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PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE AND COMPANY 
 EDINBURGH AND LONDON 
 
THE 
 
 Homes of Other Days 
 
 OF 
 
 DOMESTIC MANNERS AND SENTIMENTS 
 IN ENGLAND 
 
 FROM THE EARLIEST KNOWN PERIOD TO MODERN TIMES 
 
 THOMAS W,RIGHT, Esq. 
 
 M.A., F.S.A., Hon. M.R.S.L., &c. 
 
 Corresponding Member of the National Institute of France 
 [Acadimie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres) 
 
 NEW YORK . 
 D. APPLETON & CO., BROADWAY 
 LONDON : TRUBNER & CO., PATERNOSTER ROW 
 1871 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
A 
 
 D A i \o 
 
 g r l t rt 
 
 GIFT 
 
 M /tr^i^Ml^rJ- 
 
 NOV -51945 
 THE UB1UT IF GQNSRESS 
 
TO THE 
 
 RIGHT HON. THE LORD LYTTON 
 
 is 
 
 AS A TESTIMONY 
 
 OF THE VERY SINCERE RESPECT 
 
 OF ITS AUTHOR. 
 
My dear Lord Lytton, 
 
 Years not a few are now passed away 
 since the excellent romance of " Harold the Last of the Saxon 
 Kings" was first given to the world. I have a vivid remem- 
 brance of the pleasure with which I read it. I was then compara- 
 tively young, but earnest, in historical and archaeological research. 
 I remember having been much struck with the description of 
 the residence of the sorceress Hilda, — of the change from the 
 Roman villa to the mansion of the Anglo-Saxon ; and I felt the 
 greatness of the instinctive appreciation of historical truth which 
 was displayed in it. In reading this, as well as other parts of 
 your Lordship's work, I often thought what a useful book would 
 be a complete and carefully compiled history of the domestic 
 manners and economy of our forefathers, from the earliest period 
 at which we can obtain any knowledge of it down to more 
 recent times, — in fact, to our own modern home. This idea often 
 recurred to my thoughts, until an opportunity was given me of 
 carrying it into effect, though imperfectly, in a series of papers 
 in the then popular '"'Art Journal." These afterwards, revised 
 and considerably enlarged, were published in a volume in 1862, 
 to which I gave the simple title of " The History of Domestic 
 Manners and Sentiments in England during the Middle Ages." 
 This book was received favourably, and is now, I believe, out 
 of print ; and I have been induced to give to press a new 
 edition, which I have so much altered in revision, and to which 
 I have added so much, that it may be considered as a new work, 
 and therefore I have considerably modified its title. 
 
 \J 
 
DEDICATION. 
 
 The object of the following pages, as I stated in the Preface 
 to the first edition, was to supply what then appeared to be a 
 want in our popular literature. We had Histories of England, 
 and Histories of the Middle Ages, but none of them gave us a 
 sufficient picture of the domestic manners and sentiments of our 
 forefathers at different periods, — a knowledge of which, I need 
 hardly insist, is necessary to enable us to appreciate rightly the 
 motives with which people acted, and the spirit which guided 
 them. The subject is a very wide one in regard to its mate- 
 rials, and to treat it completely would require the close study 
 of the whole mass of the mediaeval literature of Western Europe, 
 edited or inedited, and of the whole mass of the monuments 
 of mediaeval art. My aim was to bring together a sufficient 
 number of plain facts, in a popular form, to enable the general 
 reader to form a correct view of English manners and senti- 
 ments in the Middle Ages, and I can venture to claim for my 
 book at least the merit of being the result of original research ; 
 it was not a compilation from modern writers who had written 
 on the subject before. 
 
 I need hardly say to your Lordship that there are at least 
 two ways of arranging a work like this. I might have taken 
 each particular division of the subject, one after the other, and 
 traced it separately through the period of history which this 
 volume embraces ; or the whole subject might be divided into 
 historical periods, in each of which all the different phases of 
 social history for that period are included. Each of these plans 
 has its advantages and defects. In the first, the reader would 
 perhaps obtain a clearer notion of the history of any particular 
 division of the subject, as of the history of the table and of diet, 
 or of games and amusements, or of costume, or the like ; but at 
 the same time it would have required a certain effort of compa- 
 rison and study to arrive at a clear view of the general question 
 at a particular period. The second furnishes this general view, 
 but entails a certain amount of what might almost be called 
 
DEDICATION. 
 
 repetition. I chose the latter plan, because I thought that this 
 repetition would be found to be only apparent, and it seemed 
 to me the best arrangement for a popular book. The division 
 of periods, too, is, on the whole, natural, and not arbitrary. 
 During the Anglo-Saxon period, the social system, however deve- 
 loped or modified from time to time, was strictly that of our own 
 Anglo-Saxon forefathers, and was the undoubted groundwork 
 of that which we now enjoy. The Norman Conquest brought 
 in foreign social manners and sentiments totally different from 
 those of the Anglo-Saxons, which for a time predominated, 
 but became gradually incorporated with the Anglo - Saxon 
 manners and spirit, until, towards the end of the twelfth cen- 
 tury, they formed the English of the Middle Ages. The Anglo- 
 Norman period, therefore, may be considered as an age of 
 transition — we may perhaps describe it as that of the struggle 
 between the spirit of Anglo-Saxon society and that of feudalism. 
 The thirteenth and fourteenth centuries we may look upon, in 
 regard to society, as the English Middle Ages — the age of 
 feudalism in its English form — and they therefore hold properly 
 the largest space in this volume. The fifteenth century forms 
 again a distinct period in the history of society — it was that 
 of the decline and breaking up of feudalism, the close of the 
 Middle Ages. At the Reformation, we come to a new transi- 
 tion period — the transition from mediaeval to modern society. 
 This, for several reasons, I regard rather as a conclusion, than 
 as an integral part, of the history contained in the present 
 volume, and I therefore give only a comparatively slight sketch 
 of it, noticing some of its more prominent characteristics. The 
 materials, at this late period, become so extensive, and so full 
 of interest, that the history admits of several divisions, each of 
 which is sufficient for an important book, and I thought it better 
 not to enter upon them in the present volume. 
 
 This volume I always consider as having been suggested to 
 me by the perusal of " Harold," and it is therefore with a feeling 
 
DEDICATION. 
 
 of great satisfaction that I now, in giving it to the world in a 
 
 new form, and almost as a new book, take advantage of the 
 
 permission to dedicate it to your Lordship. Nobody, I am 
 
 sure, is so capable of appreciating whatever may be its merits 
 
 or defects. 
 
 I have the honour to be, my dear Lord, your Lordship's very 
 
 faithful servant, 
 
 THOMAS WRIGHT. 
 
 14 Sydney Street, Bromptqn s 
 London, S.W„ Sept, 1871, 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Home, and the Origin of the Word.— The Migrations of Peoples, 
 and the various Circumstances of their Settlements. — The Saxon 
 Home and the Norman Manor, 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 From Shrewsbury to Ludlow. — Stokesay Castle. — The Feudal Home. 
 —Norton and Sutton. — The Anglo-Saxon Homes. — How the 
 Saxons and Normans Lived at Home, 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Manners ot our Early Forefathers. — The Anglo-Saxons before their 
 Conversion. — General Arrangements of a Saxon House, 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 In-Door Life among the Anglo-Saxons. — The Hall and its Hospitality. 
 — The Saxon Meal. — Provisions and Cookery. — After-Dinner 
 Occupations. — Drunken Brawls, ...... 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The Chamber and its Furniture. — Beds and Bedrooms. — Infancy and 
 Childhood among the Anglo-Saxons. — Character and Manners of 
 the Anglo-Saxon Ladies. — Their Cruelty to their Servants. — Their 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Amusements. — The Garden ; Love of the Anglo-Saxons for 
 Flowers. — Anglo-Saxon Punishments. — Almsgiving, . . . 51 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Out-of-Door Amusements of the Anglo-Saxons. — Hunting and Hawk- 
 ing. — Horses and Carriages. — Travelling. — Money-dealings, . 76 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 The Early Norman Period. — Luxuriousness of the Normans. — 
 Advance in Domestic Architecture. — The Kitchen and the Hall. 
 — Provisions and Cookery. — Bees. — The Dairy. — Meal-times and 
 Divisions of the Day. — Furniture. — The Faldestol.— Chairs and 
 other Seats, 93 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The Norman Hall. — Social Sentiments under the Anglo-Normans. — 
 Domestic Amusements. — Candles and Lanterns. — Furniture. — 
 Beds. — Out-of-Door Recreations. — Hunting.— Archery. — Convivial 
 Intercourse and Hospitality. — Travelling. — Punishments. — The 
 Stocks. — A Norman School. — Education, 111 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Domestic Schooling and Domestic Literature. — Latin taught to both 
 Sexes in School. — Made the Instrument of Teaching Good Man- 
 ners. — Grosseteste's Liber Urbanitatis, 133 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 Early English Houses. — Their General Form and Distribution, . 141 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 The Old English Hall. — The Kitchen and its Circumstances. — The 
 
 Dinner-Table. — Minstrelsy, 160 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Minstrel. — His Position under the Anglo-Saxons. — The Norman 
 Trouvere, Menestrel, and Jougleur. — Their Condition. — Rutebeuf. 
 —Different Musical Instruments in use among the Minstrels. — 
 The Beverley Minstrels, 192 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Amusements after Dinner. — Gambling. — The Game of Chess : its 
 
 History. — Dice. — Tables. — Draughts, . . . . . .210 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Domestic Amusements after Dinner. — The Chamber and its Furni- 
 ture. — Pet Animals. — Occupations and Manners of the Ladies. — 
 Supper. — Candles, Lamps, and Lanterns, 240 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 The Bed and its Furniture. — The Toilette; Bathing.— Chests and 
 Coffers in the Chamber. — The Hutch. — Uses of Rings. — Com- 
 position of the Family. — Freedom of Manners. — Social Senti- 
 ments, and Domestic Relations, 268 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Occupations Out-of-Doors. — The Pleasure -Garden. — The Love of 
 Flowers, and the Fashion of making Garlands. — Formalities of 
 the Promenade. — Gardening in the Middle Ages, . . . 295 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 Amusements. — Performing-Bears. — Hawking and Hunting. — Riding. 
 
 — Carriages. — Travelling. — Inns and Taverns. — Hospitality, . 315 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 Education.— Literary Men and Scribes.— Punishments : the Stocks ; 
 
 the Gallows, 349 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Old English Cookery. — History of " Gourmandise." — English. Cookery 
 of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries. — Bills of Fare. — Great 
 Feasts, 35^ 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 Slow Progress of Society in the Fifteenth Century. — Enlargement of 
 the Houses. — The Hall and its Furniture. — Arrangement of the 
 Table for Meals. — Absence of Cleanliness. — Manners at Table. — 
 The Parlour, 370 
 
 CHAPTER XXL 
 
 In-Door Life and Conversation. — Pet Animals. — The Dance. — Rere- 
 Suppers. — Illustrations from the " Nancy" Tapestry, 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 The Chamber and its Furniture and Uses. — Beds. — Hutches and 
 Coffers.— The Toilette ; Mirrors, 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 State of Society. — The Female Character. — Greediness in Eating. — 
 Character of the Mediaeval Servants. — Daily Occupations in the 
 Household : Spinning and Weaving ; Painting. — The Garden 
 and its Uses. — Games Out-of-Doors; Hawking, &c. — Travelling, 
 and more frequent use of Carriages. — Taverns; Frequented by 
 Women. — Education and Literary Occupations ; Spectacles, . 423 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 Changes in English Domestic Manners during the Period between 
 the Reformation and the Commonwealth. — The Country Gentle- 
 man's House. — Its Hall. — The Fireplace and Fire. — Utensils. — 
 Cookery. — Usual Hours for Meals. — Breakfast. — Dinner, and 
 its Forms and Customs. — The Banquet. — Custom of Drinking 
 Healths, 447 
 
CONTENTS, xv 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Household Furniture. — The Parlour. — The Chamber, . . . 475 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 Occupations of the Ladies. — Games and Enjoyments. — Roughness of 
 English Sports at this Period. — The Hothouses, or Baths. — The 
 Ordinaries. — Domestic Pets. — Treatment of Children. — Methods 
 of Locomotion. — Conclusion, 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 Home, and the Origin of the Word. — The Migrations of Peoples, and the 
 various Circumstances of their Settlements. — The Saxon Home and 
 the Norman Manor. 
 
 WHEN God first gave peoples to this earth, He perhaps endowed 
 them with qualities which easily fitted them to the character of 
 the spots on which they were located, and with them they would gain the 
 two tendencies for spreading and wandering, or for remaining stationary, 
 or nearly stationary. When we become acquainted with them, we find 
 them in groups, each more or less numerous, and removed to greater or 
 less distances from each other. As we reach a later period, we may 
 trace more or less their wanderings and their settlements, and their 
 subsequent relations to each other. It is a knowledge which has 
 eventually formed the science of history. We become acquainted 
 almost with our Teutonic forefathers when they were in the midst of 
 their primitive wanderings, and some of them making their way to this 
 island. As might be supposed, the great rallying-point among these 
 groups was family relationship, kindred by blood. The children of a 
 family, in those early times, were considered as belonging absolutely to 
 the father, and, as a part of the whole, they had a certain claim upon 
 whatever the family possessed, in fact, upon its protection and support. 
 When the male children of a family had reached a certain age, they 
 began to think of separating from their father's family, and of seeking 
 to provide for themselves independently and raise each a family of his 
 own. For this purpose, he went and obtained a plot of ground, by 
 purchase or by grant, or by other arrangement; or (in the earlier 
 
THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 times) he united with a number of enterprising young men who were in 
 the same position as himself, and they went on an expedition to take 
 the land they wanted from their neighbours, or in some distant country 
 where they determined to settle. It was thus that the Teutons estab- 
 lished themselves in our islands. Tradition has preserved some re- 
 membrance of the form and manner of the proceedings, when, for 
 instance, a young Teuton, or Scandinavian, who was distinguished 
 among his acquaintances for his bold warlike qualities, caused his design 
 to be proclaimed in public and invited companions to join him, and 
 sons of other families, moved by the same spirit, soon responded to the 
 call. The first proposer of the expedition, who was no doubt a man 
 fitted for the undertaking, became usually the leader, and he was after- 
 wards the chieftain of the new state they founded. Our own early 
 forefathers, like most other primitive peoples, were very superstitious, 
 and loved to reckon chance or magic on their side ; and it is said that 
 when the adventurous party were on their way, sailing or rowing over 
 the sea, they took a log of timber, hewn from one of their sacred 
 trees, performed a magical incantation over it, and then threw it into 
 the sea, and watched it on its way to land. Wherever this object touched 
 the shore, they landed to take possession, and resistance was defeated 
 by the sword and the spear, if the number of the confederates were 
 sufficient to be considered a little army. The land thus taken was 
 divided into so many portions, and these were shared by throwing lots 
 among all the leaders, and thus became so many family estates in the 
 new settlement, or, as they were called in after times, manors. This 
 latter word, which of course is derived from the Latin verb maneo, and 
 belongs to the feudal period, when the language usually talked was 
 French, meant the place where the lord of the land dwelt, the house of 
 the head of the family. 
 
 ' The name given to this family dwelling was ham, a syllable which 
 is well known to us all as occurring so frequently in our old local names 
 in England. It seems to have belonged especially to the house of the 
 head of a family, and is usually found combined with the patronymic of 
 the family, or the names of the sons, when, at the original Anglo-Saxon 
 settlement, the father, that is, the possessor, with a feeling which we 
 can sufficiently well understand, gave to the house, or ham, not exactly 
 
THE SAXON HOME. 
 
 his own name, but the patronymic. Thus, we may take an example 
 in the modern town of Birmingham, which no doubt tells us who was 
 the first Teutonic conqueror of the land on which it stands, and 
 the site of whose family residence it occupies. The name of this 
 lord or chieftain no doubt was Beorm ; but his ham was not known 
 simply as Beormes-ham, or, as it would now have been, Birmsham. 
 The Anglo-Saxons, like the other branches of the Teutonic race, had 
 their patronymic form, which was also well known in Greek. In 
 the latter, the son of Alceus was an Alcides, and the son of Peleus a 
 Pelides.® It was the same in Anglo-Saxon; but our Teutonic patro- 
 nymic was the termination of the name in ing. The son of King Alfred 
 was an Alfreding, and the son of Beorm was a Beorming ; so Beorm did 
 not call his house (being the head seat of the family) Beorm's ham, but 
 he called it the house of Beorm's sons and descendants, — Beorminga- 
 ham, the house of the Beormings. Beorminga is the Anglo-Saxon 
 genitive case plural of the word. The intention was to impress people 
 with the fact that this was the original house — the nest, if we like, of no 
 doubt an early family of distinction in this part of our island. It is 
 curious how, in these early times of the European races, people sought 
 to identify themselves with the land on which they lived. 
 
 The word ham does not appear to describe any particular form or 
 size of building, and it was apparently given sometimes to a group 
 of buildings, when it constituted a family residence, and almost to a 
 village. Hamlet is a derivative, perhaps a diminutive, from it — a little 
 ham. When the Anglo-Saxon had obtained his allotment of land, and 
 had fixed upon the site of his ham, he surrounded the space destined 
 for it with what he called a wall, but which we call a mound, as it was 
 always made of earth, and was usually accompanied with a ditch. 
 The Anglo-Saxons, during their primitive period, did not indulge in — 
 they rather disliked and feared — masonry. This was so much the case, 
 that the only Anglo-Saxon words for building are timbrian, atimbrian, 
 getimbrian, — to make of timber. Within this wall — for though a mere 
 earthwork, the Anglo-Saxons called it a wall — was the yard (geard), 
 which, in feudal times, would be called the court of the mansion, and in 
 modern times has been called, by a rather singular combination, a court- 
 yard. Within this yard, or court, accordingly as we take the Saxon or 
 
THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 Norman names, stood the buildings which constituted the ham, con- 
 sisting, first and principally, of a large building which they called their 
 heal, and which we, with the modified form of this word, call a hall. 
 It was the place in which the family lived, and on the floor and benches 
 of which many of them slept at night. For others, and forthe ladies 
 especially, little rooms were built -outside, often standing apart from 
 any other building; and the Anglo-Saxons called this room a bur, 
 which, in the change of the language, answers to our bower. These were 
 sleeping or private rooms, and were usually occupied by the ladies ; 
 and the phrase of the ladies in their bower, or, as it was more com- 
 monly known in our language, in which bridde or bride meant a lady, 
 briddes in bower, occurs constantly from Saxon times to the fifteenth 
 century. 
 
 The ham, or head house of the family, held a place which of course 
 appealed to all the tender feelings of the members of the family, and 
 in a manner bound them all together. This particular sentiment is 
 the one which has descended with the name to modern times. The 
 word has come to us in a somewhat modified form. The Anglo-Saxon 
 pronunciation of the a appears to have been very broad, and to have 
 differed very little from that of the o, for they are often interchanged 
 for each other in the pronunciation of the dialects, and in the 
 writing of the manuscripts. One of ourselves is as often called a mon 
 as a man ; and thus, in the gradual formation of modern English from 
 Anglo-Saxon, the old Saxon ham has been moulded down into our 
 modern word home. The true home of the children of the family was 
 the house of their father. It would not be easy to say how much of 
 noble sentiment is wrapped up in this one word. 
 
 The home of the Anglo-Saxon seems to have preserved most of its 
 original characteristics during the Anglo-Saxon period. First, there was 
 the encircled yard or court, and the great hall stood in the middle, 
 and around it were the bowers; but when the Norman influence pene- 
 trated into our island, it substituted the Norman chamber for the Anglo- 
 Saxon bur or bower, and the latter is no longer heard except in 
 the popular minstrelsy. 
 
 New times came in, and feudalism rose into existence. The feudal 
 house, whether a great castle or a more private manor-house, required 
 
THE NORMAN HOME. 5 
 
 to be strongly guarded, and its inclosure was usually of walls and 
 towers of massive stone. For the old ham was only liable (or seldom, 
 otherwise) to sudden surprise, while the feudal castle, or even the 
 feudal manor-house, existed in a state of continual warfare, and had 
 often to sustain long sieges. 
 
 It is worth a remark, that we still retain a traditionary representative 
 of the old Saxon manor, or ham, of course very much degraded, in our 
 ordinary cottage, or house in the country. The cottage represents the 
 Saxon hall, and its iurhs, or chambers. The garden is the geard, or 
 yard, and was formerly inclosed by a mound of earth and a ditch. 
 On the mound is usually planted a hedge or palings. As the Anglo- 
 Saxon buildings within the inclosure were all of wood, they have of 
 course long disappeared, and all that now remains is an earthwork, or, 
 as it is popularly called, a camp. I have often remarked the modern 
 farmers' or peasants' houses, especially on the coast of Cheshire, with 
 the surrounding mound of earth and its hedge or palings; and I have 
 thought, if the house and everything but the earthworks of the outer 
 fence had entirely disappeared, antiquaries in general would say, that 
 it is a British or very ancient camp ; and I believe that a great number 
 of the early remains so often talked of as early camps are nothing but 
 the remains of Anglo-Saxon homes. 
 
 We have remains, also, and very noble remains, of the homes of the 
 following ages. How many noble examples remain of the homes of 
 the feudal period, the manoir (manor), or family residence of the feudal 
 gentleman ! And there is one, peculiarly choice and perfect in its 
 characteristics, which I should wish to introduce to my readers. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 From Shrewsbury to Ludlow. — Siokesay Castle. — The Feudal Home. — 
 Norton and Sutton. — The Anglo-Saxon Homes. — How the Saxons 
 and Normans Lived at Ho?ne. 
 
 N almost every part of our island we find remains of the domestic 
 habitations of its peoples belonging to remote periods of history ; 
 and as we pass by them, or still more, when we visit them, we naturally 
 feel the desire to know something of the manner in which their 
 inhabitants in those remote ages lived in them and enjoyed themselves. 
 It will be well, therefore, to make a little excursion, and look at some 
 of these remains ourselves. 
 
 There are few parts of Britain which present natural features so 
 strikingly beautiful and so varied as the counties which form the Bor- 
 ders, or, as they were called in ancient times, the Marches of Wales ; 
 and, among these, perhaps we might venture to give the palm to the 
 beautiful county of Shropshire. And what can surpass the charming hills 
 and valleys which cover the district between Shrewsbury and Ludlow, — 
 the two fair and strong towns which especially commanded the Welsh 
 frontiers ? The Romans early appreciated fully the importance of this 
 line of country in a military and in a mercantile point of view, and they 
 carried through it a series of roads, — such fine roads the Romans knew 
 how to make ! — and built near to them a number of important towns. 
 From these have arisen some of the finest towns and some of the prin- 
 cipal roads of the modern border. There are few lines of railway which 
 present so many beauties as that from Shrewsbury to Ludlow, and 
 onward to Hereford. 
 
 On leaving Shrewsbury, we have a fine open country, with distant 
 
SHREWSBURY TO LUDLOW. 
 
 and interesting views on either side. To the left our attention is first 
 attracted by the bold, massive form of the Wrekin, the most cele- 
 brated of Shropshire hills, which appears in early times to have been 
 regarded with a degree of superstitious reverence. Its summit is 
 deeply intrenched, perhaps by the Romans, or more probably by 
 their predecessors ; while the former raised, at a little distance on 
 the plain at its foot, the large city of Uriconium, the site of which 
 is now called Wroxeter, a name which some suppose to have been 
 formed from that of the neighbouring mountain. Be this as it may, 
 the people of the neighbouring country, apparently to a considerable 
 . distance, were called by the Anglo-Saxons Wrecinsetas, or the inhabi- 
 tants of the Wrekin country ; and we have reason for believing, that if 
 its name had been given to the county before the appointment of the 
 Norman Roger to the earldom, it would have been called, instead of 
 Shropshire, Wrekinset, like Dorset and Somerset. There are, I believe, 
 some reasons for saying that this mountain was considered by the 
 people of our side of the world as marking the central point of the sur- 
 face of the globe ; and the local popular toast, down to the present day, 
 continues to be, " To all friends round the Wrekin," meaning, of course, 
 to all friends in the world. 
 
 A little further, and we see in the distance, to the south of the Wre- 
 kin, the Wenlock mountains, and these are followed westward in the 
 view by a line of other lofty hills, ending in Lawley, and the famous Caer 
 Caradoc, which is supposed to preserve to us the name of Caractacus. 
 
 These two latter we are now rapidly approaching. Caer Caradoc, 
 also with an intrenched summit, stands like a mighty sentinel at the 
 entrance to a charming valley, formed by two parallel rows of hills, 
 some of them of considerable elevation. Those on the right hand, as 
 we descend the valley, are known as the Longmynds, also a name 
 celebrated in Shropshire. About half way down the valley, also to the 
 right, at the foot of the Longmynds, we find a pretty country town, 
 with a railway station. Down this valley the Roman had run his road ; 
 and, with the changes which the best of roads will undergo in a good 
 part of two thousand years, this still accompanies the rail on its eastern 
 side. The Romans called a paved road a stratum; all these roads 
 were well paved, and the Saxons, who had no such roads of their own, 
 
THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 seized upon the word, and turned it into street, or, as we now write the 
 word, street. This is the origin of the word street, which is now pre- 
 served only in the roads in a town. 
 
 The Saxons called a small inclosed space, which was strongly fenced, 
 and in which dwelt, perhaps, a family of wealth and position, with other 
 families dependent upon it, forming sometimes a village, a tun. It is 
 the origin of our modern word town, and of the termination of so many 
 modern local words ending in ton, as Weston, the west tun; Sutton, the 
 south tun ; Langton, the long tun, and the like. To those especially 
 who had anything to do with traffic, or who might derive advantage 
 from the movement which, of course, was always going on in a public 
 road, the side of one of the streets was of course a very desirable 
 place for a settlement, and such a settlement gained the name of street- 
 tun. This is the origin of the numerous places now called Stretton. 
 This was the name given to the little town I have just mentioned, as 
 standing on the side of the Roman road running along the valley 
 through which we are now passing by a railway. In those old times 
 there were probably other tuns along the same line ; but this seems to 
 have been the only one of sufficient importance to have a church, 
 and obtained the distinctive, name, which it has preserved, of Church 
 Stretton. The valley is the Church Stretton valley. 
 
 We arrive at the southern end of it, and it opens into another tract 
 of country, rather less open than that to the north. One of the first 
 objects which attracts our attention is a fine early half-castellated build- 
 ing, to which the people of early ages, after the Anglo-Saxon settle- 
 ments, had given the name of Stoke. This is a frequent name of 
 places derived from the Anglo-Saxon period, and is understood to mean 
 simply a place, but it is often distinguished by the addition of the name 
 of the family which at some period had possessed the lordship. During 
 a great part of the Norman period, the twelfth and the thirteenth cen- 
 turies, this Stoke belonged to the great family of the Lacys, and for 
 a while was held under them by the family of Say. From this family 
 it took the name of Stokesay, which it has preserved to the present 
 day ; for it is still known by the name of Stokesay. Soon after the 
 middle of the thirteenth century, the lordship of Stokesay had passed 
 from the Says and the Lacys to a family of distinction in this part 
 
STOKES AY CASTLE. 
 
 of the land, called, from the ancient town from which they came, De 
 Ludlow. In the year 1290, one of the best-known members of this 
 family, Laurence de Ludlow, obtained a licence from the king to em- 
 battle his mansion at Stokesay ; and this, I doubt not, marks the date 
 of the building which still exists, though in its ruin, for it is in accord- 
 ance with the architecture of the remains. To embattle meant to fur- 
 nish the walls with the protection afforded by crowning the walls with 
 battlements, — very necessary in those feudal times, and to erect which, 
 without the king's licence, was looked upon almost as an act of rebellion. 
 
 The name of castle, by which this interesting ruin is generally known, 
 is altogether erroneous. Every one acquainted with the history of mili- 
 tary architecture, knows that this was not a castle or military fortress, 
 and that it had nothing to do, properly speaking, with military pur- 
 poses. It was simply the manor-house, the domestic residence of one 
 of the powerful landed gentry of the feudal period, the home of the 
 family ; and I may add, it is one of the earliest and finest examples 
 of the old feudal manor-house we now possess. We have many of a 
 somewhat later period. But Stokesay is in many respects an interesting 
 building, and well worthy of study, as illustrative of the character of the 
 English gentleman's home in the thirteenth century. 
 
 In the state of society which characterised those early times, a 
 gentleman at home was obliged to be always on his guard. Personal 
 and family enemies were always on the watch to attack him, and he 
 was obliged to have his manor-house inclosed by strong walls, and to 
 keep a watchman all night on his battlements to prevent surprise. 
 Enemies of his own class were ready to join together to attack him; 
 and likewise in those times there was a large population, especially 
 in the parts of the country farther from the metropolis, which lived 
 out of the law,, and contrary to it. They preyed upon feudal society, 
 and have their representatives, in the later ballads, in the followers of 
 Robin Hood. These, also, would collect in force, and suddenly 
 attack the feudal gentleman's house in hope of plunder. In anticipa- 
 tion of such attacks, the house must be made strong enough to be able 
 to hold against a siege, until the gentleman's friends could be brought 
 together from the surrounding country to his assistance; and therefore 
 a tower formed part of the building, on which a fire or beacon might 
 
THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 be lit, and a sentinel was kept walking along the battlements all 
 night, to give the alarm on the approach of danger. 
 
 All this is seen at Stokesay. It covers a space of about two acres of 
 ground. Outwardly it presents a mass of building, inclosing a court of 
 not very great magnitude. This court is only open on the one side, 
 where a rather low wall now separates it from the churchyard, but the 
 site of this wall also was formerly occupied by buildings. The principal 
 buildings form now the west side of this court, and are seen to the right 
 
 View of Stokesay Caslle from Stokesay Churchyard. 
 
 in the accompanying view of the court from the churchyard. The central 
 mass of these buildings consists of the great baronial hall, in which passed 
 much of the life of the feudal gentleman and his followers. Its extent is 
 marked by the four massive and lofty windows which admitted light into it. 
 This was the most important portion of the old baronial home. It 
 was here that the family lived, eat and drank, and took most of its 
 social enjoyments; and here too a good number of the household 
 slept. Beyond it, in this picture of Stokesay, is the piece of wall with 
 smaller windows, and a door over the kitchen and butteries, just as in 
 the old halls of our colleges in the universities. Beyond these, and 
 adjoining to the mass of the buildings of the hall, rises the great tower, 
 outwardly, and especially at a distance, the most conspicuous and 
 striking part of the building. A fire or beacon from its summit would 
 
NORTON. 
 
 have been distinctly visible at nine miles distant, in the great border 
 fortress of Ludlow Castle, which would, no doubt, have lost little time 
 in sending out its troops to the rescue. If we continue our route from 
 Stokesay, we shall soon arrive at Ludlow itself. 
 
 At this time, as we find by comparing it with that of the earlier dwellings 
 of the race, the gentry of our forefathers had changed their taste for the 
 site of their home. In primitive ages they sought elevated positions 
 for their resting-places ; but now, perhaps having modified their taste 
 by an acquaintance with the ecclesiastics, they chose the sides or 
 bottom of a pleasant valley, bounded by gentle hills, and clothed with 
 green woods. This is much the character of the position of Stokesay. 
 It stands on comparatively low ground. We understand, of course, 
 that the great importance of its site was, that it formed the key to the 
 Stretton valley, which had commanded from before Roman times the 
 communication north and south along this border. The country lies 
 open to the south in' the direction of Ludlow, the castle of which, as 
 just stated, is visible from the summit of the tower. On the west rises 
 a little line of low hills, richly wooded, which are known on this 
 account as the Stoke Woods. On the other side, towards the east, 
 Stokesay stands at the foot of a rather steeper hill, which, rising grad- 
 ually from Onibury to the south, reaches its greatest height just over 
 Stokesay, where its summit, surrounded by intrenchments, is known 
 by the name of Norton Camp. 
 
 The name of camp is as little applicable to the ancient site at 
 Norton, as that of castle is to the manor-house at Stokesay. A careful 
 examination of the remains by any one well acquainted with the 
 subject, will, as I have said, lead to the conclusion that these in- 
 trenchments, as we call them, these walls, as an Anglo-Saxon would 
 call them — for he built his walls of earth — once inclosed the residence 
 of an Anglo-Saxon chieftain, whose rule probably extended over the 
 country spread around ; perhaps his family was that of one of the first 
 of the Teutonic conquerors of this part of our island. As already 
 stated, the- Anglo-Saxons were no great builders, in the sense of build- 
 ing as we now use the word. They laid out a court, or yard, in the 
 middle of which they raised their great hall, of timber, which therefore 
 was perishable, and thus we have seldom any trace of it remaining. 
 
THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 The hall was the great resort of the lord and his family, and of his 
 followers during the day, and many of them slept in it at night. In 
 the court, against the wall, or around it, were raised, no doubt of 
 wood also, huts or cabins, also for sleeping, but principally for the 
 females of the family. These were the burs, or chambers. The 
 court, or yard, was surrounded by a strong series of intrenchments, 
 or earthen mounds, to protect it from attack, and especially from 
 surprise. This continuous mound was usually crowned by a hedge, or 
 by a line of wooden palings. These, of course, have long disappeared, 
 as well as the domestic buildings of wood, and nothing now remains 
 but the earthworks, which people take for camps. 
 
 I have already explained the meaning of the Anglo-Saxon tun. Norton 
 must have been a large and important residence, not only from its extent, 
 but from its commanding position, and from its name ; it was evidently 
 a much more important establishment than the ordinary class of tuns ; 
 and its name of the North Tun points clearly to some other place of 
 the same character from which it was thus distinguished. This, there 
 can be little doubt, is to be looked for in Sutton, near Hereford, where 
 the imposing remains of a great Anglo-Saxon mansion of a similar im- 
 portance are known as Sutton Walls. This was, no doubt, the South 
 Tun. They have been, perhaps, the family residences of the two 
 greatest chieftains on our border during the early Anglo-Saxon period. 
 We cannot even guess who was the occupant of Norton, but Sutton is 
 believed to have been a residence of the great King Offa, and is sup- 
 posed to have been the scene of the murder of the sainted King Ethel- 
 bert of East Anglia, the patron saint of Hereford Cathedral. 
 
 Thus we find in close proximity the imposing remains of two in- 
 teresting monuments of history; a great chieftain's dwelling of the 
 earlier period of our Anglo-Saxon forefathers, and close to it a manor- 
 house of the later feudal period ; and as we pass them in our progress, 
 or halt awhile to examine them more closely, we must all feel the 
 desire to know something more of the ancient peoples who resided in 
 these mansions, and the manner in which they lived in them. It is 
 the object of the present work to supply, as far as lies in my power, the 
 information thus required. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 Maimers of our Early Forefathers. — The Anglo-Saxons before their Con- 
 version. — General Ari'angements of a Saxon House. 
 
 THE desire for information on these topics has indeed been felt 
 widely, and much has been written at different times on the 
 costume and some other circumstances connected with the condition of 
 our forefathers in past times, but no one has undertaken, with much 
 success, to treat generally of the domestic manners of the Middle Ages. 
 The history of domestic manners, indeed, is a subject the materials of 
 which are exceedingly varied, widely scattered, and not easily brought 
 together ; they, of course, vary in character with the periods to which 
 they relate, and at certain periods are much rarer than at others. But 
 the interest of the subject must be felt by every one who appreciates 
 art ; for what avails our knowledge even of costume unless we know 
 the manners, the mode of living, the houses, the furniture, the utensils, 
 of those whom we have learnt how to clothe ? and without this know- 
 ledge, history itself can be but imperfectly understood. 
 
 In England, as in most other countries of Western Europe at the 
 period of the Middle Ages, when we first become intimately acquainted 
 with them, the manners and customs of their inhabitants were a mixture 
 of those of the barbarian settlers themselves, and of those which they 
 found among the conquered Romans ; the latter prevailing to a greater 
 or less extent, according to the peculiar circumstances of the country. 
 This was certainly the case in England among our Saxon forefathers ; 
 and it becomes a matter of interest to ascertain what were really the 
 
i 4 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 types which belonged to the Saxon race, and to distinguish them from 
 those which they derived from the Roman inhabitants of our island. 
 
 We have only one record of the manners of the Saxons before they 
 settled in Britain, and that is neither perfect, nor altogether unaltered — 
 it is the romance of " Beowulf," a poem in pure Anglo-Saxon, which con- 
 tains internal marks of having been composed before the people who 
 spoke that language had quitted their settlements on the Continent. 
 Yet we can hardly peruse it without suspecting that some of its por- 
 traitures are descriptive rather of what was seen in England than of what 
 existed in the North of Germany. Thus we might almost imagine that 
 the " street variegated with stones " {street woes stdn-fdh), along which 
 the hero Beowulf and his followers proceeded from the shore to the 
 royal residence of Hrothgar, was a picture of a Roman road as found 
 in Britain. 
 
 It came into the mind of Hrothgar, we are told, that he would cause 
 to be built a house, " a great mead-hall," which was to be his chief 
 palace, or metropolis. The hall-gate, we are informed, rose aloft, " high 
 and curved with pinnacles " (heah and hom-gedp). It is elsewhere 
 described as a "lofty house;" the hall was high; it was "fast within and 
 without, with iron bonds, forged cunningly." It appears that there were 
 steps to it, and the roof is described as being variegated with gold. The 
 walls were covered with tapestry {web after waguni), which also was 
 " variegated with gold," and presented to the view " many a wondrous 
 sight to every one that looketh upon such." The walls appear to have 
 been of wood ; we are repeatedly told that the roof was carved and 
 lofty. The floor is described as being variegated (probably a tesselated 
 pavement); and the seats were benches arranged round it, with the 
 exception of Hrothgar's chair or throne. In the vicinity of the hall 
 stood the chambers or bowers, in which there were beds [bed after 
 Minim). 
 
 These few epithets and allusions, scattered through the poem, give us 
 a tolerable notion of what the house of a Saxon chieftain must have been 
 in the country from whence our ancestors came, as well as afterwards in 
 that where they finally settled. The romantic story is taken up more 
 with imaginary combats with monsters than with domestic scenes, but it 
 contains a few incidents of private life. The hall of King Hrothgar was 
 
THE ROMANCE OF "BEOWULF." 15 
 
 visited by a monster named Grendel, who came at night to prey upon its 
 inhabitants ; and it was Beowulf's mission to free them from this noc- 
 turnal scourge. By direction of the primeval coastguards, he and his 
 men proceeded by the " street" already mentioned to the hall of Hroth- 
 gar, at the entrance to which they laid aside their armour and left their 
 weapons. Beowulf found the chief and his followers drinking their ale 
 and mead, and made known the object of his journey. " Then," says 
 the poem, " there was for the sons of the Geats (Beowulf and his 
 followers), altogether, a bench cleared in the beer-hall ; there the bold 
 of spirit, free from quarrel, went to sit; the thane observed his office, he 
 that in his hand bare the twisted ale-cup ; he poured the bright sweet 
 liquor ; meanwhile the poet sang serene in Heorot (the name of Hroth- 
 gar's palace), there was joy of heroes." Thus the company passed their 
 time, listening to the bard, boasting of their exploits, and telling their 
 stories, until Wealtheow, Hrothgar's queen, entered and " greeted the 
 men in the hall." She now served the liquor, offering the cup first to 
 her husband, and then to the rest of the guests, after which she seated 
 herself by Hrothgar, and the festivities continued till it was time to retire 
 to bed. Beowulf and his followers were left to sleep in the hall — " the 
 wine-hall, the treasure-house of men, variegated with vessels " (fcettum 
 fdhne), Grendel came in the night, and after a dreadful combat received 
 his death-wound from Beowulf. The noise in the hall was great; "a 
 fearful terror fell on the North Danes, on each of those who from the 
 walls heard the outcry." These were the watchmen stationed on the 
 wall forming the chieftain's palace, that inclosed the whole mass of 
 buildings {of wealle). 
 
 As far as we can judge by the description given in the poem, Hrothgar 
 and his household in their bowers or bed-chambers had heard little of 
 the tumult, but they went early in the morning to the hall to rejoice in 
 Beowulf's victory. There was great feasting again in the hall that day, 
 and Beowulf and his followers were rewarded with rich gifts. After 
 dinner the minstrel again took up the harp, and sang some of the 
 favourite histories of their tribe. " The lay was sung, the song of the 
 gleeman, the joke rose again, the noise from the benches grew loud, cup- 
 bearers gave the wine from wondrous vessels." Then the queen, "under 
 a golden crown," again served the cup to Hrothgar and Beowulf. She 
 
1 6 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 afterwards went as before to her seat, and " there was the costliest of 
 feasts, the men drank wine," until bedtime arrived a second time. 
 While their leader appears to have been accommodated with a chamber, 
 Beowulf's men again occupied the hall. " They bared the bench- 
 planks ; it was spread all over with beds and bolsters ; at their heads 
 they set their war-rims, the bright shield-wood; there, on the bench, 
 might easily be seen, above the warrior, his helmet lofty in war, the 
 ringed mail-shirt, and the solid shield ; it was their custom ever to be 
 ready for war, both in house and in field." 
 
