OUR LEGAL HERITAGE

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A noble lord made written rules with penalties for his country
household, which numbered about a hundred, including family,
retainers, and servants. He enforced them by fines, flogging,
and threats of dismissal. The lady of the house saw that the
household, held together as an economic and social unit. The
noble's family, retainers, guests, and the head servants, such
as chaplain and children's tutor, and possibly a musician, dined
together at one table. The family included step children and
married sons and daughters with their spouses. They drank from
drinking of fine clear glass from Italy. They ate from silver
dishes with silver spoons. Chandeliers of candles lit rooms. A
silver salt cellar was on the table, which was covered with a
linen cloth. The lady of the house sat in a chair at the end of
the table and was served first. After the upper table was
served, the food was sent to the servants: serving men and
women, bakers, brewers, cooks, pot cleaners, laudresses,
shepherds, hogherds, dairy maids, falconers, huntsmen, and
stable men. What was left was given to the poor at the gates of
the house. The biggest meal of the day was dinner, served at
noon. There were sandglass clocks. For amusement, the house was
occasionally handed over to a lord of misrule for twelve days.
Clothes were washed in rivers and wells.

Farmers' wives used looms as well as spinning wheels with foot
treadles. Due to new grass and root crops, animals could be kept
through the winter. Therefore, salted meat and salted fish were
no longer the staple food of the poorer people during the
winter. Farm laborers ate soup, porridge, milk, cheese, bacon,
and beer or mead (depending on the district), and dark barley or
rye bread, which often served as his plate. Gentlemen ate wheat
bread.

By 1600 basement services were frequently found in town houses
built on restricted sites. Lastly, provision of water supplies
and improved sanitary arrangements reflected concern with
private and public health. There was virtually no drainage. In
the case of town houses, some owners would go to considerable
effort to solve drainage problems, often paying a cash
composition to the civic authorities, but sometimes performing
some service for the town at Court or at Westminster in return
for unlimited water or some drainage. Most affluent households,
including the Queen's moved from house to house, so their
cesspits could be cleaned out and the vacated buildings aired
after use. A few cesspits were made air-tight. Otherwise, there
was extensive burning of perfumes. Refuse was emptied out of
front doors and shoveled into heaps on street corners. It was
then dumped into the river or along the highways leading out of
town. People put on perfume to avoid the stench. By 1600, the
first water-closet was built, which provided a clean latrine all
year round.

The value of grain and meat rose compared to wool. Grain became
six times its value in the previous reign. Wool fell from
20s.8d. per tod in 1546 to 16s. in 15s. So sheep-farming, which
had taken about 5% of the arable land, was supplanted somewhat
by crop-raising and the rural population could be employed for
agriculture. In some places, the threefold system of rotation was
replaced by alternating land used for crops with that used for
pasture. The necessity of manuring and the rotation of crops and
grasses such as clover for enrichment of the soil were
recognized. Wheat, rye, barley, peas, and beans were raised.
There was much appropriation of common land by individual
owners by sale or force. Many farms were enclosed by fences or
hedges so that each holder could be independent of his
neighbors. Red and black currants, rhubarb, apricots, and
oranges were now grown. These independent farmers could sell wool
to clothiers, and butter, cheese, and meat to the towns. They
also often did smithwork and ironwork, making nails, horseshoes,
keys, locks, and agricultural implements to sell. A laborer
could earn 6d. a day in winter and 7d. a day in summer. Unfree
villeinage ceased on the royal estates. But most land was still
farmed in common and worked in strips without enclosure.
Windmills now had vanes to change the position of the sails when
the wind direction changed. Formerly, the position of the sails
was changed by manual labor. Prosperous traders and farmers who
owned their own land assumed local offices as established
members of the community.

The population of the nation was about five million. Population
expansion had allowed landlords to insist on shorter leases and
higher rents, instead of having to choose between accepting a
long lease and good rent or allowing their estates to pass out
of cultivation. 90% of the population lived in the countryside
and 5% in the London and 5% in the other towns. Over half the
people of the nation were on the margin of subsistence. Life
expectancy was about 40 years of age.

