And yet I say by my soule, I have no salt bacon
Ne no Cokeney, by Christe, coloppes to make."
The Vision of Pierce Plowman, printed 1550.
"At that fest thay wer seruyd with a ryche aray,
Every fyve and fyve had a Cokenay."
The Turnament of Tottenham.
The sentence for which I am responsible, p. 318., should read thus: "Cokeney, in the above lines quoted by Webster, probably refers to any substantial dish of fresh meat which might be cut in collops." I may add that this use of the word brings it into close alliance with the Anglo-Saxon word cocnunga, signifying things cooked, pies, puddings, and cock's-meat.
The French and Neapolitan festivals, called cocagne and cocagna, appear to have presented themselves in this country under the form of Cockneys' feasts and revels conducted by the King of Cockneys. Strype, in the first appendix to his edition of Stow's London, under the head "Stepney," describes at some length "The Cockney's Feast of Stepney;" and Dugdale, in his Origines Juridiciales, recapitulates an order entered on the Register of Lincoln's Inn, vol. iv. fo. 81a, in the 9th of Henry VIII.:
"That the King of Cockneys in Childermass-day should sit and have due service, and that he and all his officers should use honest and lawful manner and good order, without any waste of destruction making, in wine, brawn, chely, or other victuals: as also that he, his marshal, butler, and constable marshal, should have their lawful and honest commandments by delivery of the officers of Christmas: and that the said King of Cockneys, ne none of his officers, medyll neither in the buttry nor in the Stuard of Christmass his office—upon pain of xis. for every such medling. And lastly, that Jack Straw and all his adherents should be thenceforth utterly banisht, and no more to be used in this house upon pain to forfeit, for every time five pounds, to be levied on every fellow hapning to offend against this rule."
Some obliging bencher of Lincoln's Inn will perhaps have the goodness to examine, or to permit me to examine the Register, to ascertain whether this potentate was king of Cockneys, as Dugdale has it, or of Cockney.