صور الصفحة
PDF
النشر الإلكتروني

ADDITIONAL NOTES

COVENTRY NAMES.

[ocr errors]

BROTHER HOLOUGHTON'S survey of "Metes and Bounds" (pp. 7-19) records many untraceable place-names; some, however, still survive, or can be found on the old 1-inch Ordnance Map. Sandipit-lane (p. 8), is now Sandy Lane; Steplefield (ib.) on the boundary between Radford and Coventry, is the site of the Corporation Electric Light Works. Hullane (p. 9) is now Coundon Lane; Pokebroke (ib.) is the northern branch of the Sherbourne; while "Northebrocke" (ib.) bounds Northfield Farm. "Browne's-lane" (ib.) still survives; "Holynfast" (ib.) is represented by Holly fast Farm, "Merdonsiche" (p. 12) by Martyn Gutter, a small ditch on the south boundary of Stivichall parish, and "Grange-lane" (ib.) by Green Lane, near Stivichall Grange. Heyne-lane" (p. 15) -modern Hen Lane-divides Keresley from Corley, while Newland House Farm preserves the memory of "Nova Terra" (ib.), and Breach Brook and Breach Oak that of the "Bryches" (ib.). "Corley broke," "Litle-heathe" (Bedworth), and "Catcroft-lane" (p. 16) still remain, and though "Sydnallwood (ib.) is gone, Sydnall Lane remains on the east boundary of Exhall, with Sydnall Field adjoining, the locality of the present Exhall Colliery. Weston-heye is part of Weston-in-Arden; "Wybylyns-broke" (p. 17)— the modern Wyblyns Brook-and "Lady Lane" (ib.) may still be found, while Endemer water (p. 18) is probably represented by Springfield Brook, and Locardes-lane (ib.) by Lockhurst Lane.1 (For this information I am indebted to a letter from Ald. W. Andrews of Coventry in 1904.)

Other names, such as Wolpitlediat (p. 19), where the Cheylesmore Court Leet was held, appear to have vanished, though once a king's highway which formed part of the boundary of Foleshill parish led to it. For a wolfpit, which occurs not unfrequently in early descriptions of boundaries, and may mean either an artificial pit-fall, or a hole in the ground haunted by wolves, see Napier and Stevenson, Crawford Charters, 53. "Styffordeshale," another unremembered place-name (pp. 452, 513) is mentioned as lying in the fields of Stoke (Corp. MSS. C. (B) Dateless Deeds, bdle. 43), while Catesby-lane (p. 361), an unidentified street, recalls the city's connection with a famous Warwickshire family, who may have gained a footing in Coventry during the quarrel between Queen Isabel and the prior and convent (see Ancient Deeds, A. 10715, quoted by permission of the editor of the Victoria County Histories).

THE COVENTRY COURTS.

The local jurisdiction of the Coventry officials was administered in the following courts: (1) The Portmanmote (pp. 322, 548), otherwise the court of Coventry, or the court of the city of Coventry (ib. 34, 59, 325), the

1 Corp. MSS. C. 126.

court of the mayor and bailiffs (ib. 59), the fortnight court (ib. 294), or the king's court (ib. 194, 223, 575, 606, 643, 684, 699), which originally derived its powers from Ranulf's charter (ib. 323); (2) the county court of the city sheriffs (ib. 274), which came into existence after the charter of 1451; (3) the coroner's court of Statute Merchant (ib. 275), which derived its authority from the incorporation charter of Edward III; and (4) the Sessions of the Peace (ib. 224, 802), which came into being with the creation of Justices of the Peace for the city in the first year of Richard II. Portmanmote, to which resort was had as late as 1834 for the recovery of sinall debts (Report Munic. Com. 19), took cognizance of pleas concerning land, and civil suits for damage (pleas real and personal, ib. 244, 274, 325, 790) and suits could be removed from outside courts by an appeal of the city officers, who had return of writs. (Cf. Trinity Church MSS. 34, where the appeal of the mayor and bailiffs to "have their court in a matter which the suitors had brought before the King's Bench in 1393 is allowed.) Apparently the Portmanmote had civil jurisdiction only,' felonies being dealt with before the Justices of the Peace at Quarter Sessions, and perhaps to some extent after 1451 by the bailiffs-as sheriffs-in the county court, though the exclusion of the sheriff of Warwickshire from interference in Coventry affairs did not extend to the Justices assigned by Royal Commission (ib. 98-9, 625) for Sessions of Gaol Delivery, and Oyer and Terminer, though the mayor (ib. 626) might be associated with these on the commission.

