APPENDIX V

The following is a list of the principal residents and householders of London, 12 Edward II., compiled for purposes of assessment: it shows how many great men of the time had town houses in the fourteenth century.

[APPENDIX VI]
THE SHOP

The following textures were sold in London, the coarse woollen goods manufactured in the City:—Mercery; “wad mal,” a woollen stuff; “lake” or fine linen; canvas, woven linen, frestian, felt, “lymere” or “lormerie,” the material used for making saddles and trappings for horses, pile, kersey, haberdashery, i.e. all kinds of “hapertas,” a thick woollen cloth, raw texture of Limoges, “Parmentrye” qualloorn, cloth of silk and cloth of Rheims. Striped cloth called “ray” was brought from Brabant and Flanders. Foreign weavers came to the country in great numbers. To prevent collision, the weavers of Flanders who worked to be hired were ordered to repair to the churchyard of St. Laurence Pomeroy, and those of Brabant to the churchyard of St. Mary Mounthaw.

The following inventory of a haberdasher’s shop in the year 1378 shows that it contained a most various assortment of goods. The haberdasher of the fourteenth century was a stationer, a mercer, a draper, a hatter, a boot and shoe maker, a dealer in leather, and fifty other trades. He sold, in a word, all small articles.

“2 dozens of laces of red leather, value 8d.; one gross of poynts of red leather, 18d.; one dozen of cradilbowes, made of wool and flax, 18d.; 3 cradilbowes, made of wool and flax, 3d.; one dozen of caps, one half of which are of red colour, and the other half green, 2s. 8d.; one dozen of white caps, called ‘nightcappes,’ 2s. 3d.; 2 dozens of woollen caps of divers colours, 16s.; 6 caps of black wool, 4s.; 5 caps of blue colour, and one cap of russet, 2s. 6d.; 5 children’s caps, red and blue, 2s. 1d.; one dozen of black hures, 4s.; one black hure, 4d.; two hair camises, 12d.; one red cap, 7d.; one other cap of russet, 7d.; one hat of russet, 6d.; one white hat, 3d.; 2 papers covered with red leather, 12d.; two other papers, one of them covered with black leather, and the other with red, 8d.; one purse, called ‘hamondeys,’ of sea-green colour, 6d.; 4 pairs of spurs, 2s.; one double chain of iron, 10d.; and one other iron chain, 6d.; 2 permis, 2s.; one cloth painted with Him Crucified, and other figures, 2s. 4d.; 8 white chains of iron for ferrettes, 8d.; one flekage of wood, 3d.; one set of beads of geet, 6d.; one other set of beads of black alabaster, 4d.; three sets of beads of wood, 3d.; two pairs of pencases, with horns, 8d.; one pair of children’s boots of white woollen cloth, 2d.; one osculatory, called a pax-bread, 3d.; 2 sets of wooden beads, called ‘knottes,’ 4d.; 4 articles, called ‘kombes,’ of box-wood, 4d.; 2 wooden boxes, 3d.; 2 wooden piper quernes, 3d.; 2 pounds of linen thread, green and blue, 2s.; 2 wooden cosynis, 2d.; 6 purses of red leather, 4d.; 4 eyeglasses, 2d.; 18 horns, called ‘inkehornes,’ 18d.; 2 pencases, 6d.; one black girdle of woollen thread, 2d.; 13 quires of paper, 6s. 8d.; other paper, damaged, 6d.; one hat of russet, 6d.; 2 wooden coffins, 8d.; 2 gaming-tables, with the men, 16d.; one wooden block for shaping caps, 2d.; 6 skins of parchment, called soylepeles, 6d.; one wooden whistle, 2d.; 7 leaves of paper, 1d.; and 3 pieces of whippecorde, 3d.” (Riley’s Memorials, p. 422.)

The following is a list of goods stolen from a goldsmith’s shop in the year 1382:—

“Two silver girdles, with red corses in silk, value 46s.; one silver girdle with a blue corse, 30s.; one other small silver girdle, with a green corse, 16s.; one chain of silver gilt, 40s.; one other small silver chain, 5s.; one girdle of red silk, with a bokele, and studded with silver gilt, 16s.; one silver chalice, with paten, 38s.; 2 sets of phials of silver, their swages gilt, 20s.; one osculatory of silver gilt, 20s.; two mazer cups, bound with silver gilt, 33s. 4d.; 6 silver spoons, 14s.; 2 gold rings, with two dyamaundes, £15; one gold ring with a baleys, 26s. 8d.; 3 strings of pearls, 70s.; 6 gold necklaces, 100s.; and other goods and chattels, such as fermails and rings of silver gilt, broken silver girdles set with silver, buckles and pendants for girdles, and paternosters, of silver and pearls, to the value of £40.” (Riley’s Memorials, p. 470.)

[APPENDIX VII]
THE ASSIZE OF BUILDING

The following is an abridgment of the ordinances, said to have been issued in 1189 and ascribed by John Carpenter to Henry Fitz Aylwin, first Mayor “for the allaying of the contentions that from time to time arise touching boundaries, etc.”

The said “provision and ordinance” was called an Assize.

1. The Mayor to be assisted by committee, or jury, or twelve men elected in full Hustings.

2. If any one demands the Assize, i.e. appeals to the Mayor in case of a dispute, he must do so in full Hustings. And if no Hustings are sitting, then he may ask it of the Mayor and Aldermen.

