Part 58

Many English migrated to London. There were ambitious young men and women hopeful of betterment through employment, apprenticeship, higher wages, or successful marriage. On the other hand, there were subsistence migrants forced to leave their homes for food, work, or somewhere to live. There was much social mobility. For instance, between 1551 and 1553, of 881 persons admitted as freemen of London, 46 were the sons of gentlemen, 136 the sons of yeomen, and 289 the sons of farm workers. London grew in population about twice as fast as the nation. The fortunes of landowners varied; some went into aristocratic debt by ostentatiously spending on building, clothes, food, and drink, and some became indebted by inefficient management. Some had to sell their manors and dismiss their servants.

There are 26 wards of London as of 1550. This is the number for the next four centuries. Each ward has an alderman, a clerk, and a chief constable. There are also in each ward about 100 to 300 elected officials including prickers, benchers, blackbootmen, fewellers [keepers of greyhounds], scribes, a halter-cutter, introducers, upperspeakers, under speakers, butlers, porters, inquestmen, scavengers, constables, watchmen, a beadle, jurymen, and common councilmen. The wardmoot had inquest jurisdiction over immorality or bad behavior such as vagrancy, delinquency, illegitimacy, and disputes. This contributed greatly to social stability. In 1546, Henry ordered the London brothels closed. A small gaol was established in the Clink district of Southwark, giving the name "clink" to any small gaol. London ordinances required journeymen to work from 6 am to 6 pm in winter, with a total of 90 minutes breaks for breakfast, dinner, and an afternoon drink, for 7d. In the summer they had to work for two hours longer for 8d. At its peak in the 1540s the court employed about 200 gentlemen, which was about half the peerage and one-fifth of the greater gentry. Henry issued a proclamation ordering noblemen and gentlemen in London not employed by the court to return to their country homes to perform their service to the king.

Though there was much agreement on the faults of the church and the need to reform it, there were many disagreements on what philosophy of life should take the place of church teachings. The humanist Thomas More was a university trained intellectual. His book "Utopia", idealized an imaginary society living according to the principles of natural virtue. In it, everything is owned in common and there is no need for money. All believe that there is a God who created the world and all good things and who guides men, and that the soul is immortal. But otherwise people choose their religious beliefs and their priests. From this perspective, the practices of current Christians, scholastic theologians, priests and monks, superstition, and ritual look absurd. He encouraged a religious revival. Aristotle's position that virtuous men would rule best is successfully debated against Plato's position that intellectuals and philosophers would be the ideal rulers.

More believed the new humanistic studies should be brought to women as well as to men. He had tutors teach all his children Latin, Greek, logic, theology, philosophy, mathematics, and astronomy from an early age. His eldest daughter Margaret became a recognized scholar and translated his treatise on the lord's prayer. Other high class women became highly educated. They voiced their opinions on religious matters. In the 1530s, the Duchess of Suffolk spoke out for reform of the clergy and against images, relics, shrines, pilgrimmages, and services in Latin. She and the countess of Sussex supported ministers and established seminaries for the spread of the reformed faith.

More pled for proportion between punishment and crime. He urged that theft no longer be punished by death because this only encouraged the thief to murder his victim to eliminate evidence of the theft. He opined that the purpose of punishment was to reform offenders. He advocated justice for the poor to the standard of justice received by the rich.