[ocr errors]

FRIAR JOHN BREDON AND THE STANDARD MEASURES.

The Patent Rolls, dated May 16, 1441 (Cal. Pat. R., 1436-41, p. 545) record a pardon granted to Brother John Bredon (see above pp. 97, 228), friar minor, Professor of Theology, who on Friday the first week in Lent, 18 Hen. VI. (1440) had been indicted before the keepers of the peace, and the justices of Oyer and Terminer in Warwickshire of having plotted to disturb the people of Coventry, and proclaimed in the market-place that he had been to the parliament at Reading and had obtained licence of the King and council that the burgesses of Coventry should use bushels larger by a gallon in the standard bushel of the Exchequer, and measure all corn with it contrary to the Statute of Measures, "and of having caused riotous gatherings against the mayor and bailiffs . . . to the danger of the people and the subversion of the Statute of Measures." The mayor-lists record that in 1434 "the small strike came in," i. e., the standard measures, evidently differing from the local ones were adopted (see above p. 151) to be temporarily cast aside in 1439, a season of great dearth, through the instrumentality of Frer Bredon (Harl. MSS. 6388.)

KNIGHTS OF THE SHIRE.

Knights, p. 107, i.e. knights of the Shire. Coventry returned no burgesses between 1354 and 1452 (Whitley, Representation, 17.) As the citizens, however, after the charter of 1451, ceased to attend the county court of Warwickshire, where knights where elected, the city's rights as a borough were revived; and thenceforth one or two members were

1 See, however, the complaint about the acquiting of felons (p. 548), where the Portmanmote is mentioned. As the mayor was a Justice of the Peace and as he came to be supported in the king's court by aldermen (ib. 605) who were in many cases justices, it may have been difficult in practice to separate civil and criminal jurisdiction.

returned. The freeholders of the city of the county of Coventry outside the city boundary do not appear to have shared in the election of members, and in 1835 the Commissioners of Municipal Corporations noted that these were an unenfranchised class, having votes neither for the county of Warwick nor the city of Coventry.

MINSTRELS.

Mynstrelles of the kynges, p. 121. See Davies, York Records, 13-15 n.

THE CANOPY OVER THE SACRAMENT AND THE WIREDRAWERS. The Canopy over the Sacrament which the wiredrawers supported (pp. 131-2) would be made of rich stuff, and be of the conical shape seen in illuminated MSS. of the period (see Egerton MSS. 1070, f. 54 b, and Essex Review, xxi, 230.) The weavers of Mainz obtained in 1099 special privileges from the Archbishop in return for support of part of the church fabric. (Keutgen, Aemter und Zünfte, 174. (Prof. Unwin.) GARTON'S OBIT.

Will Cross's Charter, pp. 144-6. See for the reversion of this house, pp. 267-8, and for the heir-at-law's claim to it through the "Courtesy of England," Part III, Foreword vii. Garton's Obit was celebrated by the mayor, bailiffs and commonalty, Sharp, Antiq. 43.

THE VICTUALLERS.

