Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1897-06-24
SHOPPING LONG AGO.
BONE INTERESTING INFO RMATlON IN
"THE PASTOR LETTERS.v

COMMISSIONS winch wives Gave to Their
Husbands In the Fifteenth Century Have
aQuaint Appearance In This Axe-Dame
PASTOR as a Housewife.
In the spring Of 144O Dame Agnes
Pastor wrote to her fright worship
full and dear husband in haste, the
Wednesday next after Deus qui erranti-
bus" (the collect for the third Sunday
after Easter). Having commended the
gracious mien Of the young gentlewom-
an her son proposes to marry, she says:
1.-THE parscA of Stockton told me that
if ye would buy her gown her mother
would give thereto a goodly fur: the
gown needeth to be had, and Of color it
would DO goodly blue OR else bright
sanguine"
The Mistress Margaret Mauteby, for
whom this gown was "purveyed," be-
came the wife Of John PASTOR, and her
letters, covering nearly 80 years, are
noteworthy in that famous collection,
THE PASTOR Letters, which reveal so
many secrets OF bygone statecraft, but,
what is of more worth to rs now, Civ
ing glimpses Of household economy and,
by clear consolation, the inner life Of
the women of the period. Margaret Pas
ton appears as an active, prudent house
wife, looking into every detail of her
large establishment aud, from her hus-
bands prolonged absences, forced to as
sumo many masculine cares. She man
aged the several farms of their estate in
the Hundred of Tunstead, Norfolkshire.
She planned new buildings, armed and
defended her besieged hall, conducted
lawsuits and arranged the marriages of
her children and grandchildren. But,
withal, she was very woman, and it
is interesting to note the "ewig wei
bliche" running like thread of gold
through n long series Of letters.
The orders sent to her husband and
son, who were usually in London, for
various articles Of apparel are curious
to examine. That in her youth she was
fond Of all gauds may be guessed from
letter written not long after her mar
riage, when, inquiring infinitely of her
husbands health during some slight in
disposition, she had clever than a new
gowne, though it were of scarlette,"
that he recover. Her commissions are
usually very moderate and limited to
the plain necessities of everyday wear,
as for example:
81 pray you that ye would vouchsafe
to buy me some frieze to make of your
children's gowns. Ye should have best
cheap and best choice of Hays wife, as
it is told me. And that We would buy a
yard of broad cloth of black, for one
hood for me, of Add. or 4 shillings a
yard, for there is neither good cloth nor
good frieze in this town.
Yet this town was Norwich, the seat
of wooden factories from the time of
Henry I, their crude work later i'm
proved by the skill of Philippa's Flem-
ings Il was evidently the nearest mar
ket and the source of ordinary supplies,
for Dame Pastor had but just written,
May it please you to wit, was at
Norwich this week to purvey such
things as needeth me against this win
ter"
Worsted and its neighboring Kersey,
which gave their names to the fabrics
there made, were in the east of Nor
folk. In reference to the products of
the former Sir John writes from Lon
don to mime own dear sovereign lady"
81 pray ye you will send me hither
two ellis Of worsted for doublets to
happe me this cold winter, and that ye
inquire where William Pastor bought
his tippet of fine worsted, which is al
most like silk, and if that be much
finer than that ye should buy me after
2 or s shillings, then buy me a quarter
and the nail thereof for collars, though
it be dearer than the other, for I would
make my doublet all worsted for the
worship of Norfolk -
Sometimes a bit of feminine vanity
is seen, as when Lady Pastor writes
her husband:
Il pray you that ye would do your
cost on me against Whitsuntide that I
may have something for my neck. When
the queen was here, I borrowed my
cousin Elizabeth Clere's device, for I
dared not for shame go with my beads
among so many fresh gentlewomen as
were here at that time"
And Sir Johns memory for domestic
commissions was like other mems, for
in the next letter his wife prays him
that he 'vouchsafe to remember to pur-
vey thing for my neck and to do make
my girdle," and in still another, II
thank you that ye youchsafe to remem.
Der my girdle."
1t shows pleasant confidence and
the assurance of her absent husbands
interest in every side of her life that
she writes him infinitely of her plans in
making her gowns, saying: II pray you
that ye would vouohsafe to buy piece
of black buckrsm for to line with a
gown for me. should buy me MUIR
rey gown to go in this summer and lay
in the collar the satin that ye gave me
for a hood, and can get none good
buckram in this town to line it with. :"
The letter of her son William, writ
ten in 1859, gives as an idea of the out
fit for boy at Elton:
81 beseech you send me a hose cloth,
/ e.. L I