The story of Coventry

The Story of Coventry

Henry VI.
from the painting in the National Portrait Gallery.

The Story of Coventry

by Mary Dormer Harris

Illustrated by Albert Chanler

London: J.M. Dent & Sons, Ltd.

Aldine House Bedford Street

Covent Garden W.C. 1911

All rights reserved

AD MATREM

PREFACE

In preparing this volume for the press I have omitted some of the matter in Life in an Old English Town, which did not seem suitable for this series, and added fresh material likely to be useful to those who wished to identify the historic sites, and see the historic buildings of Coventry. In expanding Chapter XV. in so far as it dealt with the Corpus Christi plays—a task the labours of Dr Hardin Craig have rendered comparatively light—I have been able to add one hitherto unpublished item to the subject of the mediæval dramatic history of Coventry (p. 296), and dispel the idea that the name "S. Crytyan" given to a play acted in 1505 is a misreading for S. Catherine. For permission to publish this item I am indebted to the kindness of Mr William Page, F.S.A., editor of the Victoria County History. Another point remotely bearing upon the pageants is the chronology of royal visits to Coventry (p. 288), which I have endeavoured to clear up as far as I could, Sharp's Dissertation on the Coventry Mysteries, the usual guide in these matters, being extremely faulty in this respect on account of the confusion which prevails in the MS. annals or mayor-lists, on which he depended for dates. Of these extant lists, both in print and in MS., I have given a detailed account (p. 106) in connection with the entry concerning Prince Henry's supposed arrest by Mayor Hornby, a matter which, in view of the Shakespearean interest involved, is more fully treated of here than in my previous book.

My thanks are due to Mr J. Munro and the Early English Text Society for the kind permission to print extracts from Dr Craig's Two Corpus Christi Plays and from my own edition of the Leet Book. To Mr George Sutton, Town Clerk of Coventry, and all the unfailing courteous officials with whom I so constantly came in contact during my work, I must (not for the first time) express my gratitude. My obligations to Messrs Longmans and the Society of Antiquaries for permission to print portions of Chapters XII. and XIII. respectively have been acknowledged in my previous work.

MARY DORMER HARRIS

Leamington, Aug. 7, 1911.

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

[King Henry VI.] (From a painting in the National
Portrait Gallery; painter unknown) Photogravure Frontispiece
HALF-TONE
[A Courtyard in Little Park Street]
[Smithford Street]
[Palace Yard]
[Council Chamber, showing Panelling]
[Bablake and S. John's Church]
[New Street]
[Butcher Row]
[Mayoress' Parlour, showing State Chair]
LINE
[The Two Spires from top of Bishop Street]
[8 Much Park Street]
[Remains of Old Wall—back of Godiva Street]
[Saint John the Baptist, Coventry]
[Gosford Green]
[24 Gosford Street]
[130 Far Gosford Street]
[Godiva Window]
[Heraldic Tile found in Hales Street]
[Peeping Tom]
[Cathedral Ruins]
[Carved Miserere Seat, S. Michael's Church]
[Priory Row, Coventry]
[Cheylesmore Manor House]
[Gable of Cheylesmore Manor House]
[34 Far Gosford Street]
[Old Whitefriars' Monastery, now Coventry Union]
[40 Far Gosford Street]
[Courtyard, S. Mary's Hall, Coventry]
[Minstrel Gallery, S. Mary's Hall]
[The City Keys]
[The City Mace—The Sword]
[The Old State Chair]
[High Street, Coventry]
[View of Interior of Saint Michael's]
[Gosford Street]
[Smithford Street, Coventry]
[Cook Street Gate]
[Old House in Little Park Street]
[Queen Mary's Chamber]
[Swanswell Gate]
[The Council Chamber, S. Mary's Hall]
[Trinity Lane]
[Arms of City of Coventry]
[Old House beside S. Mary's Hall]
[Whitefriars' Lane]
[Oriel Window and Stocks, S. Mary's Hall]
[Old Bablake School]
[Ford's Hospital]
[Holy Trinity Church]
[Swillington's Tomb, S. Michael's Church]
[Pulpit, Holy Trinity Church]
[Old House in Cox Street]
[36 Gosford Street]
[91 Gosford Street]
[Old House in Cox Street]
[Entrance to Kitchen, S. Mary's Hall]
[Archdeacon's Chapel, Holy Trinity Church]
[The Staircase, Old Bablake School]

The Story of Coventry

[INTRODUCTION]

The Three Spires and Coventry

"Now flourishing with fanes, and proud pyramidès,
Her walls in good repair, her ports so bravely built,
Her halls in good estate, her cross so richly gilt,
As scorning all the Towns that stand within her view."
Drayton, Polyolbion, xiii.

Time has brought many changes since old Drayton thus vaunted the stateliness of Coventry. The walls, the cross are gone, and of the twelve stately gates, but two remain. Gone, too, is the splendid conduit in the Cross Cheaping, S. Nicholas' Hall in the West Orchard, meeting-place of the Corpus Christi guild; and S. Nicholas' Church, out to the north beyond Bishop Street, which fell to ruin soon after the Reformation. But the "proud pyramidès," the "three spires," remain yet, and give greeting to all who approach Coventry, dominating the flat midland country for many a mile, changing their relative position as the spectator moves, and their colour in the shifting lights. Highest and fairest of all—so "the Archangel," says Fuller, "eclipseth the Trinity,"—is the nine-storied belfry of S. Michael's, tower, octagon and spire, a wonderful example of symbolism of design and harmonious disposal of ornament. The tower, begun in 1373, was the gift—says tradition—of the men of the Botoner family, the spire of its women, not the least among the many noteworthy achievements that in Coventry history are linked with a woman's name.

THE TWO SPIRES FROM TOP OF BISHOP STREET

Such a medley is Coventry that the great steeple over-shadows quiet, memory-haunted places, and streets filled with the clamour of traffic, pleasant houses rich men have lately built, and squalid courts, that occupy the site of many an ancient burgage croft and garden. It is a typically English city, whose history might serve as the "abstract and brief chronicle" of England. A thoroughly corrupt borough in the worst days of municipal corruption, rigidly Puritan under the Stuarts, loyal under Elizabeth, steady for hereditary right at Mary's accession—but Protestant, as witness its martyrs—Lollard in the hey-day of Lollardry, patriotic and Talbot-worshipping in the Hundred Years' War—as England was, so was Coventry. In art and letters, also, the city recalls what is most characteristic in the achievements of the English people. Here flourished mediæval architecture, an art wherein Englishmen have excelled greatly, and the mediæval religious drama, foundation of Shakespeare's greatness; while chance, and the sojourn of George Eliot, have given the city associations with the literary outburst of the Victorian time.

The doings of Coventry folk or the happenings within the city must have impressed the minds of generations of English folk, since the name has entered into folk rhymes[1] and flower names, and proverbial English speech. Old botanists speak of "Coventry bells" and "Coventry Marians," where now we say "Canterbury bells"; children play card-games called "Peeping Tom" or "Moll of Coventry"; and we still, by silent avoidance of our friends, "send them to Coventry," a reminiscence maybe of the uncivil treatment the city Roundheads gave to imprisoned Cavaliers what time the bitterness engendered by the Civil War was abroad in the land.

Interesting too—albeit scanty—are the relics of legendary lore and heathen custom which ofttimes perplex the student of the city's history. Here was played the Hox-Tuesday play, survival, say folklorists, of the struggle to gain possession of a victim for the sacrifice; here the national legend of Godiva grew up; and here, men fabled, S. George, patron of England, was born.

In the country round about Coventry two Englands meet, one a land of green woods and well-watered pastures, the other black with the toil of the coal-fields. The city turns its most prosperous side southwards, and the common view of the spires is the one from the south, where the tree-bordered road from Kenilworth, whereon so many kings and queens have travelled, slips into Coventry, past a fringe of ample, comfortable houses, that the well-to-do have raised in our own time. This was Tennyson's view of the spires, and George Eliot must have seen it daily in her school-life, which she passed in the house that is farthest from the town in Warwick Row. It is the common view, but not the most interesting, since the octagonal Decorated steeple of Christchurch, recased in fresh stone, last remnant of the now demolished church of the Greyfriars, is the least commanding of the three, and by its nearness somewhat dwarfs the rest. The Greyfriars of Coventry, be it said, have gained by a scribe's error, a probably quite unmerited fame as producers of the noted Corpus Christi plays; in reality, this honour should belong to the lay-folk and craftspeople of the city.

It is well—so the journey is made from the south—to gain a more distant view of the "proud pyramidès" over the flat fields from the Stoneleigh Road, where Christchurch falls into its proper place. The trees make the way through Stoneleigh a lovely one, and the village church, redolent of eighteenth century peace, with a magnificent Norman chancel arch, furnishes a fine excuse for delay. Nearer to Coventry the way winds on over Finham Bridge, shadowed by poplars, and through Stivichall, a hamlet the widow of Earl Ranulf of Chester gave to the Bishop of Lichfield for the welfare of her husband's soul. Allotment gardens and newly-built streets occupy the land to the south-east of the city, formerly known as the Little Park, once part of a royal estate. It is a commonplace-looking site nowadays, albeit thronged with memories. Here Lollard sermons have been preached and miracle-plays played, and hither Laurence Saunders and others were led out to be burned in 1556, on ground now occupied by a factory, where once long after men discovered charred fragments of a stake. They are building streets over the Park area by the station nowadays; but this was a practice inaugurated long ago when Much Park Street (vicus parci maioris) and Little Park Street (vicus parci minoris) were built on ground cut out of the royal estate. The east end of Little Park Street may be reached by Park Road, past a newly-raised memorial to the Coventry martyrs.

8 Much Park ST

Much Park Street led by Whitefriars through Newgate to the London Road; Little Park Street led but to a postern gate. In Stuart times the latter road had little traffic and much social dignity; beautiful houses stood therein with spacious gardens, where dwelt the neighbouring gentry, who were wont to enjoy the amenities of urban life for a season, a common feature of the social life of country towns at that period. Sir Orlando Bridgman's house, most magnificent example of these gentlefolks' dwellings, was wantonly demolished in the early nineteenth century, though the Jacobean mantelpiece from the presence-chamber is still preserved in the school at Bablake. The street still retains in Banner House, and a lovely little quadrangle of the time of William III., relics of the grandeur of that bygone time.

