Cows
I’ve just read an anecdote about some Londoners who had never seen a cow before. It was from 1644. Ah! Pull back and reveal! My expectations were confounded…
The anecdote in question comes from Robert Harley, an officer in Sir William Waller’s army. His letter is mostly known as an eyewitness account of the battle of Cheriton, but sandwiched between a matter-of-fact relation of some minor skirmishing is the cow story (HMC, Portland, iii, 107):
The enemy faced us this day with about three thousand horse. Here you should have seen the Londoners runne to see what manner of thinges cowes were. Some of them would say they had all of them hoornes, and would do greate mischiefe with them, then comes one of the wisest of them cryeth ‘Speake softly’. To end the confusion of their opinions they pyled up a counsel of warr, and agreed it was nothing but some kind of looking glasse, and soe marched away. Wee had some light skirmishes but with little hurt on either side.
What’s going on here? Were there really 17th century Londoners who had never seen a cow? Surely Smithfield market was full of them (cows and Londoners!), and cows tended to be slaughtered at the butcher’s shop. Maybe there were some poor areas of the East End where nobody could afford beef so the butchers didn’t buy cows, but if that was the case it would imply that the residents never went very far from home. The countryside, the richer areas of London, and the livestock market at Smithfield should all have been within walking distance.
The alternative is that Harley was making it up or exaggerating for comic effect. In that case it might tell us something about stereotyping. Since he was from a gentry family (son of Sir Robert and Lady Brilliana Harley of Brampton Bryan) it wouldn’t be surprising if he had a negative view of the lower classes. But it could also be a case of rural against urban. Maybe the sterotype of ignorant townies goes back further than I thought.
Another possibility is that “cow” has some special meaning here – perhaps a different breed with bigger horns compared to the ones Londoners were used to seeing. Did the cows bred for the London meat market have their horns removed?
Ultimately I don’t really know what to make of it, but it’s definitely something to think about. Any suggestions welcome.
Comment by mercurius politicus — 7:29 am, 14 December 2007 [permanent link to this comment]
My understanding has always been that London would have been pretty full of livestock at this time, both in pastures dotted about the city and in terms of householders keeping a few animals (see here).
If you are interested in following up the “townie” stereotype you might want to look at an article by Tony Wrigley in Past and Present in which he argues there was a qualitative difference in the way Londoners behaved and appeared to that of people from elsewhere in England. Various others works have taken Wrigley’s ideas and considered them. But it would be interesting to know how much contact Robert Harley had with London – was he a member of one of the Inns of Court? Did his family spend time in London? etc
Comment by Cardinal Wolsey — 9:29 am, 14 December 2007 [permanent link to this comment]
Perusal of the Agas Map of early modern London at certainly reveals various livestock grazing in the fields – I guess it depends to what extent Londoners moved around the city at that time as to whether they came into contact; it’s certainly no faster now!.
A search for “Smithfield” on the same site also turned this interesting item on Cow Lane.
Comment by Gavin Robinson — 10:42 am, 14 December 2007 [permanent link to this comment]
This is all interesting. By the time of the civil wars the suburbs would have been bigger than in the Agas map, but still not so big that East Enders were completely cut off from the countryside or the cattle markets.
Also Erica Fudge suggests that in early modern England, unlike today, there were strong and obvious links between animals and meat: the body of the animal was left as intact as possible during preparation because people liked to know what kind of animal they were eating. She points out all kinds of anxieties about pies because you couldn’t be sure what was in them.
It wouldn’t be surprising if there was a cultural gulf between Londoners and rural people as the environment, and social and economic structures were so different (far more different than the chalk and cheese country which David Underdown suggested produced two rival cultures in the countryside). I tend to be suspicious of suggestions that in a particular period most people never went more than 10 miles from home (not least because the period varies according to what it’s being contrasted with! Some people say railways changed everything, other the First World War etc). If it was true in the seventeenth century the economy as we know it wouldn’t have been able to function. But that doesn’t mean that people weren’t insular. I’m quite prepared to believe that there were strong local and regional variations in culture which survived travel and mixing with non-local people. I’m not really going anywhere with this. The cow thing has just sparked off lots of random thoughts…