Dragon, now figures on the sign board affixed to the inn that occupies one portion of its site.
It is some credit to the ministers of justice in the city, that we find upon their records, traces of the efforts made to bring to punishment some of the actual perpetrators of the outrages in Jewry, albeit they could perhaps only be deemed instruments in the hands of higher powers. Extracts from the “Coroners’ Rolls,” containing accounts of robberies and street frays in this reign and the preceding, prove this fact, and afford in addition curious evidence of the state of society at that period. For the quaint and amusing details they give, we must render thanks to the learned and skilled in antiquarian lore, obsolete orthography, black letter type, &c., but, for whose assistance in rescuing them from obscurity, and interpreting their meaning, they must to us have remained veiled in an impenetrable incognita.
Amongst them is the record of an “inquisition made of the fire raised in Jewry,” and a “precept given to apprehend all the felons concerned.” Another is so graphic, that we feel able to see the whole picture it gives at a glance—the widow sitting beside the bier of her husband, the sanctity of her sorrow invaded by brute violence, the house pillaged, and the corpse plundered and burnt in the agonised wife’s presence. The words of the roll say, “Katharina, the wife of Stephen Justice, accused
Ralph, son of Robert Andrew, the gaoler, William Kirby Gaunter, William Crede, Walter de Hereham, John, servant of Nicholas de Ingham, and Nicholas sometime servant of Nicholas de Sopham, and Nicholas de Gayver, that when she was at peace with God and the king, in the house of Stephen Justice her husband, and the Thursday night after the feast of King Edmund, in the forty-eighth year of the reign of King Henry, the son of King John (1263), they came in the town of Norwich, in Fybriggate, St. Clement’s, and broke the oaken gates, and the hooks and the hinges of iron, with hatchets, bars, wedges, swords, knives, and maces, and flung them down into the court, and feloniously entered; that they then broke the pine wood doors of the hall, and the hinges and iron work of them, and the chains, bolts, and oaken boards of the windows. Afterwards they entered the door of the hall chamber towards the south, and robbed that chamber of two swords, value 3s. 6d., one ivory handled anlace, value 12d., one iron head piece, value 10d., an iron staff, value 4d.; one cow leather quirre (cuirass) with iron plates, value half a mark; and one wambeis (a body garment stuffed with cotton, wool, or tow), and coming thence into the hall, they burnt the body of her husband, as it there lay upon a bier, together with a blanket of ‘reins,’ value 3s.; and took away with them a linen cloth, value 18d. The said Katharina
immediately raised hue and cry, from street to street, from parish to parish, and from house to house, until she came into the presence of the bailiffs and coroners. They also stole a lined cloth of the value of 5s., and one hood of Pers (Persian) with squirrel’s fur, value 10s.”
A writer in the Archæological Journal describes the houses of this period as possessing only a ground floor, of which the principal apartment was the aire, aitre, or hall, into which the principal door opened, and which was the room for cooking, eating, receiving visitors, and the other ordinary uses of domestic life. Adjacent to this, was the chamber which was by day the private apartment and resort of the female portion of the household, and by night the bed room. Strangers and visitors generally slept in the hall, beds being made for them on the floor. A stable was frequently adjacent to the hall, probably on the side opposite to the chamber or bed-room.
Another memorandum on the rolls, records the deaths of Henry Turnecurt and Stephen de Walsham, who “were killed in the parish of St. George, before the gate of the Holy Trinity, St. Philip and James’ day, in the same year. The coroners and bailiffs went and made inquisition. Inquisition then made was set forth in a certain schedule. Afterwards came master Marc de Bunhale, clerk, and Ralph Knict, with many others, threatening the
coroners to cut them to pieces, unless the schedule was given up, and then they took Roger the coroner, and by force led him to his own house, with swords and axes, until the said Roger took the schedule from his chest; and then they took him with the schedule to St. Peter of Mancroft church, and there the aforesaid Ralph tore away the schedule from the hands of Roger, and bore it away, and before his companions, in the manner of fools, cut it into small pieces; and with much ado, Roger the coroner escaped from their hands in great fear and tremor. The coroners say they cannot make inquisition, by reason of the imminence of the war.” The disturbances alluded to were the dissensions going on between the king and barons.
Another describes an attack of four men, one of them a priest, upon one man in his shop in the market, where he was killed. Among many other similar accounts of these troubled times, stands the description of various felons, who sheltered themselves within the walls of the sanctuary, a privilege permitted from the time of Alfred, whose laws granted protection for three days and nights to any within the walls of a church; William the Conqueror confirmed and extended the privilege. In the times of feudal tyranny, this refuge was oftentimes of considerable advantage to innocent persons falsely accused, but as frequently was the shelter of crime.
In a case quoted from this authority, the felon professes to have sought refuge from punishment awaiting robberies, of which he acknowledges himself guilty. Upon the church of St. Gregory there yet remains a curious escutcheon, a part of the knocker, always then placed upon the door of a church, for the purpose of aiding those who sought refuge in sanctuary. A curious account of the ceremony of abjuration of the realm by one who had taken refuge in Durham Cathedral, is given in the York volume of the Archæological Institute.