 Grendel had a mother (it was the primitive form of the legend of the 
 devil and his dam), and this second night she came unexpectedly to 
 avenge her son, and slew one of Hrothgar's favourite counsellors and 
 nobles, who must therefore have also slept in the hall. Beowulf and his 
 warriors next day went in search of this new marauder, and succeeded 
 in destroying her, after which exploit they returned to their own home 
 laden with rich presents. 
 
 These sketches of early manners, slight as they may be, are invaluable 
 to us, in the absence of all other documentary record during several 
 ages, until after the Anglo-Saxons had been converted to Christianity. 
 During this long period we have, however, one source of invaluable 
 information, though of a restricted kind — the barrows or graves of our 
 primeval forefathers, which contain almost every description of article 
 that they used when alive. In that solitary document, the poem of 
 Beowulf, we are told of the arms which the Saxons used, of the dresses 
 in which they were clad ; of the rings, and bracelets, and ornaments, of 
 which they were proud; of the "solid cup, the valuable drinking-vessel," 
 from which they quaffed the mead, or the vases from which they poured 
 it; but we can obtain no notions of the form or character of these 
 articles. From the graves, on the contrary, we obtain a perfect know- 
 ledge of the form and design of all these various articles, without deriv- 
 ing any knowledge as to the manner in which they were used. The 
 subject now becomes a more extensive one ; and in the Anglo-Saxon 
 barrows in England we find a mixture, in these articles, of Anglo-Saxon 
 and Roman, which furnishes a remarkable illustration of the mixture 
 of the races. We are all perfectly well acquainted with Roman types ; 
 and in the few examples which can be here given of articles found in 
 
ANGLO-SAXON DRINKING-CUPS. 
 
 *7 
 
 early Anglo-Saxon barrows, I shall only introduce such as will enable 
 us to judge what classes of the subsequent medieval types were really 
 derived from pure Saxon or Teutonic originals. 
 
 It is curious enough that the poet who composed the romance of 
 "Beowulf" enumerates among the treasures intheancient barrow, guarded 
 by the dragon who was finally slain by his hero, " the dear, or precious 
 drinking-cup " (drync-fcet de'ore). Drinking-cups are frequently found in 
 the Saxon barrows or graves in England. A group, representing the 
 
 No. 1. — Anglo-Saxon Drinking-Glasses. 
 
 more usual forms of these cups, is given in our cut, No. 1, found chiefly 
 in barrows in Kent, and preserved in the collections of Lord Londes- 
 borough and Mr Rolfe, the latter of which is now in the possession of 
 Mr Mayer, of Liverpool. The example to the left no doubt represents 
 the " twisted " pattern, so often mentioned in " Beowulf," and evidently 
 the favourite ornament among the early Saxons. All these cups are of 
 glass; they are so formed that it is evident they could not stand upright, 
 so that it was necessary to empty them at a draught. This character- 
 istic of the old drinking-cups is said to have given rise to the modern 
 name of tumblers. 
 
 That these glass drinking-cups — or, if we like to use the term, these 
 glasses — were implements peculiar to the Germanic race to which the 
 Saxons belonged, and not derived from the Romans, we have corrobo- 
 rative evidence in discoveries made on the Continent. I will only take 
 examples from some graves of the same early period, discovered at Sel- 
 zen, in Rhenish Hesse, an interesting account of which was published at 
 
THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 Maintz, in 1848, by the brothers W. and L. Lindenschmit. In these 
 graves several drinking-cups were found, also of glass, and resembling 
 in character the two middle figures in our cut, No. 1. Three specimens 
 are given in the cut, No. 2. In our cut, No. 5 (see next page), is one of 
 the cup-shaped glasses, also found in these Hessian graves, which closely 
 
 resembles that given in the cut, No. 
 1. None of the cups of the cham- 
 pagne-glass form, like those found 
 in England, occur in these foreign 
 barrows. 
 
 We shall find also that the pot- 
 tery of the later Anglo-Saxon period 
 presented a mixture of forms, partly 
 derived from those which had be- 
 longed to the Saxon race in their pri- 
 mitive condition, and partly copied 
 or imitated from those of the Romans. In fact, in our Anglo-Saxon 
 graves we find much purely Roman pottery intermingled with earthen 
 vessels of Saxon manufacture ; and this is also the case in Germany. 
 As Roman forms are known to every one, we need only give the pure 
 Saxon types. Our cut, No. 3, represents five examples, and will give a 
 
 No. 2. — Germano-Saxon Drinking-GIasses. 
 
 No. 3. — Anglo-Saxon Pottery. 
 
 sufficient notion of their general character. The two to the left were 
 taken, with a large quantity more, of similar character, from a Saxon 
 
ANGLO-SAXON POTTERY. 
 
 19 
 
 cemetery at Kingston, near Derby ; the vessel in the middle, and the 
 upper one to the right, are from Kent ; and the lower one to the right 
 is also from the cemetery at Kingston. Several of these were usually 
 considered as types of ancient British pottery, until their real character 
 was recently demonstrated, and it is corroborated by the discovery of 
 
 No. 4. — Germano-Saxon Pottery. 
 
 similar pottery in what I will term the Germano-Saxon graves. Four 
 examples from the cemetery at Selzen are given in the cut, No. 4. We 
 have here not only the rude-formed vessels with lumps on the side, but 
 also the characteristic ornament of 
 crosses in circles. The next cut, No. 
 5, represents two earthen vessels of 
 another description, found in the 
 graves at Selzen. The one to the 
 right is evidently the prototype of 
 our modern pitcher. I am informed 
 there is, in the Museum at Dover, a 
 specimen of pottery of this shape, 
 taken from an Anglo-Saxon barrow 
 in that neighbourhood ; and Mr 
 
 Roach Smith took fragments of another from an Anglo-Saxon tumulus 
 near the same place. The other variation of the pitcher here given is 
 remarkable, not on account of similar specimens having been found, as 
 . far as I know, in graves in England, but because vessels of a similar 
 
 No. 5. — Germano-Saxon Pottery and Glass. 
 
THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 No. 6. — Anglo-Saxon Pottery. 
 
 form are found rather commonly in the Anglo-Saxon illuminated manu- 
 scripts. One of these is given in the group, No. 6, which represents 
 
 three types of the later Anglo-Saxon 
 pottery, selected from a large num- 
 ber copied by Strutt from Anglo- 
 Saxon manuscripts. The figure to 
 the left, in this group, is a later 
 Saxon form of the pitcher ; perhaps 
 the singular form of the handle may 
 have originated in an error of the 
 draughtsman. 
 Among the numerous articles of all kinds found in the early Anglo- 
 Saxon graves, are bowls of metal (generally bronze or copper), often 
 
 very thickly gilt, and of elegant 
 forms ; they are, perhaps, borrowed 
 from the Romans. Three examples 
 are given in the cut, No. 7, all 
 found in Kent. They were pro- 
 bably intended for the service of the 
 table. Another class of utensils 
 found rather commonly in the 
 Anglo-Saxon barrows are buckets. 
 The first of those represented in 
 our cut, No. 8, was found in a 
 Saxon barrow near Marlborough, in Wiltshire ; the other was found on 
 the Chatham lines. As far as my own experience goes, I believe these 
 
 buckets are usually found with male 
 skeletons, and from this circum- 
 stance, and the fact of their being 
 usually ornamented, I am inclined 
 to think they served some purposes 
 connected with the festivities of the 
 hall; probably they were used to 
 carry the ale or mead. The Anglo- 
 Saxon translation of the Book of Judges (chap. vii. 20), renders 
 hydrias confregissent by lo-brcecon tha bucas, " they broke the buckets." 
 
 No. 7. — Anglo-Saxon Bowls. 
 
 No. 8. — Anglo-Saxon Buckets. 
 
ANGLO-SAXON BUCKETS, ETC. 
 
 A common name for this implement, which was properly buc, was ccscen, 
 which signified literally a vessel made of ash, the favourite wood of the 
 Anglo-Saxons. Our cut, No. 9, represents a bucket of wood with very 
 delicately-formed bronze hoops and handle, found in a barrow in 
 Bourne Park, near Canterbury. The wood was entirely decayed ; but 
 the hoops and handle are in the collection of the late Lord Londes- 
 borough. Such buckets have also been found under similar circum- 
 stances on the Continent. The close resemblance between the 
 weapons and other instruments found in the English barrows, and in 
 those at Selzen, may be illustrated by a comparison of the two axes 
 
 No. 9. — Anglo-Saxon Bucket. 
 
 No. 10. — Saxon Axes. 
 
 represented in the cut, No. 10. The upper one was found at Selzen ; 
 the lower one is in the museum of Mr Rolfe, and was obtained from a 
 barrow in the Isle of Thanet. The same similarity is observed between 
 the knives, which is the more remarkable, as the later Anglo-Saxon 
 
 No. 11. — Germano-Saxon Knife. 
 
 knives were quite of a different form. The example, cut No. 11, taken 
 from a grave at Selzen, is the only instance I know of a knife of this 
 early period of Saxon history with the handle preserved ; it has been 
 beautifully enamelled. This may be taken as the type of the primitive 
 An do-Saxon knife. 
 
THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 Having given these few examples of the general forms of the imple- 
 ments in use among the Saxons before their conversion to Christianity, 
 as much to illustrate their manners, as described by "Beowulf," as to show 
 what classes of types were originally Saxon, we will proceed to treat of 
 their domestic manners, as we learn them from the more numerous and 
 more definite documents of a later period. We shall find it convenient 
 to consider the subject separately as it regards in-door life and out-door 
 life, and it will be proper first that we should form some definite notion 
 of an Anglo-Saxon house. 
 
 We can already form some notion of the primeval Saxon mansion 
 from our brief review of the poem of "Beowulf;" and we shall find that it 
 continued nearly the same down to a late period. The most important 
 part of the building was the hall, on which was bestowed all the orna- 
 mentation of which the builders and decorators of that early period were 
 capable. Halls built of stone are alluded to in a religious poem at the 
 beginning of the Exeter book ; yet, in the earlier period at least, there 
 can be little doubt that the materials of building were chiefly wood. 
 Around, or near this hall, stood, in separate buildings, the bed-chambers, 
 or bowers (Mr), of which the latter name is only now preserved as 
 applied to a summer-house in a garden ; but the reader of old English 
 poetry will remember well the common phrase of a brid hi bure, a lady 
 in her bower or chamber. These buildings and the household offices 
 were all grouped within an inclosure, or outward wall, which, I imagine, 
 was generally of earth, for the Anglo-Saxon word, weatt, was applied to 
 an earthen rampart, as well as to masonry. What is termed in the poem 
 of "Judith," wealles gedt, the gate of the wall, was the entrance through 
 this inclosure or rampart. I am convinced that many of the earthworks 
 which are often looked upon as ancient camps, are nothing more than 
 the remains of the inclosures of Anglo-Saxon residences. 
 
 In "Beowulf," the sleeping-rooms of Horthgar and his court seem to 
 have been so completely detached from the hall, that their ihmates did 
 not hear the combat that was going on in the latter building at night. 
 In smaller houses the sleeping-rooms were fewer, or none, until we arrive 
 at the simple room in which the inmates had board and lodging together, 
 with a mere hedge for its inclosure, the prototype of our ordinary cottage 
 and garden. The wall served for a defence against robbers and enemies, 
 
DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE. 23 
 
 while, in times of peace and tranquillity, it was a protection from in- 
 discreet intruders, for the doors of the hall and chambers seem to have 
 been generally left open. Beggars assembled round the door of the 
 wall — the ostium domils — to wait for alms. 
 
 The vocabularies of the Anglo-Saxon period furnish us with the 
 names of most of the parts of the ordinary dwellings. The entrance 
 through the outer wall into the court, the strength of which is alluded to 
 in early writers, was properly the gate {gedt). The whole mass inclosed 
 within this wall constituted the burh (burgh), or tun, and the inclosed 
 court itself seems to have been designated as the cafer-twi or inburh. 
 The wall of the hall, or of the internal buildings in general, was called a 
 wag, or wah, a distinctive word which remained in use till a late period 
 in the English language, and seems to have been lost partly through the 
 similarity of sound.* The entrance to the hall, or to the other buildings 
 in the interior, was the duru, or door, which was thus distinguished 
 from the gate. Another kind of door mentioned in the vocabularies 
 was a Mid-gata, literally a gate with a lid or cover, which was perhaps, 
 however, a word merely invented to represent the Latin valva, which is 
 given as its equivalent. The door is described in "Beowulf" as being 
 " fastened with fire-bands" {fyr-bendum fcest, 1. 1448), which must mean 
 iron bars.f Either before the door of the hall, or between the door and 
 the interior apartment, was sometimes a selde, literally a shed, but per- 
 haps we might now call it a portico. The different parts of the archi- 
 tectural structure of the hall enumerated in the vocabularies are stapul, 
 a post or log set in the ground ; stipere, a pillar ; beam, a beam ; rcefter, 
 a rafter ; Iceta, a lath ; swer, a column. The columns supported bigels, 
 an arch or vault, or fyrst, the interior of the roof, the ceiling. The 
 hrof, or roof, was called also thecen, or thcecen, a word derived from the 
 
 * The distinction between the wagke and walle continued to a comparatively late 
 period. Halliwell, " Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words," v. wagke, quotes 
 the following lines from a manuscript of the fifteenth century : — 
 
 " So hedousely that storme ganne falle, 
 That sondir it braste bothe waghe and walle." 
 
 t It appears not, however, to have been customary to lock the doors during the 
 absence of the family, but merely to leave some one to take care of the house. This, 
 at least, was the case in Winchester, as we learn from the Miracles of St Swithun, by 
 the monk Lantfred. 
 
24 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 verb iheccan, to cover ; but although this is the original of our modern 
 word thatch, our readers must not suppose that the Anglo-Saxon thcecen 
 meant what we call a thatched roof, for we have the Anglo-Saxon word 
 thtzc-tigel, a thatch-tile, as well as hrof-tigel, a roof-tile. There was some- 
 times one story above the ground-floor, for which the vocabularies give 
 the Latin word solarium, the origin of the later medieval word, soler ; 
 but it is evident that this was not common to Anglo-Saxon houses, and 
 the only name for it was iip-ftor, an upper-floor. It was approached 
 by a stceger, so named from the verb stigan, to ascend, and the origin of 
 our modern word stair. There were windows to the hall, which were 
 probably improvements upon the ruder primitive Saxon buildings, for 
 the only Anglo-Saxon words for a window are eag-thyrl, an eye-hole, 
 and eag-duru, an eye-door. 
 
 We have unfortunately no special descriptions of Anglo-Saxon houses, 
 but scattered incidents in the Anglo-Saxon historians show us that this 
 general arrangement of the house lasted down to the latest period of 
 their monarchy. Thus, in the year 755, Cynewulf, King of the West 
 Saxons, was murdered at Merton by the ^Etheling Cyneard. The cir- 
 cumstances of the story are but imperfectly understood, unless we bear 
 in mind the above description of a house. Cynewulf had gone to Mer- 
 ton privately, to visit a lady there, who seems to have been his mistress, 
 and he only took a small party of his followers with him. Cyneard, 
 having received information of this visit, assembled a body of men, 
 entered the inclosure of the house unperceived (as appears by the con- 
 text), and surrounded the detached chamber {bur) in which was the 
 king with the lady. The king, taken by surprise, rushed to the door 
 {on tha duru eode), and was there slain fighting. The king's attendants, 
 although certainly within the inclosure of the house, were out of hear- 
 ing of this sudden fray (they were probably in the hall), but they were 
 roused by the woman's screams, rushed to the spot, and fought till, 
 overwhelmed by the numbers of their enemies, they also were all slain. 
 The murderers now took possession of the house, and shut the 
 entrance gate of the wall of inclosure, to protect themselves against 
 the body of the king's followers who had been left at a distance. 
 These, next day, when they heard what had happened, hastened to 
 the spot, attacked the house, and continued fighting around the gate 
 
DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE. 25 
 
 (yvib tha gatu), until they made their way in, and slew all the men who 
 were there. Again, we are told, in the " Ramsey Chronicle," published 
 by Gale, of a rich man in the Danish period, who was oppressive to his 
 people, and, therefore, suspicious of them. He accordingly had four 
 watchmen every night, chosen alternately from his household, who kept 
 guard at the outside of his hall, evidently for the purpose of preventing 
 his enemies from being admitted into the inclosure by treachery. He 
 lay in his chamber, or bower. One night the watchmen, having drunk 
 more than usual, were unguarded in their speech, and talked together 
 of a plot into which they had entered against the life of their lord. He, 
 happening to be awake, heard their conversation from his chamber, 
 and defeated their project. We see here the chamber of the lord of the 
 mansion so little substantial in its construction that its inmates could 
 hear what was going on out of doors. At a still later period, a Nor- 
 thumbrian noble, whom Hereward visited in his youth, had a building 
 for wild beasts within his house or inclosure. One day a bear broke 
 loose, and immediately made for the chamber or bower of the lady of 
 the household, in which she had taken shelter with her women, and 
 whither, no doubt, the savage animal was attracted by their cries. We 
 gather from the context that this asylum would not have availed them, 
 had not young Hereward slain the bear before it reached them. In 
 fact, the lady's chamber was still only a detached room, probably 
 with a very weak door, which was not capable of withstanding any 
 force. 
 
 The Harleian Manuscript, No. 603 (in the British Museum), contains 
 several illustrations of Anglo-Saxon domestic architecture, most of 
 which are rather sketchy and indefinite ; but there is one picture (fol. 
 57, v°) which illustrates, in a very interesting manner, the distribution 
 of the house. Of this an exact copy is given in the accompanying cut, 
 No. 12.* The manuscript is, perhaps, as old as the ninth century, and 
 the picture here given illustrates Psalm cxi., in the Vulgate version, the 
 description of the just and righteous chieftain : the beggars are admitted 
 
 * Strutt has- engraved, without indicating the manuscript from which it is taken, a 
 small Saxon house, consisting of one hall or place for living in, with a chamber 
 attached, exactly like the domestic chapel and its attached chamber in our cut, No. 
 12. This seems to have been the usual shape of small houses in the Anglo-Saxon 
 period. 
 
26 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 within the inclosure (where the scene is laid), to receive the alms of the 
 lord ; and he and his lady are occupied in distributing bread to them, 
 while his servants are bringing out of one of the bowers raiment to 
 
 clothe the naked. The larger building behind, ending in a sort of 
 round tower with a cupola, is evidently the hall — the stag's head seems 
 to mark its character. The buildings to the left are chambers or 
 
DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE. 27 
 
 bowers ; to the right is the domestic chapel, and the little room attached 
 is perhaps the chamber of the chaplain. 
 
 It is evidently the intention in this picture to represent the walls of 
 the rooms as being formed, in the lower part, of masonry, with timber 
 walls above, and all the windows are in the timber walls. If we make 
 allowance for want of perspective and proportion in the drawing, it is 
 probable that only a small portion of the elevation was masonry, and 
 that the wooden walls {parities) were raised above it, as is very com- 
 monly the case in old timber-houses still existing. The greater portion of 
 the Saxon houses were certainly of timber ; in Alfric's colloquy, it is the 
 carpenter, or worker in wood {se treo-wyrhta), who builds houses ; and, as 
 I have said, the very word to express the operation of building, timbrian, 
 getimbrian, signified literally to construct of timber. We observe in the 
 above representation of a house, that none of the buildings have more 
 than a ground-floor, and this seems to have been a characteristic of the 
 houses of all class'es. The Saxon word flbr is generally used in the 
 early writers to represent the Latin pavimentum. Thus the " variegated 
 floor" {on fdgre flbr) of the hall mentioned in " Beowulf" (1. 1454) was a 
 paved floor, perhaps a tessellated pavement ; as the road spoken of in 
 an earlier part of the poem {street wees stdn-fdh, the street was stone- 
 variegated, 1. 644) describes a Roman paved-road. The term upper-floor 
 occurs once or twice, but only I think in translating from foreign Latin 
 writers. The only instance that occurs to my memory of an upper- 
 floor in an Anglo-Saxon house, is the story of Dunstan's council at Calne* 
 "in 978, when, according to the "Saxon Chronicle," the witan or council 
 fell from an upper-floor (of ane tip-floraii), while Dunstan himself 
 avoided their fate by supporting himself on a beam {uppo?i anum beame). 
 The buildings in the above picture are all roofed with tiles of different 
 forms, evidently copied from the older Roman roof-tiles. Perhaps the 
 flatness of these roofs is only to be considered as a proof of the draughts- 
 man's ignorance of perspective. One of Alfric's homilies applies the 
 epithet steep to a roof — on tham stieela?i h?'qfe. The hall is not unfre- 
 quently described as lofty. 
 
 The collective house had various names in Anglo-Saxon. It was 
 called Mis, a house — a general term for all residences great or small ; 
 it was called heal or hall, because that was the most important part of 
 
28 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 the building — we still call gentlemen's seats halls ; it was called ham, as 
 I have said before, as being the family residence or home of its pos- 
 sessor ; and it was called tun, in regard of its inclosure. 
 
 The Anglo-Saxons chose for their country-houses a position which 
 commanded a prospect around, because such sites afforded protection, 
 at the same time that they enabled the possessor to overlook his own 
 landed possessions. The " Ramsey Chronicle," describing the beautiful 
 situation of the mansion at " Schitlingdonia " (Shitlington), in Bedford- 
 shire, tells us that the surrounding country lay spread out like a pano- 
 rama, from the door of the hall — ubi ab ostio aula tota fere villa et late 
 patens ager arabilis oculis subjacet intimitis. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 In-Door Life among the Anglo-Saxons. — The Hall and its Hospitality. — 
 The Saxon Meal. — Provisions and Cookery. — After-Dinner Occu- 
 pations. — Drunken Brawls. 
 
 THE introductory observations in the preceding chapter will be 
 sufficient to show that the mode of life, the vessels and utensils, 
 and even the residences, of the Anglo-Saxons, were a mixture of those 
 they derived from their own forefathers with those which they bor- 
 rowed from the Romans, whom they found established in Britain. It 
 is interesting to us to know that we have retained the ordinary forms 
 of pitchers and basins, and, to a certain degree, of drinking-vessels, 
 which existed so many centuries ago among our ancestors before they 
 established themselves in this island. The beautiful forms which had 
 been brought from the classic South were not able to supersede national 
 habit. Our modern houses derive more of their form and arrange- 
 ment from those of our Saxon forefathers than from any other source. 
 We have seen that the original Saxon arrangement of a house was 
 preserved by that people to the last ; but it does not follow that they 
 did not sometimes adopt the Roman houses they found standing, 
 although they seem never to have imitated them. I believe Lord 
 Lytton's description of the Saxonised Roman house inhabited by 
 Hilda, to be quite truthful* Roman villas, when uncovered at the 
 present day, are sometimes found to have undergone alterations which 
 can only be explained by supposing that they were made when later 
 possessors adapted them to Saxon manners. Such alterations appear 
 to me to be visible in the villa at Hadstock, in Essex, opened by the 
 * In " Harold, the Last of the Saxon Kings." 
 
3° 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 late Lord Braybrooke.* In one place the outer wall seems to have 
 been broken through to make a new entrance, and a road of tiles, 
 which was supposed to have been the bottom of a water-course, was 
 more probably the paved pathway made by the Saxon possessor. 
 Houses in those times were seldom of long duration. We learn from 
 the domestic anecdotes given in saints' legends and other writings, 
 that they were very frequently burnt by accidental fires ; thus the main 
 part of the house, the timber-work, was destroyed ; and as ground was 
 then not valuable, and there was no want of space, it was much easier 
 to build a new house in another spot, and leave the old foundations 
 till they were buried in rubbish and earth, than to clear them away in 
 order to rebuild on the same site. Earth soon accumulated under 
 such circumstances ; and this accounts for our finding, even in towns, 
 so much of the remains of the houses of an early period undisturbed 
 at a considerable depth under the present surface of the ground. 
 
 It has already been observed that the most important part of the 
 Saxon house was the hall. It was the place where the household 
 {hired) collected round their lord and protector, and where the visitor 
 or stranger was first received, — the scene of hospitality. The house- 
 holder there held open-house, for the hall was the public apartment, 
 the doors of which were never shut against those who, whether known 
 or unknown, appeared worthy of entrance. The reader of Saxon hisn 
 tory will remember the beautiful comparison made by one of King 
 Edwin's chieftains in the discussion on the reception to be given to the 
 
 * I believe that another example of the change of the Roman villa into the great 
 Saxon mansion may be pointed out in Knebworth, in Hertfordshire, the family man- 
 sion of Lord Lytton, the Anglo-Saxon name of which would be Knebbas weorth — the 
 agricultural or rural mansion of Knebba, which is a very good Anglo-Saxon name. 
 We know that the villa was an agricultural establishment, and there are undoubted 
 traces of the former existence of a Roman villa at Knebworth. Close adjoining to 
 the modern park are found several barrows, probably the tombs of some of the 
 Roman lords of the villa. When the land was divided among the Anglo-Saxon 
 conquerors, the one to whose lot it fell seems to have imitated his Roman prede- 
 cessors as far as he could, and continued to occupy it as an agricultural villa, giving 
 to it the name, by which it would be known in his own language, of a weorth. 
 Perhaps the present mansion of Knebworth stands on or near the site of the Roman 
 villa. 
 
 Wherever we find a modern local name ending in %t:orth or worthy (representing the 
 Anglo-Saxon weor^ or weoityg), we may, I think, assume it to be the site of a Roman 
 villa. 
 
WALL- TAPES TR Y. 3 1 
 
 missionary Paulinus. " The present life of man, O king, seems to me, 
 in comparison of that time which is unknown to us, like to the swift 
 flight of a sparrow through the hall where you sit at your meal in 
 winter, with your chiefs and attendants, warmed by a fire made in the 
 middle of the hall, whilst storms of rain or snow prevail without ; the 
 sparrow, flying in at one door and immediately out at another, whilst 
 he is visible, is safe from the wintry storm, but after this short space of 
 fair weather, he immediately vanishes out of your sight, into the dark 
 winter from which he had emerged." Dining in private was always 
 considered disgraceful, and is mentioned as a blot in a man's character. 
 Internally, the walls of the hall were covered with hangings or 
 tapestry, which were called in Anglo-Saxon wah-hrcegel, or wah-rift, 
 wall-clothing. These appear sometimes to have been mere plain cloths, 
 but at other times they were richly ornamented, and not unfrequently 
 embroidered with historical subjects. So early as the seventh century, 
 Aldhelm speaks of the hangings or curtains being dyed with purple 
 and other colours, and ornamented with images, and he adds, that " if 
 finished of one colour uniform, they would not seem beautiful to the 
 eye." Among the Saxon wills printed by Hickes, we find several 
 bequests of heall wah-riftas, or wall-tapestries for the hall ; and it 
 appears that, in some cases, tapestries of a richer and more precious 
 character than those in common use were reserved to be hung up only 
 on extraordinary festivals. There were hooks or pegs on the wall, 
 upon which various objects were hung for convenience. In an anec- 
 dote told in the contemporary " Life of Dunstan," he is made to hang his 
 harp against the wall of the room. Arms and armour more especially 
 were hung against the wall of the hall. The author of the " Life 
 of Hereward " describes the Saxon insurgents who had taken posses- 
 sion of Ely as suspending their arms in this manner ; and in one 
 of the riddles in the " Exeter Book," a war-vest is introduced speaking 
 of itself thus : — 
 
 hwilum hongige, Sometimes I hang, 
 
 hyrstum frsetwed, with ornaments adorned, 
 
 wlitig on wage, splendid on the wall, 
 
 Jjaer weras drince^S, where men drink, 
 
 freolic fyrd-sceorp. a goodly war- vest. — Exeter Book, p. 395. 
 
 We have no allusion in Anglo-Saxon writers to chimneys, or fire- 
 
32 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 places, in our modern acceptation of the term. When necessary, the 
 fire seems to have been made on the floor, in the place most con- 
 venient. We find instances in the early saints' legends where the hall 
 was burnt by incautiously lighting the fire too near the wall. Hence 
 it seems to have been usually placed in the middle, and there can be 
 little doubt that there was an opening, or, as it was called in later 
 times, a louver, in the roof above, for the escape of the smoke. The 
 historian Bede describes a Northumbrian king, in the middle of the 
 seventh century, as having, on his return from hunting, entered the 
 hall with his attendants, and all standing round the fire to warm 
 themselves. A somewhat similar scene, but in more humble life, is 
 represented in the accompanying cut, taken from a manuscript calendar 
 of the beginning of the eleventh century (MS. Cotton. Julius, A. iv.) 
 The material for feeding the fire is wood, which the man to the left is 
 
 bringing from a heap, while his 
 companion is administering to 
 the fire with a pair of Saxon 
 tongs (tangan). The vocabularies 
 give tange, tongs, and bylig, bel- 
 lows ; and they speak of col, coal 
 (explained by the Latin carbo), 
 and sinder, a cinder {scorium). 
 As all these are Saxon words, and not derived from the Latin, we may 
 suppose that they represent things known to the Anglo-Saxon race 
 from an early period ; and as charcoal does not produce scorium, or 
 cinder, it is perhaps not going too far to suppose that the Anglo-Saxons, 
 like the Romans before them, were acquainted with the use of mineral 
 coal. We know nothing of any other fire utensils, except that the 
 Anglo-Saxons used a fyr-scofl, or fire-shovel. The place in which the 
 fire was made was the heorth, or hearth. 
 
 The furniture of the hall appears to have been very simple, for it 
 consisted chiefly of benches. These had carpets and cushions; the 
 former are often mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon wills. The Anglo- 
 Saxon poems speak of the hall as being " adorned with treasures," trom 
 which we are perhaps justified in believing that it was customary to 
 display there in some manner or other the richer and more ornamental 
 
 No. 13. — A Party at the Fire. 
 
THE HALL AND ITS HOSPITALITY. 33 
 
 of the household vessels. Perhaps one end of the hall was raised 
 higher than the rest for the lord of the household, like the dais of later 
 times, as Anglo-Saxon writers speak of the heah-setl, or high seat. The 
 table can hardly be considered as furniture, in the ordinary sense of 
 the word : it was literally, according to its Anglo-Saxon name bord, a 
 board that was brought out for the occasion, and placed upon tressels, 
 and taken away as soon as the meal was ended. Among the inedited 
 Latin cenigmata, or riddles, of the Anglo-Saxon writer Tahtwin, who> 
 flourished at the beginning of the eighth century,, is one upon a table, 
 which is curious enough to be given here, from the manuscript in the 
 British Museum (MS. Reg. 12 C. xxiii.) The table, speaking in its 
 own person, says that it is in the habit of feeding people with all sorts 
 of viands ; that while so doing it is a quadruped, and is adorned with 
 handsome clothing ; that afterwards it is robbed of all its apparel and 
 when it has been thus robbed it loses its legs : — 
 
 DE MENSA. 
 
 Multiferis omnes dapibus saturare solesco, 
 Quadrupedem hinc felix ditem me sanxerit astas, 
 Esse tamen pulchris fatim dum vestibus orner, 
 Certatim me prsedones spoliare solescunt; 
 Raptis nudata exuviis mox membra relinquunt. 
 
 In the illuminated manuscripts, wherever dinner scenes are repre- 
 sented, the table is always covered with what is evidently intended for 
 a handsome table-cloth, the myse-hrcegel or bord-clath\ The grand pre- 
 paration for dinner was laying the board; and it is from this original 
 character of the table that we derive our ordinary expression of receiving 
 any one " to board and lodging." 
 
 The hall was peculiarly the place for eating — and for drinking. The 
 Anglo-Saxons had three meals in the day, — the breaking of their fast 
 (breakfast) at the third hour of the day, which answered to nine o'clock 
 in the morning, according to our reckoning ; the ge-reordung (repast), or 
 non-mete (noon-meat), or dinner, which is stated to have been held at 
 the canonical hour of noon, or three o'clock in the afternoon ; and the 
 cefen-gereord {evening repast), afen-gyfl (evening food), cefen-mete (even- 
 ing meat), cefen-thenung (evening refreshment), or supper, the hour of 
 which is uncertain. It is probable, from many circumstances, that the 
 latter was a meal not originally in use among our Saxon forefathers : 
 
34 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 perhaps their only meal at an earlier period was the dinner, which was 
 always their principal repast ; and we may, perhaps, consider noon as 
 mid-day, and not as meaning the canonical hour. 
 
 As I have observed before, the table, from the royal hall down to the 
 most humble of those who could afford it, was not refused to strangers. 
 When they came to the hall-door, the guests were required to leave their 
 arms in the care of a porter or attendant, and then, whether known or 
 not, they took their place at the tables. One of the laws of King Cnut 
 directs, that if, in the meantime, any one took the weapon thus depo- 
 sited, and did hurt with it, the owner should be compelled to clear 
 himself of suspicion of being cognisant of the use to be made of his 
 arms when he laid them down. History affords us several remarkable 
 
 No. 14. — An Anglo-Saxon Dinner-Party. 
 
 instances of the facility of approach even to the tables of kings during 
 the Saxon period. It was this circumstance that led to the murder of 
 King Edmund in 946. On St Augustin's day, the king was dining at 
 his manor of Pucklechurch, in Gloucestershire; a bandit named Leofa, 
 whom the king had banished for his crimes, and who had returned 
 without leave from exile, had the effrontery to place himself at the royal 
 table, by the side of one of the principal nobles of the court; the king 
 alone recognised him, rose from his seat to expel him from the hall, and 
 received his death-wound in the struggle. In the eleventh century, 
 when Hereward went in disguise as a spy to the court of a Cornish 
 
THE SAXON MEAL. 
 
 35 
 
 chieftain, he entered the hall while they were feasting, took his place 
 among the guests, and was but slightly questioned as to who he was 
 and whence he came. 
 
 In the early illuminated manuscripts, dinner scenes are by no means 
 uncommon. The cut, No. 14 (taken from Alfric's version of Genesis, 
 MS. Cotton. Claudius, B. iv. fol. 36, v°), represents Abraham's feast on 
 the birth of his child. The guests are sitting at an ordinary long hall- 
 table, ladies and gentlemen being mixed together without any apparent 
 special arrangement. This manuscript is probably of the beginning of 
 the eleventh century. The cut, No. 15, represents another dinner scene, 
 from a manuscript probably of the tenth century (Tiberius, C. vi. fol. 5, 
 v°), and presents several peculiarities. The party here is a very small 
 
 No. 15. — Anglo-Saxons at Dinner. 
 
 one, and they sit at a round table. The attendants seem to be serving 
 them, in a very remarkable manner, with roast meats, which they bring 
 to table on the spits (spitii) as they were roasted. Another festive scene 
 is represented in the cut, No. 16, taken from a manuscript of the Psycho- 
 machia of the poet Prudentius (MS. Cotton. Cleopatra, C. viii. fol. 15, 
 r°). The table is again a round one, at which Luxury and her com- 
 panions are seated at supper {seo Gaines to hyre cefen-ge-reordiwi sitt). 
 
 It will be observed that in these pictures, the tables are tolerably 
 well covered with vessels of different kinds, with the exception of plates. 
 There are one or two dishes of different sizes in fig. 14, intended, no 
 
36 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 doubt, for holding bread and other articles ; it was probably an utensil 
 borrowed from the Romans, as the Saxon name disc was evidently taken 
 from the Latin discus. It is not easy to identify the forms of vessels 
 given in these pictures with the words which are found in the Anglo- 
 Saxon language, in which the general term for a vessel is feet, a vat ; 
 crocca, a pot or pitcher, no doubt of earthenware, is preserved in the 
 modern English word crockery; and bolla, a bowl, ore, a basin, bledic 
 and mele, each answering to the Latin patera, leefel and ceac, a pitcher or 
 urn, hncep, a cup (identical in name with the hanap of a later period), 
 flaxe, a flask, are all pure Anglo-Saxon words. Many of the forms 
 
 No. 16. — A Supper Party. 
 
 represented in the manuscripts are recognised at once as identical with 
 those which are found in the earlier Anglo-Saxon graves. In the vo- 
 cabularies, the Latin word amphora is translated by crocca, a crock; and 
 lagena by eescen, which means a vessel made of ash wood, and was, in 
 all probability, identical with the small wooden buckets so often found 
 in the early Saxon ^graves. In a document preserved in Heming's 
 chartulary of Canterbury, mention is made of " an cescen, which is other- 
 wise called a back-bucket " {eescen the is othre namon hrygile-hcc gecleopad, 
 Heming, p. 393), which strongly confirms the opinion I have adopted 
 as to the purpose of the bucket found in the graves. 
 
PROVISIONS AND COOKERY. 37 
 
 The food of the Anglo-Saxons appears to have been in general rather \ 
 simple in character, although we hear now and then of great feasts, 
 probably consisting more in the quantity of provisions than in any great 
 variety or refinement in gastronomy. Bread formed the staple, which 
 the Anglo-Saxons appear to have eaten in great quantities, with milk, 
 and butter, and cheese. A domestic was termed a man's hlaf-cetan, or 
 loaf-eater ; and the title of lady, given to the chieftain's wife, is the 
 Anglo-Saxon hlaf-dige, or distributer of bread. There is a curious 
 passage in one of Alfric's homilies, that on the life of St Benedict, 
 where, speaking of the use of oil in Italy, the Anglo-Saxon writer ob- 
 serves, " they eat oil in that country with their food as we do butter." 
 The Anglo-Saxons, therefore, buttered their bread. Vegetables (wyrtan) 
 formed a considerable portion of the food of our forefathers at this 
 period ; beans (beand) are mentioned as articles of food, but I remember 
 no mention of the eating of peas (fiisati) in Anglo-Saxon writers. A 
 variety of circumstances show that there was a great consumption of 
 fish, as well as of poultry. Of flesh meat, bacon (sfiic) was the most 
 abundant, for the extensive oak forests nourished innumerable droves 
 of swine. Much of their other meat was salted, and the place in 
 which the salt meat was kept was called, on account of the great pre- 
 ponderance of the bacon, a spic-hus, or bacon-house ; in latter times, 
 for the same reason, named the larder. The practice of eating so 
 much salt meat explains why boiling seems to have been the prevail- 
 ing mode of cooking it. In the manuscript of Alfric's translation of 
 Genesis, already mentioned, we have a figure of a boiling vessel 
 (given in our cut, No. 17), which is placed over the fire on a tripod. 
 This vessel was called a pan (J>anna — one Saxon writer mentions isen 
 fianna, an iron pan) or a kettle {cytet). It is very curious to observe 
 how many of our trivial expressions at the present day are derived from 
 very ancient customs ; thus, for example, we speak of " a kettle of fish," 
 though what we now term a kettle would hardly serve for this branch 
 of cookery. In another picture (No. 1 8) we have a similar boiling vessel, 
 placed similarly on a tripod, while the cook is using a very singular 
 utensil to stir the contents. Bede speaks of a goose being taken down 
 from a wall to be boiled. It seems probable that in earlier times among 
 the Anglo-Saxons, and perhaps at a later period, in the case of large 
 
38 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 feasts, the cooking was done out of doors. The only words in the 
 Anglo-Saxon language for cook and kitchen, are cbc and cycene, taken 
 from the Latin coquus and coquina, a circumstance which seems to show 
 that they only improved their rude manner of living in this respect after 
 they had become acquainted with the Romans. Besides boiled meats, 
 they certainly had roast, or broiled, which they called brcede, meat which 
 had been spread or displayed to the fire. The vocabularies explain the 
 Latin coctus by " boiled or baked " (gesoden, gebacen). They also fried 
 meat, which was then called hyrstyug, and the vessel in which it was 
 
 No. 17.— A Saxon Kettle. 
 
 No. 18. — A Saxon Cook. 
 
 fried was called hyr sting-panne, a frying-pan. Broth, also [broth), was 
 much in use. 
 
 In the curious colloquy of Alfric (a dialogue made to teach the 
 Anglo-Saxon youth the Latin names for different articles), three pro- 
 fessions are mentioned as requisite to furnish the table : first, the Salter, 
 who stored the store-rooms (cleafcui) and cellars (heddeme), and without 
 whom they could not have butter (butere) — they always used salt butter 
 — or cheese (cyse) ; next, the baker, without whose handiwork, we are 
 told, every table would seem empty; and lastly, the cook. The work of 
 the latter appears not at this time to have been very elaborate. " If you 
 expel me from your society," he says, " you will be obliged to eat your 
 vegetables green, and your flesh-meat raw, nor can you have any fat 
 broth." " We care not," is the reply, " for we can ourselves cook our 
 
PROVISIONS AND COOKERY. 
 