Breusters ylde, 234 cf. p. 623. Bakers, brewers innholders, ale-housekeepers, tiplers and victuallers paid 3d, a quarter, which was collected by the city officers (Leet Book (B) leaf 61), cf. the "ale-silver of the city of London (Sharpe, Letter Book L., 164, 170), and the "Cannemol" paid in Leicester (Bateson, op. cit. I. 207). In London "ale-silver" was the mayor's perquisite; in Coventry (Report of Mun. Comm., 11) a custom prevailed that the mayor should receive certain fines of victuallers not being freemen, but this may have sprung from the order against strangers entered in the Leet Book in 1622 (pp. 837–9).

CHILDREN OF ISRAEL.

See p. 392. These were the Holy Innocents from the Tailors and Shearmen's Play.

STATUTE OF WINCHESTER.

See pp. 395–401. This is no part of the famous statute of Edward I. These entries also appear in the Liber Custumarum of Northampton, see Northampton Rec. I, 344–9.

CLARENCE'S JEWELS.

See pp. 381-2, 420. The transcript of the lost document relating to Clarence's jewels, dated on the vigil of S. Andrew, 17 Edw. IV. (Nov. 29, 1477) at Warwick is given in Featherston, Coventry Charters (1871), pp. 23-4, and takes the form of an indenture between Sir Tho. Vaughan, Sir Tho. Piers and Ric. Croftes on the one part, and the mayor, John Seman, and his brethren, on the other, wherein although the coronall of "goold full garnysshed whit diamants, rubyes, safers, balies [sic.?] and

perls" had been forfeit for years past for non-payment of the debt, it is delivered up to the first-named parties acting on behalf of the king, £100 of the debt of 300 marks (£200) being remitted by the creditors of the duke.

JOHN FRENCH, ALCHEMIST.

See p. 422. On the various treatises on alchemy composed for Edward IV, and the licence given by him to two merchants to make gold and silver from mercury, see Stratford, Edward IV., 263–4.

THE GODIVA LEGEND.

"Dame goode Eve made it free," 567. The Godiva legend from the point of view of the folk-lorist, is treated of in Hartland, Science of Fairy Tales, 71-92. There are other stories where as Mr. Hartland reminds me-the Dido element of land-measuring also enters (see Maxwell-Lyte, Dunster and its Lords, 19), which recall certain features of the Godiva legend, as related by the chroniclers. In the Dunster account the lady, Joan de Mohun, won from her husband for the people as much common land as she could walk round barefoot in a day. In the Otmoor tale a nameless benefactress gave as much land as she could ride round while an oat-sheaf was burning for a common to the inhabitants (Dunkin, Oxfordshire, 120, note); while it is by crawling round a stretch of land while a torch (some accounts say a billet of wood) was burning that Isabel or Mabel, the dying wife of Sir Roger de Titchbourne, won from her churlish lord the wherewithal to establish a yearly dole for the poor for ever (Woodward and Wilks, Hampshire, II, 17; Chambers, Book of Days, I, 167. See also Dormer Harris, Story of Coventry, 19 sqq.).

Whether the figure of "Lady Godiva" figured in the "Show Fair" procession earlier than 1678, the year in which her presence is first recorded, is uncertain, but it is certainly clear from the craft records that there was a procession on the fair day as early as the fifteenth century, and that the armed guard, minstrels and other attendants accompanied the mayor when he went to proclaim the fair. Thus from the Mercers' Accounts (1590) we learn that 2s. was paid to 6 men for bearing harness on the Fair Day; in 1485 the cappers paid 2d. to two harness men at the fair; the butchers in 1562 paid 2s. 8d. for harnessing 8 men on Fair Friday," and the smiths in 1466 paid "to two with jakks to attend on the mayor 4d. (Reader MSS. vol. 16.)

Item, for iiij men on fere Freydaye beryng harnes, viijd. (Drapers' MSS. 1534, in possession of the Drapers' Company, Coventry.)

