Part 6

But, of course, this lay knowledge of herbs and so forth was not enough, for, as Andrew Borde, that man of wit and sound learning, said, quoting Galen, '"If Phisicions had nothing to do with Astronomy, Geomatry, Logycke and other sciences, coblers, curryars of lether, carpenters and smythes and al such manner of people wolde leave theyr craftes and be Phisicions," as it apereth nowe a dayes that many coblers be; fye on such ones!' Without a knowledge of astronomy how could Culpeper have discovered that a certain French quack was 'as like Mars in Capricorne as a Pomewater is an Apple,' and that therefore he was a fool? It was important also to comprehend the mystical properties of gems, many of which exercised as healing an influence as any herb. So well was this recognised that in 1217, when Alice Lunsford, a member of an old East Sussex family (whose later descendants endeavoured to extend its antiquity by forging Saxon ancestors with the delightfully improbable Christian names of David and Joseph), fell ill, she sent to Philip Daubigny and borrowed three rings from him, and when he asked for them back begged him, for the love of God, not to take them away, as without them she could not recover. Unfortunately the troops of Louis the Dauphin plundered her house shortly afterwards, and although she did recover Philip lost his rings, one of them being a sapphire for which he would not have taken 50 marks.

Gems were not only held to exercise a beneficent influence when worn in rings or held in the mouth, but were also administered internally. Amongst the long list of medicines made for Edward I. during his last illness, in 1307, is 'a comforting electuary made with ambergis, musk, pearls, and jacinths, and pure gold and silver.' Lower down in the list occurs 'a precious electuary called Dyacameron,' and a fifteenth-century book of prescriptions shows that this was composed of ginger, cinnamon, clove, and other spices, black, white, and long pepper, musk, ambergris, 'the bone of a stag's heart,' coral, pure gold, and shavings of ivory, amongst other things. This same book shows a still more elaborate preparation, called 'The Duke's Electuary,' containing fifty ingredients, but mostly herbal, and not so precious or indigestible as these others. These electuaries, which were a kind of medicated sweetmeat, seem to have been taken in large quantities, as Richard de Montpelier, King Edward's apothecary, prepared over 280 pounds of electuaries made with sugar. These cost a shilling the pound, while Dyacameron ran up to 13_s._ 4_d._ the pound, and four ounces of rose comfits (_sucurosset_) flavoured with pearls and coral cost £3, 13_s._ 4_d._ Oriental ambergris to put in the king's food and in his claret was another expensive item. But all these drugs and all the care of Master Nicholas de Tyngewyk, his physician, of whose skill the king held a high opinion, proved unavailing.

