Note 2. “For gilding the King’s bit (frenum), 56 shillings.” (Pipe Roll, 31 Henry First.)
Note 3. Reckoned according to modern value, these prices stand about thus:—Bacon pig, 2 pounds, 10 shillings; porkers, 5 pounds; sheep, 5 shillings 3 pence; quarter of beans, 25 shillings; load of flour, 30 shillings.
Note 4. “Dieu L’encroisse,” a translation of Gedaliah, and a very common name among the English Jews at that time. This incident really occurred about twenty-five years later.
Note 5. Some writers deny the existence of chimneys at this date; but an entry, on the Pipe Roll for 1160, of money expended on “the Queen’s chamber and chimney and cellar,” leaves no doubt on the matter.
Chapter Four.
The Fair of Saint Frideswide.
“That’s what I always say - if you wish a thing to be well done,
You must do it yourself, you must not leave it to others.”
Longfellow.
The month of May was the liveliest and gayest of the year at Oxford, for not only were the May Day games common to the whole country, but another special attraction lay in Saint Frideswide’s Fair, held on Gloucester Green early in that month. Oxford was a privileged town, in respect of the provision trade, the royal purveyors being forbidden to come within twenty miles of that city. In those good old times, the King was first served, then the nobility, lay and clerical, then the gentry, and the poor had to be content with what was left. It was not unusual, when a report of anything particularly nice reached the monarch—such as an import of wine, a haul of fish, or any other dainty,—for the Sheriff of that place to receive a mandate, bidding him seize for the royal use a portion or the whole thereof. Prices, too, were often regulated by proclamation, so that tradesmen not unfrequently found it hard to live. If a few of our discontented and idle agitators (I do not mean those who would work and cannot) could spend a month or two in the olden time, their next speeches on Tower Hill might be somewhat differently flavoured.