Crime in London was rare. Murder, burglary, highway robbery, and
gross theft were punishable by hanging. Forgery, fraud, was
punishable by the placement in the pillory or stocks or by
imprisonment. Perjury was punished by confession from a high stool
for the first offense, and the pillory for the second. Slander and
telling lies were punished by the pillory and wearing a whetstone
around one's neck. There was an ordinance passed against
prostitutes in 1351. London as well as other port towns had not
only prostitutes, but syphillus.
Prominent Londoners sought to elevate their social position by
having their family marry into rural landholders of position. For
poor boys with talent, the main routes for advancement were the
church, the law, and positions in great households.
Many master freemasons, who carved freestone or finely grained
sandstone and limestone artistically with mallet and chisel, left
the country for better wages after their wages were fixed by
statute. The curvilinear gothic style of architecture was replaced
by the perpendicular style, which was simpler and cheaper to
build. Church steeples now had clocks on them with dials and hands
to supplement the church bell ringing on the hour. Alabaster was
often used for sepulchral monuments instead of metal or stone.
With it, closer portraiture could be achieved.
In the 1300s and 1400s the London population suffered from
tuberculosis, typhus, influenza, leprosy, dysentery, smallpox,
diphtheria, measles, heart disease, fevers, coughs, cramps,
catarrhs and cataracts, scabs, boils, tumors, and "burning agues".
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