DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.22140#0023
THE DEVELOPMENT OF INDUSTRIAL SKILL.
7
settlements took no thought of what lay beyond their borders.
Within the boundary the peace was kept, and this by a very
effective police. Outside it, on the no man's law, or in the
King's forest, such a phenomenon was by no means universal.
Jew, Lombard, foreign merchant, nay, even a travelling abbot,
was not at all safe beyond the boundary. There is a curious
account in the Rolls of Parliament, and in the petition of Isabel
Tresham, widow of the great Speaker of 1450, of the manner in
which a gentleman of estate travelled in those days on the
king's highway, of the escort which he took, the road he drove,
and the perils which he ran. But I am sure that in the troubled
times which followed on Tresham's murder, property was not
insecure within the boundaries of a parish or manor. It was a
large parish which had over fifty inhabitants, a large town which
had over 5,000.
Now exactly the same facts which characterized a parish
characterized a town. The town, to be sure, generally bought
the privilege of electing its own magistrates. It created its own
guilds or companies, the charters of these institutions being long
subsequent to their foundation. The rule of these corporations
was exclusiveness. But I imagine that London was more ready
to admit strangers, chiefly through apprenticeship, than the
other towns were. Thus the two Chicheles, brothers of the
archbishop who founded All Souls, were the sons of a tailor
at Higham Ferrers. It is curious that with such an ancestry
this college should have a generation ago affected aristocratic
exclusiveness. The two Cannyngs, one of them Mayor of
London in 1456, the other a rich merchant who built St. Alary,
Redcliffe, were Bristol men by birth. But for every reason the
cities and towns did not encourage the migration of country folk
to within their liberties. And I believe the settlements of
strangers in London, as the Italian merchants or money dealers
of Lombard Street, and the merchants of the Hanse near the
Tower, were there rather by royal grace than by city favour.
On the whole, about four-fifths of the English people were
country or upland folk, and the residue dwelt for the most part
in towns.
There is reason to believe that England exported a considerable
7
settlements took no thought of what lay beyond their borders.
Within the boundary the peace was kept, and this by a very
effective police. Outside it, on the no man's law, or in the
King's forest, such a phenomenon was by no means universal.
Jew, Lombard, foreign merchant, nay, even a travelling abbot,
was not at all safe beyond the boundary. There is a curious
account in the Rolls of Parliament, and in the petition of Isabel
Tresham, widow of the great Speaker of 1450, of the manner in
which a gentleman of estate travelled in those days on the
king's highway, of the escort which he took, the road he drove,
and the perils which he ran. But I am sure that in the troubled
times which followed on Tresham's murder, property was not
insecure within the boundaries of a parish or manor. It was a
large parish which had over fifty inhabitants, a large town which
had over 5,000.
Now exactly the same facts which characterized a parish
characterized a town. The town, to be sure, generally bought
the privilege of electing its own magistrates. It created its own
guilds or companies, the charters of these institutions being long
subsequent to their foundation. The rule of these corporations
was exclusiveness. But I imagine that London was more ready
to admit strangers, chiefly through apprenticeship, than the
other towns were. Thus the two Chicheles, brothers of the
archbishop who founded All Souls, were the sons of a tailor
at Higham Ferrers. It is curious that with such an ancestry
this college should have a generation ago affected aristocratic
exclusiveness. The two Cannyngs, one of them Mayor of
London in 1456, the other a rich merchant who built St. Alary,
Redcliffe, were Bristol men by birth. But for every reason the
cities and towns did not encourage the migration of country folk
to within their liberties. And I believe the settlements of
strangers in London, as the Italian merchants or money dealers
of Lombard Street, and the merchants of the Hanse near the
Tower, were there rather by royal grace than by city favour.
On the whole, about four-fifths of the English people were
country or upland folk, and the residue dwelt for the most part
in towns.
There is reason to believe that England exported a considerable