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XX.—Observations on four Illuminations representing the Courts of Chancery, King's Bench, Common Pleas, and Exchequer, at Westminster, from a MS. of the time of King Henry VI.: in a Letter

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2012

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Extract

By the kind permission of William Selby Lowndes, Esq., I have the pleasure of sending you four illuminations, on vellum, for inspection by the Society of Antiquaries. From the alphabetical table at the foot and back of one of them they seem to have belonged to a MS. law treatise of about the time of King Henry VI.; to which reign, from several points in the illuminations themselves, as well as from the character of the writing, I attribute the date of these interesting representations of the King's four superior courts at Westminster.

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Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1864

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References

page 357 note a The commencement of the Table of Contents is as follows:—ζωγραΦοῦσιν.

page 359 note a K. G. and Lord Chamberlain; attainted in 1459, but restored (though afterwards executed) in 1460.

page 359 note b Sir John Fortescue was then Chief Justice of England, John Prisot was Chief Justice of the Common Bench, and Thomas Kirkeby (?) Master of the Rolls.

page 360 note a Dugdale's Origines Juridiciales, p. 39.

page 361 note a These hats are really the lofty turban-like hoods which were worn by persons of importance, and especially by judges, in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, over a close-fitting professional law cap or coif. It is not improbable that the fashion was derived from the high Asiatic turban, and came through Italy, and especially from Venice, in which the greatest variety of head-coverings were to be found, all being known under the general name of Berretta. There are many remarkable examples to be found in Cesare Vecellio's Habiti Antichi et Moderni, published in 1589; and especially one in vol. i. p. 44, of a tall convolved bonnet-hood, worn by an ancient Venetian noble. They were made of velvet, silk, cloth, and even canvas, of all colours, and were secured to the head by a thick roll at the lower part.

page 361 note b This inclosure is a cage made of strong wooden bars, with a door of solid planks nailed, and having a large lock. It seems capable of containing four or five persons, and to be erected on the lower floor of the chamber, against some solid part of the platform, or dais, on which the court is sitting. There does not appear to be any person in charge of this place of detention, though there doubtless was such an officer; since Madox, after stating that the word marshal seems to have been sometimes used with latitude, adds, “The persons that were wont to be employed at the Exchequer in arresting accomptants, or other delinquents, were sometimes called by that name.” (Hist. of the Exchequer, p. 729.) The intention, or even the existence, of this place of durance, is not noticed by Madox; but the use of it seems to be indicated in lib. ii. cap. xxi. of the Dialogus de Scaccario, composed in the reign of Henry II., either by Gervase of Tilbury, or Richard Fitz Nigel, Bishop of London. That section is entitled “Quid cum veniens non satisfaciat si Miles est? Quid si non Miles?” and it shows that the general practice of the court was to transfer the defaulter to the keeping of the Marshal until the sitting should be terminated, when his sentence was decided. He then either had attermination assigned him, or days appointed for the payment of his debt, or fine or amerciament awarded, or was committed to the Tower or the Flete. It is evident, therefore, that this cage is intended to represent the temporary place of confinement for the more common sort of Exchequer defaulters until the sitting of the Court was concluded. The knights were treated with more leniency until they had forfeited all their terms, and then they also were to be sent to prison.

page 362 note a Dugdale's Orig. Jurid. p, 49.—“In places of receipt or revenue it was customary to lay upon the table a Scaccarium, or chequered cloth, which, by reason of the chequering or diversity of the square spaces wrought upon it, was more commodious for counting of money, according to the way of those times, than a plain board or a cloth all of one colour.” (Madox, Hist. of the Excheq. p. 129, from the Dial de Scacc. lib. ii. cxxvii.) Notwithstanding this statement, there does not appear to be any sufficient reason for doubting whether the present illumination does represent the Court of Exchequer simply because the table covering is of a single colour. It must be remembered that, in keeping the great accounts of the court, there were two distinct operations, one relating to the summing-up of the amounts due from the King's debtors, and the other to the receipt of them. The duty, therefore, of the most skilful of the Exchequer officers was to make those calculations and reduce them to writing; and for this purpose the chequered board or cloth was used, with the proper counters. But it is the receipt of the Exchequer which is represented in this painting, the mere payment of the several sums due, as is indicated by the gold coin lying on the table to be counted, and the small white sheepskin bags in which the money was kept. In the many entries on the great roll relating to the cloth for the Exchequer table, it is simply called Pannus Laneus, without any mention of its being chequered. It must be observed, also, that there were two chambers belonging to the court, each of which had a table covered with a cloth.