 39 
 
 provisions, and spread them on the table." Instead of grounding his 
 defence on the difficulties of his profession, the cook represents that in 
 this case, instead of having anybody to wait upon them, they would be 
 obliged to be their own servants. It may be observed, as indicating the 
 general prevalence of boiling food, that in the above account of the 
 cook, the Latin word coquere is rendered by the Anglo-Saxon seothan, 
 to boil.* Our words cook and kitchen are the Anglo-Saxon cbc and 
 cycene, and have no connection with the French cuisine. 
 
 We may form some idea of the proportions in the consumption of 
 different kinds of provisions among our Saxon forefathers, by the quan- 
 tities given on certain occasions to the monasteries. Thus, according 
 to the Saxon Chronicle, the occupier of an estate belonging to the 
 Abbey of Medeshamstede (Peterborough) in 852, was to furnish yearly 
 
 No. 19. — Anglo-Saxons at Table. 
 
 sixty loads of wood for firing, twelve of coal (grcefa), six of fagots, two 
 tuns of pure ale, two beasts fit for slaughter, six hundred loaves, and 
 ten measures of Welsh ale. 
 
 It will be observed in the dinner scenes given above, that the guests 
 are helping themselves with their hands. Forks were totally unknown 
 to the Anglo-Saxons for the purpose of carrying the food to the mouth, 
 and it does not appear that every one at table was furnished with a 
 knife. In the cut, No. 19 (taken from MS. Harl. No. 603, fol. 12, r°), 
 
 * William of Malmesbury, de Gest. Pontif. printed in Gale, p. 249, describes the 
 Saxons as .cooking their meat in lebete, evidently meaning the sort of vessel figured in 
 the foregoing cuts. The Latin lebes, a cauldron or kettle, is interpreted in the early 
 glossaries by the Anglo-Saxon hwer, or huer ; hwcer-boll or hwcer-cytel are interpreted 
 in the Anglo-Saxon dictionaries as meaning a frying-pan, which is evidently not 
 correct. 
 
4o 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 a party at table are eating without forks or knives. It will be observed 
 here, as in the other pictures of this kind, that the Anglo-Saxon bread 
 (hlaf) is in the form of round cakes, much like the Roman loaves in 
 the pictures at Pompeii, and not unlike our cross-buns at Easter, 
 which are no doubt derived from our Saxon forefathers. Another 
 party at dinner without knives or forks is represented in the cut No. 
 20, taken from the same manuscript (fol. 51, v°.) The tables here 
 
 No. 20. — Anglo-Saxons at Table. 
 
 are without table-cloths. The use of the fingers in eating explains to 
 us whyit was considered necessary to wash the hands before and after 
 the meal. 
 
 The knife (cm/), as represented in the Anglo-Saxon illuminations, 
 has a peculiar form, quite different from that of the earlier knife found in 
 the graves, but resembling rather closely the form of the modern razor. 
 Several of these Saxon knives have been found, and one of them, dug 
 
 No. 21. — An Anglo-Saxon Knife. 
 
 up in London, and now in the interesting museum collected by Mr 
 Roach Smith, is represented in the accompanying cut, No. 21.* The 
 
 * There is one of these knives in the Cambridge Museum, which has been there 
 rather singularly labelled "a Roman razor!" Mr Roach Smith always suspected 
 that these knives were late Saxon, and their similarity in form to those given in the 
 manuscripts shows that he was correct. 
 
AFTER-DINNER OCCUPA TIONS. 
 
 4i 
 
 blade, of steel (style), which is the only part preserved, has been inlaid 
 with bronze. 
 
 When the repast was concluded, and the hands of the guests washed, 
 the tables appear to have been withdrawn from the hall, and the party 
 commenced drinking. From the earliest times, this was the occupation 
 of the after-part of the day, when no warlike expedition or pressing 
 business interfered with it. The lord and his chief guests sat at the 
 high seat, while the others sat round on benches. An old chronicler, 
 speaking of a Saxon dinner party, says, " After dinner they went to 
 their cups, to which the English were too much accustomed." * This 
 was the case even with the clergy, as we learn from many of the 
 ecclesiastical laws. In the " Ramsey History," printed by Gale, we are 
 told of a Saxon bishop who invited a Dane to his house in order to 
 obtain some land from him, and to drive a better bargain, he determined 
 to make him drunk. He therefore pressed him to stay to dinner, and 
 "when they had all eaten enough, the tables were taken away, and 
 they passed the rest of the day, till evening, drinking. He who held 
 the office of cup-bearer, managed that the Dane's turn at the cup came 
 round oftener than the others, as the bishop had directed him." We 
 know by the story of Dunstan and King Eadwy, that it was considered 
 
 No. 22. — An Anglo-Saxon Drinking Party. 
 
 a great mark of disrespect to the guests, even in a king, to leave the 
 drinking early after dinner. 
 
 Our cut, No. 22, taken from the Anglo-Saxon calendar already men- 
 tioned (MS. Cotton. Julius, A. vi.), represents a party sitting at the 
 heah-setl, the high seat, or dais, drinking after dinner. It is the lord of 
 
 * " Post prandium adpocula, quibus Angli nimis sunt assueti." — Chron. J. Walling- 
 ford, in Gale, p. 542. 
 
42 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 the household and his chief friends, as is shown by their attendant guard 
 of honour. The cup-bearer, who is serving them, has a napkin in his 
 hand. The seat is furnished with cushions, and the three persons seated 
 on it appear to have large napkins or cloths spread over their knees. 
 Similar cloths are evidently represented in our cut, No. 16. Whether 
 these are the setl-hrcegel, or seat-cloths, mentioned in some of the Anglo- 
 Saxon wills, is uncertain. 
 
 It will be observed that the greater part of the drinking-cups bear a 
 resemblance in form to those of the more ancient period which we find 
 in Anglo-Saxon graves, and of which some examples have been given in 
 the preceding chapter. We cannot tell whether those seen in the 
 pictures be intended for glass or other material ; but it is certain that 
 the Anglo-Saxons were ostentatious of drinking-cups and other vessels 
 made of the precious metals. Sharon Turner, in his " History of the 
 Anglo-Saxons," has collected together a number of instances of such 
 valuable vessels. In one will, three silver cups are bequeathed; in 
 another, four cups, two of which were of the value of four pounds ; in 
 another, four silver cups, a cup with a fringed edge, a wooden cup 
 variegated with gold, a wooden-knobbed cup, and two very handsome 
 drinking-cups (smicere scencing-cuppaii). Other similar documents men- 
 tion a golden cup, with a golden dish ; a gold cup of immense weight ; 
 a dish adorned with gold, and another with Grecian workmanship 
 (probably brought from Byzantium). A lady bequeaths a golden cup 
 weighing four marks and a half. Mention of silver cups, silver basins, 
 &c, is of frequent occurrence. In 833, a king gave his gilt cup, 
 engraved outside with vine-dressers fighting dragons, which he called 
 his cross-bowl, because it had a cross marked within it, and it had four 
 angles projecting, also like a cross. These cups were given frequently 
 as marks of affection and remembrance. The Lady Ethelgiva pre- 
 sented to the Abbey of Ramsey, among other things, " two silver cups, 
 for the use of the brethren in the refectory, in order that, while drink is 
 served in them to the brethren at their repast, my memory may be more 
 firmly imprinted on their hearts." * It is a curious proof of the value 
 
 * " Duos ciphos argenteos .... ad serviendum fratribus in refectorio, quatenus, 
 dum in eis potus edentibus fratribus ministratur, memoria mei eorum cordibus arctius 
 inculcetur." — Hist. Ramesiensis, in Gale, p. 406. 
 
ANGLO-SAXON DRINKING- VESSELS. 
 
 43 
 
 of such vessels, that in the pictures of warlike expeditions, where two 
 or three articles are heaped together as a kind of symbolical repre- 
 sentation of the value of the spoils, vessels of the table and drinking- 
 cups and drinking-horns are generally included. Our cut, No. 23, 
 represents one of these groups (taken from the Cottonian Manu- 
 script, Claudius, C. viii.) ; it contains a crown, a bracelet or ring, 
 two drinking-horns, a jug, and two other vessels. 
 / The drinking-horn was in common use among the 
 Anglo-Saxons. It is seen on the table or in the 
 hands of the drinkers in more than one of our 
 cuts. In the will of one Saxon lady, two buffalo- 
 horns are mentioned ; three horns worked with 
 gold and silver are mentioned in one inventory ; 
 and we find four horns enumerated among the 
 effects of a monastic house. The Mercian King 
 Witlaf, with somewhat of the sentiment of the 
 Lady Ethelgiva, gave to the Abbey of Croyland 
 the horn of his table, "that the elder monks may drink from it on 
 festivals, and in their benedictions remember sometimes the soul of 
 the donor." 
 
 We have a fine example of these early drinking horns in what is 
 
 No. 23. — Articles of Value. 
 
 No. 24. — Horn of Ulphus. 
 
 called the horn of Ulphus (Wulf,) which has been preserved in the 
 Cathedral of York, where it is now shown in the vestry. It is repre- 
 sented in the accompanying cut, No. 24. 
 
 The liquors drunk by the Saxons were chiefly ale and mead ; the \ 
 immense quantity of honey that was then produced in this country, as 
 we learn from Domesday-book and other records, shows us how great 
 
44 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 must have been the consumption of the latter article. Welsh ale is 
 especially spoken of. Wine was also in use, though it was an expensive 
 article, and was in a great measure restricted to persons above the 
 common rank. According to Alfric's Colloquy, the merchant brought 
 from foreign countries wine and oil ; and when the scholar is asked why 
 he does not drink wine, he says he is not rich enough to buy it, " and 
 wine is not the drink of children or fools, but of elders and wise men." 
 Our Teutonic forefathers appear to have been made acquainted with 
 wine through the Romans, from whom the Anglo-Saxons borrowed the 
 name, their word win, the Latin vinum, for they had no word of their 
 own for it, and they no doubt found it here when they settled in this 
 island province. Afterwards it appears to have been especially in 
 favour among the clergy. There were vineyards in England in the times 
 of the Saxons, and wine was made from them ; but they were chiefly 
 attached to the monastic establishments, few of which were without a 
 vineyard. William of Malmesbury speaks of a vineyard attached to 
 his monastery, which was first planted at the beginning of the eleventh 
 century by a Greek monk who settled there, and who spent all his time 
 in cultivating it. But wine appears never to have been a common 
 drink among the Anglo-Saxons, but to have been, even till a late date, 
 a special cause of over-indulgence when introduced into their feasts. We 
 learn from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, that, in the year 1012, when the 
 Danish army assembled at London, under Edric Streona, and put to 
 death Archbishop yElfheah, that this outrage arose partly from the ex- 
 citement of drunkenness, into which they had fallen in consequence 
 of " wine having been brought thither from the south," meaning pro- 
 bably from the vineyards in our southern counties. Various cir- 
 cumstances caused the cultivation of the vine to be abandoned in 
 our island ; and indeed the quality of the wine produced here must 
 have been far inferior to that of the Continent. Some contempo- 
 rary writers inform us that the wine in England was hardly potable, 
 and foreign wines soon began to be imported in large quantities, 
 until in the thirteenth century they were found here in abundance. 
 In the time of King John the sale of wine was encouraged by royal 
 ordinances. 
 
 In their drinking, the Anglo-Saxons had various festive ceremonies, 
 
ANGLO-SAXON AMUSEMENTS. 
 
 45 
 
 one of which is made known to us by the popular story of the lady 
 Rowena and the British king. When the ale or wine was first served 
 the drinkers pledged each other, with certain phrases of wishing health, 
 not much unlike the mode in which we still take wine with each other 
 at table, or as people of the less refined classes continue to drink the 
 first glass to the health of the company ; but among the Saxons the 
 ceremony was accompanied with a kiss. In our cut, No. 14 (p. 34), the 
 party appear to be pledging each other. 
 
 The Anglo-Saxon potations were accompanied with various kinds ot 
 amusements. One of these was telling stories, and recounting the 
 exploits of themselves or of their friends. Another was singing their 
 national poetry, to which the Saxons were much attached. In the less 
 
 No. 25. — Drinking and Minstrelsy. 
 
 elevated class, where professed minstrels were not retained, each guest 
 was minstrel in his turn. Caedmon, as his story is related by Bede, 
 became a poet through the emulation thus excited. One of the eccle- 
 siastical canons enacted under King Edgar enjoins "that no priest be 
 a minstrel at the ale (ealu-scbfi), nor in any wise act the gleeman (gliwige), 
 with himself or with other men." In the account of the murder of 
 King Ethelbert in Herefordshire, by the treachery of Offa's wicked 
 queen (a.d. 792), we are told that the royal party, after dinner, "spent 
 the whole day with music and dancing in great glee." The cut, No. 
 25 (taken from the Harl. MS., No. 603), is a perfect illustration of this 
 incident of Saxon story. The cup-bearer is serving the guest with 
 wine from a vessel which is evidently a Saxon imitation of the Roman 
 amphora ; it is perhaps the Anglo-Saxon sester or scesfer ; a word, no 
 
46 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 doubt, taken from the Latin sextarius, and carrying with it, in general, 
 the notion of a certain measure. In Saxon translations from the Latin, 
 amphora is often rendered by sester. We have here a choice party of 
 minstrels and gleemen. Two are occupied with the harp, which ap- 
 pears, from a comparison of "Beowulf" with the later writers, to have 
 been the national instrument. It is not clear from 
 the picture whether the two men are playing both 
 on the same harp, or whether one is merely holding 
 the instrument for the other. Another is perhaps 
 intended to represent the Anglo-Saxon fithelere, 
 playing on the fithele (the modern English words 
 fiddler and fiddle) ■ but his instrument appears 
 rather to be the cittern, which was played with the 
 fingers, not with the bow. Another representation 
 of this performer, from the same manuscript, is 
 given in the cut, No. 26, where the instrument is better defined. The 
 other two minstrels, in No. 25, are playing on the horn, or on the Saxon 
 pip, or pipe. The two dancers are evidently a man and a woman, and 
 another lady to the extreme right seems preparing to join in the same 
 exercise. We know little of the Anglo-Saxon mode of dancing, but to 
 
 No. 26.— An Anglo- 
 Saxon Fithelere. 
 
 No. 27. — Anglo-Saxon Minstrels. 
 
 judge by the words used to express this amusement hoppan (to hop), 
 saffian and stellan (to leap), and iumbian (to tumble), it must have been 
 accompanied with violent movements. Our cut, No. 27 (from the Cot- 
 
ANGLO-SAXON MUSICIANS. 47 
 
 tonian MS., Cleopatra, C. viii. fol. 16, v°), represents another party of 
 minstrels, one of whom, a female, is dancing, while the other two are 
 playing on a kind of cithara and on the Roman double flute. The 
 Anglo-Saxon names for the different kinds of musicians most frequently 
 spoken of were hearpere, the harper ; bymere, the trumpeter ; pipere, the 
 player on the pipe or flute ; fithelere, the fiddler ; and hom-blawere, the 
 horn-blower. The gligman, or gleeman, was the same who, at a later 
 period, was called, in Latin, joadator, and, in French, a jougleur ; and 
 another performer, called truth, is interpreted as a stage-player, but was 
 probably some performer akin to the gleeman. The harp seems to 
 have stood in the highest rank, or, at least, in the highest popularity, of 
 musical instruments ; it was termed poetically the gleb-beam, or the glee- 
 wood, the wood of joy. 
 
 Although it was considered a very fashionable accomplishment among 
 the Anglo-Saxons to be a good singer of verses and a good player on 
 the harp, yet .the professed minstrel, who went about to every sort of 
 joyous assemblage, from the festive hall to the village wake, was a per- 
 son not esteemed respectable. He was beneath consideration in any 
 other light than as affording amusement, and as such he was admitted 
 everywhere, without examination. It was for this reason that Alfred, 
 and subsequently Athelstan, found such easy access in this garb to the 
 camps of their enemies ; and it appears to have been a common dis- 
 guise for such purposes. The group given in the last .cut (No. 27) are 
 intended to represent the persons characterised in the text (of Pruden- 
 tius) by the Latin word ganeones (vagabonds, ribalds), which is there 
 glossed by the Saxon term gleemen {ganeonum, gliwig-manna). Besides 
 music and dancing, they seem to have performed a variety of tricks and 
 jokes, to while away the tediousness of a Saxon afternoon, or excite 
 the coarse mirth of the peasant. That such performers, resembling in 
 many respects the Norman jougleur, were usually employed by Anglo- 
 Saxons of wealth and rank, is evident from various allusions to them. 
 Gaimar has preserved a curious Saxon story of the murder of King 
 Edward by his stepmother (a.d. 978), in which the Queen is represented 
 as having in her service a dwarf minstrel, who is employed to draw the 
 young king alone to her house. According to the Anglo-Norman 
 relater of this story, the dwarf was skilled in various modes of dancing 
 
THE HOMES OF OTHER DA YS. 
 
 and tumbling, characterised by words of which we can hardly now point 
 out the exact distinction, "and could play many other games." 
 
 " Wolstanet un naim aveit, 
 Ki baler e trescher saveit ; 
 Si saveit sailler e tumber, 
 E altres gius plusurs juer." 
 
 In a Saxon manuscript in the British Museum (MS. Cotton. Tiberius, 
 C. vi.), among the minstrels attendant on King David (represented in 
 
 No. 28. — Anglo-Saxon Minstrels and Gleeman. 
 
 our cut, No. 28), we see a gleeman, who is throwing up and catching 
 knives and balls, a common performance of the later Norman joug- 
 leurs, as well as of our modern mountebanks. Some of the tricks and 
 gestures of these performers were of the coarsest description, such as 
 could only be tolerated in a rude state of society. An example will be 
 found in a story told by William of Malmesbury of wandering minstrels, 
 
DR UNKEN BRA WLS. 49 
 
 whom he had seen performir 
 
 ig at a festival at that monastery when he 
 
 was a child, and which we can hardly venture to give even under the 
 
 veil of the original Latin. 
 
 
 A poem in the Exeter Manuscript describes the wandering character 
 
 of the Saxon minstrels. He tells us : — 
 
 Swa scrij>ende 
 
 Thus roving 
 
 gesceapum hweorfaft 
 
 with their lays go 
 
 gleo-men gumena 
 
 the gleemen of men 
 
 geond grunda fela, 
 
 over many lands, 
 
 J>earfe secgaS, 
 
 state their wants, 
 
 J> one-word sprecaj?. 
 
 utter words of thank, 
 
 simle sir8 o]>j>e norft 
 
 always south or north 
 
 sumne gemetaft 
 
 they find one 
 
 gydda gleawne, 
 
 knowing in songs, 
 
 geofum unhneawne. 
 
 who is liberal of gifts. — Exeter Book, p. 326. 
 
 We are not to suppose that 
 
 our Anglo-Saxon forefathers remained at 1 
 
 table merely drinking and listening. On the contrary, the perform- 
 
 ance of the mhistrels appears 
 
 to have been only introduced at intervals, 
 
 between which the guests talked, joked, propounded and answered 
 
 riddles, boasted of their own 
 
 exploits, disparaged those of others, and, 
 
 as the liquor took effect, became noisy and quarrelsome. The moral 
 
 poems often allude to the 
 
 quarrels and slaughters in which feasts 
 
 ended. One of these poems 
 
 ,. enumerating the various endowments of 
 
 men, says : — 
 
 
 sum bift wrsed tsefie. ;- 
 
 one is expert at dice ; 
 
 sum bift gewittig 
 
 one is witty 
 
 set win-J>ege, 
 
 at wine-bibbing, 
 
 beor-hyrde god. 
 
 a good beer-drinker. — Exeter Book, p. 297 
 
 A " Monitory Poem," in the 
 
 same collection, thus describes the man- 
 
 ners of the guests in hall : — 
 
 
 }>onne monige beoft 
 
 but many are 
 
 msefel-hergendra, 
 
 lovers of social converse, 
 
 wlonce wig-smi]>as, 
 
 haughty warriors, 
 
 win-burgum in, 
 
 in pleasant cities, 
 
 sittaj) set symble, 
 
 they sit at the feast, 
 
 soft-gied wrecaft, 
 
 tales recount, 
 
 wordum wrixla^, 
 
 in words converse, 
 
 witan fundiaft 
 
 strive to know 
 
 hvvyle sesc-stede 
 
 who the battle place 
 
 inne in raecede 
 
 within the house 
 
5° 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 mid werum wunige ; 
 J>onne win hweteft 
 beornes breost-sefan, 
 breahtme stigeft 
 cirm on corJ>re, 
 cwide-scral leta]> 
 missenlice. 
 
 will with men abide ; 
 
 then wine wets 
 
 the man's breast-passions, 
 
 suddenly rises 
 
 clamour in the company, 
 
 an outcry they send forth] 
 
 various. — Exeter Book, p. 314. 
 
 In a poem on the various fortunes of men, and the different ways in 
 which they come by death, we are told : — 
 
 sumum meces ecg 
 on meodu-bence, 
 yrrum ealo-wosan, 
 ealdor ojjmngeft, 
 were win-sadum. 
 
 from one the sword's.-edge 
 
 on the mead-bench, 
 
 angry with ale, 
 
 life shall expel, 
 
 a wine-sated man. — Exeter Book, p. 330. 
 
 And in the metrical legend of St Juliana, the Evil-one boasts : — 
 
 sume ic larum geteah, 
 to geflite fremede, 
 J> set hy f seringa 
 eald-afJ>oncan 
 edniwedan, 
 beore druncne ; 
 ic him byrlade 
 wreht of wege, 
 fast hi in win-sale 
 Jrnrh sweord-gripe 
 sawle forletan 
 of flaesc-homan. 
 
 some I by wiles have drawn, 
 
 to strife prepared, 
 
 that they suddenly 
 
 old grudges 
 
 have renewed, 
 
 drunken with beer ; 
 
 I to them poured 
 
 discord from the cup, 
 
 so that they in the social hall 
 
 through gripe of sword 
 
 the soul let forth 
 
 from the body. — Exeter Book, p. 271. 
 
 There were other amusements for the long evenings besides those 
 which belonged especially to the hall, for every day was not a feast- 
 day. The hall was then left to the household retainers and their 
 occupations. But we must now leave this part of the domestic estab- 
 lishment. The ladies appear not to have remained at table long after 
 dinner — it was somewhat as in modern times — they proceeded to their 
 own special part of the house — the chamber — and thither it will be my 
 duty to accompany them in the next chapter. I have described all 
 the ordinary scenes that took place in the Anglo-Saxon hall. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 The Chamber and its Furniture. — Beds and Bedrooms. — Infancy and 
 Childhood among the Anglo-Saxons. — Character and Maimers of 
 the Anglo-Saxon Ladies. — Their Cruelty to their Servants. — Their 
 Amusements. — The Garden ; Love of the Anglo-Saxons for Flowers. 
 — Anglo-Saxon Punishments. — Almsgiving. 
 
 THE bower or chamber, which, as before stated, was, in the 
 original" Saxon mansions, built separate from the hall, was a 
 more private apartment than the latter, although it was still easy of 
 access. In the houses of the rich and the noble there were, as may 
 easily be supposed, several chambers devoted to the different purposes 
 of the household, and to the reception" of visitors. It was in the 
 chamber that the lord of the household transacted his private business, 
 and gave his private audiences. We see by the story of King Edwy, 
 that it was considered a mark of effeminacy to retire from the com- 
 pany in the hall after dinner, to seek more quiet amusement in the 
 chamber, where the men rejoined the ladies of the family; yet there 
 are numerous instances which show that, except on festive occasions, 
 this was a very common practice. In some cases, where the party was 
 not an ostentatious or public one, the meal was served in a chamber 
 rather than in the hall. According to the story of Osbert, king of 
 Northumberland, and Beorn, the buzecarl, as told by Gaimar, it was in 
 a chamber that Beorn's lady received the king, and caused the meal to 
 be served to him, which ended in consequences so fatal to the country. 
 We have very little information relating to- the domestic games and 
 amusements of the Anglo-Saxons. They seem to have consisted, in a 
 great measure, in music and in telling stories. They had games of 
 hazard, but we are not acquainted with their character. Their chief 
 
52 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 game was named ttzfel or tcefl, which has been explained by dice and by 
 chess ; one name of the article played with, tcefl-stan, a table-stone, 
 would suit either interpretation ; but another, tcefl-mon, a table-man, 
 would seem to indicate a game resembling our chess.* The writers 
 immediately after the Conquest, speak of the Saxons as playing at chess, 
 and pretend that they learnt the game from the Danes. Gaimar, who 
 gives us an interesting story relating to the deceit practised upon King 
 Edgar (a.d. 973) by Ethelwold, when sent to visit the beautiful 
 Elfthrida, daughter of Orgar of Devonshire, describes the young lady 
 and her noble father as passing the day at chess. 
 
 Orgar jouout a un esches, 
 Un giu k'il aprist des Daneis : 
 Od lui jouout Elstruet la bele. 
 
 The " Ramsey History," published by Gale, describing a bishop's visit to 
 court late at night, says that he found the king amusing himself with 
 similar games.t An ecclesiastical canon, enacted under King Edgar, 
 enjoined that a priest should not be a tceflere, or gambler. 
 
 It was not usual, in the middle ages, to possess much furniture, for in 
 those times of insecurity, anything movable, which could not easily be 
 concealed, was never safe from plunderers. Benches, on which several 
 
 persons could sit together, and a stool or 
 a chair for a guest of more consideration, 
 were the only seats. Our word chair is 
 Anglo-Norman, and the adoption of the 
 name from that language would seem to 
 indicate that the movable to which it was 
 applied was unknown to the great mass of 
 the Anglo-Saxon population of the island. 
 The Anglo-Saxon name for it was setl, a seat, or stol ; the latter pre- 
 served in the modern word stool. We find chairs of different forms 
 in the illuminations of Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, but they are always 
 represented as the seats of persons of high rank and dignity, usually of 
 kings. The two examples given in the accompanying cut (No. 29), 
 
 * We shall return to this subject in a subsequent chapter. 
 
 t " Regem adhuc tesserarum vel scaccarum ludo longioris tsedia noctis relevantem 
 invenit." 
 
 No. 29. — Anglo-Saxon Chairs. 
 
THE CHAMBER AND ITS FURNITURE. 
 
 53 
 
 are taken from the Harleian MS., No. 603, fol. 54, v°, already referred 
 to in our preceding chapters. It will be observed that, although very 
 simple in form, they are both furnished with cushions. The chair in 
 our cut, No. 30, taken from Alfric's translation of Genesis (MS. Cotton. 
 Claudius, B. iv.), on which a king is seated, is of a different and more 
 elegant construction. We sometimes find, in the manuscripts, chairs 
 of fantastic form, which were, perhaps, creations of the artist's imagi- 
 nation. Such a one is the singular throne on which King David is 
 seated with his harp, in our cut, No. 31, which is also taken from the 
 
 No. 30. — A King Seated. 
 
 No. 31. — King David. 
 
 Harleian Manuscript, No. 603 (fol. 68, v°.) In addition to the seat, 
 the ladies in the chamber had a scamel or footstool. 
 
 As we look over the pictures and the texts of the early manuscripts, 
 we cannot but remark a considerable amount of dignity as well as of 
 domestic familiarity in the Anglo-Saxon household. The head of the 
 family and his lady seem generally to have sat side by side on one seat, 
 a settle, as it was called in English of all ages, which was, as it were, the 
 throne of the family, around which the children and the other members 
 assembled. The group in our next engraving, No. 32, is taken from a 
 fine illuminated manuscript of the latter end of the tenth, or beginning 
 of the eleventh, century in the British Museum (MS. Cotton, Claudius, 
 B. iv. fol. 46, v°), containing a copy of Archbishop Alfric's Anglo-Saxon 
 translation of the Pentateuch. Its subject is the patriarch Jacob 
 
54 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 and his wife Leah, attended by Jacob's two sons by her handmaid 
 Zilpah, Gad and Asher. It was the custom of the medieval illumina- 
 tors always to represent in their drawings, whatever the subject, the 
 costume and manners of their own time, and here we see no doubt an 
 
 No. 32. — The Head of the Anglo-Saxon Family. 
 
 Anglo-Saxon gentleman and his lady seated on their settle, and at- 
 tended by their two sons, one of whom is furnished with what is probably 
 intended for a playful sword, an easily understood accompaniment even 
 of childish life in these primitive ages. It is an interesting family 
 group. The father is dressed in his in-door costume, the mother in the 
 full dress of the Anglo-Saxon dame. 
 
 The same may be said of the group represented in our cut, No. 33. 
 It is given by Willemin, in his " Monumens Inedits," from a manuscript 
 in the National Library in Paris, written and illuminated at Treves 
 towards the latter end of the tenth century, and therefore must be taken 
 as representing Frankish costume and manners, which no doubt differed 
 but little from those of the Anglo-Saxons. It evidently represents 
 somewhat of a ceremonious interview, in which both are in full dress, 
 and the lady is remarkable for the large handsome fibulae, or brooches, 
 
FAMILIAR INTERCOURSE. 
 
 55 
 
 which adorn her breast. In another group, No. 34, from a manuscript 
 of nearly the same date, preserved in the British Museum (MS. Cotton, 
 Cleopatra, C. viii. fol. 31, r°), two personages of the different sexes appear 
 
 No. 33. — -A noble Gentleman and Lady in conversation. 
 
 similarly engaged in conversation, but in the open air, out of the house, 
 and they furnish a similarly interesting picture of Anglo-Saxon costume 
 
 No. 34. — An Anglo-Saxon Gentleman and Lady. 
 
 and manners. Another picture, given in our engraving, No. 35, brings 
 us a little lower in the social scale, for it evidently represents a party of 
 
56 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 Anglo-Saxon gossips, belonging to the more ordinary class of the popu- 
 lation, engaged in earnest conversation, while they are tending their 
 children. The costume of these women is much less demonstrative, 
 and they have their feet without stockings or shoes. It is still more 
 
 No. 35. — Anglo-Saxon Gossips. 
 
 curious that the infant children are entirely naked. A picture from 
 another illuminated manuscript by an Anglo-Saxon artist, represented 
 in our cut, No. 36, from the manuscript of the Psalms already men- 
 
 
 No. 36. — Anglo-Saxon Parents and Child. 
 
 tioned (MS. Harl. No. 603, fol. 15, v°), of the end of the tenth century, 
 introduces another Anglo-Saxon father and mother, with their child 
 entirely naked, standing apparently at the entrance to a temple. They 
 also appear to be not of a high class of society. We may perhaps 
 conclude from these examples, that it was customary with the people 
 
CANDLE-LIGHT. 57 
 
 among the Anglo-Saxons to bring up their children to a certain age 
 without clothing. 
 
 There was a table used in the chamber or bower, which differed 
 altogether from that used in the hall. It was named myse, disc (from 
 the Latin discus), and beod ; all words which convey the idea of its 
 being round — beodas (in the plural) was the term applied to the scales 
 of a balance. The Latin phrase of the 127th Psalm, in circuity, menses 
 iuce, which was evidently understood by the Anglo-Saxon translators as 
 referring to a round table, is translated by one, on ymb-hwyrfte mysan 
 thine, and by another, in ymb-hwyrfte beodes thines. If we refer back to 
 our preceding chapter, we shall see, in the subjects which appear to 
 exhibit a small domestic party (see cuts No. 15, 19, and 25), that the 
 table is round ; and this was evidently the usual form given among the 
 Anglo-Saxons to the table used in the chamber or private room. This 
 form has been preserved as a favourite one in England down to a very 
 recent period, ^as that of the parlour-table among the class of society 
 most likely to retain Anglo-Saxon tastes and sentiments. In the pic- 
 tures, the round table is generally represented as supported on three 
 or four legs, though there are instances in which it was represented 
 with one. In the latter case, the board of the table probably turned 
 up on a hinge, as in our old parlour tea-tables ; and, in the former, it 
 was perhaps capable of being taking off the legs ; for there is reason 
 for believing that it was only laid out when wanted, and that, when no 
 longer in use, it was put away on one side of the room or in a closet 
 in the smallest possible compass. 
 
 We have no information to explain to us how the bower or chamber 
 was warmed. In the hall, it is probable that the fire gave warmth and 
 light at the same time, although, in the fragment of the Anglo-Saxon 
 poem relating to the fight at Finnesburg, there is an indistinct intimation 
 that the hall was sometimes lighted with horns, or cressets ; but, in the 
 chamber, during the long evenings of winter, it was necessary to have 
 an artificial light to enable its occupants to read, or work, or play. The 
 Anglo-Saxon name for this article, so necessary for domestic comfort, 
 was candel or condel (our candle) ; and, so general was the application of 
 this term, that it was even used figuratively as we now use the word 
 lamp. Thus, the Anglo-Saxon poets spoke of the sun as rodores candel 
 
THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 (the candle of the firmament), woruld-candel (the candle of the world), 
 heofon-condel (the candle of heaven), wyn-condel (the candle of glory). 
 The candle was, no doubt, originally a mere mass of fat plastered round 
 a wick (candel-weoc), and stuck upon an upright stick. Hence the in- 
 strument on which it was afterwards supported received the name of 
 candel-sticca or candel-stcef, a candlestick ; and the original idea was pre- 
 served even when the candle-supporter had many branches, it being 
 then called a candel-treow, or candle-tree. The original arrangement of 
 the stick was also preserved ; for, down to a very recent period, the 
 candle was not usually inserted in a socket in the candlestick as at pre- 
 sent, but it was stuck upon a spike. The Anglo-Saxon writers speak of 
 candel-snytels, or snuffers. Other names, less used, for a candle or some 
 article for giving light, were blacern or blcecem, which is explained in 
 glossaries by the Latin lucerna, and tkcecela, the latter signifying merely 
 a light. It was usual, also, among our Saxon forefathers, as among 
 ourselves, to speak of the instrument for illumination as merely leoht, a 
 light — " bring me a light." A candlestick and candle are represented 
 in one of the cuts in our last chapter (cut No. 19). The Anglo-Saxons, 
 no doubt, derived the use of lamps from the Romans ; and they were 
 so utterly at a loss for a word to describe this mode of illumination, that 
 they always called it leoht-fcet, a light-vat, or vessel of 
 light. In our cut (No. 37), we have an Anglo-Saxon 
 lamp, placed on a candelabrum or stand, exactly in the 
 Roman manner. It will be remembered that Asser, a 
 writer of somewhat doubtful authenticity, ascribes to 
 King Alfred the invention of lanterns, as a protection to 
 the candle, to prevent it from swealing in consequence 
 of the wind entering through the crevices of the apart- 
 ments — not a very bright picture of the comforts of an 
 Anglo-Saxon chamber. The candles were made of wax 
 as well as tallow. The candlestick was of different 
 materials. In one instance we find it termed, in Anglo-Saxon, a leoht- 
 isern, literally a light-iron : perhaps this was the term used for the lamp- 
 stand, as figured in our last cut. In the inventories we have mention 
 of ge-bonene candel-sticcan (candlesticks of bone), of silver gilt candle- 
 sticks, and of ornamented candlesticks. 
 
THE CHAMBER AND ITS FURNITURE. 
 
 59 
 
 A bed was a usual article of furniture in the bower or chamber ; 
 though there were, no doubt, in large mansions, chambers set apart as 
 bedrooms, as well as chambers in which there was no bed, or in which 
 a bed could be made for the occasion. The account given by Gaimar, 
 as quoted above, of the visit of King Osbert to Beorn's lady, seems to 
 imply that the chamber in which the lady gave the king his meal had a 
 bed in it. The bed itself seems usually to have consisted merely of a 
 sack (sceccing), filled with straw, and laid on a bench^ or board. Hence 
 words used commonly to signify the bed itself were bcence (a bench), and 
 streow (straw) : and even in King Alfred's translation of Bede, the state- 
 ment, "he ordered to prepare a bed for him," is expressed in Anglo- 
 Saxon by, he heht him streowne ge-gearwian, literally, he ordered to 
 prepare straw for him. All, in fact, that had to be done when a bed 
 was wanted, was to take the bed-sack out of the cyst, or chest, fill it with 
 fresh straw, and lay it on the bench. In ordinary houses, it is probable 
 that the bench for the bed was placed in a recess at the side of the 
 
 No. 38. — Anglo-Saxon Beds. 
 
 room, in the manner we still see in Scotland ; and hence the bed itself 
 was called, among other names, cota, a cot ; cryb, a crib or stall ; and 
 clif or dyf, a recess or closet. From the same circumstance a bedroom 
 was called bed-clyfa or bed-deofa, and bed-cofa, a bed-closet or bed-cove. 
 Our cut (No. 38), taken from Alfric's version of Genesis (Claudius, B. iv.), 
 represents beds of this description. Benches are evidently placed in 
 recesses at the side of the chamber, with the beds laid upon them, and 
 
6o 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 the recesses are separated from the rest of the apartment by a curtain, 
 bed-warft or hryfte. The modern word bedstead means, literally, no 
 more than " a place for a bed ; " and it is probable that what we call bed- 
 steads were then rare, and only possessed by 
 people of rank. Two examples are given in 
 the annexed cut (No. 39), taken from the 
 Harleian MS., No. 603. Under the head 
 were placed a bolstar and a pyle (pillow), 
 which were probably also stuffed with straw. 
 The clothes with which the sleeper was 
 covered, and which appear in the pictures 
 scanty enough, were scyte, a sheet, bed-felt, a 
 coverlet, which was generally of some thicker 
 material, and bed-reaf, bed-clothes. We know 
 from a multitude of authorities, that it was 
 No. 39.— Anglo-Saxon Beds. the general custom of the middle ages to go 
 into bed quite naked. The sketchy character of the Anglo-Saxon 
 drawings renders it difficult sometimes to judge of minute details ; 
 but, from the accompanying cuts, it appears that an Anglo-Saxon 
 going into bed, having stripped all his or her clothes off, first wrapped 
 round his body a sheet, and then drew over him the coverlet. 
 Sharon Turner has given a list of the articles connected with the bed, 
 mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon wills and inventories. In the will of a 
 man we find bed-clothes (bed-reafes), with a curtain {hyrfte), and sheet 
 (Jiopp-scytan), and all that thereto belongs • and he gives to his son the 
 bed-reafe, or bed-cloth, and all its appurtenances. An Anglo-Saxon 
 lady gives to one of her children two chests and their contents, her best 
 bed-curtain, linen, and all the clothes belonging to it. To another child 
 she leaves two chests, and " all the bed-clothes that to one bed be- 
 long." On another occasion, we read oipidvinar unum de palleo : not a 
 pillow of straw, as Sharon Turner very erroneously translates it, but a 
 pillow of a sort of rich cloth made in the middle ages. A goat-skin 
 bed-covering was sent to an Anglo-Saxon abbot; and bear-skins are 
 sometimes noticed, as if a part of bed furniture. 
 
 The bedroom, or chamber, and the sitting-room were usually identi- 
 cal ; for we must bear in mind that in the domestic manners of the 
 
BEDS AND BEDROOMS. 61 
 
 middle ages the same idea of privacy was not connected with the sleep- 
 ing-room as at the present day. Gaimar has preserved an anecdote of 
 Anglo-Saxon times curiously illustrative of this point. King Edgar — 
 a second David in this respect — married the widow of Ethelwold, whom 
 he had murdered in order to clear his way to her bed. The king and 
 queen were sleeping in their bed, which is described as surrounded by 
 a rich curtain, made of a stuff which we cannot easily explain, when 
 Dunstan, uninvited, but unhindered, entered the chamber to expostulate 
 with them on their wickedness, and came to the king's bedside, where he 
 stood over them, and entered into conversation — 
 
 A Londres ert Edgar li reis ; King Edgar was at London ; 
 
 En son lit jut e la raine, He lay in his bed with the queen, 
 
 Entur els out une curtine Round them was a curtain 
 
 Delge, d'un paille escariman. Spread, made of scarlet paille. 
 
 Es.te-vus 1'arcevesque Dunstan Behold Archbishop Dunstan 
 
 Tres par matin vint en la chambre. Came into the chamber very early in the morning. 
 
 Sur un pecul de vermail lambre On a bed-post of red plank 
 
 S'est apue eel arcevesque. The archbishop leaned. 
 
 In the account of the murder of King Ethelbert by the instrumentality 
 of the queen of King Offa, as it is told by Roger of Wendover, we see 
 the queen ordering to be prepared for the royal guest a chamber, which 
 was adorned for the occasion with sumptuous furniture, as his bedroom. 
 " Near the king's bed she caused a seat to be prepared, magnificently 
 decked, and surrounded with curtains ; and underneath it the wicked 
 woman caused a deep pit to be dug." Into this pit the king was pre- 
 cipitated the moment he trusted himself on the treacherous seat. It is 
 clear from the context that the chamber thus prepared for the king was 
 a building apart, and that it had only a ground-floor. 
 
 It was in the chamber that the child, while an infant, was brought 
 up by its mother. We have few contemporary notices of the treatment 
 of children at this early age by the Anglo-Saxons, but probably it dif- 
 fered little from the general practice of a later period. Towards the 
 close of the thirteenth century, an Englishman named Walter de Bib- 
 blesworth, who wrote, as a great proportion of English writers at that 
 day did, in French verse — French as it was then spoken and written in 
 England — has left us a very curious metrical vocabulary, compiled in 
 French with interlinear explanations of the words in English, which 
 
62 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 commences with man's infancy. " As soon as the child is born," says 
 the author, " it must be swathed ; lay it to sleep in its cradle, where 
 you must have a nurse to rock it to sleep." 
 
