CHAPTER XVI
_Old Coventry at the Present Day_
Coventry is well worth a whole day's visit, though the day may be an easy one, as the principal buildings lie very near together, and _are practically always open_, so that no time need be wasted ringing up this or that caretaker or running after the sacristan. Either the powers that be have little leisure to think of tourists, or they must be men of singular enlightenment, for I know of no place which can be seen so freely and cheaply, where lingering over a charming effect, a boss, inscription or painted window may be done with such pleasure because interruption is so rare.[730] The tourist will show his wisdom by not going too far afield in his sight-seeing; the three churches and S. Mary's Hall will, with a passing look at many a picturesque narrow street, carved gable, or interesting relic of old Coventry, furnish him with some hours' occupation. Those, of course, who possess indomitable physical and mental energy may ascend S. Michael's spire for the view's sake, or brave a walk through the somewhat dreary environs of Coventry to the historic but commonplace-looking strip of land known as Gosford Green.[731] Or, if they are proof against the depressing influence of the workhouse--for into this building the remains of the Carmelite monastery have been incorporated--may follow the line of Much Park Street to Whitefriars, and there see the fine monastic cloister, with its fifteenth-century groining, which now serves as the paupers' dining-room.[732]
Castle and monastery have been destroyed in Coventry, and, after all, nobles and monks had very little to do with the making of the city, which, in 1381, was the fifth, and about seventy years later the fourth, among the cities of the kingdom. A fortunate junction of high roads, and the enterprise of the inhabitants, accounts for the great riches and large population during those seventy years. _And mark that the most noteworthy buildings were raised within this period_: the churches of S. Michael, and the Holy Trinity, and S. Mary's Hall. S. John's church is a little earlier in date. During this period the people of Coventry were possessed with a magnificent frenzy, such as shames our modern efforts, for building and making their city beautiful. That is to say, within a little over two generations the inhabitants of a town of what we should call nowadays contemptible smallness, for it contained at first a population of only about 7000, and later certainly no more than 10,000 souls, raised two parish churches of unusual size, and a fine town hall. One of these churches is indeed the largest in the kingdom, and possesses a spire almost unrivalled in height and beauty. They also kept their fortifications in good repair during this period, and raised--to speak of inconsiderable trifles--a market cross, which has unfortunately perished, besides lending to all the buildings their bounty was making or had made, all the riches of suitable adornment that the carpenter's, carver's, painter's, glazier's, weaver's and goldsmith's art could devise. Much has perished in the destruction of the cathedral, the friars' and other chapels, the cross, a parish church, a guild-hall, and many unremembered buildings; but enough remains to show that we owe a great debt to those dear, dead folk who knew so many things we have forgotten and loved so many things we have ceased to care for, and above all, knew what to do with stone and glass and metal, and loved their handiwork, for it was good.
Women have always been to the fore in Coventry; the names rise of S. Osburg, Godiva, Isabella, Margaret of Anjou, of the virgin sisters Botoner, who built the spire, and of Joan Ward, the first Coventry Lollard martyr. Women of the city, too, helped to keep out Charles I. Here Sarah Kemble (Mrs Siddons) was married and Miss Ellen Terry born. It is fitting that the chief literary interest of Coventry should centre in a woman's name. George Eliot went to school at a house in the south-west end of Warwick Row, 1832-5. Coventry is said to be the original of Middlemarch, and S. Mary's Hall is described in the trial scene in _Adam Bede_.
In coming from the station down Warwick Row, as you pass the angle of Greyfriars' Green, look at the modern statue of Sir Thomas White, merchant, Lord Mayor of London in 1555, founder of S. John's College, Oxford, and benefactor of the city of Coventry. Other famous folk connected with the city were Laurence Saunders, the Marian martyr, who was led out to die in the park to the right of Christ church, the spire of which is close before you, while John Marston, satirist, writer of plays, friend and foe of Ben Jonson, was born here. Perhaps some day our cousins from over the Atlantic may raise a tribute to the memory of John Davenport, Puritan, of this city, who, after a troubled career as pastor in the city of London, fled to Amsterdam; and finally, in 1637, at the invitation of John Cotton, departed for New England, where he lived as pastor of Newhaven for very many years; and, after much controversy concerning baptism, and writing of books, departed this life at Boston on March 13, 1670. Others may feel more interest in his brother or kinsman, Christopher, a convert to Romanism, and hence the religious antipodes of the aforesaid John. After a sojourn at Douay, this Franciscan friar became chaplain to Queen Henrietta Maria, and subsequently to her daughter-in-law, Catherine of Braganza, wife of Charles II. He died in 1680, and was buried at the Savoy Chapel, London. Being suspected of designs for promoting the union of the English and Roman Churches, it was one of the indictments against Archbishop Laud that he held frequent converse with Christopher Davenport. Other notable folk have at one time or another lived within the city. Sir William Dugdale, Garter King-at-Arms under Charles II., author of the _Monasticon_ and the _Antiquities of Warwickshire_, "maestro" and "autore" of all such as love the lore of the famous shire of Warwick, received his education at the Free Grammar School. While Humphrey Wanley, to whose skill and knowledge the British Museum owes--not the gift--but the collection and arrangement of the Harleian manuscripts, while he held the post of librarian under Harley, Earl of Oxford, in Queen Anne's time, was son of a vicar of Trinity church, one Nathaniel Wanley, whose book _Wonders of the Little World_, was greatly loved by Browning.
Full in front is the view of the "three tall spires." The nearest, that of Christ church,[733] is all that remains of the far-famed chapel of the Greyfriars, wherein so many local notables and members of noble families lay buried. The church having been demolished at the suppression of the monasteries under Henry VIII., the steeple remained a solitary landmark until 1830, when the body of a new church was added. This is an uninteresting structure, and not worth a visit.
We are now inside the compass of the ancient wall, and those who wish to keep up old illusions, and enter the city by the ancient road, should turn up Warwick Lane, alongside of the Grapes' Inn, avoiding modern Hertford Street, and so along Grey Friars' Lane to High Street and the main thoroughfare of the city. A little below the junction of the Warwick and Grey Friars' Lanes stands Ford's Hospital, a beautiful black and white timbered house with carved gables such as artists love. The windows are of nine lights, divided into threes, with window-headings of fine tracery. In a room over the porch called the chapel are oddments of stained glass. Some of the seventeen old women who are housed there, and daily bless, or should bless, the memory of Master Ford and Master Pisford, merchants, may often be seen sitting in the little inner quadrangular court. Worthy Master Pisford, by his will, dated 1517, made provision for six old men and their wives, "being nigh unto the age of threescore years and above, and such as were of good name and fame, and had been of good honesty and kept household within the said city, and were decayed and come to poverty and great need." Nowadays, however, it is only old women who profit by their benevolence.
On reaching High Street, which is part of the great north-west road, and the old coaching way between London and Holyhead, it is best to go right on down Pepper Lane, which immediately faces you, until you come to S. Michael's churchyard. This broad open space was, and is still, the centre of the life of the town. Here stood the cathedral and the two great parish churches, the house containing the cloth market, and the guild-hall, where the rulers of the city assembled to take council together. Possibly while the churches, as we know them now, and S. Mary's Hall were yet unbuilt, the common assembly of city folk met together here to hold courts, and decide on questions touching the common weal. Now the cathedral and drapery are gone, but the church spire still stands fronting the spectator, and a few paces will bring him where, behind the projection of a small black and white cottage, stands the red and crumbling entrance porch of S. Mary's Hall.
Tradition, which we can never afford to disregard, says that S. Michael's Church--spire, tower, chancel, and nave--was built by the Botoners, a great merchant family, further affirming that a brass plate was found in the church, with the following lines engraved upon it:--
"William and Adam built the tower, Ann and Mary built the spire, William and Adam built the church, Ann and Mary built the quire."
Undoubtedly the Botoners were wealthy and generous folk, but whether this little quatrain is founded on fact or no, we have no means of proving.
The famous nine-storied steeple, consisting of tower, octagon and spire, whereof the tower, begun in 1371, occupied twenty-one years in building, is 300 feet high or thereabouts, but gains a fictitious appearance of greater height in that it springs immediately from the ground. The architect had a marvellously happy thought when he added the flying buttresses, which connect the pinnacles of the main tower with the octagon above it, converting a mere tall spire into a "star-ypointing" thing of lightness and beauty.[734] The stone figures in the niches are modern; the ancient ones, worth inspection though worn past identification, have been placed in the crypt, to which entrance is gained on the north side of the church. It is perhaps the finest specimen of the florid Perpendicular spire in England. The decoration is concentrated in the storeys easily seen, _i.e._ the upper ones of the tower, gradually dying away as the eye travels upwards. The steeple recently underwent restoration under Mr Oldrid Scott, and whatever was gained in stability by the process, much was lost with the look of old age which vanished with the crumbling surface of the ancient stone.
Before entering the church by the south door notice the rare round trefoil-headed arch of the south porch, earliest portion of the church, a few steps beyond, opposite the door of S. Mary's Hall. What first strikes the spectator on entering is the great size of the building, a fact mainly owing to the simplicity of the ground plan, no space being lost in transepts, and to the absence of any partition or arch between nave and chancel, so that from the west end there is an uninterrupted view of the entire church. From this spaciousness and simplicity comes a grandeur which mere size could never wholly give. The style of architecture--of the kind called "Perpendicular"--shows that the fabric belongs to the end of the fourteenth and the first half of the fifteenth century, the choir being older than the nave, which dates from 1434 to 1450. It has been suggested that the building was just complete when Henry VI. paid his visit to the church in 1451.