A COURTYARD IN LITTLE PARK STREET

The London Road comes past Whitley, a manor held in the fifteenth century by William Bristow, the most troublesome and litigious person in Coventry history, and Shortley, where in Edward II.'s time, one John de Nottingham, a necromancer, dwelled, concerning whom there is much to be found in this book. At Shortley is the Charter-house where, incorporated in a modern dwelling, are remains of the Carthusian monastery, which the Botoners helped to build, and whereof Richard II. was patron. Wayfarers from London and Daventry (Shakespeare's "Daintry") entered the town at Newgate by Whitefriars, the modern workhouse. At Newgate the mural circuit was begun in 1356, when Richard Stoke, mayor, laid the first stone. Here, too, in August 1642, Charles I. made a breach in the town wall, whereat divers Cavaliers found entrance; but so vehement was the onslaught made upon them by the townsfolk—men and women—and so impregnable were the citizens' barricades of carts and furniture, that the Royalists withdrew discomfited. Another breach in the wall, twenty years later, made also at Newgate, marked the beginning of the work of dismantling the fortifications. This was done by order of Charles II. to avenge the old affront offered to his father, and occupied 500 men for three weeks and three days. The superstitious found in the destruction of the walls the subject of one of the famous Mother Shipton's prophecies. It was foretold, they said, "that a pigeon should pull them down," and in truth they were dismantled in Thomas Pigeon's mayoral year.[2]

REMAINS OF OLD WALL—BACK OF GODIVA STREET

From Little Park Street only two spires are seen; and but the same number is visible in Bishop Street, which lies to the north. The traveller comes almost suddenly into the turmoil of this street from the pleasant uplands of Fillongley, where the Hastings' family had a castle, and the Shakespears a farm-house, and Corley, of George Eliot memories, with its prehistoric camp on the Rock. It is good to see but two spires, that it may serve as a reminder that the church of the Greyfriars is but an unessential feature in Coventry history. The twin steeples of S. Michael's and Trinity represent the two parishes—the two estates, Earl's-half and Prior's-half—which anciently composed the city.

Maybe these two steeples look most magnificent in the twilight from Poolmeadow, formerly covered by a sheet of water known as S. Osburg's Pool. This is a bare place running east and west of Priory Street, to the north of the site of the ancient monastery. By daylight the surroundings of Poolmeadow are unbeautiful enough, yet it is in some respects the most interesting spot in Coventry, since it is connected with the earliest name that occurs in Coventry history.

What connection there was between the Saint, whose nunnery the Danes destroyed, and this pool, we know not. At her shrine in the priory were miracles wrought, and her head seems to have appeared among the relics treasured by the religious house at the Dissolution.

Another non-parochial church comes very prominently into view when the approach is made from the south-west, Canley and Hearsall, though I imagine that few enter by those by-lanes save the ruddy, brown-gaitered farmers on their way to the Friday market. This is the guild-church of S. John the Baptist at Bablake, whereof the tower, that has a fortress-like touch, rises high above the roofs of the town. Even the sea-element is not lacking in the history of this inland city, since the guild brethren declared that they wished to raise this church in part as a memorial "for the good success the king had upon the sea" upon S. John's day—probably at the battle of Sluys, June 24, 1340.[3] Hard by this church and the collegiate buildings clustered behind it stood Bablake Gate, and all who came by the great highway leading from the north-west—now called the Holyhead Road—made their entrance there. Before coming to Bablake, however, wayfarers would cross the Sherbourne at Spon, close by the chapel of S. James and S. Christopher, now incorporated in a modern dwelling-place. Here they would, belike, pay their devotions just as other travellers coming from London and Daventry paid theirs at the Lady Tower, wherein was a wooden image of our Lady, hard by Newgate and Whitefriars.

SAINT JOHN THE BAPTIST
COVENTRY

Smithford Street, which reminds us of the early activity of the workers in iron, leads to Bablake, and by the bridge there tradition says that there grew a great tree "that from the strangeness of the fruit was called Quient" (quaint), an imaginary etymology of the name Coventry. Modern scholars are, however, agreed that it was from some memorable (and possibly sacred) tree that the earliest form of the word "Cofantreo" is derived.

Gosford Green

To those who look on the spires from Gosford and the eastern side the tall ones appear in their relatively close proximity. This is the entrance to Coventry where most historical associations abound. "Two dukes should 'a fought on Gosford Green," succinctly say the city annals in 1397, but, as all the world knows, Richard II. forbade Bolingbroke and Mowbray to fight. Sinister memories for the House of York are connected with the Green, for here in 1469 Queen Elizabeth, Woodville's father, Lord Rivers, and her brother, John, were beheaded by Warwick's orders. It is said that it was on this side of the city that Edward IV. advanced in 1471, what time the King-maker held the city against him. Further west, beyond Far Gosford Street, is Dover Bridge, whereon once stood S. George's Chapel, meeting-place of the tailors and shearmen's guild, demolished in 1821. Outside this chapel once hung the blade-bone of the dun-cow, slain, says the legend, by Guy of Warwick of famous memory.

24 Gosford S^T

In Gosford Street, long, ancient and grimy, was formerly the first station for the performances of the pageants; and in Cox Street, anciently Mill Lane, which runs to the north of Gosford, were the pageant-houses or places for storage of theatrical paraphernalia owned by the crafts. From Gosford the long thoroughfare street passes into Jordan Well—commemorating the well sunk by Jordan Shepey, mayor of Coventry, who died 1349, the year of the Black Death—and thence into Earl Street, where, it may be, a castle of the Earls of Chester once stood with an entrance at Broadgate.

130 Far Gosford S^T

To see the spire of S. Michael's alone it is best to leave this long thoroughfare and turn to the right by a half-timbered Tudor house down the narrowness of Pepper Lane where the immense steeple almost seems to blot out the sky.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Northall, Eng. Folk Rhymes, 403.

[2] Mayor-list or MS. Annals (eighteenth century) in the possession of Mr Eynon of Leamington.

[3] Morris, S. John's Church.

[CHAPTER I]

Leofric and Godiva

It was ever the boast of Coventry men that their city was of "much fame and antiquity,"[4] being "remembered," so John Throgmorton, the recorder, assured Queen Elizabeth, "by Polydore Vergil to be of ... small account in the time of King Arviragus (which was forty-four years after our Saviour) in the Emperor Claudius' time."[5] And Shakespeare's contemporary, Michael Drayton, had a pretty fancy of his own concerning the place,[6] whereby its antiquity is made manifest. He tells us how, when Coventry was but "a poor thatched village," the saint of Cologne brought thither

"That goodly virgin-band
Th' eleven thousand maids chaste Ursula's command,"

who at departing,

"Each by her just bequest,
Some special virtue gave, ordaining it to rest
With one of her own sex";

which special virtues, the poet adds, were in aftertimes bestowed on Godiva, "that most princely dame," who freed Coventry from toll on the occasion of her famous ride.

But of all this history tells us nothing, even as it tells us nothing of Vespasian's visit to Exeter, or the founding of London by Brutus of Troy, in the days when the foundations of Rome were not laid. Coventry is not old in the sense wherein we apply the word to Colchester, York, Bath, or Winchester, and many towns dating from Roman or early Saxon times. If the site of the present city were ever occupied by the Romans—and the point is a doubtful one—their occupation left no permanent traces.[7] But just as families love to boast of a high and noble ancestry, so dwellers in cities and members of institutions delight to trace their origins back to a legendary past, and the fables of Brut, who came from Troy to London, or the story of Mempric, contemporary of David, and founder of the university of Oxford,[8] were once accepted as truth. We, however, are content to leave this record of obscure beginnings unexplored, confessing that we have, as Dugdale says, "so little light of story to guide us through those elder times."[9]

In truth, we hear nothing authentic concerning the Romans', and but rumours of the Danes', coming to Coventry. In 1016 the Northmen, led by Canute and the traitor Eadric Streona, laid waste the Midlands, and are said to have destroyed a nunnery on the spot founded by an obscure Saxon saint, the virgin Osburg, who probably came from the neighbouring house for nuns at Polesworth.[10] But S. Osburg is a shadowy figure, and the memory of her foundation has almost entirely passed away. The convent of the "convent town,"[11] did not gather together there until the middle of the eleventh century, when Leofric, Earl of Mercia, and his wife Godiva, built a dwelling for an Abbot and twenty-four monks to live under the rule of S. Benedict. Thus was laid the first stone of a monastery which ranked with the Confessor's Abbey of Westminster, King Harold's College at Waltham, and the twin abbeys built by William I. and Matilda in their city of Caen, among the most famous foundations of that age. The monastery became the nucleus of a thriving town in later days, as was the case with Bury S. Edmund's, Abingdon, Reading, S. Alban's, and many other places in England.

It was a great time for the founding of religious houses, and the Confessor, as befitted one of known sanctity of life, greatly encouraged these pious deeds. "It behoves every man," ... runs his charter to the monks of Coventry, "diligently to incline to almsgiving, whereby he may release himself from the bonds of sin. For our Lord in a sermon thus speaketh: 'Lay up for yourselves with alms-deeds a treasure-hoard in heaven, and a dwelling with angels.'[12] For which needful things I make known to you all that I grant with full permission that the same gift which Leofric and Godgyuæ have given to Christ, and His dear Mother, and to Leofwin, the abbot, and the brethren within the minster at Coventry, for their souls to help, in land and in water, in gold and in silver, in ornaments, and in all other things, as full and as forth as they themselves possessed it, and as they that same minster worthily have enriched therewith, so I firmly grant it. And furthermore, I grant to them also, for my soul, that they have besides full freedom, sac and soc,[13] toll, team,[14] hamsocne,[15] foresteall,[16] blodewite,[17] fihtwite,[18] weardwite,[19] and mundbryce.[20] Now I will henceforward that it ever be a dwelling of monks, and let them stand in God's peace, and S. Mary's and in mine, and according to S. Benedict's rule, under the abbot's authority. And I will not in any wise consent that any man take away or eject their gift and their alms, or that any man have there any charge upon any things, or at any season, except the abbot and his brethren for this minster's need. And whosoever shall increase this alms with any good the Lord shall increase unto him Heaven's bliss; and whosoever shall take them away, or deprive the minster of anything at any time, let him stand in God's anger, and His dear Mother's and mine. God keep you all."[21]

Thus the monastery was endowed by Leofric and Godiva with twenty-four lordships of land; and by the king with full rights of jurisdiction over the tenants dwelling in these various estates, privileges greatly valued by the monks. They laid the two generous founders, the husband in one porch, the wife in the other, of the minster in Coventry, when they came to die. As for this building, it was one of the glories of the age, and seemed too narrow, a chronicler tells us, to contain the abundance of treasure within its walls. Godiva paid the most famous goldsmiths of her day to visit the place, and make reliquaries and images of saints to beautify the church she loved; she also gave a rosary of gems to hang about the neck of an image of the Virgin, her chief patroness. The monks, too, gathered in a great store of relics, whereof the most famous was an arm of S. Augustine of Hippo, brought from Pavia by Archbishop Ethelnoth, having been purchased for the sum of one hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold.

