they in wasshinge of their hoses and gounes, that they myght not come to the begynnynge of the dyner. Every one demanded and asked after them, but no body coulth tell of them. At the last, they came as the firste mes or cours was eten, and after they hadde token their refection, and well dronken, they began to tell and recounte how they felle in the myre unto the knees," &c.

Having spoken also of the legends in the work, we must, in justice, quote one of his moral apologues. The truth which it illustrates is not very recondite, being simply, that ladies should not accustom themselves to gormandize in the absence of their lords. It is curious, however, as a specimen of the simplicity to which the good knight's mind occasionally descends. There can be no doubt that it was written, and perhaps read, with perfect seriousness; but it is an instance that, in the progress of the human mind, the gravities of one age occasionally become the levities of another.

"There was a woman that had a pie in a cage that spake, and wolde tell talys that she sawe do. And so it happed that her husbonde made kepe [kept] a grete ele in a litell ponde in his gardin, to that intent, to yeve it sum of his frendes, that wolde come to see hym. But the wyff wanne her husbonde was oute, said to her maide, late us ete the grete ele, and y wol saie to my husbonde, that the otour hath eten hym; and so it was done. And whanne the good man was come, the pie began to tell hym, how her maistresse had eten the ele. And he yode to the ponde, and founde not the ele; and he asked his wiff where the ele was become. And she wende to have excused her, but he saide [to] her, excuse you not, for y wote well ye have eten it; for the pie hath tolde me. And so there was grete noyse between the man and his wiff, for etinge of the ele; but whanne the good man was gone, the maistresse and the maide come to the pie, and plucked off all the fedres on the pyes hede; saieing, thou hast discovered us of the ele; and thus was the poore pie plucked. And ever after, whanne the pie sawe a balled or a pilled man, or a woman with an high forehede, the pie saie to hem, ye spake of the ele.""

Notices relative to the Early History of the Town and Port of Hull, compiled from original Records and unpublished Manuscripts, and illustrated with Engravings, Etchings, and Vignettes. By Charles Frost, F.S.A. 4to. pp. 150. Appendix, pp. 50. Nichols. £2.

In acquainting his readers with the motive of his work, Mr. Frost has also informed them of the cause in which it originated; and it is pleasing to find a solicitor possessed of sufficient attachment to his native town to devote any portion of his time to the elucidation of its early history. We are told that the only

object he had in view was to prove that Hull was of considerable commercial importance long before it is commonly supposed to have existed: hence as the volume is not intended to be a history which would gratify the general reader, it will not be expected that its contents afford much that is suited for extracts; for few persons would peruse records that can interest those only who are intimately connected with the place to which they relate. Although it is impossible to follow the author in that regular way which justice to him perhaps requires, but which consideration both for our reader's patience and the limits to which we are confined render impossible, we hope to give a fair, though brief, account of his labours.

The first chapter of these "Notices" is appropriated to a review of the authorities concerning the early history of Hull. Leland, who visited it about 1538, says, in the tyme of Edward the Third it was a meane fischar toune, and longid to Haselle villayge" that" in Richard the Second's dayes it waxid very rich;" and that "Richard de la Pole, marchaunt of Hulle," having risen in the king's favour by his "wit, actyvite, and riches," was made earl of Suffolk, and obtained numerous grants and privileges for the town, when it was "wonderfully augmented yn building." Camden appears to have trusted implicitly to Leland; but Speed," who probably had references to more authentic sources of information," says, "Kingstoun upon Hull cannot fetch her beginning from any great antiquity, being before time called Wyke. King Edward the First built this town, making a haven and granting many privileges to the burgesses, so that it is risen to great state," &c.

Between the years 1698 and 1701, the Rev. Abraham de la Prynne investigated and arranged all the ancient records of the corporation, of which he made a copious analytical index, and "compiled from them a regular connected detail, which has formed the basis and ground-work of all subsequent accounts and histories of the town." His lucubrations, of which it is manifest the present historian of Hull thinks very contemptuously, exist in manuscript only; a copy of them occurs in the British Museum in the Lansdown collection 1.

In his third chapter Mr. Frost treats of the name and state of Hull previous to 1296, in which year his predecessors supposed it to have been founded. He informs us that its ancient name was Wyke, or Wyke upon Hull; that though it is not mentioned by name in Doomsday Book, it was a considerable port within a century after the compilation of that record, and probably at a much earlier period; and contends, that the evident deduction

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of the name of Wyke from the Saxon word pic "indicates the existence of the town in Anglo-Saxon times." Wic, or Wick," he continues," according to Verstigan, signifies a place of refuge or retreat, and is frequently found as a termination in the names of towns and villages in the district of Holderness," of which he adduces several examples.

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The earliest document relating to Wyke, which the author has discovered, is a grant without date of lands" del Wyke de Mitune," to the monks of Melsa, about the year 1160, and of which a fac simile is given. That charter notices a town of Myton," which is also mentioned in records of more recent date; but no trace of it is now to be found. "It is probable," he says, "that it was absorbed in the increase of Wyke or Hull, but it is remarkable that neither any written document, nor the busy agency of tradition, has even marked the spot where it stood, or left any ground for conjecture under what circumstances, or at what period, it ceased to exist1." Of the name of Hull we are told,

"But, besides the name of Wyke, the town was contemporaneously called Hull, as it is at the present day, from the port or river upon which its commerce was conducted; and, from the early use of the latter appellation, it may fairly be inferred that considerable mercantile traffic was there carried on at a period long antecedent to the date of any historic evidence now extant on this subject. The proofs that the name of Hull was applied to the town, in common with the port, are of the same kind with those which have been adduced with respect to the existence of the town under the name of Wyke. The book of Meaux furnishes some early instances where Hull is mentioned as a place of residence "."

