Three cases of magic occurred in 1432. On May 7 of that year an order was issued for the arrest of Thomas Northfelde, D.D., a Dominican friar of Worcester, and the seizure of all his books treating of sorcery or wickedness, and two days later Brother John Ashwell of the Crutched Friars, London, John Virley, priest, and Margery Jourdemain, who had been imprisoned at Windsor for sorcery, were released. In these cases it is very likely that the sorcery consisted in an uncanny and suspicious addiction to unusual branches of learning, combined possibly with experiments in chemistry or heretical tendencies, both alike dangerous in the eyes of the orthodox, but the third case was clearly a matter of bewitchment—in the opinion of the victim. The facts are quite simple. John Duram of York had a field with a pond in it, and having in some way incurred the enmity of Thomas Mell, a farmer, the latter, ‘per divers artes erroneous et countre la foy catholice cest assavoir sorcery,’ withdrew the water from John’s pond, to the great injury of his cattle, besides certain other unnamed injuries wrought by his ‘malveys ymaginacion et sotell labour.’ Mell being under the patronage of men of influence because of his magical abilities, Duran did not dare to bring an action against him in the ordinary court, and therefore sought the intervention of the Court of Chancery, with what success I do not know.

So far my magicians, it must be admitted, have been rather commonplace people, proceeding on the usual lines of their craft and displaying little originality, but my final instance is, so far as I know, unique. In an eighteenth-century manuscript in my possession, formerly in the Phillipps collection, amongst a mass of extracts from all kinds of records is an entry said to be taken from the court rolls of the manor of Hatfield in Yorkshire. According to this, at a court held in 1336 Robert of Rotheram brought an action against John de Ithen for breach of contract, alleging that on a certain day, at Thorne, John agreed to sell him for threepence-halfpenny ‘the Devil bound with a certain bond’ (Diabolum ligatum in quodam ligamine), and Robert thereupon gave him ‘arles-penny,’ or earnest-money (quoddam obolum earles), ‘by which possession of the said Devil remained with the said Robert, to receive delivery of the said Devil within four days,’ but when he came to John the latter refused to hand over the Devil, wherefore Robert claimed 60s. damages. John appeared in court and did not deny the contract, but the steward, holding that ‘such a plea does not lie between Christians,’ ‘adjourned the parties to Hell for the hearing of the case,’ and amerced both parties.

The first question is, is this a genuine extract from the rolls? The critic who is inclined to think that he smells a rat may be confuted by Camden, according to whom no rats have ever been known in the town of Hatfield. The extremely solid nature of all the other extracts in my volume is almost a guarantee of good faith so far as the eighteenth century copyist is concerned, and the probability that he took it from the original is strengthened by his having in one place misread unde as vide and subsequently corrected the error. But allowing that it occurred on the rolls, was it a genuine transaction or was it a facetious invention of the manor clerk? I incline to believe that it was genuine. A man who invented such a case to fill up a blank space on the roll would have been almost certain to have elaborated it further, while, on the other hand, having noted the adjournment of the case to ‘another place,’ to use parliamentary language, he would not have been likely to add that both parties were fined. Granting that the action was actually brought, we are left in doubt whether Robert was a simple gull with whom John had been amusing himself, or whether the defendant really believed that he could fulfil his contract. Again, what was that contract? Latin, though admirably clear in many respects, suffers from the absence of the definite article, and it is difficult to be certain whether it was a question of ‘the Devil’ or ‘a devil’; judging by the price, the latter seems more probable, as threepence-halfpenny for the Prince of Darkness seems absurdly little, and I believe that Diabolus ligatus was sometimes applied to a divining spirit imprisoned by magic arts in a bottle or crystal. However that may be, it is not probable that a law court has ever before or since been asked to decide the question of proprietary rights in the devil or his imps.

‘Diabolus ligatus.’

II

HIGHWAYS

So much is heard of the modern facilities for travelling that one might almost think that before the days of Cook (Thomas of the tickets, not the Polar Mandeville) no Englishman had ever stirred abroad. Yet it is hardly questionable that in mediæval times the proportion of Englishmen who had visited foreign lands was far larger than at the present day. Thanks to military feudalism it is scarcely an exaggeration to say that during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries most of our country gentlemen had seen service in France, taking with them contingents of hired or pressed men from every village in the land. For the more peaceful classes there were the attractions of the pilgrimage, the spiritual advantages outweighing the dangers and hardships of a journey to Rome, and the celebrated shrine of St. James of Compostella drawing thousands every year to Spain. Still earlier the Crusades drew the pious and the martial alike yet farther afield, but of those who journeyed to the East many did not return. At all time a pretty sharp limit was set to the travels of the ordinary man by the seaboard of Palestine, and those who penetrated still deeper into the mysterious East were few. It is therefore interesting to follow Geoffrey of Langley on his embassy to the Tartar Court in 1292 and back to England, piecing together the story of his travels from the prosaic accounts of his paymaster.