Of this minster, however, nought remains, and its successor, the Gothic cathedral, was destroyed after the Reformation. The legend of its foundress has been more enduring. Vulgarised by later associations, the narrative, in its early forms, has a grandeur which still impresses the imagination. The story was a favourite one with Landor from his boyhood, though his Imaginary Conversation, and Drayton's brief lines are less popularly known than the poem of Tennyson. There is no contemporary evidence to guide us, for Roger of Wendover, whose account of the famous ride is probably the earliest we possess, died in 1237,[22] some hundred and fifty years after the noble lady herself. The chroniclers differ as to the motive which prompted the undertaking, some asserting that the Coventry folk were to be freed thereby from a grievous incident of villeinage; others again[23] connecting it with the local immunity from the payment of toll—except for horses, a special feature of the market of Coventry.[24] It is in the latter connection that the story has impressed itself on the local mind.

"I Lueriche for the love of thee
Doe make Coventre Tol-free,"

was written under a window placed in Trinity Church in Richard II.'s time in commemoration of the deed.[25]

"This cite shulde be free, and now is bonde,
Dame goode Eve made hit free,"

wrote a discontented burger poet of the fifteenth century, when a custom for wool had been laid on the people of the town.[26]

Roger of Wendover tells us how the countess besought her husband continually, with many prayers to free the people from the toll; and though he refused and forbade her to approach him with this petition, "led by her womanly pertinacity," she repeated the request, until he gave answer: "Ride naked through the length of the market, when the people are gathered together, and when thou returnest, thy petition shall be fulfilled.... Then the countess, beloved of God, loosened her hair thus veiling her body, and then, mounting her horse and attended by two knights, she rode through the market seen of none, her white legs nevertheless appearing; and having completed her journey, returned to her husband rejoicing, and ... obtained from him what she had asked," for he forthwith gave the townsfolk a charter emancipating them from the aforesaid service.[27]

Naturally, the charter is not forthcoming, and historians have shrugged their shoulders at the mention of the story this many a day. It was not, however, until the time of Charles II. that the Godiva procession became a feature of Coventry fair. In 1678, we are told "Lady Godiva rode before the mayor to proclaim the fair" and the custom thus inaugurated obtains to this day. Of the window noted by Dugdale all traces disappeared amid the vandalism of the eighteenth century save a few fragments of glass now in the Archdeacon's chapel of Trinity Church, and of these one showing a tiny figure in a yellow dress riding a white horse and holding some foliage in the hand, is traditionally said to have formed part of the original design.[28]

GODIVA WINDOW

Such is the story which some accept undoubting, others dismiss as fabulous, and a third school, following the lead of Mr Hartland[29] and perceiving in the tale elements which occur in the folk-lore of widely distant countries, regard as a reminiscence of heathen ritual, maybe some processional festivities of spring or summer.[30] In support of this contention it may be urged that the story is not peculiar to Coventry, that there is a good deal of evidence showing the part unclad or bough-clad women played in magical and religious rites,[31] that black-faced characters—whereof more presently—appear in festivals manifestly derived from heathendom, and that the "Peeping Tom" element may be part of the universal fairy tale which relates the punishment awaiting those who pry into sights forbidden. Moreover, the prominence given to the horse in the story is extremely suggestive. In one version it is the neighing of Godiva's steed that attracts the attention of the peeper, causing him to look forth from the window, whence it comes that in Coventry market there is no exemption from toll for horses.[32] It may not be too fanciful to recall in this connection the part played by the hobby-horse at folk-festivals, and the sacrificial character of the horse in Teutonic heathendom.[33]

HERALDIC TILE FOUND IN HALES STREET

The nearest variant of the Coventry story belongs to St Briavel's in the Forest of Dean, like Coventry a woodland district. Here it is said that the wife of one of the Earls of Hereford won from her lord privileges of woodcutting for the commonalty by undergoing a like ordeal.[34] In a Dunster tradition the parallel is not so close. Here Sir John de Mohun's wife gained from her husband for the Dunster folk as much common land as she could make the circuit of, barefoot, in a day's space.[35]

Godiva is always traditionally represented riding on a white horse. It is curious that in an illuminated document formerly in possession of the Smiths' company, two Godivas appear, one a white woman on a white horse and another a black woman on an elephant—the last in allusion to the elephant and castle, the arms of the city.[36] Black-a-vised characters—explained by various theories[37]—are of common occurrence at festivals on May Day and Midsummer; it is only about forty years ago that a Jack-o'-green and his attendant sweeps ceased to parade the city on May Day, while at Southam, near Coventry, and possibly in Coventry also, a "black lady" rode in the "show fair" as well as Godiva.[38]

As for the "Peeping Tom" incident it may well be older than the eighteenth century, when the first printed allusion appears.[38] A ballad written about 1650 mentions that Godiva ordered all persons to keep within doors during her ride and shut their windows[39]; but in a Coventry version given in the MS. city annals[40]—dating, it appears, before the use of glass became common in domestic buildings—the peeper is said to "let down" a window, i.e. the wooden shutter of early times. The famous figure of Peeping Tom, mentioned in the city accounts in the year 1773,[41] still looks out of the northeast top window of the "King's Head" in Hertford Street. It is a wooden figure, thought to represent S. George, with armour of the time of Henry VII, broad-toed sollerets, and under a monstrous and absurd three-cornered hat is a bascinet. The arms, as far as the elbow, have been hacked away, and to the spectator in the street the figure is only visible from the waist upwards.

PEEPING TOM

For many people Coventry suggests Godiva. It is always well to bear in mind she was an authentic person, wife of Leofric, mother of Aelfgar, Earl of East Anglia, also buried in the monastery, grandmother of the Earls Edwin and Morkere, and of Aldgyth, first wife, then widow, of Gruffydd, Prince of Wales; then wife and widow of Harold, King of England. After Godiva's death, stories of her holy life and alms-deeds would be soon rife among the oppressed Saxons. It is noteworthy that Matilda, queen of Henry I., a sovereign of the old Saxon blood royal, and a most pious princess to boot, was called Godiva, no doubt in scorn of her birth, by the Norman courtiers.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] Harl. MS. 6195 f. 7.

[5] Poole, Coventry, 90. Elizabeth visited the city in 1565.

[6] Polyolbion, xiii.

[7] Some rough (?) Roman pavement was discovered in the Cross Cheaping during excavations at the end of the last century. Victoria County Hist. i. 246.

[8] Rashdall, Universities, ii. pt. ii. 323.

[9] Dugdale. Warw. i. 134.

[10] Ibid.

[11] A convent is properly a body of monks or nuns; a monastery or nunnery their habitation. The etymology of Coventry is dubious; but the popular derivation from the Lat. conventus is now discredited. The earliest form in which the word occurs is Cofantreo. Here treo = tree, and Dr Hen. Bradley, to whom I am greatly indebted for information on this point, suggests a possible origin of the other syllables in a personal name, Cofa or Cufa; cf. Oswestry = Oswald's tree.

[12] See Matt. v. 20. This translation mainly follows Birch.

[13] Privilege of administering justice.

[14] Obscure. Birch says privilege of vouching to warranty.

[15] Power to punish for forcible entry.

[16] Power to inflict punishment for waylaying.

[17] Power to punish assault with bloodshed.

[18] Power to punish assault.

[19] Power to maintain watch.

[20] Power to punish for breach of peace.

[21] Add. MSS. Ch. 28657. Birch, Edward the Confessor's Charter to Coventry. "A most elegant specimen of eleventh century native palæography" (Birch).

[22] On events which occur before 1154 (or 1188) the chronicler is dependent on some earlier unknown writer (Dict. Nat. Biography, s.v. "Godiva").

[23] They follow Higden, author of the Polychronicon, who was the first to mention the ride in this connection. As a monk of S. Werburgh's, Chester, a city which held frequent intercourse with Coventry, he may have had opportunities of hearing the tale from local sources.

[24] In Coventry market the burgesses were free from toll, except for horses, in the time of Edward I. (Dugdale, Warw. i. 162).

[25] Dugdale, Warw. i. 135. Some tiny fragments of this window yet remain in the Archdeacon's Chapel of Trinity Church. See also Gent. Mag. (1829), pt. i. 120-1, for another account of the fragment.

[26] Leet Book (E.E.T.S.), 567.

[27] Rog. Wendover, Flores Historiarum, i. 497.

[28] So an old sexton told Sharp, the antiquary. See also Gent. Mag. Topography, xiii. 53.

[29] Science of Fairy Tales.

[30] Chambers, Mediæval Stage, i. 119.

[31] Grant Allen, Evolution of the Idea of God, 110 (festival of the Pòtraj).

[32] Hartland, op. cit., 77.

[33] As a tyro in folk-lore I venture with some diffidence to put forward the theory that it may be by research in custom and belief as regards the horse that we may arrive at an explanation of some of the problems of this mysterious legend. See Grimm, Teut. Myth. (trans. Stallybrass), 47, 392; Frazer, Golden Bough, ii. 24, 64; Gomme, Ethnology and Folk-lore, 35; Chambers, op. cit., i. 131.

[34] Rudder, Gloucestershire, 307 (quoted Hartland).

[35] Camden, Britannia (Gibson), 67. I am indebted to Mr Addy for this reference; cf. the story of the Tichbourne dole, Chambers, Book of Days, i. 167.

[36] Coventry Standard, Jan. 15-16, 1909. The MS. (1684-1833) has passed into private hands, and I have never been able to see it.

[37] Sir Lawrence Gomme explains the black Godiva by a reference to Pliny's account of the woad-stained British women, but see Chambers, Mediæval Stage, i. 125.

[38] Science of Fairy Tales, 71-92. Mr Hartland was the first folklorist to submit the story to scientific investigation. He gained his local knowledge of the Southam black Godiva from the late W.E. Fretton of Coventry.

[39] See Dict. Nat. Biog., s.v. "Godiva."

[40] Hartland, op. cit., 77.

[41] See Dict. Nat. Biog., s.v. "Godiva."

[CHAPTER II]

The Benedictine Monastery

The Benedictine house was built in part upon the northern slope of a low hill, in part in the hollow through which the river Sherbourne flows. This was a situation well adapted for the building of a monastery; there was rich soil in the neighbourhood, good roads—both the Watling Street and the Foss Way ran within a few miles from the spot—and running water. The Sherbourne is but a small stream nowadays, but it was a more important watercourse in earlier times, and in the fifteenth century many precautions had to be taken "in eschewing peril of floods." The monks could stock Swanswell Pool[42] with fish, and plant their orchards or vineyards in or near the hollow in which the monastery lay.

