, such was the plenty of ore there seen and to be had that, if it
had holden perfect, might have furnished all the world with abundance
of that metal; the journey also was short and performed in four or five
months, which was a notable encouragement. But to proceed. Tin and lead, metals which Strabo noteth in his time to be carried unto
Marsilis from hence, as Diodorus also confirmeth, are very plentiful with
us, the one in cornwall, Devonshire, and elsewhere in the north, the other
in Derbyshire, Weredale, and sundry places of this island; whereby my
countrymen do reap no small commodity, but especially our pewterers, who
in times past employed the use of pewter only upon dishes, pots, and a
few other trifles for service here at home, whereas now they are grown
unto such exquisite cunning that they can in manner imitate by infusion
any form or fashion of cup, dish, salt bowl, or goblet, which is made
by goldsmiths' craft, though they be never so curious, exquisite, and
artificially forged. Such furniture of household of this metal as we commonly
call by the name of vessel is sold usually by the garnish, which doth
contain twelve platters, twelve dishes, twelve saucers, and those are
either of silver fashion or else with broad or narrow brims, and bought
by the pound, which is now valued at six or seven pence, or peradventure
at eight pence. Of porringers, pots, and other like, I speak not, albeit
that in the making of all these things there is such exquisite diligence
used, I mean for the mixture of the metal and true making of this commodity
(by reason of sharp laws provided in that behalf), as the like is not
to be found in any other trade. I have been also informed that it consisteth
of a composition which hath thirty pounds of kettle brass to a thousand
pounds of tin, whereunto they add three or four pounds of tin-glass; but
as too much of this doth make the stuff brickle, so the more the brass
be, the better is the pewter, and more profitable unto him that doth buy
and purchase the same. But to proceed. In some places beyond the sea a garnish of good flat English pewter of
an ordinary making (I say flat, because dishes and platters in my time
begin to be made deep like basins, and are indeed more convenient both
for sauce, broth, and keeping the mest warm) is esteemed almost so precious
as the like number of vessels that are made of fine silver, and in manner
no less desired amongst the great estates, whose workmen are nothing so
skilful in that trade as ours, neither their metal so good, nor plenty
so great, as we have here in England. The Romans made excellent looking-glasses
of our English tin, howbeit our workmen were not then so exquisite in
that feat as the Brundusians, wherefore the wrought metal was carried
over unto them by way of merchandise, and very highly were those glasses
esteemed of till silver came generally in place, which in the end brought
the tin into such contempt that in manner every dishwasher refused to
look in other than silver glasses for the attiring of her head. Howbeit
the making of silver glasses had been in use before Britain was known
unto the Romans, for I read that one Praxiteles devised them in the young
time of Pompey, which was before the coming of Caesar into this island. There were mines of lead sometimes also in Wales, which endured so long
till the people had consumed all their wood by melting of the same (as
they did also at Comeriswith, six miles from Stradfleur), and I supposed
that in Plinly's time the abundance of lead (whereof he speaketh) was
to be found in those parts, in the seventeenth of his thirty-fourth book;
also he affirmeth that it lay in the very sward of the earth, and daily
gotten in such plenty that the Romans made a restraint of the carriage
thereof to Rome, limiting how much should yearly be wrought and transported
over the sea. 3
Iron is found in many places, as in Sussex, Kent, Weredale, Mendip, Walshall,
as also in Shropshire, but chiefly in the woods betwixt Belvos and Willock
(or Wicberry) near Manchester, and elsewhere in Wales. Of which mines
divers do bring forth so fine and good stuff as any that cometh from beyond
the sea, beside the infinite gains to the owners, if we would so accept
it, or bestow a little more cost in the refining of it. It is also of
such toughness, that it yieldeth to the making of claricord wire in some
places of the realm. Nevertheless, it was better cheap with us when strangers
only brought it hither; for it is our quality when we get any commodity
to use it with extremity towards our own nation, after we have once found
the means to shut out foreigners flom the bringing in of the like. It
breedeth in like manner great expense and waste of wood, as doth the making
of our pots and table vessels of glass, wherein is much loss, sith it
is so quickly broken; and yet (as I think) easy to be made tougher, if
our alchemists could once find the true birth or production of the red
man, whose mixture would induce a metallic toughness unto it, whereby
it should abide the hammer. Copper is lately not found, but rather restored again to light. For I
have read of copper to have been heretofore gotten in our island; howbeit
as strangers have most commonly the governance of our mines, so they hitherto
make small gains of this in hand in the north parts; for (as I am informed)
the profit doth very hardly countervail the charges, whereat wise men
do not a little marvel, considering the abundance which that mine doth
seem to offer, and, as it were, at hand. Leland, our countryman, noteth
sundry great likelihoods of natural copper mines to be eastwards, as between
Dudman and Trewardth, in the sea cliffs, beside other places, whereof
divers are noted here and there in sundry places of this book already,
and therefore it shall be but in vain to repeat them here again. As for
that which is gotten out of the marchasite, I speak not of it, sith it
is not incident to my purpose. In Dorsetshire also a copper mine lately
found is brought to good perfection. As for our stoel, it is not so good for edge-tools as that of Cologne,
and yet the one is often sold for the other, and like tale used in both,
that is to say, thirty gads to the sheaf, and twelve sheaves to the burden. Our alchemy is artificial, and thereof our spoons and some salts are
commonly made and preferred before our pewter with some, 4
albeit in truth it be much subject to corruption, putrefaction, more heavy
and foul to handle than our pewter; yet some ignorant persons affirm it
to be a metal more natural, and the very same which Encelius calleth plumbum
cinereum, the Germans wisemute, mithan, and counterfeie, adding that where
it groweth silver cannot be far off. Nevertheless it is known to be a
mixture of brass, lead, and tin (of which this latter occupieth the one-half),
but after another proportion than is used in pewter. But alas, I am persuaded
that neither the old Arabians nor new alchemists of our time did ever
hear of it, albeit that the name thereof do seem to come out of their
forge. For the common sort indeed do call it alchemy, an unwholesome metal
(God wot) and worthy to be banished and driven out of the land. And thus
I conclude with this discourse, as having no more to say of the metals
of my country, except I should talk of brass, bell metal, and such as
are brought over for merchandise from other countries; and yet I cannot
but say that there is some brass found also in England, but so small is
the quantity that it is not greatly to be esteemed or accounted for.
There is no kind of tame cattle usually to be seen in these parts of
the world whereof we have not some, and that great store, in England,
as horses, oxen, sheep, goats, swine, and far surmounting the like in
other countries, as may be proved with ease. For where are oxen commonly
made more large of bone, horses more decent and pleasant in pace, kine
more commodious for the pail, sheep more profitable for wool, swine more
wholesome of flesh, and goats more gainful to their keepers than here
with us in England? But, to speak of them peculiarly, I suppose that our
kine are so abundant in yield of milk, whereof we make our butter and
cheese, as the like any where else, and so apt for the plough in divers
places as either our horses or oxen. And, albeit they now and then twin,
yet herein they seem to come short of that commodity which is looked for
in other countries, to wit, in that they bring forth most commonly but
one calf at once. The gains also gotten by a cow (all charges borne) hath
been valued at twenty shillings yearly; but now, as land is enhanced,
this proportion of gain is much abated, and likely to decay more and more,
if ground arise to be yet dearer - which God forbid, if it be His will
and pleasure. I heard of late of a cow in Warwickshire, belonging to Thomas
Breuer of Studley, which in six years had sixteen calves, that is four
at once in three calvings and twice twins, which unto many may seem a
thing incredible. In like manner our oxen are such as the like are not
to be found in any country of Europe, both for greatness of body and sweetness
of flesh or else would not the Roman writers have preferred them before
those of Liguria. In most places our graziers are now grown to be so cunning
that if they do but see an ox or bullock, and come to the feeling of him,
they will give a guess at his weight, and how many score or stone of flesh
and tallow he beareth, how the butcher may live by the sale, and what
he may have for the skin and tallow, which is a point of skill not commonly
practised heretofore. Some such graziers also are reported to ride with
velvet coats and chains of gold about them and in their absence their
wives will not let to supply those turns with no less skill than their
husbands: which is a hard work for the poor butcher, sith he through this
means can seldom be rich or wealthy by his trade. In like sort the flesh
of our oxen and kine is sold both by hand and by weight as the buyer will;
but in young ware rather by weight especially for the steer and heifer,
sith the finer beef is the lightest, whereas the flesh of bulls and old
kine, etc., is of sadder substance, and therefore much heavier as it lieth
in the scale. Their horns also are known to be more fair and large in
England than in any other places, except those which are to be seen among
the Paeones, which quality, albeit that it be given to our breed generally
by nature, yet it is now and then helped also by art. For, when they be
very young, many graziers will oftentimes anoint their budding horns or
tender tips with honey, which mollifieth the natural hardness of that
substance, and thereby maketh them to grow unto a notable greatness. Certes
it is not strange in England to see oxen whose horns have the length of
a yard or three feet between the tips, and they themselves thereto so
tall as the height of a man of mean and indifferent stature is scarce
equal unto them. Nevertheless it is much to be lamented that our general
breed of cattle is not better looked unto; for the greatest occupiers
wean least store, because they can buy them (as they say) far better cheap
than to raise and bring them up. In my time a cow hath risen from four
nobles to four marks by this means, which notwithstanding were no great
price if they did yearly bring forth more than one calf a piece, as I
hear they do in other countries. Our horses, moreover, are high, and, although not commonly of such huge
greatness as in other places of the main, yet, if you respect the easiness
of their pace, it is hard to say where their like are to be had. Our land
doth yield no asses, and therefore we want the generation also of mules
and somers, and therefore the most part of our carriages is made by these,
which, remaining stoned, are either reserved for the cart or appointed
to bear such burdens as are convenient for them. Our cart or plough horses
(for we use them indifferently) are commonly so strong that five or six
of them (at the most) will draw three thousand weight of the greatest
tale with ease for a long journey, although it be not a load of common
usage, which consisteth only of two thousand, or fifty foot of timber,
forty bushels of white salt, or six-and-thirty of bay, of five quarters
of wheat, experience daily teacheth, and I have elsewhere remembered.
