1450-1485.] CLOTHING-ITS DEARNESS AND SCARCITY. 121 their articles of clothing. One testator leaves to a friend," one of my short gowns, a good one which is convenient for him, and my russet hood." * Another desires that a neighbour's wife shall have "my best lined gown and my cloak." Another bestows "a doublet and a pair of hosen." A worthy lady bequeaths to her son, "a tawny jacket lined with yellow." § How the bravery of their apparel was a great point with the higher classes, and how they were pinched to obtain their costly finery, we have abundant evidence. One of the Pastons honestly tells his brother that a real friend thus reproved his extravagance in dress and servants: "It is the guise of your countrymen to spend all the goods they have on men and livery gowns, and horse and harness, and so bear it out for a while, and at the last they are but beggars." || They were as solicitous about their own dress as about the splendour of their attendants; and their solicitude for display sometimes made them ridiculous. "The gallant with the great chain," who is going to be married, is clearly a butt for the Norwich ladies. Hats were a French invention of 1449; and a belted knight writes, "Send me a hat and a bonnet by the same man; and let him bring the hat upon his head, for fear of misfashioning of it." The importance attached to articles of clothing was, no doubt, the result of their comparative dearness. Coarse cloth for labourers, as we learn from the statute, was not to exceed 2s. per yard; fine cloth, fit for the gown of a doctor at an university, cost 38. 7d. Multiplying these values by 15-the supposed relation of present to ancient money-value-we see that a fine gown, which would demand several yards of broad cloth, would be a costly article; and that the working man's dress would require a considerable outlay. A hat cost a shilling-the felt hat which, looking at the different value of money, is now bought at a fourth of that amount. Although the government was always regulating the price of materials of apparel, it prevented the only practical regulation, by utterly prohibiting the importation of woollen cloth, caps, hats, gloves, girdles, wrought leather, shoes.** If in the home manufacture any cheapening process was discovered, it was put down, upon the principle which the common sense of mankind has not wholly discarded, that what abridges labour, and therefore lessens the cost of production, is a public evil: "It is showed in the said parliament, how that hats, bonnets, and caps, as well single as double, were wont to be faithfully made, wrought, fulled, and thicked by men's strength, that is to say, with hands and feet, and thereby the makers of the same have honestly before this time gained their living, and kept many apprentices, servants, and good houses, till now of late that by subtle imagination, to the destruction of the labours and sustenance of many men, such hats, bonnets, and caps have been fulled and thicked in fulling-mills, and in the said mills the said hats and caps be broken and deceitfully wrought, and in no wise by the mean of any mill may be faithfully made." ++ The "subtle imagination" which is here denounced has filled England with wealth, of which the humblest in the land is a partaker, in the universal diffusion of those conveniences and comforts of life which "men's strength, that is to say, with hands and feet," could never have produced except for the rich few. 122 DOMESTIC SERVANTS-FEMALES. [1450-1485. Of the inner household life we have some glimpses. The domestic servants of the wealthy were numerous; and those of the middle classes, as well as of the upper, appear to have been treated with a kindness and consideration that belonged to a period when no dignity was supposed to be compromised by considering dependants as humble friends. We have repeated examples of bequests to servants. In the correspondence of those servants in trust, such as bailiffs of manors, we have a frank statement of their opinions, not only as to the arrangement of property, but of higher matters concerning their master's interest. That there was eye-service and faithlessness in this state of society, as in more refined times, we may readily believe. We have seen, in the course of the public history, how mighty princes were deserted upon their death-beds, and their valuables carried off. A law of this period declares that" divers household servants, as well of lords as of other persons of great degree, shortly after the death of their said lords and masters, violently and riotously have taken and spoiled the goods which were of their said lords and masters at the time of their death, and the same distributed amongst them, to the impediment of the executors of the will of their said lords and masters."* The constant disputes about succession, and the delays in the administration of estates, may have prompted to these evil courses. The position of females in the arrangements of family is a tolerably certain indication of the general state of society. We have no materials for speaking of the female life of the times of Henry VI. and Edward IV., besides those we derive from that invaluable source of information, the "Paston Letters." We do not refer so constantly to this remarkable correspondence, which extends over forty-five years, through any peculiar belief of its importance. Mr. Hallam has called attention to these letters as "a precious link in the chain of the moral history of England, which they alone in this period supply." We here see the daughters of the house subjected to that strict discipline which then, and long after, marked the relations of child and parent. Other females, besides the daughters, were educated in the houses of the gentry; the claims of blood demanding protection for those without fortune. That the young women were, for the most part, well instructed, we may judge from the number of excellent letters, from married and single, which are found in this Paston collection. In the matters of love and matrimony, the daughters were greatly dependent upon the will of their parents, but in some cases they appear to have had a pretty determined will of their own. Every effort was made in this Paston family to break off a contraet which one daughter had made with a person of inferior degree; but the young lady eventually triumphed.