Domestic history of the people in the second half of the thirteenth century-Materials for the € inquiry-Household Rolls-The Roll of Swinfield, Bishop of Hereford-The Bishop's city -Manor-houses, and modes of living at-Christmas feast-Domestics and labourersSerfs-Large and small tenants-Rents-Wages of domestics-A journey to LondonProvision carried for consumption on the road-State of the ways-London-The Bishop's house there-Markets and shops-The Bishop at Court-Pavements, conduits, drainageLondon houses-Oxford students-The Bishop's visitations-His manor-house in the summer-Gardens, orchard, vineyard-Building operations-Wages of artificers-Furniture Dress-Woollen manufacture-Foreign trade.

WE propose in this chapter to collect, under one view, a somewhat detailed account of the Domestic History of the People, in the second half of the thirteenth century. The materials for this inquiry are singularly ample. It is not that any great observer of manners has presented such a picture of society as Chaucer has presented at the end of the fourteenth century; or that from the existing correspondence of the period we may derive those interesting glimpses of the modes of living which we find in "the Paston Letters" of the fifteenth century. But for the time of Edward I. we have several authentic documents, in addition to the various notices of disbursements contained in public records, which are sufficient to enable us to construct a satisfactory summary of the manner in which our ancestors expended their incomes about five hundred and fifty years ago. Although they lived amidst a very irregular round of domestic arrangements, sometimes

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DOMESTIC HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE.

[1265.-1299. giving profuse entertainments, and at other times exercising a scrupulous economy-although the great, whether clerical or lay, were always in a state of migration from one place to another, and seldom abided long in any of their palaces or manor-houses-although many of the necessaries of life were produced upon their own estates, and transferred from the farm to the hallthey understood the great principle of wise domestic management, the keeping of exact accounts. Nearly all the materials which we possess for such a general picture of ancient domestic life are derived from house-keeping account-books of the period-Household Rolls, as they are called. In every great family there was a house-steward, who kept these accounts upon parchment from day to day, from week to week, and from month to month; and the separate skins of parchment being tacked together formed one roll, complete for a given period, being generally that of a year. All the public records of the kingdom, in which we are rich beyond most nations, are rolls, kept in the manner exhibited in the engraving at the head of the chapter. The household rolls of the period of which we are now treating, some of which have come to light within the last few years, will be referred to as we proceed in the careful, though imperfect, account which we shall endeavour to present of the private life of the English in the times of Edward I.

Of this period, the regal life was set forth in the "Wardrobe Accounts" of the king himself, for the year 1299, which have been published by the Society of Antiquaries. Under the head of "wardrobe" are included many expenses beyond those connected with apparel. The Roll of the Countess of Leicester, for the year 1265-that year of turbulence and danger-is an interesting view of the state of a noble household whilst its head was engaged in a great public enterprise, which ended in the ruin of his family, however it might have advanced the liberties of his country. There are minor accounts, chiefly of travelling expenses, to which we shall refer. Public records, whether known as Pipe Rolls or Close Rolls, throw much light on these documents. But a Household Roll, having more relation to general life and manners than those of the king and the countess, has been recently published, with most valuable annotations. It is a Household Roll of a Bishop of Hereford. The bishop, Swinfield, has a palace at Hereford, a house in Worcester, and a house in London. He has many manor-houses, at each of which he has a farm. He has stables for many horses, kennels for his hounds, and mews for his hawks. His kitchens reek with every variety of food; his cellars are filled with wine, and his spiceries with foreign luxuries. He brews and he bakes, and he makes his own candles. He buys cloth, and a tailor fashions it into garments for himself and his servants. He is constantly moving from manor-house to manor-house; and the domestic utensils, the brass pots, and the earthenware jugs, are always moving with him. We can trace him on a long journey from Hereford to London, and back again, and learn how he fared upon the road. We go with him into quiet country places, when he is out on his visitations; and see how be makes his way,

"A Roll of the Household Expenses of Richard de Swinfield, Bishop of Hereford, during part of the years 1289 and 1290. Edited by the Rev. John Webb." Camden. Society, 2 vols. 1854, 1855. This is unquestionably the most interesting contribution of authentic materials for the history of ancient manners which has yet appeared, and its value is doubled by the rare skill of its editor.

