But after all, the mind is trained by other things than schools and pedagogues; and the London apprentice, no less than the university undergraduate, drew in no small part of his education from the scenes and daily life that went on around him. Old London, no less than old Oxford, had a teaching of her own; she was not altogether that place of smoke and trade and unceasing business which we think of now when we name “the City:” she had a fairer,—I had almost said a poetic—side, and her old historians grow eloquent when they describe it. Who would suppose that it is the great Babylon that Fitz Stephen is speaking of when he praises the picturesque beauty of the suburbs, “with the citizens’ gardens and orchards planted with trees tall and sightly, and adjoining together. On the north side,” he continues, “are pastures and meadows, with brooks running through them, turning water-mills with a pleasant noise. Not far off is a great forest and a well-wooded chase, having good covert for harts, does, boars, and wild bulls. The cornfields are not of a hungry, sandy mould, but as the fruitful fields of Asia, yielding plentiful increase, and filling the barns with corn. And there are near London abundance of wells, sweet, wholesome, and clear, such as Holy-well, Clerken-well, and St. Clement’s-well, much frequented by scholars and youth of the city in summer evenings when they walk forth to take the air.” Stowe likewise speaks of these pleasant walks in the suburbs, and adds a feature of touching beauty to the picture:—“Near a fair field in Houndsditch, belonging to the Prior of the Holy Trinity, were some cottages and little garden-plots for poor bed-rid people, built by some prior of that house; and in my youth I remember devout persons were accustomed, specially on Fridays, to walk that way to bestow their alms on the poor, who lay in their beds near the window, that opened low, and on it was spread a fair linen cloth and a pair of beads, to show that there lay a bed-rid person unable but to pray only.” Within the walls were 130 churches, besides convents, priories, and hospitals innumerable. In Westcheap, near the north door of St. Paul’s, stood the great Crucifix surrounded by figures of saints, where the choristers of St. Paul’s had a goodly exhibition for singing on certain days the responsory, Sancte Deus fortis, and thither on all feasts of St. Paul’s came the chapter in embroidered vestments and wearing rose garlands on their heads. This last ornament was very commonly worn in English processions, specially on the summer festivals of Whit-Sunday and Corpus Christi, and not only by canons and choristers, but also by young scholars, as we learn from Matthew Paris. There were city companies then as now, and there were guilds and confraternities, which gave to their members “gret commodyte and surety of lyvyng,” and which recreated the citizens with their gorgeous processions, while they provided support for their poor brethren during life, and after death, burial, prayers, and masses. On the feast of the patron saint, the guild brethren had a dinner, of course, and generally an interlude or sacred drama; and Fitz Stephen assures us that the citizens of his time preferred those which were from sacred subjects, such as the Passion, or the martyrdom of a saint. Clerkenwell received its name from the Fraternity of Parish Clerks, who yearly assembled there to play “some large history of Holy Scripture,” and in the reign of Henry IV. enacted one which lasted eight days, and was “of matter from the creation of the world.”
But, to use the words of our old historian, “a city should not only be commodious and serious, but also merry and sportful,” and London had nothing to blame herself for on this head. During the Easter holidays there were sham fights on the river, with leaping, dancing, shooting, and cock-fighting, and great twisted trees were brought in from the woods to adorn the house of every man of worship. The great May-pole hung in Westcheap, and on May morning every citizen went forth early into the country to seek the May. All through the summer months bonfires were kept up on the eves of great festivals, and tables set out in the streets with meat and drink plentifully provided by the wealthy householders, who invited the neighbours and passers-by to eat and be merry with them with great familiarity, and so thank God for His benefits. And Rome herself never witnessed a more graceful celebration of the feasts of St. John Baptist and the Holy Apostles than that which used to be held in the streets of London, where “every man’s door was shadowed with green birch, fennel, and St. John’s-wort, together with white lilies and such like, and garnished with garlands of beautiful flowers, among which lamps of glass burnt all the night;”[304] while some hung out huge branches of iron, curiously wrought, whence hung hundreds of lamps at once, and this was particularly the custom in New Fish-street. At Christmas, of course, the houses and conduits were decked with a profusion of evergreens, and the Christmas revels must be left to the imagination of the reader.
When the holidays were over, came sports and contentions of another sort. The masters of the different schools held solemn meetings in the London churches, and their scholars disputed logically, grammatically, and demonstratively. The disciples of rival academies “capped or potted verses one with another, nipping and quipping their fellows with pleasant rhymes, which caused much laughter.” The poets sometimes addressed their fun and their verses to their masters, expending their wit in hopes to obtain a holiday. And, however it may be explained, I find more notices of versifiers among the London scholars than elsewhere. Indeed, we must fain suppose that the citizens had a naturally poetic vein when we read of their gorgeous and fanciful devices. Chaucer tells us that the good shopkeepers of the Cheap had weary work with their apprentices, who, when there were any “ridings” or royal entries, would leap out of the shop, and not return till they had seen all the sight, and had a good dance into the bargain. And really, when we read how the fifth Harry rode into London with little birds fluttering round his helmet, green boughs cast in his way, priests, with gilded copes, swinging censers, and every street exhibiting a castle, or a giant, or a legend of some saint, we cannot wonder that it was sometimes a difficult matter to keep the ’prentices behind the counter.
Surely too there must have been scholars among the citizens to devise such scenes as were exhibited at the entry of Henry VI., when a tabernacle of curious work arose on Cornhill, wherein Dame Sapience appeared, surrounded by the seven liberal arts; and when divers wells poured forth goodly wine to the passers-by, appropriately named the Well of Mercy, of Grace, or of Pity. But, in fact, most of such pageants were designed by men of letters, and no one was more frequently called on for this purpose than the monk of Bury. He was exceedingly popular with the London citizens, and whether a disguising was intended by the company of goldsmiths, a May game for the sheriffs, or a carol for the Coronation, it was generally Lydgate who supplied the poetry. And he, in his turn, loved the citizens, and ever spoke well of them in his verse:—
Of seaven things I prayse this citty,
Of true meaning and faithful observance,
Of righteousness, truth, and equity,
Of stableness aye kept in legiance.
A testimony to which we must add that delivered two hundred years earlier by Fitz Stephen. “I do not think,” he says, “that there is any city to be found wherein are better customs in frequenting the churches, in serving God, in keeping holidays, in giving alms, in entertaining strangers, in solemnising marriages, in furnishing banquets, celebrating funerals, and burying dead bodies.” He adds, however, that London had some “inconveniences,” such as the immoderate drinking of some foolish persons, and the frequent fires.