Early in the reign of Edward the First, the abbot of Meaux prayed that he and his successors might have a weekly market and yearly fair at Wyke, near Mitton upon the Hull; which petition the author considers as proof of the importance of Wyke, both as a town and place of trade at that period; but in this conclusion we cannot wholly agree with him, for grants of that nature were then frequently bestowed upon very insignificant places. According to the histories of the abbey of Meaux, Edward the First was very desirous to have its possessions in his hands; and he consequently effected an exchange with the abbot, by a deed of feoffment, in February, 1293, when the whole of its lands became vested in the crown. No sooner had the king acquired the absolute ownership of Wyke, than he changed its name, and honoured it with the royal appellation of Kingston, or King's Town upon Hull; and having put it under the govern

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ment of a warden (custos) and bailiffs, he made it a manor of itself, independent of Myton." The first instance in which we meet with the new name is in a writ of ad quod damnum, dated 5th Nov. 22 Edw. I., 1294, directed to the king's bailiffs of Kyngeston super Hull." The rental affixed on the royal property thus acquired by Edward the First was 781. 17s. 8d., which is deemed to be ample evidence "of the magnitude and importance of the town at that early period." The towns of Kingston-upon-Hull and Ravenser sent a deputation to the king at Christmas, 1298, to petition him to constitute those places free boroughs; and their suit was attended with success. For the privileges thus conferred upon them, the inhabitants of Kingston-upon-Hull offered one hundred marks, whilst those of Ravenser paid no less than 3001.; a circumstance that admits but of one of these conclusions, either of which tend to prove the much greater consequence of Ravenser than Hull namely, that the people of Ravenser could afford to pay dearer for these advantages from being a far more opulent town, or that from its having infinitely more commerce, those immunities were of so much greater importance to them, that they were taxed in proportion to the benefits they would derive from the concession. But Mr. Frost is too deeply prejudiced in favour of Hull to draw such an inference; and as we differ entirely from his opinion, we shall give his explanation in his own words:

:

"This disparity affords no criterion for determining the relative importance of the two places. Ravenser had risen suddenly to the enjoyment of considerable commercial prosperity, and had become a formidable rival to the king's ports of Grimsby, Hedon, and Scarborough. Its merchants, neglecting no means of increasing their traffic, were ready to purchase their liberties at a price equivalent to the privileges to be conferred; while Hull, on the other hand, would naturally avail itself of the peculiar claim which it had on royal favour, in the circumstance of having so recently become the property of the king. To the relative situation, therefore, of the two places in this respect may be attributed the regulation of the amount of the fines in the proportion mentioned. As a further proof that the disparity in the amount of these fines depended more upon some such circumstance as we have alluded to, than on the ability of the parties to discharge them, it may be observed that the people of Hull paid a moiety of their fine immediately, and the remaining part in the following year, while the burgesses of Ravenser in the first year paid only 367. out of 300/., leaving the remainder in charge in the sheriff's account until the 31st Edw. I."-Pp. 55—57.

The first part of this passage appears to support our argument, as the commercial prosperity of Ravenser is admitted; and with respect to Hull "availing itself of the peculiar claim it had on the royal favour," we have only to remark, that the "royal favour" would have weighed but little against so fair an

opportunity for increasing the king's treasury, had the state of the town admitted of a heavier tax. The circumstance of the people of Hull paying a moiety of their fine, i. e. 50 marks, or about 167. 13s. 4d. immediately, though those of Ravenser, in the first year, paid only 367. out of 300%., leaving the remainder in charge in the sheriff's account until the 31st Edw. I., affords no support to his argument; for if the inhabitants of Kingstonupon-Hull were as able as those of Ravenser to pay 3001, though, from the "royal favour," only 331.6s. 8d. were demanded, they would assuredly have raised the whole of so small a sum at once. The author forgets, also, that the instalment in one year from Ravenser more than equalled what Kingston paid within the same time, notwithstanding it formed but a tithe of their whole fine.

The eagerness with which every fact is seized upon that can by possibility be construed into evidence of the estimation in which Hull was held in the thirteenth century, is sometimes amusing. The establishment of the mint at Hull, when one was in full operation at York, is considered not only a decided mark of the increasing prosperity of the town, but of the peculiar favour which was bestowed upon it by its royal proprietor, of which partiality additional proof is found in the king's visiting it in May, 1300." The high road northward (via regia) lay at that time in a direct line from Hessle to Beverley; but the king took a circuitous route thither solely for the purpose of viewing the state of his newly erected borough of Hull1." Neither of these statements can be relied on, and one of them is wholly gratuitous, because we have no positive information of Edward's motive for visiting Hull. Other causes besides the king's favour possibly induced the government to establish a mint at Hull, though it is certainly some proof that it had then become a town of consideration, a point upon which all its historians are agreed; but that any thing like attachment for his newly erected borough influenced Edward to visit it on that occasion is highly improbable, especially as his residence "did not exceed a day," in which time he could scarcely have had leisure to gratify those feelings of interest in its improvement which are so confidently imputed to him. If we are to indulge in speculation as to the cause of that visit, it may with much greater probability be attributed to his meeting his navy there, but nothing was more uncertain than Edward's routes in his northern expeditions; and that he sometimes preferred the coast to the main road, is evident from his journey to Scotland in 1296. The fifth chapter treats "of the buildings, streets, and

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* See a Narrative of Edward's Route to Scotland in 1296, in the Archæologia, vol. xxi.