A list of drugs provided for the Scottish expedition in 1323 is chiefly of interest as showing that the virtue of a fine-sounding name for a medicine was recognised some six centuries before Mr. Ponderevo hit on the sonorous Tono-Bungay. Here are some of the items; Oxerocrosium, Diaterascos, Apostolicon, Dyaculon, Ceroneum, Popilion, Agrippa, Gracia Dei--all of them compounds of the patent medicine types; Galbanum, Armoniak, Apoponak, Bedellum, Collofonium, Mastik, and Dragon's blood--simpler vegetable preparations; Seruse, Calamine, Litharge, and Tutie--which are mineral substances: Tutie being 'bred of the sparkles of brasen furnaces, whereinto store of the mineral Calamine beaten to dust, hath been cast.' Of the high-sounding preparations Popilion was so called from its containing poplar leaves; Diaterascos was a plaster compounded of pitch, wax, acetic acid, and various aromatics; Ceroneum was a similar plaster without the acid, containing rather more aromatics and also saffron, aloes, and litharge; and Dyaculon was a third variety of plaster, very remotely, if at all, connected with the adhesive Diachylon plasters of modern times. 'The oynment that is called Agrippa' was still used in the fifteenth century for deafness, and at that date Apostolicon was made as follows: Take equal quantities of 'vermod (wormwood), smallache (water parsley), centori, waybred (? plantain), and the rote of osmond and als muche of egremoyne (agrimony) as of all the others,' seethe in vinegar and add an ounce of 'medwax (beeswax) that is multen in woman's milk' (a favourite solvent). To this is added alum, galbanum, pitch, and turpentine, and the whole worked up into an ointment. If this is not sufficiently elaborate for your purpose, 'Her is makyng of Gracia Dei: Take betanye, pympernel and vervayn, of ilkon an handfull, bothe crope and rote, and wasshe hem clene and stamp hem smalle and do hem in a new erthen pote and put therto a galon of white wyne, and if you may get no white wyne take red, and sethe them till yt come to a potell:' let it cool, strain through canvas, seethe again, and add half-a-pound of 'gud mede wax, bot loke the wax be molten first, and woman's milke of knave child and a pond of rosyn and a pond of gome litarge and a pond of galbanum and a pond of popanelke (? opoponax) and a pond of arestolog rotundum (birth-wort) and an unce of mastike wel poudred,' stir well and then 'do als mykill baume (balsam) als weies a peny and a ferthyng and lete it sethe whil you may say iij _Miserere mei deus_ all the hole salme'; take off the fire, add gum turpentine, and stir till melted, strain and skim off any dirt with a feather. When cold it should be worked up between the hands until it becomes of sticky consistency, it is then to be spread on clean linen or leather, and is good for all manner of sores that be perilous. There is another method of preparing Gracia Dei which was used by 'Hopkyn of the fermory of Killyngworth,' that is to say in the infirmary at Kenilworth Priory, and a third, devised by 'the gude erl of Herforth' which is much more elaborate, the herbs used being 'betany, vervayne, pympernel, comfrey, osmond, dayshy, mousher (mouse-ear) weybrede, rib (? rhubarb), milfoile (the yarrow, which in Saxon leechdom seems to have been held good for everything from headaches to snake-bites), centory, anence, violete, flos campi (? campion), smalache, sauge, and egremoyn.'

When these simple remedies were not successful recourse could always be had to charms--either sheer pagan gibberish or rhyming prayers and invocations of saints. It was obviously appropriate for the sufferer from toothache to appeal to St. Appolonia, who was tortured by having her teeth broken with a mallet, but it was less obvious why a man with the falling sickness should cut his little finger and write with his blood the names of the three kings, Jasper, Balthazar, and Melchior, on a piece of parchment and hang it round his neck; nor do I know why SS. Nichasius and Cassian should be invoked against any 'erwig or any worme that is cropyn into a mans bed.' It was as well in any case to be sure that the charm was genuine, as Roger atte Hache found in 1382. His wife, Joan, being ill, he accepted the word of one Roger Clerk of Wandsworth that he was skilled in medical lore and paid him 12_d._ to undertake her cure. Clerk took a leaf of parchment out of a book and sewed it up in cloth of gold and bade Joan put it round her neck. When she got no better her husband grew suspicious and summoned Clerk for fraud. Clerk, being asked to explain the value of the piece of parchment, said that it was a good charm for fever and contained the words 'Anima Christi sanctifica me' and other similar pious expressions, but upon examination it was found that there were no such words upon it, and as he proved to be ignorant of physic and illiterate, it was adjudged that he should be led through the middle of the city, with trumpets and pipes, riding on a horse without a saddle, with the parchment and a whetstone (the recognised symbol of a liar) hung round his neck, and in front of him the unseemly emblem of the medical profession.