 Kaunt le emfes sera nes, 
 Lors deyt estre maylolez, 
 En soun berz l'enfaunt chochet, 
 De une bercere vus purvoyet, 
 Ou par sa norice seyt berce. 
 
 This was the manner in which the new-born infant was treated in all 
 grades of society. If we turn to one of the more serious romances, we 
 find it practised among princes and feudal chiefs equally as among the 
 poor. Thus, when the Princess Parise, wandering in the wild woods, is 
 delivered in the open air, she first wraps her child in a piece of sendal, 
 torn apparently from her rich robe, and then binds, or swathels, it with 
 a white cloth : — 
 
 La dame le conroie a un pan de cendex, 
 
 Puis a pris un blanc drap, si a ses flans bendez. — Parise la Duchesse, p. 76. 
 
 When the robbers carry away the child by night, thinking they had 
 gained some rich booty, they find that they have stolen a newly-born 
 infant, " all swatheled." 
 
 Lai troverent l'anffant, trestot anmalote. — Ibid. p. 80. 
 
 This custom of swatheling children in their infancy, though evidently 
 injurious as well as ridiculous, has prevailed from a very early period, 
 and is still practised in some parts of Europe. We can hardly doubt 
 that our Anglo-Saxon forefathers swatheled their children, although the 
 practice is not very clearly described by any of their writers. We derive 
 the word itself from the Anglo-Saxon language, in which beswethan 
 means to swathe or bind, suethe signifies a band or swathe, and swethel 
 or swcethil, a swaddling-band. These words appear, however, to have 
 been used in a more extensive sense among the Anglo-Saxons than 
 their representatives in more recent times, and as I have not met with 
 them applied in this restricted sense in Anglo-Saxon writers, I should 
 not hastily assume from them that our early Teutonic forefathers did 
 swathe their new-born children. In an Anglo-Saxon poem on the birth 
 
CHILDHOOD AMONG THE ANGLO-SAXONS. 
 
 63 
 
 of Christ, contained in the Exeter Book (p. 45), the poet speaks 
 
 of— 
 
 Bearnes gebyrda, The child's birth, 
 
 pa he in binne wses when he in the bin was 
 
 in cildes hiw in a child's form 
 
 clajram biwunden. with cloths wound round. 
 
 These words refer clearly to the practice of swaddling ; and though the 
 Anglo-Saxon artist has not here portrayed his object very distinctly, we 
 can hardly doubt that, in our cut (No. 40), taken from the Anglo- 
 Saxon manuscript of Csedmon, the child, which its mother is repre- 
 sented as holding, is intended to be swathed. 
 
 The word bin, used in the lines of the Anglo-Saxon poem just 
 quoted, which means a hutch or a manger, has reference, of course, to 
 
 No. 40. — Anglo-Saxon Mother and Child. 
 
 the circumstances of the birth of the Saviour, and is not here employed 
 to signify a cradle. This last word is itself Anglo-Saxon, and has stood 
 its ground in our language successfully against the influence of the 
 Anglo-Norman, in which it was called a bers or bersel, from the latter 
 of which is derived the modern French betyeau. Another name for a 
 cradle was crib; a poem in the Exeter Book (p. 87) speaks of did 
 geong crybbe (a young child in a cradle). Our cut, No. 41, also taken 
 from the manuscript of Csedmon, represents an Anglo-Saxon cradle of 
 rather rude construction. The illuminators of a later period often 
 
THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 represent the cradle of elegant form and richly ornamented. The 
 Anglo-Saxon child appears here also to be swaddled, but it is still 
 drawn too inaccurately to be decisive on this point. The later illumi- 
 
 No. 41. — Anglo-Saxon Child in its Cradle. 
 
 nators were more particular and correct in their delineations, and leave 
 no doubt of the universal practice of swaddling infants. A good 
 example is given in our cut, No. 42, taken from an illuminated manu- 
 script of the fourteenth century, of which a copy is given in the large 
 work of the late M. du Sommerard. 
 
 There is a very curious paragraph relating to infants in the Pceniten- 
 tiale of Theodore, archbishop of Canterbury, which furnishes us with a 
 
 No. 42.— Mother and Child. 
 
 singular picture of early Anglo-Saxon domestic life, for Theodore 
 flourished in the latter half of the seventh century. It may be perhaps 
 right to explain that a Poenitentiale was a code of ecclesiastical laws 
 
CHILDHOOD AMONG THE ANGLO-SAXONS. 65 
 
 directing the proportional degrees of penance for each particular' class 
 and degree of crimes and offences against public and private morals, 
 and that these laws penetrate to the innermost recesses of domestic life. 
 The Pcenitentiale of Archbishop Theodore directs that " if a woman 
 place her infant by the hearth, and a man put water in the cauldron, 
 and it boil over, and the child be scalded to death, the woman must do 
 penance for her negligence, but the man is acquitted of blame." * As 
 this accident must have been of very frequent occurrence to require a 
 particular direction in a code of laws, it implies great negligence in the 
 Anglo-Saxon mothers, and seems to show that, commonly, at least at 
 this early period, they had no cradles for their children, but laid them, 
 swaddled as they were, on the ground close by the fire, no doubt to 
 keep them warm, and that they left them in this situation. 
 
 We are not informed if there were any fixed period during which the 
 infant was kept in swaddling-cloths, but probably when it was thought 
 no longer necessary to keep it in the arms or in the cradle, it was 
 relieved from its bands, and allowed to crawl about the floor and take 
 care of itself. Walter de Bibblesworth, the Anglo-Norman writer of 
 the thirteenth century already quoted, tells us briefly that a child is left 
 to creep about before it has learnt to go on its feet : — 
 
 Le enfaunt covent de chatouner 
 Avaunt ke sache a pees aler. 
 
 When the Anglo-Saxon youth, if a boy, had passed his infancy, he 
 entered that age which was called cnithad (boyhood, the same word 
 which bore afterwards so different a signification), which lasted from 
 about eight years of age until manhood. 
 
 It is very rare that we can catch in history a glimpse of the internal 
 economy of the Anglo-Saxon household. Enough, however, is told to 
 show us that the Saxon woman in every class of society possessed those 
 characteristics which are still considered to be the best traits of the 
 character of Englishwomen; she was the attentive housewife, the tender 
 companion, the comforter and consoler of her husband and family, 
 
 * " Mater, si juxta focum infantem suum posuerit, et homo aquam in caldarmin 
 miserit, et ebullita aqua infans superfusus mortuus fuerit ; pro negligentia mater 
 poeniteat, et ille homo securus sit." 
 
66 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 the virtuous and noble matron. Home was her especial place ; for we 
 are told in a poem in the Exeter Book (p. 337), that "It beseems a 
 damsel to be at her board (table) ; a rambling woman scatters words, 
 she is often charged with faults, a man thinks of her with contempt, oft 
 her cheek smites." In all ranks, from the queen to the peasant, we find 
 the lady of the household attending to her domestic duties. In 686, 
 John of Beverley performed a supposed miraculous cure on the lady of 
 a Yorkshire earl ; and the man who narrated the miracle to Bede the 
 historian, and who dined with John of Beverley at the earl's house after 
 the cure, said, " She presented the cup to the bishop (John) and to me, 
 and continued serving us with drink as she had begun, till dinner was 
 over." Domestic duties of this kind were never considered as degrad- 
 ing, and they were performed with a simplicity peculiarly characteristic 
 of the age. Bede relates another story of a miraculous cure performed 
 on an earl's wife by St Cuthbert, in the sequel of which we find the lady 
 going forth from her house to meet her husband's visitor, holding the 
 reins while he dismounts, and conducting him in. The wicked and 
 ambitious queen Elfthrida, when her step-son, King Edward, approached 
 her residence, went out in person to attend upon him, and invite him 
 to enter, and, on his refusal, she served him with the cup herself, and 
 it was while stooping to take it that he was treacherously stabbed by 
 one of her attendants. In their chamber, besides spinning and weaving, 
 the ladies were employed in needlework and embroidery, and the Saxon 
 ladies were so skilful in this art, that their work, under the name of 
 English work {opus Anglicum), was celebrated on the Continent. We 
 read of a Saxon lady, named Ethelswitha, who retired with her maidens 
 to a house near Ely, where her mother was buried, and employed herself 
 and them in making a rich chasuble for the monks. The four princesses, 
 the sisters of King Ethelstan, were celebrated for their skill in spinning, 
 weaving, and embroidering ; William of Malmesbury tells us that their, 
 father, King Edward, had educated them "in such wise, that in child- 
 hood they gave their whole attention to letters, and; afterwards em-, 
 ployed themselves in the labours of the distaff and the needle." The 
 reader will remember in the story of the Saxon queen Osburgha, the 
 mother of the great Alfred, how she sat in her chamber, surrounded by 
 her children, and encouraging them in a taste for literature. The 
 
MANNERS OF THE ANGLO-SAXON LADIES. 67 
 
 ladies, when thus occupied, were not inaccessible to their friends of 
 either sex. When Dunstan was a youth, he appears to have been always 
 a welcome visitor to the ladies in their " bowers," on account of his 
 skill in music and in the arts. His contemporary biographer tells us of 
 a noble lady, named Ethelwynn, who, knowing his skill in drawing and 
 designs, obtained his assistance for the ornaments of a handsome stole 
 which she and her women were embroidering. Dunstan is represented 
 as bringing his harp with him into the apartment of the ladies, and 
 hanging it up against the wall, that he might have it ready to play to 
 them in the intervals of their work. Edith, the queen of Edward the 
 Confessor, was well known as a skilful needlewoman, and as extensively 
 versed in literature. Ingulfs story of his schoolboy-days, if it be true 
 (for there is considerable doubt of the authenticity of Ingulfs "History"), 
 and of his interviews with Queen Edith, gives us a curious picture of the 
 simplicity of an Anglo-Saxon court, even at the latest period of their 
 monarchy. ".I often met her," he says, "as I came from school, and 
 then she questioned me about my studies and my verses ; and willingly 
 passing from grammar to logic, she would catch me in the subtleties of 
 argument. She always gave me two or three pieces of money, which 
 were counted to me by her handmaiden, and then sent me to the royal 
 larder to refresh myself." 
 
 Several circumstances, arising out of certain rivalries of social insti- 
 tutions, render it somewhat difficult to form an estimate of the moral 
 character of the Anglo-Saxons. In the first place, before the introduc- 
 tion of Christianity, marriage was a mere civil institution, consisting 
 chiefly in a bargain between the father of the lady and the man who 
 sought her, and was completed with few formalities, except those of 
 feasting and rejoicing. After the young lady was out of the control of 
 her parents, the two sexes were on a footing of equality to each other, 
 and the marriage tie was so little binding, that, in case of disagreement, 
 it was at the will of either of the married couple to separate, in which 
 case the relatives or friends of each party interfered, to see that right 
 was done in the proportional repayment of marriage money, dowry, &c, 
 and after the separation each party was at liberty to marry again. This 
 state of things is well illustrated in the Icelandic story of the Burnt 
 Njal, recently translated by Dr Dasent ; and it was not abolished by the 
 
68 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 secular laws, after the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity, 
 marriage still continuing to be, in fact, a civil institution. But the 
 higher clergy, at least, who were those who were most strongly inspired 
 with the Romish sentiments, disapproved entirely of this view of the 
 marriage state, and. although the Saxon priests appear not to have hesi- 
 tated in being present at the second marriages after such separations, 
 they were apparently forbidden by the ecclesiastical laws from giving 
 their blessing to them.'* With such views of the conjugal relations, we 
 cannot be surprised if the associating together of a man and woman, 
 without the ceremonies of marriage, was looked upon without disgust ; 
 in fact, this was the case throughout western Europe during the Middle 
 Ages, in spite of the doctrines of the Church, and the offspring was 
 hardly considered as dispossessed of legal rights. It would be easy to 
 point out examples illustrating this state of things. Again, the priest- 
 hood among the unconverted Saxons was probably, as it appears among 
 the Icelanders in the story of the Burnt Njal just alluded to, a sort of 
 family possession,t the priests themselves being what we should call 
 family men ; so that when the Anglo-Saxon people were Christians, and 
 no longer pagans, the mass of the clergy, whatever may have been their 
 sincerity as Christians, could not understand, or, at least, were unwilling 
 to accept, the new Romish doctrine which required their celibacy. In 
 both these cases, the Anglo-Saxon ecclesiastical writers, who are our 
 chief authority on this subject, and were the most bigoted of the 
 
 * This, I suppose, is the meaning of the canon of Alfric (No. 9), which allows a 
 layman to marry, with a dispensation, a second time, " if his wife desert him " {gyf 'his 
 wif tztfyFS) ; but the priest was not allowed to give his blessing to the marriage, be- 
 cause it was a case in which the Church enjoined a penance, the performance of which 
 it would be his duty to require. But the meaning of the Anglo-Saxon ecclesiastical 
 laws on this subject is rather obscure. 
 
 f This fact of family priesthood may perhaps explain a circumstance in the early 
 history of Northumbria, which has much puzzled some antiquaries ; I mean the story, 
 given by Bede, of the conversion of King Edwin, and of the part acted on that occa- 
 sion by the Northumbrian priest Coin. The place where the priesthood was held, 
 and where the temple stood, was called Godmundingaham, a name which it has pre- 
 served, slightly modified, to the present day. This name has been the victim of the 
 most absurd attempts at derivation, which are not worth repeating here, because every 
 one who knows the Anglo-Saxon language, and anything of Anglo-Saxon antiquities, 
 is aware that it can only have one meaning — the home, or head residence, of the God- 
 mundings, or descendants of Godmund. Perhaps the priesthood was at this time in 
 the family of the Godmundings, and Coifi may have been then the head of the family. 
 
SUNDRY LAWS. 69 
 
 Romish party, speak in terms of exaggerated virulence, on the score of 
 morality, against practices which the Anglo-Saxon people had not been 
 used to consider as immoral at all. Thus, we should be led to believe, 
 from the accounts of these ecclesiastical moralists, that the Anglo-Saxon 
 clergy were infamous for their incontinence, whereas their declamations 
 probably mean only that the Anglo-Saxon priests persisted in having 
 wives and families. The secular laws contain frequent allusions to the 
 continuance of principles relating to the marriage state, which were 
 derived from the older period of paganism, and some of these are ex- 
 tremely curious. Thus, the laws of King Ethelred provide that a man 
 who seduces another man's wife, shall make reparation, not only, as in 
 modern times, by paying pecuniary damages, but also by procuring him 
 another wife ! or, in the words of the original, "If a freeman have been 
 familiar with a freeman's wife, let him pay for it with his wer-gild (the 
 money compensation for the killing of a man), and provide another wife 
 with his own money, and bring her home to the other." By a law of 
 King Ine, "if any man buy a wife (that is, if the bargain with her 
 father has been completed), and the marriage take not place," he was 
 required to pay the money, besides other compensation. And again, 
 by one of Alfred's laws, it was provided, " If any one deceive an un- 
 betrothed woman, and sleep with her, let him pay for her, and have her 
 afterwards to wife ; but if the father of the woman will not give her, let 
 him pay money according to her dowry." Regulations relating to the 
 buying of a wife are found in the Anglo-Saxon laws. 
 
 We learn nothing in the facts of history to the discredit of the Anglo- y 
 Saxon character in general. As in other countries, in the same condi- 
 tion of society, they appear capable of great crimes, and of equally 
 great acts of goodness and virtue. Generally speaking, their least 
 amiable trait was the treatment of their servants or slaves ; for this class 
 among the Anglo-Saxons were in a state of absolute servitude, might be 
 bought and sold, and had no protection in the law against their masters 
 and mistresses, who, in fact, had power of life and death over them. 
 We gather from the ecclesiastical canons that, at least in the earlier 
 periods of Anglo-Saxon history, it was not unusual for servants to be 
 scourged to death by or by order of their mistresses. Some of the 
 collections of local miracles, such as those of St Swithun, at Winchester 
 
70 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 (of the tenth century), furnish us with horrible pictures of the cruel 
 treatment to which female slaves especially were subjected. For com- 
 paratively slight offences they were loaded with gyves and fetters, and 
 subjected to all kinds of tortures. Several of these are curiously illus- 
 trative of domestic manners. On one occasion, the maid-servant of 
 Teothic the bell-maker (campanarius) of Winchester, was, for " a slight 
 offence," placed in iron fetters, and chained up by the feet and hands 
 all night. Next morning she was taken out to be frightfully beaten, and 
 she was put again into her bonds ; but in the ensuing night she contrived 
 to make her escape, and fled to the church to seek sanctuary at the 
 tomb of St Swithun, for, being in a state of servitude, there was no legal 
 
 No. 43. — Washing and Scourging. 
 
 protection for her. On another occasion, a female servant had been 
 stolen from a former master, and had passed into the possession of 
 another master in Winchester. One day her former master came to 
 Winchester, and the girl, hearing of it, went to speak to him. When 
 her mistress heard that she had been seen to talk with a man from a 
 distant province, she ordered her to be thrown into fetters, and treated 
 very cruelly. Next day, while the mistress had gone out on some busi- 
 
CRUELTY TO SERVANTS. 
 
 7i 
 
 ness, leaving her servant at home in fetters, the latter made her escape 
 similarly to the sanctuary of the church. Another servant-girl in Win- 
 chester, taking her master's clothes to wash in the river, was set upon 
 by thieves, who robbed her of them. Her master, ascribing the mishap 
 to her own negligence, beat her very severely, and then put her in fet- 
 ters, from which she made her escape like the others. The interesting 
 scene represented in our cut, No. 43, taken from the Harleian MS., No. 
 603, fol. j 4, v°, may be regarded as showing us the scourging of a 
 slave. In a picture in Alfric's version of Genesis, the man scourged, 
 instead of being tied by the feet, is fixed by the body in a cloven post, 
 in a rather singular manner. The aptness with which the Saxon ladies 
 made use of the scourge, is illustrated by one of William of Malmesbury's 
 anecdotes, who tells us that, when King Ethelred was a child, he once 
 so irritated his mother, that, not having a whip, she beat him with some 
 candles, which were the first thing that fell under her hand, until he was 
 almost insensible. " On this account he dreaded candles during the 
 rest of his life, to such a degree that he would 
 never suffer the light of them to be intro- 
 duced in his presence ! " 
 
 The cruelty of the Anglo-Saxon ladies to 
 their servants offers a contrast to the generally 
 mild character of the punishments inflicted 
 by the Anglo-Saxon laws. The laws of 
 Ethelred contain the following injunction, 
 showing how contrary capital punishment is to 
 the spirit of Anglo-Saxon legislation : — "And 
 the ordinance of our lord, and of his witan 
 (parliament), is, that Christian men for all too 
 little be not condemned to death; but in 
 general let mild punishment be decreed, for 
 the people's need; and let not for a little 
 God's handywork and His own purchase be destroyed, which He dearly 
 bought." This injunction is repeated in the laws of Cnut. It appears 
 that the usual method of inflicting death upon criminals was by hang- 
 ing. Our cut, No. 44, taken from the illuminations to Alfric's version 
 of Genesis, represents an Anglo-Saxon gallows (galga), and the rather 
 
 No. 44. — Hanging. 
 
72 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 primitive method of carrying the last penalty of the law into effect. 
 The early illuminated manuscripts give us few representations of 
 popular punishments. The Anglo-Saxon vocabularies enumerate the 
 following implements of punishment, besides the galga, or gallows : 
 fetters {fceter, cops), distinguished into foot-fetters and hand-fetters ; 
 shackles {scacul, or sceaail), which appear to have been used specially 
 for the neck ; a swifta, or scourge ; ostig gyrd, a knotted rod ; tindig, 
 explained by the Latin scorpio, and meaning apparently a whip with 
 knots or plummets at the end of thongs, like those used by the 
 charioteers in the cuts in our next chapter ; and an instrument of tor- 
 ture called a threpel, which is explained by the Latin equuleus. The 
 following cut, No. 45, from the Harleian MS., No. 603 (so often 
 quoted), shows us the stocks, generally placed by the side of the public 
 road at the entrance to the town. Two other offenders are attached to 
 the columns of the public building, 
 perhaps a court-house, by apparently 
 a rope and a chain. The Anglo- 
 Saxon laws prescribe few corporal 
 punishments, but substitute for them 
 the payment of fines or compensa- 
 tion-money, and these are propor- 
 tioned to the offences with very ■*■ 
 extraordinary minuteness. Thus, to 
 select a few examples from the very 
 
 numerous list of injuries which may be done to a man's person, — if any 
 one struck off an ear, he was to pay twelve shillings, and, if an eye, fifty 
 shillings ; if the nose were cut through, the payment was nine shillings. 
 " For each of the four front teeth, six shillings ; for the tooth which 
 stands next to them, four shillings ; for that which follows, three shil- 
 lings ; and for all the others, a shilling each." If a thumb were struck 
 off, it was valued at twenty shillings. " If the shooting finger were struck 
 off" (a term which shows how incorrectly it has been assumed that the 
 Anglo-Saxons were not accustomed to the bow), the compensation was 
 eight shillings ; for the middle finger, four shillings ; for the ring-finger 
 six shillings ; and for the little finger, eleven shillings. The thumb-nail 
 was valued at three shillings ; and the finger-nails at one shilling each. 
 
 No. 45. — Anglo-Saxon Punishments. 
 
TOILETTE OF THE ANGLO-SAXONS. 73 
 
 We have little information on the secrets of the toilette of the Anglo- 
 Saxons. We know from many sources that washing and bathing were 
 frequent practices among them. The use of hot baths they probably 
 derived from the Romans. The vocabularies give thermcs as the Latin 
 equivalent. They are not unfrequently mentioned in the ecclesias- 
 tical laws, and in the canons passed in the reign of King Edgar, warm 
 baths and soft beds are proscribed as domestic luxuries which tended to 
 effeminacy. If these were really the thermce, of the Romans, it was perhaps 
 the hostility of the ascetic part of the Romish clergy which caused them 
 to be discontinued and forgotten. Our cut No. 43 represents a party 
 at their ablutions. We constantly find among the articles in the graves 
 of Anglo-Saxon ladies tweezers, which were evidently intended for 
 eradicating superfluous hairs, a circumstance which contributes to show 
 that they paid special attention to bair-dressing. To judge from the 
 colour of the hair in some of the illuminations, we might be led to sup- 
 pose that sometimes they stained it. The young men seem to have \ 
 been more foppish and vain of their persons than the ladies, and some 
 of the old chronicles, such as the Ely history, tells us (which we should 
 hardly have expected), that this was especially a characteristic of the 
 Danish invaders, who, we are told, " following the custom of their 
 country, used to comb their hair every day, bathed every Saturday, often 
 changed their clothes, and used many other such frivolous means of- 
 setting off the beauty of their persons." * 
 
 There is every reason for believing that the Anglo-Saxon ladies were 
 fond of gardens and flowers, and many allusions in the writings of that 
 period intimate a warm appreciation of the beauties of nature. The 
 poets not unfrequently take their comparisons from flowers. Thus, in 
 a poem in the Exeter Book, a pleasant smell is described as being — 
 
 Swecca swetast, Of odours sweetest, 
 
 swylce on sumeres tid such as in summer's tide 
 
 stincaft on stowum, fragrance send forth in places, 
 
 staj>elum fseste, fast in their stations, 
 
 wynnum sefter wongum, joyously o'er the plains, 
 
 wyrta geblowene blown plants 
 
 hunig-flowende. honey- flowing. — Exeter Book, "p. 178. 
 
 * " Habebant etiam ex consuetudine patriae unoquoque die comam pectere, sabbatis 
 balneare, ssepe etiam vestituram mutare, et formam corporis multis talibus frivolis ad- 
 juvare." — Hist. Eliensis ap. Gale, p. 547. 
 
74 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 And one of the poetical riddles in the same collection contains the 
 lines — 
 
 Ic eom on stence 
 
 strengre Jjonne ricels, 
 
 oJ>J>e rosa sy, 
 
 on eorJ>an tyrf 
 
 wynlic weaxe? ; 
 
 ic eom wrsestre J>onne heo. 
 
 J)eah J>a lilie sy 
 
 leof mon-cynne, 
 
 beorht on blostman, 
 
 ic eom betre J>onne heo. 
 
 I am in odour 
 
 stronger than incense, 
 
 or the rose is, 
 
 which on earth's turf 
 
 pleasant grows ; 
 
 I am more delicate than it. 
 
 Though that the lily be 
 
 dear to mankind, 
 
 bright in its blossom, 
 
 I am better than it. — Exeter 
 
 p. 423. 
 
 So in another of these poems we read- 
 
 Fasger fugla reord, 
 folde geblowen, 
 geacas gear budon. 
 
 Sweet was the song of birds, 
 
 the earth was covered with flowers, 
 
 cuckoos announced the year. — Ibid. p. 146. 
 
 Before we quit entirely the Saxon hall, and its festivities and cere- 
 monies, we must mention one circumstance connected with them. The 
 laws and customs of the Anglo-Saxons earnestly enjoined the duty of 
 almsgiving, and a multitude of persons partook of the hospitality of the 
 rich man's mansion, who were not worthy to be admitted to his tables. 
 These assembled at meal-times outside the gate of his house, and it was 
 a custom to lay aside a portion of the provisions to be distributed among 
 them, with the fragments from the table. In Alfric's homily for the 
 second Sunday after Pentecost, the preacher, after dwelling on the story 
 of Lazarus, who was spurned from the rich man's table, appeals to his 
 Anglo-Saxon audience — " many Lazaruses ye have now lying at your 
 gates, begging for your superfluity." Bede tells us of the good king 
 Oswald, that when he was once sitting at dinner, on Easter-day, with 
 his bishop, having a silver dish full of dainties before him, as they were 
 just ready to bless the bread, the servant whose duty it was to relieve 
 the poor, came in on a sudden and told the king that a great multitude 
 of needy persons from all parts were sitting in the streets begging some 
 alms of the king. The latter immediately ordered the provisions set 
 before him to be carried to the poor, and the dish to be cut in pieces 
 and divided among them. In the picture of a Saxon house given in 
 our third chapter (p. 26), we see the lord of the household on a sort of 
 throne at the entrance to his hall, presiding over the distribution of his 
 
ALMSGIVING. 
 
 75 
 
 charity. This seat, generally under an arch or canopy, is often repre- 
 sented in the Saxon manuscripts, and the chief or lord seated under it, 
 distributing justice or charity. In the accompanying cut, No. 46, taken 
 from the Anglo-Saxon manuscript of Prudentius, the lady Wisdom is 
 represented seated on such a throne. It was, perhaps, the burh-geat-setl, or 
 
 No. 46. — Wisdom on her Throne. 
 
 seat at the burh-gate, mentioned as characteristic of the rank of the 
 thane in the following extract from a treatise on ranks in society, printed 
 with the Anglo-Saxon laws: "And if a ceorl thrived, so that he had 
 fully five hides of his own land, church (or perhaps private chapel), and 
 kitchen (kycenan), bell-house, and burh-gate-seat, and special duty in 
 the king's hall, then was he thenceforth worthy of the dignity of 
 thane." 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Out-of-door Amusements of the Anglo-Saxons. — Hunting and Hawking. 
 — Horses and Carriages. — Travelling. — Money-dealings. 
 
 THE progress of society, from its first formation to the full develop- 
 ment of civilisation, has been compared not inaptly to the life of 
 man. In the childhood and youth of society, when the population was 
 not numerous, and a servile class performed the chief part of the labour 
 necessary for administering to the wants or luxuries of life, people had a 
 far greater proportion of time on their hands to fill up with amusements 
 than at a later period, and many that are now considered frivolous, or 
 are only indulged in at rare intervals of relaxation, then formed the 
 principal occupations of men's lives. We have glanced at the in-door 
 amusements of the Anglo-Saxons in a previous chapter ; but their out- 
 door recreations, although we have little information respecting them, 
 were certainly much more numerous. The multitude of followers who, 
 in Saxon times, attended on each lord or rich man as their military 
 chief, or as their domestic supporter, had generally no serious occupa- 
 tion during the greater part of the day ; and this abundance of unem- 
 ployed time was not confined to one class of society, for the artisan 
 had to work less to gain his subsistence, and both citizen and peasant 
 were excused from work altogether during the numerous holidays of the 
 year. 
 
 That the Anglo-Saxons were universally fond of play (j>lega) is proved 
 by the frequent use of the word in a metaphorical sense. They even 
 applied it to fighting and battle, which, in the language of the poets, 
 were filega-gares (play of darts), cesc-plega (play of shields), and hand- 
 
ANGLO-SAXON THEATRES. 
 
 77 
 
 plega (play of hands).* In the Glossaries, plegere (a player), and filega- 
 man (a playman), are used to represent the Roman gladiator; and 
 plega-hih (a playhouse), and filega-stow (a play-place), express a theatre, 
 or more probably an amphitheatre. Recent discoveries have shown 
 that there was a theatre of considerable dimensions in the Roman town 
 of Verulamium (near St Alban's) ; a theatre is also found in the Roman 
 town of Uriconium, recently opened at Wroxeter, in Shropshire ; and 
 
 No. 47. — Games of the Amphitheatre. 
 
 old writers tell us there was one at the Silurian Isca (Caerleon), though 
 these buildings were doubtless of rare occurrence ; but every Roman 
 town of any importance in the island had its amphitheatre outside the 
 walls for gladiatorial and other exhibitions. The result of modern 
 
 * It is curious that the modern English words play {plega), and game (gameii), are 
 both derived from the Anglo-Saxon, which perhaps shows that they represent senti- 
 ments we have derived from our Saxon forefathers. 
 
THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 researches seems to prove that most of the Roman towns continued 
 to exist after the Saxon settlement of the island, and we can have no 
 doubt that the amphitheatres, at least for a while, continued to be 
 devoted to their original purposes, although the performances were 
 modified in character. Some of them (like that at Richborough, in 
 Kent, lately examined) were certainly surrounded by walls, while 
 others probably were merely cut in the ground, and surrounded by a 
 low embankment formed of the material thrown out. The first of 
 these the Saxons would naturally call a play-house, while the other 
 would receive the no less appropriate appellation of a play-stow, or 
 place for playing. Among the illustrations of the Anglo-Saxon manu- 
 script of the Psalms (MS. Harl., No. 603), to which we have so often 
 had occasion to refer, there is a very curious picture, evidently in- 
 tended to represent an amphitheatre outside a town. It is copied in 
 our cut, No. 47. The rude Anglo-Saxon draughtsman has evidently 
 intended to represent an embankment, occupied by the spectators, 
 around the spot where the performances take place. The spectator to 
 the left is expressing his approbation by clapping with his hands. The 
 performances themselves are singular : we have a party of minstrels, 
 one of them playing on the Roman double pipes, so often represented 
 in Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, while another is dancing to him, and the 
 third is performing with a tame bear, which is at the moment of the 
 representation simulating sleep. Games of this description with 
 animals, succeeded, no doubt, among the Saxons to the Roman 
 gladiatorial fights, but few have imagined that the popular English 
 exhibition of the dancing bear dated from so remote a period. The 
 manuscripts show that the double pipe was in use among the Anglo- 
 Saxons ; with a little modification, and a bag or bellows to supply the 
 place of the human lungs, this instrument was transformed into a bag- 
 pipe. 
 
 Not the least curious part of this picture is the town in the back- 
 ground, with its entrance gateway, and public buildings. The Anglo- 
 Saxon draughtsmen were imperfectly acquainted with perspective, and 
 paid little attention to proportion in their representations of towns and 
 houses, a circumstance which is fully illustrated in this picture. As the 
 artist was unable from this circumstance to represent the buildings and 
 
ANGLO-SAXON HOLIDAY GAMES. 
 
 79 
 
 streets of a town in their relative position, he put in a house to repre- 
 sent a multitude of houses, and here he has similarly given one building 
 within the walls to represent all the public buildings of the town. An 
 exactly similar characteristic will be observed in our cut, No. 48, taken 
 from the same manuscript, where one temple represents the town. 
 Here again we have a party of citizens outside the walls, amusing 
 
 <rr u % 
 
 No. 48.— A Town. 
 
 themselves as well as they can ; some, for want of other employment, 
 are laying themselves down listlessly on the ground. 
 
 The national sentiments and customs of the Anglo-Saxons would, 
 however, lead to the selection of other places for the scenes of their 
 games, and thus the Roman amphitheatres became neglected. Each 
 village had its arena— its play-place — where persons of all ages and 
 sexes assembled on their holidays to be players or lookers on; and 
 this appears to have been usually chosen near a fountain, or some 
 object hallowed by the popular creed, for customs of this kind were 
 generally associated with religious feelings which tended to consecrate 
 and protect them. These holiday games, which appear to have been 
 very common among our Saxon forefathers, were the originals of our 
 
8o THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 village wakes. Wandering minstrels, like those represented in our cut, 
 No. 47, repaired to them to exhibit their skill, and were always welcome. 
 The young men exerted themselves in running, or leaping, or wrestling. 
 These games attracted merchants, and gradually became the centres 
 of extensive fairs. Such was the case with one of the most celebrated 
 fairs in England during the Middle Ages, that of Barnwell, near Cam- 
 bridge. It was a large open place, between the town and the banks of 
 the river, well suited for such festivities as those of which we are speak- 
 ing. A spring in the middle of this plain, we are told in the early 
 chartulary of Barnwell Abbey, was called Beorna-wyl (the well of the 
 youths), because every year, on the eve of the Nativity of St John the 
 Baptist, the boys and youths of the neighbourhood assembled there, 
 and, " after the manners of the English, practised wrestling and other 
 boyish games, and mutually applauded one another with songs and 
 musical instruments ; whence, on account of the multitude of boys and 
 girls who gathered together there, it grew a custom for a crowd of sellers 
 and buyers to assemble there on the same day for the purpose of com- 
 merce."* This is a curious and a rather rare allusion to an Anglo- 
 Saxon wake. 
 
 One of the great recreations of the Anglo-Saxons was hunting, for 
 which the immense forests, which then covered a great portion of this 
 island, gave a wide scope. The most austere and pious, as well as the 
 most warlike, of the Anglo-Saxon monarchs, were passionately attached 
 to the pleasures of the chase. According to the writer who has assumed 
 the name of Asser, the great Alfred was so attached to. this amusement, 
 that he condescended to teach his " falconers, hawkers, and dog- 
 keepers" himself. His grandson, King Ethelstan, as we learn from 
 William of Malmesbury, exacted from the Welsh princes, among other 
 articles of tribute, "as many dogs as he might choose, which, from 
 their sagacious scent, could discover the retreats and hiding-places of 
 wild beasts ; and birds trained to make prey of others in the air." The 
 same writer tells us of the sainted Edward the Confessor, that " there 
 
 * " Pueri et adolescentes, .... illic convenientes, more Anglorum luctamina et 
 alia ludicra exercebant puerilia, et cantilenis et musicis instrumentis sibi invicem 
 applaudebant, unde propter turbam puerorum et puellarum illic concurrentium, mos 
 inolevit ut in eodem die illic conveniret negotiandi gratia turba vendentium et 
 ementium. "— MS. Harl. No. 3601, fol. 12, v°. 
 
HUNTING. 8 1 
 
 was one earthly enjoyment in which he chiefly delighted, which was 
 hunting with fleet hounds, whose opening in the woods he used with 
 pleasure to encourage ; and again, with the pouncing of birds, whose 
 nature it is to prey on their kindred species. In these exercises, after 
 hearing divine service in the morning, he employed himself whole 
 days." It is evident from the ecclesiastical laws, that it was difficult to 
 restrain even the clergy from this diversion. One of the ecclesiastical 
 canons passed in the reign of King Edgar, enjoins "that no priest be a 
 hunter, or fowler, or player at tables, but let him play on his books, as 
 becometh his calling." When the king hunted, it appears that men 
 were employed to beat up the game, while others were placed at differ- 
 ent avenues of the forest to hinder the deer from taking a direction 
 contrary to the wishes of the hunter. Several provisions relating to the 
 employment of men in this way, occur in the Domesday survey. A 
 contemporary writer of the Life of Dunstan gives the following descrip- 
 tion of the hunting of King Edward the Elder, at Ceoddri (Chedder) : 
 " When they reached the forest," he says, " they took various directions 
 along the woody avenues, and the varied noise of the horns, and the 
 barking of the dogs, aroused many stags. From these, the king with 
 his pack of hounds chose one for his own hunting, and pursued it long, 
 through devious ways, with great agility on his horse, with the hounds 
 following. In the vicinity of Ceoddri were several steep and lofty pre- 
 cipices hanging over deep declivities. To one of these the stag came 
 in his flight, and dashed headlong to his destruction down the immense 
 depth, all the dogs following and perishing with him." The king with 
 difficulty held in his horse. The scene of this adventure is still well 
 known to the visitors of the Somerset watering-place, Weston-Super- 
 Mare. 
 
 The dogs (hundas) used for the chase among the Anglo-Saxons, were 
 valuable, and were bred with great care. Every noble or great land- 
 owner had his hund-wealh, or dog-keeper. The accompanying cut 
 (No. 49), taken from the Harleian MS., No. 603, represents a dog- 
 keeper, with his couple of hounds — they seem to have hunted in 
 couples. The Anglo-Saxon name for a hunting-dog was ren-kund, a 
 dog of chase, which is interpreted by greyhound ; and this appears, 
 from the cut, to have been the favourite doar of our Saxon forefathers. 
 
82 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 It appears, from an allusion given above, that the Anglo-Saxons obtained 
 hunting-dogs from Wales ; yet the antiquary will be at once struck with 
 the total dissimilarity of the dogs pictured in the Anglo-Saxon manu- 
 scripts to the British dogs represented 
 on the Romano-British pottery. The 
 dogs were used to find the game, 
 and follow it by the scent; the 
 hunters killed it with spears, or with 
 bows and arrows, or drove it into 
 nets. In the Colloquy of Alfric, a 
 hunter (kunta) of one of the royal 
 forests gives a curious account of his 
 
 No. 49. — Anglo-Saxon Dogs. 
 
 profession. When asked how he 
 practises his " craft," he replies, " I braid nets, and set them in a con- 
 venient place, and set on my hounds, that they may pursue the beasts 
 of chase, until they come unexpectedly to the nets, and so become in- 
 tangled in them, and I slay them in the nets." He is then asked if he 
 cannot hunt without nets, to which he replies, " Yes, I pursue the wild 
 animals with swift hounds." He next enumerates the different kinds 
 of game which the Saxon hunter usually hunted — " I take harts, and 
 boars, and deer, and roes, and sometimes hares." " Yesterday," he 
 continues, " I took two harts and a boar, . . . the harts with nets, and 
 I slew the boar with my weapon." " How were you so hardy as to slay 
 a boar?" " My hounds drove him tome, and I, there facing him, sud- 
 denly struck him down." "You were very bold then." "A hunter 
 must not be timid, for various wild beasts dwell in the woods." It 
 would seem by this, that boar-hunting was not uncommon in the more 
 extensive forests of this island ; but Sharon Turner has made a singular 
 mistake, in supposing, from a picture in the Anglo-Saxon calendar, that 
 boar-hunting was the ordinary occupation of the month of September. 
 The scene which he has thus mistaken — or at least, a portion of it — is 
 given in our cut, No. 50 (from the Cottonian MS. Claudius, C. viii.) ; it 
 represents swineherds driving their swine into the forests to feed upon 
 acorns, which one of the herdsmen is shaking from the trees with his 
 hand. The herdsmen were necessarily armed to protect the herds 
 under their charge against robbers. 
 
HA WRING. 
 
 83 
 
 The Anglo-Saxons, as we have seen, were no less attached to hawking 
 than to hunting. The same Colloquy already quoted contains the fol- 
 lowing dialogue relating to the fowler (fugelere). To the question, 
 
 No. 50. — Swineherds. 
 
 " How dost thou catch birds ? " he replies, " I catch them in many 
 ways; sometimes with nets, sometimes with snares, sometimes with 
 bird-lime, sometimes with whistling, sometimes with a hawk, sometimes 
 with a trap." " Hast thou a hawk ? " "I have." " Canst thou tame 
 them ? " " Yes, I can ; of what use would they be to me unless I could 
 tame them?" " Give me a hawk." " I will give one willingly in ex- 
 change for a swift hound. What kind of hawk will you have, the 
 greater or the lesser?'' . . . "How feedest thou thy hawks ?" " They 
 
 No. 51. — Anglo-Saxons Hawking. 
 
 feed themselves and me in winter, and in spring I let them fly to the 
 wood, and I catch young ones in autumn and tame them." A party of 
 hawkers is represented in our cut No. 5 1, taken from the manuscript 
 last quoted, where it illustrates the month of October. This rude 
 attempt at depicting a landscape is intended to represent a river run- 
 
THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 ning from the distant hills into a lake, and the hawkers are hunting 
 cranes and other water-fowl. Presents of hawks and falcons are not 
 unfrequently mentioned in Anglo-Saxon writers; and in a will, an 
 Anglo-Saxon leaves to his natural lord " two hawks and all his stag- 
 hounds." 
 
