[136] “Mirour,” 25429 ff., 25237 ff., 25915. Mr. Macaulay remarks that Gower seems to deal more tenderly with his own merchant-class than with other classes of society; but his blame, even with this allowance, is severe.
[137] “Mirour,” 25813. The emphasis which he lays on carpets and curtains shows how great a luxury they were then considered.
[138] “In justice, however, to these centuries, it must be remarked, that they received the institutions of Frankpledge as an inheritance from Saxon times” (Riley).
[139] “To these writs return was made [in 1354] to the effect that the civic authorities had given orders for butchers to carry the entrails of slaughtered beasts to the Flete and there clean them in the tidal waters of the Thames, instead of throwing them on the pavement by the house of the Grey Friars.” Again: “Although this order [of 1369] was carried out and the bridge destroyed, butchers continued to carry offal from the shambles to the riverside; and this nuisance had to be suppressed in 1370.” But the whole passage should be read in full.
[140] Vol. I., cxxxviii. ff. and 365 ff.
[141] Mrs. Green, “Town Life,” ii., 55.
[142] Between 1347 and 1375, for instance, there are only 23 cases of pillory in all.
[143] It is pertinent to note in this connection the medieval custom of giving condemned meat to hospitals. Mr. Wheatley (“London,” p. 196) quotes from a Scottish Act of Parliament in 1386, “Gif ony man brings to the market corrupt swine or salmond to be sauld, they sall be taken by the bailie, and incontinent, without ony question, sall be sent to the leper folke; and, gif there be na lepper folke, they sall be destroyed all utterlie.” At Oxford in the 15th century, there was a similar regulation providing that putrid or unfit meat and fish should be sent to St. John’s Hospital. (“Munimenta Academica” (R.S.), pp. 51, 52). Here is a probable clue to the tradition that medieval apprentices struck against salmon more than twice a week. See Athenæum, August 27 and September 3, 1898.
[144] Besant insists very justly on the blood-kinship between the leading citizens and the country gentry. (“Medieval London,” i., 218 ff.) He shows that a very large majority of Mayors, Aldermen, etc., were country-born, and of good family.
[145] Michelet, “Hist. de France,” l. i., ch. i.