The width of the arches and slightness of the pillars display the technical skill of the architects of this period, who, by a just distribution of weight, etc., contrived to raise churches of maximum size at a minimum expense of material and labour. It is a church where a large congregation may be comfortably housed, but it has the great defect of the later style of Gothic building,--all sense of mystery and aspiration, with which the lofty roof and high-pointed arch of the earlier periods impress the beholder, are wholly absent.
On looking up from the west end, a curious break in the line of the roof at the junction of nave and chancel is very apparent. The choir inclines to the north, and in so doing furnishes an architectural problem difficult of solution.[735] It is curious that the tower, which is not central with the nave, is in line with the choir.
The lantern at the west end has been opened out since the recent restoration, and the sight of the beautiful groining of the roof is not one that should be missed. The nave has six bays; and in the clear-story windows of both nave and chancel the mullions are carried down until they meet the line of the arch; in the chancel the scheme is more decorative, and over the central arch of the three bays the window is a four-light one.
The step between nave and chancel is of oak and may have been the ancient sill of the rood-screen.[736]
The church is somewhat poor in detail, having suffered from the zeal of reformers, and from the ignorance and carelessness of "Bumbledom" in the succeeding centuries. At the Reformation there came down a fellow with a "counterfeit commission," and for "avoiding of superstition" tore up all the memorial brasses on the tombs, so that those that are left date from Elizabethan times--or later--and are of small interest. In a "restoration" of 1851 there was a regular "double twilight" among the tombs, which were taken up from their original resting-places, and deposited wherever the restorer thought fit. Amongst those thus displaced, and now standing at the west end of the north aisle, was the alabaster tomb of Julines Nethermyl, a worthy draper of the city, whose family entered the ranks of the squirearchy of Warwickshire, and bore arms like gentlefolk. In the front of the tomb is a bas-relief of Julines and his wife, with their five sons and five daughters, and the following inscription:--
"Hic jacit Julianus Nethermyl, pannarius, quondam Maior hujus civitatis, qui obiit xi die mensis Aprilis anno domini MDXXXIX., et Johanna, uxor ejus, quorum animabus propitietur Deus. Amen."[737]
The various crafts or trading companies had special chapels allotted to their use before the Reformation; the dyers, the present baptistery; the cappers, one adjoining the south aisle, while in a little parvise over the south porch, they still meet once a year, transact the company's business, eat, drink, and spread upon the table the venerable velvet cloth, once a pall, an interesting relic, albeit torn and faded, of the days when the making of cloth caps was one of the main industries of the city. The smiths and girdlers had chapels off the north aisle; and the drapers and mercers the space at the east end of the north and south aisles respectively. It was from its place among its fellows in the drapers' chapel that Nethermyl's tomb was brought, and many others stand behind a railing in the Mercers' Chapel in the south aisle. Here is a much defaced early Renaissance erection, traditionally known as "Wayd's tomb," and a most interesting relic of a city officer in the memorial to Dame Elizabeth Swillington and her two husbands, one of whom, Ralph Swillington, was sometime recorder of the city. Round the tomb is the legend: "Orate pro anima Elizabethe Swyllington, vidue, nuper uxoris Radulphi Swillyngton, Attornati Generalis Domini Regis Henrici octavi, Recordatoris Civitatis Coventrensis; quondam uxoris Thome Essex, armigeri; que quidem Elizabeth obiit anno domini millessimo CCCCC--."[738] The worthy attorney-general and recorder lies on the side nearest the spectator; the squire, Master Thomas Essex, in armour, on the side farthest off; Dame Elizabeth, wearing a pedimental head-dress, her hands raised in supplication, in the middle. The dame, the date of whose death is unknown, as the tomb was erected in her lifetime, lived at Stivichall, near Coventry, and gave £140 for the support of the poor and repair of roads in the neighbourhood of the city. Master Swyllington, who was made recorder in 1515, doubtless discharged his duties with all faithfulness, but I know of no memorable event in which he figures during his tenure of office.
All the pre-Reformation brasses save the one commemorating Thomas Bond are gone. One in the west end on the north aisle shows Maria Hinton (1594) and four swaddled babes. She was the wife of that Archdeacon of Coventry and Vicar of S. Michael's who had such a troublesome correspondence with James I. about non-kneeling communicants. Another in the south aisle shows the figure of Ann Sewell (1609) kneeling in prayer. The inscription runs:--
"Her zealous care to serve her God Her constant love to husband deare, Her harmless harte to everie one, Doth live, although her corps lie here. God graunte us all, while glass doth run To live in Christ as she has done."
"Ann Sewell, ye wife of William Sewell, of this cytty, vintner, departed this life ye 20th of December, 1609, of the age of 46 yeares. An humble follower of her Saviour Christ, and a worthy stirrer up of others to all holy virtues."
The Sewell family, which gave two mayors to Coventry, have a great many American descendants.
On the wall near the south porch is a brass to Gervase Scrope (1705), who describes himself "as an old toss'd Tennis Ball."
In the Cappers' Chapel by the south porch are the Hopkins' tombs; and in the Dyers' Chapel is a monument to female friendship commemorating Dame Bridgman and Mrs Eliza Samwell. Above "Wayd's" tomb in the Mercers' Chapel is a monument to Lady Sheffington (1637), whose husband is described as a "true moaneing turtle."
In the Drapers' or Lady Chapel, which is divided from the north aisle by an oak screen, we are continually reminded of the powerful Trinity guild, as well as the drapers' company, whose priests said daily service here. This part of the church was chosen as a burial place for the chief members of the latter society. In a brass plate let into the north wall of the chapel you may see the memorial inscription to the most notable of these:--"Here lyeth Mr Thomas Bond, draper, sometime mayor of this cittie, and founder of the Hospitall of Bablake, who gave divers lands and tenements for the maintenance of ten poore men so long as the world shall endure, and a woman look to them, with many other good guifts; and died the xviii day of March, in the yeare of our Lord God MDVI."
Bond's Hospital still stands by S. John the Baptist's church. May it endure--as the epitaph has it--as long as the world itself.
The dark oak roof of the chapel is ancient, and in some cases angels carrying shields are figured on the corbels. The first of these, at the east end of the north wall, bears, however, the Agnus Dei, a reference to S. John the Baptist, one of the patrons of the guild; the next a pelican "in her piety," _i.e._ feeding her young from her own breast, a symbol of Christ.
The Communion-table is of seventeenth-century work; there are curious poppy-heads in this chapel; and on the other side of the screen, which is made up of ancient fragments, is an old oak chest showing that favourite Coventry subject, the Coronation of the Virgin, with swans, Tudor roses and grotesques.
The miserere seats are worth inspection, though the carving is somewhat rough. They seem to fall into three classes, illustrating:--
1. _The labours of life._
2. _The saints of the guild._
3. _The certainty of death, and judgment to come_, illustrated by the favourite mediæval series, the _Dance of Death_.
They may be taken in the following order, beginning with the north wall:--
_First series._--Labours of life.
1. A man thrashing; a man bat-fowling (agriculture and hunting).
2. Shepherd piping (pastoral life).
_Second series._--Saints of the guild.
3. (_Defaced._) Decapitation of a martyr, perhaps S. John the Baptist.
4. (_Defaced._) The Assumption of the Virgin.
_Third series._--Dance of Death.
5. A burial scene. Two men are laying the body, wrapped in a winding sheet, in an open grave; a priest, holding a torch in his hand, and two attendants stand near; mattock and spade are beside the grave.[739] On either side of the central carving Death is represented leading a mortal--in this case the pope--by the hand.
6. A man is being stripped of his shirt, symbolical perhaps of the fact that in dying we must relinquish all worldly possessions. A cripple, whom by the irony of fate Death has spared, watches the process of unclothing. The side subject has been cut off, but Death's companion is a bishop; see the outline of his mitre.
7. A death-bed scene; the sick person is in bed, his friends surround him.
8. The tree of Jesse. "The Word was made flesh."
9. The Last Judgment.
10. Grotesque.
11. The chaining of Satan.
12.
13. Grotesque.
14.
The church terminates in a five-sided apse, with five large, slightly pointed windows. The modern coloured glass of the three central ones is a miracle of ugliness, but the two outer ones are composed of fragments of ancient stained glass, out of which it is impossible, however, to distinguish any connected group. Figures of the cherubim standing on wheels are scattered about the various lights, still in fair preservation. Other fragments show the Apocalyptic Lamb, the kiss of Judas, and the description of the Trinity beginning, "Pater est Deus," etc.[740] In the clear-story windows may also be seen more of these beautiful, but sadly fragmentary remnants of ancient glass. In one of these on the south side, the scissors, which were the mark of the tailors' and sheremen's company, are conspicuous.
The chancel roof is lower than the nave, and the two levels are connected by a cove on which was once a fresco of the Archangel overcoming Satan,[740] fragments of which are preserved though not _in situ_.
Painted on the beam above the cove which spans the nave between the rood piers are traces of an old Latin hymn on the nine orders of angels (a facsimile will be found in the vestry):
"Archangeli presunt ciuitatibus. Potestates presunt demonibus. Dominaciones presunt spiritibus angelicis. Cherubyn habent omnem scienciam. Principalitates presunt bonis hominibus. Virtutes faciunt mirabilia. Seraphyn ardent in armore dei. Troni eorum est judicare. Angeli sunt nuncii domini."