page 362 note b John Tiptoft Earl of Worcester was Lord Treasurer at the period to which I attribute these Illuminations. (Dugdale's Chronica Series, p. 61.)

page 363 note a I have made application to many of the learned serjeants to ascertain when the use of the party-coloured gowns was finally abandoned, but without success beyond the fact communicated by the Lord Chief Baron to Dr. Diamond, that the whole Bar went into mourning for Queen Anne, and they are said never to have come out again, but have mourned ever since. Mr. Serjeant Atkinson says that Vertue is wrong in saying that the parti-coloured gown was worn in his time; and that, judging from pictures, the change to the present robes of scarlet, purple, and black, took place about the time of the Protectorate, when a great alteration took place in all dress. Referring to the purple robes of the serjeants, the learned serjeant quotes an epigram of the facetious Jekyll:—

“The Serjeants are a grateful race,

Their robes and speeches show it;

Their purple robes do come from Tyre,

Their arguments go to it.”

page 363 note b Gentleman's Mag. N. S. vol. xliii. p. 37. It is also inserted in the Proceedings of the Kilkenny Archæological Society, 1854, vol. iii. Pt. I. p. 46.

page 366 note a Willement's Regal Heraldry, p. 43, and authorities there cited.

page 366 note b Fenn's Paston Letters, vol. ii. p. 22, Letter xxvii.

page 367 note a In a letter from Margaret Paston to her husband John Paston, dated 18th December, 1477, she says, “My Mother sent to my Father to London for a gown-cloth of mustyrd de-vyllers, to make of a gown for me; and he told my mother and me, when he was come home, that he charged you to buy it, after that he was come out of London. I pray you, if it be not bought, that ye will vouchsafe to buy it and send it home as soon as you may, for I have no gown to wear this winter but my black and my green a-lyer (grenouiller, or frog colour), and that is so cumbrous that I am weary to wear it.” (Fenn's Paston Letters, p. 257, Letter lxxxii. Vol. ii.)

page 367 note b Survey of London, ed. 1633, p. 652.

page 368 note a Willement's Regal Heraldry, p. 26.

page 368 note b Strype's Stow, 1754, ii. p. 1247.

page 368 note c Murrey in heraldic language signifies deep crimson. Gwillim defines it as the last of the seven mixed colours, (which) we do commonly call murrey, but in blazon sanguine; and it is, as Leigh saith, a most princely colour, being one of the colours appertaining of ancient time to the Princes of Wales. The word is considered to be derived from “Morée,” or the colour of the Moors, verging from deep red to black. It may be said still to exist in the name of the brown-ruby colour employed for curtains morone or maroon.

White and green were brought into use as the livery colours of the house of Tudor by King Henry VII.

page 368 note d This interpretation appears to have been supplied from Ainsworth's English and Latin Dictionary, 1736. “A plunkett colour, vel color, vel cœruleus;” but it is found explained as a kind of blue colour in older authorities.

page 368 note e Murrey and blue were the livery colours of the House of York.

page 369 note a See Herbert's “Livery Companies,” vol. i. p. 58, et seq.

page 369 note b De Laudibus Legum Angliæ, c. ii. f. 123a.

page 370 note a Origines Juridiciales,” pp. 136, 7.—In the prologue to the Parson's Tale, Chaucer says, “The horrible disordinate scantiness of clothing as be these cut slops or hauselines, that through their shortness eke, and through the wrapping of their hose, which are departed of two colours, white and red, white and blue, white and black, or black and red, make the wearers seem as though the fire of Saint Anthony or some such mischance had cankered and consumed one-half of their bodies.”

page 371 note a See an account of this manuscript in “Transactions of the Society of Antiquaries of Zurich,” Tome IV.

page 371 note b This dress really forms a surcoat of the arms of Zurich, parted per bend azure and argent.