 The Saxon youths were proud of their skill in horsemanship. Bede 
 relates an anecdote of the youthful days of Herebald, Abbot of Tyne- 
 mouth, when he attended upon Bishop John of Beverley, from Here- 
 bald's own words : — "It happened one day," the latter said, "that as 
 we were travelling with him (the bishop), we came into a plain and 
 open road, well adapted for galloping our horses. The young men that 
 were with him, and particularly those of the laity, began to entreat 
 
 the bishop to give them leave to 
 gallop, and make trial of the goodness 
 
 of their horses When they had 
 
 several times galloped backwards and 
 forwards, the bishop and I looking on, 
 my wanton humour prevailed, and I 
 could no longer refrain j but, though 
 he forbade me, I struck in among them, 
 and began to ride at full speed." 
 Horses were used chiefly by the upper 
 classes of society in travelling. Two 
 of a party of Saxon travellers are repre- 
 
 No. 52. — Anglo-Saxons on a Journey. 
 
 sented in our cut No. 52 (from MS. Cotton. Claudius, B. iv.) The 
 \ lady, it will be observed, rides sideways, as in modern times, and the 
 illuminated manuscripts of different periods furnish us with examples 
 enough to show that such was always the practice ; yet an old writer 
 has ascribed the introduction of side-saddles into this country to Anne 
 of Bohemia, the queen of Richard II., and the statement has been 
 repeated by writers on costume, who too often blindly compile from one 
 another without examining carefully the original sources of information.* 
 
 * This erroneous statement is repeated by most of our writers on such subjects, and 
 will be found in Mr Planche's " History of British Costume." Statements of this kind 
 made by old writers are seldom to be depended upon ; people were led by political 
 bias or personal partiality, to ascribe the introduction of customs that were odious, to 
 
HORSE FITTINGS AND VEHICLES. 
 
 85 
 
 The next cut, No. 53 (taken from MS. Had., No. 603), represents a 
 horseman with his arms, the spear, and the round shield, with its boss, 
 which reminds us of those frequently found in the early Anglo-Saxon 
 graves. The horse furniture 
 is tolerably well defined in 
 these figures. The forms of 
 the spur (spura) and the stir- 
 rup (called in Anglo-Saxon 
 stirap and hylfia) are very 
 peculiar. Most of the furni- 
 ture of the horse was then, as 
 now, of leather, and was made 
 
 ■l ,1 1 i / No. S3- — An Anglo-Saxon Horseman. 
 
 by the shoemaker (se sceo- 
 
 wyrhta), who seems to have been the general manufacturer of articles 
 in this material. Alfric's Colloquy enumerates among the articles made 
 by the shoemaker, bridle-thongs (bridel-thwancgas), harnesses (gerceda), 
 spur-leathers (sfiur-lethera), and halters 
 (Jicelfrd). The form of the saddle is 
 shown in the representation of a horse 
 without a rider, given, from the manu- 
 script last quoted, in our cut, No. 54. 
 In the Anglo-Saxon church histories, 
 we meet with frequent instances of 
 persons, who were unable to walk 
 
 from Sickness Or Other Cause, being Na 54--Anglo-Saxon Horse Fittings. 
 
 carried in. carts or cars, but in most cases these seem to have been 
 nothing but the common agricultural carts adapted temporarily to this 
 usage. A horse-litter is on one occasion used for the same purpose. 
 It is certain, however, that the Anglo-Saxons had chariots for travelling. 
 The usual names of all vehicles of this kind were wcegn or ween (from 
 which, our waggon) and crat or crcet (which appears to be the origin of 
 the English word cart). These two terms appear to have been used 
 synonymously, for the words of the 18th Psalm, hi in curribus, are 
 translated in one Anglo-Saxon version by on wcenum, and in another by 
 
 persons who were unpopular, or whom they disliked, while they ascribed everything 
 of a contrary character to persons who were beloved. 
 
86 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 in crcetum. The Anglo-Saxon manuscripts give us various representa- 
 tions of vehicles for travelling. The one represented below in the cut 
 No. 55 is taken from the Anglo-Saxon manuscript of Prudentius. It 
 seems to have been a barbaric " improvement " upon the Roman biga, 
 and is not much unlike our modern market carts. The whip used by- 
 
 No. 55. — A Chariot. 
 
 the lady who is driving so furiously, is of the same form as that used 
 by the horsewoman in our cut, No. 52. The artist has not shown the 
 wcBgne-thixl, or shaft. A four-wheeled carriage, of rather a singular 
 construction, is found often repeated, with some variations, in the illu- 
 minations of the manuscript of Al- 
 fric's translation of the Pentateuch. 
 One of them is given in our cut, 
 No. 56. It is quite evident that 
 a good deal of the minor detail of 
 construction has been omitted by 
 the draughtsman. Anglo-Saxon 
 glosses give the word rad to repre- 
 sent the Latin quadriga. From the 
 same source we learn that the com- 
 pound word wcen-fcer, waggon-going, was used to express journeying 
 in chariots. 
 
 Riding in chariots must have been rare among the Anglo-Saxons. 
 Horses were only used by the better classes of society ; and we learn 
 from Bede and other writers that pious ecclesiastics, such as Bishops 
 
 No. 56. — An Anglo-Saxon Carriage. 
 
PRECAUTIONS IN TRAVELLING. 87 
 
 Aidan, Ceadda, and Cuthbert, thought it more consistent with the 
 humility of their sacred character to journey on foot. The pedestrian 
 carried either a spear or a staff; the rider had almost always a spear. 
 It is noted of Cuthbert, in Bede's life of that saint, that one day when 
 he came to Mailros (Melrose), and would enter the church to pray, 
 having leaped from his horse, he "gave the latter and his travelling 
 spear to the care of a servant, for he had not yet resigned the dress 
 and habits of a layman." The weapon was, no doubt, necessary for 
 personal safety. There is a very curious clause in the Anglo-Saxon 
 laws of King Alfred, relating to an accident arising from carrying the 
 spear, which we can hardly understand, although to require a special 
 law it must have been of frequent occurrence ; this law provides that 
 "if a man have a spear over his shoulder, and any man stake himself 
 upon it" the carrier of the spear incurred severe punishment, "if the 
 point be three fingers higher than the hindmost part of the shaft." He 
 was not considered blameable if he held the spear quite horizon- 
 tally. 
 
 The traveller always wore a covering for his head, which, though 
 of various shapes, none of which resembled our modern hat, was char- 
 acterised by the general term of hcet. He seems to have been further 
 protected against the inclemency of the weather by a cloak or mantle 
 (inentel). One would be led to suppose that this outer garment was 
 more varied in form and material than any other part of the dress, 
 from the great number of names which we find applied to it, such as 
 basing, hcecce, hcecela or hacela, ficell, fiylca, scyccels, wcefels, &c. The 
 writings which remain throw no light upon the provisions made by 
 travellers against rain ; for the dictionary-makers who give scitr-scead 
 (shower- shade) as signifying an umbrella, are certainly mistaken.* Yet 
 that umbrellas were known to the Anglo-Saxons is proved beyond a 
 doubt by a figure in the Harleian manuscript, No. 603, which is given 
 
 * The word occurs in the reflections of our first parents on their nakedness, in the 
 poem attributed to Casdmon. Adam says that when the inclement weather arrives 
 (cymeft kaglts scur — the hail shower will come) they had nothing before them to serve 
 for a defence or shade against the storm — 
 
 " Nys unc wuht beforan 
 to scur sceade." 
 
THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 No. 57. — An Anglo- 
 Saxon Umbrella. 
 
 in our cut, No. 57. A servant or attendant is holding an umbrella 
 over the head of a man who appears to be covered at the same time 
 with the cloak or mantle. 
 
 Travelling to any distance must have been rendered more uncom- 
 fortable, especially when passing through wild dis- 
 tricts, by the want of inns. The word inn is itself 
 Saxon, and signified a lodging, but it appears to 
 have been more usually applied to houses of this 
 kind in towns. A tavern was also called a gest- 
 hus or gest-bur, a house or chamber for guests, and 
 cumena-hns, a house of comers. Guest-houses, like 
 caravanserais in the East, appear to have been estab- 
 lished in different parts of Saxon England, near the 
 high roads, for the reception of travellers. A traveller in Bede arrives 
 at a hospiiium in the north of England, which was kept by %. fiatei'f ami- 
 lias (or father of a family) and his household. In the Northumbrian 
 gloss on the Psalms, printed by the Surtees Society, the Latin words of 
 Psalm liv., in hosfiitiis eorum are rendered by in gest-hustwi heora. This 
 shows that Bede's hosfiitium was really a guest-house. These guest-houses 
 were kept up in various parts of England until Norman times; and 
 Walter Mapes, in his treatise de Nugis Curialium, has preserved a story 
 relating to one of William the Conqueror's Saxon opponents, Edric 
 the Wild, which tells how, returning from hunting in the forest of Dean, 
 and accompanied only by a page, he came to a large house, " like the 
 drinking houses of which the English have one in every parish, called 
 in English gild-houses," perhaps an error for guest-houses (quales An- 
 glici in singulis singulas habebant diocesibus bibitorias, ghildhus Anglice 
 didas). It seems not improbable, also, that the ruins of Roman villas 
 and small stations, which stood by the sides of roads, were often 
 roughly repaired or modified, so as to furnish a temporary shelter for 
 travellers who carried provisions, &c, with them, and could therefore 
 lodge themselves without depending upon the assistance of others. 
 A shelter of this kind — from its consisting of bare walls, a mere shelter 
 against the inclemency of the storm — might be termed a ceald-hereberga 
 (cold harbour), and this would account for the great number of places 
 in different parts of England which bear this name, and which are 
 
OBSERVANCE OF HOSPITALITY. 
 
 almost always on Roman sites and near old roads. The explanation 
 is supported by the circumstance that the name is found among the 
 Teutonic nations on the Continent — the German Kalten-herberg — as 
 given to some inns at the present day. 
 
 The deficiency of such comforts for travellers in Anglo-Saxon times 
 was compensated by the extensive practice of hospitality, a virtue which 
 was effectually inculcated by the customs of the people as well as by 
 the civil and ecclesiastical laws. When a stranger presented himself at 
 a Saxon door, and asked for board and lodging, the man who refused 
 them was looked upon with contempt by his countrymen. In the 
 seventh century, as we learn from the Pcenitentiale of Archbishop 
 Theodore, the refusal to give lodging to a stranger (quiamque hospitem 
 11011 receferit in domain suani) was considered worthy of ecclesiastical 
 censure. And in the Ecclesiastical Institutes, drawn up at a later 
 period, and printed in the collection of Anglo-Saxon laws, it is stated 
 that " It is also very needful to every mass-priest, that he diligently 
 exhort and teach his parishioners that they be hospitable, and refuse 
 not their houses to any wayfaring man, but do for his comfort, for love 
 of God, what they then will or can ; . . . but let those who, for love 
 of God, receive every stranger, desire not any worldly reward." Bede 
 describes as the first act of "the custom of hospitality" (inos hosfiitali- 
 tatis) the washing of the stranger's feet and hands ; they then offered 
 him refreshment, and he was allowed to remain two nights without 
 being questioned, after which period the host became answerable for 
 his character. The ecclesiastical laws limited the hospitality to be . 
 shown to a priest to one night, because if he remained longer it was a | 
 proof that he was neglecting his duties. 
 
 Taverns of an ordinary description, where there was probably no \ 
 accommodation for travellers, seem to have been common enough 
 under the Anglo-Saxons ; and it must be confessed that there seems to 
 be too much reason for believing that people spent a great deal of their 
 leisure time in them ; even the clergy appear to have been tempted to 
 frequent them. In the Ecclesiastical Institutes, quoted above, mass- 
 priests are forbidden to eat or drink at ale-houses [cet ceap-ealothehmi). 
 And it is stated in the same curious record that, " It is a very bad 
 custom that many men practise, both on Sundays and also other mass- 
 
9Q THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 days; that is, that straightways at early morn they desire to hear 
 mass, and immediately after the mass, from early morn the whole day 
 over, in drunkenness and feasting they minister to their belly, not to 
 God." 
 
 Merchant travellers seem, in general, to have congregated together 
 in parties or small caravans, both for companionship and as a measure 
 of mutual defence against robbers.* In such cases they probably 
 carried tents with them, and formed little encampments at night, like 
 the pedlars and itinerant dealers in later times. Men who travelled 
 alone were exposed to other dangers besides that of robbery ; for a 
 solitary wanderer was always looked upon with suspicion, and he was 
 in danger himself of being taken for a thief. He was compelled, there- 
 fore, by his own interest and by the law of the land, to show that he 
 had no wish to avoid observation. One of the earlier Anglo-Saxon 
 codes of laws, that of King Wihtraed, directed that " if a man come 
 from afar, or a stranger go out of the highway, and he then neither 
 shout nor blow a horn, he is to be accounted a thief, either to be slain, 
 or to be redeemed." 
 
 So prevalent, indeed, were theft and unfair dealing among our 
 Anglo-Saxon forefathers, and so much litigation and unjust persecution 
 arose from disputed claims to property which had been, or was pre- 
 tended to have been, purchased, that it was made illegal to buy or sell 
 without witnesses. It would be easy to multiply examples of robbery 
 and plunder from Anglo-Saxon writers; but I will only state that, 
 according to the Ely history, some merchants from Ireland, having 
 come to Cambridge in the time of King Edgar, to offer their wares for 
 sale, perhaps at the annual festivities of the Eeorna-wyl, mentioned 
 above, a priest of the place was guilty of stealing a part of their 
 merchandise. We know but little of the trades and forms of com- 
 mercial dealings of the Anglo-Saxons ; but we may take our leave of 
 
 * The memory of this practice of travelling in company was preserved down to a 
 late period. Men with whom I have conversed remembered the time, probably the 
 earlier part of the present century, when people entering London from Kensington 
 were detained at Kensington Gate until a sufficient number had collected to be able 
 to defend themselves against the highwaymen who then infested the Kensington 
 Road. There was a bell at the gate, which was rung when a sufficient number had 
 assembled, and they were then allowed to proceed into the town. 
 
MONEY DEALINGS. 
 
 9i 
 
 the period of which we have been hitherto treating, with a few figures 
 relating to money matters, from the Anglo-Saxon manuscript of the 
 Psalms (MS. Harl., No. 603). The cut, No. 58, represents, apparently, 
 
 No. 58.— Taking Toll. 
 
 a man in the market, or at the gates of a city, taking toll for mer- 
 chandise. The scales are for weighing, not the merchandise, but the 
 money. The word finnd, or pound, implied that the money was 
 reckoned by weight ; and the word mancus, another term for a certain 
 sum of money, is also considered to have. been a weight. Anglo-Saxon 
 writings frequently speak of money as given by weight. Our cut, No. 
 
 No. 59.— A Money Taker. 
 
 No. 60. — Putting Treasure by. 
 
 59, is a representation of the merchant, or the toll-taker, seated before 
 his account-book, with his scales hanging to the desk. In the first of 
 these cuts,' a man holds the bag or purse, in which the money received 
 for toll or merchandise is deposited. The cut, No. 60, represents the 
 receiver pouring the money out of his bag into the cyst, or chest, in 
 
THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 which it is to be locked up and kept in his treasury. It is hardly 
 necessary to say that there were no banking-houses among the Anglo- 
 Saxons. The chest, or coffer, in which people kept their money and 
 other valuables, appears to have formed part of the furniture of the 
 chamber, as being the most private apartment; and it may be remarked 
 that a rich man's wealth usually consisted much more in jewels and 
 valuable plate than in money. 
 
 . We cannot but remark how little change the manners and the senti- 
 ments of our Saxon forefathers underwent during the long period that 
 we are in any way acquainted with them. During the reign of Edward 
 the Confessor, Norman fashions were introduced at court, but their 
 influence on the nation at large appears to have been very slight. 
 Even after the Norman Conquest the English manners and fashions 
 retained their hold on the people, and at later periods they continually 
 re-appear to assert their natural rights among the descendants of the 
 Anglo-Saxons. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 The Early Norman Period. — Luxuriousness of the Normans. — Advance 
 in Domestic Architecture. — The Kitchen and the Hall. — Provisions 
 and Cookery. — Bees. — The Dairy. — Meal-times and Divisions of the 
 Day. — Furniture. — The Faldestol. — Chairs and other Seats. 
 
 A GREAT change was wrought in this country by the entrance of 
 the Normans. From what we have seen, in the course of the 
 preceding chapters, society seems for a long time to have been at a 
 stand among the Anglo-Saxons, as though it had progressed as far as 
 its own simple vitality would carry it, and wanted some new impulse 
 to move it onwards. By the entrance of the Normans, the Saxon 
 aristocracy was destroyed ; but the lower and, in a great measure, the 
 middle classes were left untouched in their manners and customs, 
 which they appear to have preserved for a considerable length of time 
 without any material change. The Norman historians, who write with 
 prejudice when they speak of the Saxons, describe their nobility as 
 having become luxurious without refinement ; and they tell us that the 
 Normans introduced greater sobriety, accompanied with more ostenta- 
 tion. " The nobility," says William of Malmesbury, " was given up to 
 luxury and wantonness. . . . Drinking in parties was an universal 
 practice, in which occupation they passed entire nights as well as days. 
 They consumed their whole substance in mean and despicable houses ; 
 unlike the Normans and French, who, in noble and splendid mansions, 
 lived with frugality. The vices attendant on drunkenness, which 
 enervate the human mind, followed. ... In fine, the English at that 
 time (under King Harold) wore short garments, reaching to the mid- 
 knee ; they had their hair cropped, their beards shaven, their arms 
 
94 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 laden with golden bracelets, their skin adorned with punctured designs ; 
 they were accustomed to eat till they became surfeited, and to drink 
 till they were sick. These latter qualities they imparted to their con- 
 querors ; whose manners, in other respects, they adopted." 
 
 Whatever moderation the Normans may have brought with them, or 
 however they may have been restrained by the first Anglo-Norman 
 monarch, it disappeared entirely under his son and successor : when, 
 in the words of William of Malmesbury, " everything was so changed, 
 that there was no man rich except the money-changer, and no clerks 
 but lawyers. . . . The courtiers then preyed upon the property of the 
 country people, and consumed their substance, taking the very meat 
 from their mouths. Then was there flowing hair and extravagant 
 dress ; and then was invented "the fashion of shoes with curved points ; 
 then the model for young men was to rival women in delicacy of per- 
 son, to mince their gait, to walk with loose gesture, and half naked." 
 This increasing dissoluteness of manners appears to have received no 
 effectual check under the reign of the first Henry ; in the twenty-ninth 
 year of which, the writer just quoted tells us that " a circumstance 
 occurred in England, which may seem surprising to our long-haired 
 gallants, who, forgetting what they were born, transform themselves 
 into the fashion of females, by the length of their locks. A certain 
 English knight, who prided himself on the luxuriance of his tresses, 
 being conscience-stung on the subject, seemed to feel in a dream as 
 though some person strangled him with his ringlets. Awaking in a 
 fright, he immediately cut off all his superfluous hair. The example 
 spread throughout England ; and, as recent punishment is apt to affect 
 the mind, almost all the barons allowed their hair to be cropped in a 
 proper manner, without reluctance. But this decency was not of long 
 continuance ; for scarcely had a year expired, before all those who 
 thought themselves courtly, relapsed into their former vice ; they vied 
 with women in length of locks, and wherever these were wanting, put 
 on false tresses ; forgetful, or rather ignorant, of the saying of the 
 Apostle, ' If a man nurture his hair, it is a shame to him.' " Public 
 and private manners were gradually running into the terrible lawless- 
 ness of the reign of King Stephen. 
 
 William of Malmesbury points out as one of the more remarkable 
 
DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 95 
 
 circumstances which distinguished the Normans from the Saxons, the 
 magnitude and solidity of their domestic buildings. The Anglo-Saxons 
 seem, indeed, to have preserved the old national prejudice of their race 
 against confining themselves within stone walls, while the Normans and 
 Franks, who were more influenced by Roman traditions, had become 
 great builders. The old " home " was gone, and a new one had come 
 in its place. We have scarcely any information relative to the progress 
 of domestic architecture under William the Conqueror, but the Norman 
 chiefs seem from the first to have built themselves houses of a much 
 more substantial character than those which they found in existence. 
 The residence of the Conqueror, while engaged in his operations against 
 the insurgents in the Isle of Ely, is imperfectly described by the anony- 
 mous author of the Life of Hereward. It consisted of the hall, kitchen, 
 and other buildings, which were enclosed by hedges and fosses (per 
 sepes et foveas), which indeed, as we have seen, was the case with 
 the Anglo-Saxon houses, and it had an interior and exterior court. 
 Towards the end of the Conqueror's reign, and in that of his son, were 
 raised those early Norman baronial castles, the masonry of which has 
 withstood the ravages of so many centuries. Under William and his 
 sons, few ordinary mansions and dwelling-houses seem to have been 
 built substantially of stone ; I am not aware that there are any known 
 remains of a stone mansion in this country older than the reign of 
 Henry II., which is the date of Stokesay in Shropshire. The miracles of 
 St Cuthbert, related by Reginald of Durham, contain one or two allu- 
 sions to the private houses of the earlier part of the twelfth century. 
 Thus a parishioner of Kellow, near Durham, in the time of Bishop 
 Walter Rufus (1133-1140), is described as passing the evening drinking 
 with the parish priest ; returning home late, he was pursued by dogs, 
 and reaching his own house in great terror, contrived to shut the door 
 {ostium domus) upon them. He then went up to what, from the con- 
 text, appears to have been the window of an upper floor or garret (ad 
 fenestram parietis), which he opened in order to look down with safety 
 on his persecutors. He was suddenly seized with madness, and his 
 family being roused, seized him, carried him down into the court (in 
 area), and bound him to the seats {ad sedilia). The same writer tells 
 the story of a blind woman in the city of Durham, who used to run her 
 
THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 head against the projecting windows of the houses (ad fenestrarum 
 defiendentia foris laquearid). 
 
 We trace in the illuminations of the earlier Norman period the cus- 
 tom of placing the principal apartment at an elevation from the ground. 
 The simple plan of the stone-built house of the latter part of this 
 century, consisted of a square room on the ground floor, often vaulted, 
 and of one roof above it, which was the principal apartment, and the 
 sleeping room. This was approached by a staircase, sometimes ex- 
 ternal and sometimes internal, and it had a fire-place (chemmee), though 
 this was not always the case in the room below. The lower room was 
 the hall, and the upper apartment was called a solar, or sotter (solarium), 
 a word which has been supposed to be derived from sol, the sun, which 
 was more felt in this upper room than in the lower, inasmuch as it was 
 better lighted — it was the sunny room. Yet, even here, the windows 
 were small, and without glass. We learn from Joscelin de Brakelonde 
 that, in the year 1182, Samson, Abbot of Bury, while lodging in a 
 grange, or manor-house, belonging to his abbey, narrowly escaped 
 being burnt with the house, because the only door of the upper story 
 in which he was lodged happened to be locked, and the windows were 
 too narrow to admit of his passing through them. In the early Eng- 
 lish " Ancren Riewle," or rule of nuns, published by the Camden 
 Society, there are several allusions to the windows of the parlour, or 
 private room, which show that they were not glazed, but usually 
 covered with a cloth, or blind, which allowed sufficient light to pass, 
 and that they had shutters on hinges which closed them entirely. In 
 talking of the danger of indulging the eyes, the writer of this treatise 
 (p. 50) says, " My dear sisters, love your windows" — they are called in 
 the original text thurles, holes through the wall — " as little as you may, 
 and let them be small, and those of the parlour least and narrowest ; 
 let the cloth in them be twofold, black cloth, the cross white within 
 and without." The writer goes on to moralise on the white cross upon 
 a black ground. In another part of the book (p. 97), the author sup- 
 poses that men may come and seek to converse with the nuns through 
 the window, and goes on to say, " If any man become so mad and 
 unreasonable that he put forth his hand towards the window-cloth {the 
 thurl-clotli), shut the window quickly and leave him." Under the hall, 
 
NORMAN DWELLINGS. 
 
 97 
 
 when it was raised above the level of the ground, there was often 
 another vaulted room, which was the cellar, and which seems to have 
 been usually entered from the inside of the building. In the accom- 
 panying cut (No. 61), taken from the celebrated tapestry of Bayeux, 
 are seen Harold and his companions carousing in an apartment thus 
 situated, and approached by a staircase from without. The object of 
 this was, perhaps, partly to be more private, for the ordinary public 
 hall at dinner time seems to have been invaded by troops of hungry 
 
 No. 61. — A Norman Carousal. 
 
 hangers-on, who ate up or carried away the provisions which were 
 taken from the table, and became so bold that they seem to have often 
 seized or tried to seize the provisions from the cooks as they carried 
 them to the table. William Rufus established ushers of the hall and 
 kitchen, whose duty it was to protect the guests and the cooks from 
 this rude rabble. Gaimar's description of that king's grand feast at 
 Westminster contains some curious allusions to this practice. After 
 telling us that three hundred ushers (ussers, i.e. huissiers), or door- 
 keepers, were appointed to occupy the entrance passages (us), who 
 were to stand with rods to protect the guests as they mounted the steps, 
 from the importunity of the garsons, he goes on — 
 
 Cil cunduaient les bai - ons 
 
 Par les degrez, pur les garcons ; 
 
9 8 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 Od les verges k'es mains teneient 
 As barons vaie fesaient, 
 Ke ja garcon ne s'apremast, 
 Si alcon d'els ne l'comandast, — 
 
 he adds, that those who carried the provisions and liquor to the table 
 were also attended by these ushers, that the " lecheurs" might not 
 snatch from them, or spoil, or break, the vessels in which they 
 carried them : — 
 
 Ensement tut revenaient par els 
 
 Cil ki aportouent les mes 
 
 De la quisine e des mesters, 
 
 E li beveres e li mangers, 
 
 Icil usser les cunduaient, 
 
 Pur la vessele dunt servaient, 
 
 Ke lecheur ne les eschecast, 
 
 Ne malmeist, ne defrussast. 
 
 — Gaimar, Estorie des Engles, 1. 5985. 
 
 No. 62. — The Norman Butler in his Office. 
 
 In the cut from the Bayeux tapestry, the feasting-room is approached 
 by what is evidently a staircase of stone. In our next cut, No. 62, taken 
 from a manuscript of the earlier half of the twelfth century in the Cot- 
 tonian library (Nero, C. iv.), and illustrating the story of the marriage 
 feast at Cana, the staircase is apparently of wood, little better than a 
 
NORMAN KITCHENS. 
 
 99 
 
 ladder, and the servants who are carrying up the wine assist them- 
 selves in mounting by means of a rope. It is a picture which at the 
 same time exhibits several characteristics of do- 
 mestic life — the wine-vessels, the cupboard in 
 which they are kept, and the well in the court-yard, 
 the latter being indicated by the tree. The butler, 
 finding wine run short, sends the servant to draw 
 water from the well. It may be remarked that 
 this appears to have been the common machinery 
 of the draw-well among our forefathers in the 
 Middle Ages — a rude lever, formed by the attach- 
 ment • of a heavy weight, perhaps of lead, at one 
 end of the beam, which was sufficient to raise 
 the other end, and thus draw up the bucket. No - 6 3— A Draw-Weil. 
 It occurs in illuminations in manuscripts of various periods ; our 
 example in > cut No. 63 is taken from MS. Harl. No. 1257, of the 
 fourteenth century. 
 
 Whatever truth there may be in William of Malmesbury's account of 
 the sobriety of the Normans, there can be no doubt that the kitchen 
 and the cooks formed with them a very important part of the house- 
 hold. According to the Bayeux tapestry, Duke William brought with him 
 from Normandy a complete kitchen establishment, and a compartment 
 of that interesting monument, of which we give a diminished copy in the 
 next page, shows that when he landed he found no difficulty in provid- 
 ing a dinner. On the left two cooks are boiling the meat — for this 
 still was the general way of cooking it, as it was usually salted. Above 
 them, on a shelf, are fowls, and other descriptions of small viands, 
 spitted ready for roasting. Another cook is engaged at a portable 
 stove, preparing small cakes, pasties, &c, which he takes from the 
 stove with a singularly formed fork to place them on the dish. 
 Others are carrying to the table the roasted meats on the spits. It 
 will be observed that having no " board " with them to form a table, 
 the Norman knights here make use of their shields instead. 
 
 The reader of the Life of Hereward will remember the scene in which 
 the hero in disguise is taken into King William's kitchen, to entertain 
 the cooks. After dinner the wine and ale were distributed freely, and 
 
THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 the result was a violent quarrel between the cooks and Hereward ; the 
 former used the tridents and forks for weapons {cum tridentibus etfurcis), 
 while he took the spit from the fire (defoco hastile), as a still more for- 
 midable weapon of defence. In the early Chanson de Roland, Charle- 
 magne is described also as carrying his cooks with him to the war, as 
 
 No. 64. — Norman Cooks and 
 
 William the Conqueror is pictured in the Bayeux tapestry; and they held 
 so important a position in his household, that, when one of his most 
 powerful barons, Guenelon, was accused of treason, Charlemagne is 
 made to deliver him in custody to the charge of his cooks, who place 
 him under the guard of a hundred of the "kitchen companions," and 
 these treat him much in the same way as King William's cooks sought to 
 treat Hereward, by cutting off or plucking out his beard and whiskers. 
 
 Li reis fait prendre le cunte Guenelun, 
 
 Si l'cumandat as cous de sa maisun, 
 
 Tut li plus maistre en apelet Besgun : 
 
 ' Ben le me guarde, si cume tel felon, 
 
 De ma maisn6e ad faite traisun.' 
 
 Cil le receit, si met c. cumpaignons 
 
 De la quisine, des mielz e des pejurs ; 
 
 Icil li peilent la barbe e les gernuns. — Chanson de Roland, p. 71. 
 
 Alexander Neckam, in his Dictionarius (written in the latter part of 
 the twelfth century), begins with the kitchen, as though he considered 
 it as the most important part of a mansion, and he describes its furni- 
 ture rather minutely. There is good reason, however, for believing that 
 the cooking was very commonly performed in the court of the house in 
 
NORMAN DINNER-TABLES. 
 
 101 
 
 the open air, and perhaps it was intended to be represented so in the 
 scene given here from the Bayeux tapestry. The cooks are there de- 
 livering the food through a door into the hall. 
 
 The Norman dinner-table, as shown in the Bayeux tapestry, differs 
 not much from that of the Anglo-Saxons. A few dishes and basins 
 
 MHMMA 
 
 the Attendants serving; at Table. 
 
 contain viands which are not easy to be recognised, except the fish and 
 the fowls. Most of the smaller articles seem to have been given by 
 the cooks into the hands of the guests from the spits on which they had 
 
 No. 65. — An Anglo-Saxon Dinner Party. 
 
 been roasted. Another dinner scene is represented in our cut No. 
 65, taken from the Cottonian manuscript already mentioned (Nero, C. 
 
THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 iv.) We see again similarly formed vessels to those used at table by 
 the Anglo-Saxons. The bread is still made in round flat cakes, and is 
 marked with a cross, and with a flower in the middle. The guests use 
 no forks ; their knives are different and more varied in their forms than 
 under the Anglo-Saxons. Sometimes, indeed, the shape of the knives 
 is almost grotesque. The one represented below, in our cut, No. 66, 
 is taken from a group in the same manuscript which furnished the pre- 
 ceding cut j it is very singularly notched at the point. 
 
 We see in these dinner scenes that the Anglo-Normans used horns 
 and cups for drinking, as the Anglo-Saxons had done ; but the use of 
 the horn is becoming more rare, and the bowl-shaped vessel appears to 
 have been now the usual drinking-cup. Among the wealthy these cups 
 seem to have been made of glass. Reginald of 
 Durham describes one of the monks as bringing 
 water for a sick man to drink in a glass cup (vase 
 vitred), which was accidentally broken. In a 
 splendidly illuminated manuscript of the Psalms, 
 of the earlier half of the twelfth century, written by Eadwine, one of 
 the monks of Canterbury, — which will afford much illustration for 
 
 No. 66.— A Knife. 
 
 No. 67. — A Cup-bearer. 
 
 No. 68.— The Servant in the Cellar. 
 
 this period,* — we find a figure of a servant going to drink, who holds 
 one of the same description of drinking-cups which were so popular at 
 an earlier period among the Anglo-Saxons (see our cut No. 67). He 
 
 * This valuable MS. is preserved in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge. It 
 is a very remarkable circumstance that the illuminations are in general copies from 
 those of the Harleian MS. No. 603, except that the costume and other circumstances 
 are altered, so that we may take them as correct representations of the manners of the 
 Anglo-Normans. 
 
NORMAN WINE AND WINE CUPS. 
 
 103 
 
 No. 69. — Anglo-Norman Pottery. 
 
 holds in the left hand the jug, which had now become the usual vessel 
 for carrying the liquor in any quantity. In our cut, No. 68, furnished 
 by the same manuscript as the preceding, the servant is taking the jug 
 of liquor from the barrel. Our next cut, No. 69, also taken from the 
 Cambridge MS., represents several forms of vessels for the table. 
 Some of these are new to us ; and they 
 are on the whole more elegant than most 
 of the forms we meet with in common 
 pictures. 
 
 Wine appears to have been now more 
 frequently used than among the Anglo- 
 Saxons. Neckam, in the latter part of 
 the twelfth century, has given us a rather 
 playful enumeration of the qualities of 
 good wine ; which he says should be as 
 clear as the tears of a penitent, so that a man may see distinctly to the 
 bottom of his glass ; its colour " should represent the greenness of a 
 buffalo's horn; when drunk, it should descend impetuously like thunder, 
 sweet-tasted as an almond, creeping like a squirrel, leaping like a roe- 
 buck, strong like the building of a Cistercian monastery, glittering like 
 a spark of fire, subtle as the logic of the schools of Paris, delicate as 
 fine silk, and colder than crystal." Yet, as we have seen before, the 
 English wines appear to have been generally of an inferior quality, and 
 ale and mead still continued to be the usual drinks. The innumerable 
 entries in Domesday Book show us how large a proportion of the pro- 
 ductions of the country, in the reign of William the Conqueror, still 
 consisted in honey, which was used chiefly for the manufacture of 
 mead. The manuscript in Trinity College 
 Library gives us a group of bee-hives (cut 
 No. 70), with peasants attending to them; 
 and is chiefly curious for the extraordinary 
 forms which the artist, evidently no nat- 
 uralist, has given to the bees. 
 
 We have hardly any information on 
 the cookery of the period we are now 
 describing. It is clear that numerous delicacies were served to the 
 
 No. 70. — Anglo-Norman Bee-keepers. 
 
io4 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 tables of the noble and wealthy, but their culinary receipts are not 
 preserved. We read in William of Malmesbury, incidentally, that a 
 great prince ate garlick with a goose, from which we are led to suppose 
 that the Normans were fond of highly-seasoned dishes. Neckam tells 
 us that pork, roasted or broiled on red embers, required no other sauce 
 than salt or garlick; that a capon done in gobbets should be well 
 peppered ; that a goose, roasted on the spit, required a strong garlick- 
 sauce, mixed with wine or " the green juice of grapes or crabs ; " that 
 a hen, if boiled, should be cut up and seasoned with cummin, but, if 
 roasted, it should be basted with lard, and might be seasoned with 
 garlick-sauce, though it would be more savoury with simple sauce; 
 that fish should be cooked in a sauce composed of wine and water, and 
 that they should afterwards be served with a sauce composed of sage, 
 parsley, cost, ditany, wild thyme, and garlick, with pepper and salt. 
 We learn from other incidental allusions of contemporary, or nearly 
 contemporary, writers, that bread, butter, and cheese, were the ordinary 
 food of the common people, probably with little else but vegetables. 
 It is interesting to remark that the three articles just mentioned have 
 preserved their Anglo-Saxon names to the present times, while all kinds 
 of meat, beef, veal, mutton, pork, even bacon, have retained only the 
 names given to them by the Normans, which seems to imply that 
 flesh-meat was not, during the Norman period, in general use for food 
 among the lower classes of society. 
 
 Bread seems almost always to have been formed in cakes, like our 
 buns, round in the earlier pictures, and in later ones (as in our cut, No. 
 69) shaped more fancifully. We see it generally marked with a cross, 
 perhaps a superstitious precaution of the baker.* The bread seems to 
 have been in general made for the occasion, and eaten fresh, perhaps 
 warm. In one of Reginald of Durham's stories, we are told of a priest 
 in the forest of Arden, who, having nothing but a peck of corn left, 
 and receiving a large number of visitors on a sacred festival, gave it 
 out to be baked to provide for them. The corn was immediately 
 ground, perhaps with querns, and having been mixed with "dewy" 
 water, in the usual manner, was made into twelve loaves, and im- 
 
 * It remains still the practice in some parts of France (in Normandy, for instance), 
 before cutting a loaf, to make a cross upon it with the point of the knife. 
 
EARLY RISING AMONG THE NORMANS. 
 
 105 
 
 mediately placed in the hot oven.* Cheese and butter seem also to 
 have been tolerably abundant. An illumination of the Cambridge 
 MS., given in our cut No. 71, represents a man milking and another 
 
 No. 71. — Anglo-Normans Milking and Churning. 
 
 churning; he who churns appears, to use a vulgar phrase, to be " taking 
 it at his ease." The milking-pail, too, is rather extraordinary in its 
 form. 
 
 We have not any distinct account of the hours at which our Norman 
 ancestors took their meals, but they appear to have begun their day 
 early. In the Carlovingian romances, everybody, not excepting the 
 emperor and his court, rises at daybreak ; and in Huon de Bordeaux 
 (p. 270), one of the chief heroes is accused of laziness, because he was 
 in bed after the cock had crowed. In the romance of Doon de 
 Mayence, the feudal lord of that great city and territory is introduced 
 exhorting his son to rise betimes, for, he says, " he who sleeps too long 
 in the morning, becomes thin and lazy, and loses his day by it, if he 
 does not amend himself." 
 
 Qui trop dort au matin, maigre devient et las, 
 
 Et sa journee en pert, s'y n'en amende pas. — Doon de Mayence, p. 76. 
 
 In the same romance, two of the heroes, Doon and Baudouin, also 
 rise with the sun, and dress and wash, and then say their prayers; after 
 which their attendant Vaudri " placed between them two a very large 
 pasty, on a white napkin, and brought them wine, and then said to them 
 
 * "Quod, mola detritum, et aqua rorante perfusum, more usitato, in camino 
 sestuante est depositum." — Reg. Dunelm., p. 128. He owns they were so small that 
 they hardly deserved the name of loaves : " Vix enim bis seni panes erant numero, 
 qui tamen minores adeo quantitate fuerant quod indignum videretur panum eos 
 censeri vocabulo." 
 
106 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 in fair words, like a man of sense, ' Sirs, you shall eat, if it please you ; 
 for eating early in the morning brings great health, and gives one 
 greater courage and spirit ; and drink a little of this choice wine, which 
 will make you strong and fierce in fight.' .... And when Doon saw 
 it, he laughed, and began to eat and drink, and they breakfasted very 
 pleasantly and peacefully." John of Bromyard, who wrote at a later 
 period, has handed down a story of a man who despaired of overcom- 
 ing the difficulty he found in keeping the fasts, until he succeeded in 
 the following manner : at the hour of matins (three o'clock in the 
 morning), when he was accustomed to break his fast, and was greatly 
 tempted to eat, he said to himself, " I will fast until tierce (nine o'clock), 
 for the love of God ; " and when tierce came, he said he would fast 
 unto sext (the hour of noon), and so again he put off eating until none 
 (three o'clock in the afternoon) ; and so he gradually learnt to fast all 
 day. We may perhaps conclude that, at the time when this story was 
 made, nine o'clock was the ordinary hour of dinner. 
 
 This last-mentioned meal was certainly served early in the day, and 
 was often followed by recreations in the open air. In the romance of 
 Huon de Bordeaux (p. 252), the Christian chiefs, after their dinner, go 
 to amuse themselves on the sea-shore. In Doon de Mayence (p. 245), 
 they play at chess and dice after dinner ; and on another occasion, in 
 the same romance (p. 314), the barons, after their dinner, sing and 
 dance together; while in Fierabras (p. 185), Charlemagne and his 
 court ride out on horseback, and set up a quintain, at which they 
 jousted all day (tout lejour — which would imply that they began early), 
 until vespers (probably seven o'clock), when they returned into the 
 palace to refresh themselves, and afterwards to go to bed. Supper was 
 certainly served in the evening, and in these romances people are 
 spoken of as going to bed immediately after it. On one occasion, in 
 Doon de Mayence (p. 303), Charlemagne's barons take no supper, but, 
 after their beds are prepared, they are served plentifully with fruits and 
 wine. In the same romance (p. 16), the guards of a castle go out, be- 
 cause it was a warm evening in summer, and have their supper laid out 
 on a table in the field, where they remain long amusing themselves. 
 In Fierabras (p. 68), the barons take a hot bath after dinner. 
 
