LIFE OF OLD LONDON.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIX, Issue 5294, 2 July 1928, Page 4

LIFE OF OLD LONDON.

CHEAP BREAD IN 1500. WAGES AND COST OF LIVING. In the fifteenth century the wages of London bakers in mixing the dough were 12d a week and Id a day for beer, which meant a daily allow, mice of two quarts of the best beer sold at the low price of 2d a gallon. A cheaper beer was sold at. half this price. The bakers lived at the bakery and received board and lodgings in addition to wages,. The men who mixed the dough were known as sowreours. the name being ilerived from the fact that they mixed the so,ur yeast into the (lour. The men who weighed the dough ami shaped the loaves were called whiteJiews, and were papd l 13d a week in addition to allowance for beer am] free board and lodgings. The highest grade of workers employed at the bakeries were those who baked the bread am] were known as fourners, he., furnace or even men. Ther wages were 16d a week.

EGGS AT TEN FOR A PENNY.

The average wa.ge paid to labourers in London during the fifteenth century was 5d a day. They were able to sustain life on this, low wage because food was cheap. In 1533 a law ■wag passed which compelled' London butchers for the first time to sell meat by weight. The price of beef was. fixed at h>d per lb, and of mutton, at 3-8 d per lb. These prices seem very low to the present generation, but the butchers were able to make a profit, for fat oxen were sometimes sold as low as £1 6s S<|. fat calves and sheep at 3s 4d, and lambs, at 12d. Eggs were usually sold at ten for a penny, but in times of great scarcity’ they rose as high as three for 2d, Fat capons could be bought for 2d each. The pr ; ce of cheese was l%d a lb. Butter .was, sold by .measure in a semi-liquid condition during the fourteenth century at Id per pint, but during the fifteenth century it was sold by weight at Boz. for %<] in thc ; summer and 6oz. for in winter. By the end of the sixteenth century butter had risen to 3d. a lb, and in time of scarcity rose to 7d a lb.

Oysters, were popular even in the middle ages, and were sold at 4d a bushel, but by the seventeenth century their reputation had spread to such an extent that an export trade had grown up and the price in London rose to 2s -a bushel—an extravagant price, which caused grave concern even in the highest circles. A Royal decree was issued forbidding the export of oysters, and the Adimiralty was empowered to arrest any foreign vessel caught taking oysters; out of the country.

LIGHT-WEIGHT PENALTIES.

Bread was cheap, the price varying according, to quality. “Each baker was allowed to prepare only one kind of bread —white or brown,” writes Mr Pendrill. “The white, bakers made anything which could be made from bolted meal, such as whi'te loaves and wastel buns. They also made white bread of inferior leaven, called, basket bread, which, together with any loaves which turned out too light in weight, or in, any other way spo’lt in the baking, were sold to the poor in the street market of Cheapsidc at three a Id instead of the usual price of two a I>l. The brown bakers made tourtebread or coarse bread of unbolted meal, and this was the usual bread of the poor. Many of the poor also brought their own flour to be made into bread, by the brown bakers, and this they baked at a charge of Id a bushel. If any baker was caught persistently offerng for sale bread short of weight he received the punishment of the hurdle.For this purpose he was strapped to a sort of low ca.r harnessed to a horse, and so dragged through the streets, accompanied by the c<’ty minstrels, playing on tambors and pipes, .and finally brought back and released at his own door.” Cookshops, from which the modern restaurant has evolved,, were ntimer. ous in London during the middle ages, but in accordance with the practice whereby shops of the same kind were congregated, the cooksbops were confined to Eastcheap and Bread Street. T'hc cooks roasted meat in the oldfashioned way on spits, ami .if they served it too underdone, or in any other way badly cooked, they were liable to a fine of 6s Bd. One of the rules drawn up by the Company of ■Cooks incorporated by Royal Charter provided that no food l , whether fl®slh 'or fish, should be warmed up' a second time for sale. Pies were perhaps the form of food dearest to the Londoner’s heart, and the cooks of Eastdheap' provided them in every variety of meeit. fish, poultry, and game. PLAGUE AND PESTILENCE. But London was a. filthy, insanitary city dmfng the middle ages, and was often swept by plpgue and pestilence. Tlie streets leading. into the ma'in thoroughfares were narrow and dark. The practice of building houses with

each successive storey jutting outwards a few feet beyond the storey below shut out the sunlight from the streets. In some of the narrow lanes the people living on the top storeys of houses on opposite, shies could shake hands with one another. There was no sanitary system of any kind. 'Household refuse and even the slops were thrown into the street, and passing pedestrians were liable to be drenched. In 1647 a decree was issued to prevent slops' being thrown into the street until after 9 p,m., when there would be few pedestrians about. Dead dogs, cats, and the bodies of other deceased pets were thrown .into the streets. Butchers, fishmongers, potiL trykeepers. and other tradesmen threw entrails and othe rfiltli into the river and ditches, and; the banks of all watercourses wore lined with festering filth. At regular intervals the streets were cleaned by rakers, but their work was inefficiently done, and 1 the filth collected was stacked on vacant pieces of ground, within the city and outerde its walls. In the churchyards, i.n some of which there were wells wh.ieh supplied the neighbourhood l ulith water, the dead were buried so thickly that whenever a new grave was dug some ok] human bones were unearthed, for the poor were buried without collins. Many of the city churches had charnel bouses, in which the bones dug up in this way were stored. The dead had been bur.'od so thickl.v for generations; that the ground in, many of the churchyards were raised l two or three fe<et above the level of the pavements. To this day the churchyards of the city of London are above, the- level of the pavements, although more than a century has elapsed since there was a burial in any of them.