Such as are kept also for burden will carry four hundred-weight commonly
without any hurt or hindrance. This furthermore is to be noted, that our
princes and the nobility have their carriage commonly made by carts, whereby
it cometh to pass that when the queen's majesty doth remove from any one
place to another, there are usually 400 carewares, which amount to the
sum of 2400 horses, appointed out of the countries adjoining, whereby
her carriage is conveyed safely unto the appointed place. Hereby also
the ancient use of somers and sumpter horses is in manner utterly relinquished,
which causeth the trains of our princes in their progresses to shew far
less than those of the kings of other nations. Such as serve for the saddle are commonly gelded, and now grew to be
very dear among us, especially if they be well coloured, justly limbed,
and have thereto an easy ambling pace. For our countrymen, seeking their
ease in every corner where it is to be had, delight very much in those
qualities, but chiefly in their excellent paces, which, besides that it
is in manner peculiar unto horses of our soil, and not hurtful to the
rider or owner sitting on their backs, it is moreover very pleasant and
delectable in his ears, in that the noise of their well-proportioned pace
doth yield comfortable sound as he travelleth by the way. Yet is there
no greater deceit used anywhere than among our horsekeepers, horsecoursers,
and hostlers; for such is the subtle knavery of a great sort of them (without
exception of any of them be it spoken which deal for private gain) that
an honest-meaning man shall have very good luck among them if he be not
deceived by some false trick or other. There are certain notable markets wherein great plenty of horses and
colts is bought and sold, and whereunto such as have need resort yearly
to buy and make their necessary provision of them, as Ripon, Newport Pond,
Wolfpit, Harboro', and divers others. But as most drovers are very diligent
to bring great store of these unto those places, so many of them are too
too lewd in abusing such as buy them. For they have a custom, to make
them look fair to the eye, when they come within two days' journey of
the market to drive them till they sweat, and for the space of eight or
twelve hours, which, being done,they turn them all over the backs into
some water, where they stand for a season, and then go forward with them
to the place appointed, where they make sale of their infected ware, and
such as by this means do fall into many diseases and maladies. Of such
outlandish horses as are daily brought over unto us I speak not, as the
jennet of Spain, the courser of Naples, the hobby of Ireland, the Flemish
roile and the Scottish nag, because that further speech of them cometh
not within the compass of this treatise, and for whose breed and maintenance
(especially of the greatest sort) King Henry the Eighth erected a noble
studdery, and for a time had very good success with them, till the officers,
waxing weary, procured a mixed brood of bastard races, whereby his good
purpose came to little effect. Sir Nicholas Arnold of late hath bred the
best horses in England, and written of the manner of their production:
would to God his compass of ground were like to that of Pella in Syria,
wherein the king of that nation had usually a studdery of 30,000 mares
and 300 stallions, as Strabo doth remember, lib. 16. But to leave this,
let us see what may be said of sheep. Our sheep are very excellent, sith for sweetness of flesh they pass all
other. And so much are our wools to be preferred before those of Milesia
and other places that if Jason had known the value of them that are bred
and to be had in Britain he would never have gone to Colchis to look for
any there. For, as Dionysius Alexandrinus saith in his De situ Orbis,
it may by spinning be made comparable to the spider's web. What fools
then are our countrymen, in that they seek to bereave themselves of this
commodity by practising daily how to transfer the same to other nations,
in carrying over their rams and ewes to breed and increase among them!
The first example hereof was given under Edward the Fourth, who, not understanding
the bottom of the suit of sundry traitorous merchants that sought a present
gain with the perpetual hindrance of their country, licensed them to carry
over certain numbers of them into Spain, who, having licence but for a
few, shipped very many; a thing practised in other commodities also, whereby
the prince and his land are not seldom times defrauded. But such is our
nature, and so blind are we indeed, that we see no inconvenience before
we feel it; and for a present gain we regard not what damage may ensue
to our posterity. Hereto some other man would add also the desire that
we have to benefit other countries and to impeach our own. And it is,
so sure as God liveth, that every trifle which cometh from beyond the
sea, though it be not worth threepence, is more esteemed than a continual
commodity at home with us, which far exceedeth that value. In time past
the use of this commodity consisteth (for the most part) in cloth and
woolsteds; but now, by means of strangers succoured here from domestic
persecution, the same hath been employed unto sundry other uses, as mockados,
bays, vellures, grograines, etc., whereby the makers have reaped no small
commodity. It is furthermore to be noted, for the low countries of Belgie
know it, and daily experience (notwithstanding the sharpness of our laws
to the contrary) doth yet confirm it, that, although our rams and wethers
do go thither from us never so well headed according to their kind, yet
after they have remained there a while they cast there their heads, and
from thenceforth they remain polled without any horns at all. Certes this
kind of cattle is more cherished in England than standeth well with the
commodity of the commons or prosperity of divers towns, whereof some are
wholly converted to their feeding; yet such a profitable sweetness is
their fleece, such necessity in their flesh, and so great a benefit in
the manuring of barren soil with their dung and piss, that their superfluous
members are the better born withal. And there is never a husbandman (for
now I speak not of our great sheepmasters, of whom some one man hath 20,000)
but hath more or less of this cattle feeding on his fallows and short
grounds, which yield the finer fleece. Nevertheless the sheep of our country are often troubled with the rot
(as are our swine with the measles, though never so generally), and many
men are now and then great losers by the same; but, after the calamity
is over, if they can recover and keep their new stock sound for seven
years together, the former loss will easily be recompensed with double
commodity. Cardan writeth that our waters are hurtful to our sheep; howbeit
this is but his conjecture, for we know that our sheep are infected by
going to the water, and take the same as a sure and certain token that
a rot hath gotten hold of them, their livers and lights being already
distempered through excessive heat, which enforceth them the rather to
seek unto the water. Certes there is no parcel of the main wherein a man
shall generally find more fine and wholesome water than in England; and
therefore it is impossible that our sheep should decay by tasting of the
same. Wherefore the hindrance by rot is rather to be ascribed to the unseasonableness
and moisture of the weather in summer, also their licking in of mildews,
gossamire, rowtie fogs, and rank grass, full of superfluous juice, but
especially (I say) to over moist weather, whereby the continual rain piercing
into their hollow fells soaketh forthwith into their flesh, which bringeth
them to their baines. Being also infected, their first shew of sickness
is their desire to drink, so that our waters are not unto them causa aegritudinis,
but signum morbi, whatsoever Cardan do maintain to the contrary. There
are (and peradventure no small babes) which are grown to be such good
husbands that they can make account of every ten kine to be clearly worth
twenty pounds in common and indifferent years, if the milk of five sheep
be daily added to the same. But, as I wot not how true this surmise is,
because it is no part of my trade, so I am sure hereof that some housewives
can and do add daily a less portion of ewe's milk unto the cheese of so
many kine, whereby their cheese doth the longer abide moist and eateth
more brickle and mellow than otherwise it would. Goats we have plenty, and of sundry colours, in the west parts of England,
especially in and towards Wales and amongst the rocky hills, by whom the
owners do reap so small advantage: some also are cherished elsewhere in
divers steeds, for the benefit of such as are diseased with sundry maladies,
unto whom (as I hear) their milk, cheese, and bodies of their young kids
are judged very profitable, and therefore inquired for of many far and
near. Certes I find among the writers that the milk of a goat is next
in estimation to that of the woman, for that it helpeth the stomach, removeth
oppilations and stoppings of the liver, and looseth the belly. Some place
also next unto it the milk of the ewe, and thirdly that of the cow. But
hereof I can shew no reason; only this I know, that ewe's milk is fulsome,
sweet, and such in taste as (except such as are used unto it) no man will
gladly yield to live and feed withal. As for swine, there is no place that hath greater store, nor more wholesome
in eating, than are these here in England, which nevertheless do never
any good till they come to the table. Of these some we eat green for pork,
and other dried up into bacon to have it in more continuance. Lard we
make some, though very little, because it is chargeable: neither have
we such use thereof as is to be seen in France and other countries, sith
we do either bake our meat with sweet suet of beef or mutton and baste
all our meat with sweet or salt butter or suffer the fattest to baste
itself by leisure. In champaign countries they are kept by herds, and
a hogherd appointed to attend and wait upon them, who commonly gathereth
them together by his noise and cry, and leadeth them forth to feed abroad
in the fields. In some places also women do scour and wet their clothes
with their dung, as other do with hemlocks and nettles; but such is the
savour of the clothes touched withal that I cannot abide to wear them
on my body, more than such as are scoured with the refuse soap, than the
which (in mine opinion) there is none more unkindly savour. Of our tame boars we make brawn, which is a kind of meat not usually
known to strangers (as I take it), otherwise would not the swart Rutters
and French cooks, at the loss of Calais (where they found great store
of this provision almost in every house), have attempted with ridiculous
success to roast, bake, broil, and fry the same for their masters, till
they were better informed. I have heard moreover how a nobleman of England
not long since did send over a hogshead of brawn ready soused to a Catholic
gentleman of France, who, supposing it to be fish, reserved it till Lent,
at which time he did eat thereof with great frugality. The may thrust
a bruised rush or straw clean through the fat: which being done, they
take it up and lay it abroad to cool. Afterward, putting it into close
vessels, they pour either good small ale or beer mingled with verjuice
and salt thereto till it be covered, and so let it lie (now and then altering
and changing the sousing drink lest it should wax sour) till occasion
serve to spend it out of way. Some use to make brawn of great barrow hogs,
and seethe them, and souse the whole as they do that of the boar; and
in my judgment it is the better of both, and more easy of digestion. But
of brawn thus much, and so much may seem sufficient.
Order requireth that I speak somewhat of the fowls also of England, which
I may easily divide into the wild and tame; but, alas! such is my small
skill in fowls that, to say the truth, I can neither recite their numbers
nor well distinguish one kind of them from another. Yet this I have by
general knowledge, that there is no nation under the sun which hath already
in the time of the year more plenty of wild fowl than we, for so many
kinds as our island doth bring forth, and much more would have if those
of the higher soil might be spared but one year or two from the greedy
engines of covetous fowlers which set only for the pot and purse. Certes
this enormity bred great troubles in King John's days, insomuch that,
going in progress about the tenth of his reign, he found little or no
game wherewith to solace himself or exercise his falcons. Wherefore, being
at Bristow in the Christmas ensuing, he restrained all manner of hawking
or taking of wild fowl throughout England for a season, whereby the land
within few years was thoroughly replenished again. But what stand I upon
this impertinent discourse? Of such therefore as are bred in our land,
we have the crane, the bitter, 1 the wild and tame swan, the
bustard, the heron, curlew, snite, wildgoose, wind or doterell, brant,
lark, plover (of both sorts), lapwing, teal, widgeon, mallard, sheldrake,
shoveller, peewitt, seamew, barnacle, quail (who, only with man, are subject
to the falling sickness), the knot, the oliet or olive, the dunbird, woodcock,
partridge, and pheasant, besides divers others, whose names to me are
utterly unknown, and much more the taste of their flesh, wherewith I was
never acquainted. But as these serve not at all seasons, so in their several
turns there is no plenty of them wanting whereby the tables of the nobility
and gentry should seem at any time furnished. But of all these the production
of none is more marvellous, in my mind, than that of the barnacle, whose
place of generation, we have sought often times as far as the Orchades,
whereas peradventure we might have found the same nearer home, and not
only upon the coasts of Ireland, but even in our own rivers. If I should
say how either these or some such other fowl not much unlike unto them
have bred of late times (for their place of generation is not perpetual,
but as opportunity serveth and the circumstances do minister occasion)
in the Thames mouth, I do not think that many will believe me; yet such
a thing hath there been seen where a kind of fowl had his beginning upon
a short tender shrub standing near unto the shore, from whence, when their
time came, they fell down, either into the salt water and lived, or upon
the dry land and perished, as Pena the French herbarian hath also noted
in the very end of his herbal. What I, for mine own part, have seen here
by experience, I have already so touched upon in the chapter of islands,
that it should be but time spent in vain to repeat it here again. Look
therefore in the description of Man (or Manaw) for more of these barnacles,
as also in the eleventh chapter of the description of Scotland, and I
do not doubt but you shall in some respect be satisfied in the generation
of these fowls. As for egrets, pawpers, and such like, they are daily
brought unto us from beyond the sea, as if all the fowl of our country
could not suffice to satisfy our delicate appetites.