‡ The interposition even of royalty to recommend a marriage was not always successful. "The queen [Margaret of Anjou] came into this town on Tuesday last past, after noon, and abode here till it was Thursday afternoon; and she sent after my cousin Elizabeth Clere, to come to her; and she durst not disobey her commandment, and came to her. And when she came in the queen's presence, the queen made right much of her, and *Stat. 33 Henry VI. сар. 1450-1485.] MARRIED LIFE OF FEMALES. HOUSEWIFERY. 123 desired her to have an husband, the which ye shall know of hereafter. But as for that, he is never nearer than he was before." * The old days were passed, when the knight knelt at the feet of his lady-love, and went forth to the tournament to challenge all men to produce her equal in beauty and virtue. The knight now ascertained what portion the lady's father would give, and he bargained for the uttermost crown. The mother made no hesitation in speaking boldly to a powerful person for a daughter, "to get for her one good marriage if he knew any." They were a plainspeaking race, and went straight to the real object of their hearts, without any unnecessary diplomacy. The "goodly young woman," not overburthened with accomplishments, but not ignorant; who could "use herself to work readily, as other gentlewomen do, and somewhat to help herself," was pretty sure to find an eligible partner. In the married life she had need of much practical knowledge besides sewing, and spinning, and housewifery. The lord of the household was no constant dweller in his own castle or manor-house. He was away, fighting, or hawking, or looking after his law-suits in London; and the lady had the rule of his retainers and the welcome of his friends-the management of his farms, the sharp bargainings with his tenants. When she gave her hand she obeyed as well as loved with a fidelity and serious devotion to her duties that could dispense with romance; and the father of her children was always to her. "worshipful." The statute of the 3rd year of Edward IV. is more minute in its enumeration of wrought goods forbidden to be imported than any which had preceded it; and it enables us to form some notion of the extent of those home manufactures which supplied the increasing domestic requirements of the people. We have mentioned the more important articles of apparel thus protected from foreign competition. The articles for which the lady was to rely upon native skill were laces, corses, ribbands, fringes, twined silk, embroidered silk, laces of gold, points, bodkins, scissors, pins, purses, pattens. But the prohibition was pretty equal with both sexes; for the gentleman, to whom the equipments of his horse was a matter of the first concern, had no choice but of English saddles, spurs, and bridles. His knife, his dagger, and his razor, were to be English; and the renown of the Sheffield "whittle" would imply that he need not seek excellence in foreign blades. In all iron ware, England relied upon her native forges for andirons, gridirons, locks, hammers, pincers, fire-tongs, dripping-pans, chafing-dishes, ladles, scummers. Hanging-candle-sticks and curtain-rings were forbidden to be imported, in common with metal basons and ewers. Playing cards and dice were amongst the prohibited articles. We thus see that our housekeepers of the fifteenth century had artificers labouring for them in various fashions. Time has spared few of the articles then produced almost solely "by man's strength," or we should discover how rudely many of the expensive wares were then fabricated, which science has now made beautiful and cheap. Many an old thrifty housewife has been in the condition of Lydgate, the chief poet of this period, who walks through London, invited by the tradesmen of Cheap and Canwick-street to buy "velvet, silk, and lawn," and she * Paston Letters, letter li. 124 THE CLERGY-INTERCOURSE WITH THE LAITY. [1450-1485. has said with him, when she saw the variety of fabrics unknown to the home of her childhood "I never was used to such things indeed, And, wanting money, I might not speed." We must turn from this bewildering enumeration of what the artisans of England had been gradually learning to produce, since the primitive time when king Alfred made his horn lantern, to look rapidly at some of the broader aspects of domestic life which remain to be indicated. We have few materials at this period to estimate the general manners of the Clergy, and especially those of the higher churchmen, as in the preceding century, when satire and solemn invective dared to raise their voices against the pride, covetousness, and luxury of bishops and mitred abbots; denouncing jovial monks and idle seculars as abandoned ministers to public immorality. The severities against those who spoke out against the corruptions of the Church had shut the mouths even of the boldest. To be pointed at as a heretic was even more fatal than to be suspected as a traitor. Lollardie was crushed. The abbeys might more and more appropriate the revenues that ought to have been the reward of the parish-priest. The