Most of London was confined within the city wall. There were
orchards and gardens both inside and outside the walls, and
fields outside. Flower gardens and nurseries came into
existence. No part of the city was more than a ten minute walk
to the fields. Some wealthy merchants had four story mansions or
country houses outside the city walls. Goldsmiths' Row was
replete with four story houses. A few wealthy merchants became
money-lenders for interest, despite the law to the contrary. The
mayor of London was typically a rich merchant prince. Each trade
occupied its own section of the town and every shop had its own
signboard, for instance, hat and cap sellers, cloth sellers,
grocers, butchers, cooks, taverns, and book-sellers. Many of the
London wards were associated with a craft, such as Candlewick
Ward, Bread St. Ward, Vintry Ward, and Cordwainer Ward. Some
wards were associated with their location in the city, such as
Bridge Ward, Tower Ward, Aldgate Ward, Queenhithe Ward, and
Billingsgate Ward. People dwelled at the back or on the second
floor of their shops. In the back yard, they grew vegetables
such as melons, carrots, turnips, cabbages, pumpkins, parsnips,
and cucumbers; herbs; and kept a pig. Hyde Park was the Queen's
hunting ground. London had a small zoo of ten animals, including
a lion, tiger, lynx, and wolf.

Life in London was lived in the open air in the streets. The
merchant transacted business agreements and the lawyer saw his
clients in the street or at certain pillars at St. Paul's
Church, where there was a market for all kinds of goods and
services. Some gentlemen had offices distant from their dwelling
houses such as attorneys, who had a good income from trade
disputes and claims to land, which often changed hands. Plays
and recreation also occurred in the streets, such as
performances by dancers, musicians, jugglers, clowns, tumblers,
magicians, and men who swallowed fire. The churches were
continuously open and used by trades and peddlers, including
tailors and letter-writers. Water carriers carried water in wood
vessels on a shoulder from the Thames River or its conduits to
the inhabitants three gallons at a time. Soldiers, adventurers,
physicians, apprentices, prostitutes, and cooks were all
distinguishable by their appearances. An ordinance required
apprentices to wear long blue gowns and white breeches with
stockings, with no ornamentation of silk, lace, gold or silver
and no jewelry. They could wear a meat knife, but not a sword or
dagger. Apprentices lived with their masters and worked from 6
or 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Some people knitted wool caps as they walked
to sell when finished. There were sections of town for
booksellers, butchers, brewers, hosiers, shoemakers, curriers,
cooks, poulters, bow makers, textwriters, pattenmakers, and horse
and oxen sellers. Large merchant companies had great halls for
trade, such as the mercers, grocers, drapers, fishmongers, and
goldsmiths. The other great guilds were the skinners, merchant
tailers, haberdashers, salters, ironmongers, vintners, and
clothworkers. Smaller guilds were those of the bakers, weavers,
fruiterers, dyers, Thames watermen and lightermen, carpenters,
joiners, turners, and parish clerks. The guilds insured quality
by inspecting goods for a fee. >From 1571, merchants could meet
at the Royal Exchange building for business purposes. It's great
bell rang at midday and at 6 p.m. Crime was rampant in the
streets and criminals were executed near to the crime scene.

Taverns served meals as well as ale. They were popular meeting
places for both men and women of all backgrounds to met their
friends. Two taverns in particular were popular with the
intelligentsia. Music was usually played in the background and
games were sometimes played. Beer made with hops and malt was
introduced and soon there were beer drinking contests.
Drunkenness became a problem.

The main thoroughfare in London was still the Thames River.
Nobles living on the river had their own boats and landings.
Also at the banks, merchants of all nations had landing places
where ships unloaded, warehouses, and cellars for goods and
merchandise. Swans swam in the clear bright water. Watermen rowed
people across the river for a fee. On the south bank of the river
were theaters, outlaws, cutpurses, prostitutes, and prisons. In
the summer, people ate supper outside in public. Refuse is still
thrown into the streets. At night, the gates of the city were
closed and citizens were expected to hang out lanterns. The
constable and his watchmen carried lanterns and patrolled the
streets asking anyone they saw why they were out so late at
night. There were a few horse-drawn coaches with unglazed
windows with curtains to keep out the weather.