Erasmus, a former monk, visited the nation for a couple of years and argued that reason should prevail over religious belief. He wrote the book "In Praise of Folly", which noted man's elaborate pains in misdirected efforts to gain the wrong thing. For instance, it questioned what man would stick his head into the halter of marriage if he first weighed the inconveniences of that life? Or what woman would ever embrace her husband if she foresaw or considered the dangers of childbirth and the drudgery of motherhood? Childhood and senility are the most pleasant stages of life because ignorance is bliss. Old age forgetfulness washes away the cares of the mind. A foolish and doting old man is freed from the miseries that torment the wise and has the chief joy of life: garrulousness. The seekers of wisdom are the farthest from happiness; they forget the human station to which they were born and use their arts as engines with which to attack nature. The least unhappy are those who approximate the naiveness of the beasts and who never attempt what is beyond men. As an example, is anyone happier than a moron or fool? Their cheerful confusion of the mind frees the spirit from care and gives it many-sided delights. Fools are free from the fear of death and from the pangs of conscience. They are not filled with vain worries and hopes. They are not troubled by the thousand cares to which this life is subject. They experience no shame, fear, ambition, envy, or love. In a world where men are mostly at odds, all agree in their attitude towards these innocents. They are sought after and sheltered; everyone permits them to do and say what they wish with impunity. However, the usual opinion is that nothing is more lamentable than madness. The Christian religion has some kinship with folly, while it has none at all with wisdom. For proof of this, notice that children, old people, women, and fools take more delight than anyone else in holy and religious things, led no doubt solely by instinct. Next, notice that the founders of religion have prized simplicity and have been the bitterest foes of learning. Finally, no people act more foolishly than those who have been truly possessed with Christian piety. They give away whatever is theirs; they overlook injuries, allow themselves to be cheated, make no distinction between friends and enemies, shun pleasure, and feast on hunger, vigils, tears, labors, and scorn. They disdain life, and utterly prefer death. In short, they have become altogether indifferent to ordinary interests, as if their souls lived elsewhere and not in their bodies. What is this, if not to be mad? The life of Christians is run over with nonsense. They make elaborate funeral arrangements, with candles, mourners, singers, and pallbearers. They must think that their sight will be returned to them after they are dead, or that their corpses will fall ashamed at not being buried grandly. Christian theologians, in order to prove a point, will pluck four or five words out from different places, even falsifying the sense of them if necessary, and disregard the fact that their context was relevant or even contradicted their points. They do this with such brazen skill that our attorneys are often jealous of them.

Attorney Christopher St. German wrote the legal treatise "Doctor and Student", in which he deems the law of natural reason to be supreme and eternal. The law of God and the law of man, as enunciated by the church and royalty, merely supplement the law of natural reason and may change from time to time. Examples of the law of reason are: It is good to be loved. Evil is to be avoided. Do onto others as you would have them do unto you. Do nothing against the truth. Live peacefully with others. Justice is to be done to every man. No one is to wrong another. A trespasser should be punished. From these is deduced that a man should love his benefactor. It is lawful to put away force with force. It is lawful for every man to defend himself and his goods against an unlawful power.

Like his father, Henry VIII dominated Parliament. He used this power to reform the church of England in the 1530's. The Protestant reformation cause, started in Germany in 1517 by Martin Luther posting his thesis, had become identified with Henry's efforts to have his marriage of eighteen years to the virtuous Catherine annulled so he could marry a much younger woman: Anne. His purported reason was to have a son. The end of his six successive wives was: annuled, beheaded, died; annuled, beheaded, survived. Henry VIII was egotistical, arrogant, and self- indulgent. This nature allowed him to declare himself the head of the church of England instead of the pope.

Henry used and then discarded officers of state e.g. by executing them for supposed treason. One such was Thomas Wolsey, the son of a town grazier and butcher, who was another supporter of classical learning. He rose through the church, the gateway to advancement in a diversity of occupations of clergy such as secretary, librarian, teacher, attorney, doctor, author, civil servant, diplomat, and statesman. He was a court priest when he aligned himself with Henry, both of whom wanted power and glory and dressed extravagantly. But he was brilliant and more of a strategist than Henry. Wolsey called himself a reformer and started a purge of criminals, vagrants and prostitutes within London, bringing many before the council. But most of his reforming plans were not brought to fruition, but ended after his campaign resulted in more power for himself. Wolsey rose to be Chancellor to the King and Archbishop of York. As the representative of the pope for England, he exercised almost full papal authority there. But he controlled the church in England in the King's interest. He was second only to the King and he strengthened the crown by consolidating power and income that had been scattered among nobles and officeholders. He also came to control the many courts. Wolsey centralized the church in England and dissolved the smaller monasteries, the proceeds of which he used to build colleges at Oxford and his home town. He was an impartial and respected justice.

When Wolsey was not able to convince the pope to give Henry an annulment of his marriage, Henry dismissed him and took his property, shortly after which Wolsey died.

The King replaced Wolsey as Chancellor with Thomas More, after whom he made Thomas Cromwell Chancellor. Cromwell, the son of a clothworker/blacksmith/brewer/innkeeper, was a self-taught attorney, arbitrator, merchant, and accountant. Like Wolsey, he was a natural orator. He drafted and had passed legislation that created a new church of England. He had all men swear an oath to the terms of the succession statute. Thomas More was known for his honesty and was a highly respected man. More did not yield to Henry's bullying for support for his statute declaring the succession to be vested in the children of his second marriage, and his statute declaring himself the supreme head of the church of England, instead of the pope. He did not expressly deny this supremacy statute, so was not guilty of treason under its terms. But silence did not save him. He was attainted for treason on specious grounds and beheaded. His conviction rested on the testimony of one perjured witness, who misquoted More as saying that Parliament did not have the power to require assent to the supremacy statute because it was repugnant to the common law of Christendom.