Though the chroniclers differ as to the motive which prompted Godiva's action, local accounts all agree that she thereby made the city toll-free except for horses, possibly excluded from this exemption, says one version (Corp. MSS. A. 43, quoted by Hartland), because the horse, whereon Godiva rode, neighed, thus attracting the attention of the traditional peeper. It is not absolutely clear what this toll for horses originally was, who had to pay it, or who were exempt even from this payment. It appears in documents of later date as a market-toll on saleable horses due to the prior, in whose "Half" of the city the market originally was, and in whose tenants' parish church-that of the Trinity--the commemorative window mentioned by Dugdale was set up. Thus in the Tripartite of 1355 (Dugdale, Warw. I. 163, Burton MSS., ff. 98–103) it is laid down that the Friday market for timber, horse, oxen, kine and other beasts shall be held as of old in the Prior's-half in Bishop Street and Cook Street, the prior to

take toll for horses sold there only and for no other thing saleable. Earlier the horse-toll would seem to be a payment from which the holders of certain burgage tenements [? in the Prior's-half] were freed. Thus, it appears, says Dugdale (Warw. I. 162) in an abstract of an inquisition taken under Edward 1, "the whole town was then exempt from Toll, excepting for Horses, whereof the Burgers were only freed; but that the said Burgers had Toll of Horses for their own tenants there inhabiting." If Dugdale's abstract be correct we gather that while burgesses were free from this payment, their undertenants were not so exempt, but paid the toll-or some commutation of it--not to the prior, but to the intermediate (burgess) landlords. The supposition that the owners of certain burgage holdings were free of horse-toll is borne out by an early undated conveyance (Ancient Deeds, A. 8700 (P.R.O.) quoted by permission of the editor of the Victoria County Histories) wherein Will. de Weston in transferring to Martin Colbront a messuage in "Waste Garden" expressly says that Martin is to be free of horse-toll-"de tolneto equorum" (cf. the conveyance of a house of Brackley where liberty of buying and selling in the court of the earl in the town is included in the warranty, Godstow Reg., 195, a reference kindly supplied by Dr. Andrew Clark.) This custom of horsetoll seems peculiar to Coventry, as it can scarcely be identical with the not uncommon incident of villein tenure, payment to the lord on the sale of a colt, but the subject is very obscure.

THE COVENTRY ELEPHANT.

For the "Olivaunt," see p. 657. The charge of the elephant and castle, adopted first on the seal and then copied on the city arms, probably owed its popularity to the tales in the "Bestiaries," which represent the elephant as slaying the dragon in defence of its young (cf. Pliny, Hist. Nat. viii. 11) or falling defenceless because hunters have sawn down a tree, against which it leant in sleep. See Romilly Allen, Early Christian Symbolism, 378-9, Collins, Symbolism of Animals in Church Architecture, 41-2). The devotion paid to S. Michael and S. George in Coventry, and the existence of the tree which gave its name to Coventry, would account for the adoption of an animal having associations, admitting of symbolic interpretations, with a dragon and a tree. Early Coventry seals show an elephant and castle with trees on the obverse, and S. Michael in combat with the dragon bearing a shield charged with S. George's cross on the reverse. The devotion to S. Michael seems to make it probable that the Archangel Militant figured in the Coventry Pageants. Was the "copper chain" worth 2s. 4d., the only piece of pageant stuff belonging to the mercers on record used for the binding of Satan? The figure of the chained Satan appears on a misericord in S. Michael's church.

MUSTERS.

See pp. 830-3. The Coventry Letter Books (Corp. MSS. A. 79) show how "topical" the subject of musters was at the time Shakespeare's Henry IV was written. On June 5, 1597 (ib. leaf 83) the Privy Council wrote reproaching the mayor and his brethren for their overmuch nice and curious construction of their liberties-the citizens were evidently making difficulties because the mayor's name was not included in the commission of musters--and complaining that the county commissioners could get no assistance in the city for the accomplishment of the queen's service. Soon after the sheriff, Rob. Burgoyne, and the county justices

« السابقةمتابعة »