As of old times, brokers approved by the Mayor and aldermen made
contracts with merchants concerning their wares. Some contracts
included holding wares as security. Some craftsmen and manual
workers extended this idea to used garments and household
articles, which they took as pawns, or security for money loaned.
This began pawn brokerage, which was lucrative. The problem was
that many of the items pawned had been stolen.

The Queen's Privy Council fixed wages and prices in London,
advised Justices of the Peace on wages elsewhere, and controlled
exports of grain to keep prices down and supplies ample. There
were labor strikes in some towns for higher wages after periods
of inflation. In 1591, London authorities rounded up the sturdy
vagabonds and set them to work cleaning out the city ditches for
4d. per day.

Most of the men in Elizabeth's court had attended a university,
such as the lawyer and writer Francis Bacon and the sea-fighter
and writer Walter Raleigh, who had a humble origin. Many wives
and daughters of Privy Councilors attended the Queen in her
privy chamber. Most of the knights or gentlemen of the royal
household were also members of Parliament or Justices of the
Peace for certain districts in the counties. The court did not
travel as much as in the past, but became associated with
London. Elizabeth took her entire court on summer visits to the
country houses of leading nobility and gentry.

Secular education and especially the profession of law was the
route for an able but poor person to rise to power, rather than
as formerly through military service or through the church.

The first stage of education was primary education, which was
devoted to learning to read and write in English. This was
carried out at endowed schools or at home by one's mother or a
tutor. The children of the gentry were usually taught in their
homes by private teachers of small classes. Many of the poor
became literate enough to read the Bible and to write letters.
However, most agricultural workers and laborers remained
illiterate.

The next stage of education was grammar [secondary] school. There
a student was taught rhetoric (e.g. poetry, history, precepts of
rhetoric, and classical oratory), some logic, and Latin and
Greek grammar. English grammar was learned through Latin grammar
and English style through translation from Latin. Literary
criticism was learned through rhetoric. There were disputations
on philosophical questions such as how many angels could sit on
a pin's point. The students sat in groups around the hall for
their lessons. The boys and girls were also taught hawking,
hunting and archery. The secondary student and the undergraduate
were tested for proficiency by written themes and oral
disputations, both in Latin. Grammar schools were headed by
schoolmasters. There were so many secondary schools financed by
merchants and guilds such as the Mercers and Fishmongers that
every incorporated town had at least one. The middle classes from
the squire to the petty tradesman were brought into contact with
the best Greek and Roman writers. A typical schoolday lasted
from 7:00 am to 5:00 PM. Flogging with a birch rod was used for
discipline. Some students learned this material from a tutor
rather than school.

The government of Oxford University, which had been Catholic, was
taken from the resident teachers and put into the hands of the
Vice-Chancellor, Doctors, Heads of Colleges, and Proctors. Then
Oxford became a hotbed of Puritanism. Cambridge already had a
strong reformed element from Erasmus' influence. Oxford
University and Cambridge University were incorporated to have a
perpetual existence for the virtuous education of youth and
maintenance of good literature. The Chancellors, masters, and
scholars had a common seal. Undergraduate students entered at age
16 and resided in rooms in colleges rather than in scattered
lodgings. Each undergraduate student had a tutor and those not
seeking a degree could devise his own course of study with his
tutor's permission. Many students who were working on the seven
year program for a Master's Degree went out of residence at
college after the four year's "bachelor" course. Students had
text books to read rather than simply listening to a teacher
read books to them. Oxford was authorized to and did acquire its
own printing press. Examination was still by disputation.
Students acted in Latin plays. If a student went to a tavern, he
could be flogged. For too elaborate clothing, he could be fined.
Fines for absence from class were imposed.

All students had to reside in a college or hall, subscribe to the
39 articles of the university, the Queen's supremacy, and the
prayer book. Meals were taken together in the college halls. The
universities were divided into three tables: a fellows' table of
earls, barons, gentlemen, and doctors; a second table of masters
of arts, bachelors, and eminent citizens, and a third table of
people of low condition. Professors, doctors, masters of arts
and students were all distinguishable by their gowns.