Opposite the south porch of S. Michael's is the entrance to S. Mary's hall, the banqueting room and meeting-place of the guild of the Holy Trinity, S. Mary, S. John Baptist and S. Catherine, and the centre for the transaction of all municipal business. The great north window, of which the mullions bear trace of a recent restoration, is visible from the street, and from an opening in the front to the hall, long since blocked up, it was customary to proclaim the acts of leet passed by the fathers of the city to the crowd below. Built as it was for the honour and glory of this guild, whose members were the chief folk of the city, the building is full of detail reminding us of the patron saints of this fraternity. We shall see this more clearly later, when we come to examine the tapestry which hangs in the Hall itself. In the meantime note that the porch, which gives entrance to the court-yard, bears on its keystone a carving, representing the Coronation of the Virgin, and from one of the stones, whence the inward arch springs, is a sculpture of the Annunciation, now almost unrecognisable, save that on the inner side the feathers of S. Gabriel's wings are to be clearly made out. To the right of the court-yard, underneath the great Hall, is the entrance to the crypt, two beautifully proportioned chambers with plain groined roof, probably once a storehouse, now a receptacle for lumber. In the end chamber or "tavern" is a fine carving of a lion. On the western side are the cupboard-like openings in the wall, intended, Sharp thinks, to receive the deeds and valuable property belonging to members of the guild.
On the south side of the court-yard is the fourteenth-century kitchen, full of memories of the great feasts which were once cooked there, and whence dishes were borne smoking hot up the stairs to the Hall above. Now the modern cooking appliances stand out in all their incongruity. Here is the old whipping-post, and in the roof is an ancient louvre or smoke-vent. In the window stands a statue which came from the now demolished cross. It probably represents Henry VI. The arches on the north side bear rudely sculptured figures of angels, each holding a shield on which is a merchant's mark, bearing the initials J.P., _i.e._ John Percy (living 1392), a benefactor of the guild.[741] On the ground floor is the new muniment room. (For admission apply to the hall-keeper.) When inside the pretty little modern Gothic chamber, ask the hall-keeper to point out Ranulf's charter, and notice the beautiful twelfth-century writing, which you can contrast with the more fanciful hand of the great charter of Edward III. The _Leet Book_, from which so much contained in this history has been obtained, stands on one of the bookshelves which line part of the room. The _Letter-Book_ is usually open at Elizabeth's letter, 1569, referring to the safe-keeping of Mary, Queen of Scots. The municipal scales, engraved with the "Elephant," the city arms, are also visible in an inner compartment of this chamber.
If the council is not sitting, the hall-keeper will also show the much restored Mayoress's Parlour, on the upper floor. Here stands the mediæval chair of state, used on great occasions, probably by the mayor and the master of the guild. Only half remains of this magnificent relic. No doubt the side where the guild-master took his seat was sawn off, cast aside as useless on the suppression of this "superstitious" society at the Reformation. The chair bears on one side a figure of the Madonna, "the arms of Coventry surmount the back on the one side, and on the other (which was the centre in its complete state) are two lions rampant supporting a crown."[742] Several portraits line the room, those of John Hales, founder of the Free Grammar School, of Christopher Davenport, mayor of the city, and Sir Thomas White, are of great local interest; others are of Elizabeth, Charles I., and James I., but undoubtedly the most artistic is a curious portrait of Queen Mary, said to be by Zucchero or Antonio More.
As the Great Hall[743] served as a banqueting-hall for the Trinity guild, a flight of steps at the south end communicates directly with the kitchen. At the north end was a daïs, where the principal guests took their seats.
The room was also used for municipal purposes, particularly when the town rulers found it necessary to convoke a large assembly of their fellow-citizens. Many a stormy scene has this beautiful room witnessed. Here it was--or in an earlier hall--that the common folk, enraged at the bad quality of bread, threw loaves at the mayor's head when he neglected to punish the frauds of the victuallers. Here Laurence Saunders defied or submitted to the dictates of the corporation, and the citizens met together promising to uphold the mayor and council in their attack on William Bristowe, who had encroached upon the Lammas lands. Here the mayor was elected and courts held. But when the council met, they chose a smaller room communicating with the Great Hall, for privacy's sake.
The armour is a most interesting collection. A great many pieces are Elizabethan, but the "Black Prince's helmet" is a unique sallet of the period of the Wars of the Roses. The right way to study the Hall is to mount the little flight of steps at the southern end, and, sitting in the Minstrel Gallery, behind the array of civic armour, examine the glorious fifteenth-century window at your leisure. A few years back the glass was in utter confusion, having been carelessly replaced after re-leading, and the respective heads, bodies and legs of the magnanimous conquerors and kings therein commemorated were sadly astray, their anatomy being rendered thereby most perplexing. This has, however, been judiciously remedied, and we can now clearly see in the nine compartments--as the artist, possibly William Thornton, or a pupil of his, designed--the figures of the Emperor Constantine, King Arthur, William I., Richard I., Henry III., Edward III., Henry IV., Henry V., and Henry VI., the last occupying the place of honour in the central light. Above are the arms of various nobles and cities, among others the "elephant and castle" of this city, the three "garbs," wheat-sheaves of Chester, and the sable eagle of Earl Leofric, the city's earliest benefactor.
The dark oak roof belongs also to the fifteenth century, and is worth, even at the cost of some strain to the muscles of the neck, a careful study. At the centre of each beam are whole-length figures of angels, ten in number, of whom eight are playing on various instruments. The first, close to the great north window, has a violin-like instrument, the second a harp, the third a flute, the fourth a flute, but of a peculiarly flat shape, the fifth a violin, the sixth a curved tube, the seventh a tabor, the eighth a curved tube, while the ninth and tenth have no wings or instruments at all; possibly they represent the "morning stars singing for joy."
Under the great north window hangs a piece of tapestry, dating, so say experts, from the beginning of the sixteenth century. It is of Flemish design, and was woven, possibly in England, with the intention of filling the place it now occupies. Faded in colour, often blurred in outline, the tapestry still remains a glorious memorial to the love of beauty and artistic workmanship and corporate pride of the great guild. It is divided into six compartments, and represents a king, queen, and their Court adoring the Virgin, the Trinity, and divers saints in glory; being undoubtedly designed to commemorate the admission of a king and queen into the ranks of the Trinity guild--an event which did actually occur in 1500 in the case of Henry VII. and Elizabeth of York. Among the company of saints the place of honour is given to those who were the chosen patrons of the guild. Unfortunately the tapestry has not come down to us in the condition in which it left the makers' hands. The figure of Justice holding the scales is obviously out of harmony with the whole design. There is no doubt that the personification of the Trinity, God the Father on the throne holding Christ extended upon the Cross, with the Dove, once occupied this space. The Hebrew letters of the word Jehovah found above the cross still remain, but the reformers, who could not endure the representation of this mystery, cut out the rest.[744] Round the present incongruous figure of Justice kneel angels bearing the instruments of the Passion, the nails, the sponge of hyssop, the crown of thorns, the scourge, pillar and spear. The Assumption of the Virgin in the lower central compartment reminded the guildsmen of their earliest patroness, whose festival was one of their chief days of assembly. The Virgin's feet rest on the crescent moon, which is supported by an angel. The apostles kneel round in attitudes of adoration. On either side of the lower tier a king kneels in prayer, on the right a queen, traditionally identified with Henry VI. and Margaret of Anjou; this attribution has not gone unchallenged; and it is at least possible that the contemporary king and queen, Henry VII. and Elizabeth of York, may be intended; the heraldic roses in the border are, however, Lancastrian and not Tudor. The King kneels at a table whereon lie a crown and missal; he wears a jewelled cap. None of his followers can be identified save the kneeling cardinal, who probably is intended for Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester (or Cardinal Morton), and the standing figure behind the King, who may be the "good Duke Humphrey" (or Henry, Prince of Wales). The Queen kneels opposite. None of her ladies can be identified. The Queen has a head-dress embroidered with pear-pearls, upon which is a crown of fleur-de-lys, her dress is yellow, and the sleeves lined with ermine. Of the three ladies who kneel behind her the third is obviously a child.[745]
In the upper left-hand division is a group of male, on the right-hand a group of female, saints respectively led by the patrons of the guild, S. John the Baptist and S. Catherine. The former are the less interesting company; they consist of S. John the Baptist bearing the book and _Agnus Dei_; the next is probably S. Thomas, holding a lance. There follow S. Paul with a sword; S. Adrian, patron of brewers, standing on a lion, and holding a sword and an anvil, instrument of his martyrdom; S. Peter with the key; S. George holding a banner, but, oddly enough, with no dragon at his feet; S. Andrew with a transverse cross; S. Bartholomew with a knife; S. Simon with a saw; and S. Thaddeus with a halberd. In the opposite division stands an array of saints in charming Tudor dress; S. Catherine with her wheel; S. Barbara with the tower; S. Dorothea with the basket of roses; S. Mary Magdalene with the vase of ointment; S. Margaret, name-saint of the queen who kneels in the compartment beneath, with a queer, flabby, spotted demon curling round her body; S. Agnes with a delightful little lamb, which she holds by a string. Then follows an abbess, concerning whose identity there has been much discussion. She is arrayed in a monastic habit, bears a crozier, and has three white mice about her person, one on either shoulder, and another springing in the air above. This is S. Gertrude of Nivelles in Flanders,[746] patroness of travellers, and maybe also of the locality where the tapestry was designed. Noted far and wide for hospitality in her lifetime, the saint did not cease her ministrations to wayfarers after death. The journey to Paradise is a long one, occupying three days, so that the popular fancy said that the souls slept with S. Gertrude on the first night, with S. Gabriel on the second, and the third they rested in Paradise. "The saint therefore became," says Mr Baring Gould, "the patroness and protector of departed souls. Next because popular Teutonic superstition regarded rats and mice as symbols of souls, S. Gertrude is represented in art as attended by one of these animals. Then, by a strange transition when the significance of the symbol was lost, she was supposed to be a protectress against rats and mice, and water from the crypt at Nivelles was distributed for the purpose of driving away these vermin." It may be noted that the two nuns in the compartment of ladies attending upon the queen, wear the same habit as S. Gertrude. The next saint of the company is usually identified with S. Anne, but on what grounds I am unable to discover. She bears a long staff (or taper) in her hand. Now the saint likely to be associated with S. Gertrude would be her godchild, S. Gudule, patroness of the cathedral of Brussels. Her appropriate symbol is, however, a lantern. But the artist is not very careful about these, and possibly may have substituted the taper. In this case the demon hovering over S. Apollonia, who follows next, bearing her pincers, really belongs to S. Gudule, and is a reminiscence of the saint's nocturnal difficulties in keeping her lantern alight, so persistently did the evil spirit blow it out.
