The Story of LondonWheatley, Henry B. (Henry Benjamin)
History
The Story of London
Wheatley, Henry B. (Henry Benjamin)
London (England) -- History
We now arrive at the time when another great surgeon arose. This was
Thomas Morestede, surgeon to Henry V. and Henry VI., and probably
previously to Henry IV., who, Mr. Power says, made the first serious
attempt to convert surgery into a profession. When Henry V. in the
spring of 1415 entered on his campaign in France, which ended with the
victory at Agincourt on the 25th October, the medical arrangements of
the army were very complete. 'The agreement, dated 29th April 1415, is
to the effect that Nicholas Colnet was to accompany the King for a year
as physician to the forces in Guienne and France. He was to be attended
by three archers as a guard, each archer receiving sixpence a day,
whilst Colnet drew twelvepence for his own pay. Thomas Morstede, the
surgeon, had also three archers assigned to him for protection, and he
too received twelve pence a day, in addition to the usual allowance of
one hundred marks a quarter--the pay, it is stated, for thirty
men-at-arms, with a share of the plunder. Morestede was directed further
to take with him twelve of his own craft, each subordinate surgeon to
receive the pay of an archer--sixpence a day.... The scale of pay here
granted is very liberal. The ordinary day's wage of a labourer at this
time was one penny. Each archer and each surgeon was considered to be
worth the wages of six day labourers, and the two chiefs double their
assistants.... Yet in spite of these attractions the service was a
perilous one, even though it only lasted a few months. Morestede engaged
William Bredewardyne to act under him, but he had such difficulty in
securing the services of the twelve assistants that he prayed the King
'to grant his letters of Privy Seal directed to your Chancellor of
England, to cause him to deliver to your suppliant letters of commission
under your great seal, by force of which he should have power to press
twelve persons of his craft, such as he should choose to accompany him,
and to serve your most gracious sovereign lord during your
campaign.'[147] Morstede became a rich and influential London citizen,
and served as sheriff in 1436. He died in 1450, and was buried in the
Church of St. Olave Upwell, Old Jewry, where he had built 'a fair new
aisle.'[148]
Dr. Furnivall printed in his edition of Thomas Vicary's _Anatomie of the
Bodie of Man_ (Early Text Society, 1888, p. 236), a paper from a
manuscript in the British Museum (Royal M.S., 7 F., xiv., art. 24)
containing a statement of the pay of navy surgeons in the reign of Henry
VIII. _The Henry Grace de Dieu_ carried two surgeons at 23s. 4d. a
month; also _The Mary Rose_ and _The Great Gally_, with two surgeons
each at the same pay, and nineteen other vessels each with one surgeon
at 10s. a month.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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