1289-1290.]

ROLL OF BISHOP SWINFIELD.

393

with numerous horsemen, along difficult roads, where guides are sometimes needed to save the party from dangerous fords or deceitful quagmires. We know exactly what he pays his domestics, and what the various commodities for the sustenance of the large household cost. We can judge of the amount of the comforts by which this numerous family is surrounded; and form a tolerable estimate of the refinement which existed, when many retainers were littered down in a great hall, which served all purposes, and servants were well contented with the stable as their accustomed dormitory. Such private history, we believe, makes all public history more intelligible.

Of the provincial-town life of the bishop we see very little. He is not on the most friendly terms with the burgesses of Hereford. His jurisdiction was constantly clashing with that of the civil magistrate. Half the city was called the bishop's fee, where he was supreme. At the time of the annual fair his power was paramount over the whole city. The citizens were constantly disputing the feudal right of the bishop to control them; and in Hereford, as in other towns, the ancient power of the lords, whether that of prelate or noble, was gradually but reluctantly yielding to the authority of general law. The soke-lords of London were thus in perpetual conflict with the municipal rulers; and were constantly setting up certain privileges, such as that of the bishop of London to a seignorial oven in Cornhill, which greatly interfered with the equal progress of society. Bishop Swinfield is rarely at his episcopal city, the cathedral of which was so frequented by pilgrims and devotees from all parts of the kingdom, that the offerings of wax at the altars became a matter of dispute between.

the prebendaries and the treasurer, as to which this valuable perquisite should belong. The bishop was probably not on very good terms with the great body of his Hereford clergy; for he was a constant patron of the order of Minoritesthe preaching friars, who were generally popular with the laity, though viewed with jealousy by other religious orders. We find Swinfield himself preaching upon his journeys-a duty to which bishops seldom applied them

Friar Preaching from a Moveable Pulpit.-Royal MS. 14 E. iii.

selves. He had risen to his high rank from a humble beginning, having been chaplain and secretary to the previous bishop. Of no distinguished influence or grasping ambition, he discharges the duties of his office, which was clearly not a position of mere luxury and idleness, as a vigilant administrator. When we trace him, therefore, to his various manor-houses of Sugwas, of Bosbury, of Ledbury, of Prestbury, of Whitborne, of Ross, of Colwall, and to his episcopal castle of Bishop's Castle, on the Welsh border, we find that he is thus moving about in the discharge of his official duties. At each of his

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MANOR-HOUSES, AND MODES OF LIVING AT.

[1289-1290. manor-houses the bishop's hall is his feudal court. Here he sits in baronial state to receive the homage of tenants, to sentence ecclesiastics to penalties for offences against the canon law, to threaten or excommunicate lay offenders against public morals. Here he entertains the suitors of his court, and his dependents, on high festivals. The hall, from which the whole manor-house derives its name, is the one great room of the establishment. All other accommodation is limited and subordinate. "The greater part of the episcopal palace at Hereford appears to have been originally a hall, with pillars and arches of wood."* The manor-house was also, for the most part, a hall. One private chamber was allotted to the lord of the house. The cook had his kitchen, a separate but adjacent building. There was the sewery ; and there was the butlery. But the courts were held; the audiences were given; the guests were dined; the wine was drunk; and as night ended the solemn feast or the lenten fasting, all slept on the wooden floor of the hall, strewed with dry rushes in winter, and green fodder in summer—with hay or with straw.

The Swinfield Household Roll would have given us a bishop's year, had two months not been lost to us in the destruction of two skins of the parchment record. We can trace him from the 30th of September in 1289 to the 23rd of July in 1290. We miss the interesting period of the corn-harvest of the latter year. As it is, we may perhaps better illustrate the condition of this household, and thus infer many particulars of the condition of the people generally, by following the course of these ten months so carefully registered. They embrace a period of royal festivity, and general disocmfort. King Edward, in 1289, had returned from Gascony, having been absent from England for three years. He was about to marry his daughter, Joanna, to the great earl of Gloucester, Gilbert de Clare, the most powerful of the barons; and he kept his court at Westminster with unusual pomp. But a gloom was shed over England by those atmospheric disturbances which always brought alarm, for they were threatenings of scarcity. It is recorded by a contemporary historian, Wikes, that from the feast of St. Michael, to the feast of the Purification (February 2nd), there was incessant rain day and night, without a ray of sunshine, and without frost or snow. A year of dearness followed. During these four months our bishop was migrating from manor to manor, or travelling to or from London.

