VESTIGES, collected and recollected. By JOSEPH MOSER, Efq. No. LI.

A PHILOSOPHICAL AND MORAL VIEW OF ANCIENT AND MODERN LONDON.

WITH NOTES, &c.

Chapter XVI.

THE HE thirteenth and fourteenth centuries have been frequently termed the Heroic Ages; an appellation which they acquired from the prevalence of justs and tournaments; a fpecies of amusement, if they may be fo denominated, which was derived from the Crufades, and which were first introduced into the metropolis in the reign of King Stephen, about A.D. 1140; although they were not very frequent until after the return of Richard the Ift from captivity. To celebrate this event, folemn jufts were exhibited in Smythefield, A.D. 1194*.

On this occafion it appears that the Citizens had but little reafon to rejoice. The ranfom of Richard the It was 140,000 marks (Cologne weight), M. Paris in Rich. I. a fum at that period deemed fo great, especially after a war in the courfe of which piety and vanity had combined to drain the country of what was then its circulating medium, that it was raifed with the utmost difficulty. At that period the tranfatlantic mines fill retained in their bowels thofe immenfe boards of gold and filver which afterwards furnished new wings to commercial adventure, and, instead of RELIGION, made AVARICE the ftimulus to war. London upon this, as upon every other emergent occafion, flood the foremet in her liberality. The Citizens fubfcribed their plate in great abun. dance; while the Monaftic Orders and the other Clergy divefted their convents and their churches of all their precious metallic ornaments, even to the very chalices and other facred appendages to their altars. Upon this occafion a curious contention arofe; for after the gold and filver were gone, it was afferted, that the facrament could not be adminiftered in glafs on account of its brittleness, nor in wood for its fpongines, nor in metals, except in chalices of Latten †. Lindwood, lib. i,

+ Copper and Latten for cups, covers, and other church ornaments, are allowed to be gilt or plated by the statute 5 Hen.

VOL. L. Nov. 1806.

These chivalrous exhibitions appear to have arrived at their greatest eminence in the reign of Edward the IIId. This Prince, whofe character was tinged with a confiderable portion of the romantle extravagance, which that of his fon difplayed in ftill more glaring colours, was fo infatuated with thofe amicable contentions, that he caufed them to be conducted with more than Saracenic pomp, and difplayed with even more than oriental fplendour. Of thefe military abfurdities, which continued in fathion until the reign of Queen Elizabeth *; inftances have been already given.

Out

De Summa Tri. fol. 6th. This, of course, was controverted; but why, (except for the reasons given by our author, which it is not neceffary to quote, as they hardly to us appear ferious,) the other fubitances and metals should have been excommumicated, it is now impoffible to fay, or indeed even to conjecture. Chalices, &c. of this metal" (Latten) however, ufed in England for fome hun dred years after; until at laft John Stafford, Archbishop of Canterbury, when the land was more replenished with filver, inknotteth the Priest that should confecrate Poculum Stanneum."-Eulogium, a Chronicle cited by Fox. Martyrol, in Ricb. I.

" were,

*We can with tolerable precition fettle the date of the decline of this custom; but it would be very difficult, accurately, to afcertain its rife. If we may be allowed to quote the grand hiftorical romance of Pharamond as authority, thence it appears that tournaments were known both in France and Italy in the time of that Emperor. About A.D. 420, when Alaric, King of the Goths, was in poffeflion

IV, c. 4. The notice of gilding and plating in this ftatute not only thows the perfection to which thefe arts had arrived in the metropolis in the fourteenth century, for it was intended to guard against deception in "Goldsmiths' ware," but is in another refpect curious, as it fhows that the art of plating, which is supposed to be a modern invention, that about fifty years fince rofe into estimation upon the ruin of that branch termed the French plate manufacture, fo far from being new, was only the revival of an elegant fpecies of workmanship practifed five hundred years before.

Out of thefe celebrations fprung the trial by combat; a mode of decifion not unfrequently reforted to in cafes remedilefs by the old cuftom of EngJand, and which the High Court of Chivalry is to marthall by the law of arms †.

Riding at the Quintane was a civic fport, that had in its idea fomething chivalrous; though it is faid by Dr. Kennet, who quotes Dr. Plot, to have been derived from the Romans; which is very probable, as it was their custom to train their young men to military exertions; of which this is evidently a fpecies. The champion who fucceeded in breaking the board was accounted Princeps Juventulis, or Chief of the Youth.

