The Story of London

by Henry B. Wheatley

Punishments and fines were frequent. Cheats and fraudulent tradesmen were promptly punished, and those who had a sharp tongue soon found that the free use of it was dangerous. The authorities, who had the making of the laws, had no fancy for being maligned. Such entries as these are frequent in Riley’s Memorials: Process against Roger Torold for abusing the Mayor, 1355; Punishment or imprisonment for reviling the Mayor, 1382; Pillory and whetstone for slandering the Mayor, 1385; Pillory for slandering an alderman, 1411; Punishment for insulting certain aldermen; Pillory for insulting the Recorder, 1390. The pillory was freely used for cheats, users of false dice, false chequer boards (1382), swindlers, forgers of title-deeds, bonds, papal bulls, etc., impostors pretending to be dumb, etc. False measures, false materials and unwholesome food were confiscated and publicly burnt. Dishonest tradesmen appear to have been very reckless, and punishment was constantly awarded for the sale of putrid fish, food and meat. Enhancers of the price of wheat were specially obnoxious to the citizens, and some of the cheats connected with bread-making were curious, such as inserting iron in a loaf to increase the weight (1387), and stealing dough by making holes in the baker’s moulding-boards (1327). The seller of unsound wine was punished by being made to drink it (1364). Night-walkers (male and female) were very summarily treated, but they must have been mostly connected with the dangerous classes, for we read of notorious persons with swords and bucklers and frequenters of taverns after curfew, ‘contrary to peace and statutes.’ We may presume that quiet, inoffensive persons, who were known to be law-abiding citizens, were not necessarily hauled up for being in the streets after regulation hours. Mr. Riley, in his valuable Introduction to the Liber Albus, makes special reference to these night-walkers: ‘It being found that the houses of women of ill-fame had become the constant resort of thieves and other desperate characters, it was ordered by royal proclamation, temp. Edward I., that no such women should thenceforth reside within the walls of the city under pain of forty days’ imprisonment. A list, too, was to be taken of all such women by the authorities, and a certain walk assigned to them. The Stews of Southwark are once, and only once, alluded to in this volume, and the result of this enactment was no doubt to drive the unfortunates thither.’ Ordinances of later date appear to have been still more stringent. The Tun, a round-house or prison on Cornhill, was so called from its having been ‘built somewhat in fashion of a tun standing on the one end.’ It was built in 1282 for the special reception of night-walkers.

In spite of stringent regulations the streets were seldom free from rioting of some kind, and the watch were kept fully employed. There is a record of inquests or trials by juries (the jury consisting of no less than four representatives from each of the wards), held in 1281 upon a number of offenders ‘against the King’s peace and the statutes of the city.’ The offences for the most part comprise night-walking after curfew, robbery with violence, frequenting taverns and houses of ill-fame, and gambling.[34]

In 1304 there was an Inquisition as to persons rioting and committing assaults by night,[35] and in 1311 a similar Inquisition and Delivery made in the time of Sir Ricker de Repham, Mayor, as to misdoers and night-walkers.[36]

Women of bad repute were restricted to a certain garb.[37] It was enacted by royal proclamation of Edward I. that none of them should wear minever (spotted ermine) or cendale (a particular kind of thin silk), on her hood or dress, and if she broke the law in this respect the city serjeant was allowed to seize the minever or cendale and retain it as his perquisite. At later periods it was enacted ‘that no common woman shall wear a vesture of peltry or wool,’ and again, that she shall not wear ‘a hood that is furred, except with lambs’ wool or rabbit skin.’ From the Letter Books we learn that, in the middle of the fourteenth century, most of these women were Flemings by birth.[38]

The prisons mentioned in the Liber Albus are Newgate and Ludgate, the Tun and the Compters. They could none of them have been pleasant places, but it is probable that they were not so intolerable as they afterwards became. It is impossible that they could have been in a worse condition than the grossly mismanaged prisons of the eighteenth century.

It is not easy to understand what was the level of morality in the mediæval cities and towns. In truth, we can only draw inferences from the facts, and as most of the documents that have come down to us relate to those who have broken the laws, we are too apt to take a low view of the morality of the mass. Laws are not made for the law-abiding, except for their protection, and we have reason to know that this class is by far the most numerous.

Comfort, as we understand it, could not have existed in the Middle Ages, but the life seems to have been fairly agreeable to those who lived it, and it is only fair to give credence to such witnesses as Fitz-Stephen, who knew ‘the noble city of London’ well, and could only write of it in terms of hearty praise. He commences with these words, and then proceeds to substantiate the several points mentioned: ‘Amongst the noble and celebrated cities of the world, that of London, the capital of the kingdom of England, is one of the most renowned, possessing, above all others, abundant wealth, extensive commerce, great grandeur and magnificence. It is happy in the salubrity of its climate, in the profession of the Christian religion, in the strength of its fortresses, the nature of its situation, the honour of its citizens, and the chastity of its matrons; in its sports, too, it is most pleasant, and in the production of illustrious men most fortunate.’

The people must have been closely packed in some parts of London, but gardens and open spaces within the walls were not uncommon. The statistics of the Middle Ages are not to be relied upon, as they largely consisted of the wildest guesses. Kings and Parliaments were continually deceived as to the produce of a tax, owing to the impossibility of knowing the number of the people upon whom it was to be levied.

During the latter part of the Saxon period the numbers of the population of the country began to decay; this decay, however, was arrested by the Norman Conquest. The population increased during ten peaceful years of Henry III., and increased slowly until the death of Edward II., and then it began to fall off, and it continued to decrease during the period of the Wars of the Roses until the accession of the Tudors.

A calculation has been made of the population of England and Wales in the last years of the reign of Edward III. (1372), which fixed the number at two and a half millions. Macpherson adopted this as a correct guess, but it probably errs more on the side of excess than of deficiency. Of this population it has been estimated that those employed in agriculture were in proportion to townspeople as eleven to one, but, according to another estimate, it was as fifteen to one.