Our tame fowl are such (for the most part) as are common both to us and
to other countries, as cocks, hens, geese, ducks, peacocks of Ind, pigeons,
now a hurtful fowl by reason of their multitudes, and number of houses
daily erected for their increase (which the boors of the country call
in scorn almshouses, and dens of thieves, and such like), whereof there
is great plenty in every farmer's yard. They are kept there also to be
sold either for ready money in the open markets, or else to be spent at
home in good company amongst their neighbours without reprehension or
fines. Neither are we so miserable in England (a thing only granted unto
us by the especial grace of God and liberty of our princes) as to dine
or sup with a quarter of a hen, or to make as great a repast with a cock's
comb as they do in some other countries; but, if occasion serve, the whole
carcases of many capons, hens, pigeons, and such like do oft go to wrack,
beside beef, mutton, veal, and lamb, all of which at every feast are taken
for necessary dishes amongst the communalty of England. The gelding of cocks, where by capons are made, is an ancient practice
brought in of old time by the Romans when they dwelt here in this land;
but the gelding of turkeys or Indish peacocks is a newer device, and certainly
not used amiss, sith the rankness of that bird is very much abated thereby
and the strong taste of the flesh in sundry wise amended. If I should
say that ganders grow also to be gelded, I suppose that some will laugh
me to scorn, neither have I tasted at any time of suc tivits, king-fishers,
buntings, turtles (white or grey), linnets, bullfinches, goldfinches,
washtails, cherrycrackers, yellowhammers, fieldfares, etc.; but I should
then spend more time upon them than is convenient. Neither will I speak
of our costly and curious aviaries daily made for the better hearing of
their melody, and observation of their natures; but I cease also to go
any further in these things, having (as I think) said enough already of
these that I have named. 2 . . .
I cannot make as yet any just report how many sorts of hawks are bred
within this realm. Howbeit which of those that are usually had among us
are disclosed within this land, I think it more easy and less difficult
to set down. First of all, therefore, that we have the eagle common experience
doth evidently confirm, and divers of our rocks whereon they breed, if
speech did serve, could well declare the same. But the most excellent
eyrie of all is not much from Chester, at a castle called Dinas Bren,
sometime builded by Brennus, as our writers do remember. Certes this castle
is no great thing, but yet a pile sometime very strong and inaccessible
for enemies, though now all ruinous as many others are. It standeth upon
a hard rock, in the side whereof an eagle breedeth every year. This also
is notable in the overthrow of her nest (a thing oft attempted), that
he which goeth thither must be sure of two large baskets, and so provide
to be let down thereto, that he may sit in the one and be covered with
the other: for otherwise the eagle would kill him and tear the flesh from
his bones with her sharp talons, though his apparel were never so good.
The common people call this fowl an erne; but, as I am ignorant whether
the word eagle and erne do shew any difference of sex, I mean between
the male and the female, so we have great store of them. And, near to
the places where they breed, the commons complain of great harm to be
done by them in their fields; for they are able to bear a young lamb or
kid unto their nests, therewith to feed their young and come again for
more. I was once of the opinion that there was a diversity of kind between
the eagle and the erne, till I perceived that our nation used the word
erne in most places for the eagle. We have also the lanner and the lanneret,
the tersel and the goshawk, the musket and the sparhawk, the jack and
the hobby, and finally some (though very few) marleons. And these are
all the hawks that I do hear as yet to be bred within this island. Howbeit,
as these are not wanting with feathers) than are the like parts of the
eagle, and unto which portraiture there is no member of the raven (who
is almost black of colour) that can have any resemblance: we have none
of them in England to my knowledge; if we have, they go generally under
the name of eagle or erne. Neither have we the pygargus or grip, wherefore
I have no occasion to treat further. I have seen the carrion crows so
cunning also by their own industry of late that they have used to soar
over great rivers (as the Thames for example) and, suddenly coming down,
have caught a small fish in their feet and gone away withal without wetting
of their wings. And even at this present the aforesaid river is not without
some of them, a thing (in my opinion) not a little to be wondered at.
We have also ospreys, which breed with us in parks and woods, whereby
the keepers of the same do reap in breeding time no small commodity; for,
so soon almost as the young are hatched, they tie them to the butt ends
or ground ends of sundry trees, where the old ones, finding them, do never
cease to bring fish unto them, which the keepers take and eat from them,
and commonly is such as is well fed or not of the worst sort. It hath
not been my hap hitherto to see any of these fowl, and partly through
mine own negligence; but I hear that it hath one foot like a hawk, to
catch hold withal, and another resembling a goose, wherewith to swim;
but, whether it be so or not so, I refer the further search and trial
thereof unto some other. This nevertheless is certain, that both alive
and dead, yea even her very oil, is a deadly terror to such fish as come
within the wind of it. There is no cause whereof I should describe the
cormorant amongst hawks, of which some be black and many pied, chiefly
about the Isle of Ely, where they are taken for the night raven, except
I should call him a water hawk. But, sith such dealing is not convenient,
let us now see what may be said of our venomous worms, and how many kinds
we have of them within our realm and country. 3
It is none of the least blessings wherewith God hath endued this island
that it is void of noisome beasts, as lions, bears, tigers, pardes, wolves,
and such like, by means whereof our countrymen may travel in safety, and
our herds and flocks remain for the most part abroad in the field without
any herdman or keeper. This is chiefly spoken of the south and south-west parts of the island.
For, whereas we that dwell on this side of the Tweed may safely boast
of our security in this behalf, yet cannot the Scots do the like in every
point wherein their kingdom, sith they have grievous wolves and cruel
foxes, beside some others of like disposition continually conversant among
them, to the general hindrance of their husbandmen, and no small damage
unto the inhabitants of those quarters. The happy and fortunate want of
these beasts in England is universally ascribed to the politic government
of King Edgar. 1...
Of foxes we have some, but no great store, and also badgers in our sandy
and light grounds, where woods, furze, broom, and plenty of shrubs are
to shroud them in when they be from their burrows, and thereunto warrens
of conies at hand to feed upon at will. Otherwise in clay, which we call
the cledgy mould, we seldom hear of any, because the moisture and the
toughness of the soil is such as will not suffer them to draw and make
their burrows deep. Certes, if I may freely say what I think, I suppose
that these two kinds (I mean foxes and badgers) are rather preserved by
gentlemen to hunt and have pastime withal at their own pleasures than
otherwise suffered to live as not able to be destroyed because of their
great numbers. For such is the scantity of them here in England, in comparison
of the plenty that is to be seen in other countries, and so earnestly
are the inhabitants bent to root them out, that, except it had been to
bear thus with the recreations of their superiors in this behalf, it could
not otherwise have been chosen but that they should have been utterly
destroyed by many years agone. I might here intreat largely of other vermin, as the polecat, the miniver,
the weasel, stote, fulmart, squirrel, fitchew, and such like, which Cardan
includeth under the word Mustela: also of the otter, and likewise of the
beaver, whose hinder feet and tail only are supposed to be fish. Certes
the tail of this beast is like unto a thin whetstone, as the body unto
a monstrous rat: as the beast also itself is of such force in the teeth
that it will gnaw a hole through a thick plank, or shere through a double
billet in a night; it loveth also the stillest rivers, and it is given
to them by nature to go by flocks unto the woods at hand, where they gather
sticks wherewith to build their nests, wherein their bodies lie dry above
the water, although they so provide most commonly that their tails may
hang within the same. It is also reported that their said tails are delicate
dish, and their stones of such medicinal force that (as Vertomannus saith)
four men smelling unto them each after other did bleed at the nose through
their attractive force, proceeding from a vehement savour wherewith they
are endued. There is greatest plenty of them in Persia, chiefly about
Balascham, from whence they and their dried cods are brought into all
quarters of the world, though not without some forgery by such as provide
them. And of all these here remembered, as the first sorts are plentiful
in every wood and hedgerow, so these latter, especially the otter (for,
to say the truth, we have not many beavers, but only in the Teisie in
Wales) is not wanting or to seek in many, but most, streams and rivers
of this isle; but it shall suffice in this sort to have named them, as
I do finally the martern, a beast of the chase, although for number I
worthily doubt whether that of our beavers or marterns may be thought
to be the less. Other pernicious beasts we have not, except you repute the great plenty
of red and fallow deer whose colours are oft garled white and black, all
white or all black, and store of conies amongst the hurtful sort. Which
although that of themselves they are not offensive at all, yet their great
numbers are thought to be very prejudicial, and therefore justly reproved
of many, as are in like sort our huge flocks of sheep, whereon the greatest
part of our soil is employed almost in every place, and yet our mutton,
wool, and felles never the better cheap. The young males which our fallow
deer do bring forth are commonly named according to their several ages:
for the first year it is a fawn, the second a pricket, the third a sorel,
the fourth a soare, the fifth a buck of the first head, not bearing the
name of a buck till he be five years old: and from henceforth his age
is commonly known by his head or horns. Howbeit this notice of his years
is not so certain but that the best woodman may now and then be deceived
in that account: for in some grounds a buck of the first head will be
as well headed as another in a high rowtie soil will be in the fourth.
