SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



sides of this again were added guest-chambers, a room called the ' parler,' and 

 a domestic chapel. Of the same period as that of the hall would be the 

 buttery and kitchen buildings leading directly into the large hall, while round 

 the kitchens would be built the brewhouse, grange, and the necessary stabling. 

 A fine example of the baronial stronghold and manor-house combined is that 

 of the ancient lords of Manchester, now the Chetham Hospital. Precautions 

 had still to be taken in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries for defence from 

 sudden attack. Social disturbances were rife, and one of the worst features 

 of the age in Lancashire was the practice of ' wife-stealing ' as practised by 

 the young bloods of the county. Despite all the arrangements for house 

 defence at Bewsy near Warrington Lady Boteler was violently carried off 

 from it in the year 1437, and in the year 1452 the Dame Joan Beaumont, 

 wife of Sir Henry Beaumont, was feloniously carried off by one Edward 

 Lancaster, styled ' gentleman.' "" 



It is not clear whether Preston cattle fair, already mentioned, had any 

 connexion with the celebration of the Preston Gild, but it is a matter of 

 common knowledge that the Preston meeting was one of Lancashire's great 

 social festivals. The first record of the gild meeting seems to be in 1329, 

 after which some others are known to have been held at irregular intervals. 

 From 1543 onwards they have been held with regularity every twenty years."^ 

 We do not know if in the mediaeval celebrations of the custom the trades 

 and companies went in procession, though it is probable this is the most 

 ancient part of the ceremony. At later functions some twenty-eight com- 

 panies paraded, and it is possible that on each occasion some rude morality 

 play or interlude was performed for the amusement of the assembled people. 

 It was doubtless by this stately periodic celebration of the gild's foundation 

 that Preston so long preserved her almost royal position as the most ancient 

 among the boroughs of Lancashire, 



Despite its rapid growth during the thirteenth century, the county did 

 not afterwards progress in anything like the degree that might have been 

 expected. The great economic hindrances to mediaeval Lancashire prosperity 

 were the three well-known sources of all economic decay : war, famine, and 

 pestilence. The second of these evils has been already referred to, the first 

 also has been previously commented on. Lancashire's continual liability to 

 preparations for warlike enterprise and military expeditions in countries 

 adjacent to her border has been pointed out. She had been a recruiting 

 ground for the Welsh and Irish expeditions, and was in 1292 exploited for 

 the undertaking against Scotland. In 1305 the great abbey of Furness 

 succumbed beneath the burden of forced loans to the king and debts to 

 foreigners."* The abbey lands must have suffered when the county became 

 a prey to invasions. More than once Lancashire had to bear the brunt of the 

 Scottish fury, when in the absence of the English army the Scots harried the 

 border. In 1 3 1 3 the men of Lancaster obtained a grant of murage for seven 

 years to protect them against the fierce northern forages, but in vain, for in 

 1322 the Scots invaded the north, burnt the town of Lancaster, damaging 



"" Annals of the Lords of Warrington, ii, 259, 265. 



'" Hist, of Preston in Lanes, together with the Guild Merchant (Lond. 1822). 



'" Pat. 6 Edw. I, m. 10 ; and 32 Edw. I, pt. i, m. 14. A king's clerk was appointed to administer its 

 aiFairs and finances. 



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