CATHEDRAL RUINS

Little remains of the minster save the bases of a few clustered pillars of the thirteenth century, the remains of the west end by the Blue Coat School at the north end of S. Michael's Churchyard, and the fragment of the north-west tower, now incorporated in a dwelling-house in New Buildings. Under the gardens and pleasant red brick eighteenth and nineteenth century houses of Priory Row, which give the churchyard the look of a cathedral close, diggers often come upon fragments of ancient masonry, showing how the cathedral stretched down the slope of the hill. Between the cathedral and the southern bank of the Sherbourne were the Priory buildings, with the cloister garth, locutorium or parlour, synodal chamber and grammar school,[43] which last had an endowed existence as early as 1303.

CARVED MISERERE SEAT, S. MICHAEL'S CHURCH

Another relic of the monastery, a beautiful old timbered hostry or guest house in Ironmonger Row, was only cleared away in 1820. The inn known as the "Palmers' Rest" now occupies a portion of this site, and carvings of hunting scenes, and grotesques worked into the window frames, and now painted a dreary brown, were taken from the ancient guest house of the monks. Some of the obligations of hospitality were lifted from the monks by the foundation in the twelfth century of the hospital of S. John the Baptist, whereof only the church is left. Here poor wayfarers had food and lodging and the sick poor of the place were nursed and tended. The brethren were clothed in a black or dark brown garb, ample and flowing, and marked with a black cross, and the sisters wore a white veil and long closed mantles or cloaks. Another foundation for the nursing of the sick was the lazar-hospital at Spon, dedicated to S. Mary Magdalen, of which not a trace remains.

The main feature of a monk's life was its well-ordered monotony, so congenial to many minds; but as a class monks were not specially addicted to idleness or solitude. Neither were they in most cases entirely devoted to spiritual things, for although the salvation of the individual soul was the primal object of monasticism, members of the religious orders were adepts at secular business, and did not suffer their houses to decay from neglect of the affairs of this world. There was always plenty of work for any monk possessing a clear head and a faculty for administration. The various officers of the convent, obedientiarii as they were called, had each his appointed task. Every one was allowed a certain proportion of the convent revenue to devote to the expenses connected with his office.[44] In return he presented his accounts at the annual audit, keeping them carefully and exactly, recording everything, down to the receipt of a pot of honey, "or the price of the parchment on which the various items were written." In the case of Coventry the rents of certain tenements in S. Nicholas Street, Bailey Lane, Well Street (super corneram Vici Fontis), among others, were assigned to the cellarer;[45] those coming from land in Keresley to the treasurer; the same forms being observed with regard to the pitancier and sacristan. The rents paid in kind—butter, honey, eggs, etc.—were probably entered among the kitchener's receipts; while the accounts, compiled from daily entries, must have given many clerks almost unceasing labour.

Priory Row Coventry

We have, unfortunately, no local chronicles,[46] such as those kept within the cloisters of S. Alban's, giving us particulars concerning the lives of the Coventry monks. But no doubt, in essentials, the management of various houses differed little. At Evesham, for example, the prior was bound to furnish the parchment required for the scriptorium, and all other writing materials except ink, out of the sum allotted to him. The manciple provided the wine, mead, oil and lamps, and kept up the stock of earthenware, jugs, basins, and other vessels required for the convent use. The precentor—as befitted one whose office was to train the choir—was bound to keep the organ in repair, and over and above to find all the ink and colour required for illumination, together with all materials for binding books. While to the chamberlain a certain revenue was assigned to provide for the clothing of the monks.[47] All these matters gave the convent officers daily occupation, and must have absorbed much thought and interest.

For those of fervent spirit the daily religious exercises were the salt of life, but for others—possibly the greater number—they were merely part of the daily routine, and repetition had increased monotony. Many hours of the day were passed in these regularly recurring services of the Church. At midnight the brethren rose and went to Matins and Lauds. Prime was celebrated at six, Tierce at nine, Sext at twelve, Nones at two or three, Vespers at four, and Complin at seven. After Tierce the duties of the day began; and the different obedientiaries went each to fulfil his appointed task. The rest sat in the cloisters, taught the children in the school, or copied manuscripts. There were frequent consultations in the chapter-house, and on Sundays, before Prime or Tierce, the abbot sat in the cloisters to hear the monks' confessions, and appointed to each the penance due for his fault. Now and then the coming of an important stranger—a royal guest, perhaps, such as William the Conqueror, who passed, it is supposed, through Coventry on his way from Warwick to Nottingham in 1068—would furnish the brethren with a topic for many weeks' conversation.

Sometimes the brethren were suffered to have a glimpse of the great world without the convent with their own eyes. The prior, who was of the company of mitred abbots, was frequently forced to journey to whatever place the King might appoint for the meeting of the parliament. The rank and file of the convent had now and then opportunities of seeing life in travel. They might undertake a pilgrimage; or, when a dispute was on hand, and appeal had been made to the Holy Father, one of the brethren would journey Rome-wards, with well-lined pockets, to look after the convent's interest at the papal court. These lawsuits were not infrequent, as may be shown by the career of Geoffrey, Prior of Coventry during the reign of Henry III.[48] In 1224 the monks tried to raise him to the episcopal throne, but the election was quashed by the archbishop, and the usual appeal to Rome only brought another—a papal—candidate to fill the vacant seat. This occurrence did not in all probability predispose the minds of the actual and would-be bishop to mutual goodwill. In 1232 the prior was suspended for resisting the episcopal visitation, and, together with the abbot of Westminster, set out hot-foot to Rome, to lay his grievances before the Pope. A year or two later we find him involved in a quarrel with the Abbot of S. Augustine's, Bristol. What heart-burnings these obscure disputes must have occasioned, what journeyings to and fro, and, above all, what wealth was lost to the monastery to satisfy the Roman greed of gold!

It is the record of these disputes that forms the bulk of the history of the monastic houses of England, and the priory of Coventry is no exception to the general rule. Placed in a somewhat dependent position—for during the episcopate of Robert de Limesey (1086-1121) the bishop's seat had been transferred from Chester to this place—the monks were, earlier or later, bound to realise the dangers of episcopal tyranny and encroachment. Limesey, the first bishop in whom the abbacy was vested—the superior of the convent being henceforward called a prior—soon made the monks feel his heavy yoke. Bitter were the complaints they made concerning his conduct. On the death of the last abbot he obtained leave to farm the convent revenue, and, using the permission to serve his own ends, wrought much harm to the estates of the monastery, pulling down houses thereon, and carrying off the materials to his own manors, seizing horses and other monastic property. But the crying instance of his greed, one which the chroniclers have carefully and tremblingly noted, was his plunder of the magnificent minster. He scraped off the silver coating of a beam—worth 500 marks—most likely from a shrine in that goodly treasure-house![49] It was little wonder that the indignant monks turned to Rome for aid against this devourer of their substance.[50]

Nor was this the only bishop who, from his fair palace in S. Michael's Churchyard, caused his neighbours of the priory to tremble for the safety of their possessions. Hugh of Nunant, a monk-hater, who vowed, it is said, that "if he had his own way he would strip every cowled head in England," was nominated to the see in 1188. He is variously described as a man of piety and eloquence or as one desperately wicked.[51] Politically he was a follower of Prince John, who, during his brother King Richard's imprisonment in Germany, was endeavouring to strengthen his own position by forming a rebel party in the Midlands. Nunant obtained licence to incorporate the prior's barony with his own episcopal one, and by his accusations so enraged the monks that they fell on him during a synod in the cathedral church, and broke his head with a crucifix. The bishop, indignant in his turn, applied to Longchamp, the absent King's representative, for licence to punish the outrage. And he was allowed to expel the brethren, "contaminated," so he said, "with secular pollution," from the monastery, and appoint secular canons, who probably came from Lichfield, in their stead. Appeal was made to Rome, but the monks were now too impoverished to obtain a favourable hearing of their suit at the papal court. So they remained in exile for several years.

But the adversary's triumph was, after all, short-lived. In 1194 King Richard, ransomed from prison, returned to England, and the scheme of Prince John and Bishop Nunant fell to the ground. The latter was deposed from his bishopric, and the monks he had oppressed took heart of grace, and bethought them how they might return to their old home. The story goes how one of their number put an end to the brethren's exile by his intercession with the Pope. Although often forced to beg his bread, brother Thomas tarried long at Rome, and offered to each fresh occupant of S. Peter's chair the petition of the monks of Coventry. On one occasion his Holiness in an angry mood bade the monk withdraw, telling him that other petitions to the same purpose had been exhibited to Clement and Celestine, his predecessors, but rejected, and therefore his expectations were vain. Unto which the monk, with bitter tears, replied: "Holy Father, my petition is just and altogether honest, and therefore my expectation is not vain; for I expect your death, as I have done your predecessors', for there shall one succeed you who will hear my petition to purpose." Then said the Pope to the cardinals: "Hear ye not what this devil hath spoken?" And immediately turned to him and said: "Brother, by S. Peter, thou shalt not expect my death; thy petition is granted."[52] So the monks returned joyfully to their old home; but Hugh of Nunant, so the chroniclers tell us, died in remorse and torment of mind, deploring the injuries he had done to the Coventry brethren "with abundant sighs and tears," and praying that he might die in a frock of the order he had in life despised.

But grasping bishops were not the only enemies known to the monks. There was a long-standing feud between the brethren of Coventry and the canons of Lichfield, dating from the time when Stephen gave them, together with the canons of Chester, permission to elect the bishop of the diocese.[53] The monks frequently defeated their object by nominating a candidate of their order, usually the prior, whom the canons would in nowise be induced to accept. Appeals to Rome would follow; and the Pope, seizing the opportunity, would set aside previous nominations, and impose his own candidate upon the contending parties.