After examining the tapestry there is little to detain you. The oriel window contains some fragments of old glass; on the floor are some ancient tiles; small figures from the ancient cross also stand in the recess. The inscriptions about the Hall are reproductions of Elizabethan black letter which once adorned the ancient wainscotting. A brass commemorating the lease of Cheylesmore Park, granted to the citizens by the Duke of Northumberland in the reign of Edward VI., is fixed in the wall close to the entrance to the Mayoress's Parlour. It is dated 1568. As for the terrible windows, filled with glass in 1826 in imitation of the old work which had been destroyed in an affray concerning a contested election of 1780, known as the "bludgeon fight," let us not speak of them. At the south end of the hall is (right) the Prince's Chamber, leading to the ancient stone-groined treasury in the tower, and containing fragments of carving, one a figure of S. George and the Dragon from S. George's chapel at Gosford gate, and (left) the Council-Chamber, which has been recently wainscotted with Jacobean carving brought from a house in Earl Street. There is a fine Jacobean fireplace, an old chair, and an Elizabethan drawing-table in the room. At the back of the minstrel-gallery is the Armoury, where lies, in neglect and dust, a large picture, "The Baccanali," by Luca Giordano; and at the back of the armoury is Queen Mary's Chamber, the traditional place of confinement of the Scottish Queen in 1569.
Crossing the churchyard, you arrive at Trinity Church whereof the spire was rebuilt in the seventeenth century. The exterior, which has been frequently recased, suffers somewhat from the neighbourhood of S. Michael's, but the interior is of earlier and more finely proportioned architecture than its giant neighbour. Rebuilt at the close of the fourteenth century on the site of a parish church, which existed at least as far back as the reign of Henry III., this building is also full of problems, and is in some respects most interesting of all the churches of Coventry. The jambs of blocked windows at various levels are fruitful of speculations on the original appearance of the church, and a piscina high up on the wall of south transept proclaims the former existence of an upper chapel, with a floor level over a vaulted passage, which was done away with for probably quite insufficient reasons in 1834. The church, which was served by twelve parochial and two chantry priests before the Reformation, contained fifteen altars; while in the Lady-chapel a priest held services, taking a stipend from the Corpus Christi guild.
The earliest part of the church is the thirteenth-century north porch with its groined roof, and a beautiful double doorway, now blocked up, leading from the porch to S. Thomas's chapel. West of the porch, in the Archdeacon's chapel, is another blocked window, a fine example of the Decorated type. The nave is of the first half of the fourteenth century, and was built before the chancel. The fresco of the Last Judgment, which could once be discerned above the chancel arch, is now obliterated. As in S. Michael's the mullions of the fifteenth-century clear-story windows are continued to the top of the arches of the nave, forming a series of stone panels. Marler's-chapel, leading out of the north chancel-aisle, is the latest part of the structure, belonging to the sixteenth century. The stone pulpit dates from about 1470. The lectern, which is also antique, aroused the suspicions of the Puritans, and in 1654 there was some talk of selling it, a transaction which was happily not accomplished, though the "eagle" at S. Michael's, the gift of William Botoner, had been sold at so much the pound a few years before.
Scarcely a vestige now remains of the ancient stained glass which once made the church beautiful. Its disappearance was owing not perhaps so much to Puritan zeal, as to the deliberate action of the authorities in the last century. From 1774 to 1787 the masons of Coventry must have revelled in the work of mutilating the window traceries, and the old glass after being taken down was never put back. The old sexton told the antiquary, Sharp, particulars of the famous window, wherein Leofric and Godiva were represented, the former holding a charter with the words:
"I, Luriche, for love of thee Doe make Coventre Tol-free."
But this was removed in 1779; but a few last fragments of glass are now in the window of the Archdeacon's chapel. A small figure is seen holding a spray of leaves and part of a horse; there are also architectural fragments in the stained glass that appear in Stukeley's drawing of the Godiva window, but they are very insignificant and broken.
In this same chapel is a brass to John Whitehead (1597) and his two wives in Elizabethan costume, and a monument in Philemon Holland (1636), once master of the grammar school, translator of Camden's _Britannia_. The font is of the fifteenth century. Close to the west door is a fine Elizabethan alms-box.
To the north of Trinity churchyard are the Cathedral ruins. Little more than the bases of a few fine pillars are left of the once splendid minster, dedicated to S. Mary, S. Peter, S. Osburg, and All Saints. From the gates of Trinity church you pass the top of the picturesque Butcher Row, and, if time does not fail you, may turn down Cross Cheaping--alas that the cross should be no longer there!--till you come to the Old Grammar School, at the corner of Hales Street. This was the ancient home of the Hospitallers, who tended the infirm and sick, but was converted after the Reformation into a free grammar school. It is now a parish room; but round the walls of the ancient chapel of the Hospitallers are the old stalls they once occupied, cut and hacked by many generations of schoolboys. The east window is a fine specimen of nearly flamboyant tracery. Here Dugdale received his education; also the Davenports and a great many more who have never risen to fame in the world. Mr Tovey, father of Milton's Cambridge tutor, and Philemon Holland, the "translator-general of his age," were masters here.
On returning up the Broadgate to the cross roads give a glance at the authentic "Peeping Tom" looking out of a window in the top storey of the King's Head Inn. It is a full-length wooden statue of a man in armour, with helmet, greaves, and sandals; the arms are cut off at the elbows. What the statue anciently represented is, I believe, unknown.
The turning to the right, Smithford Street, leads to S. John's Church, another building raised to the glory of God and the guild of the Holy Trinity, S. Mary, S. John Baptist, and S. Catherine. Nothing of the present church, built, it may be remembered, in some sort to commemorate the king's victory at Sluys, is earlier than 1357, for the first church, begun in 1345 and consecrated in 1350, disappeared before the more ambitious plans of a later time. Prayers were said therein for Isabella's "dear lord Edward," at whose tomb at Gloucester Cathedral so many pilgrims paid their devotions, to the no small gain of the ecclesiastics of that place. The new church at Bablake owed its south aisle--still called after his name--to William Walscheman and Christiana his wife, which Walscheman is described as "valet" (vadlettus) to Queen Isabell, and had of her gift control over the Drapery, where vent was made of "foreign" cloth brought to be sold within the city. The south (Walscheman's) aisle and the north clear-story are the oldest portions of the now existing building, the south clear-story, which is of different pattern, is not earlier than the fifteenth century, though it contrasts very favourably with the scheme employed both at Trinity and S. Michael's.[747] Off the north chancel-aisle was a hermitage, whereof traces have been found on the site of the present vestry. The church is small, the nave being but of three bays' length, but it is lofty and of fine proportion. The modern screen, however, strikes an inharmonious note.
Oblong as to ground-plan, though, curiously enough, never quite rectangular, the building, when seen from outside, is cruciform as to clear-story, and from the crossing springs a high fortress-like lantern tower with turrets or bartizans at the angles of the battlements. The east and west windows are restorations, and indeed the many vicissitudes this church has undergone, and its low situation, have frequently exposed it to two evils--restorations and floods. Granted to the corporation after the suppression of the guilds and chantries in 1548, the church was used as a kind of religious lecture-hall in 1608 and for some years later; and in 1648 as quarters for the Scots prisoners taken at Preston. The fabric was described as in a state of sad neglect in 1734, when it was linked to a parish for the first time in its history.
Close by the church and forming the view of all views to be dwelt on in the city, stand two picturesque black and white timbered houses, one given by John Bond for an almshouse for aged and decayed folk recommended by the Trinity guild, and the other the Bablake school raised by the benevolence of Mr Wheatley in the sixteenth century. Bond's Hospital, which contains some good seventeenth-century furniture, has been restored; but by preternatural good luck Wheatley's School escaped that devastating touch. The hall contains roof timbers possibly older than the bulk of the building, and an ancient staircase; and the room to the left on the ground floor has a fine Jacobean mantelpiece which came from Sir Orlando Bridgman's house in Little Park Street. There is an open gallery both on the ground floor and the upper storey.
