“In the manors of East and West-Enbourne in the Co. of Berks, and the manor of Torre in Devonshire, and other parts of the West of England, there is a custom, that when a Copyhold Tenant dies his widow shall have ‘Free Bench’ in all his customary lands ‘dum sola et casta fuerit,’ but if she commits incontinency she forfeits her estate. Yet nevertheless on her coming into the court of the manor, riding backwards on a _black ram_ with his tail in her hand and saying the words following, the steward is bound by the custom to readmit her to her free bench; The words are these:--
Here I am Riding upon a Black Ram Like a w----e as I am; And for my crincum crancum I have lost my bincum bancum; And for my T----’s game Have done this worldly shame. Therefore pray, Mr Steward, let me have my land again.
This is a kind of penance among jocular tenures to purge the offence.”
Though the ram is rarely, and the sheep never seen on the signboard, the LAMB is not uncommon. In 1586, it was the sign of Abraham Veale, (agreeably to the punning practices of the time, one would have expected the _Calf_ from him,) a bookseller in St Paul’s Churchyard, and in 1728 of Thomas Cox, also a bookseller, under the Royal Exchange in Cornhill. Doubtless, these signs had originally represented the Lamb with the flag of the Apocalypse. The sign was used by other trades: in 1673, it was the distinctive ornament of a confectioner at the lower end of Gracechurch Street;[266] and an instance of an alehouse is found in the following advertisement, which at the same time affords us a peep at the homely proceedings of the Admiralty in those days:--
“THIS is to give notice to the Officers and Company of His Majesty’s Frigate Boreas, who were on Board her at the taking the Ship Vrow Jacoba and Briggantyne Leon, that they will be paid their respective Shares of said Prizes, on Wednesday the Eight of April next, at the sign of _the Lamb_, in Abchurch Lane. Paying will begin at Eight o’clock of the forenoon of the said Day.”[267]
Think of that, ye clerks in Her Majesty’s offices, eight o’clock in the forenoon!
A few combinations also occur, as the LAMB AND BREECHES, the sign of Churches & Christie, leather-sellers and breeches-makers, on London Bridge, in the last century; this was a sign like that of the HAT AND BEAVER, in which the living animal, and the article manufactured from its skin, were juxtaposed. The LAMB AND CROWN was a sort of colonial or emigration office in Threadneedle Street, near the Southsea House in 1759.[268] At the present day there is a LAMB AND LARK at Keynsham, Bath, and in Printing House Lane, Blackfriars. It is a typical representation of the proverb, “Go to bed with the _Lamb_ and rise with the _Lark_.”