written, probably, near the end of the twelfth century, by a monk of
Peterborough, which is printed in Wright's _Early Mysteries and Other
Latin Poems_. This poem sets out with stating that Cæsar having
despatched messengers throughout the provinces to discover which were
bad and which were good, on their return they reported Norfolk as the
most sterile, and the people the vilest and different from all other
peoples. Among the stories related of the stupidity of the men of
Norfolk is the following: Being oppressed by their lord, they gave him a
large sum of money on condition that he should relieve them from future
burdens, and he gave them his bond to that effect, sealed with a seal of
green wax. To celebrate this, they all went to the tavern and got drunk.
When it became dark, they had no candle, and were puzzled how to procure
one, till a clever fellow among the revellers suggested that they should
use the wax seal of the bond for a candle--they should still have the
words of the bond, which their lord could not repudiate; so they made
the wax seal into a candle, and burned it while they continued their
merry-making. This exploit coming to the knowledge of their lord, he
reimposes the old burdens on the rustics, who complain of his injustice,
at the same time producing the bond. The lord calls a clerk to examine
the document, who pronounces it to be null and void in the absence of
the lord's seal, and so their oppression continues.

Another story is of a man of Norfolk who put some honey in a jar, and in
his absence his dog came and ate it all up. When he returned home and
was told of this, he took the dog and forced him to disgorge the honey,
put it back into the jar, and took it to market. A customer having
examined the honey, declared it to be putrid. "Well," said the
simpleton, "it was in a vessel that was not very clean."--Wright has
pointed out that this reappears in an English jest-book of the
seventeenth century. "A cleanly woman of Cambridgeshire made a good