The Testimony They Offered 400 Years Ago
Saturday 1st February
The days of Queen Elizabeth I and James I may seem an impossibly long time ago but then, as now, people did not always get along together – and a quick rummage through our archives provides examples of how this played out in the courts. Eleanor Guy of Steyning who, so the court records tell us, 'keepethe a vitulinge [victualling] house in Steyneinge' was called on to give evidence which must have been particularly embarrassing for the Vicar of Lancing. She claimed that she had no idea that the couple, who had spent the night in her inn on the Sunday after Easter in 1600, were the vicar of Lancing’s wife and a gentleman who was certainly not the vicar of Lancing. Her evidence was that they 'lodged all nighte togeather in one chamber and as this examinate beleevethe in one bedd . . . by reason they pretended & made themselves to be man & wife.'
Some years later a case came before the courts in which there was clearly no love lost between a woman called Sarah Bridge and a certain Thomas Nicholas, both of Steyning. Richard Farley, a shoemaker, gave evidence that at Candlemas [February 2nd] in 1620 'uppon a sabbeth day after evening prayers' they fell 'into some unkinde & unfrendly speeches' and talked 'somewhat loudly & angerly together' Thomas Nicholas, 'standing at the dore of widdow Fivens victualler', [you can get the picture] was shouting at Sarah Bridge as she and her husband stood at their own door on the other side of the street that she was a 'scurvy whore and a scurvy queane' – [‘queane’ with the ‘a’ meaning, at this time, a slut or a scold] – and that 'she gott her fine apparrell with her tayle'. Nothing if not outspoken. Apparently, there was an underlying disagreement between them about some hemp which Sarah and her husband had in their house and he, too, did not escape Thomas’s wrath. 'Thy husband', he shouted at Sarah, 'is a puritant rogue' – an insult meaning, at the least, someone with a ‘holier than thou’ attitude.
But several people spoke up for Sarah. One was Thomas Wilkins, a weaver, who said that he had 'knowne the said Bridge by the space of these seven yeares last past & that he never heard her ill spoken of all that tyme'.
A much less outspokenly contentious case involved the implementation of a will. In 1590 Thomas Langford the younger had been looking after his old dad, Thomas Langford the elder and his mother. They had separate smallholdings but when first Thomas the elder and then Thomas the younger died the executors of the will attempted to deny the family any of the proceeds. The evidence in the court case which followed suggests a caring relationship between the two Thomas’s. 'The said Langford the younger' the record shows 'did allways from tyme to tyme fynd olld langford & his wief bread corne [‘bread corn’ being wheat], drynkcorn [in this case ‘barley’] & mete & apparel.' Thomas Bolt, a tailor, confirmed that 'he made olld langford one payr of hose & a cote & olld Langfords wyf a gowne' for which Thomas the younger paid and that when he, the tailor, helped with the hay-making and at harvest time on old Thomas’s land it was again young Thomas who paid. The younger man did also 'plow, eare [‘eare’ is linked to the word ‘arable’ and, in this case it probably meant to ‘harrow’] & sow the ground & land of Thomas the elder & reape the corn, mow the gras & did all other thinges nedefull to be don on the land & aboute the hous.'
Above Image: 1846 sketch - Church Street
Although we don’t know the outcome of these cases the kindnesses shown by Thomas Langford the younger to his old father are heart-warming when set beside the other drab and quarrelsome cases.
Article by: Chris Tod - Steyning Museum.