Undergraduate education was considered to be for the purpose of
good living as well as good learning. It was to affect the body,
mind, manners, sentiment, and business. The university
curriculum included Latin and Greek languages and was for four
years. The student spent at least one year on logic (syllogizing,
induction, deduction, the thirteen classical fallacies, and the
application of logic to other studies), at least one year on
rhetoric, and at least one year on philosophy. The latter
included physics, metaphysics, and ethics (domestic principles
of government, military history, diplomatic history, and public
principles of government), and mathematics (arithmetic, geometry,
algebra, astronomy, music, optics). There were lectures on Greek
and Latin literature, including Aristotle, Plato, and Cicero.

About 1564, the curriculum was changed to two terms of grammar,
four terms of rhetoric, five terms of dialectic (examining
ideas, opinions logically), three terms of arithmetic, and two
terms of music. There were now negative numbers, irrational
numbers, and imaginary numbers. Also available were astrology,
and alchemy, cultivation of gardens, and breeding of stock,
especially dogs and horses. Astronomy, geometry, natural and
moral philosophy, and metaphysics were necessary for a master's
degree. The university libraries of theological manuscripts in
Latin were supplemented with many non-religious books.

There were graduate studies in theology, medicine, music, and
law, which was a merging of civil and canon law together with
preparatory work for studying common law at the Inns of Court in
London.

In London, legal training was given at the four Inns of Court.
Only young gentry were admitted there and many later became
members of Parliament or Justices of the Peace. It took about
seven years there to become a lawyer. Besides reading textbooks
in Latin, the students observed at court and did work for
practicing lawyers. They often also studied and attended
lectures on astronomy, geography, history, mathematics,
theology, music, navigation, foreign languages, and lectures on
anatomy and medicine sponsored by the College of Physicians. A
tour of the continent became a part of every gentleman's
education.

Medical texts were Hippocrates and Galen. These viewed disease as
only part of the process of nature, without anything divine.
They stressed empiricism, experience, collections of facts,
evidences of the senses, and avoidance of philosophical
speculations. Galen's great remedies were proper diet, exercise,
massage, and bathing. He taught the importance of a good water
supply and good drainage. Greek medicinal doctrines were
assumed, such as preservations of the health of the body was
dependant on air, food, drink, movement and repose, sleeping and
waking, excretion and retention, and the passions. It was widely
known that sleep was restorative and that bad news or worry could
spoil one's digestion. An Italian book of 1507 showed that
post-mortem examinations could show cause of death by
gallstones, heart disease, thrombosis of the veins, or
abscesses.

Because physicians were allowed to dissect corpses, there were
anatomy textbooks and anatomy was related to surgery. The
compound microscope was invented about 1590. A visit by a doctor
cost 13s.4d. Melancholia, which made one always fearful and full
of dread, and mania, which made one think he could do
supernatural things, were considered to be different types of
madness from infirmities of the body. Barber-surgeons extracted
teeth and performed surgery. Barbers were allowed to do only
dentistry and bleeding. A College of Surgeons was founded.
Teachers of surgery used corpses of felons to teach anatomy. Even
the poor were buried in coffins.

All forms of English literature were now in print, except for
plays. In 1600 William Gelbert wrote a book on terrestrial
magnetism which founded the science of electricity. He
cultivated the method of experiment and of inductive reasoning
from observation. He expounded the idea of Nicolaus Copernicus of
Poland published in 1543 that the earth revolves around the sun
in a solar system. However, the prevailing belief was still that
the earth was at the center of the universe.

Many people kept diaries. Letter-writing was frequent at court.
Correctness of spelling was beginning to be developed. Printers
tended to standardize it. There was much reading of romances,
jest books, histories, plays, prayer collections, and
encyclopedias, as well as the Bible. In schools and gentry
households, favorite reading was Edmund Spenser's "Faerie Queen"
about moral virtues and the faults and errors which beset them,
Erasmus' New Testament, "Paraphrases", "Colloquies", and
"Adages", Sir Thomas North's edition of Plutarch's "Lives of the
Noble Grecians and Romans", Elyot's "The Book Named the
Governor", and Hoby's translation of "The Courtier". At a more
popular level were Caxton's "The Golden Legend", Baldwin's
"Mirror for Magistrates", Foxe's "Book of Martyrs" about English
protestant who suffered at the stake, sensational stories and
pamphlets, printed sermons (including those of Switzerland's
Calvin), chronicles, travel books, almanacs, herbals, and
medical works. English fiction began and was read. There were
some books for children. Books were copywrited, although
non-gentlemen writers needed a patron. At the lowest level of
literacy were ballads describing recent events. Next to sermons,
the printing press was kept busiest with rhymed ballads about
current events. Printed broadsheets on political issues could be
distributed quickly. In London, news was brought to the Governor
of the News Staple, who classified it as authentic, aprocryphal,
barber's news, tailor's news, etc. and stamped it. Books were
also censored for matter against the state church. This was
carried out through the Stationers' Company. This company was
now, by charter, the official authority over the entire book
trade, with almost sole rights of printing (e.g. excluding
schools). It could burn other books and imprison their printers.

