In 1522, amongst the officers of the court, were two ale-founders (or,
as they are generally called, ale-tasters or conners), two byrlamen
(lawmen) to overlook the "market stede," two for Deynsgate and four for
the mylne gate, wething greve, hengynge dyche, fenell street, and on to
Irkes brydge, and a score of people were named as "skevengers," whose
duty it was to see that the streets were kept clean. At the same court
an order was made that persons were not to allow their ducks and geese
to wander into the market-place, and certain other regulations were
enforced, showing that even at that date the sanitary arrangements of
the place were to some extent attended to.
In 1554 we have, beside the other officers, market overlookers for fish
and flesh, leathersellers, and men to see that no ox, cow, nor horse
goes through the churchyard; and it was ordered that all the middens
standing in the streets, between the conduit (which supplied the town
with water) and the market-cross, and all swinecotes in the High
Street, should be removed. The authorities appear to have had some
trouble to persuade the people that the street, or the front of their
own houses, was not the place for dunghills or middens, as the orders
to remove them appear at almost every court, in some cases the order
only being to erect a pale or hedge round, so that there be no "noyance
nor evil sight in the street."
In 1556 warning was to be given in the church that the inhabitants were
to bring their corn and grain to be ground at the Free School Mill.
Ale and bread in 1558 were to be sold only by the regulation measures
and weights. Archery had long been one of the recreations of the
people, so we are surprised to find that in 1560 the inhabitants
were ordered to have put up before the Feast of St. John the Baptist
(June 24) a pair of butts in Marketstede Lane, and another pair upon
Colyhurst Common; in the same year it was ordered that no person should
allow any carding or bowling in his house or garden, fields or shop,
"whereto any poore or handiecrafts men shall come or resort."
Provisions were also made for the traveller whose business brought him
to Manchester, for no man was allowed (in 1560) to brew or sell ale
unless he was able to "make two honest beddis [beds]," and he was also
to "put furth the syne of a hand." Later on it was ordered that this
sign was only to be used when the innkeeper had ale to sell. It is
curious to find an old Act passed in 1390 still enforced, viz., that no
one not being a forty-shilling freeholder shall keep a greyhound nor
any hound.
Ale was not to be sold to be drunk on the premises at more than 6d.
a gallon; for outdoor consumption the price was not to exceed 4d. a
gallon.
A singular order appears in the next year's record, to the effect that
no one shall sell bread which has any butter in it, although he was
permitted to bake it for his own use or to give to his friends.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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