Archery was another of our military fports, which has lately been revived, though we think with but little fuccefs. This exercife, for which the English were famed in all parts of the world, was (when the Archers of the City, thofe of Finsbury, and other contiguous diftricts, were reviewed,) attended with oftentatious circumstances of civic fplendor, and conducted with great tate and magnificence.

Of the triumphal fhows exhibited in

This Court first obtained among the defultory multitude that followed the banners of the Crofs; it feems, therefore, to have been founded on neceflity. Richard the It, it is probable, introduced it into this kingdom, or adapted it to the trial of civil caules; as Selden fays, that he has not read of any of that nature before the time of this Monarch, when combat was allowed to prove a title to a knight's fee, at Corleton, Wiltshire.

† April, A.D. 1560, there were great jufts at Weltmintter, and running at the Tilt. Seven days after there were the like at Court, i. e. before Whitehall. Citizens of London were exculed from battaile by the charter of the City.

the City of London, although the veftiges are extremely numerous, we shall only mention one which must, if we confider the ftate of the environs of the metropolis, and indeed of the metropolis itfelf, from concomitant circumftances, have exhibited many picturefque fcenes. This was the celebration of MAY DAY in those periods of fimplicity, when the King, Queen, their Courtiers, and confequently the Citizens, rode a Maying.

At the times of the celebration of the great feftivals, we find that a lower order of the Minstrels affumed the characters of Mummers, and performed short dramas, dances, and tricks, before the doors, and in the halls of the opulent *.

On Allhallow's Eve the reign of the Lord of Mifrule uled to commence, which continued until Candlemas; so that we may obferve, that the dark and dreary months of November, December, and January, were, by our ancestors, more particularly dedicated to fports and hilarity.

The Lord of Mifrule, it would appear from even a flight confideration of the fubject, was an officer whofe province was directly the reverse of that of a modern Master of the Ceremonies; for his bufinefs was to furnith amufement by a feries of blunders, and with ftudied negligence to throw every thing into confufion, in order to increase the fport; whereas that of the Master of the Ceremonies is to introduce regularity into large affembies, to keep or der, to reprefs the ebullitions of paffion, to banish, if poflible, that contraction, or thrusting cut, of the female lips, which Shak/peare terms fouting to prevent violent fuffufions, or flufhings, in the female countenance; to keep the heads of ladies from toffing,

and their noses from turning up, when precedence, partners, and people that nobody knows, with a hundred other ferious circumstances, excite thofe emotions. He has alfo annexed to his office fomething clerical, it being his bufinefs to join hands but he goes till further; for, like an Egyptian Priest, he fre quently procures partners, who fome times under his banners enlift for life *. The employment of the Lord of Mifrule is, as we have obferved, said to have been diametrically oppofite: but this, we contend, was impoffible. No government, however ftable its foundation, could exift three months, or even three days, if the perfon at its head endeavoured to counteract every mea

fure, and to overturn every thing that his Minifters and Council had pro bono publico devifed. Such a whim (of which, indeed, there have been inftances, and of its operation examples, in the lower Roman Empire,) must have been attended with an immediate annihilation of his power; therefore we believe that the Lord of Mifrule, who was generally promoted to this high office from the low fituation of Jefter or Fool to the family, did what we have feen people of bis coat do in our theatres; namely, while apparently endeavouring to thwart and counteract, he was covertly promoting the purpofe of the meeting. In this kind of conduct there was not only fomething comical, but political, as he afforded frequent opportunities, when things bad gone too far, for the real Lord, by turning him out of his place, to fet them to rights again: thus, by fhowing the force of contraft, he indirectly, which is the most agreeable, flattered his fuperior, and produced fuch a change in affairs as frequently enabled him to return to his fituation, to commence his efforts at derangement with renovated humour, and to obtain concomitant applause.

In the palace of every Nobleman, whether fpiritual or temporal, in the manfions of the Lord Mayor and the Sheriffs, there were Lords of Mifrulet,

ever contending, without quarrel or. offence, who should make the most diverfion for the company.

The most remarkable of our civic fhows in the fourteenth century was that of the inauguration of the Chief Magistrate, which, as it has been annually continued, is too well known to afford entertainment in defeription. This proceflion, until the year 1453, was unamphibious; but at that period, Sir John Norman, Draper, willing, like Cymon the Athenian, to triumph

"both on land and wave,"

caufed a barge to be made at his own charge; in confequence of which, the twelve Companies had their feveral

barges, magnificently decked and trim-~ med, to attend upon him: a circumftance that fo delighted the watermen, that they compofed a fong on the occafion, the burthen of which was,

Row thy boat Norman,
Row to thy Leman *."