 Of the articles of household furniture during the period of which we 
 
NORMAN SEATS. 
 
 107 
 
 are now writing, we cannot give many examples. We have every reason 
 to believe that they were anything but numerous. A board laid upon 
 tressels formed the usual dining-table, and an ordinary bench or form 
 the seat. In the French Carlovingian romances, the earlier of which 
 may be considered as representing society in the twelfth century, even 
 princes and great barons sit ordinarily upon benches. Thus, in the 
 
 No. 72. — The Knight and his Lady. 
 
 romance of Huon de Bordeaux (pp. 33, 36), Charlemagne invites the 
 young chieftain, Huon, who had come to visit him in his palace, to sit 
 on the bench and drink his wine ; and in the same romance (p. 263), 
 when Huon was received in the abbey of St Maurice, near Bordeaux, 
 he and the abbot sat together on a bench. Chairs belonged to great 
 people. The above group, taken from 
 a manuscript of the fourteenth cen- 
 tury in the National Library in Paris, 
 represents the lord and lady of the 
 household seated . in their settle of 
 dignity, like the Anglo-Saxons in a 
 former cut (No. 32, p. 54), with their 
 young son, and is a proof how little 
 change domestic manners had under- 
 gone. Our cut, No. 73, taken from 
 the Trinity College Psalter, repre- 
 sents a chair of state, with its covering of drapery thrown over it. In 
 some instances the cushion appears placed upon the drapery. This seat 
 
 No. 73. — A Faldestol. 
 
io8 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 was the faldestol, a word which has been transformed in modern French 
 to fauteuil (translated in English by elbow-chair). We read in the 
 Chanson de Roland of the faldestol which was placed for princes, and 
 of the covering of white "fialie " (a rich stuff) which was spread over 
 it. That of Charlemagne was of pure gold — 
 
 Un faldestoed i unt fait tut d'or mer: 
 
 La siet li reis qui dulce France tient. — Chanson de Roland, p. 5. 
 
 The faldestol of the Saracen King of Spain was covered with a " palie " 
 of Alexandrian manufacture — 
 
 Un faldestoet out suz l'umbre d'un pin, 
 
 Envolupet fut d'un palie Alexandrin ; 
 
 La. fut li reis Id tute Espaigne tint. — lb. p. 17. 
 
 The infidel emir from Egypt, when he arrives in Spain, is seated in the 
 midst of his host on a, faldestol of ivory. 
 
 Sur 1'erbe verte getent un palie blanc, 
 
 Un faldestoed i unt mis d'olifan ; 
 
 Desuz s'asiet li paien Baligant. — lb. p. 102. 
 
 The faldestol is elsewhere described as 
 made of similar rich materials. In the 
 romance of Huon de Bordeaux, Charle- 
 magne is represented as sitting in a fal- 
 destol made of pure gold. 
 
 Karles monta ens el palais plenier ; 
 II est asis u faudestuef d'ormier. 
 
 — Huon de Bordeaux, p. 286. 
 
 The mouldings of the faldestol in the 
 cut No. 73 will be recognised as exactly 
 the same which are found on old furni- 
 ture of a much more recent period, and 
 which, in fact, are those which offer them- 
 selves most readily to ordinary turners. The same ornament is seen 
 on the chair represented in our cut No. 74, taken from the same 
 manuscript as the last, in which two men are seated in a very singular 
 manner. It was not uncommon, however, to have seats which held 
 several persons together, such as the one represented in an Anglo- 
 
 No. 74. — Two Chiefs seated. 
 
NORMAN SEATS. 
 
 Saxon illumination given in a former chapter (p. 41), and such are 
 still to be seen in country public-houses, where they have preserved 
 the Anglo-Saxon name of settle. One of these is represented in our 
 cut No. 75. The persons seated in it, in this case, are learned men, 
 
 No. 75.— An Anglo-Norman Settle. 
 
 and the cross above seems to show that they are monks. One has 
 a table-book, and two of the others have rolls of parchment, which 
 are all evidently the subject of anxious discussion. 
 
 No. 76.— -Seats in the Wall. 
 
 Chairs, and even stools, were, as has been already observed, by no 
 means abundant in these early times, and we can easily suppose that it 
 
THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 would be a difficult thing to accommodate numerous visitors with seats. 
 To remedy this, when houses were built of stone, it was usual to make, 
 in the public apartments, seats, like benches, in recesses in the wall, 
 or projecting from it, which would accommodate a number of persons 
 at the same time. We find such seats usually in the cloisters of monas- 
 teries, as well as in the chapter-houses of our cathedral churches. In 
 the latter they generally run round the room, and are divided by arches 
 into seats which were evidently intended to accommodate two persons 
 each, for the convenience of conversation. This practice is illustrated 
 by our cut No. 76, taken, like the preceding one, from the Cambridge 
 Manuscript ; it represents a group of seats of this kind, in which monks 
 (apparently) are seated and conversing two and two. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The Norman Hall. — Social Sentiments under the Anglo-Normans. — 
 Domestic Amusements. — Candles and Lanterns. — Furniture. — Beds. 
 — Out-of -Door Recreations. — Hunting. — Archery. — Convivial Inter- 
 course and Hospitality. — Travelling. — Punishments. — The Stocks. — 
 A Norman School. — Education. 
 
 A LEXANDER NECKAM has left us a sufficiently clear descrip- 
 -* *■ tio.n of the Norman hall. He says that it had a vestibule or 
 screen (veslibulum), and was entered through a porch (portions), and 
 that it had a court, the Latin name of which {atrium) he pretends was 
 derived from ater (black), "because the kitchens used to be placed by 
 the side of the streets, in order that the passers-by might perceive the 
 smell of cooking." This explanation is so mysterious, that we may 
 suppose the passage to be corrupt, but the coquince of which Neckam is 
 speaking are evidently cooks' shops. In the interior of the hall, he 
 says, there were posts (or columns) placed at regular distances. The 
 few examples of Norman halls which remain are divided internally by 
 two rows of columns. Neckam enumerates the materials required in 
 the construction of the hall, which seem to show that he is speaking of 
 a timber building. A fine example of a timber hall, though of a later 
 period, is, or was recently, standing in the city of Gloucester, with its 
 internal "posts" as here described. There appears also to have been 
 an inner court-yard, in which Neckam intimates that poultry were kept. 
 The whole building, and the two court-yards, were no doubt surrounded 
 by a wall, outside of which were the garden and orchard. The Normans 
 appear to have had a taste for gardens, which formed a very important 
 adjunct to the mansion, and to the castle, and are not unfrequently 
 alluded to in mediaeval writers, even as far back as the twelfth century. 
 
THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 Giraldus Cambrensis, speaking of the castle of Manorbeer (his birth- 
 place), near Pembroke, said that it had under its walls, besides a fine 
 fish-pond, " a beautiful garden, inclosed on one side by a vineyard, and 
 on the other by a wood, remarkable for the projection of its rocks, and 
 the height of its hazel-trees." 
 
 A new characteristic was introduced into the Norman houses, and 
 especially into the castles, the massive walls of which allowed chimney- 
 flues to be carried up in their thickness. The piled-up fire in the 
 middle of the hall was still retained, but in the more private apartments, 
 and even sometimes in the hall itself, the fire was made on a hearth 
 beneath a fire-place built against the side 
 wall of the room. An illumination, in the 
 Cottonian MS. Nero, C. iv., which we have 
 already had occasion to refer to more than 
 once, represents a man warming himself at a 
 fireplace of this description. It appears, 
 from a comparison of this (No. 77) with 
 similar figures of a later period, that it was a 
 usual practice to sit at the fire bare-legged 
 and bare-foot, with the object of imbibing 
 the heat without the intermediation of shoes 
 or stockings. On a carved stall in Worcester 
 Cathedral, represented in our cut, No. 78, 
 which belongs to a later date (the latter part 
 of the fourteenth century), and the scene of which is evidently intimated 
 to be in the winter season, a man, while occupied in attending to the 
 culinary operations, has taken off his shoes in order to warm himself in 
 this manner. The winter provisions, two flitches of bacon, are sus- 
 pended on his left, and on the other side the faithful dog seems 
 to enjoy the fire equally with his master. From a story related by 
 Reginald of Durham, it appears to have been a practice among the 
 ladies to warm themselves by sitting over hot water, as well as by the 
 fire.* In some of the illuminations of mediaeval manuscripts, ladies 
 are represented as warming themselves, even in the presence of the 
 other sex, in a very free-and-easy manner. The fuel chiefly employed 
 * " Quod si super aquas seu ad ignem se calefactura sedisset." — Reg. Dunelm. c. 124. 
 
 No. 77. — A Man warming 
 himself. 
 
SOCIAL MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 
 
 ii3 
 
 was no doubt still wood, but the remark of Giraldus Cambrensis that 
 the name of Coleshulle (in Flintshire) signified the hill of coals (car- 
 bonum collis) implies that mineral coals were then known. We have 
 evidence of the knowledge and use of mineral coal in England from 
 very early times. 
 
 It is hardly necessary to remark that, in the change in the mode of 
 living which had suddenly taken place in this country, a form of society 
 had also been introduced abruptly which differed entirely from that of 
 the Anglo-Saxons. On the Continent, throughout the now disjointed 
 empire which had once been ruled by Charlemagne, there had arisen, 
 during the tenth century, amid frightful misgovernment and the savage 
 
 iqqnm-TiHIiilTUBfm 
 
 No. 78.— Signs of Cold Weather. 
 
 invasions of the Northmen, a new form of society, which received the 
 name of feudalism, because each landowner held, either direct from the 
 crown or from a superior baron, by a feudal tenure or fee {feodum, 
 feudum), which obliged him to military service. Each baron had sove- 
 reignty over all those who held under him, and, in turn, acknowledged 
 the nominal sovereignty of a superior baron or of the crown, which the 
 latter was only sometimes practically able to enforce. One great prin- 
 ciple of this system was the right of private warfare ; and, as not only 
 did the great barons obtain land in feudal tenure in different countries 
 under different independent princes, but the lesser holders of sub-fees 
 obtained such tenures under more than one superior lord, and as these, 
 
H4 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 when they quarrelled with one superior, made war upon him, and threw 
 themselves upon the protection of another who felt bound to defend 
 his feudatory, war became the normal state of feudal society, and peace 
 and tranquillity were the exceptions. One effect of feudalism was to 
 divide the population of the country into two distinct classes — the 
 landholders, or fighting-men, who alone were free, and the agricultural 
 population, who had no political rights whatever, and were little better 
 than slaves attached to the land. The towns alone, by their own in- 
 nate force, preserved their independence, but in France the influence 
 of feudalism extended even over them, and the combined hostility of 
 the crown and the aristocracy finally overthrew their municipal inde- 
 pendence. Feudalism was brought into England by the Normans, but 
 it was never established here so completely or so fully as on the Conti- 
 nent. The towns here never lost their independence, but they sided 
 sometimes with the aristocracy, and sometimes with the crown, until 
 finally they assisted greatly in the overthrow of feudalism itself. Yet the 
 whole territory of England was now distributed in great fees, and in 
 sub-fees ; amid which a few of the old Saxon gentry retained their posi- 
 tion, and many of the Norman intruders married the Saxon heiresses, 
 in order, as they thought, to strengthen the right of conquest ; but the 
 mass of the agricultural population were confounded under the one 
 comprehensive name of villains (villani), and reduced to a much more 
 wretched condition than under the Anglo-Saxon constitution. The light 
 in which the villain was regarded in the twelfth century in England is 
 well illustrated in a story told in the English " Rule of Nuns," printed 
 by the Camden Society. A knight who had cruelly plundered his poor 
 villains, was complimented by one of his flatterers, who said, " Ah, sir ! 
 truly thou dost well. For men ought always to pluck and pillage the 
 churl, who is like the willow — it sprouteth out the better for being often 
 cropped." 
 
 The power and wealth of the great Norman baron were immense, 
 and before him, during a great part of the period of which we are now 
 speaking, the law of the land was a mere nominal institution. He was 
 in general proud, very tyrannical, and often barbarously cruel. A type 
 of the feudal baron in his worst point of view is presented to us in the 
 character of the celebrated Robert de Belesme, who succeeded his father 
 
SOCIAL MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 
 
 Roger de Montgomery in the earldom of Shropshire, and of whom 
 Henry of Huntingdon, who lived in his time, tells us, " He was a very 
 Pluto, Megaera, Cerberus, or anything that you can conceive still more 
 horrible. He preferred the slaughter of his captives to their ransom. 
 He tore out the eyes of his own children, when in sport they hid their 
 faces under his cloak. He impaled persons of both sexes on stakes. To 
 butcher men in the most horrible manner was to him an agreeable feast." 
 Of a contemporary feudal chieftain in France, the same writer tells us, 
 " When any one, by fraud or force, fell into his hands, the captive might 
 truly say, ' The pains of hell compassed me round.' Homicide was his 
 passion and his glory. He imprisoned his own countess, an unheard-of 
 outrage; and, cruel and lewd at once, while he subjected her to fetters 
 and torture by day, to extort money, he forced her to cohabit with him 
 by night, in order to mock her. Each night his brutal followers dragged 
 her from her prison to his bed, each morning they carried her from 
 his chamber back to her prison. Amicably addressing any one who 
 approached him, he would plunge a sword into his side, laughing the 
 while ; and for this purpose he carried his sword naked under his cloak 
 more frequently than sheathed. Men feared him, bowed down to him, 
 and worshipped him." Women of rank are met with in the histories of 
 this period who equalled these barons in violence and cruelty ; and the 
 relations between the sexes were marked by little delicacy or courtesy. 
 William the Conqueror beat his wife even before they were married. 
 The aristocratic class in general lived a life of idleness, which would have 
 been insupportable without some scenes of extraordinary excitement; 
 and they not only indulged eagerly in hunting, but they continually 
 sallied forth in parties to plunder. They looked upon the mercantile 
 class especially as objects of hostility; and, as they could seldom over- 
 come them in their towns, they waylaid them on the public roads, 
 deprived them of their goods and money, and carried them to their 
 castles, where they tortured them in order to force them to pay heavy 
 ransoms. The young nobles sometimes joined together to plunder a 
 fair or market. On the other hand, men who could not claim the pro- 
 tection of aristocratic blood for their evil deeds, established themselves 
 under that of the wild forests, and issued forth no less eagerly to plunder 
 the country, and to perpetrate every description of outrage on the 
 
THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 persons of its inhabitants, of whatever class they might be, who fell into 
 their power. The purity of womanhood was no longer prized where it 
 was liable to be outraged with impunity ; and immorality spread widely 
 through all classes and ranks of society. The declamations of the 
 ecclesiastics and the satires of the moralists of the twelfth century may 
 give highly-painted pictures, but they lead us to the conclusion that the 
 manners and sentiments of the female sex during the Norman period 
 were very corrupt. 
 
 Nevertheless, feudalism did boast of certain dignified and generous 
 principles, and there are noble examples of both sexes who shine 
 forth more brightly through the general prevalence of vice and selfish- 
 ness and injustice. It was within the walls of the feudal castle, amid 
 the familiar intercourse which the want of amusement caused among its 
 inmates, that the principle, or practice, arose, which we in modern 
 times call gallantry, and which, though at first it only led to refinement 
 in the forms of social manners, ended in producing refinement of senti- 
 ment. It was among the feudal aristocracy, too, that the sentiment 
 we term chivalry originated, which has varied considerably in its mean- 
 ing at different periods, and which, in its best sense, existed more in 
 romance than in .reality. After the possession of personal strength and 
 courage, the quality which the feudal baron admired most, was what was 
 termed generosity, but which meant lavish expenditure and extravagance; 
 it formed the contrast between the baron, who spent his money, and 
 the burgher or merchant, who gained it, and laid it up in his coffers. 
 " Noblemen and gentlemen," says the " Rule of Nuns," already quoted, 
 " do not carry packs, nor go about trussed with bundles, nor with 
 purses ; it belongs to beggars to bear bag on back, and to burgesses to 
 bear purses." In fact, it was the principle of the feudal aristocracy to 
 extort their gains from all who laboured and trafficked, in order to 
 squander them on those who lived in idleness, violence, and vice. 
 Under such circumstances, a new class' had arisen which was peculiar 
 to feudal society, who lived entirely upon the extravagance of the 
 aristocracy, and who had so completely abandoned every sentiment of 
 morality or shame, that, in return for the protection of the nobles, they 
 were the ready instruments of any base work. They were called, 
 among various other names, ribalds (ribaldi) and letchers (leccatores) ; 
 
SOCIAL MANNERS AND CUSTOMS. 117 
 
 the origin of the first of these words is not known, but the latter is 
 equivalent to dish-lickers, and did not convey the sense now given to 
 the word, but was applied to them on account of their gluttony. We 
 have already seen how, in the crowd which attended the feasts of the 
 princes and nobles, the letchers {lecheurs) were not content with waiting 
 for what was sent away from table, but seized upon the dishes as they 
 were carried from the kitchen to the hall, and how it was found 
 necessary to make a new office, that of ushers of the hall, to repress the 
 disorder. " In those great courts," says the author of the " Rule of 
 Nuns," " they are called letchers who have so lost shame, that they are 
 ashamed of nothing, but seek how they may work the greatest villany." 
 This class spread through society like a great sore, and from the terms 
 used in speaking of them we derive a great part of the opprobrious 
 words which still exist in the English language. 
 
 The early metrical romances of the Carlovingian cycle give us an 
 insight into what were considered as the praiseworthy features in the 
 character of the feudal knight. In " Doon of Mayence," for example, 
 when (p. 74) the aged count Guy sends his young son Doon into the 
 world, he counsels him thus : " You shall always ask questions of good 
 men, and you shall never put your trust in a stranger. Every day, fair 
 son, you shall hear the holy mass, and give to the poor whenever you 
 have money, for God will repay you double. Be liberal in gifts to all ; 
 for the more you give, the more honour you will acquire, and the richer 
 you will be ; for a gentleman who is too sparing will lose all in the end, 
 and die in wretchedness and disgrace ; but give without promising 
 wherever you can. Salute all people when you meet them, and, if you 
 owe anything, pay it willingly ; but if you cannot pay, ask for a respite. 
 When you come to the hostelry, don't stand squabbling, but enter glad 
 and joyously. When you enter the house, cough very loud, for there 
 may be something doing which you ought not to see, and it will cost 
 you nothing to give this notice of your approach, while those who 
 happen to be there will love you the better for it. Do not quarrel with 
 your neighbour, and avoid disputing with him before other people ; for 
 if he know anything against you, he will let it out, and you will have 
 the shame of it. When you are at court, play at tables, and if you 
 have any good points of behaviour (dehors), show them ; you will be 
 
n8 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 the more prized, and gain the more advantage. Never make a noise 
 or joke in church; this is only done by unbelievers, whom God loves 
 not. Honour all the clergy, and speak fairly to them, but leave them 
 as little of your goods as you can ; the more they get from you, the 
 more you will be laughed at ; you will never profit by enriching them. 
 And if you wish to save your honour undiminished, meddle with no- 
 thing you do not understand, and don't pretend to be a proficient in what 
 you have never learnt. And if you have a valet, take care not to seat him 
 at the table by you, or take him to bed with you ; for the more honour 
 you do to a low fellow, the more will he despise you. If you should 
 know anything that you would wish to conceal, tell it by no means to 
 your wife, if you have one ; for if you let her know it, you will repent 
 of it the first time you displease her." The estimate of the female 
 character at this period, even when given in the romances of chivalry, 
 is by no means flattering. 
 
 With these counsels of a father, we may compare those of a mother 
 to her son. In the romance of " Huon de Bordeaux " (p. 18), when the 
 youthful hero leaves his home to repair to the court of Charlemagne, 
 the duchess addresses her son as follows : — " My child," she said, ' ' you 
 are going to be a courtier ; I require you, for God's love, have nothing 
 to do with a treacherous flatterer ; make the acquaintance of wise men. 
 Attend regularly at the service of holy church, and show honour and 
 love to the clergy. Give your goods willingly to the poor ; be cour- 
 teous, and spend freely, and you will be the more loved and cherished.'' 
 On the whole, higher sentiments are placed in the mouth of the lady 
 than in that of the baron. We must, however, return to the outward, 
 and, therefore, more apparent, characteristics of social life during the 
 Norman period. 
 
 The in-door amusements of the ordinary classes of society appear not 
 to have undergone much change during the earlier Norman period, but 
 the higher classes lived more splendidly and more riotously ; and, as far 
 as we can judge, they seem to have been coarser in manners and feel- 
 ings. The writer of the Life of Hereward has left us a curious picture 
 of Norman revelry. When the Saxon hero returned to Brunne, to the 
 home of his fathers, and found that it had been taken possession of by 
 a Norman intruder, he secretly took his lodging in the cottage of a 
 
DOMESTIC AMUSEMENTS. 
 
 villager close by. In the night he was roused from his pillow by loud 
 sounds of minstrelsy, accompanied with boisterous indications of mer- 
 riment, which issued from his father's hall, and he was told that the new 
 occupants were at their evening cups. He proceeded to the hall, and 
 entered the doorstead unobserved, from whence he obtained a view of 
 the interior of the hall. The new lord of Brunne was surrounded by 
 his knights, who were scattered about helpless from the extent of their 
 potations, and reclining in the laps of their women. In the midst of 
 them stood a jougleur, or minstrel, alternately singing and exciting their 
 mirth with coarse and brutal jests. It is a first rough sketch of a part 
 of mediaeval manners, which we shall find more fully developed at a 
 somewhat later period. The brutality of manners exhibited in the 
 scene which I have but imperfectly described, and which is confirmed 
 by the statements of writers of the following century, soon degenerated 
 into heartless ferocity, and when we reach the period of the civil wars 
 of Stephen's reign, we find the amusements of the hall varied with the 
 torture of captive enemies. 
 
 In his more private hours of relaxation, the Norman knight amused 
 himself with games of skill or hazard. Among these, the game of chess 
 became now very popular, and many of the rudely carved chessmen of 
 the twelfth century have been found in our island, chiefly in the north, 
 where they appear to. have been manufactured. They are usually made 
 of the tusk of the walrus, the native ivory of Western Europe, which 
 was known popularly as whale's bone. The whalebone of the Middle 
 Ages is always described as white, and it was a common object of com- 
 parison among the early English poets, who, when they would describe 
 the delicate complexion of a lady, usually said that she was " white as 
 whale's bone." These, as well as dice, which were now in common 
 use, were also made of horn and bone, and the manufacture of such 
 articles seems to have been a very extensive one. Even in the little 
 town of Kirkcudbright, on the Scottish border, there was, in the middle 
 of the twelfth century, a maker of combs, draughtsmen, chessmen, dice, 
 spigots, and other such articles, of bone and horn ; and stag's horn 
 appears to have been a favourite material* 
 
 * "Quidam de villula in confinio posita, artificiosus minister, sub diurno tempore 
 studiosus advenit, cujus negotiationis opus in pectinibus conformandis, tabulatis et 
 
THE HOMES OF OTHER DA VS. 
 
 In the " Chanson de Roland," Charlemagne and his knights are repre- 
 sented, after the capture of Cordova from the Saracens, as sitting in a 
 shady garden, some of them playing at tables, and others at chess. 
 
 Sur palies blancs siedent cil cevalers, 
 As tables juent pur els esbaneier, 
 E as eschecs li plus saive e li veill, 
 E escremissent cil bacheler leger. 
 
 Chess, as the higher game, is here described as the amusement of the 
 chiefs, the old, and the wise ; the knights play at tables, or draughts ; 
 but the young bachelors are admitted to neither of these games, they 
 amuse themselves with bodily exercises — sham fights. Our cut, No. 
 79, representing a lady and gentleman engaged in a game of chess, is 
 
 No. 79. — A noble Chess-Party. 
 
 an illustration of this sentiment. It is taken from a manuscript of the 
 fourteenth century, in the National Library in Paris, No. 7266, and re- 
 presents Otho, Marquis of Brandenburg, playing at chess with a lady 
 of rank. The heroes and heroines of the mediaeval romances are often 
 introduced playing at chess. 
 
 Although such games were not unusually played by day, they were 
 more especially the amusements which employed the long evenings of 
 winter, and candles appear at this time to have been more generally 
 used than at a former period. They still continued to be fixed on can- 
 
 scaccariis, talis, spiniferis, et cseteris talibus, de cornuum vel solidiori ossuum materia 
 procreandis et studium intentionis effulsit." — Reg. Dunelm, c. 88. 
 
CANDLES AND LANTERNS. 
 
 dlesticks, and not in them, and spikes appear sometimes to have been 
 attached to tables or other articles of furniture, to hold them. Thus, 
 in one of the pretended miracles told by Reginald of Durham, a sacris- 
 tan, occupied in committing the sacred vestments to the safety of a 
 cupboard, fixed his candle on a stick or spike of wood on one side 
 (candelam . . . in assere collaterals confixif), and forgetting to take away 
 the candle, locked the cupboard-door, and only became aware of his 
 negligence when he found the whole cupboard in flames. Another eccle- 
 siastic, reading in bed, fixed his candle on the top of one of the sides 
 {spondilia) of his bed. Another individual bought two small candies 
 (candclas modicas) for an obolus, but the value of the coin thus named 
 is not very exactly known. The candle appears to have been usually 
 placed at night in or on the chimney or fire-place, with which the 
 chamber was now furnished. In " Fierabras " (p. 93), a thief having ob- 
 tained admission in the night to the chamber of the Princess Floripas, 
 takes a candle from the chimney, and lights it at the fire, from which 
 we are led to suppose that it was usual to keep the fire alight all night. 
 
 Isnelement et tost vient a la ceminee, 
 Une chandelle a prinse, au fu l'a alumee. 
 
 On another occasion (p. 67), a fire is lit in the chimney of Floripas's 
 chamber, and afterwards a table is laid there, and dinner served. 
 Lanterns were now also in general use. The earliest figure 
 of a lantern that I remember to have met with in an Eng- 
 lish manuscript is one furnished by MS. Cotton. Nero, C. 
 iv. (of the twelfth century), which is represented in our cut 
 No. 80. It differs but little from the same article as used 
 in modern times ; the sides are probably of horn, with a 
 small door through which to put the candle, and the domed 
 cover is pierced with holes for the egress of the smoke. 
 
 We begin now to be a little better acquainted with the 
 domestic occupations of the ladies, but we shall be able to 
 treat more fully of these in a subsequent chapter. Not the least usual 
 of these was weaving, an art which appears to have been practised very 
 extensively by the female portion of the larger households. The manu- 
 script Psalter in Trinity College, Cambridge, furnishes us with the very 
 
THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 curious group of female weavers given in our cut No. 81. It ex- 
 plains itself, as much, at least, as it can easily be explained, and I will 
 only observe that the scissors here employed are of the form common 
 to the Romans, to the Saxons, and to the earlier Normans ; they are 
 the Saxon scear, and this name, as well as the form, is still preserved in 
 
 No. 81. — Occupation of the Ladies. 
 
 that of the " shears " of the modern clothiers. Music was also a 
 favourite occupation, and the number of musical instruments appears 
 to be considerably increased. Some of these seem to have been elabo- 
 rately constructed. The manuscript last mentioned furnishes us with 
 the accompanying figure of a large organ, of laborious though rather 
 clumsy workmanship (No. 82), 
 
 In the dwellings of the nobles and gentry, there was more show of 
 furniture under the Normans than under the Saxons. Cupboards 
 (armaria, armoires) were more numerous, and were filled with vessels 
 of earthenware, wood, or metal, as well as with other things. Chests 
 and coffers were adorned with elaborate carving, and were sometimes 
 inlaid with metal, and even with enamel. The smaller ones were made 
 of ivory, or bone, carved with historical subjects. Rich ornamentation 
 generally began with the ecclesiastics, and we find by the subjects carved 
 upon them that the earlier ivory coffers or caskets belonged to church- 
 men. When they were made for lords and ladies, they were usually 
 ornamented with subjects from romance, or from the current literature 
 of the day. The beds, also, were more ornamental, and assumed novel 
 
NORMAN BEDS. 
 
 123 
 
 forms. Our cut No. 83, taken from MS. Cotton. Nero, C. iv., differs 
 little from some of the Anglo-Saxon figures of beds. But the tester 
 
 No. 82. — A Norman Organ. 
 
 bed, or bed with a roof at the head, and hangings, was now introduced. 
 In " Reginald of Durham," we are told of a sacristan who was accustomed 
 
 No. 83.— A Norman Bed. 
 
 to sit in his bed and read at night. One night, having fixed his candle 
 upon one of the sides of the bed {supra spondilia lectuli suprema), he fell 
 accidentally asleep. The fire communicated itself from the candle to 
 
124 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 the bed, which, being filled with straw, was soon enveloped in flame, 
 and this communicated itself with no less rapidity to the combination 
 of arches and planks of which the frame of the bed was composed 
 {ligna materies archarunt et asserwn copiosd). Above the bed was a 
 wooden frame {qucedam tabularia straturd), on which he was accus- 
 tomed to pile the curtains, dorsals, and other similar furniture of the 
 church. Neckam, in the latter part of the twelfth century, describes 
 the chamber as having its walls covered with a curtain or tapestry. 
 
 No. 84. — A Bed-Chamber Scene. 
 
 Besides the bed, he says, there should be a chair, and at the foot of 
 the bed a bench. On the bed is placed a quilt (culcitrd) of feathers 
 (plumalis), to which is joined a pillow; and this is covered with a 
 pointed {punctata) or striped (stragulatd) quilt, and a cushion is placed 
 upon this, on which to lay the head. Then came sheets {linthea- 
 mina, linceuls), made sometimes of rich silks, but more commonly of 
 linen, and these were covered with a coverlet made of green say, or of 
 
NORMAN BEDS. 125 
 
 cloth made of the hair of the badger, cat, beaver, or sable. On one 
 side of the chamber was ■a.perche, or pole, projecting from the wall, for 
 the falcons, and in another place a similar perch for hanging articles 
 of dress. 
 
 Neckam's description is well illustrated by the accompanying picture, 
 taken from an illuminated manuscript of the " Romance of Othea," pre- 
 served in the National Library in Paris, which affords a good representa- 
 tion of the interior of a lady's chamber at that period. The lady is receiv- 
 ing in her chamber the visit of her lover, and she is accompanied, as 
 was usual with gentle ladies in those days, by her favourite greyhound, 
 and by her hawk, the latter seated on her fist. We see here, as de- 
 scribed by Neckam, laid upon the bed, the pillow, the quilt, and the 
 cushion ; and by the side of the bed stands a chair. The bench, or 
 here a settle, on which the happy couple are seated, has been moved 
 from the foot of the bed to the side of the room, which is evidently not 
 its usiial place, as it blocks up the entrance of a door. 
 
 It was not unusual to have only one chamber in the house, in which 
 there were, or could be made, several beds, so that all the company, 
 even if of different sexes, slept in the same room. Servants and per- 
 sons of lower degree might sleep unceremoniously in the hall. In the 
 romance of " Huon de Bordeaux" (p. 270), Huon, his wife, and his 
 brother, when lodged in a great abbey, sleep in three different beds in 
 the same room, no doubt in the guest-house. Among the Anglo-Nor- 
 mans, the chamber seems to have frequently, if not generally, occupied 
 an upper floor, so that it was approached by stairs. 
 
 The out-of-door amusements of this period appear in general to have 
 been rude and boisterous. The girls and women seem to have been 
 passionately fond of the dance, which was their common amusement at 
 all public festivals. The young men applied themselves to gymnastic 
 exercises, such as wrestling, and running, and boxing; and they had 
 bull-baitings, and sometimes bear-baitings. On Roman sites, the ancient 
 amphitheatres seem still to have been used for such exhibitions; and the 
 Roman amphitheatre at Banbury, in Oxfordshire, was known by the 
 title of " The Bull- Ring " down to a very late period. The higher ranks 
 among the Normans were extraordinarily addicted to the chase, to secure 
 which they adopted severe measures for preserving the woods and the 
 
126 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 beasts which inhabited them. Every reader of English history knows 
 the story of the New Forest, and of the fate which there befell the great 
 patron of hunting — William Rufus. The "Saxon Chronicle," in summing 
 up the character of William the Conqueror, tells us that he "made large 
 forests for the deer, and enacted laws therewith, so that whoever killed 
 a hart or a hind, should be blinded. As he forbade killing the deer, so 
 also the boars ; and he loved the tall stags as if he were their father. 
 He also appointed concerning the hares that they should go free." The 
 passion of the aristocracy for hunting was a bane to the rural population 
 in more ways than one. Not only did they ride over the cultivated 
 lands, and destroy the crops, but wherever they came they lived at free 
 quarters on the unfortunate population, ill-treating the men, and even 
 outraging the females, at will. John of Salisbury complains bitterly of 
 the cruelty with which the country-people were treated, if they happened 
 to be short of provisions when the hunters came to their houses. " If 
 one of these hunters come across your land," he says, " immediately 
 and humbly lay before him everything you have in your house, and go 
 and buy of your neighbours whatever you are deficient of, or you may 
 be plundered and thrown into prison for your disrespect to your betters." 
 The weapons generally used in hunting the stag were bows and arrows. 
 It was a barbed arrow which pierced the breast of the second William, 
 when he was hunting the stag in the wilds of the New Forest. Our 
 
 No. 85.— A Stag-Hunt. 
 
 cut No. 85, from the Trinity College Psalter, represents a horseman 
 hunting the stag. The noble animal is closely followed by a brace of 
 hounds, and just as he is turning up a hill, the huntsman aims an arrow 
 at him. As far as we can gather from the few authorities in which it is 
 alluded to, the Saxon peasantry were not unpractised hands at the bow. 
 
CONVIVIAL INTERCOURSE. 127 
 
 We find them enjoying the character of good archers very soon after 
 the Norman Conquest, under circumstances which seem to preclude the 
 notion that they derived their knowledge of this arm from the invaders. 
 In the miracles of St Bega, printed by Mr G. C. Tomlinson, in 1842, 
 there is a story which shows the skill of the young men of Cumberland 
 in archery very soon after the entrance of the Normans; and the original 
 writer, who lived, perhaps, not much after the middle of the twelfth 
 century, assures us that the Hibernian Scots, and the men of Galloway, 
 who were the usual enemies of the men of Cumberland, " feared these 
 sort of arms more than any others, and called an arrow, proverbially, a 
 flying devil." We learn from this and other accounts, that the arrows 
 of this period were barbed and fledged, or furnished with feathers. It 
 may be observed, in support of the assertion that the use of bows and 
 arrows was derived from the Saxons, that the names bow (boga) and 
 arrow (arewe), by which they have always been known, are taken directly 
 from their language; whereas, if the practice of archery had been intro- 
 duced by the Normans, it is probable we should have called them arcs 
 zxAfletches. 
 
 After the entrance of the Normans, we begin to find more frequent 
 allusions to the convivial meetings of the middle and lower orders in 
 ordinary inns or private houses. Thus, we have a story in " Reginald of 
 Durham," of a party of the parishioners of Kellow, who went to a drink- 
 ing-party at the priest's, and passed in this manner a great portion of 
 the night.* This occurred in the time of Bishop Geoffrey Rufus, be- 
 tween 1 133 and 1140. A youth and his monastic teacher are repre- 
 sented on another occasion as going to a tavern, and passing the whole 
 of the night in drinking, till one of them becomes inebriated, and can- 
 not be prevailed on to return home. Another of Reginald's stories 
 describes a party in a private house, sitting and drinking round the fire. 
 We are obliged thus to collect together slight and often trivial allusions 
 to the manners of a period during which we have so few detailed de- 
 scriptions. Hospitality was at this time exercised among all classes 
 freely and liberally ; the misery of the age made people meet together 
 
 * " Quidam Walterus .... qui ad domum sacerdotis villulae praedictse cum hospi- 
 tibus potaturus accessit. Cum igitur noctis spatium effluxisset," &c. — Reg. Dun- 
 elm, c. 17. 
 
128 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 with more kindliness. The monasteries had their open guest-houses, and 
 the unknown traveller was seldom refused a place at the table of the 
 yeoman. In towns, most of the burgesses or citizens were in the habit 
 of receiving strangers as private lodgers, in addition to the accommo- 
 dation afforded in the regular hospitia or taverns. Travelling, indeed, 
 was more usual under the Normans than it had been under the Saxons, 
 for it was facilitated by the more extensive use of horses. But this also 
 brought serious evils upon the country ; for troops of followers and rude 
 retainers who attended on the proud and tyrannical aristocracy, were 
 in the habit of taking up their lodgings at will and discretion, and living 
 upon the unfortunate householders without pay. It had been, even 
 during the Anglo-Saxon period, a matter of pride and ostentation among 
 men of rank — especially the king's officers — to travel about accom- 
 panied with a great multitude of followers,""" and this practice certainly 
 did not diminish under the Normans. But, whether in great numbers 
 or in small, the travellers of the twelfth century sought the means of 
 amusing themselves during their journey, and these amusements re- 
 sembled some of those which were employed at the dinner-table — they 
 told stories, or repeated episodes from romances, or sung, and they 
 sometimes had minstrels to accompany them. In the romance of 
 "Huon de Bordeaux," Huon, on his journey from his native city to Paris, 
 asks his brother Gerard to sing, to enliven them on the road— 
 
 Cante, biau frere, pour nos cors esjoir. — Huon de Bordeaux, p. 18. 
 
 But Gerard declines, because a disagreeable dream of the preceding 
 night has made his heart sorrowful. When we turn from romance to 
 sober history, we learn from Giraldus Cambrensis how Gilbert de Clare, 
 journeying from England to his great possessions in Cardiganshire, was 
 preceded by a minstrel and a singing-man, who played and sang alter- 
 nately, and how the noise they made gave notice of his approach to the 
 Welshmen who lay in ambush to kill him. 
 
 A group of Norman travellers is here given from the Cottonian MS. 
 
 * Lantfridus, in his collection of the miracles of St Swithun, MS. Reg. 15, C. 
 vii., fol. 41, v°, tells us how — "Quidam consul regis, in caducis prsepotens rebus, 
 cum ingenti comitatu, sicut mos est Anglo-Saxonum, properanter equitabat ad quen- 
 dam vicum in quo grandis apparatus ad necessarios convivandi usus erat illi opipare 
 constructus," &c. 
 
TRA VELLING. 
 
 129 
 
 Nero, C. iv. It is intended to represent Joseph and the Virgin Mary 
 travelling into Egypt. The Virgin on the ass, or mule, is another ex- 
 
 No. 86. — Norman Travellers. 
 
 ample of the continued practice among ladies of riding sideways. Mules 
 appear to have been the animals on which ladies usually rode at this 
 period. In the romance of "Huon de Bordeaux" (p. 60), when Huon, 
 immediately after his marriage, proceeds on his journey homeward, he 
 mounts his young duchess on a mule ; so also, in the romance of 
 "Gaufrey" (p. 62), the Princess Flordespine is mounted on a "rich mule," 
 the trappings of which are rather minutely described. " The saddle was 
 of ivory, inset with gold ; on the bridle there was 
 a gem of such power that it gave light in the 
 darkness of night, and whoever bore it was pre- 
 served from all disease." In the belief of the 
 Middle Ages, gems were commonly possessed 
 of magical virtues. " The saddle-cloth {sambue) 
 was wonderfully made ; she had thirty little 
 bells behind the cuirie, which, when the mule 
 ambled, made so great a melody that harp or 
 viol were worth nothing in comparison." The 
 Anglo-Norman historian, Ordericus Vitalis, has 
 preserved a legend of a vision of purgatory, in 
 
 which the priest who is supposed to have seen it describes, among other 
 suffering persons, " a crowd of women who seemed to him to be innumer- 
 
 No. 87.— Cars. 
 
13° 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 able. They were mounted on horseback, riding in female fashion, with 
 
 women's saddles In this company the priest recognised several 
 
 noble ladies, and beheld the palfreys and mules, with the women's litters, 
 of others who were still alive." The Trinity College Psalter furnishes 
 us with the two figures of cars given in our cut, No. 87 ; but they are 
 so fanciful in shape, that we can hardly help concluding they must have 
 been mere rude and grotesque attempts at imitating classical forms. 
 
