For Leith Hill Timeline Choir's Carol Fisher, singing an Elizabethan round based on the cries of London street vendors prompts musings on old English currency and the price of oysters...
New Oysters, New Oysters!
New Walefleet Oysters!
At a groat, a peck;
Each oyster’s worth two pence!
It’s just amazing what historical richness can be gleaned from the small number of words in this round, or ‘catch’, collected and arranged by Thomas Ravenscroft in the early 17th century and now part of the portfolio of songs we are working on this season.
A groat was one of those coins which have long since disappeared – but it was a silver coin worth four old pence, its weight in silver being originally that of four silver pennies. During the sixteenth century, however, its weight was gradually reduced until it ceased being used in 1559. It was then reintroduced in Charles II’s time and used on a sporadic basis, with its weight being still further reduced until George III’s time – but it only ceased to be minted in 1856.
Now, the word peck, is derived from the Middle English word ‘pek’ (which itself apparently had Anglo-Norman roots) and was a ‘unit of dry volume’, usually two.
So- the song’s maths is correct: the offer translates as four pence for two oysters, which is indeed two pence each.
Wellfleet oysters were produced on the UK’s East Coast and were famous for being of particularly high quality- so the vendor’s street cry is trying to say that her or his offer is a really good one! [In the original manuscript, the spelling is ‘Walefleet’, which could be one of the innumerable examples of inconsistent spelling that are typical of writing from the period, or it could be a reference to the ‘Walefleet’ stream, which flowed into the Thames.] There is also a village in Cape Cod called Wellfleet, which was established in the seventeenth century (some say it was actually named after the British Wellfleet Oyster) and which still produces fine oysters right up to the present day, most notably for their Oysterfest which, this year, will be held on October 15th and 16th.
And talking of the present day- a silver groat sells on eBay for anything between £100 to £200, which, even at The Ritz, should buy you considerably more than just two oysters…
By Carol Fisher, Alto, Leith Hill Timeline Choir