The sight of these houses, grandly planned and strongly built, with lovely gables where barge-board and finial are marvels of the house-carver's art, is a fitting close to a day in Coventry. Let us hope that no restorer, modern builder, well-meaning or enterprising commercial man will ever rob us of the loveliness of Bond's Hospital and Wheatley's School at Bablake.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 730: This is a condition of things tourists ought to be thankful for; it is unhappily rare. S. Michael's closes at 5 o'clock in summer, 4 o'clock in winter; the other churches at 4 all the year round. The sight-seer ought to have an opera glass.]
[Footnote 731: See p. 102.]
[Footnote 732: See p. 164.]
[Footnote 733: See p. 297.]
[Footnote 734: Contrast the outline of Trinity spire--work of the seventeenth century. See Bond, _Eng. Architecture_, p. 633.]
[Footnote 735: Woodhouse, _Churches of Coventry_, 44.]
[Footnote 736: Woodhouse, 45.]
[Footnote 737: Poole, 150.]
[Footnote 738: Poole, 142.]
[Footnote 739: Poole, 145.]
[Footnote 740: Brooks, S. Michael's Church.]
[Footnote 741: Memorials of the visit of the British Archæological Institute in 1864. The kitchen is part of the original building, and belongs to the middle of the fourteenth century.]
[Footnote 742: Sharp.]
[Footnote 743: The architecture of the Great Hall shows it was raised after 1392, when the union of the guilds took place.]
[Footnote 744: Sharp, _Antiq._ 221.]
[Footnote 745: Miss Howard (_Englishwoman_, Jan., 48, 1911) identifies the feminine group with Elizabeth's daughters and sisters and mother-in-law, Margaret Beaufort.]
[Footnote 746: Sharp, _op. cit._, 222.]
[Footnote 747: Woodhouse, _Churches of Coventry_.]
INDEX
A
Abingdon, monastery at, 16; letter sent to, 152
Actors, Coventry, 288
Aelfgar, 23
Alchemist, an, 240
Aldermen, 77; appointment of, proposed, 115; police duties of, 267, 279
Aldgyth, 23
Ale-tasters, 247
Ale-wives, 228, 249
Almshouse, 263
"Angel" inn, 131
Annals, or mayor-lists, unreliability of, 106 (and note)
Annunciation, 82; pageant of, 287, 299
Apprentices, swear to franchises, 200-1, 226; morals of, 227, 279; number of, limited, 225; on setting up shop, pay fine, 226 and note; treatment of, 227
Archery, 278
Armour, provided by citizens 114-115; delivered to captains, 311-2
Arms, view of, 311
Arthur, Prince of Wales, 307
Assize of ale, 246; of bread, 51, 71, 98, 246, 248
Assumption, 82; pageant of, 287, 299
Audley, Lord, 130
B
Bablake, church of St John the Baptist at, _see_ Churches, Hospital; gate at, 8
Baginton, 102, 248
Bagot, Sir William, 102
Bailiffs, duties of, 88; _see also_ Sheriffs
Bakers, offend against assize of bread, 98; take sanctuary at Baginton, 248; rules of, 251 (note).
Ball, John, taken at Coventry, 97; discourse of, 98
Banbury, 144, 151; Puritanism at, 279
Barnet Field, 151, 152
Baron's Field, 179
Bath, Roman town, 15
Battle, trial by, 53
Beam, wool weighed at the, 250
Bear-baiting, 278
Bearward, 88, 278
Beaumont, Lord, 120, 128
Bedford, Duke of, 110; Duchess of, 111, 149
Bedon, William, quarrels with Huet, 137
Belfry, symbol of independence, 74 (note).
Bell, church, 158, 234 and note; daybell, rung at dawn, 234; "larum" bell, 126 (note)
Benedictines, house of, at Coventry, 16, 24; life among the, 27-8; habit of, 238; _see also_ Coventry, Monks, Priors, Priory
"Benevolences," 155
Beverley, plays at, 290
Bishopric of Coventry, title of, 167
Bishops of Coventry, _see_ Coventry
Black Death, 13, 244
Blood, Holy, of Hales, 238
Bloreheath, battle of, 130
Blue thread, special colour used in dyeing, 252
Bolingbroke, Henry, 9, 101, 102
Bond, John, 216; _see also_ Almshouse
Bonfires on S. John's Eve, 285
Books sold at fairs, 253
Bordars, 37 (note)
Boston, ship of, 259
Bosworth Field, battle of, 157, 256
Boteler, Henry, _see_ Recorders
Botoner, family of, trade with Bristol, 256; build S. Michael's steeple, 257; purchase estate, _ibid._
---- Adam, 257
Botoner, William, 257
Brakemen, workers in iron, 221-3
Brass, memorial, to Sir William Bagot, 102
Braytoft, Richard, 176
Breauté, Faulkes de, 95-6
Bredon, Friar John, opposes the hermit's preaching, 107; attacks monks, 276-8; nails bills on the church door, 277
Brethren, of the mayor, _see_ Mayor's Council
Brewers, forbidden to take water from conduits, 246; forestall barley, 249; trade of, lucrative, 248
Bridgman, Sir Orlando, house of, 6
Bristol, cannon brought from, 115; trade with, 215, 252, 256; toll demanded at, 257
Bristowe, John, draper, 172, 216; encroaches on common lands at Whitley, 172-3, 180; drives cattle on Coventry pastures, 173
---- William, of Whitley, 172, 174; offends the corporation, 174-5; the mayor and citizens break into his closes, 175-6, 177-8; appeals to the privy council, 177; suit between, and the community about the ownership of enclosed lands, 178-80; keeps meadows, several, 194; further suit, 196-7; _see also_ Whitley
Broadgate, 73
Bruges, staple for cloth at, 258
Buckingham, Duchess of, 128
---- Duke of, Humphrey Stafford, quarrels with Coventry men, 113; retainers and badge of, 113, 238; attends Henry VI., 119, 128; assists Duke of York to escape, 126; visits Coventry, 131; dies at Northampton, 132
Bull-baiting, 278
Bull-ring, poulterers stand near the, 250
Burgage, free, 46
Burgundy, wool trade with, 140, 150
Bury S. Edmund's, monastery at, 16; men of, get concessions from the abbot, 66
C
Cade, Jack, 114; quarters of, exposed on town gates, 243
Caen, abbeys at, 16
Calais, 143, 146; _see also_ Staple
Caludon Castle, 102
Cannock Chase, robbers at, 258
Canterbury, Archbishop of, 210; Arundel, 103, 104
Cantilupe, Fulk de, 34
Cappers, 225; company of, survives, 232; fines for admission to freedom of craft, 226 (note); treatment of apprentices among, 227 (note); _see also_ Apprentices, Chapel, Journeymen, Pageants
Caps, making of, by journeymen forbidden, 232
Cardmakers, bill concerning abuses of the, 222; _see also_ Journeymen
Card-wiredrawers, _see_ Cardmakers
Carmelites, habit of, 238
Carpenter, John, of London, 263
Carpenters, apprentices of, 232; feasts of, 284, 309 (note)
Carthusians, house of, at Coventry, 100; habit of, 238; _see also_ Charter-house
Cartwright, Presbyterian, at Warwick, 165
Castle, of Coventry, 40
Catesby, John, 178, 180
Catherine of France, Queen, 107
Chamberlain, duties of, 88, 187; _see also_ Saunders, Laurence
Chapel Fields, 41
Chapel of S. George on the Gosford Gate, 83, 275 (note)
---- of S. James and S. Christopher, 8
---- of S. Mary Magdalene, at Spon, 41
Chapels of the crafts in the parish churches, 274, 275 (note)
Chard, 152
Charity of the merchants, 259, 263; of the corporation, 268
Charles I. is refused entrance to Coventry, 6, 166
---- II. orders the walls to be dismantled, 7, 166
Charter, Ranulf's, 47-9, 61, 62; confirmation of, 59; privileges granted by, 69, 70, 74, 121; probably purchased by Guilds, 80; of 1621, 75; to prior, 59, 60
Charter-house, 6, 100, 278; _see also_ Carthusians
Chester, bishop's seat transferred from, 30; canons of, 32; S. Werburgh's at, 18 (note); Earls of, 38; Hugh rebels against Henry II., 40-1; builds lazar-house, 41; Hugh Lupus, 39; Ranulf Blonvil's career, 42; gives charter to burghers, 47; Ranulf Gernons, his career, 39-40; Ranulf Meschines, 39; plays at, 290; written by Higden, 291
Cheylesmore, officers of, 135-6; becomes royal manor, 96; Earl of Chester's dwelling at, 44, 95 (note), 101; Princes of Wales at, 154
Chimneys, wooden, 245.