V

THOSE IN AUTHORITY

It is a common delusion, or, not to beg the question before producing evidence, a common opinion, that England in olden times, by which I mean that vague period when all words were spelled with an 'e' at their end and most with a 'y' in the middle, was a 'merrie' place. This idea is held not only by the _laudatores temporis acti_, who find it safer to repine for a past which can never be recovered than to enthuse over a future which may arrive and prove disappointing, but also by those energetic persons who set out to make the world enjoy itself and imagine that their schemes for compulsory happiness will really only restore a lost gaiety to the nation. Life in the Middle Ages was undoubtedly more highly coloured, more varied, more picturesque, but that it was merrier is at least a doubtful assumption. As the life of a people is reflected in their arts, we may compare the life of the Middle Ages to the quaint, irregular lines of some unimproved village street, or to the older parts of such towns as Winchester and Guildford, and contrast it with the mid-Victorian era, the flattest and dullest of all periods, as typified by Brixton, or with the frivolity of the present day, portrayed in the outbreak of terra-cotta and white wood flimsinesses all over the country. But the picture is not complete. In the background, behind the straight sameness of 'Alma Terrace,' or the quirked and joggled sameness of 'Mafeking Avenue,' lies nothing more terrible than the 'desirable residence' or the 'eligible mansion.' Behind your picturesque old-world cottages frowns the shadow of the feudal fortress. And, as Huxley remarked to the young man who said that he did not see what difference it would have made to him if his great-grandfather had or had not been a monkey, 'it must have made a lot of difference to your great-grandmother.'

It was not without reason that such names as Batvilayne, Scorchevilayne, and Maungevilayne are found amongst the landowning classes. There were men who would beat, scorch, or devour their villeins, and some six-and-a-half centuries ago an ancestor of the present Lord Ashburnham could oppress his tenants until they were reduced to literal beggary, and when they complained to the Justices could airily reply that they were his villeins and, short of injury to life and limb, he need not answer them. Such was the position of the bulk of the peasantry, but in practice they did not often suffer by it, for it was obviously to the advantage of the landlord to have prosperous tenants. It was at the hands of the officials, the swarm of stewards, bailiffs, catchpoles, and so forth, that the peasants, yeomen, and smaller gentry suffered. These men, secure in the protection of a chain of superiors reaching back to some great noble, lived on their neighbours, wringing money from them on every, or no, pretext. A favourite weapon was the jury list; the frequency with which juries were summoned and the resulting inconvenience to those called away from their work made the more wealthy willing to pay well for exemption; then money could be obtained by summoning four or five times as many jurors as were required and taking bribes from the superfluous to let them go home again. Another common object of the country-side was the 'scotale,' which was a kind of bean-feast. No doubt this lent an appearance of merriness to life in the country, just as the wriggling of the worm on the hook lent it a superficial air of gaiety which deceived old Isaak Walton, but it is questionable if the feasters really enjoyed themselves, as they knew that the ale which formed the main feature of the meal was brewed from malt which they had unwillingly contributed, and that they were paying for the (compulsory) privilege of consuming their own produce. Nor did the townsmen escape entirely; even five hundred years ago the Christmas box was an established extortion, and, in 1419, William Sevenok, Mayor of London, had to forbid the custom of the servants of the mayor, sheriffs, and corporation begging gifts from the tradesmen at Christmas, as it was found that they used threats towards those who would not give and accepted the gifts of others as bribes to overlook their offences against the trading laws. Not only at Christmas did the servants of the city and the court fleece the tradesmen; the doubtful privilege of supplying the royal court with provisions could be, and frequently was, avoided by a gift to the purveyors, and one result was that rogues from time to time went round the breweries pretending to be court purveyors and taking money to leave the ale alone. A rogue of a similar type, with a turn of humour, was William Pykemyle, who in 1379 went to the town house of the Countess of Norfolk, and, pretending to be a royal messenger, left word that she was to dine with the King at Leeds Castle, near Maidstone, next day; having received from her a reward of 3_s._ 4_d._ (royal messengers always expecting a substantial tip) he went on to the Countess of Bedford and gave a similar message, only making the place of dining Eltham. Whether the ladies kept their appointments is not recorded, but the gay deceiver was caught and committed to Newgate.