At the first election we hear of, the Coventry brethren were able to secure the bishopric for one of their order, the prior of Canterbury, in spite of the canons' protests and appeal to Rome. But when, after his enthronement at Coventry, bishop Durdent came to Lichfield, the canons barred the gates of their fortified close against him, and, in the face of the episcopal excommunication, denied him entrance. They also refused to enthrone Gerard la Pucelle, elected by the sole voice of the monks in 1183. "Unica est sponsa mea, nec habeo duo cubicula,"[54] said the bishop in his discouragement. And this learned and righteous prelate died four months later, not without suspicion of poison. Nunant was appointed by the Crown; but on his death in 1199 the passions of the rivals, strengthened by political antagonism—for the canons were partizans of John while the monks clave to King Richard—again broke loose. On the nomination of Richard's candidate, one of the monks led off the Te Deum, as a signal that the proceedings were over, though the canons had taken no part in the election. "Who made thee cantor here?" cried the Archdeacon of Stafford, a member of John's party, in great wrath, for the cantor on these occasions conducted the singing. "I am cantor here, and not thou," was the reply, and as King Richard's party was then predominant the monks had their will.[55]

At the next election[56] the brethren were brought face to face with King Richard's successor, and John found it a hard thing to subdue the Coventry monks, though he had at his back the entire company of the canons of Lichfield. When England was under an Interdict, the King sent to them the Abbots of Oseney and Waltham, proposing the Archdeacon of Stafford as a candidate for the vacant See of Coventry. But the monks would have none of him. They elected their prior, Joybert of Wenlock, and purposed to send the nomination oversea to the incoming archbishop, Stephen Langton. At Tewkesbury, John proposed the Abbot of Bindon. The monks refused utterly. "None whom I love wilt thou choose," cried the angry King. Then to the justiciar said the prior, afraid: "If it suits the lord king well, I will elect his chancellor." The chancellor was Walter de Grey, who was subsequently raised to the See of York. This proposal found no favour then, and the King appointed another meeting with the monks at Nottingham. On their return home they held a consultation in the chapter-house, and determined that they would elect neither of the King's candidates, Richard de Marisco nor the Abbot of Bindon. At Nottingham Castle Joybert and six monks besought the King that he would allow them to elect freely and canonically the prior or some other fitting man. Meanwhile all manner of threats and blandishments were used to make them give their voice for one of the royal nominees, but they held firm. Next morning, however, when the prior and two monks tarried long in the King's chamber, the four remaining brethren, fearing that their superior would at last give way, determined to go home and reserve their vote; but Fulk de Cantilupe shut the castle gate in their faces, vowing "by the tongue of God" that they should not leave ere they had made a bishop to the King's liking, "and other things he uttered," the record continues, "not meet to be said."

At last Prior Joybert began to waver, for the King promised him great rewards and honours if he would do his will, and urged him, saying: "Speak, prior, speak!" Then Joybert fell on his knees. "By the soul of thy father the King," he said, "and of thy brother the King, and by the honour of thy life, who art King, if it be not possible for us to have any other than one of these two, give us the Abbot of Bindon." "Never while I live shall this be," cried one of the monks, named Thomas, "and never shall he be my bishop." A bystander reproved him for this outburst towards his superior. "In the cloister I am but a monk," the fearless brother answered, "but here at the election of the bishop, I am the prior's fellow." Then John, looking about him in great anger left the room, and many nobles gathered about the monks, and urged them to fulfil the King's will. "Verily ye have much to fear," they said, "if you bring down his wrath upon your heads."

The unhappy monks were again summoned into the King's presence. "Lord prior," the tyrant began, "I have always loved thee, and thou wilt not do my will. What sayest thou to my chancellor, whose name thou didst propose to me at Tewkesbury?" The prior signified that he willingly accepted this candidate, and the King gave orders that the canons should be summoned to ratify the election. At this the smouldering jealousy between monks and canons burst into flame. "By S. Milburg," cried the prior, "they shall not come; never shall they be present at our election!" But John swore "by the tooth of God" that they should come in. "I would rather die," Joybert answered, "than be the cause of the destruction of my order." The nobles, who were present, gathered round the monks, and falling upon their necks entreated them to submit. Then the prior, vanquished, said: "Because nothing else is pleasing to you, and it is not possible to do other, do your will." A Te Deum was then sung by the company of monks and canons, although the former murmured greatly at the constraint laid upon them.

The case was afterwards laid before the papal legate, and the election of Walter de Gray annulled. The long dispute between monk and canon was temporarily allayed in 1227, when it was ordained that the election should take place alternately at Coventry and Lichfield, the prior having first voice and the dean second.[57] The quarrel gradually died away, and, well tutored by Pope and King, the electors peacefully met to choose the particular candidate designated by those in authority. Other quarrels brought the house low. In 1248 the resources of the convent had become so impoverised by lawsuits concerning the Bishop of Coventry's right of visitation[58] that it was feared some of the monks would be compelled to disperse, a disaster the monks of Derley averted by receiving divers inmates of the Coventry Priory for a time into their hospitable house. When trouble again arose, the convent of S. Mary found that the enemy had sprung up under the very shadow of the monastery itself, and that the men of Coventry were even more implacable foes than the canons of Lichfield had been in times past. These quarrels between ecclesiastical bodies and their burgher tenants were of common occurrence in mediæval life. The strong corporate feeling which flourished amongst the monks, the zeal they bore for their order in general and their house in particular, which involved them in endless quarrels, caused them to play a notable part in municipal history. As a body they were opposed to the growth of free institutions among the townsfolk. They never rightly understood their tenants' desire for increase of municipal liberty, and feared by giving way to their demands to forego the rights of the Church, and bring their souls in peril thereby.[59]

FOOTNOTES:

[42] Guy of Warwick also freed Coventry from a fabulous monster. In the last century there was still shown there "a great shield-bone of a bore (sic) which "he" slew in Hunting, when he (i.e. the boar) had turned with his Snout a great Put or Pond which is now called Swanswell, but Swineswell in times past." Gough, Collect. Warw. (Bodleian Library).

[43] Vic. Count. Hist. Warw., ii. 319.

[44] For a popular account of a monastery v. Jessopp, Coming of the Friars, 113-165.

[45] Leet Book, 448-9.

[46] The chronicler, whose name—Walter of Coventry—seems to attest some local connection, was not a monk of this house. Stubbs, Pref. to Walter of Coventry (Rolls), I. xxii.-xxxiii.

[47] Jessopp, 138.

[48] Luard, Annales Monastici, iii. 90; i. 89-90.

[49] Dugdale, Monasticon (1846), iii. 178.

[50] Beresford, Diocesan Hist. Lichfield, 54.

[51] Beresford, Diocesan Hist. Lichfield, 78.

[52] Dugdale. Warw., i. 161. Rather an improbable story. More likely after Nunant's fall the monks found some one to plead their cause with the King.

[53] Beresford, 69.

[54] Which may be paraphrased: "I have but one diocese, and must I have but one cathedral?" (Beresford, 76).

[55] Cott. MS, quoted Dugdale, Monasticon, VI. iii. 1242.

[56] Ibid. 1242-3.

[57] Luard, op cit., iii 104.

[58] Vict. County Hist., ii. 55.

[59] For the disputes between ecclesiastics and their tenants see Mrs Green, Town Life, i. 333-383; Thompson, Municipal History, passim. This feature is not confined to England. For the disputes between the men of Rouen and the chapter see Giry, Établissements de Rouen, 34.

[CHAPTER III]

The Chester Lordship

The place where the monks settled was probably little better than a village. We may picture it as a couple of straggling streets intersecting one another, with small wooden houses on either side of the highway, which was comparatively empty of people except on market days when country folk would come in to sell their wares in the "Cheaping" at the monastery gates. Domesday records that there were only sixty-nine heads of families living in Godiva's estate at Coventry in 1086,[60] though Leicester and Warwick were fair-sized towns, as towns were accounted then. Of the two parish churches, existing probably at the Conquest, S. Michael's served maybe for the tenants of the lay lord, and Trinity for those of the ecclesiastical estate. For from the beginnings of its history the town had been divided into two lordships, whereof the convent held the northern part or Prior's-half, not mentioned in Domesday, as the gift of their founder, Earl Leofric; while the southern portion, the Earl's-half, which Leofric retained, became a part of the Earl of Chester's vast inheritance.

After the Conquest the convent retained their estate, receiving a gracious charter of confirmation from William, who, no doubt, was willing to link his name with that of his kinsman, the Confessor, as patron of this famed foundation.[61] The Earl's-half, however, passed to other masters. Probably Godiva held it during her lifetime; but at her death the Conqueror took it, as the lady's grandchildren and direct heirs were, as rebels, naturally shut out from the inheritance. How it was that the estate passed into the hands of Ranulf Meschines, Earl of Chester, we can only conjecture. He had probably deserved well at the King's hand and had his reward. Though not, it is true, so disturbing an element in the burghers' lives as his continental brethren, an English feudal lord had much power for good or evil over his dependents. His castle—with its fortifications, often breaking into the line of the city wall, as Rougement did at Exeter, or the Tower, built by the Conqueror to overawe the men of London—was a perpetual menace to the citizens. His officers or deputies could annoy and terrify the tenants in various ways. Thus one Simon le Maudit, who held in farm the reeveship of Leicester, went on to collect gravel-pennies, which he said were due to the lord from the townsfolk, long after these payments had been remitted by charter. But this document having been destroyed by fire, the burghers had no evidence wherewith to support their claim, and Simon "the Accursed" had his will.[62] Instances of feudal oppression seem, however, to have been comparatively rare, though warlike lords by involving their tenants in their quarrels frequently brought trouble upon them.

CHEYLESMORE MANOR HOUSE

Earl Ranulf came of a strong race. The founder of the family—whom the Welsh called Hugh "the Fat" by reason of his great girth, but the Normans "the Wolf" by reason of his fierceness—held manors of the Conqueror in twenty shires of England. Lord of the county palatine of Chester, the special privileges granted to him for the purpose of strengthening his hand against the Welsh made him almost independent of royal authority.[63] Meschines himself is an obscure figure, but the fame of his successor, Ranulf Gernons, whose doings were accounted terrible even in Stephen's time, when every man's hand was against his fellow, spread far and wide. In 1143 Coventry became the battle-ground of this earl and Marmion of Tamworth, King Stephen's ally. That was an evil time for the monks, as Marmion seized and fortified the priory, and for the townsfolk, as they were between Marmion and Ranulf, the hammer and the anvil. The Tamworth lord died early in the struggle, for falling into one of the trenches he had made to enclose the monastery, he was killed by a common soldier. No doubt the monks reminded one another that their sacrilegious oppressor, who so justly came to this evil end, was of an impious stock. Did not his ancestor, one Robert Marmion, expel the nuns of Polesworth from their dwelling, until, warned in a vision by S. Edith, their foundress, and sorely smitten by the staff of the saint, he repented and caused the sisterhood to return?[64]

Ranulf lived on to find a reverse of fortune at Coventry. Four years after the fight with Marmion, the earl, finding the King's forces were possessed of the castle there, laid siege to the stronghold, but Stephen appearing, Ranulf's army was put to flight. It was a fitting end to this lawless life that he should die by poison and excommunicate; and his widow gave to Walter, Bishop of Coventry, under whose curse her husband lay, the hamlet of Stivichall, so that his soul might have peace.[65]

There was trouble also in the days of Earl Hugh, Ranulf's successor. He joined in the great feudal rising of 1173, when all England was a scene of strange confusion, and only the energy and promptitude of Henry II. and a few faithful followers saved the King's throne. Henry's sons were arrayed against him, supported by the arch-enemy, the King of France, the Scotch, the Flemings, and many nobles both in England and Normandy, whose power and lawless ways the King had sought continually to restrain. Such were the Earls Ferrars, Bigod of Norfolk, Robert of Leicester, and Hugh. The men of Coventry lent the Earl of Chester aid in this rebellion, as the men of Leicester did to their lord, Robert Blanchmains, for those tenants who held land by military service were bound to follow their feudal superior to battle. But one by one the King's enemies were defeated. Earl Hugh was taken prisoner at the siege of Dol in Britanny quite early in the struggle, and suffered a short imprisonment in the Castle of Falaise.[66] Swift destruction—siege and fire—came upon Leicester for the share the townsfolk had taken in this rebellion, and the inhabitants for a time forsook the place.[67] Coventry, as a place of less note, suffered less; but what liberties the townsmen possessed were confiscated, not to be redeemed until after Hugh's death, eight years later, by a payment of twenty marks. The men of Norwich had also cause to regret the part they took in the celebrated rising, but it was Bigod who dealt them their punishment, burning the city out of revenge because his men had declared for the King's party.

