Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 9.djvu/84

62 ale-wife. On attaining to the dignity of an alderman Sir John was ordered "to leve his kepyng of hostery and take down his signe apon payn of forfettour of ye payn provided" [Skaife MS. in York Public Library]. Only the previous year a civic ordinance of York had enacted that every person keeping an hostelry should have a sign over his doors before Ascension Day ['York Five Hundred Years Ago,' lecture delivered by the Rev. Angelo Raine at Railway Institute, reported in Yorkshire Herald, Jan. 20, 1921], but victuallers and brewers were prohibited from holding public offices of all kinds [Stat. 12 Ed. II., cap. 6,; 6 Rich. II., st. i., cap. 9. Hist. MSS. Comm. ix. 174, and xi. 3, 19] in order to protect the public from fraudulent administration of the laws concerning food. These laws were, however, everywhere evaded. The famous riot which occurred at Oxford on St. Scholastica's Day, 1357, started in a tavern which was kept by the mayor, for which offence he suffered excommunication. At Canterbury in 1507, within three years of the date on which John Petty at York had been ordered to "leve his kepyng of hostery," one Crompe, a brewer, having been mayor a year, returned to his former business on leaving office and went about busily canvassing the smaller retailers, promising that if they would sell Crompe's beer he would be their "very good master whatsoever they had to do in the Court Hall," and that he would see to it that their pots should not be carried off on charges of short measure to the Hall [Mrs. Green, 'Town Life in the Fifteenth Century,' vol. ii., pp. 62-63]. At a later date the laws against innkeepers holding public offices evidently fell into abeyance. John Beane, who kept a tavern, was Sheriff of York in 1538, and Lord Mayor in 1545, whilst Thomas Waller "yeoman and inn-keeper" and lord of the manor of Middlethorpe near York, was one of the Chamberlains of the city in 1565 [Skaife MS. in York Public Library]. Although John Petty is always styled "Sir" it does not appear how he acquired that distinction. Besides being the title of those who had attained to the honour of knighthood the word "Sir" was applied to priests [vide note, 12 S. viii. 324] who had a cure of souls, and to laymen who had taken degrees as Bachelors of Arts, in this case the word being a translation of "dominus"; but there is nothing to show that Sir John had received his education in a university, unless 'Caumerege,' the name of a place to which he bequeathed a sum of £4 13s. 4d. for Masses for the soul of one named Richard Robynson, is a corrupt spelling of "Cambridge." The late Dr. Purey-Cust, in his Walks Round York Minster' (p. 176) wrote: "I venture to think  that  John Pety  received the honour of knighthood as well as the Lord Mayor, Sir John Gilliott, when the Princess Margaret, the King's daughter, passed through York in the year 1503 to marry James IV. King of Scotland." Sir John Gilliott, however, was not knighted on this occasion, having already received that honour in 1500-1. [Skaife MS. in York Public Library]. Moreover John Petty does not describe himself as a knight in his will, which he certainly would have done had he borne the title, nor was he so described in the Latin inscription on the window erected to his memory in the Minster after his death; though according to the late Dean [ibid.] both Torre [MS. in the York Minster Library] and Drake ['History of York'] mention two inscriptions. One of these is said to have been on the rose window of the south transept, in which are shown the York and Lancaster roses conjoined, in allusion to the marriage of Henry VII. and Elizabeth of York, which was therefore executed subsequently to the year 1486. This inscription is said, by the above writers, to have read:—"This window was glazed by Sir John Pety, Knight, sometime Lord Mayor of the City of York, who died 8 November, anno Domini 1508." In this Dr. Purey-Cust or the authorities he quotes may have been mistaken, as if Sir John did the window, which is extremely likely, the inscription cannot have formed a part of the original glass as it describes his death, so must have been added after. Moreover the date is incorrect, as Sir John did not die on Nov. 8 but on Nov. 12, 1508, moreover "his mortal body" did not find "an appropriate resting-place beneath his work" (presumably the above rose window), for Sir John was buried in St. Michael-le-Belfrey Church, though it is possible it was to this edifice Dean Purey-Cust referred; as it is situated across the street and not fifty yards away from the window.

The most likely explanation of Petty's right to the title of "Sir" is found in the fact that he was made Lord Mayor of the city in 1508 and that his death occurred during his year of office. The position of