It is also much to be marvelled at that, whereas, they do yearly mew and
cast their horns, yet in fighting they never break off where they do grife
or mew. Furthermore, in examining the condition of our red deer, I find
that the young male is called in the first year a calf, in the second
a broket, the third a spay, the fourth a staggon or stag, the fifth a
great stag, the sixth a hart, and so forth unto his death. And with him
in degree of venerie are accounted the hare, boar, and wolf. The fallow
deer, as bucks and does, are nourished in parks, and conies in warrens
and burrows. As for hares, they run at their own adventure, except some
gentleman or other (for his pleasure) do make an enclosure for them. Of
these also the stag is accounted for the most noble game, the fallow deer
is the next, then the roe, whereof we have indifferent store, and last
of all the hare, not the least in estimation, because the hunting of that
seely beast is mother to all the terms, blasts, and artificial devices
that hunters do use. All which (notwithstanding our custom) are pastimes
more meet for ladies and gentlewomen to exercise (whatsoever Franciscus
Patritius saith to the contrary in his Institution of a Prince) than for
men of courage to follow, whose hunting should practise their arms in
tasting of their manhood, and dealing with such beasts as eftsoons will
turn again and offer them the hardest, rather than their horses' feet
which many times may carry them with dishonour from the field. 2
. . .
If I should go about to make any long discourse of ve are seen in moors,
fens, loam, walls, and low bottoms.
As we have great store of toads where adders commonly are found, so do
frogs abound where snakes do keep their residence. We have also the slow-worm,
which is black and greyish of colour, and somewhat shorter than an adder.
I was at the killing once of one of them, and thereby perceived that she
was not so called of any want of nimble motion, but rather of the contrary.
Nevertheless we have a blindworm, to be found under logs, in woods and
timber that hath lain long in a place, which some also do call (and upon
better ground) by the name of slow-worms, and they are known easily by
their more or less variety of striped colours, drawn long-ways from their
heads, their whole bodies little exceeding a foot in length, and yet is
their venom deadly. This also is not to be omitted; and now and then in
our fenny countries other kinds of serpents are found of greater quantity
than either our adder or our snake, but, as these are not ordinary and
oft to be seen, so I mean not to intreat of them among our common annoyances.
Neither have we the scorpion, a plague of God sent not long since into
Italy, and whose poison (as Apollodorus saith) is white, neither the tarantula
or Neapolitan spider, whose poison bringeth death, except music be at
hand. Wherefore I suppose our country to be the more happy (I mean in
part) for that it is void of these two grievous annoyances wherewith other
nations are plagued. We have also efts both of the land and water, and likewise the noisome
swifts, whereof to say any more it would be but loss of time, sith they
are all well known, and no region to my knowledge found to be void of
many of them. As for flies (sith it shall not be amiss a little to touch
them also), we have none that can do hurt or hindrance naturally unto
any: for whether they be cut-waisted or whole-bodied, they are void of
poison and all venomous inclination. The cut or girt waisted (for so I
English the word insecta) are the hornets, wasps, bees, and such like,
whereof we have great store, and of which an opinion is conceived that
the first do breed of the corruption of dead horses, the second of pears
and apples corrupted, and the last of kine and the oxen: which may be
true, especially the first and latter in some parts of beast, and not
their whole substances, as also in the second, sith we have never wasps
but when our fruit beginneth to wax ripe. Indeed Virgil and others speak
of a generation of bees by killing or smothering a bruised bullock or
calf and laying his bowels or his flesh wrapped up in his hide in a close
house for a certain season; but how true it is, hitherto I have not tried.
Yet sure I am of this, that no one living creature corrupteth without
the production of another, as we may see by ourselves, whose flesh doth
alter into lice, and also in sheep for excessive numbers of flesh flies,
if they be suffered to lie unburied or uneaten by the dogs and swine,
who often and happily present such needless generations. As concerning bees, I think it good to remember that, whereas some ancient
writers affirm it to be a commodity wanting in our island, it is now found
to be nothing so. In old times peradventure we had none indeed; but in
my days there is such plenty of them in manner everywhere that in some
uplandish towns there are one hundred or two hundred hives of them, although
the said hives are not so huge as those of the east country, but far less,
and not able to contain above one bushel of corn or five pecks at the
most. Pliny (a man that of set purpose delighteth to write of wonders),
speaking of honey, noteth that in the north regions the hives in his time
were of such quantity that some one comb contained eight foot in length,
and yet (as it should seem) he speaketh not of the greatest. For in Podolia,
which is now subject to the King of Poland, their hives are so great,
and combs so abundant, that huge boars, overturning and falling into them,
are drowned in the honey before they can recover and find the means to
come out. Our honey also is taken and reputed to be the best, because it is harder,
better wrought, and cleanlier vesselled up, than that which cometh from
beyond the sea, where they stamp and strain their combs, bees, and young
blowings altogether into the stuff, as I have been informed. In use also
of medicine our physicians and apothecaries eschew the foreign, especially
that of Spain and Pontus, by reason of a venomous quality naturally planted
in the same, as some write, and choose the home-made: not only by reason
of our soil (which hath no less plenty of wild thyme growing therein than
in Sicilia and about Athens, and maketh the best stuff) as also for that
it breedeth (being gotten in harvest time) less choler, and which is oftentimes
(as I have seen by experience) so white as sugar, and corned as if it
were salt. Our hives are made commonly of rye straw and wattled about
with bramble quarters; but some make the same of wicker, and cast them
over with clay. We cherish none in trees, but set our hives somewhere
on the warmest side of the house, providing that they may stand dry and
without danger both of the mouse and the moth. This furthermore is to
be noted, that whereas in vessels of oil that which is nearest the top
is counted the finest and of wine that in the middest, so of honey the
best which is heaviest and moistest is always next the bottom, and evermore
casteth and driveth his dregs upward toward the very top, contrary to
the nature of other liquid substances, whose grounds and leeze do generally
settle downwards. And thus much as by the way of our bees and English
honey. As for the whole-bodied, as the cantharides, and such venomous creatures
of the same kind, to be abundantly found in other countries, we hear not
of them: yet have we beetles, horseflies, turdbugs or dors (called in
Latin scarabei), the locust or the grasshopper (which to me do seem to
be one thing, as I will anon declare), and such like, whereof let other
intreat that make an exercise in catching of flies, but a far greater
sport in offering them to spiders, as did Domitian sometime, and another
prince yet living who delighted so much to see the jolly combats betwixt
a stout fly and an old spider that divers men have had great rewards given
them for their painful provision of flies made only for this purpose.
Some parasites also, in the time of the aforesaid emperor (when they were
disposed to laugh at his folly, and yet would seem in appearance to gratify
his fantastical head with some shew of dutiful demeanour), could devise
to set their lord on work by letting a flesh fly privily into his chamber,
which he forthwith would eagerly have hunted (all other business set apart)
and never ceased till he had caught her into his fingers, wherewith arose
the proverb, "Ne musca quidem," uttered first by Vibius Priscus,
who being asked whether anybody was with Domitian, answered "Ne musca
quidem," whereby he noted his folly. There are some cockscombs here
and there in England, learning it abroad as men transregionate, which
make account also of this pastime, as of a notable matter, telling what
a sight is seen between them, if either of them be lusty and courageous
in his kind. One also hath made a book of the spider and the fly, wherein
he dealeth so profoundly, and beyond all measure of skill that neither
he himself that made it nor any one that readeth it can reach unto the
meaning thereof. But if those jolly fellows, instead of the straw that
they must thrust into the fly's tail (a great injury no doubt to such
a noble champion), would bestow the cost to set a fool's cap upon their
own heads, then might they with more security and less reprehension behold
these notable battles. Now, as concerning the locust, I am led by divers of my country, who
(as they say) were either in Germany, Italy, or Pannonia, 1542, when those
nations were greatly annoyed with that kind of fly, and affirm very constantly
that they saw none other creature than the grasshopper during the time
of that annoyance, which was said to come to them from the Meotides. In
most of our translations also of the Bible the word locusta is Englished
a grasshopper, and thereunto (Leviticus xi.) it is reputed among the clean
food, otherwise John the Baptist would never have lived with them in the
wilderness. In Barbary, Numidia, and sundry other places of Africa, as
they have been, 6 so are they eaten to this day powdered in
barrels, and therefore the people of those parts are called Acedophagi:
nevertheless they shorten the life of the eaters, by the production at
the last of an irksome and filthy disease. In India they are three foot
long, in Ethiopia much shorter, but in England seldom above an inch. As
for the cricket, called in Latin cicada, he hath some likelihood, but
not very great, with the grasshopper, and therefore he is not to be brought
in as an umpire in this case. Finally, Matthiolus and so many as describe
the locust do set down none other form than that of our grasshopper, which
maketh me so much the more to rest upon my former imagination, which is
that the locust and the grasshopper are one.
There is no country that may (as I take it) compare with ours in number,
excellency, and diversity of dogs. The first sort therefore he divideth either into such as rouse the beast,
and continue the chase, or springeth the bird, and bewrayeth her flight
by pursuit. And as these are commonly called spaniels, so the other are
named hounds, whereof he maketh eight sorts, of which the foremost excelleth
in perfect smelling, the second in quick espying, the third in swiftness
and quickness, the fourth in smelling and nimbleness, etc., and the last
in subtlety and deceitfulness. These (saith Strabo) are most apt for game,
and called Sagaces by a general name, not only because of their skill
in hunting, but also for that they know their own and the names of their
fellows most exactly. For if the hunter see any one to follow skilfully,
and with likelihood of good success, he biddeth the rest to hark and follow
such a dog, and they eftsoones obey so soon as they hear his name. The
first kind of these are often called harriers, whose game is the fox,
the hare, the wolf (if we had any), hart, buck, badger, otter, polecat,
lopstart, wease with neatness hath neighbourhood enough. That plausible
proverb therefore versified sometime upon a tyrant - namely, that he loved
his sow better than his son - may well be applied to some of this kind
of people, who delight more in their dogs, that are deprived of all possibility
of reason, than they do in children that are capable of wisdom and judgment.
Yea, they oft feed them of the best where the poor man's child at their
doors can hardly come by the worst. But the former abuse peradventure
reigneth where there hath been long want of issue, else where barrenness
is the best blossom of beauty: or, finally, where poor men's children
for want of their own issue are not ready to be had. It is thought of
some that it is very wholesome for a weak stomach to bear such a dog in
the bosom, as it is for him that hath the palsy to feel the daily smell
and savour of a fox. But how truly this is affirmed let the learned judge:
only it shall suffice for Doctor Caius to have said thus much of spaniels
and dogs of the gentle kind. Dogs of the homely kind are either shepherd's curs or mastiffs. The first
are so common that it needeth me not to speak of them. Their use also
is so well known in keeping the herd together (either when they grass
or go before the shepherd) that it should be but in vain to spend any
time about them. Wherefore I will leave this cur unto his own kind, and
go in hand with the mastiff, tie dog, or band dog, so called because many
of them are tied up in chains and strong bonds in the daytime, for doing
hurt abroad, which is a huge dog, stubborn, ugly, eager, burthenous of
body (and therefore of but little swiftness), terrible and fearful to
behold, and oftentimes more fierce and fell than any Archadian or Corsican
cur. Our Englishmen, to the extent that these dogs may be more cruel and
fierce, assist nature with some art, use, and custom. For although this
kind of dog be capable of courage, violent, valiant, stout, and bold:
yet will they increase these their stomachs by teaching them to bait the
bear, the bull, the lion, and other such like cruel and bloody beasts
(either brought over or kept up at home for the same purpose), without
any collar to defe pleasures. Divers of them likewise are of such jealousy
over their master and whosoever of his household, that if a stranger do
embrace or touch any of them, they will fall fiercely upon them, unto
their extreme mischief if their fury be not prevented. Such a one was
the dog of Nichomedes, king sometime of Bithynia, who seeing Consigne
the queen to embrace and kiss her husband as they walked together in a
garden, did tear her all to pieces, maugre his resistance and the present
aid of such as attended on them. Some of them moreover will suffer a stranger
to come in and walk about the house or yard where he listeth, without
giving over to follow him: but if he put forth his hand to touch anything,
then will they fly upon them and kill them if they may. I had one myself
once, which would not suffer any man to bring in his weapon further than
my gate: neither those that were of my house to be touched in his presence.