The men of Coventry had, it is true, one reason to dwell with gratitude on the memory of Earl Hugh. Dugdale tells us that among this lord's following was a leper. And it may have been for the sake of this man that Hugh built the lazar-house and chapel of S. Mary Magdelene at Spon in the fields on the western side of the city.[68] All traces of this chapel have now disappeared, but the name Chapel Fields still serves to commemorate the place, with which the chapel of S. James and S. Christopher,[69] whereof there are remains in Spon Street, is sometimes—but quite erroneously—identified. Leprosy, brought from the East by the Crusades, took terrible hold on the people of western Europe, and few towns of any note in those days were without their lazar-houses or hospitals for these sorely afflicted folk. The chief of these leper hospitals was at Burton Lazars in Leicestershire, but the one that is best remembered nowadays is that of S. Giles, once "in the Fields," now in the heart of London.

The most famous among the Earls of Chester was Ranulf, surnamed Blondvil, who succeeded to the earldom on Hugh's death. This befell in 1181. Ranulf was the last of the old order, the race of the feudal barons of the Conquest, who, by reason of their vast estates and almost princely power, were a constant source of anxiety to the kings of England. Men sang songs of Earl Ranulf,[70] either of his loyalty to his master John, or of his feats in warring with the Welsh at home or the heathen abroad, for he joined the Crusades, and was present in 1219 at the siege of Damietta. He was as much of a popular hero as Robin Hood during the fourteenth century. The Church knew him as the benefactor of the monastic house of Pulton, whence he removed the monks, its inhabitants, to Dieulacres in Staffordshire. And his pious deeds availed to save him after death, people said, in spite of many offences. For at the time of his dying, a solitary man at Wallingford saw a company of demons hurrying past, and learnt from one of them that they were hastening to the earl's death-bed to accuse him of his sins. Adjured to return within thirty days, the demon came back and told the hermit what had befallen. "We brought it about," he said, "that Ranulf for his ill deeds was adjudged to the pains of infernal fire; but the mastiffs of Dieulacres, and many others with them, without stinting barked so that they filled our habitation with a loud clamour whilst he was with us; wherefore our prince, disgusted, ordered to be expelled from our territories him who now proved so grievous an enemy to us."[71] In this manner was the earl's soul delivered from the evil place. In 1232 he died childless, and his vast lands were divided among his sisters and their issue. The Earl's-half of Coventry fell to the lot of Hugh of Albany, and then passed to his daughter Cicily, wife of Roger de Montalt. This family continued to hold it until the days of Edward III., when by some arrangement with Queen Isabel, the King's mother, it was vested in the royal line, ultimately becoming part of the duchy of Cornwall, heritage of successive princes of Wales.

GABLE OF CHEYLESMORE MANOR HOUSE

The only relic of the associations of the earls of Chester's family with Coventry lie in the Cheylesmore manor house, to the south-east of the city. The house itself is mostly modern, but there are fragments of ancient buildings—a chimney-shaft—incorporated with it. It is most likely that the Black Prince, who gave—say the annals—the ostrich feathers to Coventry, and prince Henry, afterwards Henry V., sojourned in the ancient dwelling at Cheylesmore.

FOOTNOTES:

[60] Reader, Domesday for Warwickshire, 9: "The countess held Coventry. There are 5 hides. The arable employs 20 ploughs, 3 are in the demesne, and 7 bondmen. There are 50 villeins, and 12 bordars, with 20 ploughs. A mill pays 3s. A wood 2 miles long and the same broad. In King Edward's time and afterwards it was worth 12 pounds, now 11 pounds by weight. These lands of the countess Godiva Nicholas holds to ferm of the king." See also Vict. County Hist., i. 310.

[61] Add MS. Ch. 11,205. Leofric's gifts of lands, etc., with "sac and soc, toll and team," are therein confirmed to Leofwine, the abbot, and the brethren "sicut ... Edwardus, cognatus meus, melius et plenius eisdem concessit."

[62] Bateson, Rec. Leicester, 42.

[63] Ormerod, Cheshire, i. 10.

[64] Dugdale, Warw., ii. 1107. The incident is commemorated in a modern window in Tamworth church.

[65] Ormerod, i. 20-6. Dugdale, Warw., i. 137.

[66] Ormerod, i. 26.

[67] Thompson, Hist. Leicester, 42.

[68] Dugdale, Warw., i. 197.

[69] See Dormer Harris, Troughton Sketches, 24.

[70] Piers Ploughman, Passus v. l. 402. Sloth (a personification of one of the Seven Deadly Sins) says:—

"I can nought perfitly my pater-noster ...
But I can rymes of Robyn hood, and Randolf, erle of Chestre."

It is more likely this earl is meant than his grandfather Gernons.

[71] Hales, Percy Folio, i. 264-73.

[CHAPTER IV]

Beginnings of Municipal Government

But how did the men live who inhabited Coventry, who were neither warriors nor monks, but the rank and file of the townsfolk, the mere tillers of the ground and retailers of food and clothing, farmers, bakers, butchers, shoemakers, weavers, and the like? These men owed fealty, according to the position of the land they held, either to the prior or the Earl of Chester. It is with the earl's burghers that the main part of our story lies. It was they who won, after many checks and struggles, such liberties of trading and self-rule as helped to make their city rich and famous in after days. For wherever townspeople found that their lord, whether he were a noble or the King himself, had need of their money or support, they bargained with him for a charter, a duly written and attested document giving them the power to exercise certain rights, such as the collecting of their own taxes or the managing of their own courts, without the interference of his officials. Just as the barons of England gained Magna Charta from John in his need and weakness, or forced Edward I. to confirm the same ere they would give him money to prosecute his wars, so the townsfolk played out the same play in their own much humbler theatre, and drove their bargain with this or that great owner of estates.

For towns on the royal demesne the question resolved itself into one of mere traffic. Was the town rich enough to induce the King to grant a charter to the inhabitants conferring on them the liberties of which they stood in need? If so, the money was paid, and the town started on its career of independence. Nobles, too, were often willing to forego their manorial privileges for the sake of a substantial sum of money. But with churchmen and religious corporations the case was different. They were unwilling, under any circumstances, to part with the rights of the Church, "for fear," as the Coventry monks said, "of blemishing their consciences." In growing and prosperous communities, where men suffered by the restrictions laid upon their trade or persons, the attitude of the religious community, which stood to them in place of feudal lord, gave rise to great bitterness of feeling among the tenants. Discontent was in many cases the precursor of riot and bloodshed, showing how fierce was the spirit of resistance among these men, and with what tenacity they clung to the idea of freedom.

The condition of the men of S. Alban's, or those of any town where the inhabitants were serfs, was often miserable, or at best precarious.[72] A serf must perform for his lord frequent and often unlimited service. His offences were punished in his lord's courts of justice. He could not sell or depart from his holding or marry his children without licence. He must grind his corn at his lord's mill, and bake his loaves at his lord's oven.

But from these most oppressive burdens the Coventry men were free. They had in ancient custom a guarantee that their lord could not urge such claims upon them, for they held of him "in free burgage";[73] that is to say, they were quit of all personal service, and merely paid a money rent for house and land. They were not compelled to leave their business to carry in the crops on the lord's demesne, or follow him for a great distance to war, or bake at his oven, a custom the men of Melton observed until the days of James I.[74] Still, although they were not entirely at the mercy of their feudal superior, the men of Coventry had, as yet, no voice in the town government. They owed obedience to three powers—the Earl of Chester, the King, and the Prior of Coventry. For any fault or misdemeanour they were summoned to appear at the earl's castle, where the constable fixed their punishment, and the fine they paid passed into the earl's hand. The author of any grave or serious crime was answerable to the sheriff, the King's officer. While the prior, the lord of the soil in the Cross Cheaping, regulated all matters connected with the traffic of the market.

The townsfolk were neither rich nor strong enough to free themselves from the sheriff's jurisdiction, or their trade from the prior's surveillance. But in the reign of Henry II. they struck a bargain with Ranulf Blondvil, Earl of Chester, a great founder of towns, whereby they obtained certain rights and privileges, and some measure of self-government. In his charter the earl granted to his burgesses of Coventry the same customs as those enjoyed by the men of Lincoln, for it was usual for townsfolk to ask that their constitution might be modelled on that of some freer or more important place.[75] Lincoln,[76] in common with most of the larger towns in England, borrowed certain customs from London, and Coventry, in its turn, was to serve as model to other towns later in acquiring freedom.[77]

The Earl's charter, a model of the exquisite penmanship of the twelfth century, runs thus:—

"Ranulf, Earl of Chester, to all his barons, constables, bailiffs, servants, men and friends, French and English, present and future, greeting. Know ye, that I have given to my burghers of Coventry, and confirmed in this my charter,[78] all things which are written in the same. Namely, that the said burghers and their heirs may hold well, honourably, and undisturbed, and in free burgage of me and of my heirs, as they held in my father's time or my other predecessors', better, more firmly and freely. I grant them the free and good laws that the burgesses of Lincoln have better and more freely. I ... forbid my constable to bring them into my castle to plead in any cause; but they may freely have their portmote, in which all pleas pertaining unto me and unto them may be justly treated of. Moreover, they may choose for me one whom they will among themselves, who may be judge under me and over them; who, knowing the laws and customs, may keep these in my council reasonably in all things, every excuse put away, and may faithfully perform unto me that which is due. And if by chance any one fall into my amercement, then he shall be reasonably amerced by my bailiff and the faithful burghers of the court. And whatever merchants they draw thither for the bettering of the town, I command that they have peace, and that no one do them an injury or unjustly sue them at law. If, indeed, any stranger merchant do anything unfitting in the town, that shall be amended before the aforesaid justice in the portmote without a suit-at-law. These being witnesses ... Robert Steward de Mohaut ... and many others."