Henry ruled with an iron fist. In 1536, he issued a proclamation that "any rioters or those in an unlawful assembly shall return to their houses" or "we will proceed against them with all our royal force and destroy them and their wives and children." In 1538, he proclaimed that anyone hurting or maiming an officer while trying to make an arrest "shall lose and forfeit all their lands, goods, and chattel" and shall suffer perpetual imprisonment. Moreover, if one murdered such an officer, he would suffer death without privilege of sanctuary or of clergy. In 1540, he proclaimed that there would be no shooting by handgun except on a shooting range. Henry had Parliament pass bills of attainder against many people. For the first time, harsh treatment of prisoners in the Tower, such as placement in dungeons with little food, no bed, and no change of clothes, became almost a matter of policy. Through his host of spies, Cromwell heard what men said to their closest friends. Words idly spoken were distorted into treasonable utterances. Fear spread through the people. Silence was a person's only possibility of safety.

Cromwell developed a technique for the management of the House of Commons which lasted for generations. He promulgated books in defense of royal spiritual authority, which argued that canon law was not divine but merely human and that clerical authority had no foundation in the Bible. A reformed English Bible was put in all parish churches. Reformers were licensed to preach. Cromwell ordered sermons to be said which proclaimed the supremacy of the King. He instituted registers to record baptisms, marriages, and burials in every county, for the purpose of reducing disputes over descent and inheritance. He dissolved all the lesser monasteries.

When Cromwell procured a foreign wife for Henry whom Henry found unattractive, he was attainted and executed.

Henry now reconstructed his council to have a fixed membership, an official hierarchy based on rank, a secretariat, an official record, and formal powers to summon individuals before it by legal process. Because it met in the King's Privy Lodgings, it was called the "Privy Council". It met daily instead of just during the terms of the Westminster courts from late autumn to early summer. It communicated with the king through intermediaries, of whom the most important was the King's Secretary. Because it was a court council, part of it traveled with the king, while the other part conducted London business. When Henry went to war in France, part of the council went with him, and part of it stayed to attend the Queen Regent.

Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote the first English Common Book of Prayer. With its use beginning in 1549, church services were to be held in English instead of Latin. The celebration of the Lord's Supper was a communion among the parishoners and minister all sharing the wine and bread. It replaced the mass, in which the priests were thought to perform a miraculous change of the substance of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, which the priest then offered as a sacrifice for remission of pain or guilt. This reflected the blood sacrifice of Christ dying on the cross. In the mass, only the priests drank the wine. The mass, miracles, the worship of saints, prayers for souls in purgatory, and pilgrimages to shrines such as that of Thomas Becket, were all to be discontinued. Imprisonment or exile rather than death was made the penalty for heresy and blasphemy, and also for adultery.

After the King dissolved the greater monasteries, he took and sold their ornaments, silver plate and jewelry, lead from roofs of their buildings, and finally much of the land itself. Three monasteries were converted into the first three treating hospitals in London, one for the diseased, one for the poor, and one, Bethlehem (or "Bedlam" for short), for the mentally ill. But there were still many poor, sick, blind, aged, and impotent people in the streets since the closure of the monasteries. In 1552, there were 2,100 people in need of relief, including 300 orphans, 600 sick or aged, 350 poor men overburdened with their children, 650 decayed householders, and 200 idle vagabonds. London then set up a poor relief scheme. The Bridewell was established to set to work the idle in making feather bed ticks and wool-cards, drawing of wire, carding, knitting, and winding of silk. Parishes were required to give money for the poor in 1563. Other towns followed London's lead in levying a poor rate.

Henry used the proceeds from the sale of the monasteries for building many new palaces and wood ships for his navy. In war, these navy ships had heavy guns which could sink other ships. In peace time, these ships were hired out to traders. Large ships were constructed in docks, made partly by digging and partly by building walls. In 1545, henry issued a proclamation ordering all vagabonds, ruffians, masterless men, and evil-disposed persons to serve him in his navy.

The former land of the monasteries, about 30% of the country's land, was sold and resold, usually to great landowners, or leased. Title deeds became important as attorneys sought the security that title could give. Some land went to entrepreneurial cloth manufacturers, who converted the buildings for the manufacture of cloth. They bought the raw wool and hired craftsmen for every step of the manufacturing process to be done in one continuous process. This was faster than buying and selling the wool material between craftsmen who lived in different areas. Also, it was more efficient because the amount of raw wool bought could be adjusted to the demand for cloth.

