Traitor (53 page)

Respectable townsfolk were both afraid of them – and fascinated by their lifestyle, much in the way we now find old-time pirates glamorous.

In 1565, the printer and writer John Awdeley brought out a small volume entitled
The Fraternitye of Vacabondes
, which was so popular that it was immediately reprinted – and then brought out again ten years later. His book was followed by Thomas Harman’s equally famous
Caveat
, published in 1567.

Both men claimed to have talked extensively with vagabonds to obtain their information, and there are great similarities between their accounts.

A Vagabond Who’s Who

This is the hierarchy of the vagabond bands, as outlined by Awdeley (and modernised and shortened by this author):

Upright Man:
One that goes with a staff. He has so much authority that meeting with any of his profession he may call them to account and command a share of all that they have gained. And if he do them wrong, they have no remedy against him, even though he beats them. He may also command any of their women, which they call doxies, to serve his turn.

Curtall:
Much like an upright man, but his authority is not so great.

Kitchen co:
an idle, renegade boy.

Kitchen mort:
A girl. She is brought at her full age to the Upright Man to be broken, and so she is called a doxy, until she comes to the honour of an Altham [the wife of a Curtall].

Abraham Man:
He walks bare-armed and bare-legged, and feigns himself mad and calls himself Poor Tom.

Ruffler:
Carries a weapon and seeks work, saying he has served as a soldier in the wars. But his main trade is robbing poor wayfarers and market women.

Prigman:
Steals clothes and poultry and carries them to the alehouse, which they call the boozing inn, and there sits playing at cards and dice until he spends all he has stolen.

Lackman:
One that can read and write and sometimes speak Latin. He makes counterfeit licences [i.e., to prove he has permission to beg alms], which they call ‘gybes’.

Whipjack:
He uses counterfeit licences to beg as though he were a mariner, but his chief trade is to rob booths at a fair, which they call ‘heaving of the booth’.

Frater:
He goes with a licence to beg alms for a hospital and preys upon poor women.

Quire bird:
One that came lately out of prison and goes to seek work in service. He is commonly a stealer of horses, which they term a Prigger of Palfreys.

Washman:
Also called a palliard [one who wears a patched cloak]. He lies in the path, begging with lame or sore legs or arms, bitten with spickwort and sometimes with ratsbane.

Patriarch co:
He makes marriages, until death do part the married couple, which happens like this: when they come to a dead horse or any dead cattle, then they shake hands and so depart.

Abram:
naked

Betty:
picklock

Bleating cheat:
sheep

Bubble-buff:
bailiff

Bube:
pox

Chive:
knife

Clapperdudgeon:
someone born a beggar

Collar the cole:
lay hold of the money

Cull:
a fool

Dads:
old man

Dell:
a young wench not yet broken by the Upright Man

Elf:
little

Fambles:
Hands

Fencer:
receiver of stolen goods

Fog:
smoke

Gage:
excise man

Grub:
food

Hog:
shilling

Horsebread:
poor-quality bread made of beans or bran, designed for horses

Hum:
strong

Jem:
ring

Jet:
lawyer

Kick:
sixpence

Kin:
thief

Leake:
Welshman

Mauks:
whore

Mish:
smock

Mort:
a female

Mort of Rome:
the Queen of England

Nan:
maid of a house

Nap:
an arrest

Nimming:
stealing

Nip a bung:
cut a purse

Otter:
sailor

Plant the whids:
mind what you say

Popps:
pistols

Ruffmans:
woods

Rumbo ken:
pawnbroker

Rum mort:
fine woman

Shark:
to swindle; prey upon

Smeer:
painter

Snaffler:
highwayman

Tip:
give

Tit:
horse

Tom Pat:
parson

Tout:
take heed

Tripe:
belly

Wobble:
to boil

Yam:
to eat

Yelp:
town crier

Zad:
crooked