Or if I had beaten any of my children, he would gently have essayed to
catch the rod in his teeth and take it out of my hand or else pluck down
their clothes to save them from the stripes: which in my opinion is not
unworthy to be noted. The last sort of dogs consisteth of the currish kind meet for many toys,
of which the whappet or prick-eared cur is one. Some men call them warners,
because they are good for nothing else but to bark and give warning when
anybody doth stir or lie in wait about the house in the night season.
Certes it is impossible to describe these curs in any order, because they
have no one kind proper unto themselves, but are a confused company mixed
of all the rest. The second sort of them are called turnspits, whose office
is not unknown to any. And as these are only reserved for this purpose,
so in many places our mastiffs (beside the use which tinkers have of them
in carrying their heavy budgets) are made to draw water in great wheels
out of deep wells, going much like unto those which are framed for our
turnspits, as is to be seen at Roiston, where this feat is often practised.
Besides these also we have sholts or curs daily brought out of Ireland,
and made much of among us, because of their sauciness and quarrelling.
Moreover they bite very sore, and love candles exceedingly, as do the
men and women of their country; but I may say no more of them, because
they are not bred with us. Yet this will I make report of by the way,
for pastime's sake, that when a great man of those parts came of late
into one of our ships which went thither for fish, to see the form and
fashion of the same, his wife apparelled in fine sables, abiding on the
deck whilst her husband was under the hatches with the mariners, espied
a pound or two of candles hanging on the mast, and being loath to stand
there idle alone, she fell to and eat them up every one, supposing herself
to have been at a jolly banquet, and shewing very pleasant gesture when
her husband came up again unto her. The last kind of toyish curs are named dancers, and those being of a
mongrel sort also, are taught and exercised to dance in measure at the
musical sound of an instrument, as at the just stroke of a drum, sweet
accent of the citharne, and pleasant harmony of the harp, shewing many
tricks by the gesture of their bodies: as to stand bolt upright, to lie
flat on the ground, to turn round as a ring holding their tails in their
teeth, to saw and beg for meat, to take a man's cap from his head, and
sundry such properties, which they learn of their idle roguish masters,
whose instruments they are to gather gain, as old apes clothed in motley
and coloured short-waisted jackets are for the like vagabonds, who seek
no better living than that which they may get by fond pastime and idleness.
I might here intreat of other dogs, as of those which are bred between
a bitch and a wolf, also between a bitch and a fox, or a bear and a mastiff.
But as we utterly want the first sort, except they be brought unto us:
so it happeneth sometimes that the other two are engendered and seen at
home amongst us. But all the rest heretofore remembered in this chapter
there is none more ugly and odious in sight, cruel and fierce in deed,
nor untractable in hand, than that which is begotten between the bear
and the bandog. For whatsoever he catcheth hold of he taketh it so fast
that a man may sooner tear and rend his body in sunder than get open his
mouth to separate his chaps. Certes he regardeth neither wolf, bear, nor
lion, and therefore may well be compared with those two dogs which were
sent to Alexander out of India (and procreated as it is thought between
a mastiff and a male tiger, as be those also of Hircania), or to them
that are bred in Archadia, where copulation is oft seen between lions
and bitches, as the lion is in France (as I said) between she wolves and
dogs, whereof let this suffice, sith the further tractation of them doth
not concern my purpose, more than the confutation of Cardan's talk, De
subt., lib. 10, who saith that after many generations dogs do become wolves,
and contrariwise, which if it were true, then could not England be without
many wolves: but nature hath set a difference between them, not only in
outward form, but also inward disposition of their bones, whereof it is
impossible that his assertion can be sound.
There is nothing that hath brought me into more admiration of the power
and force of antiquity than their diligence and care had of their navies:
wherein, whether I consider their speedy building, or great number of
ships which some one kingdom or region possessed at one instant, it giveth
me still occasion either to suspect the history, or to think that in our
times we come very far behind them. 1 . . .
I must needs confess therefore that the ancient vessels far exceeded
ours for capacity, nevertheless if you regard the form, and the assurance
from peril of the sea, and therewithal the strength and nimbleness of
such as are made in our time, you shall easily find that ours are of more
value than theirs: for as the greatest vessel is not always the fastest,
so that of most huge capacity is not always the aptest to shift and brook
the seas: as might be seen by the Great Henry, the hugest vessel that
ever England framed in our times. Neither were the ships of old like unto
ours in mould and manner of building above the water (for of low galleys
in our seas we make small account) nor so full of ease within, since time
hath engendered more skill in the wrights, and brought all things to more
perfection than they had in the beginning. And now to come unto our purpose
at the first intended. The navy of England may be divided into three sorts, of which the one
serveth for the wars, the other for burden, and the third for fishermen
which get their living by fishing on the sea. How many of the first order
are maintained within the realm it passeth my cunning to express; yet,
since it may be parted into the navy royal and common fleet, I think good
to speak of those that belong unto the prince, and so much the rather,
for that their number is certain and well known to very many. Certainly
there is no prince in Europe that hath a more beautiful or gallant sort
of ships than the queen's majesty of England at this present, and those
generally are of such exceeding force that two of them, being well appointed
and furnished as they ought, will not let to encounter with three or four
of those of other countries, and either bowge them or put them to flight,
if they may not bring them home. Neither are the moulds of any foreign barks so conveniently made, to
brook so well one sea as another lying upon the shore of any part of the
continent, as those of England. And therefore the common report that strangers
make of our ships amongst themselves is daily confirmed to be true, which
is, that for strength, assurance, nimbleness, and swiftness of sailing,
there are no vessels in the world to be compared with ours. And all these
are committed to the regiment and safe custody of the admiral, who is
so called (as some imagine) of the Greek word almiras, a captain on the
sea; for so saith Zonaras in Basilio Macedone and Basilio Porphyriogenito,
though others fetch it from ad mare, the Latin words, another sort from
Amyras, the Saracen magistrate, or from some French derivation: but these
things are not for this place, and therefore I pass them over. The queen's
highness hath at this present (which is the four-and-twentieth of her
reign) already made and furnished, to the number of four or five-and-twenty
great ships, which lie for the most part in Gillingham Road, beside three
galleys, of whose particular names and furniture (so far forth as I can
come by them) it shall not be amiss to make report at this time. The names of so many ships belonging to her majesty as I could come by
at this present. The Bonadventure. Elizabeth Jonas. 2 Triumph. Bull. Tiger.
3 White Bear. Philip and Mary. Aid. Handmaid. Dreadnought.
Antelope. Hope. Lion. Victory. Mary Rose. Foresight. Swift sute. Swallow.
Genet. Bark of Bullen. Achates. Falcon. George. Revenge.
It is said that as kings and princes have in the young days of the world,
and long since, framed themselves to erect every year a city in some one
place or other of their kingdom (and no small wonder that Sardanapalus
should begin and finish two, to wit, Anchialus and Tarsus, in one day),
so her grace doth yearly build one ship or other to the better defence
of her frontiers from the enemy. But, as of this report I have no assured
certainly, so it shall suffice to have said of so much these things; yet
this I think worthy further to be added, that if they should all be driven
to service at one instance (which God forbid) she should have a power
by sea of about nine or ten thousand men, which were a notable company,
beside the supply of other vessels appertaining to her subjects to furnish
up her voyage. Beside these, her grace hath other in hand also, of whom hereafter, as
their turns do come about, I will not let to leave some furthhr remembrance
She hath likewise three notable galleys: the Speedwell, the the water
only were framed of the said wickers, and that the Britons did use to
fast all the whiles they went to the sea in them; but whether it were
done for policy or superstition, as yet I do not read. In the beginning of the Saxon's regiment we had some ships also; but
as their number and mould was little, and nothing to the purpose, so Egbert
was the first prince that ever thoroughly began to know this necessity
of a navy and use the service thereof in the defence of his country. After
him also other princes, as Alfred, Edgar, Ethelred, etc., endeavoured
more and more to store themselves at the full with ships of all quantities,
but chiefly Edgar, for he provided a navy of 16000 alias 3600 sail, which
he divided into four parts, and sent them to abide upon four sundry coasts
of the land, to keep the same from pirates. Next unto him (and worthy
to be remembered) is Ethelred, who made a law that every man that hold
310 hidelands should find a ship furnished to serve him in the wars. Howbeit,
as I said before, when all their navy was at the greatest, it was not
comparable for force and sure building to that which afterward the Normans
provided, neither that of the Normans anything like to the same that is
to be seen now in these our days. For the journeys also of our ships,
you shall understand that a well-builded vessel will run or sail commonly
three hundred leagues or nine hundred miles in a week, or peradventure
some will go 2200 leagues in six weeks and a half. And surely, if their
lading be ready against they come thither, there be of them that will
be here, at the WesttIndies, and home again in twelve or thirteen weeks
from Colchester, although the said Indies be eight hundred leagues from
the cape or point of Cornwall, as I have been informed. This also I understand
by report of some travellers, that, if any of our vessels happen to make
to a voyage to Hispaniola of New Spain (called in time past Quinquegia
and Haiti), which lieth between the north tropic and the Equator, after
they have once touched at the Canaries (which are eight days' sailing
or two hundred and fifty leagues from St. Lucas de Barameda, in Spain)
they will be there in thirty of forty days, and home again in Cornwall
in other eight weeks, which is a goodly matter, beside the safety and
quietness in the passage, but more of this elsewhere.
In cases of felony, manslaughter, robbery, murder, rape, piracy, and
such capital crimes as are not reputed for treason or hurt of the estate,
our sentence pronounced upon the offender is, to hang till he be dead.