Churches, of Coventry, 269-78
---- S. John the Baptist's, 8, 82, 270; priests of, 120
---- S. Michael's, bell brought to, 158; chapels of crafts in, 274; door of, verses nailed to, 204, 208, 277; priests of guilds employed in, 82-3, 270 (note); royal visits to, 120, 167; sale of cloth in porch of, 202
---- S. Nicholas, supported by Corpus Christi guild, 163 (note); chaplains of, 270 (note)
---- Holy Trinity, 269-70; fresco in, 273, 306; priests employed in, 83, 270 (note)
Churchyard, S. Michael's, 49, 250
Clapham, 144, 243 (note)
Clarence, Duke of, conspires with Warwick, 142, 143; pledges jewel, 146; deserts Warwick, 151; mediates with Edward IV. for Coventry men, 152
Cloth of Coventry, 212-5; drapers, merchants of, 215; dyers, makers of, 203 (note), 220; Florentine, 315; makers of, 203 (note); manufacture of, 61; sale of, 202, 212; sealing of, 214-5; weaving of, how paid, 230; _see also_ Drapery, Frieze
Clothiers, company of, survives, 232
Clothmakers, _see_ Cloth
Cock-fighting, 278
"Cofantreo," 16 (note)
Coket, bread, 248 and note
Colchester, 15
Coleshill, 128, 129; pillory at, 240
Combe, abbot of, 179
Commission of array, 312-3
Common Council, 204
Common labour, 310
Common lands, enclosures of, 170-3; part of, held by Trinity guild, 91-2; old men testify to the extent of, 179-80; ploughed up, 160; technical possessors of, 171 (note); _see also_ Enclosures, Lammas lands, Prior's Waste, Saunders, Laurence, Stint, Surcharging
Common seal, 92
Competition, rules against, 225; of outsiders, 251
Compurgation, 51 (note)
Conduits, 1, 246
Coniers, Sir John, 141
Cook, Laurence, 109, 258
Cookery in Middle Ages, 283
Coopers, feast of, at Whitefriars, 275 (note)
Coroner, 59
Corpus Christi, eve of, 282; procession on feast of, 287-8, _see also_ Pageants
Corpus Christi guild, _see_ Guild
Corrody, 63 (note)
Corvesars, 283
Council, great, held at Coventry, 126, 127; _see also_ Mayor's Council, Prince of Wales
Court, of the royal household, 101; of statute merchant, 253-4 and note; spiritual, for trial of craftsmen, 218; _see also_ Leet, Portmanmote
Coventry, bishops of, Blythe, 158; Durdent, 32, 40; Limesey, 30; Nunant, expels monks from Priory, 30-2; la Pucelle, 33; elections of the, 32-5; burgesses of, protest against confiscation of guilds' lands, 162; cathedral of, 18, 25; derivation of, 11; _see also_ Charters, Mayors, Recorders
---- send to, 3
---- bells, flower name, 3
Cox Street, or Mill Lane, pageant houses in, 12, 293
Crafts, combinations of, suppressed, 220 (note); companies of, now existing, 232; members of, tried in spiritual courts, 218; feasts of, 284; fines paid by, 219; fines paid on admission to freedom of, 226 and note; power of corporation over, 217-23; rules of, overlooked, 218 (note); _see also_ Apprentices, Cappers, Dyers, etc., Pageants
Cucking stool, 240
D
Danes, 15, 308
Dartmouth, 141 (note)
Daubers and rough masons forbidden to form a fellowship, 231
Daventry, 6
Despensers, plot to kill by witchcraft, 64
Dieulacres, 42
Dissolution of the monasteries, 161-2
Domesday Survey, Coventry in, 37 and note; Prior's-half not in, _ibid._
Doomsday, pageant of, 129, 295, 305, 306
Drama, liturgical, _see_ Pageants
Drapers, apprentices of, 226 (note); chapel of, 275 (note); influence of, 75, 216; overlook searchers of cloth, 217; survival of company of, 232
Drapery, cloth sold in, 202, 212, 250 and note; and Trinity guild, 82; drapers live near, 250
Drayton, Michael, 1, 14
Drogheda, 252 and note
Dublin, 252 (note), 254
Dugdale, Sir William, attributes the _Ludus Coventriæ_ to the Grey Friars, 297
Dunstable, 56, 276 (note); play at, 290
Dunster, 22
Dye, French, 218, 257
Dyers, men of, ride in armed watch, 286; chapel of, 275 (note); raise price of dyeing cloth, 220 and note; combinations of, 217, 220 and note; payment of, to minstrels, 309 (note); petition against abuses of, 217, 220 (note); treatment of, by corporation, 220-1; _see also_ Journeymen, Saunders
E
Eadric Streona, 15
Earl's-half of Coventry, 7, 38, 57; becomes a royal manor, 67; _see also_ Prior's-half
Edgcote, battle of, 144, 243 (note)
Edward I., 61
---- II. borrows from citizens, 61; supports prior, 62; plot to kill by witchcraft, 64
---- III., 68
---- IV. and jurisdiction, 135-136; citizens embrace cause of, 132-3; citizens give welcome to, 153; confiscates franchises, 152; plots of Warwick against, 143, 145; a prisoner in Coventry, 144; war between, and Warwick, 150-1
Edward V. as Prince of Wales, appeal to, by Saunders, 184; arbitrates in Bristowe's case, 197; born, 149; corporation entreats mediation of, 155; member of guilds, 154; oath of allegiance taken to, _ibid._; reception of, 153-4
Edward the Confessor, charter of, 16-17
Election of officials, 75
Elephant, city arms, 214
Eliot, George, 3, 4, 7
Elizabeth, Queen, visits Coventry, 14, 164; sees Hox Tuesday play, 308-9
---- Queen of Bohemia, 165
---- Woodville, 149, 154
---- of York, 160, 296
Empson, Richard, _see_ Recorders
Enclosures, award of 1860, 170-1; commons break into, 160; petition to parliament concerning, 131; list of, presented by Saunders, 188, 197; of Prior's Waste, 176-7; _see also_ Common Lands
Ethelnoth, 18
Exeter, 146; Vespasion at, 14
F
Fair, grant of, 54; of Coventry, 251-2, 288 (note); of Stourbridge and Winchester, 252
Fee-ferm, 74, 162; in arrears, 138; paid by Trinity guild to prior, 91
Fineux, Chief-Justice, 210
Fire, protection against, 245
Fishmongers, 247, 249
Fleet prison, 210
Folk-lore, 3-4
Ford, William, founds almshouse, 263
Forestalling, 247, 248, 249
Fortification of Coventry, 114-5
Forty-eight, Council of, 92-4; _see also_ Mayor's Council
Foss Way, 24
Fotheringay, 141
Fresco, at Charter-house, 100; in Trinity Church, 306-7
Friars, Grey, 55; church of, 4, 296; habit of, 238; Isabella protects the, 97; supposed actors in pageants, 4, 296-8; _see also_ Bredon, _Ludus Coventriæ_
Frieze of Coventry, 212
Fullbrook, castle of, 110, 111
Fullers, craft of, 201, 232; guild of, 219; adopt special mark, 218; two appointed searchers, 214
G
Gaming, 279-80
Gaol, 240
Gates, closed at nine o'clock, 237
Girdlers, 221-3; chapel of, 274 (note)
Gloucester, city of, 133
---- Duke of, Humphrey, 113; loan demanded by, 109; present made to, 110-11
Glover, Robert, martyr, 163
Godiva, buried at Coventry, 17; family of, 23; founds and endows Priory, 16; estate of, 37 and note; employs goldsmiths, 17-18; procession, 19-20; legend of ride of, 18-23; and horse-toll, 18; and "black lady," 22; and "Peeping Tom," 22-3
Gosford Green, 171; proposed duel at, 11, 102; executions at, 144; hermitage at, 238
---- Street, and pageants, 12
Grace, John, disturbance caused by preaching of, 107
Grauntpee, William, suit of, with prior, 63
Greville, Sir Fulk, 278
Grey, Walter de, 34, 35
Guild of S. Anne, founded by journeymen, suppressed, 83, 229
---- of S. Catherine, united with Trinity, 82
---- of Corpus Christi, 80, 83; chapel of, 83; feasts of, 283-4; master of, and mayoralty, 77; and Corpus Christi procession, 287; and S. Nicholas church, 163 and note; Prince Edward, member of, 154
---- of S. George, founded by journeymen, suppressed, 83, 229
---- of S. John the Baptist, founded and builds Bablake church, 82; united with Trinity guild, _ibid._
---- merchant of S. Mary, founded, 80; and S. Mary's Hall, 81-2; masters of and the mayoralty, 80 and note; reasons for foundation of, 80 (note); priests of, 83; union with Trinity guild, 82
Guild merchant of Priory tenants, 59, 60
---- of the Nativity of fullers and tailors, 83, 219-20; pageant of, 299
---- of Holy Trinity, 80, 83; and Bablake church, 82; and the Drapery, _ibid._; and Corpus Christi injured by formation of other guilds, 83; master of, 77, 85, 87; encloses commons to pay ferm to prior, 78, 91; feasts of, 283; and procession, 287; pays schoolmaster, 266; union of, with other guilds, 82 and note
