In all this there is much to remind us of the Roman _mancipatio_, a method of sale which demanded the presence of five witnesses, and in which the buyer took possession of his new purchase by holding in his hand a bronze ingot and repeating the formula: "This man [i.e., a slave] I claim as belonging to me by right quiritary; and be he [or he is] purchased to me by this ingot and this scale of bronze [i.e., that in which the purchase money had been weighed out]."
We have expressed the opinion that the payment of God's Penny was a symbolical act, and this opinion is supported by the fact that there were in mediæval England hand-clasp bargains. Marbeck, a musician and theologian of the sixteenth century, remarks: "As ye see: after all bargaines there is a signe thereof made, eyther clapping of hands or giving earnest." Among the provisions of the Grimsby charter of 1259 is one to the effect that only buyers of the said town might make bargains by hand-clasp for herring or other fish or for corn. To this was added that hand-clasp bargains were to be valid, unless the merchandise, which was the subject of such a bargain, should be inferior to that agreed upon--a question which has to be determined by men worthy of credit. In Shakespeare's "Henry V." we meet with the saying: "Give me your answer, i' faith, do; and so clasp hands _and a bargain_; how say you, lady?" This recalls that the joining of hands in the marriage ceremony is in the highest degree symbolical; and it is, of course, the common token of faith in friendship. Judging by these parallels, the payment of God's Penny was not less symbolical than its equivalent, the clapping or clasping of hands.
In the course of the preceding chapter reference was made to the illiteracy of our ancestors in its bearing upon trade usages. In the present chapter we propose to supplement this allusion by drawing attention to a feature of commercial life which was certainly influenced by, if not actually due to, the prevailing lack of education. The combination "Merchants' Marks" is so familiar as to suggest that such marks were used by merchants alone. This was by no means the case. Farmers also had their marks. "When a yeoman," says Mr. Williams, "affixed a mark to a deed, he drew a signum by which his land, cattle, etc., were identified"; and in Sussex, we are informed, the post-mortem inquisitions from the time of Henry VII. to that of Charles II. exhibit a large number of yeomen's marks--"other than crosses"--which were employed as signatures. Masons' and printers' marks are further varieties of the same mode of identification.