For of other punishments used in other countries we have no knowledge
or use; and yet so few grievous crimes committed with us as elsewhere
in the world. To use torment also or question by pain and torture in these
common cases with us is greatly abhorred, since we are found always to
be such as despise death, and yet abhor to be tormented, choosing rather
frankly to open our minds than to yield our bodies unto such servile haulings
and tearings as are used in other countries. And this is one cause wherefore
our condemned persons do go so cheerfully to their deaths; for our nation
is free, stout, haughty, prodigal of life and blood, as Sir Thomas Smith
saith, lib. 2, cap. 25, De Republica, and therefore cannot in any wise
digest to be used as villains and slaves, in suffering continually beating,
servitude, and servile torments. No, our gaolers are guilty of felony,
by an old law of the land, if they torment any prisoner committed to their
custody for the revealing of his accomplices. The greatest and most grievous punishment used in England for such as
offend against the State is drawing from the prison to the place of execution
upon an hurdle or sled, where they are hanged till they be half dead,
and then taken down, and quartered alive; after that, their members and
bowels are cut from their bodies, and thrown into a fire, provided near
hand and within their own sight, even for the same purpose. Sometimes, if the trespass be not the more heinous, they are suffered
to hang till they be quite dead. And whensoever any of the nobility are
convicted of high treason by their peers, that is to say, equals (for
an inquest of yeomen passeth not upon them, but only of the lords of parliament),
this manner of their death is converted into the loss of their heads only,
notwithstanding that the sentence do run after the former order. In trial
of cases concerning treason, felony, or any other grievous crime not confessed,
the party accused doth yield, if he be a noble man, to be tried by an
inquest (as I have said) and his peers; if a gentleman, by gentlemen;
and an inferior, by God and by the country, to wit, the yeomanry (for
combat or battle is not greatly in use), and, being condemned of felony,
manslaughter, etc., he is eftsoons hanged by the neck till he be dead,
and then cut down and buried. But if he be convicted of wilful murder,
done either upon pretended malice or in any notable robbery, he is either
hanged alive in chains near the place where the fact was committed (or
else upon compassion taken, first strangled with a rope), and so continueth
till his bones consume to nothing. We have use neither of the wheel nor
of the bar, as in other countries; but, when wilful manslaughter is perpetrated,
beside hanging, the offender hath his right hand commonly stricken off
before or near unto the place where the act was done, after which he is
led forth to the place of execution, and there put to death according
to the law. The word felon is derived of the Saxon words fell and one, that is to
say, an evil and wicked one, a one of untameable nature and lewdness not
to be suffered for fear of evil example and the corruption of others.
In like sort in the word felony are many grievous crimes contained, as
breach of prison (Ann. 1 of Edward the Second), disfigurers of the prince's
liege people (Ann. 5 of Henry th had defiled their nuns. As in theft therefore,
so in adultery and whoredom, I would wish the parties trespassing to be
made bond or slaves unto those that received the injury, to sell and give
where they listed, or to be condemned to the galleys: for that punishment
would prove more bitter to them than half-an-hour's hanging, or than standing
in a sheet, though the weather be never so cold. Manslaughter in time past was punishment by the purse, wherein the quantity
or quality of the punishment was rated after the state and calling of
the party killed: so that one was valued sometime at 1200, another at
600, or 200 shillings. And by a statute made under Henry the First, a
citizen of London at 100, whereof elsewhere I have spoken more at large.
Such as kill themselves are buried in the field with a stake driven through
their bodies. Witches are hanged, or sometimes burned; but thieves are hanged (as I
said before) generally on the gibbet or gallows, saving in Halifax, where
they are beheaded after a strange manner, and whereof I find this report.
There is and has been of ancient time a law, or rather a custom, at Halifax,
that whosoever does commit any felony, and is taken with the same, or
confesses the fact upon examination, if it be valued by four constables
to amount to the sum of thirteen-pence-halfpenny, he is forthwith beheaded
upon one of the next market days (which fall usually upon the Tuesdays,
Thursdays, and Saturdays), or else upon the same day that he is so convicted,
if market be then holden. The engine wherewith the execution is done is
a square block of wood of the length of four feet and a half, which does
ride up and down in a slot, rabbet, or regall, between two pieces of timber,
that are framed and set upright, of five yards in height. In the nether
end of the sliding block is an axe, keyed or fastened with an iron into
the wood, which being drawn up to the top of the frame is there fastened
by a wooden pin (with a notch made into the same, after the manner of
a Samson's post), unto the midst of which pin also there is a long rope
fastened that cometh down among the people, so that, when the offender
hath made his confession nd hath laid his neck over the nethermost block,
every man there present doth either take hold of the rope (or putteth
forth his arm so near to the same as he can get, in token that he is willing
to see true justice executed), and, pulling out the pin in this manner,
the head-block wherein the axe is fastened doth fall down with such a
violence that, if the neck of the transgressor were as big as that of
a bull, it should be cut in sunder at a stroke and roll from the body
by a huge distance. If it be so that the offender be apprehended for an
ox, oxen, sheep, kine, horse, or any such cattle, the self beast or other
of the same kind shall have the end of the rope tied somewhere unto them,
so that they, being driven, do draw out the pin, whereby the offender
is executed. Thus much of Halifax law, which I set down only to shew the
custom of that country in this behalf. Rogues and vagabonds are often stocked and whipped; scolds are ducked
upon cucking-stools in the water. Such felons as stand mute, and speak
not at their arraignment, are pressed to death by huge weights laid upon
a board, that lieth over their breast, and a sharp stone under their backs;
and these commonly held their peace, thereby to save their goods unto
their wives and children, which, if they were condemned, should be confiscated
to the prince. Thieves that are saved by their books and clergy, for the
first offence, if they have stolen nothing else but oxen, sheep, money,
or such like, which be no open robberies, as by the highway side, or assailing
of any man's house in the night, without putting him in fear of his life,
or breaking up his walls or doors, are burned in the left hand, upon the
brawn of the thumb, with a hot iron, so that, if they be apprehended again,
that mark betrayeth them to have been arraigned of felony before, whereby
they are sure at that time to have no mercy. I do not read that this custom
of saving by the book is used anywhere else than in England; neither do
I find (after much diligent enquiry) what Saxon prince ordained that law.
Howbeit this I generally gather thereof, that it was devised to train
the inhabitants of this land to the love of learning, which before contemned
letters and all good knowledge, as men only giving themselves to husbandry
and the wars: the like whereof I read to have been amongst the Goths and
Vandals, who for a time would not suffer even their princes to be learned,
for weakening of their courage, nor any learned men to remain in the council
house, but by open proclamation would command them to avoid whensoever
anything touching the state of the land was to be consulted upon. Pirates
and robbers by sea are condemned in the Court of the Admiralty, and hanged
on the shore at low-water mark, where they are left till three tides have
overwashed them. Finally, such as having walls and banks near unto the
sea, and do suffer the same to decay (after convenient admonition), whereby
the water entereth and drowneth up the country, are by a certain ancient
custom apprehended, condemned, and staked in the breach, where they remain
for ever as parcel of the foundation of the new wall that is to be made
upon them, as I have heard reported. And thus much in part of the administration of justice used in our country,
wherein, notwithstanding that we do not often hear of horrible, merciless,
and wilful murders (such I mean as are not seldom seen in the countries
of the main), yet now and then some manslaughter and bloody robberies
are perpetrated and committed, contrary to the laws, which be severely
punished, and in such wise as I have before reported. Certes there is
no greater mischief done in England than by robberies, the first by young
shifting gentlemen, which oftentimes do bear more port than they are able
to maintain. Secondly by serving-men, whose wages cannot suffice so much
as to find them breeches; wherefore they are now and then constrained
either to keep highways, and break into the wealthy men's houses with
the first sort, or else to walk up and down in gentlemen's and rich farmers'
pastures, there to see and view which horses feed best, whereby they many
times get something, although with hard adventure: it hath been known
by their confession at the gallows that some one such chapman hath had
forty, fifty, or sixty stolen horses at pasture here and there abroad
in the country at a time, which they have sold at fairs and markets far
off, they themselves in the mean season being taken about home for honest
yeomen, and very wealthy drovers, till their dealings have been betrayed.
It is not long since one of this company was apprehended, who was before
time reputed for a very honest and wealthy townsman; he uttered also more
horses than any of his trade, because he sold a reasonable pennyworth
and was a fairspoken man. It was his custom likewise to say, if any man
hucked hard with him about the price of a gelding, "So God help me,
gentlemen (or sir), either he did cost me so much, or else, by Jesus,
I stole him!" Which talk was plain enough; and yet such was his estimation
that each believed the first part of his tale, and made no account of
the latter, which was truer indeed. Our third annoyers of the commonwealth are rogues, which do very great
mischief in all places where they become. For, whereas the rich only suffer
injury by the first two, these spare neither rich nor poor; but, whether
it be great gain or small, all is fish that cometh to net with them. And
yet, I say, both they and the rest are trussed up apace. For there is
not one year commonly wherein three hundred or four hundred of them are
not devoured and eaten up by the gallows in one place and other. It appeareth
by Cardan (who writeth it upon the report of the bishop of Lexovia), in
the geniture of King Edward the Sixth, how Henry the Eighth, executing
his laws very severely against such idle persons, I mean great thieves,
petty thieves, and rogues, did hang up threescore and twelve thousand
of them in his time. He seemed for a while greatly to have terrified the
rest; but since his death the number of them is so increased, yea, although
we have had no wars, which are a great occasion of their breed (for it
is the custom of the more idle sort, having once served, or but seen the
other side of the sea under colour of service, to shake hands with labour
for ever, thinking it a disgrace for himself to return unto his former
trade), that, except some better order be taken, or the laws already made
be better executed, such as dwell in uplandish towns and little villages
shall live but in small safety and rest. For the better apprehension also
of thieves and mankillers, there is an old law in England very well provided
whereby it is ordered that, if he that is robbed (or any man) complain
and give warning of slaughter or murder committed, the constable of the
village whereunto he cometh and crieth for succour is to raise the parish
about him, and to search woods, groves, and all suspected houses and places,
where the trespasser may be, or is supposed to lurk; and not finding him
there, he is to give warning unto the next constable, and so one constable,
after search made, to advertise another from parish to parish, till they
come to the same where the offender is harboured and found. It is also
provided that, if any parish in this business do not her duty, but suffereth
the thief (for the avoiding of trouble sake) in carrying him to the gaol,
if he should be apprehended, or other letting of their work to escape,
the same parish is not only to make fine to the king, but also the same,
with the whole hundred wherein it standeth, to repay the party robbed
his damages, and leave his estate harmless. Certainly this is a good law;
howbeit I have known by my own experience felons being taken to have escaped
out of the stocks, being rescued by other for want of watch and guard,
that thieves have been let pass, because the covetous and greedy parishioners
would neither take the pains nor be at the charge, to carry them to prison,
if it were far off; that when hue and cry have been made even to the faces
of some constables, they have said: "God restore your loss! I have
other business at this time." And by such means the meaning of many
a good law is left unexecuted, malefactors emboldened, and many a poor
man turned out of that which he hath sweat and taken great pains toward
the maintenance of himself and his poor children and family.