On the 30th of October, the episcopal household comes to Sugwas, on the left bank of the Wye, about four miles from Hereford. Here the bishop has his mill, his dovecote, and his fishery. The river yields salmon, and the tenants pay dues of eels. Friday, Saturday, and Wednesday are days of abstinence. On Sunday, October 2nd, the household is abundantly feasted. At the generous board there are consumed three-quarters of beef, three sheep, half a pig, eight geese, ten fowls, twelve pigeons, nine partridges, and unnumbered larks. To this abundant food there is a due proportion of wine and beer. Bread has been baked on the Saturday. The baker is an important person. He always precedes the family in their wanderings, that the pantry may be well stored when the hungry travellers arrive. On the days of

* "Domestic Architecture in England, from the Conquest to the end of the Thirteenth Century;" by G. T. Hudson Turner;-a work of original research, and lucid detail.

1289.1

CHRISTMAS FEAST.

395

abstinence we find a variety of fish, which the present great white-bait feasts of the Thames can scarcely rival. We have sticks of eels, sold by twenty-five on a stick, according to the statute; there is salmon from the weir; there are tench, and much small fry called minnows; lampreys there are, and lamperns; salt-herrings and salted cod are always in store; and dried cod is brought from Aberdeen. Some of the fish is bought at the towns of Hereford, and Gloucester, and Worcester, according to their vicinity to the manor-houses; and the cook often goes with a sumpter-horse to fetch the supply. In winter we have oysters bought by the gallon; and in May and Jure the fresh mackerel furnishes a new delicacy. The trout, too, is produced at the table in the season of the May-fly. Gruel is served up in abundance; and soup is mentioned. But of fresh vegetables there is a scant supply, as may be inferred from the entry of salted greens. From his manor of Sugwas the bishop proceeds to the manor of Bosbury, where he remains two months. There are here some vestiges of strong buildings, on the site of the manor-house. In no other place does the episcopal lord remain so long as at Bosbury. It appears to have been the chief storehouse of good things for the consumption of the household. It is now the Martinmas season, when the salting-tubs are filled with every variety of flesh to be preserved for use through the coming winter, when ancient agricultural economy could produce little fresh meat. We may have some notion of the amount of this consumption of salt provisions, when we find that fifty-two beeves were brought in from the different farms, some travelling from the distant manor of Early, near Reading. Sheep and swine, in large numbers, were also salted down; and many of the internal parts of the animals went to the pickling vessels. The salt was purchased at Worcester, being brought there from the pits at Droitwich; and the commodity not being a plentiful one, half a seam,—that measure being equivalent to 100 lbs.,-was borrowed from a preceptory of Templars. But beef, mutton, and pork did not constitute the whole of the salted food. The epicure of modern days will lament over the reckless waste which consigned the fattest venison of the bishop's parks and chases to this levelling equality with common flesh. The stud-groom, the huntsmen and their hounds, the stable-helpers, the boys of the farm, were driving the deer from their thick coverts, to fall before the unerring shafts from the cross-bow. The hides produced by this enormous slaughter were partly sold, and some were manufactured into leather after a rude domestic fashion. The superfluous fat of the animals was converted into home-manufactured candles; and on one day of this slaughtering time, 80 lbs. are recorded to have been made. Before we leave this subject of the provision of substantial food for a very large scale of housekeeping, let us briefly notice the Christmas feast at Prestbury, another great manor-house, to which the bishop had removed at that festive season. At Bosbury, five casks of wine had been laid in, having been brought from Bristol, one of the chief marts for foreign wine in the west of England. It was conveyed under the care of the bishop's servants, by boat up the Severn. From Bosbury to Prestbury, a cask was sent for the Christmas festival. There was a great brewing there in December, so that the enormous quantity drank at Christmas, was not "jolly good ale and old." As we constantly find in these times, the brewing was under the management of women. The breweress, the sempstress, and the house-cleaner, are the