[10] Apuleius, Book vi.
[11] That is, “The troop of gladiators of the ædil will fight on the 31st of May. There will be fights with wild animals, and an awning to keep off the sun.” Wind and weather permitting, there were awnings over the heads of the spectators; but, generally, there appears to have been too much wind in this breezy summer retreat to admit of this luxury. “Nam ventus populo vela negare solet,” says Martial, and the same idea occurs in three other places in this poet’s works (vi. 9; xi. 21; xiv. 29). Sometimes, also, the bills of gladiators promise sparsiones, which consisted in certain sprinklings of water perfumed with saffron or other odours; and, as they produced what was called a nimbus, or cloud, the perfumes were probably dispersed over the audience in drops by means of pipes or spouts, or, perhaps, by some kind of rude engine.
[12] Nine hundred shops in a town which would hardly contain more than about twelve hundred is rather incredible—perhaps it should be ninety. Pergulæ were either porticos shaded with verdure, lattices with creeping plants, or small rooms above the shops, bedrooms for the shopkeepers. Cœnacula were rooms under the terraces. When they were good enough to let to the higher classes they were called equestria (as in the following [advertisement]). Plutarch informs us that Sylla, in his younger days, lived in one of them, where he paid a rent of £8 a year.
[13] A. L. Millin, Description d’un Mosaique antique du Musée Pio. Clementin, à Rome, 1819, p. 9.
CHAPTER IV.
MEDIÆVAL AND OTHER VARIETIES OF ADVERTISING.
In the ages which immediately succeeded the fall of the Roman Empire, and the western migration of the barbarian hordes, darkness and ignorance held paramount sway, education was at a terrible discount, and the arts of reading and writing were confined almost entirely to the monks and the superior clergy. In fact, it was regarded as evidence of effeminacy for any knight or noble to be able to make marks on parchment or vellum, or to be able to decipher them when made. Newspapers were, of course, things undreamt of, but newsmen—itinerants who collected scraps of information and retailed them in the towns and market-places—were now and again to be found. The travelling packman or pedlar was, however, the chief medium of intercommunication in the Middle Ages, and it is not hard to imagine how welcome his appearance must have been in those days, when a hundred miles constituted an immense and almost interminable journey. We know how bad the roads were, and how difficult travelling was in comparatively modern days, but we can form very little idea of the obstacles which beset all attempts at the communication of one commercial centre with another in the early Middle Ages. Everybody being alike shrouded in the darkness of ignorance, it is safe to assume, therefore, that written advertisements were quite unknown, as few beyond those who had written them would have been able to understand them. Nearly the whole of the laity, from the king to the villain or thrall, were equally illiterate, and once more the public crier became the only medium for obtaining publicity; but from the simple mode in which all business was conducted his position was probably a sinecure. An occasional proclamation of peace or war, or a sale of slaves or plunder, was probably the only topic which gave him the opportunity of exercising his eloquence. But with the increase of civilisation, and consequent wealth and competition, the crier’s labours assumed a wider field.
The mediæval crier used to carry a horn, by means of which he attracted the people’s attention when about to make a proclamation or publication. Public criers appear to have formed a well-organised body in France as early as the twelfth century; for by a charter of Louis VII., granted in the year 1141 to the inhabitants of the province of Berry, the old custom of the country was confirmed, according to which there were to be only twelve criers, five of which should go about the taverns crying with their usual cry, and carrying with them samples of the wine they cried, in order that the people might taste. For the first time they blew the horn they were entitled to a penny, and the same for every time after, according to custom. These criers of wine were a French peculiarity, of which we find no parallel in the history of England. They perambulated the streets of Paris in troops, each with a large wooden measure of wine in his hand, from which to make the passers-by taste the wine they proclaimed, a mode of advertising which would be very agreeable in the present day, but which would, we fancy, be rather too successful for the advertiser. These wine-criers are mentioned by John de Garlando, a Norman writer, who was probably a contemporary of William the Conqueror. “Præcones vini,” says he, “clamant hiante gula, vinum venumdandum in tabernis ad quatuor denarios.”[14] A quaint and significant story is told in an old chronicle in connection with this system of advertising. An old woman, named Adelheid, was possessed of a strong desire to proclaim the Word of God, but not having lungs sufficiently powerful for the noisy propagation contemplated by her, she paid a wine-crier to go about the town, and, instead of proclaiming the prices of the wine, to proclaim these sacred words: “God is righteous! God is merciful! God is good and excellent!” And as the man went about shouting these words she followed him, exclaiming, “He speaks well! he says truly!” The poor old body hardly succeeded according to her pious desire, for she was arrested and tried, and as it was thought she had done this out of vanity (causa laudis humanæ), she was burned alive.[15] From this it would seem that there was as much protection for the monks in their profession as for the criers, who were very proud of their special prerogatives.
The public criers in France, at an early period, were formed into a corporation, and in 1258 obtained various statutes from Philip Augustus, some of which, relating to the criers of wine, are excessively curious. Thus it was ordained that—
“Whosoever is a crier in Paris may go to any tavern he likes and cry its wine, provided they sell wine from the wood, and that there is no other crier employed for that tavern; and the tavern-keeper cannot prohibit him.