[133] "Letter Book," G., pp. iii. ff., where there is a very interesting case of a Florentine merchant.
[134] It is easy to understand how Jews themselves came back to England under the guise of Lombards. We know enough, from many other sources, of the evils which followed from the inconsistent efforts to outlaw all takers of interest, to appreciate the truth which underlay the obvious exaggerations of the Commons in their petition to the King in 1376. "There are in our land a very great multitude of Lombards, both brokers and merchants, who serve no purpose but that of ill-doing: moreover, several of those which pass for Lombards are Jews and Saracens and privy spies; and of late they have brought into our land a most grievous vice which it beseems us not to name" ("Rot. Parl.," vol. ii., p. 352, § 58).
[135] Benvenuto da Imola, "Comentum," vol. i., p. 579; Etienne de Bourbon, p. 254; Nicole Bozon, pp. 35, 226; "Piers Plowman," B., iii., 38; cf. Gower, "Mirour," 21409.
[136] "Mirour," 25429 ff., 25237 ff., 25915. Mr. Macaulay remarks that Gower seems to deal more tenderly with his own merchant-class than with other classes of society; but his blame, even with this allowance, is severe.
[137] "Mirour," 25813. The emphasis which he lays on carpets and curtains shows how great a luxury they were then considered.
[138] "In justice, however, to these centuries, it must be remarked, that they received the institutions of Frankpledge as an inheritance from Saxon times" (Riley).
[139] "To these writs return was made [in 1354] to the effect that the civic authorities had given orders for butchers to carry the entrails of slaughtered beasts to the Flete and there clean them in the tidal waters of the Thames, instead of throwing them on the pavement by the house of the Grey Friars." Again: "Although this order [of 1369] was carried out and the bridge destroyed, butchers continued to carry offal from the shambles to the riverside; and this nuisance had to be suppressed in 1370." But the whole passage should be read in full.
[142] Between 1347 and 1375, for instance, there are only 23 cases of pillory in all.
[143] It is pertinent to note in this connection the medieval custom of giving condemned meat to hospitals. Mr. Wheatley ("London," p. 196) quotes from a Scottish Act of Parliament in 1386, "Gif ony man brings to the market corrupt swine or salmond to be sauld, they sall be taken by the bailie, and incontinent, without ony question, sall be sent to the leper folke; and, gif there be na lepper folke, they sall be destroyed all utterlie." At Oxford in the 15th century, there was a similar regulation providing that putrid or unfit meat and fish should be sent to St. John's Hospital. ("Munimenta Academica" (R.S.), pp. 51, 52). Here is a probable clue to the tradition that medieval apprentices struck against salmon more than twice a week. See _Athenæum_, August 27 and September 3, 1898.