Guilds, rise of, 79-80; suppression of fresh, 83; suppression of, and chantries, 162-3
Guy of Warwick, 12, 24 (note)
Guy's Cliff, 131
H
Haddon, John, loans of, 216
Hales, John, 162
Hanseatic League, 258
Harcourt, Sir Richard, brawls in Coventry, 281-2
"Harrowing of Hell," _see_ Pageants
Hawking, 280
Hearsall Common, 8, 171
Hell-mouth, 305
Henry II., 40, 49
---- III., 57
---- IV., 104; _see also_ Bolingbroke
---- V., loan to, 104; as Prince of Wales and Justice Gascoigne, 105; and Mayor Hornby, 106; visits Coventry, 107, 288
---- VI., 114; visits Coventry, 116-21, 125, 126, 127; grants charter, 121; letter of, 131-2; men of Coventry turn against, 132; _see also_ Church, Margaret of Anjou
---- VII., 159-60, 198; at Coventry, 156, 157, 288, 296; appeals for loan, 158-9
---- VIII., at Coventry, 307
Herbergeors, 255
Herbert, Lord, 144
Hereford, Nicholas, 100
Heresy, court of, 158
Hermits, in Coventry, 238
Herod, King, _see_ Pageants
Heywood, John, _see_ Pageants
Hinckley, 254
Holy cake, 87
Hopkins' family, 165
Hostry, monastic, 25-6
Hospital of S. John the Baptist, 26-7
Hox-Tuesday play, 3-4, 308-9
Huet, William, appeals to King-maker, 137
Huguenot silk weavers, 167
Hull, 252 (note), 265 (note)
"Hundred Merry Tales," 288
I
Iklynton collar left in pledge, 104
Immorality, punishment of, 243
Indenture tripartite, 71-2
Inns, 255-6; blind, 279
Iron, workers in, abuses of, 221-3
Isabella, Queen, Earl's-half manor of, 43, 67; feud between and the prior, 67-70, 71-2; protects the Grey Friars, 97; and Bablake church, 82; grants charter of liberties, 74
J
James I., 166
James II., 165.167
Jews in Coventry, 55
John, King, 31; forces his candidate on the chapter, 33-5
Jordan Well, 13
Joseph, character in pageants, 302
Journeymen, cappers and cap-making, 231; working hours of, _ibid._; workers in iron, 223; dyers, 231; guilds of, 80, 83, 228-31; _see also_ Guilds; suppers of, 284; tailors, 83, 229; weavers, 229-30; and pageants, 292 (note), 294
Justices of Peace, 76
K
Kenilworth, Abbot of, 179; castle of, 96, 123; prisoners kept in, 161; royal visits to, 127, 129, 308
L
Lady Tower, 8
Lammas day, 160, 181
Lammas lands, 170, 171; _see also_ Common Lands, Enclosures
Landor, Walter Savage, 18
Laneham's letter, 308-9
Leet Book, 76
Leet, court of, or view of Frankpledge, 51 (note), 77; jury of, 77, 90; orders of, 87; petitions to, 90, 221-3
Leicester, 116, 133, 150; bailiff of, 38; men of, rebel against Henry II., 41
Leofric, buried at Coventry, 17; founds and endows the Priory, 16; husband of Godiva, 23; _see also_ Godiva
Leprosy, 41
Lichfield, title of bishopric of, 167; canons of, and Coventry monks, 32-5; play performed at, 289
Lincoln, customs of, 47; burgesses of, 48
Livery and maintenance, Henry VI. warns Coventry men against, 121
Loans to royal persons, 104, 109, 110, 146, 159
Lollard martyrs, 158
Lollardry, 3, 98-100, 108, 158
London, 42; inn-signs in, 234 (note); streets in, 250 (note); precautions against fire in, 245 (note); S. John's Eve, in, 284-5; schools in, 263 (note), 265 (note); sympathy of men of, with Coventry men, 64 (note); body of Twenty-four in, 90; Tower of, 38
Ludlow, castle of, 184, 188, 189, 196; _misericord_ in church at, 249
_Ludus Coventriæ_, _see_ Pageants
Lullaby, 310
Lutterworth, 98
Lynn, 148; burgesses and guilds of, 162
M
Mace, 128
Maintenance, 127
Mareshall, Robert le, informer, 63-4
Margaret of Anjou, Coventry men turn against, 132; Coventry called "secret harbour" of, 112; reception of, 125-6; visits Coventry, 127-8; sees pageants, 129, 288; is reconciled to Warwick, 147; lands after Battle of Barnet, 151
Marisco, Richard de, 34
Market, held in Prior's-half, 58, 62-3, 71; regulations concerning, 249-51; toll-free, except for horses, 18
Marlborough, 49 (note)
Marmion, of Tamworth, 39-40
"Marprelate, Martin," 253 and note
Marshal of the royal household, 101
Mary, Queen of Scots, 164
Martyrs, 5, 158, 163
Masons, fellowship of, 231
Matilda, Queen of Henry I., called Godiva, 23
Maxstoke, 113, 158
Mayor, arbiter in cases of craft disputes, 219; cap of, 89; supports malcontents, 161; duties of, 88; fee of, 89; attends mass, 86; overlooks craft rules, 218
Mayor's Council, of Forty-Eight, 90, 92-4; tyranny of, 94; Saunders expelled from, 204; of Twenty-Four, 90
Mayors of Coventry: Bette, John, deprived of civic sword, 152; Cook, Laurence, 177; Deister, John, and the sword, 101, 207; Dove, John, 207; Green, Robert, 199, 205; Onley, Sir Robert, and Henry VII., 156, 157; Saunders, William, 142, 174; opens Bristowe's fields, 175, 177; Stoke, Richard, 6; Strong, John, 94; Wyldegrys, John, 131, 132
Melton, 47
Mempric, founder of Oxford, 15
Mercers, craft of, apprentices to, 216 (note); chapel of, 275 (note); company of, survives, 232; influence of, 75, 216
Merchant Adventurers, 314
Merchants, attend council of Edward I., 61; families of, 256-9; manage municipal affairs, 74 and note, 216
Merevale, Abbot of, 179
Military duties of citizens, 311-3
Minstrels, 309
Miracle plays, _see_ Pageants
"Moll of Coventry," 3
Monks, of Coventry, receive charters, 16-17, 38; dispute with bishops, 30-2; with canons, 32-5; with Coventry men, 58, 59, 60, 62-3, 67-72, 190-4; with Friar Bredon, 276-8; with Isabella, 67-72; as landlords, 36
Montalt or Mohaut, Roger de, 58-9, 95 (note)
Montfort, Simon de, 96
"Mother of Death," 305; _see also_ Pageants
N
Neville, Sir Humphrey, 145
Newgate, and Charles I., 6; wall, begun it, _ibid._
"Nine Conquerors," 125
Northampton, 130, 131; battle of, 132; Earl of, 166
Norwich, 75 (note); court-leet of, 50 (note)
Nottingham, 34, 250 (note); receives customs after pattern of Coventry, 48 (note)
---- John de, necromancer, 63-4
O
"Obits," 275
Onley, family of, 257 (note), 258
---- 144 and note
Ordeal, trial by, 53
Oven, feudal lord's, 46
Oxford, 15; S. Frideswide's fair at, 253
P
Pageants, Corpus Christi, 287-307; acted 1392 in Coventry, 290; absence of Old Testament scenes in, 299; payment of actors in, by crafts, 293; dress of actors in, 306; of cardmakers, later cappers, 300, 305, 306; characters of Herod, Pilate and the devil in, 287, 303-5; minor characters in, 305-6; crafts evade contributions to, 292; _Ludus Coventriæ_ probably unconnected with Coventry cycle of, 297-8; "Doomsday" or drapers', 129, 295, 300, 305, 306; liturgical drama and, 289; of girdlers, 300; "Harrowing of Hell," _see_ Cardmakers; Heywood's allusions to, 305; of mercers, 299, 307; and miracle plays, 289-90; pageant houses, 293; of pinners and needlers, 299-300; "Nativity" or sheremen's and tailors', 299-302; of smiths, 299, 300, 304; royal spectators of, 288; stage properties of, 305-6; stations where acted, 294-5; titles of, 299-300; vehicles used for, 293-4; "Presentation in Temple" or weavers', 292 (note), 299, 300, 302; for reception of royalty, Arthur, Prince of Wales, 307; Edward, Prince of Wales, 152-4; Henry VIII., 307; Margaret of Anjou, 124-6; Princess Mary, 307
Pakeman, Simon, prior's bailiff, 68
Palace Yard, 165
Park, Little, 5, 107; martyrs burnt in, 6, 158; plays played in, 290, 296
Parliament "Unlearned," 102-3; "Diabolical," 131
"Pastores," 289; _see also_ Pageants
Peasant revolt, 97
"Peeping Tom," _see_ Godiva
"Peregrini," 289; _see also_ Pageants
Pewterers, 200
Pilate, _see_ Pageants
Pilgrims, 238-9
Pinners, feast of, 275 (note)
Pisford, William, 263
Plague, 244
Players, strolling, 279; of Coventry, 288
Play, S. Christian's, 296 and note
Plays, stationary, acted in the Little Park, 296
Poddycroft, common land, 92
Polesworth, 15; S. Edith of, 40
Population of Coventry, 162
Portmanmote, court of, 48, 49-51
Poulterers, 250
Preston, 47 (note)
Prince of Wales, lord of the Earl's-half, 43, 167; Council of, 184; _see also_ Edward V., Henry V.
