R.G.
Replies to Minor Queries.
Hiring of Servants (Vol. ii., p. 89.).—It was provided by several old statutes, the first of which was passed in 1349, that all able-bodied persons who had no evident means of subsistence should put themselves as labourers to any that would hire them. In the following year were passed several other acts relating to labourers, by one of which, 25 Edward III. stat. i. c. i., entitled, "The Year and Day's Wages of Servants and Labourers in Husbandry," it was enacted that ploughmen and all other labourers should be hired to serve for the full year, or other usual terms, and not by the day; and further,
"That such labourers do carry openly in their hands, in market towns, their instruments of labour, and be there hired in a public place, and not privately."
For carrying into effect these provisions, it would be necessary to have certain days, and a fixed place set apart for the hiring of servants. In the former particular, no days would be so convenient as feast days: they were well known, and were days commonly computed from; they were, besides, holidays, and days for which labourers were forbidden to receive wages (see 34 Edw. III. c. 10. and 4 Henry IV. c. 14.); so that, although absent from labour, they would lose no part of the scanty pittances allowed them by act of parliament or settled by justices. As to the latter requirement, no place was so public, or would so naturally suggest itself, or be so appropriate, as the market-place.
Thus arose in our own land the custom respecting which W.J. makes inquiry, and also our statute fairs, or statutes; thus called on account of their reference to the various "Statutes of Labourers." I was not aware that any usage to hire on all festivals (for to such, I take it, your correspondent refers) still existed in England. As to France, I am unable to speak; but it is not improbable that a similar custom in that country may be due to causes nearly similar.
Arun.
George Herbert.—J.R. FOX (Vol. ii., p. 103.) will find in Major's excellent edition of Walton's Lives the information he requires. At p. 346. it is stated that Mrs. Herbert, the widow of George Herbert, was afterwards the wife of Sir Robert Cook, of Highnam, in the county of Gloucester, Knt., eight years, and lived his widow about fifteen; all which time she took a pleasure in mentioning and commending the excellences of Mr. George Herbert. She died in the year 1653, and lies buried at Highnam; Mr. Herbert in his own church, under the altar, and covered with a gravestone without any inscription.
And amongst the notes appended by Major to these Lives, is the following additional notice of Herbert's burial-place. The parish register of Bemerton states that