A History of England, Period I. Mediæval Monarchy

by J. Franck Bright

Food.

Barbaric profusion in the matter of food made up for the want of substantial comforts. At the coronation of Edward I., 380 head of cattle, 430 sheep, 450 pigs, 18 wild boars, 278 flitches of bacon, and 20,000 capons, was the amount of food provided. The conduits ran wine, and hundreds of knights, who attended the great nobles, let their horses run free, to be the prize of the first captor. In 1399, at a Christmas feast of Richard II., there were daily killed twenty-eight oxen and 300 sheep, beside numberless fowl. Richard of Cornwall, at his marriage, is said to have invited 30,000 guests; while we are told that the usual household of Richard II. numbered 10,000. But though at these great festivals there was vast abundance of meat, at other times, especially at the Church fasts, fish, often of the coarsest sort, was eaten. The wife of Simon de Montfort ate the tongue of a whale dressed with peas, and a porpoise dressed with furmenty, saffron and sugar. Enormous quantities of herrings were consumed, spoken of as Aberdeens; in six days of March, Eleanor de Montfort’s household consumed no less than 3000. Her meals were diversified by dog-fish, stock-fish, conger eels, and cod. Wine was drunk in great quantities, frequently mixed with honey. Hops, though known in Flanders, had not been introduced; the beer which was largely consumed was made of any grain, and seasoned with pepper.

The House of Commons.

It was the increasing wealth of the country, especially of the mercantile classes, which had caused their introduction to Parliament. Thither they came with all the exclusive notions which their trade traditions had fostered. They were as careless of the class below them as the Barons. Indeed, it would be true to say that the feeling of the House of Commons was completely aristocratic. One part of it was of necessity entirely so: the knights of the shire, originally the representatives of the lower baronage, were elected in the county court, which was the general meeting-place of all freeholders, whether they held immediately from the crown or not. Consequently, the baronial freeholders became merged in the lesser freeholders, and the class of gentry was created. Many things had tended to the increase of that class. The breaking up of great properties, the division of property among younger children, and alienation, had increased the number of freeholders. The statute “Quia Emptores,” intended as a check upon subinfeudation, had really increased alienation by authorizing it. The smaller estates, thus separated from the large baronies, had to be worked to profit, and could not be regarded merely as means of military or political influence. There thus had arisen an industrial as well as a military class of landholders. The representatives of towns, also elected upon a writ directed to the Sheriff, were, if not at first, certainly soon after elected in the county courts. This similarity of election united the two classes in feeling; and the smaller baronies, small landowners, and burghers, formed the body of representative Commons, aristocratic in feeling in accordance with the origin of the more aristocratic part of the class. It is thus that we find the Commons regarding the Barons as their natural leaders, not joining the crown against them as in France. Edward III., in his difficulties with Stratford, had tried to produce this combination, but had failed; and the Commons joining with the Barons, had insisted on the restoration to favour of that prelate. And thus, too, we find the Commons without sympathy with the demands of the rebels in Wat Tyler’s insurrection. They had, indeed, certain grievances of their own, on which they were always petitioning, such as the encroachments of the King’s purveyors, and the too great authority, sometimes misused, of the sheriffs. But apart from these particular wrongs, they may be regarded as siding as a whole with the Barons.

Opposition to the church.

In their hatred to the Church they made common cause with all classes. The peculiar position which the submission of John had given the Popes in England was the primary cause of this dislike. Annates, or first-fruits, had been early demanded, but the great grievance, as we have seen, was Provisors. Against this assumption of authority, which forestalled the rights of the patrons, there was the strongest feeling. The exactions of the Pope had been strongly spoken of in the Statute of Carlisle in the end of Edward’s I.’s reign. Edward II., like other weak princes, had yielded to this assumption. But in Edward III.’s reign, a series of enactments were passed, each one stronger than the last, against the interference of the Papacy. In 1343 the Statute of Carlisle had been read, and it was enacted that no more Papal instruments should be allowed in England. In 1344, the penalty of exile was pronounced against all provisors. By a Statute of the 25th year of Edward III.’s reign, it was ordained that “kings and all other lords were to present unto benefices, of their own or their ancestor’s foundation, and not the Pope of Rome.” If the Pope interfered the matter was to come into the King’s hands, and penalties were enacted. In the 38th year of his reign these enactments were all confirmed and strengthened by the Statute of Provisors, by which the introduction of Papal Bulls and Briefs was forbidden. The strife, as we have seen, was continued in Richard II.’s reign, and finally completed in the 16th year of that King, by a statute declaring the freedom of the crown of England, which was in earthly subjection to no realm, and pronouncing the penalties of the Præmunire against all who should purchase or procure any Bulls from the Court of Rome; any who were guilty of this should be put out of the King’s peace, and forfeit all their property. In Edward III.’s reign, also, the annual tribute, or census, as it was called, of a thousand marks was left unpaid. At the end of Edward I.’s reign 17,000 marks had become due. Edward II. paid this, and continued throughout his reign to discharge the debt. Edward III. was again strong enough to refuse the payment, and in 1366, Urban V. demanded the arrears of thirty-three years. The King laid the matter before his Parliament, and an instrument was drawn up in the name of the King, Lords, and Commons, declaring that John had acted without the advice of his realm, and that any demand for the money would be resisted to the utmost. It was not again claimed. But it was not against the Roman Church only that the popular feeling had been aroused. The Church itself had become unpopular. The wealth and idleness of the older monastic orders, the spiritual encroachments and licentious lives of the new mendicant orders, had excited popular anger. The charges against them are humorously summed up in the Song of the Order of Fair-ease, a description of an imaginary order, to which each existing class of monks subscribes a characteristic or two. The monks of Beverley give the habit of deep drinking, in which they are joined by the Black Monks; the Hospitallers dress well and amble fairly on grey palfreys; the Secular Canons are the willing servants of the ladies; the Grey Monks are given to licentiousness; while the Friars Minor, whose order is founded on poverty, will never lodge with a poor man so long as there are richer men to be found. In the same way the constant interference of the consistory courts was the cause of popular complaint. “Yet there sit somnours, six or seven, misjudging all men alike, and reach forth their roll: herdsmen hate them, and every man’s servant, for every parish they put in pain.”

Wicliffe.

To crown all, the doctrine itself of the Church had begun to be questioned. In 1360, the name of Wicliffe first becomes prominent. His first attack was upon the mendicant orders, who had contrived to get into their hands much of the education of the country. From this time onwards he continually waged war against the abuses of the Church. The clergy, he urged, should be poor, in imitation of Christ. This doctrine he carried out by the establishment of an order of poor priests. With regard to the Sacrament, he appealed to common sense; and while not yet ready to attack the doctrine of Transubstantiation, upheld that the elements taken were really bread and wine. But his great work was neither his assault on the wealth of the clergy, nor his attack on their doctrine, but the translation of the Bible into English, which was, in fact, an appeal to private judgment in opposition to ecclesiastical authority. His influence was very widespread. His poor priests worked largely among the lower orders, and his view of the necessity of poverty for the clergy was so in harmony with the feelings of the day, that it met with ready acceptance. As has been mentioned, the Church was too strong for him. He was obliged, when the support of John of Gaunt failed him, to make some sort of recantation, and retire to his living of Lutterworth. But his disciples are said to have numbered a third of the population of England, and when, as was inevitable, social and political views were added to their religious doctrines, they became an object of dread, not only to the Church, but also to the Government.

The lower classes.