PREFACE.
Table of Contents
If the ways and slang of Vagabonds and Beggars interested Martin Luther enough to make him write a preface to the Liber Vagatorum in 1528, two of the ungodly may be excused for caring, in 1869, for the old Rogues of their English land, and for putting together three of the earliest tracts about them. Moreover, these tracts are part of the illustrative matter that we want round our great book on Elizabethan England, Harrison's Description of Britain, and the chief of them is quoted by the excellent parson who wrote that book.
The first of these three tracts, Awdeley's Fraternitye of Vacabondes, has been treated by many hasty bibliographers, who can never have taken the trouble to read the first three leaves of Harman's book, as later than, and a mere pilfering from, Harman's Caueat. No such accusation, however, did Harman himself bring against the worthy printer-author (herein like printer-author Crowley, though he was preacher too,) who preceded him. In his Epistle dedicatory to the Countes of Shrewsbury, p. , below, Harman, after speaking of 'these wyly wanderers,' vagabonds, says in 1566 or 1567,
There was a fewe yeares since a small brefe setforth of some zelous man to his countrey,of whom I knowe not,that made a lytle shewe of there names and vsage, and gaue a glymsinge lyghte, not sufficient to perswade of their peuishe peltinge and pickinge practyses, but well worthy of prayse.
AWDELEY'S FRATERNITYE OF VACABONDES .
This description of the 'small brefe,' and the 'lytle shewe' of the 'names and vsage,' exactly suits Awdeley's tract; and the 'fewe yeares since' also suits the date of what may be safely assumed to be the first edition of the Fraternitye, by John Awdeley or John Sampson, or Sampson Awdeley,for by all these names, says Mr Payne Collier, was our one man known:
It may be disputed whether this printer's name were really Sampson, or Awdeley: he was made free of the Stationers' Company as Sampson, and so he is most frequently termed towards the commencement of the Register; but he certainly wrote and printed his name Awdeley or Awdelay; now and then it stands in the Register 'Sampson Awdeley.' It is the more important to settle the point, because ... he was not only a printer, but a versifier, and ought to have been included by Ritson in his Bibliographica Poetica. (Registers of the Stationers' Company, A.D. 1848, vol. i. p. 23.)
These verses of Awdeley's, or Sampson's, no doubt led to his 'small brefe' being entered in the Stationers' Register as a 'ballett':
"1560-1. Rd. of John Sampson, for his lycense for pryntinge of a ballett called the description of vakaboundes ... iiijd.
"[This entry seems to refer to an early edition of a very curious work, printed again by Sampson, alias Awdeley, in 1565, when it bore the following title, 'The fraternitie of vacabondes, as well of rufling vacabones as of beggerly, and as well of gyrles as of boyes, with their proper names and qualityes. Also the xxv. orders of knaves, otherwise called a quartten of knawes. Confirmed this yere by Cocke Lorel.' The edition without date mentioned by Dibdin (iv. 564) may have been that of the entry. Another impression by Awdeley, dated 1575 [which we reprint] is reviewed in the British Bibliographer, ii. 12, where it is asserted (as is very probable, though we are without distinct evidence of the fact) that the printer was the compiler of the book, and he certainly introduces it by three six-line stanzas. If this work came out originally in 1561, according to the entry, there is no doubt that it was the precursor of a very singular series of tracts on the same subject, which will be noticed in their proper places.]"J. P. Collier, Registers, i. 42.
As above said, I take Harman's 'fewe yeares'in 1566 or 7to point to the 1561 edition of Awdeley, and not the 1565 ed. And as to Awdeley's authorship,what can be more express than his own words, p. , below, that what the Vagabond caught at a Session confest as to 'both names and states of most and least of this their Vacabondes brotherhood,' that,'at the request of a worshipful man, I ['The Printer,' that is, John Awdeley] have set it forth as well as I can.'
But if a doubt on Awdeley's priority to Harman exists in any reader's mind, let him consider this second reference by Harman to Awdeley (p. , below:
A IACK MAN.
A Iackeman is he that can write and reade, and sometime speake latin. He vseth to make counterfaite licences which they call Gybes, and sets to Seales, in their language called Iarkes. (See also 'A Whipiacke,' p..)
Let the reader then compare Harman's own description of a Patrico, p. :
| Awdeley. | Harman. |
| A Patriarke Co. | there is a Patrico ... |
| A Patriarke Co doth make mariages, & that is vntill death depart the maried folke. | whiche in their language is a priest, that should make mariages tyll death dyd depart. |
And surely no doubt on the point will remain in his mind, though, if needed, a few more confirmations could be got, as
| Awdeley (p. ). | Harman (p. ). |
| A Palliard . | A Pallyard. |
| A Palliard is he that goeth in a patched cloke, and hys Doxy goeth in like apparell. | These Palliardes ... go with patched clokes, and haue their Morts with them. |
We may conclude, then, certainly, that Awdeley did not plagiarize Harman; and probably, that he first published his Fraternitye in 1561. The tract is a mere sketch, as compared with Harman's Caueat, though in its descriptions (p. ) of 'A Curtesy Man,' HARMAN'S CAUEAT: THE EARLY EDITIONS. 'A Cheatour or Fingerer,' and 'A Ring-Faller' (one of whom tried his tricks on me in Gower-street about ten days ago), it gives as full a picture as Harman does of the general run of his characters. The edition of 1575 being the only one accessible to us, our trusty Oxford copier, Mr George Parker, has read the proofs with the copy in the Bodleian.
Let no one bring a charge of plagiarizing Awdeley, against Harman, for the latter, as has been shown, referred fairly to Awdeley's 'small breefe' or 'old briefe of vacabonds,' and wrote his own "bolde Beggars booke" (p. ) from his own long experience with them.
Harman's Caueat is too well-known and widely valued a book to need description or eulogy here. It is the standard work on its subject,'these rowsey, ragged, rabblement of rakehelles' (p. , below, 'Apon Alhollenday in the morning last anno domini 1566, or my booke was halfe printed, I meane the first impression.' All Hallows' or All Saints' Day is November 1.
The edition called the second, also bearing date in 1567, is known to us in two states, the latter of which I have called the third edition. The first state of the second edition is shown by the Bodleian copy, which is 'Augmented and inlarged by the fyrst author here of,' and has, besides smaller differences specified in the footnotes in our pages, this great difference, that the arrangement of 'The Names of HARMAN'S
