The Story of London

by Henry B. Wheatley

The victuallers were very unpopular, and the public have always specially resented any advance in the price of food. Complaints were rife in the chief cities of the country of the abuses of the victuallers, and an Act (12 Edw. II. cap. 6) was passed to the effect that “no officer of a city or borough shall sell wine or victuals during his office.”

This Act was frequently evaded, and another Act was passed in 1382 (see ante, p. 236). In the end the Act of Edward II. was repealed (3 Hen. VIII. cap. 8, 1511-1512).[327]

John of Northampton, when he became Mayor, took advantage of this Act, and began a policy of aggression directed against the victualling interest. He turned all his enemies off the governing body, and victuallers were forbidden to hold office in the city. These feuds were very serious, and the two leaders were unfortunate in their ends. Brembre was executed in 1388, and John of Northampton was sent to the Tower and imprisoned in Tintagel Castle.

A few words may be said here about the classes of trades represented by the gilds and companies commencing with—

The Bakers.—The price of bread was regulated by law, according to the price of wheat, and the Mayor had the right to levy a ½d. for every quarter of corn sent to the mill. This tax was called pesage from pisa, a corruption of mediæval Latin pensa, a weight. The right was called in question at the Iter held in the Tower in 1321, but the matter was adjourned for the consideration of the King and his Council.[328]

The fraudulent baker had a bad time, for he was sometimes carried about in a tumbrell, and at other times he was put in the pillory. For his first offence the culprit was drawn upon a hurdle from Guildhall through the most populous and most dirty streets, with the defective loaf hanging from his neck. On a second occasion he was drawn from the Guildhall ‘through the great streets of Chepe’ to the pillory, which was usually erected in Cheap or Cheapside, and there he was exposed for one hour. For the third offence he was again drawn on the hurdle, his oven was pulled down, and he was compelled to forswear the trade in London for ever. The use of the hurdle was discontinued in favour of the pillory in the reign of Edward II. Another offence punished by exposure in the pillory, besides short weight and bad quality was the putting of iron in a loaf of bread to increase its weight.[329]

In the famine of 1258, when the Earl of Cornwall’s sixty cargoes of grain arrived, the first thing the King had to do was to issue an ordinance against the greed of the middlemen, known as forestallers and regrators.

No words appear to have been found too strong to hurl at these unfortunate middlemen, but the regratresses or female retailers who bought bread at the markets, and delivered it from house to house, were contented with a small profit. These dealers were privileged by law to receive thirteen batches for twelve, hence the expression ‘a baker’s dozen.’ This seems to have been the extent of their profits. It was once the practice of the baker to give to each regratress who dealt with him sixpence on Monday morning by way of estrene or present, and threepence on Friday as curtasie money, but this was forbidden by public ordinance, and the bakers were ordered to let all such payments in future go towards increasing the size of the loaf, ‘to the profit of the people.’[330]

Corn used to be stored by the city and the companies against times of scarcity, but the origin of the practice is obscure, and no obligation to provide corn appears to have been imposed upon any of the companies by the terms of their charters. Sir Simon Eyre, Mayor in 1435, formed a public granary in Leadenhall. Stow and Fuller eulogise Sir Stephen Brown, who, in 1438, was energetic in his endeavours to get corn stored in the city granaries. In 1578 the farmers of the Bridge House divided the store into twelve equal parts, and the same by lots were appropriated to the twelve companies, to each of them an equal part for the bestowing and keeping of the said corn.

Pannier (or Panyer) Alley, leading from Newgate Street to Paternoster Row, was once the standing place for bakers with their bread panniers. The bakers of London were divided into white bakers and brown or tourte bakers (turturarii), who made a coarse bread of unbolted meal. No maker of white bread was allowed to make tourte, nor a tourte baker to make white bread. House bread was prepared by the bakers of household bread, while hostellers, by whom it was exclusively used, were forbidden to make it. Similar trades were the pastellers, who made pies and other kinds of pastry, pie-bakers and cooks.