There have been heretofore, and at sundry times, divers famous universities
in this island, and those even in my days not altogether forgotten, as
one at Bangor, erected by Lucius, and afterward converted into a monastery,
not by Congellus (as some write), but by Pelagius the monk. The second
at Caerleon-upon-Usk, near to the place where the river doth fall into
the Severn, founded by King Arthur. The third at Thetford, wherein were
six hundred students, in the time of one Rond, sometime king of that region.
The fourth at Stamford, suppressed by Augustine the monk. And likewise
other in other places, as Salisbury, Eridon or Cricklade, Lachlade, Reading,
and Northampton; albeit that the two last rehearsed were not authorised,
but only arose to that name by the departure of the students from Oxford
in time of civil dissension unto the said towns, where also they continued
but for a little season. When that of Salisbury began I cannot tell; but
that it flourished most under Henry the Third and Edward the First I find
good testimony by the writers, as also by the discord which fell, 1278,
between the chancellor for the scholars there on the one part and William
the archdeacon on the other, whereof you shall see more in the chronology
here following. In my time there are three noble universities in England
- to wit, one at Oxford, the second at Cambridge, and the third in London;
of which the first two are the most famous, I mean Cambridge and Oxford,
for that in them the use of the tongues, philosophy, and the liberal sciences,
besides the profound studies of the civil law, physic, and theology, are
daily taught and had: whereas in the latter the laws of the realm are
only read and learned by such as give their minds unto the knowledge of
the same. In the first there are not only divers goodly houses builded
four square for the most part of hard freestone or brick, with great numbers
of lodgings and chambers in the same for students, after a sumptuous sort,
through the exceeding liberality of kings, queens, bishops, noblemen and
ladies of the land; but also large livings and great revenues bestowed
upon them (the like whereof is not to be seen in any other region, as
Peter Martyr did oft affirm) to the maintenance only of such convenient
numbers of poor men's sons as the several stipends bestowed upon the said
houses are able to support. 1 . . .
Of these two, that of Oxford (which lieth west and by north from London)
standeth most pleasantly, being environed in manner round about with woods
on the hills aloft, and goodly rivers in the bottoms and valleys beneath,
whose courses would breed no small commodity to that city and country
about if such impediments were removed as greatly annoy the same and hinder
the carriage which might be made thither also from London. That of Cambridge
is distant from London about forty and six miles north and by east, and
standeth very well, saving that it is somewhat near unto the fens, whereby
the wholesomeness of the air is not a little corrupted. It is excellently
well served with all kinds of provisions, but especially of fresh water
fish and wild fowl, by reason of the river that passeth thereby; and thereto
the Isle of Ely, which is so near at hand. Only wood is the chief want
to such as study there, wherefore this kind of provision is brought them
either from Essex and other places thereabouts, as is also their coal,
or otherwise the necessity thereof is supplied with gall (a bastard kind
of mirtus as I take it) and seacoal, whereof they have great plenty led
thither by the Grant. Moreover it hath not such store of meadow ground
as may suffice for the ordinary expenses of the town and university, wherefore
the inhabitants are enforced in like sort to provide their hay from other
villages about, which minister the same unto them in very great abundance. Oxford is supposed to contain in longitude eighteen degrees and eight
and twenty minutes, and in latitude one and fifty degrees and fifty minutes:
whereas that of Cambridge standing more northerly, hath twenty degrees
and twenty minutes in longitude, and thereunto fifty and two degrees and
fifteen minutes in latitude, as by exact supputation is easy to be found. The colleges of Oxford, for curious workmanship and private commodities,
are much more stately, magnificent, and commodious than those of Cambridge:
and thereunto the streets of the town for the most part are more large
and comely. But for uniformity of building, orderly compaction, and politic
regiment, the town of Cambridge, as the newer workmanship, 2
exceeds that of Oxford (which otherwise is, and hath been, the greater
of the two) by many a fold (as I guess), although I know divers that are
of the contrary opinion. This also is certain, that whatsoever the difference
be in building of the town streets, the townsmen of both are glad when
they may match and annoy the students, by encroaching upon their liberties,
and keep them bare by extreme sale of their wares, whereby many of them
become rich for a time, but afterward fall again into poverty, because
that goods evil gotten do seldom long endure. 3 . . .
In each of these universities also is likewise a church dedicated to
the Virgin Mary, wherein once in the year - to wit, in July - the scholars
are holden, and in which such as have been called to any degree in the
year precedent do there receive the accomplishment of the same, in solemn
and sumptuous manner. In Oxford this solemnity is called an Act, but in
Cambridge they use the French word Commencement; and such resort is made
yearly unto the same from all parts of the land by the friends of those
who do proceed that all the town is hardly able to receive and lodge those
guests. When and by whom the churches aforesaid were built I have elsewhere
made relation. That of Oxford also was repaired in the time of Edward
the Fourth and Henry the Seventh, when Doctor Fitz James, a great helper
in that work, was warden of Merton College; but ere long, after it was
finished, one tempest in a night so defaced the same that it left few
pinnacles standing about the church and steeple, which since that time
have never been repaired. There were sometime four and twenty parish churches
in the town and suburbs; but now there are scarcely sixteen. There have
been also 1200 burgesses, of which 400 dwelt in the suburbs; and so many
students were there in the time of Henry the Third that he allowed them
twenty miles compass about the town for their provision of victuals. The common schools of Cambridge also are far more beautiful than those
of Oxford, only the Divinity School of Oxford excepted, which for fine
and excellent workmanship cometh next the mould of the King's Chapel in
Cambridge, than the which two, with the Chapel that King Henry the Seventh
did build at Westminster, there are not (in my opinion) made of lime and
stone three more notable piles within the compass of Europe. In all the other things there is so great equality between these two
universities as no man can imagine how to set down any greater, so that
they seem to be the body of one well-ordered commonwealth, only divided
by distance of place and not in friendly consent and orders. In speaking
therefore of the one I cannot but describe the other; and in commendation
of the first I cannot but extol the latter; and, so much the rather, for
that they are both so dear unto me as that I cannot readily tell unto
whether of them I owe the most goodwill. Would to God my knowledge were
such as that neither of them might have cause to be ashamed of their pupil,
or my power so great that I might worthily requite them both for those
manifold kindnesses that I have received of them! But to leave these things,
and proceed with other more convenient to my purpose. The manner to live in these universities is not as in some other of foreign
countries we see daily to happen, where the students are enforced for
want of such houses to dwell in common inns, and taverns, without all
order or discipline. But in these our colleges we live in such exact order,
and under so precise rules of government, as that the famous learned man
Erasmus of Rotterdam, being here among us fifty years passed, did not
let to compare the trades in living of students in these two places, even
with the very rules and orders of the ancient monks, affirming moreover,
in flat words, our orders to be such as not only came near unto, but rather
far exceeded, all the monastical institutions that ever were devised. In most of our colleges there are also great numbers of students, of
which many are found by the revenues of the houses and other by the purveyances
and help of their rich friends, whereby in some one college you shall
have two hundred scholars, in others an hundred and fifty, in diverts
a hundred and forty, and in the rest less numbers, as the capacity of
the said houses is able to receive: so that at this present, of one sort
and other, there are about three thousand students nourished in them both
(as by a late survey it manifestly appeared). They were erected by their
founders at the first only for poor men's sons, whose parents were not
able to bring them up unto learning; but now they have the least benefit
of them, by reason the rich do so encroach upon them. And so far has this
inconvenience spread itself that it is in my time a hard matter for a
poor man's child to come by a fellowship (though he be never so good a
scholar and worthy of that room). Such packing also is used at elections
that not he which best deserveth, but he that has most friends, though
he be the worst scholar, is always surest to speed, which will turn in
the end to the overthrow of learning. That some gentlemen also whose friends
have been in times past benefactors to certain of those houses do intrude
into the disposition of their estates without all respect of order or
statutes devised by the founders, only thereby to place whom they think
good (and not without some hope of gain), the case is too too evident:
and their attempt would soon take place if their superiors did not provide
to bridle their endeavours. In some grammar schools likewise which send
scholars to these universities, it is lamentable to see what bribery is
used; for, ere the scholar can be preferred, such bribage is made that
poor men's children are commonly shut out, and the richer sort received
(who in time past thought it dishonour to live as it were upon alms),
and yet, being placed, most of them study little other than histories,
tables, dice, and trifles, as men that make not the living by their study
the end of their purposes, which is a lamentable hearing. Beside this,
being for the most part either gentlemen or rich men's sons, they often
bring the universities into much slander. For, standing upon their reputation
and liberty, they ruffle and roist it out, exceeding in apparel, and banting
riotous company which draweth them from their books unto another trade),
and for excuse, when they are charged with breach of all good order, think
it sufficient to say that they be gentlemen, which grieveth many not a
little. But to proceed with the rest. Every one of these colleges have in like manner their professors or readers
of the tongues and several sciences, as they call them, which daily trade
up the youth there abiding privately in their halls, to the end they may
be able afterward (when their turn cometh about, which is after twelve
terms) to shew themselves abroad, by going from thence into the common
schools and public disputations (as it were "In aream") there
to try their skill, and declare how they have profited since their coming
thither. Moreover, in the public schools of both the universities, there are found
at the prince's charge (and that very largely) fine professors and readers,
that is to say, of divinity, of the civil law, physic, the Hebrew and
the Greek tongues. And for the other lectures, as of philosophy, logic,
rhetoric, and the quadrivials (although the latter, I mean arithmetic,
music, geometry, and astronomy, and with them all skill in the perspectives,
are now smally regarded in either of them), the universities themselves
do allow competent stipends to such as read the same, whereby they are
sufficiently provided for, touching the maintenance of their estates,
and no less encouraged to be diligent in their functions. These professors in like sort have all the rule of disputations and other
school exercises which are daily used in common schools severally assigned
to each of them, and such of their hearers as by their siill shewed in
the said disputations are thought to have attained to any convenient ripeness
of knowledge according to the custom of other universities (although not
in like order) are permitted solemnly to take their deserved degrees of
school in the same science and faculty wherein they have spent their travel.