Though the combats of the Roman Gladiators had, under the Goths, expanded themfelves into jults and tournaments t, which were, as we have ob

ferved,

of affairs, we are always prone to fufpect that a Lord of Mifrule is one of the family, and that his endeavours to promote confufion, whether in accounts, domeftic matters, affections, &c. &c. are no longer jefts.

* Leman, Sweetheart ] Surely thefe rogues did not by this piece of pleafantry mean to infinuate that his Lordship was a bit of a wag, and had a girl over the water, as the impures at that time, (juft as at prefent,) totally banished from the City, reuded in Southwark, on the Bank-fide; to which, we shall prefently oblerve, there was a ferry, of which the fober Citizens unquestionably experienced the convenience.

† Godwin, in his Life of Chaucer, Vol. I, p. 126, has flated, that "the ditference betwixt the juft and the tournament is faid to have conlifted in this, that the just was an amicable contention for fuperiority in arms betwixt two perfons only, and that in the fournament a great number of perfons, arrayed on either fide, rushed together to a mifcellaneous conflict." In this definition we conceive that he has been misled, and has adopted the errors of Du Cange, whom he Y y z

quotes

ferved, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, generally adopted; yet, as fashion, particularly in matters of amulement, is ever fluctuating, we find the pomp and folemnity of thefe degenerated into PRIZE-FIGHTING, which was one of the fports of our ancestors in times immediately subfequent: and, as it was attended with little expenfe, followed by them with great avidity. In confequence of this predilection, arole an order of men, who termed themselves "Mafters of the Noble Art of Defence." Thefe generally were, or pretended to be, OLD SOLDIERS;perfons who had feen much fervice, and who not only practised but taught

quotes. The difference betwixt the exercife at juft and tournament was the faine as that betwixt fparring and boxing; the former was certainly a lefs dan gerous amufement than the latter, as it was performed at firft with wooden weapons, and afterwards with blunted fwords and pears, while the Knights that turneyed, i. e. rode their courfes in the lifts, were aimed in the fame manner as in contentions of a&tual hoftility, and thefe çombats were frequently attended with confequences as furious. The best defcription of a touirament that we have met with is, that in Palamon and Arcite, the Knight's Tale, from Chaucer, as verfified by Dryden (Fables, B. iii, p. 84,. 8vo ed.) In the cider of combat we find that weapons the moft efficacious were all wed; although the Monarch wills that

honour

the fcience they profeffed they exifted chiefly in taverns; and while they aftonished and awed our metropolitan youth, they lived upon the public *.

The fports of bull and bear baiting were anciently the delight of the Englifh their paffion for thefe favage amufements they alfo, it is probable, derived from their conquerors, the polished Romans, whofe imperial city abounded with amphitheatres, many of which were used for the combats of wild beats. For this laudable purpose no expenfe was fpared to fetch them from the furthest parts of the world †. It must he allowed, that in this fport, as in many others, the Romans difplayed more ingenuity than our ancestors, who merely contented themfelves with chaining a bull or a bear to a ftake, while they fuffered the animal, in this ignoble fituation, to be worried and torn by dogs, whofe fierceness has been already noticed; whereas the former ufed to pair a great variety of heterogeneous creatures for the combat. Sometimes we find a tyger matched with a lion; fometimes a lion with a bull, a bull with an elephant, a rhinoceros with a bear, &c.; and very frequently men, who acquired the appellation of Befiarii, nay even women, as we learn from Juvenal, (Sat. 1,) engaged in thofe combats, which as often terminated in what were called battles royal.

* Or theke characters, Captain Bobadil is a humorous, and we believe a correct, portrait. He was, if not a prize-fighter, at least a Master of the Noble Science of Defence, as we have an instance in the leffon he gives to Maßer Matthew, who was as exact a type of thole youths whom fuch adventurers in the difguife of Old Soldiers uled to funge upon. From theie practices, it is probable, came the phrafe, "To fight the Old Soldier." + Hence Claudian

--ratibus pars ibat onuftis Per freta, vel fluvics; exianguis dextera torpet Remigis, et propriam metuebat navita