Our Legal Heritage, King AEthelbert, 596 to King George III, 1775Reilly, S. A.
History
Our Legal Heritage, King AEthelbert, 596 to King George III, 1775
Reilly, S. A.
Law -- England -- History
Paved roads in towns were usually gravel and sometimes cobble.
They were frequently muddy because of rain and spillage of water
being carried. Iron-shod wheels and overloaded carts made them
very uneven. London was the first town with paviors. They cleaned
and repaired the streets, filling up potholes with wood chips and
compacting them with hand rams. The paviors were organized as a
city company in 1479. About 1482, towns besides London began
appointing salaried road paviors to repair roads and collect their
expenses from the householders because the policy of placing the
burden on individual householders didn't work well. London streets
were lighted at night by public lanterns, under the direction of
the mayor. The residents were to light these candle lanterns in
winter from dusk to the 9 p.m. curfew. There were fire-engines
composed of a circular cistern with a pump and six feet of
inflexible hose on wheels pulled by two men on one end and pushed
by two men on the other end. In 1480 the city walls were rebuilt
with a weekly tax of 5d. per head.
In schools, there was a renaissance of learning from original
sources of knowledge written in Greek and rebirth of the Greek
pursuit of the truth and scientific spirit of inquiry. There was a
striking increase in the number of schools founded by wealthy
merchants or town guilds. Every cathedral, monastery, and college
had a grammar school. Merchants tended to send their sons to
private boarding schools, instead of having them tutored at home
as did the nobility. Well-to-do parents still sent sons to live in
the house of some noble to serve them as pages in return for being
educated with the noble's son by the household priest. They often
wore their master's coat of arms and became their squires as part
of their knightly education. Sometimes girls were sent to live in
another house to take advantage to receive education from a tutor
there under the supervision of the lady of the house. Every man,
free or villein, could send his sons and daughters to school. In
every village, there were some who could read and write.
In 1428, Lincoln's Inn required barristers normally resident in
London and the county of Middlesex to remain in residence and pay
commons during the periods between sessions of court and during
vacations, so that the formal education of students would be
continuous. In 1442, a similar requirement was extended to all
members.
The book "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" was written about an
incident in the court of King Arthur and Queen Guenevere in which
a green knight challenges Arthur's knights to live up to their
reputation for valor and awesome deeds. The knight Gawain answers
the challenge, but is shown that he could be false and cowardly
when death seemed to be imminent. Thereafter, he wears a green
girdle around his waist to remind him not to be proud.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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