SOCIAL POSITION OF PERSONS LICENSED

IN 50 of the 166 bonds executed in the years 1582 and 1583 the position of the bridegroom is either not described or doubtful. The persons specified in the remainder are 28 yeomen, 31 husbandmen, and 36 craftsmen of various kinds, such as tailors, smiths, bakers, carriers, and shoemakers, while the only members of the class usually associated with marriages by licence in ancient times are represented by 14 gentlemen and 6 clerks in holy orders. In a paper for "the regulation of licences for marriage and of fees "-probably drawn up in 1597-it was provided "That no person be licensed to marry, the Banns not thrice asked; unless he have in goods and Lands to the value of £10 in the Queen's Books. (It was an Hundred Marks, but blotted out, and £10 put in the place.)" It was ordered by the 101st canon (1603) that a licence should be granted "unto such persons only as be of good state and quality and that upon good caution or security taken."

1 Strype, Life of Whitgift, ii. 380.

XXVIII

THE PROHIBITED SEASONS

THESE restraints are of ancient origin, and it was a custom of the Romans to avoid marriage upon certain days. "Popular prejudice forbade any marriage to be solemnized in May, but we are quite ignorant of the origin of this superstition. The Kalends, Nones, and Ides of each month, and the day after the Kalends, Nones, and Ides were also avoided, as well as those days on which sacrifices were offered to the spirits of the dead, and all Dies Atri." In the early Christian church the restraints were applied to days and seasons of special religious solemnity. Weddings were prohibited during Lent by the Council of Laodicea in A.D. 365 (Canon 52).

One of the ordinances of the Council of Enham (or Eynesham near Oxford) in the year 1009 is as follows: "And ordeals, and oaths, and marriages, are always forbidden on high festival days and on regular ember-days; and from Adventum Domini till the octaves of the Epiphany; and from Septuagesima till xv. days after Easter. And at those holy tides, let there be, as is right, to all Christian men, general peace and concord, and let every strife be appeased, and if anyone owe another 'borh' or 'bot' on account of secular matters, let him willingly fulfil it to him, before or after." 2

In the sixteenth century, attempts were made to curtail the prohibited seasons then observed, the proceedings in Convocation showing that the church was not averse to the change.

I William Ramsay, A Manual of Roman Antiquities, 1894, p. 477. 2 Ancient Laws and Institutes of England-Laws of King Ethelred. Ordinances of the Witan," No. 25, p. 137.

"Of the

PROHIBITIONS AT VARIOUS TIMES 247

Among some "General notes of matters to be moved by the clergy in the next parliament and synod," dated 1562, is the following: "That it shall be lawful to marry at any time of the year without dispensation, except it be upon Christmasday, Easter-day, and six days going before, and upon Pentecost Sunday." In 1575 it was agreed "that the bishops take order that it be published and declared in every parish church within their diocese before the first day of May next coming that marriages may be solemnized at all times of the year. . . The queen probably ordered it to be erased, being unwilling to abandon the ancient custom of the church which prohibited the celebration of marriage at such seasons." 1

A recent writer says, "But it seems uncertain how far this prohibition ever obtained in England; there is no constitution on it or notice thereon except a gloss in Lyndwood. . . . But the Protestant Ayliffe observes that, admitting that banns are never published in Lent, yet by licence marriages are then solemnized, but as for the time of Advent which was never observed in our Church as a fast there is no foundation for such a prohibition with us.' . . . .. And the reason of this prohibition.. . . . is, that those who have wives ought at those times to be as those who have none, and therefore those who have none ought not to change the condition.'" 2

In Jacob's Law Dictionary, 1782, under the title " Marriage," it is stated that "Marriages are prohibited in Lent, and on fasting days, because the mirth attending them is not suitable to the humiliation and devotion of those times; yet persons may marry with licences in Lent, although the banns of marriage may not then be published." I have found no other authority for this further prohibition; but it is possible that, even without the authority of Canon Law, some of the clergy may have refused to publish banns during the prohibited seasons.

An account of these prohibitions is found in the parish register of South Benfleet, Essex: "To know the season when marriage is out of season. It goeth out on February 7 and

1 Cardwell, Synodalia, i. 133.

W. N. Geary, The Law of Marriage, p. 64.

comes not again till Low Sunday. It goeth out again on Rogation Sundaye and continueth out till Trinity Sundaye, from which time 'tis in season until Advent, when it goeth out until January 13th and continueth on thence 'till February 7th." In a letter, dated January 29th, 1900, the Revd. Charles Francis Box, Vicar of South Benfleet, informed me, in reply to my enquiries on the subject of the "Prohibited Seasons," that the entries of baptisms, etc., in the parish register commence in 1663; but that there is another date, "Anno Salutis 1662," with the name of the Vicar, "Jeffrey Philmead." The date of the entry as to the seasons for marriage is therefore uncertain.

The following record of a citation for marrying without licence is entered in the Visitation Book of the Worcester Consistory Court. The persons cited, Thomas Quynie and his wife, were married during a prohibited season. See pages 67 and 133-4:

WILLIAM BEESTON (16. .[?]-1682)

THE following are Aubrey's notes on William Beeston, whose name he mentions in his account of William Shakespeare:

"Did I tell you that I have mett with old Mr. . . . who knew all the old English poets, whose lives I am taking from him his father was master of the playhouse. The more to be admired, quaere he was not a company keeper; lived in Shoreditch; would not be debauched; and if invited to court, was in paine.

"W. Shakespeare-quaere Mr. Beeston, who knowes most of him from Mr. Lacy. He lives in Shoreditch at Hog Lane within 6 dores north of Folgate. Quaere etiam for Ben Jonson.

"Old Mr. Beeston, whom Mr. (John) Dreyden calls 'the chronicle of the stage,' died at his house in Bishopsgate Street Without, about Bartholomew-tyde 1682. Mr. Shipey in Somerset-house hath his papers."

Blank in MS., Aubrey forgetting the name at the moment.

2 46 Christopher Beeston, Shakspeare's fellow-comedian," Malone, Historical Account of the English Stage.

3"Brief Lives, Chiefly of Contemporaries, set down by John Aubrey between the years 1669 and 1696." Edited by Dr. Andrew Clark, i. 96-7. In a note the editor says: "The first part of the note seems to be a character of Beeston, the second part is a note of questions to be put to him."