In winter's tedious nights sit by the fire,
With good old folks, and let them tell thee tales
Of ages long ago betid.
Preface.
Another trifling instalment towards the history of Worcestershire is now respectfully presented to its inhabitants, and the Author ventures to express a hope that it may meet with the general favour of the reading public, equal to that which his previous works have elicited.
The materials of historical works usually consist of tables of pedigrees, charters, battles, sieges, enumerations of manors, with their successive owners, statistical details, and other tedious though useful information. These, however, are but the dry bones—the skeleton of history. The spirit of the past can only be evoked by a deep and extensive research among documentary and traditional evidences—by careful comparison and analysis—by judicious deduction and inference. To perform this effectually, even for the limited area of a county, the coöperation of many minds is almost indispensable. Let us take Worcestershire as an instance. Habingdon, Nash, Thomas, Green, and others, have accumulated large masses of the matter which conventionally passes for history, and I would not for one moment desire to detract from the merit of their labours: yet the history of Worcestershire remains to be written. What do we yet know of the manners and customs, the hopes and aspirations, the social every-day life, the habits and thoughts, of our ancestors? Yet surely this is not the least considerable feature of the times of which we would fain glean tidings. Who would not vastly prefer an hour or two's conversation with one who was in the flesh some centuries ago—could that be possible—to studying the pages of the most intelligent contemporaneous historian? Education had rendered the world dissatisfied with the old modes and precise forms of this department of literature, when such pens as Macaulay's were soon ready to supply the new want. Yet Macaulay could have done but little service in this way had he been content to receive old stereotyped facts which had for centuries been lazily copied by preceding writers. It was by industriously and perseveringly investigating public and private libraries, hunting up all available resources, and systematically comparing and arranging the information thus obtained, that he was enabled, by the potency of his genius, to erect on a new foundation a superstructure that has delighted and astonished all beholders. That great man's industry, at all events, if not his genius, may, and must be, imitated by all who would successfully labour in the field of history for the future. The annals of even so circumscribed an area as a county must not be written without at least searching the records of its principal courts of judicature, nor that of a city before consulting the dusty relics in the parochial chests and the municipal closets. Yet these fertile sources of authentic information have been almost entirely neglected by Worcestershire historians. The Author of this little work has made a commencement, humble though it be, towards furnishing data for the required undertaking; yet how much remains to be done! Nor can a single individual, confined to the requirements of an absorbing profession, be expected, alone and unaided, to achieve much. If some one in each parish would undertake to search the register, the old vestry and churchwardens' books, and any manuscripts or other material that may exist in the parish; if others would investigate the archives of the municipal towns, the Assize records (which I presume are in the possession of Mr. Wilde, at Clifford's Inn), the MSS. and rare books which may be found in the libraries of private gentlemen and the British Museum, and, though last, the most important of all, the ancient ecclesiastical registers and other records in Edgar Tower—the labour of a life—some material would then be gleaned from which a competent editor might produce a history worthy of the county—a picture of the life and manners of our ancestors, and not a mere record of names and dates and crude undigested facts.
The fragments which the Author has rescued from the accumulating dust of past ages are here presented, in the hope that others more competent will be stimulated to similar exertions in the various departments above indicated. Two insuperable reasons prevent his undertaking the task himself—first, that it would prove overwhelming and impossible to one who can spare only an occasional hour for the purpose, while, if divided amongst many, the accomplishment would be easy; and secondly, that much of the work to be done—especially the examination of ancient ecclesiastical documents—requires far greater scholastic attainments and a more intimate knowledge of the middle ages than he possesses. "Divide and conquer" must be the motto, if the work is to be done.
Meanwhile it will be noted with satisfaction that every successive exploration into the past indicates more distinctly the decided progress we have made, and exposes the fallacy of the belief in the "good old times:"