bishop might neglect his sacred functions, to add to his revenues the fees of the great offices of state; and, like cardinal Beaufort, procure laws to be made against commercial freedom, and then receive large sums for licences to violate them. Great spiritual lords might band themselves with great temporal lords, to withdraw the funds of hospitals from their proper uses, and leave the old, the lazar, the lunatic, and the pregnant woman, for whose benefit those hospitals were endowed, to perish at their utmost need. They need not now fear that the Commons would again complain, as in 1410 and in 1414, that the clergy were masters of one-third of the revenue of the kingdom; and that if the superfluities of their revenues were properly applied, the realm would be in a better position of defence, the poor better maintained, and the clergy would attend more to their own functions. Such a compromise as that which the Church had made with Henry V., by allowing him, upon these allegations, to appropriate the revenues of a hundred and ten priories of aliens, would not again be necessary in this day of ecclesiastical power. With all this security, the gorgeous edifice was mouldering at its base. We must wait half a century before the great crash comes. Let us here trace a few illustrations of the domestic intercourse of the clergy with the laity. In almost every house of the nobility and higher gentry there was a chaplain. In a very large number of parishes there was a curate. The incumbent, in too many instances, was a pluralist; and thus many of the attacks of Wycliffe and his followers were levelled against those who took the wages of the shepherd and neglected the sheep. This class of chaplains and working curates was very indifferently paid. By the statute of the 36th of Edward III., no parish priest nor yearly priest should take more than five marks, or at most six," for their wages by year." The statute of the 2nd of Henry V. avers that "they will not serve but for ten pounds, or twelve, or * "London Lyckpenny." + Statute for reformation of abuses of the funds of hospitals. 2 Henry V. cap. 1. 1450-1485.] CURATES AND CHAPLAINS. 125 ́ten marks by year, at least." The unquestionable rise in the price of commodities made the poor priests as discontented with their legal wages as we have seen that the masons were. They were to be met by new laws, made by the influence of the wealthier clergy, and of the lay great men who were to pay for their services; and thus the statute ordains that "no yearly chaplain shall take for his whole wages by year, for his board, apparel, and other necessaries, but seven marks; and the parish priests which serve cures shall take but eight marks, unless by licence of the ordinary." The highest payment for a parish priest was nine marks-six pounds. The artificer at fourpence a day earned about as much as the parish priest, to suffice for "his board, apparel, and other necessaries." That this class of men would cherish a rooted dislike of the full-fed monk, and of the mendicant friar who contrived to have a sufficient share of the goods of the world, was inevitable; and the discontent gathered strength, till the image with the head of gold and the feet of iron and clay was broken to pieces. But meanwhile they laboured diligently, as many of the brethren of the monastic orders also laboured; or they could not have kept alive, amidst many observances which we properly regard as superstitious, a real spirit of piety and charity amongst the people. Some of the Wills which we have mentioned, in connection with less important matters, afford sufficient proof that this spirit was not dead in the century which preceded the Reformation. The presiding influence of religion is to be traced wherever the individual mind displays itself. It is not the influence of the particular chaplain or confessor-the reliance upon his holiness or the admiration of his learningbut the irresistible conviction that the Church is all-powerful to condemn or to save. The interference of the ecclesiastic with men's temporal affairs was never-ceasing; and the officiousness was often hastily resented by members of the family where the priest was supreme. John Paston complains that his mother's chaplain has turned her affection from her sons: "Sir James* and I be twain: we fell out before my mother, with thou proud priest,' and thou proud squire,' my mother taking his part, so I have almost beshut the bolt as for my mother's house." But the Church held its empire over the will of the population, high and low, through the universal belief in the efficacy of its ceremonial observances for procuring health and weal and the safety of souls. A husband is sick in London; and his anxious wife writes, "My mother behested [vowed] another image of wax of the weight of you, to our Lady of Walsingham; and she sent four nobles to the four orders of friars at Norwich to pray for you; and I have behested to go on pilgrimage to Walsingham and St. Leonards."+ These were not the mere fancies of the women of that time. William Yelverton, a judge of the King's Bench, writes to thank his cousin for his zeal "for Our Lady's House of Walsingham;" adding, "for truly if I be drawn to any worship or welfare, and discharge of mine enemies' danger, I ascribe it unto Our Lady." In the most doubtful time of the wars of the Roses, in 1471, the duke of Norfolk and his duchess are on pilgrimage, on foot, to Our Lady of Walsingham. By a bull of the pope, the shrine of St. Jago, in Gallicia, was averred to be of equal virtue for pilgrimage as the Holy Sepulchre. There was a little danger to give excitement to the short + Paston Letters, letter v. The title "Sir" shows that the priest held a living. |