| Abstract |
"Neighbourliness crossed social boundaries, transcending the growing divisions of the period. Neighbours may be poor, many thought, but they remained just that: neighbours. John Markay, a minister in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne said of William Dickson that 'he is th[is] depont[s] neighbour a very honest poore ma[n]'.39 A yeoman of Elizabethan Whickham (County Durham) identified a fellow parishioner as 'a very poore man and his neybor'. Another villager was 'a Skotish man a poore man and went from dore to dore ... and a simple ma[n]'. Despite the common northern hostility to Scots, the man was accepted in the community.40 Richer people were expected to adhere closely to the values of neighbourhood, distributing charity and loans where they were needed. Those of the middling sort had a special position in this regard, for it was they - not the gentry - who came into daily contact with the poor. It was assumed that a proper yeoman would be bountyfull both to strangers and poor people ... In a time of famine he is the Joseph of the country and keeps the poor from starving ... and to his poor neighbour abateth somewhat of the high price of the market. The neighbouring gentry court him for his acquaintance, which either he modestly waveth, or thankfully accepteth, but in no way greedily desireth.41 39 DUL, DDR/EJ/CCD/1/2, fols. 129v-30r. 40 DUL, DDR/EJ/CCD/1/2, fol. 3v. 41 T. Fuller, The holy and profane states (Cambridge, 1831), 89. 105 According to traditional social values, the yeomanry were expected to provide for poor travellers. In the play A knacke to knowe a knave (1592), the disguised King announces that his father had told him that piers plowman was one of the best members in a commo[n]wealth For his table was never emptie of bread, beefe and beere, As a help to all distressed traveilers.42 Such values may have been observed more in the breach than the practice, but they remained powerful standards against which many felt they had to judge their actions. Thus, in a 1574 complaint to Star Chamber, Roger Beckwith of Thorpe (Yorkshire) presented himself as an ideal yeoman, telling the court that all his life he had been accompted and reputed ... of honest fame good credit ... [and] hath bene a housekeeper in his cuntre[y] not only to the Releife of the pore and Impotente people thereaboute dwelling and inhabitainge to thuttermoste of his power But also to the settinge on worke [of] div[er]s daye laborers.43 For all that they remained at a remove from the village community, the gentry were also meant to practise good neighbourhood - especially bountiful hospitalty. Writing in 1592, Robert Greene stated forthrightly that the gentleman should be a mortall enemy to pride ... he regardeth hospitality, and aimeth at honor with releeeving the poore: you may see, although 42 Anon., A knacke to knowe a knave, lines 1247-1249. 43 TNA, STAC5/B69/8. 106 his lands and revenewes be great, and he able to maintain himself in great bravery, yet he is content with his home-spun cloth, and scorneth the pride that is now adaies used among young upstarts: he holdeth not the worth of his gentry to be and consist in velvet breeches, but valeweth true liberality, housekeeping and almesdeeds. Vox Populi vox Dei: his tenants and farmers would, if it might bee possible, make him immortal with their praiers and praises. He raiseth no rent, racketh no lands, taketh no income, imposeth no mercilesse fines, envies not an other, buyeth no house over his neighbours head, but respecteth his country, and the commodity thereof, as deere as his life. He regardeth more to have the needy fed, to have his boord garnished with full platters, then to famous himself with excessive furniture in apparel.44 At any moment in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it seemed to contemporaries that the values that Greene described had passed away. Yet reports of the death of neighbourhood were clearly exaggerated. Such values remained powerful social norms against which gentlemen and women gauged their own actions, and according to which they were judged. Many 'village' gentry - those who didn't hold the Commission of the Peace but were nonetheless recognized as a cut above a yeoman - none the less saw themselves as a part of the local community.45 On one occasion, for instance, the lesser gentleman Fabian Haywood gathered with his neighbors at Studeley Hall (Yorkshire) 'at a drinking to helpe & give some monies towards the relief of a 44 R. Greene, Quip for an upstart courtier (1592). 45 'Village' gentry were very significant figures, yet lack a proper study. poore man'.46 The squire William Harman, of Crayford (Kent) was anxious to assure the Henrician Star Chamber that"-- Provided by publisher. |
