Ben Jonson’s mention, in his “Bartholomew Fair,” of “the western man who is come to wrestle before the lord mayor anon,” is clearly of one who came up to the annual wrestling on Bartholomew’s-day. Concerning this “annual wrastling,” it is further noticed by Stow in another place, that about the feast of St. Bartholomew, wrestling was exhibited before the lord mayor and aldermen, at Skinnerswell near Clerkenwell, where they had a large tent for their accommodation. He speaks of it as having been a practice “of old time;” and affirms that “divers days were spent in the pastime, and that the officers of the citie, namely the sheriffes, serjeants, and yeomen, the porters of the king’s beame, or weigh-house, (now no such men,” says Stow,) “and other of the citie were challengers of all men in the suburbs, to wrestle for games appointed: and on other days, before the said mayor, aldermen, and sheriffes, in Fensbury-field, to shoot the standard, broad arrow, and flight, for games. But now of late yeeres,” Stow adds, “the wrestling is only practiced on Bartholomew-day in the afternoone, and the shooting some three or foure days after, in one afternoone and no more.” Finally, the old chronicler laments, that “by the means of closing in of common grounds, our archers, for want of roome to shoot abroad creepe into bowling-alleys, and ordinarie dicing houses, neerer home, where they have roome enough to hazzard their money at unlawful games, and there I leave them to take their pleasures.” Another narrator tells of the wrestlers before the lord mayor, aldermen, &c. on Bartholomew’s-day that they wrestled “two at a time;” he says “the conquerors are rewarded by them by money thrown from the tent; after this a parcel of wild rabbits are turned loose in the crowd, and hunted by boys with great noise, at which the mayor and aldermen do much besport themselves.”[287]
It was on St. Bartholomew’s-eve that the London scholars held logical disputations about the principles of grammar. “I myself,” says Stow, “have yeerely seen the scholars of divers grammar-schools, repaire unto the churchyard of St. Bartholomew, the priory in Smithfield, where, upon a banke boorded about under a tree, some one scholler hath stepped up, and there hath opposed and answered, till he were by some better scholler overcome and put downe; and then the overcommer taking the place, did like as the first; and in the end, the best opposers and answerers had rewards.” These disputations ceased at the suppression of the priory, but were revived, though, “only for a yeare or waine,” under Edward VI., where the best scholars received bows, and arrows of silver, for their prizes.
The Bartholomew Fair of 1655, is the subject of
An Ancient Song of Bartholomew Fair.
In fifty-five, may I never thrive,
If I tell you any more than is true,
To London che came, hearing of the fame
Of a Fair they call Bartholomew.
In houses of boards, men walk upon cords,
As easie as squirrels crack filberds;
But the cut-purses they do lite, and rub away,
But those we suppose to be ill birds.
For a penny you may zee a fine puppet play,
And for two-pence a rare piece of art;
And a penny a cann, I dare swear a man,
May put zix of ’em into a quart.
Their zights are so rich, is able to bewitch
The heart of a very fine man-a;
Here’s patient Grizel here, and Fair Rosamond there,
And the history of Susanna.