Our Legal Heritage: The First Thousand Years: 600 - 1600: King Aethelbert - Queen ElizabethReilly, S. A.
History
Our Legal Heritage: The First Thousand Years: 600 - 1600: King Aethelbert - Queen Elizabeth
Reilly, S. A.
Law -- England -- History
Many master freemasons, who carved freestone or finely grained
sandstone and limestone artistically with mallet and chisel,
left the country for better wages after their wages were fixed
by statute. The curvilinear gothic style of architecture was
replaced by the perpendicular style, which was simpler and
cheaper to build. Church steeples now had clocks on them with
dials and hands to supplement the church bell ringing on the
hour.
Towns recognized surgery as a livelihood subject to admission and
oath to serve the social good. Master surgeons were admitted to
practice in 1369 in London in full husting before the mayor and
the aldermen and swore to: faithfully serve the people in
undertaking their cures, take reasonably from them, faithfully
follow their calling, present to the said mayor and aldermen the
defaults of others undertaking, so often as should be necessary;
to be ready, at all times when they should be warned, to attend
the maimed or wounded and others, to give truthful information
to the officers of the city as to such maimed, wounded, or
others whether they be in peril of death or not, and to
faithfully do all other things touching their calling.
Some young girls of good families were boarded at nunneries to be
taught there. Some upper class widows retired there. Only women
were allowed to be present at a birth, at which they spread the
knowledge of midwifery. As usual, many women died giving birth.
Various ways to prevent pregnancy were tried. It was believed
that a baby grew from a seed of the father planted in the woman's
body.
Infant mortality was especially high in boroughs and burgess
family lines usually died out. A three-generation family span
was exceptional in the towns, despite family wealth.
Children's sweets included gingerbread and peppermint drops.
After the plague, gentlemen no longer had their children learn
to speak Norman. The grammar schools taught in English instead
of Norman. Bishops began to preach in English. Twenty years
later, English became the official language of the courts and of
Parliament.
A will in 1389 in which a wealthy citizen arranges for one son to
become a lawyer and the other a merchant: "Will of William de
Tonge, citizen of London: One hundred marks [1,333s.] each to my
two sons. And I will that my said two sons shall live upon the
profits of the money bequeathed to them above until the age of
twenty years. And if my said two sons be well learned in grammar
and adorned with good manners, which shall be known at the end
of twenty years, and the elder son wish to practice common law,
and if it is known that he would spend his time well in that
faculty, I will that over and above the profit of the said one
hundred marks he shall have yearly from my rents for the term of
seven years five marks [67s.]. And if he should waste his time
aforesaid, or if he should marry foolishly and unsuitably, I
will that he receive nothing more of the said five marks.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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