From that time forward also they use such difference in apparel as becometh
their callings, tendeth unto gravity, and maketh them known to be called
to some countenance. The first degree is that of the general sophisters, from whence, when
they have learned more sufficiently the rules of logic, rhetoric, and
obtained thereto competent skill in philosophy, and in the mathematicals,
they ascend higher unto the estate of bachelors of art, after four years
of their entrance into their sophistry. From thence also, giving their
minds to more perfect knowledge in some or all the other liberal sciences
and the tongues, they rise at the last (to wit, after other three or four
years) to be called masters of art, each of them being at that time reputed
for a doctor in his faculty, if he profess but one of the said sciences
(besides philosophy), or for his general skill, if he be exercised in
them all. After this they are permitted to choose what other of the higher
studies them liketh to follow, whether it be divinity, law, or physic,
so that, being once masters of art, the next degree, if they follow physic,
is the doctorship belonging to that profession; and likewise in the study
of the law, if they bend their minds to the knowledge of the same. But,
if they mean to go forward with divinity, this is the order used in that
profession. First, after they have necessarily proceeded masters of art,
they preach one sermon to the people in English, and another to the university
in Latin. They answer all comers also in their own persons unto two several
questions of divinity in the open schools at one time for the space of
two hours, and afterward reply twice against some other man upon a like
number and on two several dates in the same place, which being done with
commendation, he receiveth the fourth degree, that is, bachelor of divinity,
but not before he has been master of arts by the space of seven years,
according to their statutes. The next, and last degree of all, is the doctorship, after other three
years, for the which he must once again perform all such exercises and
acts as are before remembered; and then is he reputed able to govern and
teach others, and likewise taken for a doctor. I have read that John of
Beverley was the first doctor that ever was in Oxford, as Beda was in
Cambridge. But I suppose herein that the word "doctor" is not
so strictly to be taken in this report as it is now used, since every
teacher is in Latin called by that name, as also such in the primitive
church as kept schools of catechists, wherein they were trained up in
the rudiments and principles of religion, either before they were admitted
unto baptism or any office in the Church. Thus we see that from our entrance into the university unto the last
degree received is commonly eighteen or twenty years, in which time, if
a student has not obtained sufficient learning thereby to serve his own
turn and benefit his commonwealth, let him never look by tarrying longer
to come by any more. For after this time, and forty years of age, the
most part of students do commonly give over their wonted diligence, and
live like drone bees on the fat of colleges, withholding better wits from
the possession of their places, and yet doing little good in their own
vocation and calling. I could rehearse a number (if I listed) of this
sort, as well in one university as the other. But this shall suffice instead
of a large report, that long continuance in those places is either a sign
of lack of friends, or of learning, or of good and upright life, as Bishop
Fox 4 sometime noted, who thought it sacrilege for a man to
tarry any longer at Oxford than he had a desire to profit.
A man may (if he will) begin his study with the law, or physic (of which
this giveth wealth, the other honour), so soon as he cometh to the university,
if his knowledge in the tongues and ripeness of judgment serve therefor:
which if he do, then his first degree is bachelor of law, or physic; and
for the same he must perform such acts in his own science as the bachelors
or doctors of divinity do for their parts, the only sermons except, which
belong not to his calling. Finally, this will I say, that the professors
of either of those faculties come to such perfection in both universities
as the best students beyond the sea do in their own or elsewhere. One
thing only I mislike in them, and that is their usual going into Italy,
from whence very few without special grace do return good men whatsoever
they pretend of conference or practice, chiefly the physicians 5
who under pretence of seeking of foreign simples do oftentimes learn the
framing of such compositions as were better unknown than practised, as
I have heard often alleged, and therefore it is most true that Doctor
Turner said: "Italy is not to be seen without a guide, that is, without
special grace given from God, because of the licentious and corrupt behaviour
of the people."
There is moreover in every house a master or provost, who has under him
a president and certain censors or deans, appointed to look to the behaviour
and manners of the students there, whom they punish very severely if they
make any default, according to the quantity and quality of their trespass.
And these are the usual names of governors in Cambridge. Howbeit in Oxford
the heads of houses are now and then called presidents in respect of such
bishops as are their visitors and founders. In each of these also they
have one or more treasurers, whom they call bursarios or bursars, beside
other officers whose charge is to see unto the welfare and maintenance
of these houses. Over each university also there is a several chancellor,
whose offices are perpetual, howbeit their substitutes, whom we call vice-chancellors,
are changed every year, as are also the proctors, taskers, masters of
the streets, and other officers, for the better maintenance of their policy
and estate. And thus much at this time of our two universities, in each of which
I have received such degree as they have vouchsafed - rather of their
favour than my desert - to yield and bestow upon me, and unto whose students
I wish one thing, the execution whereof cannot be prejudicial to any that
meaneth well, as I am resolutely persuaded, and the case now standeth
in these our days. When any benefice therefore becometh void it were good
that the patron did signify the vacation thereof to the bishop, and the
bishop the act of the patron to one of the universities, with request
that the vice-chancellor with his assistants might provide some such able
man to succeed in the place as should by their judgment be meet to take
the charge upon him. Certainly if this order were taken, then should the
church be provided of good pastors, by whom God should be glorified, the
universities better stored, the simoniacal practices of a number of patrons
utterly abolished, and the people better trained to live in obedience
toward God and their prince, which were a happier estate. To these two also we may in like sort add the third, which is at London
(serving only for such as study the laws of the realm) where there are
sundry famous houses, of which three are called by the name of Inns of
the Court, the rest of the Chancery, and all built before time for the
furtherance and commodity of such as apply their minds to our common laws.
Out of these also come many scholars of great fame, whereof the most part
have heretofore been brought up in one of the aforesaid universities,
and prove such commonly as in process of time rise up (only through their
profound skill) to great honour in the commonwealth of England. They have
also degrees of learning among themselves, and rules of discipline, under
which they live most civilly in their houses, albeit that the younger
of them abroad in the streets are scarcely able to be bridled by any good
order at all. Certainly this error was wont also greatly to reign in Cambridge
and Oxford, between the students and the burgesses; but, as it is well
left in these two places, so in foreign countries it cannot yet be suppressed. Besides these universities, also there are great number of grammar schools
throughout the realm, and those very liberally endowed, for the better
relief of poor scholars, so that there are not many corporate towns now
under the Queen's dominion that have not one grammar school at the least,
with a sufficient living for a master and usher appointed to the same. There are like manner divers collegiate churches, as Windsor, Winchester,
Eton, Westminster (in which I was some time an unprofitable grammarian
under the reverend father Master Nowell, now dean of Paul's), and in those
a great number of poor scholars, daily maintained by the liberality of
the founders, with meat, books, and apparel, from whence, after they have
been well entered in the knowledge of the Latin and Greek rongues, and
rules of versifying (the trial whereof is made by certain apposers yearly
appointed to examine them), they are sent to certain special houses in
each university, where they are received and trained up in the points
of higher knowledge in their private halls, till they be adjudged meet
to shew their faces in the schools as I have said already. And thus much have I thought good to note of our universities, and likewise
of colleges in the same, whose names I will also set down here, with those
of their founders, to the end the zeal which they bare unto learning may
appear, and their remembrance never perish from among the wise and learned. ---Table 2.: Of the Colleges of Cambridge with their Founders] ---Table 3.: Of the Colleges of Cambridge at Oxford]
There are also in Oxford certain hotels or halls which may right well
be called by the names of colleges, if it were not that there is more
liberty in them than is to be seen in the other. In my opinion the livers
in these are very like to those that are of the inns in the chancery,
their names also are these so far as I now remember:
The students also that remain in them are called hostlers or halliers.
Hereof it came of late to pass that the right Reverend Father in God,
Thomas, late archbishop of Canterbury, being brought up in such an house
at Cambridge, was of the ignorant sort of Londoners called an "Hostler,"
supposing that he had served with some inn-holder in the stable, and therefore,
in despite, divers hung up bottles of hay at his gate when he began to
preach the gospel, whereas indeed he was a gentleman born of an ancient
house, and in the end of a faithful witness of Jesus Christ, in whose
quarrel he refused not to shed his blood, and yield up his life, unto
the fury of his adversaries. Besides these there is mention and record of divers other halls or hostels
that have been there in times past, as Beef Hall, Mutton Hall, etc., whose
ruins yet appear: so that if antiquity be to be judged by the shew of
encient buildings which is very plentiful in Oxford to be seen, it should
be an easy matter to conclude that Oxford is the elder university. Therein
are also many dwelling-houses of stone yet standing that have been halls
for students, of very antique workmanship, besides the old walls of sundry
others, whose plots have been converted into gardens since colleges were
erected. In London also the houses of students at the Common Law are these:
And thus much in general of our noble universities, whose lands some
greedy gripers do gape wide for, and of late have (as I hear) propounded
sundry reasons whereby they supposed to have prevailed in their purposes.
But who are those that have attempted this suit, other than such as either
hate learning, piety, and wisdom, or else have spent all their own, and
know not otherwise than by encroaching upon other men how to maintain
themselves? When such a motion was made by some unto King Henry the Eighth,
he could answer them in this manner: "Ah, sirra! I perceive the Abbey
lands have fleshed you, and set your teeth on edge, to ask also those
colleges. And, whereas we had a regard only to pull down sin by defacing
the monasteries, you have a desire also to overthrow all goodness, by
subversion of colleges. I tell you, sirs, that I judge no land in England
better bestowed than that which is given to our universities; for by their
maintenance our realm shall be well governed when we be dead and rotten.
As you love your welfares therefore, follow no more this vein, but content
yourselves with that you have already, or else seek honest means whereby
to increase your livelihoods; for I love not learning so ill that I will
impair the revenues of any one house by a penny, whereby it may be upholden."
In King Edward's days likewise the same suit was once again attempted
(as I have heard), but in vain; for, saith the Duke of Somerset, among
other speeches tending to that end - who also made answer thereunto in
the king's presence by his assignation: "If learning decay, which
of wild men maketh civil; of blockish and rash persons, wise and goodly
counsellors; of obstinate rebels, obedient subjects; and of evil men,
good and godly Christians; what shall we look for else but barbarism and
tumult? For when the lands of colleges be gone, it shall be hard to say
whose staff shall stand next the door; for then I doubt not but the state
of bishops, rich farmers, merchants, and the nobility, shall be assailed,
by such as live to spend all, and think that whatsoever another man hath
is more meet for them and to be at their commandment than for the proper
owner that has sweat and laboured for it." In Queen Mary's days the
weather was too warm for any such course to be taken in hand; but in the
time of our gracious Queen Elizabeth I hear that it was after a sort in
talk the third time, but without success, as moved also out of season;
and so I hope it shall continue for ever. For what comfort should it be
for any good man to see his country brought into the estate of the old
Goths and Vandals, who made laws against learning, and would not suffer
any skilful man to come into their council-house: by means whereof those
people became savage tyrants and merciless hell-hounds, till they restored
learning again and thereby fell to civility. Source Chronicle and romance: Froissart, Malory, Holinshed. With introductions
and notes. New York, P. F. Collier [c1910] The Harvard classics v.
35. |