 The manuscript last mentioned affords us two other curious illustra- 
 tions of the manners of the earlier half of the twelfth century. The first 
 
 No 88.— The Stocks. 
 
 of these (No. 88) represents two men in the stocks, one held by one leg 
 only, the other by both. The men to the left are hooting and insulting 
 
 No. 89. — A Norman School. 
 
 them. The second, represented in our cut, No. 89, is the interior of a 
 Norman school. We give only a portion of the original, in which the 
 
EDUCATION. 131 
 
 bench, on which the scholars are seated, forms a complete circle. The 
 two writers, the teacher, who seems to be lecturing viva voce, and his 
 seat and desk, are all worthy of notice. We have very little information 
 on the forms and methods of teaching in schools at this period, but 
 schools seem to have been numerous in all parts of the country. We 
 have more than one allusion to them in the naive stories of " Reginald 
 of Durham." From one of these we learn that a school, according to a 
 custom "now common enough," was kept in the church of Norham, on 
 the Tweed, the parish priest being the teacher. One of the boys, 
 named Aldene, had incurred the danger of correction, to escape which 
 he took the key of the church door, which appears to have been in his 
 custody, and threw it into a deep pool in the river Tweed then called 
 Padduwel, and now Pedwel or Peddle, a place well known as a fishing 
 station. He hoped by this means to escape further scholastic discipline, 
 from the circumstance that the scholars would be shut out by the im- 
 possibility of opening the church door. Accordingly when the time of 
 vespers came, and the priest arrived, the key of the door was missing, 
 and the boy declared that he did not know where it was. The lock 
 was too strong and ponderous to be broken or forced, and, after a vain 
 effort to open the door, the evening was allowed to pass without divine 
 service. The story goes on to say, that in the night St Cuthbert 
 appeared to the priest, and inquired wherefore he had neglected his 
 service. On hearing the explanation, the saint ordered him to go next 
 morning to the fishing station at Padduwel, and buy the first net of fish 
 that was drawn out of the river. The priest obeyed, and in the net was 
 a salmon of extraordinary magnitude, in the throat of which was found 
 the lost key of Norham church. 
 
 Among the aristocracy of the land, the education of the boy took 
 what was considered at that time a very practical turn — he was instructed 
 in behaviour, in manly exercises and the use of arms, in carving at table 
 — then looked upon as a most important accomplishment among gentle- 
 men — and in some other branches of learning which we should hardly 
 appreciate at present ; but school learning was no mediaeval gentleman's 
 accomplishment, and was, in that light, quite an exception, unless per- 
 haps to a certain degree among the ladies. In the historical romances 
 of the Middle Ages, a prince or a baron is sometimes able to read, but 
 
THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 it is the result of accidental circumstances. Thus in the romance of the 
 " Mort de Garin," when the empress of the Franks writes secret news 
 from Paris to Duke Garin, the head of the family of the Loherains, it is 
 remarked as an unusual circumstance, that the latter was able to read, 
 and that he could thus communicate the secret information of the 
 empress to his friends without the assistance of a scholar or secretary, 
 which was a great advantage, as it prevented one source of danger of 
 the betrayal of the correspondence. "Garin the Loherain," says the 
 narrator, "was acquainted with letters, for in his infancy he was put to 
 school until he had learned both Roman (French) and Latin." 
 
 De letres sot li Loherens Garins ; 
 
 Car en s'enfance fu a. escole mis, 
 
 Tant que il sot et Roman et Latin. — Mort de Garin, p. 105 . 
 
 Education of this kind was bestowed more generally on the bourgeoisie 
 — on the middle and even the lower classes ; and to these school- 
 education was much more generally accessible than we are accustomed 
 to imagine. From Anglo-Saxon times, indeed, every parish church had 
 been a public school. The "Ecclesiastical Institutes " (p. 475, in the folio 
 edition of the laws, by Thorpe) directs that " Mass-priests ought always 
 to have at their houses a school of disciples ; and if any one desire to 
 commit his little ones (lytlingas) to them for instruction, they ought very 
 gladly to receive them, and kindly teach them." It is added that " they 
 ought not, however, for that instruction, to desire anything from their 
 relatives, except what they shall be willing to do for them of their own 
 accord." In the "Ecclesiastical Canons," published under king Edgar, 
 there is an enactment which would lead us to suppose that the clergy 
 performed their scholastic duties with some zeal, and that priests 
 were in the habit of seducing their scholars from each other, for this 
 enactment (p. 396) enjoins " that no priest receive another's scholar 
 without leave of him whom' he previously followed." This system of 
 teaching was kept up during at least several generations after the Nor- 
 man Conquest. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Domestic Schooling and Domestic Literature. — Latin taught to both Sexes 
 in School. — Made the Instrument of Teaching Good Manners. — 
 Grosseteste's Liber Urbanitatis. 
 
 VARIOUS allusions in the popular writers of the Middle Ages lead 
 us to believe that every gentleman's family, in which there were 
 children, had its domestic or family school. In these schools the youth 
 of both sexes were taught together. What was learnt in the school was, 
 of course, what was called scholarship, and scholarship, in those times, 
 meant especially instruction in the Latin tongue, which appears to have 
 been taught in the school to both sexes. In their relations as scholars, 
 we may easily imagine how attachments often arose which affected their 
 future lives. M. Paulin Paris has printed in his " Romancero Fran- 
 cois" (p. 62), a pleasant little poem entitled, " Le Roman de Floire et de 
 Blanceflor," the subject of which is the affectionate attachment of two 
 lovers, whose names are well known in the poetry of the Middle Ages. 
 After Blanceflor's death, when Floire laments over her in her grave, he 
 calls to memory how they loved when they were children at school, and 
 how they expressed their love to one another in Latin, which none but 
 the scholars understood. 
 
 Bele, nous nous entramions 
 Quant a l'escole aprenions ; 
 L'uns a 1' autre son bon disoit 
 En Latin, nus ne l'entendoit. 
 
 It was indeed among the fair sex that this domestic scholarship seems 
 to have been chiefly preserved and employed. I have before observed 
 that the accomplishment of being able to read belonged rather to 
 
134 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 the female than to the male part of the mediaeval family, and it would 
 not be difficult to illustrate this fact by examples. In the song of 
 " Belle Doette " (the Fair Doette), also printed in the " Romancero 
 Francois " (p. 46), the lady is introduced sitting in a window reading 
 in a book, but she paid little attention to] what she was reading, for 
 her thoughts wandered after her lover Doon, who was running after 
 tournaments in foreign lands — 
 
 Belle Doette, as fenestres seant, 
 Lit en un livre, mais au cuer ne l'entent ; 
 De son ami Doon li ressouviant, 
 Qu'en autre terre est all.e tournoiant. 
 Or en ai dol. 
 
 There can be little doubt that the children of the feudal family were 
 generally taught Latin, nor was the subject of their lessons considered 
 of less importance than the language, especially with the boys. Reading 
 Latin, and committing the lessons to memory, was the principal exercise 
 of the scholar. In the public schools, the scholars were gradually intro- 
 duced to the old Latin authors; but in the private and domestic schools, 
 instruction in the principles of good behaviour and genteel manners was 
 considered first. We find among mediaeval manuscripts, ranging from 
 the twelfth to the fifteenth century, a number of curious pieces con- 
 taining minute directions for behaviour in good society, written in 
 Latin verse. These were no doubt used in the domestic school. They 
 were written in Latin, because the boy was securing the legitimate 
 object of the school at the same time that he was learning that 
 refinement in personal manners and behaviour which was considered 
 as distinguishing the gentleman from the villain, or rude and untaught 
 peasant. They were written in verse, because they were intended to 
 be committed to memory, which was the case generally in the mediaeval 
 schools. Even in the school-books in the old grammar schools down 
 to our own time, we find some part of the lessons in Latin grammar 
 still laid out in Latin verse. I might quote, as a well-known example, 
 the As-in-j>rcesenti of the Latin Grammar. 
 
 Every one was considered to show his good manners best, or at 
 least to be expected to do so, in the hall at table, and manners at 
 table were among those in which the scholar was first instructed. 
 
« STANS PUER AD MENS AM." 135 
 
 Among the most common of the pieces in Latin verse, composed for 
 the purpose of which I am here speaking, is one bearing, under rather 
 different forms, the title of " Stans Puer ad Mensam" — (the boy standing 
 at table), as it gives directions for his conduct under those circum- 
 stances. Several copies of this piece, which is written in Latin 
 hexameters, are found among the mediaeval manuscripts of the British 
 Museum of different dates. One of these occurs in the Harl. MS., 
 No. 1002, in a handwriting of the fifteenth century, the age in which the 
 outward forms of mediaeval manners were perhaps most insisted upon, 
 and from this copy I will give a review of its teaching and doctrines. 
 "While you are standing at your lord's table," the scholar is told, 
 " learn the good maxims" — 
 
 Stans puer ad mensam domirri, bona dogmata discas. 
 
 Attention is first called to the personal bearing of the boy. He is 
 while talking to " keep at perfect ease, and his fingers, hands, and feet 
 quiet, to hold his countenance undisturbed, and not to roll his eyes 
 about in every direction ; nor is he to fix his eyes upon the wall as if 
 it were a looking-glass, or lean upon the post as if it were a walking- 
 staff"— 
 
 Dura loqueris digitique manus in pace pedes sint. 
 Sis simplex vultu, visum nee ubique revolvas, 
 Nee paries speculum, baculus nee sit tibi postis. 
 
 Still less ought he in such company to pick his nose or to scratch 
 
 himself, or to lean his head, but to look in the face of the one 
 
 speaking — 
 
 Non nares fodeas, camera propriam neque scalpas, 
 Nee caput inclines, facies sit in ore loquentis. 
 
 He is to go demurely in walking in the streets and ways — 
 Pergas in pace per vicos atque plateas. 
 
 He was not to let the colour in his face change suddenly through 
 levity ; nor to burst into horse-laughs in the presence of his lord ; 
 " despise laughing, by which you may be brought into contempt" — 
 
 Nee coram domino debes monstrare cachinnos ; 
 Sperne cachinnare, poteris quo vilificari. 
 
136 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 " Hold to these maxims, if thou wilt be considered polite " — 
 
 Hsec documenta tene, si vis urbanus haberi. 
 
 Next come the directions for behaviour at eating in the feudal meal. 
 The first is, " Never take your food with unwashed hands" — 
 
 Illotis manibus escam ne sumpseris unquam ; 
 
 and " take the seat which the host has pointed out to you ; never pre- 
 suming on a high place, unless you have been ordered to take it " — 
 
 Atque loco sedeas tibi quem signaverit hospes ; 
 Altum sperne locum tibi sumere sis nisi jussus. 
 
 " Touch not the bread and wine till the dishes are placed, or you will 
 be said to be starved or gluttonous " — 
 
 Fercula donee sint sita, pani parce meroque, 
 Ne fame captus dicaris, sive gulosus. 
 
 " Nor eat anything until grace has been said " — 
 
 Nee escas capias donee benedictio fiat. 
 
 " Let thy nails be clean, lest perchance they offend thy neighbour" — 
 
 Mundi sint ungues, noceant ne forte sodali. 
 " Eat all that has been served to you, or let it be given to the poor" — 
 
 Morsellum totum comedas, vel detur egenis. 
 
 It was customary at the mediaeval table, in the course of carving, to 
 lay aside a portion of the provisions for the poor, for whom there was a 
 basket, or some large vessel, in the hall, in which all the offal was placed, 
 and it was sent out in charity to the beggars, who assembled at the 
 hall-door in the court. Hence it was considered a part of genteel 
 behaviour in hall to put aside the part of your own share of provisions 
 which you were unable to eat yourself, and add it to that which was 
 sent to the poor. 
 
 You are taught to be quiet at table, and not to indulge in much 
 
 chattering — 
 
 Pace fruens multis caveas garrire loquelis. 
 
 "Avoid swelling out your cheeks by taking a great lump into your 
 mouth at once" — 
 
 Maxillamque bolo caveas expandere magno. 
 
"STANS PUER AD MENS AM." 137 
 
 " Nor eat your food on both sides of your mouth at once " — 
 
 Nee gemma parte vescaris cibis simul oris. 
 
 " Never laugh or talk with your mouth full " — 
 
 Nunquam ridebis nee faberis ore repleto. 
 
 Directions are then given with regard to your plate. You are not to 
 make a noise in it by over-eating ; the spoon is not to be left standing 
 in it, nor lying on its edge, for fear of fouling the table-cloth ; nor must 
 you return to the dish a morsel once taken up • and call not back to 
 the table a dish which has been taken away — 
 
 In disco nunquam cochlear stet, nee super oram 
 Ipsius jaceat, ne mappam polluat udo. 
 In discum tacta buccella retrograda non sit ; 
 Discum de mensa sublatum nee revocabis. 
 
 '•' Never spit over the table or upon it " — 
 
 Non ultra mensam spueris nee desuper unquam. 
 
 " Scrape not nor scratch your own skin with your fingers ; always avoid 
 wiping your nose with a clean hand " — handkerchiefs were not in use at 
 this time — " and at table avoid picking your teeth with your knife " — 
 
 Non carnem propriam digitis verres neque scalpas ; 
 Semper munda manus devitet tergere nasum ; 
 Mensa cultello dentes mundare caveto. 
 
 " Drink not at table while you have food in your mouth " — 
 Ore tenens escas potum superaddere noli. 
 
 " Never bring to table what may offend your companions " — 
 Quod noceat sociis in mensa ne refer unquam. 
 
 This refers to familiarity with animals — "Be careful at table not to 
 handle the cat or the dog " — 
 
 Mensa murilegum caveas palpare canemque. 
 
 The young guest was admonished to beware of staining the table- 
 cloth with his knife — 
 
 \ 
 Mensa cultello mappam maculare caveto. 
 
138 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 And he was to wipe his mouth before drinking — 
 Oreque polluto non potabis nisi terso. 
 
 Such were the rules for good behaviour in the feudal hall during the 
 fourteenth century, as taught in the domestic schools, and this Latin 
 metrical code of good manners concludes with the wish that all who 
 refuse to conform to these teachings should be banished from every 
 polite table — 
 
 Privetur mensa qui spernit hsec documenta. 
 
 In the Harleian MS., this poem ends with the statement that 
 the author of this code was the celebrated Robert Grosseteste, Bishop 
 of Lincoln, one of the bright stars of English literature and learning in 
 the thirteenth century — 
 
 Hcec qui me docuit, Grossum-caput est sibi nomen • 
 Prsesul et ille fuit, cui det felix Deus omen. 
 
 This leads me to speak of another custom among our early fore- 
 fathers, which is of course closely connected with the history of 
 domestic manners — it is that of fostering, of which we shall have to 
 speak further on. With the same spirit as that of fostering, men of 
 position sought to take the children of other families into their own, 
 and give them instruction in their own domestic school, along with 
 their own children. The children of good family were thus commonly 
 sent into the household of another family to be educated as became 
 their rank or character. Some men of rank and power distinguished 
 themselves in this way, and their houses became in a manner schools 
 of education and learning. It was the case especially ■ with several 
 of the great ecclesiastics. Archbishop Becket is said to have set 
 a bright example of this practice, and many of the sons of the great 
 Anglo-Norman families of that time received their education in his 
 household. William de Longchamp, Bishop of Ely, distinguished him- 
 self in the same manner, and the same is said of Bishop Grosseteste, 
 of Lincoln, who is stated to have been the author of the directions 
 given above. 
 
 The especial class of scholarship which came from these domestic 
 schools was what we describe by the title of politeness. It dis- 
 
MINSTRELSY IN THE FEUDAL HALL. 139 
 
 tinguished the aristocratic and the gentle class from the ungentle, — 
 the gentleman, who was thus the man of education, from the clown or 
 uneducated. The learned men in the Middle Ages called it in their 
 Latin, urbanilas, because polite education belonged rather to the city 
 (iirbs) than to the country. The feudal gentleman looked upon it 
 simply as the code of manners which was enforced in the court of the 
 feudal lord, ' and called it, in his French, curtoisie, courtly manners, 
 which was expressed in the Latin by cicrialitas. The Latin metrical 
 piece analysed above is called in the original manuscript Liber 
 Urbanitatis. When the same tract was made more popular, and given 
 in French or English verse, it was called " Le Livre de Courtoisie," 
 or the " Boke of Curtasye." Courtesy became the distinction which 
 separated the gentry from the unrefined part of society.* 
 
 Domestic literature, in those early times, consisted chiefly, as we 
 have already seen by one or two allusions, of poetry and romance, and 
 seems to have been considered as belonging more especially to the 
 female part of the household. We have already seen one lady at least 
 reading poetry and romance. Poetry was essentially the literature of 
 primeval society. Its composition was the work of a peculiar class — 
 the primeval minstrel, and by him or his followers it was carried in the 
 memory, and was repeated to the sound of the harp, or of some other 
 musical instrument. Hence the minstrel was one of the regular 
 attendants on the festive board. The object of this poetry was gene- 
 rally to commemorate and celebrate the history and adventures of the 
 family and its forefathers, which were listened to with profound interest 
 by the members of the family and their guests who were present. 
 This was the case in primitive times. At an early period the written 
 book was substituted for the minstrel's song, and as the traditional 
 exploits of the family had been committed to writing, portions of them 
 were read aloud by one to whom that duty was intrusted. Every one 
 who is well read in these subjects knows how large a portion of 
 mediaeval history these family histories or romances form. They are 
 
 * Mr F. J. Furnivall has published a very valuable and interesting collection of 
 the documents relating to the domestic schooling, under the title of "The Babee's 
 Book," printed in 1868 by the Early English Text Society. 
 
140 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 among the most valuable of the mediseval books which remain to our 
 time. 
 
 No doubt other books, of different kinds, and upon different sub- 
 jects, were read at the table after dinner, but above most subjects the 
 feudal family party would desire to listen to the deeds and exploits of 
 the great men of his family or of his country; and there is a curious 
 class of documents, belonging to our country at least, which I believe 
 formed a portion of the domestic literature of the feudal hall. They 
 consist of rolls of vellum, on which are written popular narratives of 
 English history from the earliest period to the time at which the roll 
 was compiled, and those which have been preserved belong mostly to 
 the fourteenth century, or to the earlier half of the fifteenth. The 
 number which remain lead us to believe that every gentleman's family 
 possessed one of these rotular manuals of English history. In the talk 
 at the table in the hall, questions of English history must frequently have 
 fallen under discussion, and on such an occasion I suppose one of these 
 manuals was brought forward and unrolled, and the portion relating to 
 the disputed point was read aloud.* We can easily understand the 
 satisfaction which would be felt by all the party, when such disputed 
 points were thus set at rest as they arose in the feudal hall. 
 
 * I have printed, in a volume for private gift (at the expense of Mr Joseph Mayer, 
 of Liverpool, so well known for his valuable contributions to our national history and 
 antiquities), a selection of these curious rolls, under the title of " Feudal Manuals of 
 English History." 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 Early English Houses. — Their General Form and Distribution. 
 
 AFTER the middle of the twelfth century, we begin to be better 
 acquainted with the domestic manners of our forefathers, and 
 from that period to the end of the fourteenth century, the change was 
 very gradual, and in many respects they remained nearly the same. In 
 the middle classes, especially in the towns, there had been a gradual 
 fusion of Norman and Saxon manners, while the Norman fashions and 
 the Norman language prevailed in the higher classes, and the manners 
 of the lower classes remained, probably, nearly the same as before the 
 Conquest. 
 
 We now obtain a more perfect notion of the houses of all classes, not 
 only from more frequent and exact descriptions, but from existing re- 
 mains. The principal part of the building was still the hall, or, accord- 
 ing to the Norman word, the salle, but its old Saxon character seems to 
 have been so universally acknowledged, that the first or Saxon name 
 prevailed over the other. The name now usually given to the whole 
 dwelling-house was the Norman word manoir or manor, and we find 
 this applied popularly to the houses of all classes, excepting only the 
 cottages of labouring people. In houses of the twelfth century, the 
 hall, standing on the ground floor, and open to the roof, still formed 
 the principal feature of the building. The chamber generally adjoined 
 to it at one end, and at the other was usually a stable (croiche). The 
 whole building stood within a small enclosure, consisting of a yard or 
 court in front, called in Norman aire (area), and a garden, which was 
 surrounded usually with a hedge and ditch. In front, the house had 
 usually one door, which was the main entrance into the hall. From 
 this latter apartment there was a door into the chamber at one end, 
 and one into the croiche or stable at the other end, and a back door into 
 
142 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 the garden. The chamber had frequently a door which opened also 
 into the garden ; the stable, as a matter of course, would have a large 
 door or outlet into the yard. The chief windows were those of the 
 hall. These, in common houses, appear to have been merely openings, 
 which might be closed with wooden shutters; and in other parts of 
 the -building they were nothing but holes (pertuis) • there appears to 
 have been usually one of these holes in the partition wall between the 
 chamber and the hall, and another between the hall and the stable. 
 There was also an outer window, ox pertuis, to the chamber. 
 
 In the popular French and Anglo-Norman fabliaux, or tales in verse, 
 which belong mostly to the thirteenth century, we meet with many 
 incidents illustrating this distribution of the apartments of the house, 
 which no doubt continued essentially the same during that and the fol- 
 lowing century. Thus in a fabliau published by M. Jubinal, an old 
 woman of mean condition in life, Dame Auberee, is described as visit- 
 ing a burgher's wife, who, with characteristic vanity, takes her into the 
 chamber adjoining (en une chambre ilueques fires), to show her her hand- 
 some bed. When the lady afterwards takes refuge with Dame Auberee, 
 she also shows her out of the hall into a chamber close adjoining (en une 
 chambre iluec dejoste). In a fabliau entitled " Du prestre crucifie," pub- 
 lished by Me'on, a man returning home at night sees what is going on 
 in the hall through a pertuis, or hole made through the wall for a 
 window, before he opens the door (par un pertuis les a veuz). In an- 
 other fabliau published in the larger collection of Barbazan, a lady in 
 her chamber sees what is passing in the hall par un pertuis. In the 
 fabliau of " Le povre clerc" (or scholar), the clerc, having asked for a night's 
 lodging at the house of a miller during the miller's absence, is driven 
 away by the wife, who expects a visit from her lover the priest, and is 
 unwilling to have an intruder. The clerc, as he is going away, meets 
 the miller, who, angry at the inhospitable conduct of his dame, takes 
 him back to the house. The priest in the meantime had arrived, and 
 is sitting in the hall with the good wife, who, hearing a knock at the 
 door, makes her lover hide himself in the stable (croiche). From the 
 stable the priest watches the company in the hall through a window 
 (fenestre), which is evidently only another name for the pertuis. In 
 one fabliau the gallant comes through the court or garden, and is let 
 
EARL Y ENGLISH HO USES. 1 4 3 
 
 into the hall by the back door ; in another a woman is introduced into 
 the chamber by a back door, or, as it is called in the text, a false door 
 (par tin fax huis), while the hall is occupied by company. 
 
 The arrangements of an ordinary house in the country are illustrated 
 in the fabliau " De Barat et de Hairnet," printed in the collection of Bar- 
 bazan. Two thieves undertake to rob a third of " a bacon," which he 
 (Travers) had hung on the beam or rafter of his house, or hall : — 
 
 Travers l'avoit a. une hart 
 Au tref de sa meson pendu. 
 
 The thieves make a hole in the wall, by which one enters without 
 waking Travers or his wife, although they were sleeping with the door 
 of their chamber open. The bacon is thus stolen and carried away. 
 Travers, roused by the noise of their departure, rises from his bed, fol- 
 lows the thieves, and ultimately recaptures his bacon. He resolves 
 now to cook the bacon, and eat some of it, and for this purpose a fire 
 is made, and a cauldron full of water hung over it. This appears to be 
 performed in the middle of the hall. The thieves return, and, approach- 
 ing the door, one of them looked through the perttiis, and saw the bacon 
 
 boiling : — 
 
 Baras mist son oeil au pertuis, 
 Et voit que la chaudiere bout. 
 
 The thieves then climb the roof, uncover a small space at the top 
 silently, and attempt to draw up the bacon with a hook. 
 
 From the unskilfulness of the mediaeval artists in representing details 
 where any knowledge of perspective was required, we have not so much 
 information as might be expected from the illuminated manuscripts 
 relating to the arrangements of houses. But a fine illuminated copy of 
 the romances of the " San Graal" and the " Round Table," executed at 
 the beginning of the fourteenth century, and now preserved in the British 
 Museum (MS. Addit. Nos. 10,292 — 10,294), furnishes us with one or 
 two rather interesting illustrations of this subject. The romances them- 
 selves were composed in Anglo-Norman, in the latter half of the twelfth 
 century. The first cut which I shall select from this manuscript is a 
 complete view of a house ; it belongs to a chapter entitled " Ensi que 
 Lancelot ront ksfers d'une fenestre, et si entre dedens pour gesir avoec la 
 royne." The queen has informed Lancelot that the head of her bed lies 
 
144 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 near the window of her chamber, and that he may come by night to the 
 window, which is defended by an iron grating, to talk with her, and she 
 tells him that the wall of the adjacent hall is in one part weak and 
 dilapidated enough to allow of his obtaining an entrance through it ; but 
 Lancelot prefers breaking open the grating in order to enter directly into 
 the chamber, to passing through the hall. The grating of the chamber 
 
 No. 90. — An Anglo-Norman House. 
 
 window appears to have been common in the houses of the rich and 
 noble; in the records of the thirteenth century, the grating of the 
 chamber windows of the queen is often mentioned. The window be- 
 hind Lancelot in our cut is that of the hall, and is distinguished by 
 architectural ornamentation. The orna- 
 mental hinges of the door, with the lock 
 and the knocker, are also curious. Our 
 next cut (No. 91), taken from this same 
 manuscript, represents part of the house of 
 a knight, whose wife has an intrigue with 
 one of the heroes of these romances, King 
 Claudas. The knight lay in wait to take the 
 king, as he was in the lady's chamber at 
 night, but the king, being made aware of 
 his danger, escaped by the chamber-window, while the knight expected 
 to catch him by entering at the hall door. The juxtaposition of hall 
 and chamber is here shown very plainly. In another chapter of the 
 
 No. 91.— The Hall and Chamber. 
 
EARLY ENGLISH HOUSES. 
 
 145 
 
 same romances, the king takes Lancelot into a chamber to talk with 
 him apart, while his knights wait for them in the hall ; this is pictorially 
 represented in an illumination copied in the accompanying cut (No. 
 92), which shows exactly the relative position of the hall and chamber. 
 The door here is probably intended for that which led from the hall 
 into the chamber. 
 
 No. 92. — The Knights in waiting. 
 
 We see from continual allusions that an ordinary house, even among 
 men of wealth, had usually only one chamber, which served as his 
 sleeping-room, and as the special apartment of the female portion of the 
 household — the lady and her maids — while the hall was employed during 
 the day indiscriminately for cooking, eating, and drinking, receiving 
 visitors, and a variety of other purposes, and at night it was used as a 
 common sleeping-room. These arrangements, and the construction of 
 the house, varied according to the circumstances of the locality and the 
 rank of the occupiers. Among the rich, a stable did not form part of 
 the house, but its site was often occupied by the kitchen, which was 
 almost always placed close to the hall. Among the higher classes other 
 chambers were built, adjacent to the chief chamber, or to the hall, 
 though in larger mansions they sometimes occupied a tower or separate 
 building adjacent. The form, however, which the manor-house 
 generally took was a simple oblong square. A seal of the thirteenth 
 century, attached to a deed by which, in June 1272, William Moraunt 
 
146 
 
 THE HOMES OB OTHER DAYS. 
 
 No. 93. — Seal of W. Moraunt. 
 
 grants to Peter Picard an acre of land in the parish of Otteford in 
 Kent, furnishes us with a representation of William Moraunf s manor- 
 house. It is a simple square building, with 
 a high-pitched roof, as appears always to 
 have been the case in the early English 
 houses, and a chimney. The hall-door, it 
 will be observed, opens outwardly, as is the 
 case in the preceding cuts, which was the 
 ancient Roman manner of opening the outer 
 door of the house; it may be added that 
 it was the custom to leave the hall-door or 
 huis (ostium) always open by day, as a sign 
 of hospitality. It will also be observed that 
 there is a curious coincidence in the form of chimney with the cuts 
 from the illuminated manuscript. We must not overlook another cir- 
 cumstance in these delineations, — the position of the chimney, which 
 is usually over the chamber, and not over the hall. Fireplaces in the 
 wall and chimneys were first introduced in the chamber. 
 
 As the grouping together of several apartments on the ground-floor 
 rendered the whole building less compact and less defensible, the practice 
 soon arose, especially in the better memoirs, of making apartments above. 
 This upper apartment was called a soler {solarium, a word supposed to 
 be derived from sol, the sun, as being, by its position, nearer to that 
 luminary, or as receiving more light from it). It was at first, and in the 
 lesser mansions, but a small apartment raised above the chamber, and 
 approached by a flight of steps outside, though (but more rarely) the 
 staircase was sometimes internal. In our first cut from the Museum 
 manuscript (No. 90), there is a soler over the chamber, to which the 
 approach appears to be from the inside. In the early metrical tales the 
 soler, and its exterior staircase, are often alluded to. Thus, in the fabliau 
 " D'Estourmi," in Barbazan, a burgher and his wife deceive three monks 
 of a neighbouring abbey who make love to the lady ; she conceals her 
 husband in the soler above, to which he ascends by a flight of steps : — 
 
 Tesiez, vous monterez la sus 
 En eel solier tout coiement. 
 
 The monk, before he enters the house, passes through the court (cortil), 
 
 
EARL Y ENGLISH HO USES. 1 47 
 
 in which there is a sheepcot (bercil), or perhaps a stable. The husband 
 
 from the soler above looks through a lattice or grate, and sees all that 
 
 passes in the hall — 
 
 Par la treillie le porlingne. 
 
 The stairs seem, therefore, to have been outside the hall, with a latticed 
 
 window looking into it from the top. The monk appears to have 
 
 entered the hall by the back-door, and the chamber is adjacent to the 
 
 hall (as in houses which had no soler), on the side opposite to that on 
 
 which were the stairs. When another monk comes, the husband hides 
 
 himself under the stairs (sous le degre). The bodies of the monks (who 
 
 are killed by the husband) are carried out par mi line fausse posterne which 
 
 leads into the fields (aus chans). In the fabliau of "La Saineresse," a 
 
 woman who performs the operation of bleeding comes to the house of a 
 
 burgher, and finds the man and his wife seated on a bench in the yard 
 
 before the hall — 
 
 En mi l'aire de sa meson. 
 
 The lady says she wants bleeding, and takes her up into the soler. 
 
 Montez la. sus en eel solier, 
 II m'estuet de vostre mestier. 
 
 They enter, and close the door. It appears by the sequel, that the 
 
 approach to the soler was by a stone flight of steps outside, from which 
 
 they descended into the house — a perrin, as it was called : — 
 
 Si se descendent del perrin, 
 Contreval les degrez enfin 
 Vindrent errant en la maison. 
 
 It appears that the perrin was outside the wall, separated from it by a 
 small space, across which a board was thrown to an entrance. 
 
 In another fabliau, " De la Borgoise d'Orliens," a burgher comes to his 
 wife in the disguise of her gallant, and the lady, discovering the fraud, 
 locks him up in the soler, pretending he is to wait there till the house- 
 hold is in bed — 
 
 Je vous metrai priveement 
 
 En un solier dont j'ai la clef. 
 
 She then goes to meet her ami, and they come from the garden (vergier) 
 direct into the chamber without entering the hall. Here she tells him 
 to wait while she goes in there (let dedans), to give her people their 
 supper, and she leaves him and goes into the hall. The lady 
 
THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 afterwards sends her servants to beat her husband, pretending him to 
 
 be an importunate suitor whom she wishes to punish ! " he waits for me 
 
 up that perrin : " — 
 
 La sus m'atent en ce perin. 
 
 Ne souffrez pas que il en isse, 
 Ainz l'acueilliez al solier haut. 
 
 They beat him as he descends the stairs, and pursue him into the 
 garden, all which passes without entering the lower apartments of the 
 house. The soler, or upper part of the house, appears to have been 
 considered the place of greatest security — in fact, it could only be 
 entered by one door, which was approached by the flight of steps, and 
 was therefore more easily defended than the ground-floor. In the 
 beautiful story " De l'Ermite qui s'acompaigna a, l'Ange," the hermit and 
 his companion seek a night's lodging at the house of a rich but miserly 
 usurer, who refuses them admittance into the house, and will only per- 
 mit them to sleep under the staircase, in what the story terms an auvent 
 or shed. The next morning the hermit's young companion goes up-stairs 
 into the soler to find the usurer, who appears to have slept there for 
 
 security — 
 
 Le vallet les degrez monta, 
 El solier son hoste trova. 
 
 It was in the thirteenth century a proverbial characteristic of an 
 
 avaricious and inhospitable person, to shut his hall-door and live in the 
 
 soler. In a poem of this period, in which the various vices of the age 
 
 are placed under the ban of excommunication, the miser is thus pointed 
 
 out : — 
 
 Encor escommeni-je plus 
 
 Riche homme qui ferme son huis, 
 
 Et va mengier en solier sus. 
 
 The huis was the door of the hall. The soler appears also to have 
 been considered as the room of honour for rich lodgers or guests who 
 paid well. In the fabliau " Des Trois Avugles de Compiengne," three 
 blind men come to the house of a burgher, and require to be treated 
 better than usual ; on which he shows them up-stairs — 
 
 En la haute logis les maine. 
 
 A clerc, who follows, after putting his horse in the stable, sits at table 
 
EARLY ENGLISH HOUSES. 
 
 149 
 
 with his host in the hall, while the three other guests are served " like 
 knights " in the soler above — 
 
 Et li avugle du solier 
 Furent servi com chevalier. 
 
 During the period of which we are speaking, the richer the house- 
 holder, the greater need he had of studying strength and security, and 
 hence with him the soler, or upper story, became of more importance, 
 and was often made the principal part of the house, at least that in 
 which himself and his family placed themselves at night. This was 
 especially the case in stone buildings, where the ground-floor was often 
 a low vaulted apartment, which seems to have been commonly looked 
 upon as a cellar, while the principal room was on the first floor, 
 approached usually by a staircase on the outside. A house of this kind 
 is represented in one of our cuts, taken from the Bayeux tapestry, where 
 
 
 No. 94. — Ancient Manor-House, Millichope, Shropshire.. 
 
 the guests are carousing in the room on the first floor. Yet still the 
 vaulted room on the ground-floor was perhaps more often considered 
 as the public apartment. In this manner the two apartments of the 
 house, instead of standing side by side, were raised one upon the other, 
 and formed externally a square mass of masonry. Several examples 
 of early manor-houses of this description still remain, among which 
 one of the most remarkable is that at Millichope in Shropshire, which 
 
iSo 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 evidently belongs to the latter half of the twelfth century. It has not 
 been noticed in any work on domestic architecture, but I am enabled 
 to describe it from two private lithographed plates by Mrs Stackhouse 
 Acton, of Acton Scott, from which the accompanying cuts are taken. 
 The first (No. 94) represents the present outward appearance of the 
 ancient building, which is now an adjunct to a farm-house. The plan 
 is a rectangle, considerably longer from north to south than in the trans- 
 verse direction. The walls are immensely thick on the ground-floor in 
 comparison to the size of the building, as will be seen from the plan of 
 the ground-floor given in the next cut (No. 95). The original entrance 
 
 No. 95. — Plan of Ground-Floor of House at Millichope. 1 
 
 was at b, by a late Norman arch, slightly ornamented, which is seen in 
 the view. To the right of this is seen one of the original windows, also 
 round arched. On the north and east sides were two other windows, 
 the openings of them all being small towards the exterior, but enlarging 
 inwards. The interior must have been extremely dark ; nevertheless it 
 contains a fireplace, and was probably the public room. The opening at 
 a is merely a modern passage into the farm-house. As this house stands 
 on the borders of Wales, and therefore security was the principal con- 
 sideration, the staircase, from the thickness of the walls, was safer in- 
 side than on the exterior. We accordingly find that it was worked into 
 the mass of the wall in the south-west corner, the entrance being at c. 
 The steps of the lower part — it was a stone staircase — are concealed or 
 destroyed, so that we hardly know how it commenced, but there are 
 steps of stone now running up to the soler or upper apartment, as re- 
 presented in our plan of the upper floor. This staircase received light 
 at the bottom and at the top, by a small loop-hole worked through the 
 
ANCIENT MANOR-HOUSE AT MILLICHOPE. 
 
 151 
 
 wall. Although the walls were so massive in the lower room, the stair- 
 case was secured by extraordinary precautions. At the top of the steps 
 at d, again at e, and a third time at/, were strong doors, secured with 
 bolts, which it would have required great force to break open. The last of 
 
 No. 96. — Plan of the Upper Floor. 
 
 these doors led into the upper apartment, which was rather larger than 
 the lower one, the west wall being here much thinner. This was 
 evidently the family apartment ; it had two windows, on the north and 
 east sides, each having seats at the side, with ornamentation of early 
 
 No. 97. — Inside of Window at Millichope. 
 
 English character. A view of the northern window from the interior, 
 with its seats, is given in our cut, No. 97 j it is the same which is seen 
 externally in our sketch of the house ; this room had no fireplace. 
 Towards the fourteenth century, the rooms of houses began to be 
 
152 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 multiplied, and they were often built round a court ; the additions were 
 made chiefly to the offices, and to the number of chambers. They were 
 still built more of wood than of stone, and the carpenter was the chief 
 person employed in their construction. In the fabliau of " Trubert," 
 printed by Meon, a duke, intending to build a new house, employs a 
 carpenter to make the design, and takes him into his woods to select 
 timber for materials. It may give some notion of the simplicity of the 
 arrangement of a house, and the small number of rooms, even when 
 required for royalty itself, when we state that in the January of 1251, 
 King Henry III., intending to visit Hampshire, and requiring a house 
 for himself with his queen and court, gave orders to the sheriff of 
 Southampton to build at Freemantle a hall, a kitchen, and a chamber 
 with an upper story {cum estagio, sometimes called in documents written 
 in French chambre estagee), and a chapel on the ground, for the king's 
 use ; and a chamber with an upper story, with a chapel at the end of 
 the same chamber, for the queen's use. Under the chamber was to be 
 made a cellar for the king's wines. 
 
 The chamber had, indeed, now become so important a part of the 
 building, that its name was not unusually given to the whole house, 
 which, in the documents of the thirteenth century, is sometimes called 
 a camera ad estagiam — an upper-storied chamber. Such was the case 
 with a house built in 1285 for Edward I. and his queen in the forest at 
 W'oolmer, in Hampshire, the account of the expenses of which are 
 preserved in the Pipe Rolls. This house was seventy-two feet long, 
 and twenty-eight feet wide. It had two chimneys, a chapel, and two 
 wardrobes. The chapel and wardrobe had six glazed windows. There 
 was also a hall in it, but the two chimneys appear to have belonged to 
 the chamber. The windows of the chamber and hall had wooden 
 shutters (hostia), but do not appear to have had glass. The kitchen 
 was the only other apartment in the house. The ordinary windows of 
 a house at this time were not usually glazed ; but they were either 
 latticed, or consisted of a mere opening, which was covered by a cloth 
 or curtain by day, and was closed by a shutter, which turned upon 
 hinges, either sideways, like an ordinary door, or up and down, and 
 which seems generally to have opened outwards. The rooms were, in 
 this manner, very imperfectly protected against the weather, even in 
 
EARL Y ENGLISH HO USES. 1 5 3 
 
 palaces. A precept of Henry III. has been quoted, which directs glass 
 to be substituted for wood in a window in the queen's wardrobe at the 
 Tower, " in order that that chamber might not be so windy ; " and in the 
 same reign a charge is made in the accounts relating to the royal manor 
 at Kennington, " for closing the windows better than usual (et in 
 fenestris melius solito claudendis)." * 
 
 These remarks on the general character of the house are, of course, 
 intended to apply to the ordinary dwelling-house, and not to the more 
 extensive mansion — which already in the thirteenth century was made 
 to surround, wholly or partly, an interior court — or to the castle. These 
 more extensive edifices consisted only of a greater accumulation of the 
 rooms and details which were found in the smaller house. During the 
 thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, no great change took place in the 
 general characteristics of a private house. The hall was still the largest 
 and most important room, and was now usually raised on an under 
 t vaulted room, which, to whatever use it may have been applied, was 
 usually called the cellar. Part of it appears to have been sometimes 
 employed as the stable. In the carpenter's house, in Chaucer's 
 " Millere's Tale," the hall, which is evidently the main part of the build- 
 ing, was open to the roof, with cross-beams, on which they hanged the 
 troughs, and the stable was attached to it, and intervened between the 
 house and the garden. In the " Coke's Tale of Gamelyn," the hall has its 
 posts, or columns, and there is attached to it a room called a spence, 
 which was more frequently called the buttery, in which victuals of 
 different kinds, and the wine and plate, were locked up, and the man 
 who had the charge of it was called the spencer or despenser, which it is 
 hardly necessary to say was the origin of two common English surnames. 
 The gentleman's house, in Chaucer's " Sompnoure's Tale," was a "large 
 halle," and is called a court, which had now become an ordinary term 
 for a manor-house. 
 
 A stordy paas doun to the court he goth, 
 Wrier as ther wonyd a man of gret honour. 
 
