The story of Coventry

by Mary Dormer Harris

ORIEL WINDOW AND STOCKS. S. MARY'S HALL

There were many sights in a mediæval city to remind us that men seldom cared to cloak their brutality in those days. The stocks, where offenders were held by their feet, the pillory, where they were held by the head and hands, stood conspicuous, probably in neighbourhood of the guild-hall. A pillory, a favourite place for the chastisement of fraudulent bakers, may yet be seen in Coleshill, and stocks stand yet on many a village green.[520] Here the great punishment lay in the shame of exposure: the criminal stood for hours unable to move, a pitiful target for the derision of the multitude. The like penance was imposed on those who suffered at the cucking-stool, followed by ducking in water, a highly disagreeable incident in the punishment. The prisoners in the gaol looked out into the highway, and perhaps held conversation with their friends as they passed. Now and then a craftsman might be seen among the debtors pursuing his calling, for it was not thought expedient to bring a man to utter destitution by depriving him of the means of livelihood during imprisonment; and those who chose might cobble shoes or work at the loom during those monotonous days. Hard by the busy worker might stand a felon, traitor, or murderer, his mind full of gloomy thoughts of his coming end.[521] The gallows, naturally reared on high where all men might see them and their ghastly burden, were probably in sight of the prison; and rich and poor crowded to see a condemned man drawn in a tumbril, or executioner's cart, to the gallows, or a woman exposed to open shame. "It is ordained," an order of leet ran, "that William Rowett, capper, and his paramour be carried and led through the town in a car, in example of punishment of sin, and that all other that be proved in the same sin from this time forward shall have the same pain."[522] But these were only a few among many unpleasant sights that would attract the notice of a passing stranger. Heads of traitors stuck on the top of long poles often adorned the gates. Part of the body of Jack Cade was sent down in 1450, no doubt to breed terror into all disloyal beholders, and in 1470 the head of one Chapman[523] was set up on the Bablake gate; while that of Sir Henry Mountford, an adherent of Perkin Warbeck, shared the same fate in 1496.[524] Gosford Green was the Tower Hill, and the Little Park the Smithfield of Coventry. At the former place Lord Rivers and his son suffered death under Warwick in 1469; while the latter saw the burning of many martyrs, including the famous Marian victim, Laurence Saunders.

Many were the efforts made to keep the place clean and wholesome to live in; but frequent appearances of the plague show that they met with but partial success. At the awful visitation known as the Black Death there remained not "the tenth person alive," we are told, to bury the dead;[525] while in 1479 the plague is said (without doubt exaggeratively) to have carried off 3300 of the inhabitants.[526] Filth of every kind was deposited in the Cross Cheaping under the magnificent cross itself, much incommoding the folk who thronged to the market-place, "to the danger," the leet jury complained, "of infection of the plague," and by sweeping the pavement there dust was raised, which did "deface and corrupt" the said cross.[527] In that half of the city wherein the prior held sway the people put all the refuse of their houses just outside the Cook Street gate, with the result that when the country people did not come to carry it away to manure their fields, the lord prior could not "have his carriage through his orchard."[528]

According to orders of leet, however, a better system should have prevailed. The sergeants collected every quarter a penny from each citizen dwelling in a house with a hall door, and a halfpenny from every shop, to provide a cart which carried away the filth from the streets.[529] Moreover all the citizens were enjoined to clean that portion of the pavement which lay in front of their dwellings every saint's day under payment of a fine of 12d. This order was hardly a popular one, and the sergeants were continually taking distress from those who would not pay the quarterly cart-rate, or raising fines for the omission of the festal cleaning. For the good folk evaded all sanitary regulations whenever they might do so with impunity. As for those misdoers who threw filth into the common river, to inquire concerning them was a hopeless task.[530] This was, as the mayor and corporation owned to prior Deram when he loudly complained thereof, one of the worst evils of the city. Coventry seems, however, never to have fallen into such an evil plight as Hythe did in the fifteenth century. Here, owing to the abominable habit of casting refuse into the streets, to say nothing of blocking them with all imaginable obstructions,[531] they were more like evil-smelling swamps than highways fit for traffic.

Measures, somewhat primitive in character,[532] were taken to guard against an outbreak of fire, which so frequently wasted mediæval cities, where the plaster and timber of the houses, with their projecting storeys almost touching one another across the narrow streets, afforded excellent fuel for the flames. A stone house was a rarity, and in the fifteenth century bricks were as yet not in general use. The leet forbade the building of wooden chimneys or the roofing of houses with straw in lieu of tiles.[533] Moreover late mayors and other officers with "commoners of thrift," were forced to provide leather buckets, "such as the aldermen think sufficient" to hold the water wherewith to quench the flames. In order to prevent the supply of water—brought in a leaden pipe from a spring without the city[534]—from being exhausted, a lavish use of it was not permitted. The conduits, whereof there was one in Cross Cheaping, and another, called the Bull, probably by the Bablake Gate,[535] were kept locked during the night, and brewers were forbidden to take water thence for their brewing, or any one to wash linen and clothes therein.[536] The practice whereby individuals, by means of a grant sealed with the common seal, obtained a licence to take water continually from the conduit for their private use, was looked on most unfavourably, and finally forbidden by the leet.[537] No doubt the people who wished to obtain this permission were the wealthy brewers and victuallers who were answerable for so many disturbances in Coventry.

For here as elsewhere this important class of townsfolk made great profit out of the "pence of the poor," in spite of law and ordinance. One of the great problems facing mediæval legislators and local authorities was the task of ensuring the natural price of provisions. "No police of the Middle Ages," says Thorold Rogers, "would allow a producer of the necessaries of life to fix his charges by the needs of the individual, or, in economical language, to allow supplies to be absolutely interpreted by demand. The law did not fix the price of the raw material, wheat or barley. It allowed this to be determined by scarcity or plenty—interpreted, not by the individual's needs, but by the range of the whole market. But it fixed the value of the labour which must be expended on wheat and barley in order to make them into bread and ale."[538] The central government ordained what weight of bread was to be sold for a certain sum, and what price should be given for a gallon of ale; and the enforcing of the law was the business of the local authority. The local rulers themselves fixed the price of other provisions—fish, meat, poultry, and wine—allowing for profits according to a certain scale on their resale by victuallers.[539] Stringent rules were laid down against the enhancement of price by "forestalling and regratery," that is intercepting merchandise on the way to market and selling it at an increased price. For example, native fishmongers, it was feared, would lay in wait for travelling salesmen bringing in "panyers" of salt fish, and, after buying the same, would ask a higher price for it before the next fasting day. So to guard against this contingency, strangers selling fish were forbidden to be "osted or inned" in the house of a native brother of the craft, but to pass the night at inns at the mayor's "limitation," and after "making relation" to him of the kind of fish they brought, to sell the same openly in the common market-place.[540] A multitude of regulations were also made to ensure the good quality of provisions, the mayor examined all fish brought by foreign fishmongers, whilst ale-tasters, appointed by the bailiff, summoned by each brewer to taste his new beer, received "a gallon of the best ale" at the detection of any default. In addition to all these expedients for regulating price and quality, the statute-book provided for the giving of a just quantity to the buyer at the conclusion of every bargain. On each opening day of a new mayoralty all shopkeepers and victuallers delivered up their weights and measures for the mayor's inspection, and after comparison with the standard model, kept in the town chest, they were sealed if found correct, or, if faulty destroyed.

On his entry into office, the mayor's "crye" or proclamation informed all and sundry of these regulations, and of the perils consequent on their infringement.