The Story of London

by Henry B. Wheatley

M. Aymard, Administrator of the city of Le Puy en Velay, and the historian of the Confrèries of Notre Dame du Puy, is of opinion that the document in the Liber Custumarum is at once more full and more ancient by far than any set of regulations of a similar French fraternity which is known to have survived to our times. Societies of the Pui flourished in Normandy and Picardy. The place of meeting of the ‘companions’ is not known, but Mr. Riley suggests that it was possibly in the Vintry. There is some uncertainty as to how the fraternity came to an end.[120]

Londoners were better supplied with eating-houses than their neighbours on the Continent, as we learn from the description of the street of cookshops on the Thames side by Fitz-Stephen:—

‘There is also in London, on the bank of the river, amongst the wine shops, which are kept in ships and cellars, a public eating-house; there every day, according to the season, may be found viands of all kinds, roast, fried and boiled, fish large and small, coarser meat for the poor, and more delicate for the rich, such as venison, fowls and small birds. If friends, wearied with their journey, should unexpectedly come to a citizen’s house, and, being hungry, should not like to wait till fresh meat be bought and cooked ... meanwhile some run to the riverside, and there every thing that they could wish for is instantly procured.

‘However great the number of soldiers and strangers that enters or leaves the city at any hour of the day or night, they may turn in there if they please, and refresh themselves according to their inclination; so that the former have no occasion to fast too long, or the latter to leave the city without dining. Those who wish to indulge themselves would not desire a sturgeon, or a bird of Africa, or the godwit of Ionia, when the delicacies that are to be found there are set before them. This, indeed, is the public cookery, and is very convenient to the city, and a distinguishing mark of civilization.’

Mr. Riley points out in his Introduction to the Liber Custumarum that the Coquina of Fitz-Stephen was in reality a Cook’s Row, not merely a solitary cookshop. In Fitz-Ailwyne’s Second Assize (1212) the cookshops on the Thames were ordered to be whitewashed and plastered and the inner partitions to be removed, from which it would appear that lodging-rooms had been ‘constructed for the harbouring of guests and travellers in contravention of the city regulations, which at all times during the thirteenth and two succeeding centuries strictly forbade cooks and pie-bakers to keep hostels for the entertainment of guests. In the fourteenth century, however, most of these cookshops had made way for genuine hostels and herbergeries,—to be kept only by freemen, and on no account by foreigners,—though we find mention made of one or two cookshops lingering on the city margin of the Thames so late as the reign of Edward the Third.’[121]

Mr. Riley adds in his glossary: ‘To the celebrity which London gained at an early period for its cookshops its citizens were not improbably indebted for their nickname of ‘cockney,’ one which they have retained throughout England to the present day. The earliest recorded instance of its use is probably of this same period; the rhyme uttered, according to Camden, by Hugh Bigot, Earl of Norfolk, in reference to Henry II., the capital of whose English dominions was London:—

‘Were I in my castle of Bungay,
Upon the river of Waveney,
I would no care for the King of Cokenay.’[122]

‘Keepers of wine taverns and ale-houses and victuallers (who merely sold provisions) do not appear to have lodged their guests any more than the cooks.’ ‘The persons whose business it was to receive guests for profit, appear to have been divided into two classes, the “Hostelers” and the “Herbergeours.” The line of distinction between these two classes is not very evident ... but it seems not improbable that it consisted in the fact that the former lodged and fed the servants and horses of their guests, while the latter did not. At all events, hostelers are mentioned as supplying hay and corn for horses, but herbergeours never.’ Hostelers were also forbidden to sell drink and victuals to any other than their guests.[123]

The established charge for a night’s lodging about the time of Henry IV. was one penny per night.

‘In the times of our early Kings, when they moved from place to place, it devolved upon the Marshal of the King’s household to find lodgings for the royal retinue and dependents, which was done by sending a billet and seizing arbitrarily the best houses and mansions of the locality, turning out the inhabitants and marking the houses so selected with chalk; which latter duty seems to have belonged to the Serjeant-Chamberlain of the King’s household. The city of London, fortunately for the comfort and independence of its inhabitants, was exempted by numerous charters from having to endure this most abominable annoyance at such times as it pleased the King to become its near neighbour by taking up his residence in the town.’[124]