3. Thickness and height of a party wall of stone.

It is to be three feet wide and sixteen feet high. Either, or both, may make a gutter to carry off the rain into the street.

Arches one foot deep may be made in the wall for aumbries, or cupboards.

4. If one of two neighbours wishes to build a party wall of stone, and the other is too poor to join him, then the latter shall give the former three feet of his own land to build upon. But not for the purpose of narrowing or stopping any doorway, inlet, outlet, or shop.

5. If a man build a stone wall, at his own expense, sixteen feet high, his neighbour must make a gutter under the eaves of the house and so carry off the rain water.

6. A party wall must not be taken down or lessened in thickness without the consent of both parties.

7. Cesspools, etc., shall not be constructed at a less distance from a party wall than 2½ feet if they are lined with stone. If they are not so lined, they shall not be constructed within three feet.

8. “Ancient Lights,” as we now call them, need not be respected unless provision has been made by writing against their obstruction.

9. Corbels must not be removed except by common consent.

10. If any person builds to the injury of a neighbour’s tenement, the latter may stop the building until the decision of the Mayor after he has visited the place.

11. The award to be carried into effect within 40 days.

There are other ordinances chiefly concerned with the construction of gutters for the rain water.

[APPENDIX VIII]
RULES CONCERNING LAWYERS

“In the time of Gregory, Mayor of London, in the eighth year of the reign of King Edward, because that oftentimes there were some who made themselves countors, who did not understand their profession, nor had learnt it; as to whom, the substantial men of the City well perceived that through their ignorance the impleaded and impleaders lost their pleas and their suits, in the Hustings and in the houses of the Sheriffs, and that some were disinherited through their foolish conduct; seeing that every one made himself a countor at his own will, such a one sometimes as did not know how to speak in proper language, to the great scandal of the Courts aforesaid which allowed them so to be, as also pleaders, and attorneys, and essoiners, and sometimes in the Sheriff’s Court, assessors, and [thereby] each of them the judge of others, privily or openly; through which, right was intercepted by them:—the Mayor aforesaid, with his Aldermen, and other substantial men of the City, at the request of the serjeants and countors who understood their profession, and who therein felt themselves greatly aggrieved, has established that from henceforth such persons shall not be heard as do not reasonably understand their profession, and how becomingly to manage the business and the suits of the substantial men; and that such person shall hereafter be admitted by the Mayor and the substantial men aforesaid; saving nevertheless unto each reputable man such counsel as he shall wish to have, either from stranger or from denizen [and] such as he shall think proper to seek for his business. But that this ordinance and establishment shall hold good so far as our serjeants, attorneys, and essoiners, who generally frequent our Courts, and are constantly dwelling among us. And their will is, that each one hold his own estate, that is to say, that no countor be an attorney or an essoiner, and no essoiner a countor or an attorney.

The duty of a countor is as follows:—Standing, to plead and to count counts, and to make proffers at the bar, without baseness, and without reproach and foul words, and without slandering any man, so long as the Court lasts. Nor shall serjeants or attorneys go further in front beyond the bar or the seat where their sitting is; nor shall any one be assessor, or sit near the bailiff, for delivering pleas or judgments, unless it so be that the principal bailiff who is holding the Court shall call him unto him; and in such case he shall make oath that he will support neither side.

Nor shall any countor, or any other man, counterplead or gainsay the records or the judgments; but if it appear to them that there is some error therein, according to the law and usage of the City, let them make complaint or representation unto the Mayor, who shall redress the error, if there be one in the matter. No countor is to undertake a suit to be partner in such suit, or to take pay from both parties in any action; but well and lawfully he shall exercise his profession. No countor or other is to gainsay the judgments of the Hustings, or to go about procuring how to defeat the acts and the awards of the community. And that this they will do the countors shall make oath.

He who shall be near the judge without being invited, or who shall counterplead the records and the judgments [or] who shall slander another, if [it be] in the Sheriff’s Court, shall be suspended for eight days, so that he shall count for no one, or else he shall be amerced by the Sheriff in half a mark. If [it be] in the Hustings, he shall be suspended for three Hustings or more, according to the offence. He who takes from both parties and is attainted thereof, shall be suspended for three years: where one takes [money], and then leaves his client, and leagues himself with the other party, and where one takes [money] and abandons his client, let such person return twofold, and not be heard against the client in that plea. He who goes about procuring how to defeat the awards or the judgments of the community, and is attainted thereof, shall be for ever suspended, and held as one perjured for ever. And the countor who undertakes a plea to partake in the demand, shall be for ever suspended, if he be attainted thereof. The attorneys are to have this same penalty [inflicted], if they contravene this ordinance, and be attainted thereof. If the attorneys, by their default or by their negligence, lose the actions of those whose attorneys they are, they are to have imprisonment, according to the Statute of the King. And no one who is an attorney shall be an essoiner, and no essoiner shall be an attorney, under the pain aforesaid.”—Liber Custumarum, vol. ii. pt. ii. pp. 595-597.

[APPENDIX IX]
I APPEND A LIST OF MEDIÆVAL SURNAMES COMPILED FROM THE USUAL AUTHORITIES