Westminster

by Walter Besant

He forgets nobody, this good citizen; he desires good water and plentiful; he wants the Bridge to be kept in repair—where would trade be without the Bridge? he wants cleanliness in the City—why should Walbrook be allowed to be converted into an open sewer? Hospitals for the sick; marriage portions for girls; worn-out servants; prisoners; lepers; he remembers all. Surely, to have been brought up in the household of such a man, so kindly, so thoughtful, with so great a heart, must have been an education for the boy.

At this time the principal market of Western Europe was Bruges, and the center of the trade carried on by the Merchant Adventurers—an association containing members of various companies—was that city. There stood Domus Anglorum, the House of the English Merchants. It was not uncommon for a young man to be sent to this House in order to learn the foreign trade before he completed his time. Thither, therefore, went Caxton, having seven years still to serve; and there he remained for thirty years.

Those who know the history of the Hanseatic

THE “DOMUS ANGLORUM,” BRUGES.

Merchants and the Steelyard will understand the position and meaning of the Domus Anglorum. The Englishmen in Bruges, just as the Germans in London, lived separate and apart, a community by themselves, in their own house, which was surrounded by a wall, contained offices, warehouses, sleeping chambers, a common hall, and perhaps a chapel (I say perhaps, because a chapel belonged to every great house). The people of the London Steelyard, whether they had a chapel or no, worshiped in the Church of All Hallows the Great, just outside their walls; and very likely the English merchants observed the same practice. They lived separate from the Flemings; they were never allowed by the citizens of Bruges to consider themselves otherwise than as strangers and foreigners; they had certain privileges and rights jealously accorded, jealously watched, by the Duke of Burgundy and by the worthy burghers of Bruges; jealously guarded and resolutely claimed by the foreign merchants themselves. In order to avoid, as much as possible, the ever-present danger of a popular rising against strangers, the Englishmen lived by strict rule: abroad they walked with circumspection; they kept as much as possible within their own walls. It is not likely that the prejudice against foreigners was so strong in any European country as it was in England; certainly not at Bruges, Ghent, and Antwerp, whither foreigners flocked from every port. At the same time, to be a foreigner anywhere invited curiosity; and mediæval curiosity was the mother of hostility; and hostility too often took a practical and an active line. The English factory, therefore, lived under rule, like the Germans of the Steelyard; they lived in a college; they observed hours of closing the gates; they had a common table; save for vows and midnight prayers the life was monastic; on no pretense were women to be admitted, and all the residents were unmarried.

These factories or foreign stations of English merchants were continued into quite modern times. In the seventeenth century, and perhaps later, there was an English factory at Aleppo; the Indian Empire sprang out of English factories; the establishment of a factory was the first step toward a footing in foreign trade.

The position of governor, or rector, of such a community was, it will be readily understood, one requiring special, rare, and valuable qualities. He must be, first of all, a man of courteous and conciliatory manners; he must know how to be firm and how to assert his rights; he must be watchful for the extension, and jealous for the observance, of privileges; he must be ready to seize every opportunity for advancing the interests of the community; he must not be afraid to stand before kings; he must be a linguist, and able to speak the language of the court and the language of the market. When we learn, therefore, that Caxton was presently raised to the very important office of Governor of all the English merchants, not only in Bruges, but in other towns,—Ghent, Antwerp, Damme, Sluys,—we understand from this single fact the manner of man he was supposed to be; when we learn in addition that he continued to hold his post till he was forty-five years of age, we understand what manner of man he must have been.

There is, as one who studies this time cannot fail to remark, a special kind of dignity belonging to these centuries; it is the dignity that springs from the knowledge of one’s own rank or place, at a time when rank, place, or station belonged to every possible occupation of life. A bricklayer or a carpenter, as well as a mercer, or a monk, or a priest, belonged to a trade association; he was ’prentice first, full member next, officer or even warden in due course. The most humble employment was dignified by the association of its members. Everybody, from the King to the lowest craftsman, understood the dignity of associated labor; everybody recognized office and authority, whether it was the episcopal office or the presidency of a Craft Company. You may see Caxton in every picture that presents a bourgeois of the time. He wears a long gown of red cloth, something like a cassock, the sleeves and neck trimmed with rich fur; round his neck hangs a gold chain; his belt is of leather, gilt, and from it hangs his purse; his hair is cut shorter than the nobles wear it, and it is seen under a round cap, the sides of which are turned up. It is a costume admitting of great splendor in the way of material; the fur lining or trimming may be broad and costly; the gold chain may be rich and heavy; the belt may be embossed by an Italian artist—all the advantages of mediæval costume are not with the knight and soldier. As for his face, it is grave; his eyes are serious; it is not for him that the Court Fool plays his antics; it is not for him that the minstrel strikes his mandolin: he is thinking what new concessions he can get from the Duke of Burgundy. Above all, at this moment he is troubled about the late quarrel in Antwerp between certain English sailors—young hotheads—and some Flemings, in a tavern, after which two of the latter were found dead. And the town, without considering who began the brawl, was of course in an uproar against the accursed English. The news has been brought home by a Flemish merchant just from Antwerp: the Englishmen have taken sanctuary; there will be correspondence, excuses—fines, perhaps.