THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE APPLE AND PEAR. 
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It is difficult to find any record of the different sorts of apples grown in England, at an 
early period, though it is well known that there were many varieties both cultivated and wild. 
Malmesbury in the early part of the twelfth Century, speaking of Gloucestershire, says, “ Cernas 
tra/mites publicos vestitos pomiferis arboribus , non insitiva manus industrid , sed ipsius solius humi 
natural ’ 
Different circumstances, however, have preserved the names of two apples—the Pearmain, 
and the Costard apple. The Pearmain appears in a legal deed. So early as the 6th of King John 
(1205), Robert de Evermue was found to hold his Lordship of Redham and Stokesley, in 
Norfolk, by petty serjeantry, the paying of 200 pearmains, and four hogsheads ( modios ) of 
wine made of pearmains into the exchequer, on the Feast of St. Michael yearly.” (Bloomfield's 
“ Norfolkf \th Edit. xi. p. 242; quoted by Cullum , “Hist, and Antiq. of Hawsted” p. 117 
The Pearmain is therefore a very old apple in England, though its name, and Drayton, 
pronounce it not English :— 
“ The Pearmain which to France long ere to us was known ; 
Which careful fruiterers now have denizen’d our own.” 
Polyolbion , s. 18. 
The other well known apple of the thirteenth Century, was the Costard apple. It is men¬ 
tioned under the name of “Poma costard” in the fruiterers bills of Edward I. (1292), at which time it 
was sold for one shilling the hundred. William Lawson who speaks of it in 1597, says quaintly, “ Of 
your apple trees you shall finde difference in growth. A good Pipping will grow large and a 
Costard tree.” It must have been extensively grown and appreciated at one time for it has given 
the name of “costard-monger,” or as it has now become “coster-monger” to the retail sellers of 
fruit and vegetables ; this apple, in the earliest history of the trade, being probably the only thing 
they sold. The beneficent qualities of the fruit however, seem ever to have been in marked contrast 
with the roughness of the sellers. 
“ He’ll rail like a rude coster-monger.”—( Beaumont 6° Fletcher's “ Scornful Lady?) 
“ Yonder are two apple women scolding and just ready to uncoif one another.”—( Arbuthnot 6° Pope.) 
The history of the apple during the middle ages, is chiefly to be gleaned from the incidental 
notices with reference to cider, which have come down to us. From these scant notices it would 
appear that the manufacture of cider was not confined to certain districts as it now is, since but 
little was known of the influence of the soil, or its quality, in those days. Where apples grew, and 
drink was scarce, cider was made. The first distinct notice of it as being made in England was 
in Norfolk ; the next we have is in Yorkshire. “ In 1282 the bailiff of Cowick, near Richmond, stated 
in his account, that he had made sixty gallons of cider from three quarters and a half of apples. 
(Hudson Trowers Archaeological Journal\ vol. v.) In these days no one would think of making it so 
far north. In Scotland it seems never to have been made, or used, to any extent. In the annals 
of the Lord High Treasurer of Scotland, edited by Thomas Dickson (1877), cider is only once 
mentioned, and then as being obtained for Peter Warbeck’s English Followers in 1497.” (Compotum 
Thesaurum regum Scotorum , vol. i., 1473-98). 
In a tract on Husbandry, written early in the XIV. Century, it is stated under the rubric 
