medicinal purposes. It has been attempted to show that the ancient Britons used it, but there is no satisfactory evidence on the subject prior to the later days of the Roman occupation, and it is not until the thirteenth century that we obtain clear proof that it was systematically raised for fuel in England. In December, 1239, King Henry III. granted a charter for this purpose to the townsmen of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and the coal soon found its way to London; but the complaints against it became so great, as it got to be more and more used, and the city more smoky, that in 1306, on petition of Parliament, "King Edward I. by proclamation prohibyted the burneing of sea coale in London and the suburbs to avoid the sulferous smoke and savour of the firing, and commanded all persons to make their fires of wood" (Stow). Nevertheless in about fifteen years it effected a lodgment even in the royal palace, for in 1321-1322, in the "Petitiones in Parliamento," a claim is made for ten shillings on account of fuel of that sort which had been ordered by the clerk of the palace, and burned at the king's coronation, but neglected to be paid for.
On the Continent of Europe the earliest coal known was in the tenth century, in the coal-basin of Zwickau in Saxony, but in 1348 the metal-workers of that town were forbidden to pollute the air with coal-smoke.
In England, in 1577, an old writer (Harrison), in contrasting the burning of coal in chimneys and of wood without them, alludes to this prejudice when he says: "Now we have many chimnyes, and yet our tenderlings complain of rewmes, catarres and poses; then had we none but reredoses, and our heads did never ake. For as the smoke in those days was supposed to be a sufficient harding for the timber of the house, so it was reputed a far better medicine to keep the good man and his family from the quacke or pose, where with, as then very few were acquainted. There are old men yet dwelling in the village where I remain, which have noted the multitude of chimnyes lately erected, whereas in their yoong days there was not above two or three, if so many, in the most uplandish towns of the realme, but each one made his fire against the reredose in the halle where he dined and dressed his meate." In 1632 the historian, Stow, remarks, that "within thirty years last, the nice dames of London would not come into any house or roome where sea coales were burned, nor willingly eat of the meate that was either sod or roasted with sea coale fire." In some parts of France the prejudice against the fuel extended even to within our own day—in 1840—for St. John, in his "Journal of a Residence in Normandy," mentions that Dr. Bennett, a Protestant clergyman, told him that "he had received orders to quit his house, because he burned coal; and another English gentleman at Caen, who had invited a large party, finding his drawing-room very thin, and inquiring the reason, found that the French had staid away because it was understood he burned coal."