Travel books had maps, itineraries, and mileage between towns in
England and Wales according to a survey completed in 1579, about
which time the Queen had a postal system on the high roads for
official business. Non-government people used private post
horses. The gentry rode horses. Most people's mode of travel was
still walking. In 1564, the first canal was built with locks at
Exeter.

William Shakespeare, a glove-maker's son, wrote plays about
historical events and plays which portrayed various human
personalities and their interactions with each other. They were
enjoyed by all classes of people. His histories were especially
popular. The Queen and various earls each employed players and
actors, who went on tour as a troupe and performed on a round
open-air stage, with people standing around to watch. In London,
theaters such as the Globe were built specifically for the
performance of plays, which had been performed at inns. There
were costumes, but no sets. Ordinary admission was 2d. Before
being performed, a play had to be licensed by the Master of the
Revels to make sure that there was nothing detrimental to the
peace and public order. The common people still went to
morality plays, but also to plays in which historical personages
were portrayed, such as Richard II, Henry IV, and Henry V. Some
plays were on contemporary issues. Musicians played together as
orchestras. Music and singing was a popular pastime after
supper; everyone was expected to participate. Dancing was
popular with all classes. Gentlemen played cards, dice, chess,
billiards, tennis, and fenced and had games on horseback. Their
deer- hunting diminished as forests were cut down for agriculture
and the deer was viewed as an enemy eating crops. Falconry
diminished as hedges and enclosures displaced the broad expanses
of land. With enclosure there could be more innovation and more
efficiency. It was easier to prevent over-grazing and half-
starved animals as a result.

Country people had music, dancing, pantomime shows with masks,
riddles, wrestling, hurling, running, swimming, leap frog,
blindman's buff, shovelboard played with the hands, and football
between villages with the goal to get the ball into one's own
village. There were many tales involving fairies, witches,
devils, ghosts, evil spirits, angels, and monsters enjoyed by
adults as well as children. Many people were still
superstitious, believed in charms, curses, divination, omens,
fate, and advice from astrologers. The ghosts of the earth
walked the earth, usually because of some foul play to be
disclosed, wrong to be set right, to warn those dear to them of
peril, or to watch over hidden treasure. Fairies blessed homes,
rewarded minor virtues, and punished mild wrongdoing. When
fairies were unhappy, the weather was bad. There were parties
for children.

The merry guild-feast was no longer a feature of village life.
There were fewer holydays and festivals. The most prosperous
period of the laborer was closing. An agricultural laborer's
yearly wage was about 154s., but his cost of living, which now
included house rent, was about 160s. a year. In 1533, daily wages
in the summer for an agricultural laborer were about 4d. and for
an artisan 6d. In 1563 in the county of Rutland, daily wages for
laborers were 7d. in summer and 6d. in winter; and for artisans
were 9d. in summer and 8d. in winter.

There were endowed hospitals in London for the sick and infirm.
There were others for orphans, for derelict children, and for
the destitute. They worked at jobs in the hospital according to
their abilities. There was also a house of correction for
discipline of the idle and vicious by productive work.

In the towns, shop shutters were let down to form a counter.
Behide this the goods were made and/or stored. The towns held a
market once a week. Fairs occurred once or twice a year. At
given times in the towns, everyone was to throw buckets of water
onto the street to cleanse it. During epidemics in towns, there
was quarantine of those affected to stay in their houses unless
going out on business. Their houses were marked and they had to
carry a white rod when outside. The quarantine of a person
lasted for forty days. The straw in his house was burned and his
clothes treated. People who died had to be buried under six feet
of ground.

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