Pepys, in his "Diary," under date 15th of November, 1660, records: "To Sir W. Battens to dinner, he having a couple of servants married to-day; and so there was a great number of merchants, and others of good quality, on purpose after dinner to make an offering, which, when dinner was done, we did, and I did give ten shillings and no more, though I believe most of the rest did give more, and did believe that I did so too."

CHAPTER XIV.

The Banns.-Fleet Marriages.-Marriage by Licence.-Marriage during the Commonwealth.-Marriage proclaimed by the Bellman.-Marriage Tax.— Second Marriages.-Persecutions of Persons Twice Married.-Butchers' Serenade.-Instances of frequent Marriages.-Marriage Toll.-Brides' Seat. -Parish Clerk's Responses.-Wedding Psalm.-Wedding Pies.-Marriage Settlements.-Wife Selling and Leasing.-Marriage of the Deaf and Dumb. -Superstitions relating to Marriage.-Hen Drinking.-Shoe Throwing.The Petting Stone.-Marriage Stone-Bell Custom.-Wedding Cards.

THE

HE institution of the publication of marriage by banns is mentioned by us at p. 204. A statute of the twenty-sixth year of George II. enacted that the banns should be regularly published three successive Sundays in the church of the parish where the parties were for the time residing. This act seems to have originated out of the evils of the Fleet marriages, which were unlicensed and informal unions. These infamous marriages appear to have been founded by the incumbents of Trinity, Minories, and St. James's, Duke's Place, who claimed to be exempt from the jurisdiction of the Bishop of London, and therefore performed marriages without banns or licence, until Elliott, the rector of St. James's, was suspended in 1616, when the trade was carried on by the clerical prisoners living within the Rules of the Fleet. These disreputable men solicited passers-by for patronage, and celebrated the rites of marriage in alehouses and garrets. The legislature appear to have been very slow to check this evil, and the above-mentioned act was passed against much opposition. The earliest Fleet register is dated 1613, and

the last in 1754, when the system was abolished. May Fair and the Savoy in London, and the Canongate in Edinburgh, were rivals to the Fleet in respect of clandestine marriages. In 1750-4 one Keith regularly advertised in the newspapers that at his chapel in May Fair, "marriages (together with a licence on a five-shilling stamp and certificate) are carried on for a guinea as usual, any time till four in the afternoon.'

Gregory the Great is reputed to have been the first pontiff who granted dispensations for marriages. Marriages by licence were obliged to be celebrated in a church, probably on consideration that, as the licensed persons had avoided the publicity of banns, they ought to be married openly. Archbishop Secker, the primate between 1758 and 1768, originated the arrangement of special licenses, which dispensed with both time and place.

During Cromwell's protectorate, the Little Parliament of 1653 declared that marriage was to be merely a civil contract; forbade the use of the Book of Common Prayer, and interdicted the clergy from performing any of the offices of the church under severe penalties. Provision was made for the future registration of marriages, and in all cases the names of parties intending to be married were directed to be given to the registrar of the parish, whose duty it was to proclaim them either in church after morning service on three successive Sundays, or in the marketplace on three successive market days, according to the wish of the parties. They also professed in the presence of a justice of the peace their mutual desire to be married. Usually the proclamation was made in the market-place by the bellman. As an example of the operation of this new marriage law, we may mention that the parish registers of Boston, in Lincolnshire, show that during the years 1656, 1657, and 1658 respectively the numbers of marriages pro

claimed in the market-place were 102, 104, and 108, and of those announced in the church, 48, 31, and 52. The act continued in operation until 1658, when persons were allowed to adopt the accustomed rites of religion if they preferred them.

In 1695 (6 & 7 Will. III. cap. 6) was passed “an act for granting to his Majesty certain rates and duties upon marriages, births, and burials, and upon bachelors and widows, for the term of five years, for carrying on the war against France with vigor." In 1784 a similar charge was imposed on persons who entered the nuptial state. Evelyn, writing in the former year, says: "No sermon at church, but after prayers the names of all the parishioners were read, in order to gathering the tax of 4s. for marriages, burials, &c. A very imprudent tax."

By the early Christian church second marriages were much discouraged, and they were considered to be disgraceful. The nuptial benediction and crown were not bestowed upon those who contracted more than one marriage. In a very ancient collection of various cases of penance, persons who entered upon a second or third marriage were enjoined to fast for thirty-three weeks. Such persons were often subjected to libels, songs, and insults, made in the night, and hence called Noctivalia.

In France it was the practice to molest a woman who married a second or third husband with a morning serenade of pots and kettles, called a charivari. Although the church protested against more than one marriage, it tried in vain to defend widows and widowers who chose to enter the matrimonial state a second time. Thus, a synodal order of the Archbishop of Lyons, in 1577, excommunicated the persons who were guilty of "marching in masks, throwing poisons, horrible and dangerous liquids before the door, sounding tambourines, doing all kinds of dirty things

they can think of, until they have drawn from the husband large sums of money by force."

In ancient times in England great families married among themselves, and a plebeian was persecuted by the nobles if he married a lady of high position. The people, moreover, always manifested a strong aversion to ill-assorted marriages; and in such cases the couple were accompanied to the church by men and boys sounding bells, saucepans, and frying-pans; or this noisy concert would be reserved for the night, before the house of the married pair. Among ourselves in later years it was common for drummers and trumpeters to go before daybreak and serenade nearly all newly-married couples, and these self-appointed musicians were to be silenced only with a bribe.

In the last century the butchers of London serenaded, with marrow bones and cleavers, all the newly-married couples they knew of. Frequently the cleavers were ground down to a certain note, and, being well played, a tune could be produced. The men were often clean and decently dressed, and adorned with wedding favors of white paper. They expected and insisted upon a fee in return for their music. Hogarth introduces a set of these butchers in his "Marriage of the Industrious Apprentice." At the present time "rough music" is a common adjunct to a wedding in low life. Probably these customs originated in the usage of the classical ancients of having musicians to play in the streets at their weddings, and in the singing of the Egersis by the Greeks. However that may be, it is certain that in modern days the rude serenading is a mere artful device to compel married couples to give money for its forbearance.

The fulminations of the church, and the vulgar protests of the people against second marriages, certainly have failed to suppress the practice; and there are many recorded