If the men of the Middle Ages had had nothing more to complain of than extortion by threats and trickery they might have been merry enough, but when the bailiffs exercised their powers of arbitrary arrest and imprisonment it was another matter. From the sheriffs downwards those 'clothed with a little brief authority' used it unscrupulously to fill their own pockets, dragging men off to prison on false accusations, or on none, and causing convicted felons to accuse the innocent of participation in their crimes. Release from prison depended solely upon the payment of a fine to the officer concerned, and was almost as easily available for the guilty as for the innocent. Upon occasion the powers of the law could be used to assist the criminal and punish his victim. During the misrule of the last years of Henry III., one, Wilkin of Gloseburne, accused Gilbert Wood of killing his son; Gilbert promptly turned the tables by bribing the gaoler of York, who arrested Wilkin on a charge of theft, bound him naked to a post in the prison, and kept him without food until he paid 40_s._ About the same time, in Suffolk, a man stole six geese belonging to Constance de Barnaucle; possibly he would have argued that they were 'barnacle geese,' and as this species notoriously grew on trees they were _feræ naturæ_, in which there could be no property. If so, he must have felt that his case was weak, as he ran away, pursued by the lady's servant. The thief was caught by the bailiffs of Thingoe Hundred, but either they were friends of his or they saw a chance of getting the geese themselves, for they let him go free, and when the pursuer came up they showed half-a-dozen other geese, which he naturally failed to identify; they then talked big about libel actions and false accusations and terrified 4_s._ out of the unlucky man's pockets.

Besides accusations of actual misdeeds, charges of opposing a predominant or favouring a fallen faction could be used for purposes of extortion. Towards the end of the reign of Edward II., when the Despensers were in power, Alan of Teesdale, chamberlain to the younger Despenser, with the assistance of Geoffrey Eston, the villainous gaoler of York, started a report that Sir John de Barton had spoken ill of Hugh le Despenser, whereat Hugh was much moved and furiously threatened Sir John, who for fear of his power had to give them lands to appease their lord. The same two scoundrels burnt down part of one of Alan's own mills and then laid the blame first on Sir John de Barton, then on Thomas Vipont, and finally on the Abbot of Byland, all of whom, for fear of the Despenser, paid heavy compensation. They further extorted lands from Master Thomas de Leuesham by threatening to accuse him of having been a partisan of Andrew de Harclay, who, after winning the earldom of Carlisle by his loyalty at Boroughbridge in 1322, had, the following year, been dramatically degraded and executed as a traitor. Nearly a century earlier, Robert Passelewe, Justice of the Jews, had extorted £60 from John le Prestre, a wealthy Jew, by threatening to commit him to Corfe Castle for having financed the Bishop of Carlisle and Hubert de Burgh, then in disgrace. From the same Jew Passelewe extorted, amongst other things, a cameo worth 40 marks; he seems to have had an appreciation for jewels, as he appropriated a 'camehew' and an emerald belonging to a Jew who was hanged, and made Benedict Crispin give him another cameo, which he afterwards gave to the Queen. Crispin was fleeced by several persons in high places and had to part with another of his cameos, 'on which was engraved a chariot with two angels,' to Peter de Rievaux, the Treasurer.

If the Jews were plundered we may at least put it to the credit of our ancestors that they showed a fine impartiality in according similar treatment to Christian clergy. The sheriff of Yorkshire, in 1315, wishing to persuade Master Henry de Percy, rector of Wharrom, to surrender his church, handed him over to Geoffrey Eston,[2] the gaoler of York, of whom we have already said something, who bound him to a convicted criminal and kept him five days without food or drink; at the end of that time he paid £20 to be released, but he kept his church. Encouraged by this, the sub-sheriff followed his superior's example and brought the rector of Whixley to Geoffrey, who confined him 'in a horrible place in the prison' until he produced 20 marks. Most prisons, probably, had a 'horrible place,' usually an underground dungeon, such as 'the pit of the gaol' at Exeter, or the 'fosse' at Newgate, or the place in the King's Bench prison called by the grim humour of the fifteenth century 'Paradise,' from which Alexander Lokke, who had been detained there 'alle this holy tyme of Cristemasse,' begged to be removed to some other prison. Apart from these dungeons the comfort of the prisoners depended largely on their possession of money; they were not 'lodged at his majesty's expense,' but were dependent upon money supplied by friends or on the alms of the charitable, and their position when the gaoler was a tyrant was unenviable. In the reign of Henry VIII. the keeper of Norwich gaol, Andrew Asketell, 'of his uncharitabill and covetous mind' oppressed the poor prisoners, charging them twice as much for ale as it cost outside--and ale, it must be remembered, was in those days really 'the people's food in liquid form'--and when kind people sent 'a potte ale' to the prisoners he made his servants pour the drink in the streets and break the vessels. But he did this once too often, when 'a litill boy haveng a veray power woman to his moder in prison brought to her to ye prison wyndow a crok with ale.' Edward Rede, alderman and J.P., seeing her drink thus snatched from her, kindly sent her 'a cruse with drynk.' The arrival of this widow's cruse so annoyed the keeper that he came up to the alderman and insulted him, calling him 'a Bedlam man,' and as a result he saw prison life from a fresh point of view. Some two centuries earlier Newgate was controlled by Edmund le Lorimer, who ill-treated his prisoners shockingly, keeping them short of food, depriving them of their share in the common alms, and preventing them communicating with their friends. He robbed them, taking from Roger Martel a gold cross with four garnets and a 'pere crapaudyn' or toad-stone, the precious jewel which a toad bears in its head and which is an invaluable antidote to poison, and he inflicted such severe 'penaunce' to extort money that many died, including a knight, Sir John de Horn, and that Roger de Colney, being loaded with irons and deprived of food, snatched a knife from a companion and cut his throat.