Prince's Chamber, title of Coventry, 73
Prior, quarrel between Isabella and the men of Coventry, 67-72
Priors of Coventry: Brightwalton, William of, purchased Earl's-half, 58; Deram, 190-4; Geoffry, 29; Irreys, Henry, 62; plot to kill by witchcraft, 63-4
Prior's-half of Coventry, 37, 57; Trinity Church serves for parish of, 7, 37
Prior's Waste, 176
Priory, 39; remains of, 25-6, 74; Henry VI. lodged at, 119-20; shrine at, 8
Procession at Corpus Christi, 287-8; on Midsummer and S. Peter's Eves, 284-7; of royalty, 120, 128
_Processus Prophetarum_, 289, 299
R
Reading, 16
Recorders of Coventry: Boteler, Henry, 121, 187; death of, 198; disgrace of, 199; opposes Saunders, 188; quells tumult, 195; Empson, Richard, 159, 198, 206, 207; Littleton, Thomas, 119, 121; Swillington, Ralph, 274
Regratery, _see_ Forestalling
Richard I., 33
---- II., 102; forbids duel, 11, 101-2; lays foundation-stone of Carthusian chapel, 6, 100
---- III., 155-6; sees pageants, 288
Rivers, Earl, 148; guardian of the Prince of Wales, 184
---- Lord, 126, 129; beheaded on Gosford Green, 11, 144
Robin of Redesdale, 140, 144
Rochester, Bishop of, Thomas Savage, 207
Roger of Wendover, 18, 19
Rood, of Bronholme, of Chester, 238
Rous, John, antiquary, 131
S
Saddlers, journeymen, of London, 230
S. Albans, 16; battles of, 122, 132; men of, 46, 56
S. Augustine of Hippo, 18
S. Catharine, chapel of, 82; character of, 287; play of, 296; _see also_ Guilds
S. George, Coventry birthplace of, 4, 154 (note); chapel of, 12, 275 (note); character of, in pageants, 153-4; riding of, 307; mummers's play of, _ibid._; _see also_ Guild
S. John the Baptist's Eve, 284, 285-6
S. Margaret, 125, 287
S. Mary's Hall, 74, 161, 178, 190; guild-hall of, 81-2; tapestry in, 82; window in, 314
S. Nicholas Hall, 1
S. Osburg, 15; pool of, 7-8; shrine of, 8, 238
S. Paul's Cathedral, 160
S. Thomas' or cappers' chapel in S. Michael's, 274
S. Thomas of India, 287
Samson, character of, welcomes Edward IV., 133
Sanctuary, right of, 95
Sanitation, 244-5
Saunders, Laurence, dyer, made chamberlain, 182; champion of malcontents, 181, 204; complains of abuses, 184-8, 197-8, 316; imprisoned, 190, 204, 210; member of the Forty-Eight, 199 (note); seditious speeches of, 203; trials of, 189, 210
---- Laurence, martyr, 5, 163
Schoolmaster and school, 25, 264-6
Severn, river, 257
Shakespeare, 105
Sharpe, Jack, rising under, 109
Shepey, Jordan, mayor, 12
Sherbourne river, regulations concerning, 87
Sheremen, _see_ Tailors
Sheriffs, 254 (note); county court of 52-3; Henry VI. promises to make, 121
Ship-money, 166
Shipton, Mother, prophecy of, 7
Shops, 62 (note), 234 (note)
Shrewsbury, Countess of, 129; _see also_ Talbot
Shrines, of saints, 238-9
Silk industry, 167
Simnel bread, 248 (note)
Sluys, battle of, 8
Smith, Walter, age of, 296
Smiths, craft of, 286; abuses of, 221-3; chapel of, 275 (note); journeymen of, 223; _see also_ Pageants
Soap, making of, 61 and note
Somerset, Duke of, retainers of, and city watch, 126-7
Somerset, Duke of, Protector, 162
Southampton, 257
Sowe, Richard, killed by witchcraft, 64
Spain, 252
Spicer-stoke, 250
Stafford, Sir Humphrey, brawl between and the Harcourts, 281-2
Stamford, 141 (note)
Staple of Calais, 147; John Onley of Coventry, mayor of, 257; monopoly of wool trade, 140, 215
Star Chamber, 210, 211 (note)
Stephen, King, 40
Steward; _see_ Town Clerk
Stivichall, 4, 40; common at, 171
Stocks, 240
Stoke, common at, 171
Stoneleigh, Abbot of, 179; church of, 4; monks of, 283
Stourbridge, fair at, 252
Stowe, antiquary, of London, 284
Stralsund, 259
Strike of journeymen, 230
Swanswell Pool, 24 (note), 191, 193
Swine of S. Anthony's Hospital, 234 (note)
Sulby, Prior of, 253
Surcharging of common lands, 187-8
Swynderby, William, 98-9
T
Tables, draughts, 280
Tailors, journeymen of, 83, 229; guild and fullers, 219-20; _see also_ Pageants
Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, 3, 110
Tamworth, 40
Tanners, title of pageant of, lost, 299; regulations concerning, 200
Tapestry, 82
Tewkesbury, 35
Thomas, monk of Coventry, 31-2, 34
Thornton, John, window of, 314
Tilers, 275 (note)
Toll, 17, 257; Coventry free from, 18, 19, 71; at Southampton, 257
Town clerk and steward, Boteler, John, 189, 194, 197, 211
Towton, battle of, 133
"Trial and Crucifixion of Christ," _see_ Pageants
Tree, traditional, near Smithford Bridge, 9
V
Vagabonds, sturdy, 266-7
Vespasian, visit of, to Exeter, 14
Victuallers, 169 and note, 246-9
W
Wakefield, battle of, 133; cycle of plays at, 301
Walkers, _see_ Fullers
Walls of city, begun, 6; dismantled, 6-7, 166-7
Walter of Coventry, 28 (note)
Ward, Joan, martyr, 158
Wardens, 88, 202
Wards of the city, meeting of men of, 91 (note), 92
Warwick, 151, 161; Leycester Hospital at, 165
---- Earl of, Richard Beauchamp, 109, 110
---- Earl of, Richard Neville, the King-maker, 149; appeal made to by Huet, 138; plans to raise Clarence to throne, 139-40; foments rebellion, 140-1, 144, 145-8; letter from, to Coventry mayor, 141-3; marriage of daughters of, 143, 147; Edward IV. prisoner of, 144; refused to give battle at Coventry, 150
Wastel bread, 248 (note)
Watch, 237, 311; fray between Somerset's retainers, 126-7
Weavers, craft of, 201, 202; apprentices of, 225; journeymen of, 229-30; searchers of cloth, 212-3; _see also_ Pageant
Westminster, Abbey of, 149; Abbot of, 29
Wheatley, founder of Bablake School, 259-60
White, Sir Thomas, 264
Whitley, common at, 171-2; Bristowe, encloses land at, 175; meadows at, thrown open, 175-6; suit concerning meadows at, 177-80, 194-5, 196-7
Whittington, Sir Richard, 263
Wickliffe, 98, 100
William I., 16, 29, 38
Winchester, 15; fair at, 252; men of, receive customs after pattern of Coventry, 48 (note)
Woodville, John, 9, 144-5
Wool, 140, 184, 215, 224
---- hall, 202, 212, 250
Worcester, Tiptoft, Earl of, 149
Y
York, 15; men of, 207 (note); plays performed at, 290
---- Archbishop of, 143, 149
---- Richard, Duke of, 119, 123, 126
"York Plays," 301, 305
INDEX TO CHAPTER XVI.
A
America and Coventry men. John Davenport, 319; the Sewell family, 326
B
Bablake School, founded by Wheatley, 344-5; staircase in, 345
Bond's Hospital at Bablake, 344, 345
Botoner, family of, 319, 322
Bridgman, Sir Orlando, mantelpiece from the house of, at Bablake School, 345
Butcher Row, 342
C
Cathedral, ruins of, 342
Church of Christ, or of the Greyfriars, 320
Church of S. John the Baptist at Bablake, 342-4; clear-story in, 343; ground-plan of, _ibid._; history of, 343-4; Isabella and, 343; Scots prisoners in, _ibid._; Walscheman's aisle, _ibid._
Church of S. Michael, 322-9; apse, 328; architecture, 323; brasses, memorial, 326, 327; communion table, 327; cove, 329; "Dance of Death," 327-8; drapers' chapel, 326-8; lantern, 324; Latin hymn on beam, 329; misericordes, 327-8; steeple, 322; tombs--Dame Bridgman's, 326; Nethermyl's, 324; Swyllington's, 325; Wayd's, _ibid._; windows, 328-9
Church of the Holy Trinity, 339-342; alms-box, 341; brass to John Whitehead, _ibid._; font, 341; fresco, 340; Godiva window, 341; lectern, _ibid._; monument of Philemon Holland, _ibid._; porch, 339; pulpit, 341
D
Davenport, Christopher, Franciscan, 320,
---- John, Puritan, 319
Dugdale, Sir William, 320
E
Eliot, George, 319; describes S. Mary's Hall in "Adam Bede," _ibid._
Elizabeth of York, 335, 336
F
Ford's or Greyfriars' Hospital, 321
G
Godiva, 319; window commemorating, 341
H
Henry VI., 323; statue of, 330; portrait in tapestry, 336; in window, 334
Henry VII., 335, 336
M
Margaret of Anjou, 336
Marston, John, dramatist, 319
Mary, Queen of Scots, chamber of, 339; _see also_ S. Mary's Hall
P
"Peeping Tom," 342
Pisford, William, 321
Population of Coventry, 318
S
Saints, _see_ S. Mary's Hall, tapestry.
S. Mary's Hall, 329-39; armour, 334; chair of state, 333; charters, _ibid._; crypt, 330; kitchen, _ibid._; Mary, Queen of Scots, letter concerning, in Muniment Room, 333; Mayoress's parlour, _ibid._; Minstrel Gallery, 339; Muniment Room, 332-3; portraits, 333; roof, 335; S. Gertrude of Nivelles, 338; tapestry, 335-8; whipping-post, 330; window, 334-5
S. Osburg, 319
Saunders, Laurence, martyr, 319
School, Free Grammar, 342; Dugdale educated at, 320; Philemon, Holland, and Tovey, masters at, 342
Siddons, Sarah, 319
T
Terry, Miss Ellen, 319
W
Wanley, Humphrey, 320
---- Nathaniel, 320
Ward, Joan, martyr, 319
Wheatley, Bablake School founded by, 344-5; mantel piece in, 345; staircase in, _ibid._
White, Sir Thomas, statue of, 319
Whitefriars, 318
Women in Coventry history, 319
[Transcribers note: Original spelling has been retained]
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End of Project Gutenberg's The story of Coventry, by Mary Dormer Harris