Part 8 (2/2)
_Harrison_, i. 212, col. 1, quoted by Ellis.
If rich men and masters were dirty, poor men and servants must have been dirtier still. William Langlande's description of Hawkyn's one metaphorical dress in which he slept o' nightes as well as worked by day, bes...o...b..red (or by-_moled_, bemauled) by children, was true of the real smock; flesh-moths must have been plentiful, and the sketch of Coveitise, as regards many men, hardly an exaggeration:
... as a bonde-man of his bacon his berd was bi-draveled, With his hood on his heed a lousy hat above, And in a tawny tabard of twelf wynter age Al so torn and baudy and ful of lys crepyng, But if that a lous[84] couthe han lopen the bettre, She sholde noght han walked on that welthe so was it thred-bare.
(_Vision_, Pa.s.sus V. vol. 1, l. 2859-70, ed. Wright.)
In the _Kinge and Miller_, Percy Folio MS., p. 236 (in vol. ii. of the print), when the Miller proposes that the stranger should sleep with their son, Richard the son says to the King,
”Nay, first,” q{uo}th Richard, ”good fellowe, tell me true, hast thou noe creep{er}s in thy gay hose?
art thou not troabled w{i}th the Scabbado?”
The colour of washerwomen's legs was due partly to dirt, I suppose. The princess or queen Clarionas, when escaping with the laundress as her a.s.sistant, is obliged to have her white legs reduced to the customary shade of grey:
Right as she should stoupe a-doun, The quene was tukked wel on high; The lauender p{er}ceiued wel therbigh Hir white legges, and seid ”ma dame, Youre s.h.i.+n boones might doo vs blame; Abide,” she seid, ”so mot I thee, More slotered thei most be.”
a.s.shes with the water she menged, And her white legges al be-sprenged.
ab. 1440 A.D., _Syr Generides_, p. 218, ll. 7060-8.
[Headnote: NAKED SCULLIONS AND DIRTY STREETS.]
If in Henry the Eighth's kitchen, scullions lay about naked, or tattered and filthy, what would they do elsewhere? Here is the King's Ordinance against them in 1526:
”And for the better avoydyng of corruption and all uncleannesse out of the Kings house, which doth ingender danger of infection, and is very noisome and displeasant unto all the n.o.blemen and others repaireing unto the same; it is ordeyned by the Kings Highnesse, that the three master cookes of the kitchen shall have everie of them by way of reward yearly twenty marks, to the intent they shall prouide and sufficiently furnish the said kitchens of such scolyons as shall not goe _naked or in garments of such vilenesse as they now doe, and have been acustomed to doe, nor lie in the nights and dayes in the kitchens or ground by the fireside;_ but that they of the said money may be found with honest and whole course garments, without such uncleannesse as may be the annoyance of those by whom they shall pa.s.se”...
That our commonalty, at least, in Henry VIII.'s time did stink (as is the nature of man to do) may be concluded from Wolsey's custom, when going to Westminster Hall, of
”holding in his hand a very fair orange, whereof the meat or substance within was taken out, and filled up again with the part of a sponge, wherein was vinegar, and other confections against the pestilent airs; the which he most commonly smelt unto, pa.s.sing among the press, or else when he was pestered with many suitors.”
(_Cavendish_, p. 43.)
On the dirt in English houses and streets we may take the testimony of a witness who liked England, and lived in it, and who was not likely to misrepresent its condition,--Erasmus. In a letter to Francis, the physician of Cardinal Wolsey, says Jortin,
”Erasmus ascribes the plague (from which England was hardly ever free) and the sweating-sickness, partly to the incommodious form and bad exposition of the houses, to the filthiness of the streets, and to the s.l.u.ttishness within doors. The floors, says he, are commonly of clay, strewed with rushes, under which lies unmolested an ancient collection of beer, grease (?), fragments, bones, spittle, excrements [t.i. urine] of dogs and cats [t.i.
men,] and every thing that is nasty, &c.” (_Life of Erasmus_, i.
69, ed. 1808, referred to in Ellis, i. 328, note.)
The great scholar's own words are,
Tum sola fere sunt argilla, tum scirpis pal.u.s.tribus, qui subinde sic renovantur, ut fundamentum maneat aliquoties annos viginti, sub se fovens sputa, vomitus, mictum canum et hominum, projectam cervisiam, et piscium reliquias, aliasque sordes non nominandas.
Hinc mutato clo vapor quidam exhalatur, mea sententia minime salubris humano corpori.
After speaking also _De salsamentis_ (rendered '_salt meat_, beef, pork, &c.,' by Jortin, but which _Liber Cure Cocorum_ authorises us in translating 'Sauces'[85]), _quibus vulgus mirum in modum delectatur_, he says the English would be more healthy if their windows were made so as to shut out noxious winds, and then continues,
”Conferret huc, si vulgo parcior victus persuaderi posset, ac salsamentorum moderatior usus. Tum si publica cura demandaretur aedilibus, ut viae mundiores essent a cno, mictuque: Curarentur et ea quae civitati vicina sint. _Jortin's Life of Erasmus_, ed. 1808, iii. 44 (Ep. 432, C. 1815), No. VIII. Erasmus Rot. Francisco.
Cardinalis Eboracencis Medico, S.
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