necessary helps to popular devotion are also to be found in the enrichments of architecture. A grotesque figure with outstretched arms, holding up the fish and the wassail bowl, may be considered as an appropriate type of the fasts and festivals of the Church in the eleventh century. This is shown on one of the capitals in the undercroft, or crypt, by no means the least interesting part of Canterbury Cathedral, the erection of which is attributed to Archbishop Lanfranc. It was from these rude attempts of art that the clergy derived the method of instruction in the due observance of church solemnities long before the invention of printing, and when manuscript books were not to be obtained but with difficulty and at great cost. It was the general demand for fish at stated seasons, when it formed the sole article of food, which contributed to the wealth and importance of the fish-merchants, who, as a guild, acquired consequence at a very early period in London. In the year 1298, in honour of the return of King Edward I. from his victory over the Scots, the citizens, every one according to their craft, proceeded through the city: the mystery of fishmongers on this occasion assumed the badges of their trade, and had four sturgeons, gilt, carried on horses; then four salmon of silver on horses; then forty-six armed knights, riding on horses like luces of the sea, followed by one in the character of Saint Magnus, with a thousand horsemen. To this saint the church in New Fish Street, or Fish-street Hill, was dedicated, and now bears on its front his statue: he was considered, probably, as the patron of the fishmarket. Billings-gate, a port for shipping, was not distinguished as a fishmarket until Parliament, in 1699, made it a free port for fish. The earliest charters extant in possession of the Fishmongers' Company, by King Edward III, confirm the grants immemorially made to them by his predecessors. In 1381, Sir William Walworth, a renowned fishmonger, then Mayor of London, slew the insurgent Wat Tyler in Smithfield, in the presence of King Richard II. His dagger is carefully preserved among the archives of the company, and the event was formerly commemorated in the city pageants during the mayoralty of a fishmonger. In "The Triumphs of London,"⁕ performed at the cost of the Fishmongers, upon the inauguration of Sir Thomas Abney, Lord Mayor in 1700, a horseman in armour, with a dagger in his hand, represented Sir William Walworth; the head of the rebel Wat Tyler being borne aloft on a pike before him. This was again displayed in 1740, when another of the Fishmongers' Company happened to be Lord Mayor. King Henry VI. united the Stockfishmongers and other branches of the trade, and incorporated the whole under the general name of the Fishmongers of London,† but they were again separated in the reign of Henry VII. The arms of the Saltfishmongers were gules, three crossed keys saltierwise or, on a chief azure three dolphins embowed argent. Their arms appear in stained glass in the western side of the splendid windows of the north transept of Canterbury Cathedral, together with the arms of the City of London and those of Thomas Bernwell, citizen and fishmonger, who was Sheriff in 1435.§ The Stockfishmongers bore for arms, azure, two sea luces in * Printed for R. Barnham, in Little Britain, 1700. Charter 11 Henry VI. § Willement's Heraldic Notices. 21 Henry VII. saltier, proper, with coronets over their mouths or the fish here intended is the hake, the merlucius of the naturalist, common on the southern coast of England, large quantities of which are preserved, both by salting and drying, for exportation, chiefly to Spain. The hake is described and figured by Rondelet of Montpelier, and was known to the older naturalists before him. These companies of merchants, amongst the most important of the city guilds, had no less than six Halls for the transaction of business, in regulating the fishery, and registering the men and crafts employed in it. Two Halls were situated in Old Fish Street, two in New Fish Street, near London Bridge, and two in Thames Street. The two companies of Salt and Stockfishmongers, both under the patronage of Saint Peter, were united in 1536, when they obtained a charter from King Henry VIII; but the company acts at present under the authority of a charter of incorporation, dated 2nd of King James I, to which the great seal of England is attached. This company formerly maintained three chaplains, and, besides being benefactors to the churches of Saint Peter, in West Cheap, and Saint Peter, in Cornhill, the southern aisle of Saint Michael's, Crooked Lane, was particularly distinguished as the Fishmongers' Chapel, or the Chapel of Saint Peter. The chaplains assisted at all their funerals, and the superb ornamental pall used on these occasions is yet preserved.⁕ It is made of a rich velvet with a broad fringe, and bears on its sides in embroidery the figure of Jesus Christ delivering the keys to Saint Peter, between the arms of the Fishmongers' Company as now * It resembles that belonging to the Sadlers' Company, which is engraved in Mr. Shaw's "Decorations of the Middle Ages," 1841. used; at the ends is represented the Apostle Saint Peter in pontificalibus: this is called "Walworth's Pall," but is evidently of the time of Henry VIII, when the arms were granted. The insignia now borne, an amalgamation of the two arms formerly used, were confirmed to the company by Robert Cooke, Clarenceux King of Arms in 1575; the grant of arms was again confirmed in the year 1634. The present Hall of the Fishmongers' Company was rebuilt in 1834; on the staircase is the statue of Walworth, by Peirce, and in one of the rooms are eight very curious and ancient pictures of fish, in all seasons, containing a hundred different sorts, but it is not known by whom painted. In the old Hall, destroyed by the fire of London, were arms in the windows of twenty-two Lord Mayors, of the Fishmongers' Company, from * Azure, three dolphins embowed in pale between two pair of sea luces saltierwise proper, crowned or; on a chief gules, six keys, in three saltiers, ward ends upwards, of the second. Crest, two arms supporting an imperial crown. Supporters, a merman and mermaid, the first armed, and the latter with a mirror in her left hand. Motto, "All worship be to God only." John Lovekin to Sir John Leman; and twenty-eight Lord Mayors, fishmongers and stockfishmongers, are enumerated by Strype, from the year 1349 to 1716.* Part of the wealth of the company is devoted to charitable purposes, and, among others, to the support of Saint Peter's Hospital at Newington, in Surrey, founded in 1618. The fishermen were incorporated by King James II. in 1687, but they never arrived at the opulence and distinction of the fish-merchants. Fish afford an inexhaustible harvest, ripe for gathering at all seasons of the year, without the labour of tillage, without expence of seed or manure, and without the payment of rent and taxes; yet Hard is the life the weary fisher finds, Who trusts his floating mansion to the winds, Long before the discovery of Newfoundland a very considerable fishery for cod was established off the Orkney and Shetland Islands, but the principal supply for the countries of Europe was obtained from Iceland and the coasts of Norway. Gules, a stockfish argent, crowned or, are the appropriate arms of Iceland. These arms are borne by the kings of Denmark in the royal achievement, illustrating in the simplest manner the source of a chief part of their revenue. All the seas of Denmark, of which the kings assume the sole dominion, are well stored with fish, and the regality is farmed: the predominance of dried fish in this country is noticed by the earliest voyagers, "Of Iseland to write is little nede, save of stockfish."+ Gules, three fish without heads or, arms quartered by the * History of London. + Hakluyt's Principal Navigations- &c. 1589. |