Now! Then! 2024! - Yorkshire On This Day

Excerpt

These are in his Majesty’s name to command you to levy upon the several goods of the hereunder written the several sums hereunder written and set upon their heads, being assessed and rated upon them towards the relief of the poor infected people in Hull, being in arrear and to be disposed on for and towards the relief of the poor of diverse towns infected with the plague within this riding; by way of distress and sale of their said goods, rendring unto the owners the overplus that shall remain upon your said sale; and if any of the said persons have not sufficient goods whereby the said sums may be levied by way of distress, that then you bring such person or persons before some of his Majesty’s Justices of Peace of this Riding to be by them ordered according to law, hereof fail ye not at your perils; given under our hands and seals the 16th day of July 1638. Mar. Langdayll. Phyl. Stapylton. Of Henry Best 12s. Of William Whitehead 5s. 4d. Of William Pinder 3s. 4d. Of Edward Lynsley 3s. 4d. To the Constable of Elmswell.

Comment

Comment

Andrew Marvell’s family were in Hull at the time. Stewart Mottram:

Marvell survived some of the most severe epidemics of plague in the seventeenth century, in Cambridge (1636) and London (1665), and his family had direct experience of Hull’s great plague of 1637–38 and were shut up on ‘suspicion of the infeccion’ in autumn 1637.5 Marvell’s father, the Reverend Andrew Marvell (c.1584–1641), wrote several surviving plague sermons in Hull in 1637–38, and plague also shapes the metaphors of Marvell’s own poetry, notably in Marvell’s Latin commendatory poem to the Hull physician, Robert Witty’s translation of James Primerose’s Popular Errours (1651). In his poem, Dignissimo suo Amico Doctori Wittie, Marvell alludes to Primerose’s commentary in Popular Errours on the ‘errour’ that tobacco was a preservative against the plague, with Marvell instead proposing smoking as a remedy for the ‘base plague [improba scribendi pestis]’ of writing, because the paper of printed books provided convenient spills for lighting pipes.6 (Mottram 2022)

The poem (th link page bottom is not to a translation, but to another poem by Marvell):

Nempe sic innumero succrescunt agmine libri,
Saepia vix toto ut jam natet una mari.
Fortius assidui surgunt a vulnere proeli:
Quoque magis pressa est, auctior Hydra redit.
Heu quibus Anticyris, quibus est sanabilis herbis
Improba scribendi pestis, avarus amor!
India sola tenet tanti medicamina morbi,
Dicitur et nostris ingemuisse malis.
Utile Tabacci dedit illa miserta venenum,
Acri1 veratro quod meliora potest.
Jamque vides olidas libris fumare popinas:
Naribus O doctis quam pretiosus odor!
Hâc ego praecipua credo herbam dote placere,
Hinc tuus has nebulas Doctor in astra vehit.
Ah mea quid tandem facies timidissima charta?
Exequias Siticen jam parat usque tuas.
Hunc subeas librum Sancti ceu limen asyli,
Quem neque delebit flamma, nec ira Jovis.

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Original

THE MANNER OR FORME OF A DISTRINGAS OR LEVY.

East Riding: Com: Eborum. These are in his Majesty’s name to commaund you to levy upon the severall goods of the hereunder written the severall summes hereunder written and sette upon theire heads, beinge assessed and rated upon them towards the releife of the poore infeckted people in Hull, beinge in arreare and to bee disposed on for and towards the releife of the poore of divers townes infeckted with the plague within this ridinge; by way of distresse and saile of theire said goods, rendringe unto the owners the overplus that shall remaine upon your said saile; and if any of the said persons have not sufficient goods whearby the sayd summes may bee levyed by way of distres, that then you bringe such person or persons before some of his Majesty’s Justices of Peace of this Ridinge to bee by them ordered accordinge to lawe, hereof faile yee not att your perills; given under our handes and seales the 16th day of July 1638. Mar. Langdayll. Phyl. Stapylton. Of Henry Best 12s. Of William Whitehead 5s. 4d. Of William Pinder 3s. 4d. Of Edward Lynsley 3s. 4d. To the Constable of Elmswell.
J.B.

225 words.

Tags

Tags are assigned inclusively on the basis of an entry’s original text and any comment. You may find this confusing if you only read an entry excerpt.

• Best, Henry (approx. 1592-1645) (16) ·
• East Riding of Yorkshire (66) ·
• 📌Elmswell, East Riding of Yorkshire (19) ·
• 📌Kingston upon Hull (65) ·
• Marvell, Andrew (1621-78) (5), metaphysical poet, satirist and politician, friend of John Milton, born near Hull ·
• Plague (disease) (2) ·
• Yorkshire Wolds (23) ·

All tags.

Similar

• 11 May 1641: William Simpson of Little Driffield takes a break from threshing to shear Henry Best’s sheep at Elmswell
• 19 August 1641: Henry Best of Elmswell (Driffield) begins to harvest mixed grain, and gleaners wait in the wings
• 16 September 1641: Henry Best of Elmswell (Driffield) begins to harvest peas, and describes the technique required
• 7 July 1641: Henry Best of Elmswell (Driffield) starts haymaking
• 1 April 1641: Henry Best of Elmswell (Driffield) weighs his wool for a purchaser from Beverley
• 22 November 1641: Snow falls at Elmswell (Driffield), and sheep farmers jostle for low ground and feed
• 18 November 1641: How Henry Best of Elmswell (Wolds) got his straw into optimal condition for the arrival today of the thatcher
• 3 May 1641: On the day of the discovery of the True Cross, Driffield folk start moving their livestock out of town to high summer pasture, endangering crops
• 5 November 1641: Henry Best of Elmswell (Driffield) lays his wagons up for the winter
• 4 November 1641: Henry Best of Elmswell (Driffield) boils tar and pitch to mark his sheep