“The shiv’ring wretches at the curfew sound
Dejected sunk into their sordid beds,
And, through the mournful gloom of ancient times
Mus’d sad, or dreamt of better.”
Yet the weary yeomen would doubtless for a long time welcome the hour that heralded rest. Certainly the name lingered as a dividing period of the day.
Blackstone says (vol. iv., p. 420) that Henry “abolished the curfew, for though it is mentioned in our laws a full century afterwards, yet it is rather spoken of as a known time of night (so denominated from that abrogated usage) than as a still subsisting custom.”
Chaucer speaks of it as a time of day:
“The dede sleep, for every besinesse,
Fell on this carpenter, right as I gesse,
About curfew time, or litel more.”
In the Antiquarian Repertory, vol. i., p. 4, it is stated upon the authority of Monsieur Pasquier, that the ringing of the curfew bell was a custom long established in particular towns in France, and originated, as he supposes, in times of tumult and sedition. But the earliest instance he gives is no farther back than the year 1331, when the city of Laon, which had forfeited its privileges, was reinstated therein by Philip de Valois, who directed that for the future a curfew bell should be rung in a certain tower in that city, at the close of the day. Pasquier adds, that under the reigns of Charles VI. and VII., it came much into use.
We will now glance over the records of the curfew, as found in deeds, enactments, poetry, and tradition, preserving, as nearly as convenient, a sequence of date.
In the second mayoralty of Sir Henry Colet, knight (father of Dean Colet), A.D. 1495, and under his direction, this solemn charge was given to the quest of wardmote in every ward, as it stands printed in the Custumary of London: “Also yf there be anye paryshe clerke that ryngeth curfewe after the curfewe be ronge at Bowe Chyrche, or Saint Brydes Chyrche, or Saint Gyles without Cripelgat, all suche to be presented.” Stow may be regarded as corroborating the statement of curfew usage at the two latter churches.
In Stripe’s edition of Stow, 1721 (vol. i., b. 3, p. 542), speaking of St. Mary-le-Bow, it is stated that “The parish clerk’s office, belonging to this church, was to ring the curfew bell; as it was to be rung at three other churches in London, at a pretty distance from each other. That, so this notice, all the curfew bells in other parishes might be rung in due season, viz., Barking Church, S. Bride’s, and S. Giles’s without Cripplegate.”
In the articles agreed upon and settled in 22 Henry VIII. (1531), for the guidance of the sexton of Faversham, we read: “Imprimis, the sexton, or his sufficient deputy, shall lye in the church steeple; and, at eight o’clock every night, shall ring the curfewe by the space of a quarter of an hour, with such bell as of old time hath been accustomed.”