We see from the terms of this charter that the Coventry folk had already acquired a certain status as free burghers. Now their liberties were enlarged by a grant of self-jurisdiction. A further grant from Henry II., appended to the confirmation of this charter, limited the fine due from the burghers to the earl for any fault to 12d.;[79] "but if by testimony of his neighbours he cannot pay so much, by their advice it shall be settled as he is able to pay." We can call up a possible picture of the court of portmanmote, to which the charter refers. In some large open space, possibly S. Michael's churchyard, the townsfolk might be seen gathered together for the meetings of the court. Conspicuous among the little group of townsmen would be the bailiff, the earl's representative, a man whose yea and nay was very powerful among the lord's tenants, for was he not there to watch over the interests of his master, and arrange for the payment of fines and forfeitures which were his master's due?[80] By his side some fuller, weaver, baker, or prosperous agriculturalist would probably take his seat[81] as the justice, the elected representative of the townsfolk. A clerk would also be present, for from the time of Henry III. court records were strictly kept and enrolled. Probably not all the townsmen attended each meeting, but only such of them as were concerned in any suit, and even these—within reasonable limits—might plead essoyne, or a valid excuse for absence. What individual part was played by the justice and bailiff in the hearing of suits it is impossible to tell, but we may infer that the misdemeanours of the townsfolk were made known to the court by a jury, drawn perhaps from every street or ward.[82] These men affirmed on their own knowledge, or on common report, that certain offences had been committed within the township. These offences were of a simple, trifling kind, those of a more serious nature being tried at higher tribunals, before the sheriff or the justices in eyre, or possibly in some other court of the Earl of Chester.[83] A presentment, for example, would be made to the effect that Nicholas, the son of William, had let his cows stray over the mowing-grass in a certain field which is in the earl's demesne, thereby causing damage to the extent of fourpence. Nicholas is at mercy,[84] for it is well known that he is guilty, and he is thrown on the mercy of the court. Let him pay the damage, and twopence in addition for the fault.

Or the jury say that Margaret, the wife of Anketil, took from the bakery of William of Stonelei two loaves, value one halfpenny, and afterwards defamed and struck Joan, William's wife, in the open street known as the Broadgate. And Margaret defends (denies) the deed: therefore it is adjudged that she come and make her law six-handed at the next court.[85] Or the jury declare that William, son of Guy, contrary to the assize of bread, whereby, if a quarter of wheat sell for 3s. 6d., the farthing loaf of wastel bread should weigh 42s., gives only 39s. weight of bread in the loaf, to the damage of his customers, the King's liege people.[86] Moreover, William was bidden at the last court to come and wage his law twelve-handed; this he has failed to do.[87] Therefore he is at mercy. The fine is twelve pence. William cannot pay at once, but his pledges are John the Dyer and Thomas atte Gate.[88]

Such cases as these would be the everyday business of the local court; but civil matters also required a great deal of attention. Transfers of land were executed there, being witnessed by the principal suitors of the court. John the Smith, for example, would make over his house in Earl Street with all its appurtenances to Richard the Weaver and his heirs in return for an annual rent of fourpence, and would warrant it to him against all comers.

Certain documents called indentures[89] would then be drawn up in duplicate by the clerk, the names of the chief of the folk present appearing therein as witnesses to the deed. To one of the indentures the grantor fixed his seal, to the other the grantee, each retaining the copy to which the seal of the other party in the transaction was attached by way of title-deed.

34 Far Gosford St

At least twice a year the townsmen appeared before the sheriff,[90] at whose court criminal or "crown" pleas received a hearing, and who, in his military capacity, overlooked the muster-at-arms of the townsmen, and fixed what number of archers were to be levied for the King's service. The proceeds, of this court, goods of felons and the like, went to swell the royal treasury. The system of presenting criminals by means of a jury[91] obtained here as in the town court, but in doubtful or serious cases the accused would be condemned or acquitted not in accordance with evidence, but through an appeal to the interposition of Providence by means of trial by ordeal or battle. Thus, a man who was thrown into the water was, if he sank, pronounced innocent, if he swam, guilty; or the one of two champions, who overcame the other in fight, was held to have proved his case. But these irrational methods of trial were falling rapidly into disfavour. The "ordeal" was forbidden at the Lateran Council of 1216, and the Saxons, who much disliked the Norman method of trial by battle, always sought in their local charters to win exemption from the necessity of having recourse to it. Step by step the modern jury system was introduced, which, whatever may be its faults, is the most workable method hitherto discovered of obtaining a more or less unbiassed verdict in any suit.

OLD WHITEFRIARS' MONASTERY, NOW COVENTRY UNION

Another provision of the charter, as confirmed by Henry II., was possibly an expedient to remedy the disasters which had lately befallen the townsmen under Gernons and Hugh. It was necessary, if the town was to grow and prosper, to attract settlers from different parts, and to those seeking a home in Coventry the clause that "newcomers should be free from all [payments] for two years after they began to build" would be most welcome.[92] From this time no doubt the advent of passing or abiding strangers was not infrequent, and the place began to put on the appearance of a thriving little thoroughfare town. The grant of a fair to the Earl's-men in 1217, and one to the prior some ten years later, brought stranger merchants within the town-gates.[93] The place was important enough to attract the Greyfriars thither before 1234, and the spire of their church still recalls their presence. More than a hundred years later came the Whitefriars or Carmelites, whose magnificent cloister is now incorporated in the workhouse. A colony of Jews also found shelter in Coventry before the days of Edward I.[94] We know no more than the names, and now and then the occupations of the men of the place in the thirteenth century; for our inquiries among the land-transfers of the time can elicit nothing save the records of the sale of a tenement and curtilage by a William de Artungworth, "le drapier," or their purchase by Richard le Tailleur, hosier, or Richard de Mora, merchant. But even this bare enumeration of trades and callings show the advance made by the men of Coventry since the time when a handful of villeins and bondsmen tilled the lands that had been Godiva's at the taking of the Domesday Survey.

FOOTNOTES:

[72] For a list of the manorial services required of villein tenants see Maitland, Select Pleas in Manorial Courts (Selden Soc., i.), 102-4.

[73] Green, Town Life, i. 197-8

[74] Green, op. cit., i. 199. The Preston men bargained that they should not be required to follow their lord on a warlike expedition lasting more than one day (Ibid.).

[75] For Henry II.'s charter to Lincoln see Stubbs, Select Charters, 166.

[76] See Gross, Gild Merchant, i. 244-257; Bateson, "Laws of Breteuil," Eng. Hist. Rev., xvi.; Tait, Mediæval Manchester, 43-4.

[77] Nottingham and Winchester received a grant of particular customs after the pattern of Coventry. London was taken as a model by Norwich. See Hudson, Rec. Norwich, i. 12.

[78] Dugdale assigns this charter to Blondvil, and I see no reason to differ. If Blondvil were the grantor, then the date would lie between the years 1181, that of Earl Hugh's death, and 1189, the date of the death of Henry II., who confirmed it. I am inclined to think that the charter should be assigned to 1181-2, in which year the men of Coventry paid 20 marks to the king.

[79] Corp. MS. B. 2. The charter is dated "apud Merlebergam" = Marlborough. This charter was first printed by the late Mary Bateson in "Laws of Breteuil," Eng. Hist. Rev., xvi. 98-9.

[80] The townsfolk had not yet power to commute the fines and forfeitures for a fixed sum, called fee-ferm.

[81] For the association of the feudal lord's representative and the chosen official of the townsfolk in a town court see the case of Totnes (Green, Town Life, i. 252).

[82] We infer from analogy that presentments were made by a jury in this court. Norwich was—for judicial purposes—divided into four leets. Each leet was divided into sub-leets, these latter divisions being composed of as many parishes as would furnish twelve tithings. The head-man, or "capital pledge" of every tithing—a band of ten, twelve, or more citizens responsible for one another—made the presentment of anything, which had happened in his tithing, which came under the cognizance of the court. See Hudson, Leet Jurisdiction in Norwich (Selden Soc., vol. v.), xii.-xxvi.

[83] It is not clear whether the townsfolk at this period attended the earl's leet or the sheriff's court. They certainly attended the latter court in the time of Edward III. (Madox, Firma Burgi, 108-9).

[84] i.e. has to be amerced, or fined.

[85] i.e. appear with five of her neighbours, who swear that she is not guilty. This method of clearing the character by oath of the neighbours was called compurgation.

[86] Shillings and pence were used as weights. We still speak of "pennyweights" (Maitland).

[87] Because no neighbours could be found to swear, therefore he is guilty.

[88] Pledges or sureties for the fine. These cases are all imaginary, but drawn from analogous ones to be found in the Selden Society's publications, the Nottingham Records, etc. I am by no means sure that such cases as the last two would come within the purview of the portmanmote. On the difficult question of the line between manorial and regal jurisdiction see Hearnshaw, Court Leet of Southampton.

[89] So called because the parchment on which the two deeds were written was so cut (indented) that they would exactly fit or dovetail into one another when put together at any future time. Hundreds of these documents are now at Coventry. See Section C of Mr J.C. Jeaffreson's catalogue of Corp. MSS.

[90] In cases where the lord of the manor was entitled to hold a leet or view of frankpledge, the tenants were exempt from attendance at the hundred court. In the "view of frank- pledge" each testified that they were enrolled in a tithing or body of mutually responsible persons.

[91] The direct ancestor of our modern Grand Jury.

[92] The conditions under which strangers were admitted into a town differed with the particular locality. A free craftsman would be admitted to citizenship by purchase. If a serf escaped from his master's estate, and lived unclaimed for a year and a day, he was as a general rule permitted to continue in the town. In Lincoln it was necessary that he should pay the town taxes during that period (Stubbs, Select Charters, 159).

[93] Dugdale, Warw., i. 161.

[94] Cole, Documents Illustrative of Eng. Hist., 309-19.

[CHAPTER V]

Prior's-half and Earl's-half

In Coventry we now enter upon a period where the townsmen not only sought to make good the privileges they had already won, but strove to gain, either by fair means or foul, such fresh concessions as they deemed necessary for their comfort and prosperity. The story of the struggle for liberty in English towns, though little known, is one of great interest. Though the whole thing is on a small scale, yet the narrative of events is no less stirring than the account of the revolt of a great nation. There was as fierce a conflict at S. Alban's among a score or two of men in 1327 as among tens of thousands in Paris at the Revolution. Few leaders of forlorn hopes have shown more desperate courage than the good folk of Dunstable, who were ready to brave not only the terrors of punishment in this world, but in the world to come, for, being cursed with bell, book, and candle by the bishop and their prior, they said that they recked nothing of this excommunication, but were resolved rather "to descend into hell altogether" than submit to the prior's extortions. And conceiving that they were likely to be worsted in the quarrel, they covenanted with a neighbouring lord for forty acres of land, preparing to leave their houses and live in tents ere they would pay the arbitrary tolls and taxes the prior had laid upon them.[95] It is true there were no philosophic fervour about the mediæval burgher, no enthusiasm about liberty in the abstract. What he wanted was some small practical advantage his masters denied him.[96] All the townsman of S. Alban's asked at the beginning of the quarrel was, that he should be allowed to grind his corn at home instead of at the abbot's mill. But wanting this strongly and sorely, and seeing a chance of victory, he was willing to fight for it perhaps to the death.