All those in authority were not brutes; it is even recorded of a Suffolk bailiff that finding on his recovery from illness that his deputy had been guilty of extortion, he returned the money and dismissed the deputy. But the reports from Yorkshire in 1275 were fairly typical; the bailiff of the Earl of Lincoln had done 'many acts of oppression, rapine, and injuries beyond belief'; 'many other things, beyond number and astonishing,' were related of the sub-sheriff, and 'innumerable devilish acts of oppression' were accredited to the steward of Earl Warenne. The earl himself was a man of violence, who had turned about a fifth part of the county of Sussex into a game preserve, and maintained armed keepers to prevent the peasants from driving the deer out of their corn. The story is well known how, when King Edward's commissioners demanded by what title he held his lands, he produced a rusty sword and said 'by this my ancestors won their lands and by this I will defend them.' Like most well-known stories this is apocryphal, and in any case a distaff would have been more appropriate, as his lands had descended through an heiress, but that he would have been willing to protect his lands with the sword is likely enough. One of his descendants, the Earl of Surrey of the time of Henry VIII. seems to have inherited some of his lawlessness, as he was charged with 'a lewde and unsemely manner of walking in the night abowght the stretes and breaking wyth stonebowes (_i.e._ catapults) of certeyne wyndowes.' It does not appear that he wanted 'Votes for Peers' and, in fact, he admitted that he 'hadde verye evyll done therein,' and was sent to the Fleet prison.

Life must certainly have been more exciting, if not merrier, in now peaceful Sussex when Earl John de Warenne was alive. He was carrying on a sort of private war with his neighbour, Robert Aguillon, who was also on bad terms with his other neighbour, William de Braose, while further west, at Midhurst, was John de Bohun, who displayed his contempt for the law by attacking Luke de Vienne on the high road and ducking him in a horse-pond when he was on his way to hold a court. The son and namesake of this William de Braose showed his temper by insulting one of the Justices of the King's Court who had given judgment against him. Edward I. was not the man to excuse such conduct; he had, indeed, banished the Prince of Wales from court for insolence towards a judge, and Braose had to walk in penitential garb through Westminster Hall when the court was sitting and apologise to the justice. With such examples set by their lords it is not surprising that the smaller men adopted an attitude of swagger and arrogance, riding with armed followers through markets and fairs for the mere pleasure of frightening the people. As an example of apparently pointless insolence, the constable of Shrewsbury gave his groom 4_d._ to go through the village of Cressage calling out 'Wekare, Wekare,' to insult both men and women. The character of the insult is not obvious, but it was evidently clear to those concerned, as a woman dared to remonstrate; the groom struck at her and wounded a man who came to her assistance, but then had to fly and was shot--for which his lord obtained full compensation.