De Winter tells us, in his 1905 edition of Ben Jonson’s The
Staple of News, that St. Paul’s Walk — as the nave was called when used for
secular purposes — was open
‘for the principall gentry, lords, courtiers, and men of all
professions, not meerly mechanick, to meet in Pauls church by eleven, and walk
in the middle ile till twelve, and after dinner from three to six; during which
time some discoursed of businesse, others of newes. Now, in regard of the
universall commerce, there happened little that did not first or last arrive
here.’[1]
The literature of the time often refers to the Paul’s Walk
so obliquely that a modern reader might miss the reference. It was so well
known a part of London life that no explanations were needed.
The Walk was delightful fodder for playwrights. Most who
attended were easy subjects for satire. Already I’ve mentioned Jonson’s Staple.
Far more description is available in his Everyman Out of His Humour. One
of many running insider jokes seems to have been to refer to the Paul’s steeple
which actually did not exist. It was struck by lightning in 1561 and never
replaced.
It is difficult to know how much Shakespeare’s reference to
The Temple Walk in Henry IV, Part 2, was meant for laughs. Hal could as
easily have arranged to meet Falstaff at
Paul’s to present his orders for the battle against Hotspur & co. He was
certainly satisfied with worse anachronisms elsewhere in the plays.
As it is, The Temple Walk is every bit as much an
anachronism. Its sudden appearance, during the reign of Elizabeth, interfered
with Royal interests and it was brusquely quashed in order that Temple students
and legal activities might proceed without distraction.
Hal… Meet me to-morrow, Jack, i'
the Temple-hall
At two o'clock in th' afternoon:
There shalt thou know thy charge; and
there receive
Money and order for their
furniture.
One of the common types at the walk was the soldier looking
for new employment after the end of his previous obligations. The unemployed
captain would carry his battle weapon by way of advertisement. Such rendezvous
as that between Hal and Captain Falstaff were a common feature of the milieu.
Young gallants aiming at distinction wore the finest rapier
they could afford, as their advertisement, over haberdashery they might have
pawned or borrowed in order to buy. Reputations were made in such a way. At
least until tested.
Most were sons of fathers, commoners who had succeeded
financially in business and/or farming to an extent that was only becoming
possible in the 1590s. The character Sogliardo, in Jonson’s Everyman Out,
widely understood to be Shakspere of Stratford, is one such gallant. Even the Crown
must get in on the new source of revenue. One way was to create lineages which
might qualify the young man for a Coat of Arms. For a not inconsiderable price
to be divided among the Heralds and the Crown.
Conveniently, Queen Mary had given the Heralds Derby House
on nearby Paul’s Wharf, immediately to the south, for their College of Arms. It
is here we find Sogliardo and learn of yet another advantage to be derived from
walking Paul’s.
Puntavarlo…. when saw you Signior Sogliardo?
Carlo. I came from him but now, hee is at the Heraldes
Office yonder: he requested me to go afore and take up a man or two for him in
Paules, against his Cognisance was readie.
Punt. What? has he purchast armes then?
Car. I, and rare ones too: of as many Colours, as e're
you saw any fooles coat in your life.
Carlo has been sent to Paul’s to recruit witnesses for
Sogliardo’s lineage as prerequisite to sign for his Arms. Part of the joke here
is that they need not know him. They only need agree to swear. Paul’s implies
that such witnesses need be no problem.
For all that the playwrights and otherwise satirists pilloried the Walk at Paul’s, all levels of society regularly and eagerly participated. Paul’s was the rendezvous of all of male London. It was the post-graduate school for people watching.
Pauls Walke is the Lands Epitome, or you may call it the
lesser Ile of Great Brittaine. It is more then this, the whole worlds Map,
which you may here discerne in it's perfect'st motion justling and turning. It
is a heape of stones and men, with a vast confusion of Languages and were the
Steeple not sanctified nothing liker Babel. The noyse in it is like that of
Bees, a strange humming or buzze-mixt of walking, tongues and feet: It is a
kind of still roare or loud whisper. It is the great Exchange of all discourse,
and no business whatsoever but is here stirring and afoot. It is the Synod of
all pates politicke, joynted and laid together in most serious posture, and
they are not halfe fo busie at the Parliament.[2]
Rumor and news stopped there first. Half the time it was made
there. On top of which it was far and away the most entertaining available
daily activity.
[1] 136.
n.9. Cf. Osborne, Secret Hist. of King James, p. 209.
[2]
Earle, John. Microcosmos (1628. Arber ed., 1868). 73.
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