The struggle for freedom is, in Coventry, at first interwoven with an old quarrel existing between the tenants of the two lords who held the town between them: for we have seen that Coventry was divided into two lordships; on the one hand lay the property of the earls of Chester, the Earl's-half; on the other the Prior's-half, or the convent estate. The government of these two manors was absolutely distinct. The Prior's-men had no lot or part in the privileges conferred in Ranulf's charter, and the Earl's-men none in those the convent won from Henry III. The customs practised by the Earl's-men on one side of the street, and those followed by the prior's tenants on the other, might differ to a considerable extent. They attended different courts; some were compelled to pay dues from which their neighbours were exempt; the prior's tenants might be forced to carry their lord's harvest, or work on his estate; while the Earl's-men, as free burghers, had long since discontinued feudal labour. A priory tenant would stand in his lord's pillory, or hang on his gallows; an Earl's-man met his punishment at the castle, or the sheriff's court. While the convent tenants could very likely bring their butter, horse provender, or coarse cloth to sell in the market free of toll, another owing the earl fealty might have to pay a penny or more before his stall could be set up in the market-place. These differences of tenure, custom, and privilege, naturally bred disputes among the townsfolk, a frequent occurrence in those places wherein different lords held sway, dividing the allegiance of the inhabitants.

40 far Gosford St.

There appears to have been some ill-feeling arising from a trading jealousy between Earl's-folk and Prior's-folk. The former were disposed, as early as the days of Henry II., to entertain some grudge with regard to the ordering of the market in the Prior's-half,[97] but we know no particulars of the grievance. So hotly, however, did the quarrel rage between them, that there were "debates, contentions, namelie killing of divers men,"[98] in the streets. Doubtless, in the interests of peace, it was better that one or other of the contending parties should become predominant within the town, and force the other to consent to a compromise. The last Earl of Chester being dead, and his successors, the De Montalts, men of little mark, the chance lay with S. Mary's convent; and an enterprising prior, William of Brightwalton, was not slow to avail himself of the opportunity. Hoping, so the convent folk afterwards declared, to allay the strife by uniting the two manors whereof the town was composed under one lord, he proposed to purchase the earl's estate, a scheme to which Roger de Montalt, being in need of money for a Crusade, was fain to agree. So in 1249 the latter resigned the manor into the prior's hand in return for a yearly rent of £100, with ten marks to the nuns of Polesworth, and by this means the head of the convent became lord of the Earl's-half,[99] Prior's-men and Earl's-men alike holding of him house and land, and owing him rent and accustomed services. Thus the lay lords of this great family slip out of the city's history; the ruling power in the town is the great religious corporation which owed its existence to Saxon piety.

Whatever changes this transfer may have brought about, one thing is certain, it did not establish peace in Coventry. Twenty years later the old jealousy flamed up anew. About 1267 both townsmen and convent took advantage of Henry III.'s necessities to negotiate for a charter, but with a different result. The former obtained a bare confirmation of their ancient liberties,[100] the prior, on the other hand, owing, belike, to his superior command of the purse, or in return for help he may have rendered the King in the late wars, was able to purchase fresh concessions for himself and his men. He was allowed to appoint coroners for the town, and further, licence was given to form a merchant guild among his tenants.[101] The grant of these graces brought about an outbreak in the Earl's-half. Hitherto, it may be supposed, Earl's-folk and Prior's-folk had carried on their trade on fairly equal terms, but the new charter would bring about a revolution. The object of the formation of a merchant guild was to confine the trade of the district to its members; they would become local commercial monopolists. No wonder the Earl's-men resisted the foundation of this society. If it were once established, and they were excluded from its ranks, what a blow would be dealt to their prosperity.

The guildsmen would make it impossible for them to trade under anything like favourable conditions. They might be mulcted by tolls; subjected to the annoying supervision of the guild officials in respect to the weight or quality of their goods; restrictions affecting the time, place, or manner of their selling might be imposed on them; or they might have to relinquish bargains they had closed in favour of the members of the guild merchant.

So when the terms of this new charter were known the Earl's-folk rose in tumult, withstood the priory coroner when he attempted to see the body of a man, slain, no doubt, in these brawls, and prevented their neighbours in the Convent-half from forming the guild according to the permission vouchsafed to them. Nor could the sheriff's officer, sent by the royal order at the prior's request to proclaim these charters and liberties in Coventry, bring the unruly townspeople to obedience. "Certain men, we learn," ran the King's writ, "from those parts with others, armed with force, took Gilbert, clerk to the said sheriff, sent thither to this end, and imprisoned him, and broke" the royal "rolls and charters, and beat and ill-treated the men of the prior and convent."[102] What was the end of the tumult, or the fate of the luckless clerk, we cannot tell, but, as we hear no more of the prior's guild, it seems that this outbreak of the Coventry men "with others" prevented its establishment.

We now enter upon a fresh phase of the quarrel. It is no longer the Prior's-men but the prior himself who is the Earl's-men's enemy. Their whole energy is absorbed in the effort to free their trade from the restrictions the present lord of the Earl's-half has laid down for them to observe. For the Earl's-men appeared ill-content with the change of masters. Did the prior encroach upon the rights of the townsfolk? Probably not; previously established customs founded on the charter of Ranulf would bar his claims. But though the law may not alter, the interpretation of it may vary from time to time; so may the circumstances under which it is administered. It was so with the customs which had hitherto regulated the Earl's-men's lives. They and their present masters were disposed to differ as to the meaning these could bear, and hence a way was opened for numerous quarrels and lawsuits. Moreover, restraints, which had been borne without complaint in early days under the Chester lordship, were found unendurable when the townsfolk's commerce, and with it their desire for freedom, had increased.

The matter of the merchant guild was only the forerunner of more serious trouble. The townspeople were rapidly growing rich, whether by soap-making,[103] or the manufacture of woollen cloth, or the entertainment of travellers, or a happy combination of all three sources of wealth. Under Edward I. they were able to pave their city,[104] which had now risen to a sufficiently important position to be accounted a borough, and to return two members to the Parliament of 1295.[105] Its prosperity attracted the notice of Edward I., who in 1303 summoned two Coventry merchants to attend a council;[106] and of Edward II., who asked the inhabitants for a loan of 500 marks for the prosecution of the Scotch war. It is small wonder if the townsfolk were jealous lest this growing prosperity should be checked by the petty regulations the prior chose to lay on them. Was their wealth to be curtailed because, forsooth, the convent officials charged them, not to sell here, or make there, to relinquish a favourable bargain, or never to open stall or shop for sale of goods during certain hours of the day?

The prior in the days of Edward II. was Henry Irreys, and his hand lay heavy on the townsmen. They were not able to live, they complained, "by reason of his oppression." Moreover, like the jolly, illiterate Abbot of S. Alban's named Hugh, who "feared nothing so much as the Latin tongue,"[107] and so oppressed his tenants, Prior Irreys was an ally of Edward II., for it was by "maintenance of the King and of Spencer, Earl of Winchester" (i.e. Despenser), that he was enabled to keep the malcontents in check. In his days arose a second dispute concerning traffic, but at what date we cannot tell. The Friday market had always been held in the Prior's-half, and there only were the Earl's-men permitted to sell their wares on that day.[108] Now certain of them broke through the prior's order, and sold openly in their own houses[109] during market hours. Appeal was made to the law. In vain the townsmen pleaded that by virtue of the clause in Ranulf's charter, giving them the same liberties as the Lincoln folk, they were free to sell their goods when or where they would. Vainly, too, they tried to strengthen their case by declaring that before the prior had purchased the Chester estate they had been wont to hold a fair in the Earl Street, where now their shops stood. These pleas availed nothing, and a verdict was returned for the prior with £60 damages, the Earl's men being forbidden to sell anywhere but in the Prior's-half during market hours. The prescribed payment must have well-nigh ruined William Grauntpee and other traders concerned in the struggle, for £60 was then accounted a great sum.[110]

It was in 1323 that the townsfolk sought, after a very novel fashion, to rid themselves of their oppressors. Their enemies accused them, whether truly or untruly we cannot tell, of having recourse to the black art, and strange rumours were afloat concerning the unlawful dealings of the citizens with one Master John de Nottingham, limb of Satan and necromancer, who inhabited a ruinous house in the neighbourhood of the town. Witchcraft was not then considered an ecclesiastical offence, but one against the common law, and it was, it seems, before the Court of King's Bench that the approver, Robert le Mareshall, told his story. He had been living, he said, with one Master John de Nottingham, necromancer, of Coventry. To whom, on the Wednesday next before the feast of S. Nicholas, in the seventeenth year of the King's reign, came certain men of the town, citizens of good standing, and promised them great profit—to the necromancer, £20, and "his subsistence in any religious house in England,"[111] and to Robert le Mareshall, £15—if they would compass the lives of the King and others by necromancy. Having received part of the promised payment as earnest at the hands of John le Redclerk, hosier, and John, son of Hugh de Merington, apprentice of the law, with seven pounds of wax and two yards of canvas, the magicians began their work. On the Sunday after the feast of S. Nicholas they fashioned seven magical images in the respective likenesses of Edward II., with his crown, the elder and younger Despenser, Prior Henry, Nicholas Crumpe, his steward, the cellarer of the convent, and Richard Sowe, probably one of the priory underlings who had made himself unpopular. As far as the last-named enemy upon the list was concerned—for upon him they chose to experiment "to see what might be done with the rest"—they were entirely successful. On the Friday before the feast of the Holy Rood about midnight John de Nottingham gave his helper, Robert le Mareshall, a leaden bodkin, with command to thrust it into the forehead of the figure of Richard Sowe. The effect was well-nigh instantaneous. When the necromancer sent Robert on the morrow to inquire how Richard did, the messenger found him crying "Harrow," and mad as mad could be. And on the Wednesday before the Ascension, John having on the previous Sunday removed the bodkin from the forehead of the figure and thrust it into its heart, Richard Sowe died.[112]

Meanwhile the necromancer and the accused gave themselves up in court, consenting to plead before a jury. All, save the necromancer, were admitted to bail.[113] He no doubt looked to receive no mercy, and when after sundry delays the trial came on, the marshal certified that Master John de Nottingham was dead. Another of the accused, Piers Baroun, who had been a burgess at the Parliament of 1305,[114] died also during the interval.