Bringing in the Fly!' 199
from St. Barthelmew's [sic] hospital with much more grace and solemnity." ^
Crosfield, of Queen's College, in his diary ^ for 1626, mentions what is evidently the same custom, — " May 30, Whitson-Tuesday, ye rideing of Cookes," — but, here again, without any explanation.
The earliest allusion that I have yet found is in the Register of the University for 1463.^ It is headed " Co- quorum Annualis equitatio," and states that Thomas Dalton and Tibot Coke, proctors of the Guild (artis) of cooks of the University, lodged a complaint with the Commissary of the University, against one John Coke, "de domo S. Johannis extra portam Orientalem.'"^ He had, they said neglected to provide certain wax candles, commonly called " Coke-lyght," in the church of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Oxford, and had neglected or broken a certain laudable custom, of contributing to a certain feast, which was wont to be held once a year in the month of May "on the day of the riding of cooks." Robert Coke of Hamton Hall and other witnesses proved that the custom was an ancient one, and that the College cooks and the cooks of the Halls each chose one proctor to collect subscriptions. There is no indication here of anything beyond the mixed religious and social festival which every medieval guild was accus- tomed to celebrate. But fortunately we have a descrip- tion of the ceremony as it existed in Elizabethan times, shorn of its religious side, which points distinctly to a connection with those agricultural seasonal festivals which
' A. Wood, The History ami .Antiquities of thi University of Oxford, vol. ii. , P- 563-
- Ms. in Queen's College Library. I am indebted to the Provost, the Rev.
J. R. Magrath, for kindly allowing me to use his transcript.
- H. Anstey, Munimenta Acaiinnica ("The Chronicles and Memorials of
Great Britain and Ireland during the Middle Ages," No, 50), vol. ii., pp. 701-2.
- Though Waynflete had obtained in 1457 a grant of the H0spit.1l of St. John
the Baptist, with a view to incorporating it in Magdalen College, he did not begin his new buildings till 147 1, and the oJd buildings, and doubtless many of the old servants of the Hospital, were utilized in the interval.
