This is a corruption of costard-monger; Ben Jonson uses it both ways, and it is noticed of his costermonger by Mr. Archdeacon Nares, that “he cries only pears.” That gentleman rightly defines a costard-monger, or coster-monger, to be “a seller of apples;” he adds, “one generally who kept a stall.” He says of costard, that, “as a species of apple, it is enumerated with others, but it must have been a very common sort, as it gave a name to the dealers in apples.” In this supposition Mr. Nares is correct; for it was not only a very common sort, but perhaps, after the crab, it was our oldest sort: there were three kinds of it, the white, red, and grey costard. That the costard-monger, according to Mr. Nares, “generally kept a stall;” “and that they were general fruit-sellers,” he unluckily has not corroborated by an authority; although from his constant desire to be accurate, and his general accuracy, the assertions are to be regarded with respect. Randle Holme gives this figure of
A Huxter.
Holme, in his heraldic language, says of this representation, “He beareth gules a man passant, his shirt or shift turned up to his shoulder, breeches and hose azure, cap and shoes sable, bearing on his back a bread basket full of fruits and herbs, and a staff in his left hand, or. This may be termed either a huxter or a gardiner, having his fruits and herbs on his back from the market. This was a fit crest for the company of Fruiterers or Huxters.” This man is a costard-monger in Mr. Archdeacon Nares’s view of the term; for doubtless the huckster pitched his load in the market and sold it there; yet Holme does not give him that denomination, as he would have done if he had so regarded him; he merely calls him “the hutler or huxter.”
Packington’s Pound.
Concerning the air of this old song, “Hawkins’s History of Music” may be consulted. The tune may also be found in the “Beggar’s Opera,” adapted to the words—“The gamesters united in friendship are found.”[275]
Court of Pie Powder.
This is the lowest, and at the same time the most expeditious, court of justice known to the law of England. It is a court of record incident to every fair and market; its jurisdiction extends to administer justice for all commercial injuries done in that very fair or market, and not in any preceding one; and to every fair and market, the steward of him who owns the toll is the judge. The injury, therefore, must be done, complained of, and redressed, within the compass of one and the same day, unless the fair continues longer. It has cognizance of all matters of contract that can possibly arise within the precinct of that fair or market; and the plaintiff must make oath that the cause of an action arose there. This court seems to have arisen from the necessity of doing justice expeditiously, among persons resorting from distant places to a fair or market, without leaving them to the remedy of an inferior court, which might not be able to serve its process, or execute its judgments on both, or perhaps either of the parties; and therefore without such a court as this, the complaint must necessarily have resorted to, in the first instance, some superior judicature. It is said to be called the court of pie-poudre, curia pedis pulverizati, from the dusty feet of the suitors; or, as sir Edward Coke says, because justice is there done as speedily as dust can fall from the feet: but Blackstone, who says thus much of this court, inclines to the opinion of Daines Barrington, who derives it from pied puldreaux, (a pedlar, in old French,) and says, it signifies, therefore, the court of such petty chapmen as resort to fairs or markets.
Courts similar to pie-powder courts were usual both with Greeks and Romans, who introduced fairs into Germany and the north.[276]
