The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1897-06-29
SHOPPING LONG AGO.
BONE INTERESTING INFORMATION IN
1.-THE PASSION LETTERS"

Commissions Which Wives Gave to Their
Husbands In the Fifteenth Century Have
aQuaint Appearance In This Age-Dame
PASTOR as a Housewife
In the spring of 1440 Dame Agnes
PASTOR wrote to her fright worship
ful and dear husband" in haste. the
Wednesday next after Deus qui erranti-
bus" (the collect for the third Sunday
after Easterl. Having commended the
gracious mien of the young gentIewom-
an her son proposes to marry, she says:
The parson 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 be 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 90 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 us now, Civ
ing glimpses Of household economy and.
by clear connotation, 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 and, 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
lawsuitsan arranged the marriages of
her children and grandchildren. But,
Withal, she was very woman, and it
IS interesting to note the "ewig wei
bllche" running like a thread of gold
through 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
rage, when, inquiring infinitely of her
husbands health during some slight in
disposition, she had ''lever than a new
gowne, though 1t were Of scarlette,"
that he recover. Her commissions are
usually very moderate and limited to
the plain necessities Of everyday wear,
as for example
pray you that ye would vouchsafe
to buy me some frieze to make of your
chlldren's gowns. Ye should have best
cheap and best choice of Hays wife, as
it is told me. And that ye would buy
yard OF broad cloth Of black, for one
hood for me, of AID. or 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 l, their crude work later i'm
proved by the skill Of Philippians Flem-
lngs. 1t was evidently the nearest mar
ket and the source OF ordinary supplies,
for Dame PASTOR had but Just written.
May 1t 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 mine own dear sovereign Iady:''
i 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 firNot IF Ar,o xuo~.kol .-L{~L
most like silk, and if that be much
finer than that ye should buy me after
or shillings, then buy me a quarter
and the nail thereof for collars, though
1t be dearer than the other, for 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, l borrowed nv
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 vouohsafe to remem-
Der my girdle"
It shows a 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 We would vouchsafe to buy a piece
Of black buckram for to line with a
gown for me. should buy me muir
rey gown to 60 in this summer and lay
In the collar the satin that ye gave me
for hood, and / can get none good
in this town to line It with. "
The letter Of her son William, writ
ZEN in 1859, gives as an idea of the out
1t for boy at Elton:
Il beseech you send me hose cloth,
one for the holy days of some color and
one for the working days (how coarse
Ioever 1t be maketh no matter) and
and two shirts and pair of
slippers.
This masculine stomacher seems from
other scant mention thereof in early
writings to have been sort of skeleton
inner waistcoat, perhaps not much more
han the chest protector Of today.
There is no more vivid appreciation
# existing conditions of society than
hat which springs from their COMPARE
on with life relatively of the same de-
gree in another age and environment.
As suggestion of such fruitful study is
his glimpse of the shopping of Mar
yaret, later Lady PASTOR Of Caistor
Manor. New York Post.