Many landowners now could live in towns exclusively off the rents of their rural land. Rents were increased so much that tenants could not pay and were evicted. They usually became beggars or thieves. Much of their former land was converted from crop raising to pasture for large herds of sheep. Arable farming required many workers, whereas sheep farming required only one shepherd and herdsman. There were exceptional profits made from the export of wool cloth. But much raw wool was still exported. Its price went up from 6s.8d. per tod [about 28 pounds] in 1340 to 20s.8d. in 1546.

Villeinage was now virtually extinct. A lord could usually claim a small money-rent from the freeholder, sometimes a relief when his land was sold or passed at death, and occasionally a heriot from his heir.

There was steady inflation. Landlords made their leases short term so that they could raise rents as prices rose. Copyholders gradually acquired a valuable right in their holdings; their rent became light - less that a shilling an acre.

At least 85% of the population still lived in the country. Rich traders built town or country houses in which the emphasis was on comfort and privacy. There was more furniture, bigger windows filled with glass, thick wallpaper, and formal gardens. Use of thick, insulating wallpaper rose with the rise of paper mills. It was stenciled, hand-painted, or printed. Some floors were tiled instead of stone or wood. They were still strewn with straw. The owners ate in a private dining room and slept in their own rooms with down quilts. Their soap was white. They had clothing of white linen and white wool, leather slippers, and felt hats. Men wore long tunics open at the neck and filled in with pleated linen and enormous puffed sleeves.

Henry made proclamations reminding people of the apparel laws, but they were difficult to enforce. Henry also made a proclamation limiting the consumption of certain meat according to status. Seven dishes were allowed to bishops, dukes, marquises, and earls; six to other temporal lords; five to justices, the King's council, sheriffs, and persons with an income of at least 200 pounds yearly or goods worth 2000 pounds; four to persons with an income of at least 100 pounds or goods worth 1000 pounds; and three dishes to persons with an income of at least 100 pounds or goods worth 500 pounds. There were limits on types of meat served, such as a maximum of one dish of great fowl such as crane, swan, and peacock; eight quail per dish; and twelve larks in a dish. People used tin or pewter dishes, platters, goblets, saucers, spoons, saltcellars, pots, and basins. They used soap to wash themselves, their clothes, and their dishes. A solid, waxy soap was from evaporating a mixture of goat fat, water, and ash high in potassium carbonate. They had bedcovers on their beds. Cloth bore the mark of its weaver and came in many colors. Cloth could be held together with pins that had a shank with a hook by which they were closed. People went to barbers to cut their hair and to extract teeth. They went to people experienced with herbs, roots, and waters for treatment of skin conditions such as sores, cuts, burns, swellings, irritated eyes or scaly faces. For more complicated ailments, they went to physicians, who prescribed potions and medicines. They bought potions and medicines from apothecaries and pharmacists. They burned wood logs in the fireplaces in their houses. So much wood was used that young trees were required by statute to be given enough lateral space to spread their limbs and were not cut down until mature.

The King, earls, who ruled counties, and barons, who had land and a place in the House of Lords, still lived in the most comfort. The King's house had courtyards, gardens, orchards, wood-yards, tennis courts, and bowling alleys.

The walls of the towns were manned by the citizens themselves, with police and watchmen at their disposal. In inns, travelers slept ten to a bed and there were many fleas and an occasional rat or mouse running through the rushes strewn on the floor. The inn provided a bed and ale, but travelers brought their own food. Each slept with his purse under his pillow.

In markets, sellers set up booths for their wares. They sold grain for making oatmeal or for sowing one's own ground. Wine, butter, cheese, fish, chicken, and candles could also be bought. Butchers bought killed sheep, lambs, calves, and pigs to cut up for selling. Tanned leather was sold to girdle-makers and shoemakers. Goods bought in markets were presumed not to be stolen, so that a purchaser could not be dispossessed of goods bought unless he had knowledge that they were stolen.

The ruling group of the towns came to be composed mostly of merchants, manufacturers, attorneys, and physicians. Some townswomen were independent traders. The governed class contained small master craftsmen and journeyman artisans, small traders, and dependent servants. The major streets of London were paved with stone, with a channel in the middle. More water conduits from hills, heaths, and springs were built to provide the citizens of London with more water. The sewers carried only surface water away. Households were forbidden to use the sewers. Privies emptied into cesspools.