The Thames, Watermen, honest physical labourer, piers, pastoral figure, complaint, invective, humble, seventeenth century

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agrarian community in this way. Firstly, when placed alongside the stereotypical scold, and the pastoral figure of Piers, it becomes apparent that watermen represent another group of humble social status that are represented due to their being renowned for complaint, invective and low life flyting. ²⁴⁷ Secondly, the flyting took place before the creation of the Watermens’ Guild by statute in 1555 and therefore before the watermen attained the respectability of belonging to a profession. Like the agrarian community, watermen were perhaps suffering some financial hardship before 1555, since the reasoning for their elevation to professional status appears to have had something to do with the setting of fair prices for their services. ²⁴⁸ Both the agrarian commons and the urban watermen were perhaps in need of reforming employment legislation to protect their interests at the time of the Churchyard-Camel flyting. The representative waterman, as an outspoken but honest physical labourer whose livelihood is threatened, shares at least this with Piers/ Dycar.

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²⁴⁷ Watermen were reputed to be the sort of outspoken, vitriolic individuals readily associable with flyting. One seventeenth-century commentator recounts “gentlemen being baited by ‘whole kennels of yelping watermen’”, quoted by Joan Parkes, Travel in England in the Seventeenth Century (OUP, 1925), p.99 (source not given). Similarly, Walter Besant has the following to say about the profession in the sixteenth century: “They were notorious for their riotous conduct among themselves, their horrible language, and the foul abuse with which they pelted each other and the passengers in other boats”, The Thames (Adam and Charles Black, 1903), pp.5-6. This reputation possibly extended to mariners of all sorts. In The Tempest Shakespeare’s Boatswain is pilloried by Anthony as a “whoreson, insolent noise-maker!” during a brief exchange of insult between them (I.i.41).

²⁴⁸ Various bills disseminated around London in 1555 proclaiming the new status of the profession, each detailing the fixing of fares for journeys between different locations in the city. One of these sets The Prices of Fares and Passages to be Paide vnto Watermen from London to Grauesende, and likewise from Grauesende to London, and to Euery Common Place betwene, And also betwene London Bridge and Windesoure, and so to Euery Common Place of Landyng betwene London Bridge and Wyndesoure (printed by John Cawood, 1555), STC 16787.2.

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