London

by Walter Besant

The inventory belongs to the year 1337. The proprietor's name was Hugh le Bevere; that of his wife Alice. Hugh le Bevere was a craftsman of the better sort, but not a master. He was so well off that the furniture of his house, including clothes, was valued at £12 18s. 4d., which, being interpreted into modern money, means about £200. He had been married but a short time when the events occurred which caused this inventory to be drawn up. The newly-married pair lived in a house consisting of two rooms, one above the other. The lower room, which was kitchen and keeping-room in one, was divided from the houses on either side by solid stone walls; it had a chimney and a fireplace; the walls were hung round with kitchen utensils, tools, and weapons; a window opened to the street, the upper part of which was glazed, while the lower part could be closed by a stout shutter; the door opened into the street; there was another door at the back, which opened upon a buttery, where there stood ranged in a row six casks of wine. One folding-table and two chairs served for their wants, because they were not rich enough to entertain their friends. A ladder led to the upper room, which was an attic or garret, built of wood and thatched with rush. Here was the bed with a mattress, three feather beds, and two pillows. A great wooden coffer held their household gear; here were six blankets and one serge, a coverlet with shields of sendall (a kind of thin silk), eight linen sheets, four table-cloths. The clothes, which were laid in chests or hung upon the wall, consisted of three surcoats of worsted and ray; one coat with a hood of perset (peach-colored cloth), and another of worsted; two robes of perset; one of medley, furred; one of scarlet, furred; a great hood of sendall with edging; one camise (only one!) and half a dozen savenapes (aprons). One perceives that the inventory omits many things. Where, for instance, were the hosen and the shoon? For kitchen utensils there were brass pots, a grate, andirons, basins, washing vessels, a tripod, an iron horse, an iron spit, a frying-pan, a funnel, and two ankers—i.e. tubs. They had one candlestick "of lattone;" two plates; an aumbrey (cabinet or small cupboard); curtains to hang before the doors to keep out the cold; cushions and a green carpet; and for the husband a haketon, or suit of leather armor, and an iron head-piece. Of knives, forks, wooden plates, cups, glasses, or drinking measures there is nothing said at all. But it is evident that the house was provided with everything necessary for solid comfort; plenty of kitchen vessels, for instance, and plenty of soft feather-beds, blankets, pillows, curtains, and sheets.

Every morning at six o'clock, after a hunch of bread, a substantial slice of cold meat, and a pull at the black-jack of small ale, Hugh le Bevere walked off to his day's work. Then Alice, left at home, washed and scoured, made and mended, cooked the dinner, talked to the neighbors, and, when all was done, sat in the door-way enjoying the sunshine and spinning busily.

They had been married but a short time. There were no children. Then—one knows nothing; one must not judge harshly; there may have been jealousy; there may have been cause for jealousy; perhaps the woman had a tongue unendurable (fourteenth-century tongues were cruelly sharp); perhaps the man had a temper uncontrolled (in that century there were many such); but no one knows, and, again, we must not judge—then, I say, the end came, suddenly and without warning. When it was all over, some of the neighbors thought they had heard high words and a smothered shriek, but then we often think we have heard what probably happened. In the morning Hugh le Bevere went not forth to his work as usual; Alice did not open the door; the shutters remained closed. The neighbors knocked; there was no answer. They sent for the Alderman, who came with his sergeants, and broke open the door. Alas! alas! They found the body of Alice lying stark and dead upon the floor; beside her sat her husband with white face and haggard eyes, and the evidence of his crime, the knife itself, lying where he had thrown it.

They haled him to the Lord Mayor's Court. They questioned him. He made no reply at first, looking as one distraught; when he spoke, he refused to plead. For this, in later times, he would have been pressed to death. What was done to him was almost as bad; for they took him to Newgate, and shut him up in a cell with penance—that is to say, on bread and water—until he died.

THE CONDUIT, NEAR BAYSWATER

This done, they buried the unfortunate Alice, and made the inventory of all the chattels, which the City confiscated, and sold for £12 18s. 4d., out of which, no doubt, they paid for the funeral of the woman and the penance of the man. The rest, one hopes, was laid out in masses, as far as it would go, for the souls of the hapless pair. Death has long since released Hugh le Bevere; he has entered his plea before another Court; but the City has never learned why he killed his wife, or if, indeed, he really did kill her.

Of Plantagenet London this is my picture. You see a busy, boisterous, cheerful city; with the exception of the cities of Ghent and Bruges and Antwerp, the busiest and the most prosperous city of the western world, with the greatest liberty of the people, the greatest plenty of all good things, and the happiest conditions of any town. You have seen that though the sovereign was King within as well as without the walls, there was no other Over-Lord; the royal hand was sometimes heavy, but its weight was better to bear than the internal dissensions that ravaged the Italian cities; it was better that London should suffer with the rest of the country than that she should sit, like Venice, secure and selfish beside her quays, though the people of the land behind were torn with civil wars and destroyed by famine and overrun by a foreign enemy.

When we think of this period let us never forget its external splendor—the silken banners, the heralds in their embroidered coats, the livery of the great lords, the Mayor and Aldermen in their robes riding to hear mass at St. Paul's, the cloth of gold, the vair and miniver, the ermine and the sable, the robes of perset and the hoods of sendall, the red velvet and the scarlet silk, the great gold chains, the caps embroidered with pearls, the horses with their trappings, the banners and the shields, the friars jostling the parish priests, the men-at-arms, the city ladies, as glorious with their raiment as the ladies of the court, the knights, the common folk, the merchant, and the prentice. Mostly I like to think of the prentice. One always envies the young; theirs is the inheritance. The prentice lived amid these glories, which seemed like pageants invented entirely for his delight. It was time when the fleeting shows and vanities of life were valued all the more because they were so fleeting. He looked around, and his heart swelled with the joy of thinking that some day these things would fall to him if he was lucky, diligent, and watchful. His was the threefold vow of industry, obedience, and duty. By keeping this vow he would attain to the place and station of his master.