In England criers appear to have been also a national institution at an early period. They were sworn to sell truly and well to the best of their power and ability. They proclaimed the cause of the condemnation of all criminals, and made proclamations of every kind, except as concerned matters ecclesiastical, which were exclusively the province of the archbishop. They also cried all kinds of goods. In London we find Edmund le Criour mentioned in the documents relating to the Guildhall as early as 1299. That criers used horns, as in France, appears from the will of a citizen of Bristol, dated 1388, who, disposing of some house property, desires “that the tenements so bequeathed shall be sold separately by the sound of the trumpet at the high cross of Bristol, without any fraud or collusion.” In Ipswich it was still customary in the last century to proclaim the meetings of the town council, the previous night at twelve o’clock, by the sound of a large horn, which is still preserved in the town hall of that borough. These horns were provided by the mayors of the different towns.
O per se O, or A New Cryer.
“THE BELMAN OF LONDON.”
From Thomas Decker’s Lanthorne and Candle Light; or,
The Bell-Man’s Second Night’s Walke. 1608-9.
The public crier, then, was the chief organ by which the mediæval shopkeeper, in the absence of what we now know as “advertising mediums,” obtained publicity: it was also customary for most traders to have touters at their doors, who did duty as living advertisements. In low neighbourhoods this system still obtains, especially in connection with cheap photographic establishments, whose “doorsmen” select as a rule the most improbable people for their attentions, but compensate for this by their pertinacity and glibness. Possibly the triumph is the greater when the customer has been persuaded quite out of his or her original intentions. Most trades, in early times, were almost exclusively confined to certain streets, and as all the shops were alike unpretending, and open to the gaze—in fact, were stalls or booths—it behoved the shopkeeper to do something in order to attract customers. This he effected sometimes by means of a glaring sign, sometimes by means of a man or youth standing at the door, and vociferating with the full power of his lungs, “What d’ye lack, sir? what d’ye lack?” Our country is rather deficient in that kind of mediæval literature known in France as dicts and fabliaux, which teem with allusions to this custom of touting, which is noticeable, though, in Lydgate’s ballad of “London Lyckpenny” (Lack-penny), written in the first half of the fifteenth century. There we see the shopmen standing at the door, trying to outbawl each other to gain the custom of the passers-by. The spicer or grocer bids the Kentish countryman to come and buy some spice, pepper, or saffron. In Cheapside, the mercers bewilder him with their velvet, silk, and lawn, and lay violent hands on him, in order to show him their “Paris thread, the finest in the land.” Throughout all Canwick (now Cannon Street), he is persecuted by drapers, who offer him cloth; and in other parts, particularly in East Cheap, the keepers of the eating-houses sorely tempt him with their cries of “Hot sheep’s feet, fresh maqurel, pies, and ribs of beef.” At last he falls a prey to the tempting invitation of a taverner, who makes up to him from his door with a cringing bow, and taking him by the sleeve, pronounces the words, “Sir, will you try our wine?” with such an insinuating and irresistible accent, that the Kentish man enters and spends his only penny in that tempting and hospitable house. Worthy old Stow supposes this interesting incident to have happened at the Pope’s Head, in Cornhill, and bids us enjoy the knowledge of the fact, that for his one penny the countryman had a pint of wine, and “for bread nothing did he pay, for that was allowed free” in those good old days. Free luncheons, though rare now, were commonly bestowed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries on regular drinkers; and the practice of giving food to those who pay for drink is still current in many parts of the United States. The “Lyckpenny” story is one of the few instances in English literature of this early period, in which the custom of touting at shop doors is distinctly mentioned, but, as before remarked, the French fabliaux abound with such allusions. In the story of “Courtois d’Arras”—a travestie of the Prodigal Son in a thirteenth-century garb—Courtois finds the host standing at his door shouting, “Bon vin de Soissons, à six deniers le lot.” And in a mediæval mystery entitled “Li Jus de S. Nicolas,” the innkeeper, standing on the threshold, roars out, that in his house excellent dinners are to be had, with warm bread and warm herrings, and barrelfuls of Auxerre wine: “Céans il fait bon diner, céans il y a pain chaud et harengs chauds, et vin d’Auxerre à plein tonneau.” In the “Trois Aveugles de Compiègne,” the thirsty wanderers hear mine host proclaiming in the street that he has “good, cool, and new wine, from Auxerre and from Soissons; bread and meat, and wine and fish: within is a good place to spend your money; within is accommodation for all kind of people; here is good lodging:”—
Ci a bon vin fres et nouvel
Ça d’Auxerre, ça de Soissons,
Pain, et char, et vin, et poissons,
Céens fet bon despendre argent,
Ostel i a à toute gent
Céens fet moult bon heberger.
And in the “Débats et facétieuses rencontres de Gringald et de Guillot Gorgen, son maistre,” the servant, who would not pay his reckoning, excuses himself, saying, “The taverner is more to blame than I, for as I passed before his door, and he being seated at it as usual, called to me, saying, ‘Will you be pleased to breakfast here? I have good bread, good wine, and good meat.’” “Le tavernier a plus de tort que moy; car, passant devant sa porte, et luy étant assiz (ainsy qu’ils sont ordinairement) il me cria, me disant: Vous plaist-il de dejeuner céans? Il y a de bon pain, de bon vin, et de bonne viande.”
Other modes of advertising, of a less obtrusive nature, were, however, in use at the same time; as in Rome, written handbills were affixed in public places; and almost as soon as the art of printing was discovered, it was applied to the purpose of multiplying advertisements of this kind. We may fairly assume that one of the very first posters ever printed in England was that by which Caxton announced, circa 1480, the sale of the “Pyes of Salisbury use,”[18] at the Red Pole, in the Almonry, Westminster. Of this first of broadsides two copies are still extant, one in the Bodleian Library, at Oxford, the other in Earl Spencer’s library. Their dimensions are five inches by seven, and their contents as follows:—
If it please ony man spirituel or temporel to bye our pyes of two or thre comemoracio’s of Salisburi use, emprynted after the form of this prese’t letre, whiche ben wel and truly correct, late hym come to Westmonester, into the almonestrye at the reed pole and he shal haue them good and chepe: