Period referred to: 1380s
Sound category: Economic > Beggars and hustlers
Title of work: City of London Letter-Book
Type of publication: Manuscript
Author: Unknown
Year of publication: 1380
Page/volume number: n/a
‘They making a horrible noise, like unto a roaring,
and opening their mouths’
On the 24th day of October, in the 4th year of Richard II, John Warde, of the County of York, and Richard Lynham, of the County of Somerset, two impostors, were brought to the Hall of the Guildhall of London, before John Hadless, Mayor, the Aldermen, and the Sheriffs, and questioned for that, whereas they were stout enough to work for their food and rainment, and had their tongues to talk with, they, the same John Warde and Richard Lynham, did there pretend that they were mutes and had been deprived of their tongues; and went about in divers places of the city aforesaid [. . .] they making a horrible noise, like unto a roaring, and opening their mouths; where it seemed to all who examined the same, that their tongues had been cut off [. . .]