 — Chaucer's Cant. Tales, 1. 7744. 
 
 In the "Nonne Preste's Tale," the poor widow's cottage also has its hall 
 
 * In the description of a splendid hall, in the English metrical romance of Kyng 
 Alisaunder (Weber, i. 312), the windows are made "of riche glas." 
 
154 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 and hour, or chamber, although they were all sooty, of course, from the 
 fires, which had no chimney to carry off the smoke. 
 
 Ful sooty was hir bour, and eek hir halle. — lb. I. 16,318. 
 
 This house was situated within a court, or as it is called, yard, which 
 was enclosed by a hedge of sticks, and by a ditch : — 
 
 A yerd sche had, enclosed al aboute 
 With stikkes, and a drye dich withoute. 
 
 In the " Tale of Gamelyn," the yard, or court, as we use the Anglo-Saxon 
 or the Anglo-Norman name for it, had a stronger fence, with a gate and 
 wicket fastened by lock and bolt, and apparently a lodge for the porter. 
 In the yard there was a draw-well, seven fathoms deep. While 
 Gamelyn took possession of the hall, his brother shut himself up in the 
 cellar, which could be made a safe place of refuge when all the rest of 
 the house was in the power of an enemy. The yard here had also a 
 postern-gate. In the carpenter's house, in Chaucer's " Millere's Tale," 
 the chamber has a low window, to swing outwardly — 
 
 So mote I thryve, I schal at cokkes crowe 
 Ful pryvely go knokke at his wyndowe, 
 That stant ful lowe upon his bowres wal — 
 
 which is immediately afterwards called the " schot wyndowe " — 
 Unto his brest it raught, it was so lowe. 
 
 A new apartment had now been added to the house, called in Anglo- 
 Norman a parlour (parloir), because it was literally the talking-room. 
 It belonged originally to the monastic houses, where the parlour was 
 the room for receiving people who came to converse on business, and 
 when introduced into private houses, it was a sort of secondary hall, 
 where visitors might be received more privately than in the great hall, 
 and yet with less familiarity than in the chamber. In the story of " Sir 
 Cleges/' the knight finds the king seated in his parlour, and listening to 
 a harper. In a Latin document of the year 1473, printed in Rymer's 
 Foedera, a citizen of London has, in his mansion-house there, a parlour 
 adjoining the garden (in quadam parlura adjacente gardind). 
 
 Houses were, as I have before stated, usually built in great part of 
 timber, and it was only where unusual strength was required, or else 
 from a spirit of ostentation, that they were made of stone. There 
 
EARLY ENGLISH HOUSES. 
 
 155 
 
 No. 98. — A Cupboard Door. 
 
 appear to have been very few fixtures in the inside, and as furniture 
 was scanty, the rooms must have 
 appeared very bare. In timber 
 houses, of course, it was not easy 
 to make cupboards or closets in 
 the walls, but this was not the case 
 when they were built of stone. 
 Even in the latter case, however, 
 the walls appear not to have been 
 much excavated for such purposes. 
 Our cut, No. 98, represents a cup- 
 board door, taken from an illumi- 
 nated manuscript of the thirteenth 
 century in the Bodleian Library at 
 
 Oxford ; it is curious for its ironwork, especially the lock and key. The 
 •smaller articles of domestic use were usually deposited in chests, or placed 
 upon sideboards and movable stands. In the houses of the wealthy a 
 separate room was built for the wardrobe. 
 
 The accompanying figure (cut No. 99), taken from a manuscript in 
 the Cottonian Library (Nero, D. vii.), re- 
 presents the cellarer, or house-steward, of 
 the Abbey of St Alban's, in the fourteenth 
 century, carrying the keys of the cellar 
 door, which appear to be of remarkably 
 large dimensions ; he holds the two keys 
 in one hand, and a purse, or rather a bag, 
 of money in the other, the symbols of his 
 office. A drawing in the same MS., copied 
 in our cut No. 100, shows us the entrance- 
 door to an ordinary house, with a soler, or 
 upper room, above. The individual in- 
 tended to be represented was Alan Middle- 
 ton, who is recorded in the catalogue of 
 officers of St Alban's as " collector of 
 rents of the obedientiaries of that monas- 
 tery, and especially of those of the bursar." A small tonsure denotes him 
 
 No. 99. — The Cellarer of St Albans. 
 
i S 6 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 as a monastic officer, while the penner and inkhorn at his girdle denote 
 the nature of his office ; and he is just opening the door of one of the 
 abbey tenants to perform his function. The door is intended to be re- 
 presented opening outwards. These Benedictines of St Alban's have also 
 
 No. ioo. — Alan Middleton. 
 
 immortalised another of their inferior officers, Walterus de Hamuntes- 
 ham, who was attacked and grievously wounded by the rabble of St 
 Alban's, while standing up for the rights and liberties of the Church. 
 He appears (cut No. 101) to be attempting to gain shelter in a house, 
 which also has a soler. 
 
 There was one fixture in the interior of the house, which is often 
 mentioned in old writers, and must not be overlooked. It was frequently 
 called a perche (fiertica), and consisted of a wooden frame fixed to the 
 wall, for the purpose of hanging up articles of clothing and various other 
 things. The curious tract of Alexander Neckham, entitled " Summa 
 de nominibus utensilium," states that each chamber should have two 
 perches, one on which the domestic birds, hawks, and falcons, were to 
 sit, the other for suspending shirts, kerchiefs, breeches, capes, mantles, 
 and other articles of clothing. In reference to the latter usage, one of 
 the mediaeval Latin poets has the memorial line — 
 
 Pertica diversos pannos retinere solebat. 
 
 Our cut, No. 102, taken from a manuscript of the "Roman de la Rose," 
 
PERCHES. 
 
 157 
 
 written in the fourteenth century, and now preserved in the National 
 Library in Paris (No. 6985, fol. 2, v°), represents a perche, with two 
 
 No. 101. — Walter de Hamuntesham attacked by a Mob. 
 
 garments suspended upon it. The one represented in our next cut (No. 
 103) is of rather a different form, and is made to support the arms of a 
 knight, his helmet, sword, and shield, and his coat of mail ; but how the 
 sword and helmet are attached to it is far from clear. This example is 
 
 No. 102. — A Perche. No. 103. — Another Perche. 
 
 taken from an illuminated manuscript of a well-known work by Guillaume 
 de Deguilleville, " Le Pelerinage de la Vie Humaine," of the latter end of 
 the fourteenth century, also preserved in the French National Library 
 (No. 6988) : another copy of the same work, preserved in the same 
 great collection (No. 7210), but of the fifteenth century, gives a still 
 more perfect representation of the perche, supporting, as in the last 
 
i S 8 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 example, a helmet, a shield, and coats of mail. In the foreground, a 
 queen is depositing the staff and scrip of a hermit in a chest, for greater 
 security. This subject is represented in our cut No. 104. 
 
 No. 104. — Scene in a Chamber. 
 
 ( Furniture of every kind continued to be rare, and chairs were by no 
 means common articles in ordinary houses. In the chambers, seats 
 were made in the masonry by the side of the windows, as represented in 
 our cut No. 97, and sometimes along the walls. Common benches were 
 
 No. 105. — A Bench on Trestles. 
 
 the usual seats, and these were often formed by merely laying a plank 
 upon two trestles. Such a bench is probably represented in the ac- 
 companying cut (No. 105), taken from a manuscript of the romance of 
 
TABLES. 
 
 159 
 
 "Tristan," of the fourteenth century, preserved in the National Library 
 at Paris (No. 7178). Tables were made in the same manner. We now, 
 however, find not unfrequent mention of a table dormant in the hall, 
 which was, of course, a table fixed to the spot, and which was not taken 
 away like the others : it was probably the great table of the dais, or 
 
 No. 106. — A Table on Trestles. 
 
 upper end of the hall. To " begin the table dormant " was a popular 
 phrase, apparently equivalent to taking the first place at the feast. 
 Chaucer, in the prologue to the " Canterbury Tales," describing the 
 profuse hospitality of the Frankeleyn, says — 
 
 His table dormant in his halle always 
 Stood redy covered al the longe day. 
 
 Yet during the whole of this period, it continued to be the common 
 practice to make the table for a meal by merely laying a board upon 
 trestles. Our cut, No. 106, is a very curious representation of such a table 
 from a manuscript of the thirteenth century, preserved in the Bodleian 
 Library at Oxford (MS. Arch. A. 154). It must be understood that 
 the objects which are ranged alternately with the drinking-vessels are 
 loaves of bread, not plates. 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 The Old English Hall. — The Kitchen audits Circumstances. — 
 The Dinner- Table. — Minstrelsy. 
 
 S I have already stated, the hall continued to be the most impor- 
 tant part of the house ; and in large mansions it was made of 
 proportional dimensions. It was a general place of rendezvous for the 
 household, especially for the retainers and followers, and in the even- 
 ing it seems usually to have been left entirely to them, and they made 
 their beds and passed the night in it. Strangers or visitors were brought 
 into the hall. In the curious old poem edited by Mr Halliwell, entitled 
 " The Boke of Curtasye," we find especial directions on this subject. 
 When a gentleman or yeoman came to the house of another, he was 
 directed to leave his weapons with the porter at the outward gate or 
 wicket, before he entered. It appears to have been the etiquette that 
 if the person thus presenting himself were of higher rank than the person 
 he visited, the latter should go out to receive him at the gate ; if the 
 contrary, the visitor was admitted through the gate, and proceeded to 
 
 the hall. 
 
 Whanne thou comes to a lordis gate, 
 
 The porter thou shalle fynde therate ; 
 
 Take {give) hym thow shalt thy wepyn tho {then), 
 
 And aske hym leve in to go. 
 
 . . .yf he be of logh {low) degre, 
 Than hym falles to come to the. 
 
 At the hall-door the visitor was to take off his hood and gloves — 
 
 . When thow come tho halle dor to, 
 Do of thy hode, thy gloves also. 
 
 If, when he entered the hall, the visitor found the family at meat, he 
 
STRANGERS. 161 
 
 stood at the bottom of the apartment in a respectful attitude, till the 
 lord of the house sent a servant to lead him to a place where he was to 
 sit at table. As you descended lower in society, such ceremonies were 
 less observed ; and the clergy in general seem to have been allowed 
 a much greater licence than the laity. In the " Sompnoure's Tale," in 
 Chaucer, when the friar, who has received an insult from an inferior 
 inhabitant, goes " to the court " to complain to the lord of the village, 
 he finds the latter in his hall at the dinner table — 
 
 This frere com, as he were in a rage, 
 Wher that this lord sat etyng at his bord. 
 
 — Chaucer's Cant. Tales, 1. 7748. 
 
 The lord, surprised at the agitation in the countenance of the friar, who 
 
 had come in without any sort of introduction, invites him to sit down, 
 
 and inquires into his business. There is a scene in the early English 
 
 metrical romance of "Ipomydon," in which this hero and his preceptor 
 
 Tholoman go to the residence of the heiress of Calabria. At the castle 
 
 gate they were stopped by the porter, whom they ask to announce them 
 
 in the hall : — 
 
 The porter to theyme they gan calle, 
 And prayd hym, Go into the halle, 
 And say thy lady gent and fre, 
 That come ar men of ferre contre, 
 And, if it plese hyr, we wold hyr prey 
 That we myght ete with hyr to-day. 
 
 — Weber, Metr. Rom. ii. 290. 
 
 The porter " courteously " undertook the message, and, at the immediate 
 order of the lady, who was sitting at her meat, he went back, took 
 charge of their horses and pages, and introduced them into the hall. 
 Then they asked to be taken into the lady's service, who accepted their 
 offer, and invited them to take their place at the dinner : — 
 
 He thankid the lady cortesly, 
 She comandyth hym to the mete ; 
 But, or he satte in any sete, 
 He saluted theym grate and smalle, 
 As a gentille man shuld in halle. 
 
 — Weber, ii. 292. 
 
 Perhaps, before entering the mediaeval hall, we shall do well to give 
 a glance at the kitchen. It is an opinion, which has not unfrequently 
 been entertained, that living in the Middle Ages was coarse and not 
 
1 62 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 elaborate ; and that old English fare consisted chiefly in roast beef and 
 plum-pudding. That nothing, however, could be more incorrect is fully 
 proved by the rather numerous mediaeval cookery books which are still 
 preserved, and which contain chiefly directions for made dishes, many 
 of them very complicated, and, to appearance, extremely delicate. The 
 office of cook, indeed, was one of great importance, and was well paid ; 
 and the kitchens of the aristocracy were very extensive, and were fur- 
 nished with a considerable variety of implements of cookery. On 
 account, no doubt, of this importance, Alexander Neckam, although an 
 ecclesiastic, commences his vocabulary (or, as it is commonly entitled, 
 " Liber de Utensilibus"), compiled in the latter part of the twelfth cen- 
 tury, with an account of the kitchen and its furniture. He enumerates, 
 among other objects, a table for chopping and mincing herbs and vege- 
 tables ; pots, trivets or tripods, an axe, a mortar and pestle, a mover, 
 or pot-stick, for stirring, a crook or pot-hook [uncus), a caldron, a frying- 
 pan, a gridiron, a posnet or saucepan, a dish, a platter, a saucer, or 
 vessel for mixing sauce, a hand-mill, a pepper-mill, a mier, or instrument 
 for reducing bread to crumbs. John de Garlande, in his " Dictionarius," 
 composed towards the middle of the thirteenth century, gives a similar 
 enumeration ; and a comparison of the vocabularies of the fifteenth 
 century shows that the arrangements of the kitchen had undergone 
 little change during the intervening period. From these vocabularies 
 the following list of kitchen utensils is gathered : — a brandreth, or iron 
 tripod, for supporting the caldron over the fire ; a caldron, a dressing- 
 board and dressing-knife, a brass-pot, a posnet, a frying-pan, a gridiron, 
 or, as it is sometimes called, a roasting-iron ■ a spit, a "gobard," ex- 
 plained in the MS. by ipegurgium ; a mier, a flesh-hook, a scummer, a 
 ladle, a pot-stick, a slice for turning meat in the frying-pan, a pot-hookj 
 a mortar and pestle, a pepper-quern, a platter, a saucer. 
 
 The older illuminated manuscripts are rarely so elaborate as to furnish 
 us with representations of all these kitchen implements ; and, in fact, it 
 is not in the more elaborately illuminated manuscripts that kitchen scenes 
 are often found. But we meet with representations of some of them in 
 artistic sketches of a less elaborate character, though these are generally 
 connected with the less refined processes of cookery. The mediaeval, 
 landlords were obliged to consume the produce of the land on their own 
 
POTS AND BELLOWS. 
 
 163 
 
 estates, and, for this and other very cogent reasons, a large proportion 
 of the provisions in ordinary use consisted of salted meat, which was laid 
 up in store in vast quantities in the baronial larders. Hence boiling was 
 a much more common method of cooking meat than roasting, for which, 
 indeed, the mediaeval fire, placed on the ground, was much less con- 
 venient ; it is, no doubt, for this reason that the cook is most frequently 
 represented in the mediaeval drawings with the caldron on the fire. In 
 some instances, chiefly of the fifteenth century, the caldron is supported 
 from above by a pot-hook, but more usually it stands over the fire upon 
 three legs of its own, or upon a three-legged frame. A manuscript in 
 the British Museum of the fourteenth century (MS. Reg. 10, E. iv.), 
 belonging formerly to the monastery of St Bartholomew in Smithfield, con- 
 tains a series of such illustrations, from which the following are selected. 
 In the first of these (No. 107) it is 
 evidently a three-legged caldron 
 which stands over the fire, to 
 increase the heat of which the 
 cook makes use of a pair of bel- 
 lows, which bears a remarkably 
 close resemblance to the similar 
 articles made in modern times. 
 Bellows were certainly in com- 
 
 No. 107.— Making the Pot Boil. 
 
 raon use in Anglo-Saxon times, for the name is Anglo-Saxon, bcelg, bcelig, 
 
 No. 108.— The Holy- Water Clerc and the Cook. 
 
 and bylig; but as the original meaning of this word was merely a bag, it 
 is probable that the early Anglo-Saxon bellows was of very rude character : 
 
THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 it was sometimes distinguished by the compound name, blast-bcelg, a blast- 
 bag, or bellows. Our second example from this MS. (cut No. 108) is one 
 of a series of designs belonging to some mediaeval story or legend, with 
 which I am not acquainted. A young man carrying the vessel for the 
 holy water, and the aspersoir with which it was sprinkled over the people, 
 
 ^N/V 
 
 No. 109. — Interested Friendship. 
 
 and who may therefore be supposed to be the holy-water clerc, is mak- 
 ing acquaintance with the female cook. The latter seems to have been 
 
 No. no. — A Kitchen Scene. 
 
 interrupted in the act of taking some object out of the caldron with a 
 flesh-hook. The caldron here again is three-legged. In the sequel, the 
 
 
BOILING AND ROASTING. 
 
 165 
 
 acquaintance between the cook and the holy-water clerc appears to have 
 ripened into love ; but we may presume, from the manner in which it 
 is represented (No. 109), that this love was not of a very disinterested 
 character on the part of the clerc, for he is taking advantage of her 
 affection to steal the animal which she is boiling in the caldron. The 
 conventional manner in which the animal seems to be drawn, renders it 
 difficult to decide what that animal is. The mediaeval artists show a 
 taste for playful delineations of this kind, which occur not unfrequently 
 in illuminated manuscripts, and in carvings and sculptures. One of the 
 stalls in Hereford cathedral, copied in the accompanying cut (No. no), 
 represents a scene of this descrip- 
 tion. A man is attempting to 
 take liberties with the cook, who 
 has in return thrown a platter at 
 his head. In our next cut (No. 
 in), taken from another MS. in 
 the British Museum, also of the 
 fourteenth century (MS. Reg. 16, 
 E. viii.), the object cooked in the 
 caldron is a boar's head, which 
 the co&k, an ill-favoured and hump- 
 backed man, is placing on a dish 
 
 No. in.— The Boar's Head. 
 
 to be carried to the table. The caldron, in this instance, appears to be 
 intended to have been of more ornamental character than the others. A 
 It will have been remarked that in most of these pictures the process 
 of cookery appears to have been carried on in the open air, for, in one 
 instance, a tree stands not far from the caldron. This appears, indeed, 
 to have been frequently the case, and there can be no doubt that it 
 was intended to be so represented in our next cut (No. 112), taken 
 from the well-known manuscript of the romance of " Alexander," in the 
 Bodleian Library, at Oxford. We have here the two processes of boil- 
 ing and roasting, but the latter is only employed for fowls (geese in 
 this case). While the cook is basting them, the quisiron, or kitchen- 
 boy, is turning the spit, which is placed in a very curious manner 
 on one leg of the tripod or trivet, on which the caldron is here sup- 
 ported. The building to the right is shown by the sign to be an inn, and 
 
1 66 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 we are, probably, to suppose that this out-of-door cooking is required 
 by some unusual festivity. 
 
 No. 112. — Boiling and Roasting. 
 
 Although meat was, doubtless, sometimes roasted, this process seems 
 to have been much more commonly applied to poultry and game, and 
 even fresh meat was very usually boiled. One cause of this may, perhaps, 
 have been that it seems to have been a common practice to eat the meat, 
 and even game, fresh killed— the beef or mutton seems to have been 
 often killed for the occasion on the day it was eaten. In the old fabliau 
 of the " Bouchier d' Abbeville " (Barbazan, torn. iv. p. 6), the butcher, 
 having come to Bailueil late in the evening, and obtained a night's 
 lodging at the priest's, kills his sheep for the supper. The shoulders 
 were to be roasted, the rest, as it appears, was recommended to be 
 boiled. The butchers, indeed, seem usually to have done their work 
 in the kitchen, and to have killed and cut up the animals for the occa- 
 sion. There is a curious story in the English " Gesta Romanorum" (edited 
 by Sir Frederic Madden), which illustrates this practice. " Csesar was 
 emperor of Rome, that had a forest, in the which he had planted vines 
 
A CURIOUS STORY. 167 
 
 and other divers trees many ; and he ordained over his forest a steward, 
 whose name was Jonatas, bidding him, upon pain, to keep the vines 
 and the plants. It fell, after this ordinance of the emperor, that Jonatas 
 took the care of the forest ; and upon a day a swine came into the forest, 
 the new plants he rooted up. When Jonatas saw the swine enter, he 
 cut off his tail, and the swine made a cry, and went out. Nevertheless, 
 he entered again, and did much harm in the forest. When Jonatas saw 
 that, he cut off his left ear ; and the hog made a great cry, and went 
 out. Notwithstanding this, he entered again the third day ; and Jonatas 
 saw him, and cut off his right ear, and with a horrible cry he went out. 
 Yet the fourth day the swine re-entered the forest, and did much damage. 
 When Jonatas saw that the hog would not be warned, he smote him 
 through with his spear, and slew him, and delivered the body to the 
 cook for to array the next day to the emperor's meat. But when the 
 emperor was served of this swine, he asked of his servants, ' Where is 
 the heart of this swine ? ' — because the emperor loved the heart best of 
 any beast, and more than all the beast. The servants asked the cook 
 where the heart of the swine was, for the lord inquired after it. The 
 cook, when he had arrayed the heart, saw it was good and fat, and eat 
 it ; and he said to the servants, ' Say to the emperor that the hog had 
 no heart.' The emperor said, ' It may not be j and therefore say to 
 him, upon pain of death, that he send me the heart of the swine, for 
 there is no beast in all the world without a heart.' The servants went 
 to the cook with the emperor's orders ; and he replied, ' Say to my lord, 
 but if I prove mightily by clear reasons that the swine had no heart, I 
 put me fully to his will, to do with me as he likes.' The emperor, when 
 he heard this, assigned him a day to answer. When the day was come, 
 the cook, with a high voice, said before all men, ' My lord, this is the 
 day of my answer. First I shall show you that the swine had no heart ; 
 this is the reason. Every thought cometh from the heart, therefore every 
 man or beast feeleth good or evil ; it followeth of necessity that by this 
 the heart thinketh.' The emperor said, ' That is truth.' ' Then,' said 
 the cook, 'now shall I show by reasons that the swine had no heart. 
 First he entered the forest, and the steward cut off his tail ; if he had 
 had a heart, he should have thought on his tail that was lost, but he 
 thought not thereupon, for afterwards he entered the forest, and the 
 
THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 forester cut off his left ear. If he had had a heart, he should have 
 thought on his left ear, but he thought not, for the third time he entered 
 the forest. That saw the forester, and cut off his right ear ; where, if he 
 had had a heart, he should have thought that he had lost his tail and 
 both his ears, and never should have gone again where he had so many- 
 evils. But yet the fourth time he entered the forest, and the steward 
 saw that, and slew him, and delivered him to me to array to your meat. 
 Here may ye see, my lord, that I have shown, by worthy reasons, that 
 the swine had no heart.' And thus escaped the cook." 
 
 The story which follows this in the " Gesta," tells of an emperor named 
 " Alexaundre/' " who of great need ordained for a law, that no man 
 should turn the plaice in his dish, but that he should only eat the white 
 side, and in no wise the black side ; and if any man did the contrary, 
 he should die ! " It is hardly necessary to remark, that fish was a 
 
 No. 173. — A Present of Fish. 
 
 No. 114.— A Pot and Platter. 
 
 great article, of consumption in the Middle Ages, and especially 
 among the ecclesiastics and monks. Our cut (No. 113), from a 
 manuscript of the fourteenth century in the British Museum (MS. Harl. 
 No. 1527), represents probably the steward of a monastery receiving a 
 present of fish. 
 
 In large houses, and on great occasions, the various meats and dishes 
 were carried from the kitchen to the hall with extraordinary ceremony 
 by the servants of the kitchen, who delivered them at the entrance of 
 the hall to other attendants of a higher class, who alone were allowed to 
 approach the tables. Our cut No. 114, from MS. Reg. 10, E. iv., repre- 
 sents one of these servants carrying a pot and platter, or stand for the 
 
THE DINNER-TABLE. 
 
 pot, which, perhaps, contained gravy or soup. The roasts appear to 
 have been usually carried into the hall on the spits, which, among people 
 of great rank, were sometimes made of silver ; and the guests at table 
 seem to have torn, or cut, from the spit what they wanted. Several 
 early illuminations represent this practice of people helping them- 
 selves from the spits, and it is alluded to, not very unfrequently, in the 
 mediaeval writers. In the romance of " Parise la Duchesse," when the 
 servants enter the hall with the meats for the table, one is described as 
 carrying a roasted peacock on a spit : — 
 
 Atant ez les serjanz qui portent le mangier ; 
 
 Li uns porte .i. paon roti en un astier. — Romans de Parise, p. 172. 
 
 In the romance of " Garin le Loherain," on an occasion when a 
 quarrel arose in the hall at the beginning of the dinner, the Duke Begon, 
 for want of other weapons, snatched from the hands of one of the attend- 
 ants a long spit " full of plovers, which were hot and roasted : " — 
 
 Li dus avoit un grant hastier saisi, 
 
 Plain de ploviers, qui chaut sunt et rosti. — Romans de Garin, ii. 19. 
 
 But the most curious illustration of the universality of this practice is 
 found in a Latin story, probably of the thirteenth century, in which we 
 are told of a man who had a glutton for his wife. One day he roasted 
 for their dinner a fowl, and when they had sat down at the table, the 
 wife said, " Give me a wing ?" The husband gave her the wing ; .and, 
 at her demand, all the other members in succession, until she had 
 devoured the whole fowl herself, at which, no longer able to contain his 
 anger, he said, " Lo, you have eaten the whole fowl yourself, and 
 nothing remains but the spit, which it is but right that you should taste 
 also." And thereupon he took the spit, and beat her severely with it. 
 
 Our cut (No. 115), taken from a large illumination, given from a 
 manuscript of the fifteenth century by the late M. du Sommerard, in his 
 great work on mediaeval art, represents the servants of the hall, headed 
 by the steward, or mcdtre d' hotel, with his rod of office, bringing the 
 dishes to the table in formal procession. Their approach and arrival 
 were usually announced by the sounding of trumpets and music. The 
 servants were often preceded by music, as we see in our cut No. 116, 
 taken from a very fine MS. of the early part of the fourteenth century, 
 
170 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 in the British Museum (MS. Reg. 2, B. vii.). A representation of a 
 similar scene occurs at the foot of the large Flemish brass of Robert 
 Braunche and his two wives at St Margaret's Church, Lynn, which is 
 
 No. 115. — Bringing the Dinner into Hall. 
 
 intended as a delineation of a feast given by the corporation of, Lynn 
 to King Edward III. Servants from both sides of the picture are 
 bringing in that famous dish of chivalry, the peacock with his tail dis- 
 played ; and two bands of minstrels are ushering in the banquet with 
 
 No 116. — Serving in Hall.. 
 
 their strains ; the date of the brass is about a.d. 1364. Those who 
 served at the table itself, whose business was chiefly to carve and 
 present the wine, were of still higher rank — never less than esquires — 
 and often, in the halls of princes and great chiefs, nobles and barons. 
 The meal itself was conducted with the same degree of ceremony, of 
 
THE DINNER-TABLE. 171 
 
 which a vivid picture may be drawn from the directions given in the 
 work called the " Menagier de Paris," composed about the year 1393. 
 When it was announced that the dinner was ready, the guests advanced 
 to the hall, led ceremoniously by two maltres d' hotel, who showed them 
 their places, and served them with water to wash their hands before 
 they began. They found the tables spread with fine table-cloths, and 
 covered with a profusion of richly-ornamented plate, consisting of salt- 
 cellars, goblets, pots or cups for drinking, spoons, &c. At the high 
 table, the meats were eaten from slices of bread,' called trenchers 
 (tranchoirs), which, after the meats were eaten, were thrown into vessels 
 called couloueres. In a conspicuous part of the hall stood the dresser 
 or cupboard, which was covered with vessels of plate, which two 
 esquires carried thence to the table, to replace those which were 
 emptied. Two other esquires were occupied in bringing wine to the 
 dresser, from whence it was served to the guests at the tables. The 
 dishes, forming a number of courses, varying according to the occasion, 
 were brought in by valets, led by two esquires. An asseeur, or placer, 
 took the dishes from the hands of the valets, and arranged them in their 
 places on the table. After these courses, fresh table-cloths were laid, 
 and the entremets were brought, consisting of sweets, jellies, &c, many 
 of them moulded into elegant or fantastic forms ; and, in the middle of 
 the table, raised above the rest, were placed a swan, peacocks, or 
 pheasants, dressed up in their feathers, with their beaks and feet gilt. 
 In less sumptuous entertainments the expensive course of entremets was 
 usually omitted. Last of all came the dessert, consisting of cheese, 
 confectionaries, fruit, &c, concluded by what was called the issue 
 (departure from table), consisting usually of a draught of hypocras, and 
 the boute-hors (turn out), wine and spices served round, which termin- 
 ated the repast. The guests then washed their hands, and repaired 
 into another room, where they were served with wine and sweetmeats, 
 and, after a short time, separated. The dinner, served slowly and 
 ceremoniously, must have occupied a considerable length of time. 
 After the guests had left the hall, the servers and attendants took their 
 places at the tables. 
 
 The furniture of the hall was simple, and consisted of but a few 
 articles. In large residences, the floor at the upper end of the hall was 
 
172 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 raised, and was called the dais. On this the chief table was placed, 
 stretching lengthways across the hall. The subordinate tables were 
 arranged below, down each side of the hall. In the middle was 
 generally the fire, sometimes in an iron grate. At the upper end of 
 the hall there was often a cupboard or a dresser for the plate, &c. 
 The tables were still merely boards placed on tressels, though the table 
 dormant, or stationary table, began to be more common. Perhaps the 
 large table on the dais was generally a table dormant. The seats were 
 merely benches or forms, except the principal seat against the wall on 
 the dais, which was often in the form of a settle, with back and elbows. 
 Such a seat is represented in our cut No. 117, taken from a manuscript 
 of the romance of " Meliadus," in the National Library at Paris, No. 
 
 No. 117. — The Seat on the Dais. 
 
 6961. On special occasions, the hall was hung round with tapestry, or 
 curtains, which were kept for that purpose, and one of these curtains 
 seems commonly to have been suspended against the wall behind the 
 
THE HOUR FOR DINNER. 173 
 
 dais. A carpet was sometimes laid on the floor, which, however, was 
 
 more usually spread with rushes. Sometimes, in the illuminations, the 
 
 floor appears to be paved with ornamental tiles, without carpet or 
 
 rushes. It was also not unusual to bring a chair into the hall as a 
 
 mark of particular respect. Thus, in the English metrical romance of 
 
 " Sir Isumbras : " — 
 
 The riche qwene in haulle was sett, 
 Knyghttes hir serves to handes and. fete, 
 
 Were clede in robis of palle ; 
 In the floure a clothe was layde, 
 " This poore palmere," the stewarde sayde, 
 
 " Salle sytte abowene yow alle." 
 Mete and drynke was forthe broghte, 
 Sir Isambrace sett and ete noghte, 
 
 Bot hiked abowte in the haulle. 
 
 So lange he satt and ete noghte, 
 That the lady grete wondir thoghte, 
 And tille a knyghte gane saye, 
 " Bryng a chayere and a qwyschene (cztshion), 
 And sett yone poore palmere therin." 
 
 A riche chayere than was ther fett, 
 This poore palmere therin was sett, 
 He tolde hir of his laye. 
 
 Until comparatively a very recent date, the hour of dinner, even 
 
 among the highest classes of society, was ten o'clock in the' forenoon. 
 
 There was an old proverb which defined the divisions of the domestic 
 
 day as follows : — 
 
 Lever a. six, disner a. dix, 
 Souper a six, coucher a dix — 
 
 which is preserved in a still older and more complete form as follows : — 
 
 Lever a. cinq, diner a neuf, 
 Souper a cinq, coucher a neuf, 
 Fait vivre d'ans nonante et neuf. 
 
 Five o'clock was the well-known hour of the afternoon meal ; and nine 
 seems formerly to have been an ordinary hour for dinner. In the time 
 of Chaucer, the hour of prime appears to have been the usual dinner 
 hour, which perhaps meant nine o'clock. At least the monk, in the 
 " Schipmanne's Tale," calls for dinner at prime : — 
 
174 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 ' ' Goth now your way," quod he, ' ' al stille and softe, 
 And let us dyne as sOne as ye may, 
 For by my chilindre it is prime of day." 
 
 And the lady to whom this is addressed, in reply, expresses impatience 
 lest they should pass the hour. The dinner appears to have been usually 
 announced by the blowing of horns. In the romance of " Richard Coeur 
 de Lion," on the arrival of visitors, the tables were laid out for dinner — 
 
 They sette tresteles, and layde a borde ; 
 
 Trumpes begonne for to blowe.- — Weber, ii. 7. 
 
 Before the meal, each guest was served with water to wash. It was 
 the business of the ewer to serve the guests with water for this purpose, 
 which he did with a jug and basin, while another attendant stood by 
 with a towel. Our cut, No. 118, represents this process ; it is taken from 
 
 No. 118. — Washing before Dinner. 
 
 a fine manuscript of the " Livre de la Vie Humaine," preserved in the 
 National Library in Paris, No. 6988. In the originals of this group, the 
 jug and basin are represented as of gold. In the copy of the " Seven 
 Sages," printed by Weber (p. 148), the preparations for a dinner are 
 thus described : — 
 
 Thai set trestes, and bordes on layd ; 
 Thai spred clathes, and salt on set, 
 And made redy unto the mete ; 
 Thai set forth water and towelle. 
 
 The company, however, sometimes washed before going to the table, 
 and for this purpose there were lavours, or lavatories, in the hall itself, 
 
THE DINNER-TABLE. 175 
 
 or sometimes outside. The signal for washing was then given by the 
 blowing of trumpets, or by the music of the minstrels. Thus, in the 
 English metrical romance of " Richard Coeur de Lion," 
 
 At noon a laver the waytes blevve, 
 
 meaning, of course, the canonical hour of none. Grace was also said at 
 the commencement, or at the end, of the meal, but this part of the cere- 
 mony is but slightly alluded to in the old writers. 
 
 Having washed, the guests seated themselves at table. Then the 
 attendants spread the cloths over the tables ; they then placed on them 
 the salt-cellars and the knives ; and next the bread and the wine in 
 drinking cups. All this is duly described in the following lines of an 
 
 old romance : — 
 
 Quant lave orent, si s' asistrent, 
 Et li serjant les napes mistrent, 
 Desus les dobliers blans et biax, 
 Les saliers et les coutiax, 
 Apres lou pain, puis lo vin 
 En copes d'argent et d'or fin. 
 
 Spoons were also usually placed on the table, but there were no forks, 
 the guests using their fingers instead, which was the reason they were so 
 particular in washing before and after meat. The tables being thus 
 arranged, it remained for the cooks to serve up the various prepared 
 dishes. 
 
 At table the guests were not only placed in couples, but they also eat 
 in couples, two being served with the same food and in the same plate. 
 This practice is frequently alluded to in the early romances and fabliaux. 
 In general the arrangement of the couples was not left to mere chance, 
 but individuals who were known to be attached to each other, or who 
 were near relatives, were placed together. In the poem of " La Mule 
 sanz Frain," the lady of the castle makes Sir Gawain sit by her side, and 
 eat out of the same plate with her, as an act of friendly courtesy. In 
 the fabliau of Trubert, a woman, taken into the household of a duke, is 
 seated at table beside the duke's daughter, and eats out of the same 
 plate with 'her, because the young lady had conceived an affectionate 
 feeling for the visitor. So, again, in the story of the provost of Aquilee, 
 the provost's lady, receiving a visitor sent by her husband (who was 
 
176 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 absent), placed him at table beside her, to eat with her, and the rest of 
 the party were similarly seated, "two and two : " — 
 
 La dame premiere s'assist, 
 
 Son hoste lez lui seoir fist, 
 
 Car mengier voloit avec lui ; 
 
 Li autre furent dui et dui. — Meon, Fabliaux, ii. 192. 
 
 In one of the stories in the early English " Gesta Romanorum," an earl 
 and his son, who dine at the emperor's table, are seated together, and 
 are served with one plate, a fish between them. The practice was, in- 
 deed, so general, that the phrase " to eat in the same dish " {manger 
 dans la meme ecuette), became proverbial for intimate friendship between 
 two persons. 
 
 There was another practice relating to the table, already alluded to, 
 which must not be overlooked. It must have been remarked that, in the 
 illuminations of contemporary manuscripts which represent dinner scenes, 
 the guests are rarely represented as eating from plates. In fact, only 
 certain articles were served in plates. Loaves were made of a secondary 
 quality of flour, and these were first pared, and then cut into thick slices, 
 which were called in French, tranchoirs, and in English, trenchers, because 
 they were to be carved upon. The portions of meat were served to the 
 guests on these tranchoirs, and they cut it upon them as they eat it. 
 The gravy, of course, went into the bread, which the guest sometimes, 
 perhaps always at an earlier period, eat after the meat, but in later times, 
 and at the tables of the great, it appears to have been more frequently 
 sent away to the alms-basket, from which the leavings of the table were 
 distributed to the poor at the gate. All the bread used at table seems 
 to have been pared before it was cut, and the parings were thrown into 
 the alms-dish. Walter de Bibblesworth, in the latter part of the thir- 
 teenth century, among other directions for the laying out of the table, 
 says, " Cut the bread which is pared, and let the parings be given to the 
 
 alms ; ' — 
 
 Tayllet le payn ke est paree, 
 Les biseaus a l'anioyne soyt done. 
 
 The practice is alluded to in the romance of " Sir Tristrem " (fytte i. 
 
 st. 1.)— 
 
 The kyng no seyd no more, 
 
 Bot wesche and yede {went) to mete ; 
 
THE DINNER-TABLE. 
 
 177 
 
 Bred thai parol and schare {cut), 
 Ynough thai hadde at ete. 
 
 It was the duty of the almoner to say grace. The following directions 
 are given in the " Boke of Curtasye " (p. 30) : — ■ 
 
 The aumenere by this hathe sayde grace, 
 
 And the almes-dysshe hase sett in place ; 
 
 Therin the karver a lofe schalle sette, 
 
 To serve God fyrst withouten lette ; 
 
 These othere lofes he parys aboute, 
 
 Lays hit myd {with) dysshe, withouten doute. 
 
 The use of the tranchoir, which Froissart calls a tailloir, is not unfre- 
 quently alluded to in the older French writers. That writer tells the 
 
 No. 119.- — A Dinner Scene. 
 
 story of a prince who, having received poison in a powder, and suspect- 
 ing it, put it on a tailloir of bread, and thus gave it to a dog to eat. 
 One of the French poets of the fifteenth century, Martial de Paris, speak- 
 ing against the extravagant tables kept by the bishops at that time, ex- 
 claims, " Alas J what have the poor ? They have only the tranchoirs of 
 bread which remain on the table." An ordinance of the Dauphin Hum- 
 bert II., of the date of 1336, orders that there should be served to him 
 at table every day " loaves of white bread for the mouth, and four small 
 loaves to serve for tranchoirs " {pro incisorio faciendo). For great 
 people, a silver platter was often put under the tranchoir, and it was 
 probably from the extension of that practice that the tranchoirs became 
 ultimately abandoned, and the platters took their place. 
 
 M 
 
i 7 8 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 I give three examples of dinner-scenes, from manuscripts of the four- 
 teenth century. The first, cut No. 119 (on the previous page), is taken 
 from a manuscript belonging to the National Library in Paris, No. 7210, 
 
 No. 120. — A King at Dinner. 
 
 containing the " Pelerinage de la Vie Humaine." The party are eating 
 fish, or rather have been eating them, for the bones and remnants are 
 strewed over the table. We have, in addition to these, the bread, 
 knives, salt-cellars, and cups ; and on the ground a remarkable collec- 
 tion of jugs for holding the liquors. Our second example, cut No. 120, 
 is taken from an illuminated manuscript of the romance of " Meliadus," 
 preserved in the British Museum (Additional MS., No. 12,228). We 
 have here the curtain or tapestry hung behind the single table. The 
 man to the left is probably the steward, or the superior of the hall ; next 
 to him is the cup-bearer serving the liquor ; further to the right we have 
 the carver cutting the meat ; and last of all the cook bringing in an- 
 other dish. The table is laid much in the same manner in our third 
 example, cut No. 121. We have again the cups and the bread, the 
 latter in round cakes ; in our second example they are marked with 
 crosses, as in the Anglo-Saxon illuminations ; but there are no forks, or 
 even spoons, which, of course, were used for pottage and soups, and 
 were perhaps brought on and taken off with them. All the guests seem 
 to be ready to use their fingers. 
 
 There was much formality and ceremony observed in filling and pre- 
 
THE DINNER-TABLE. 
 
 179 
 
 senting the cup, and it required long instruction to make the young cup- 
 bearer perfect in his duties. In our cut No. 120, it will be observed 
 that the carver holds the meat with his fingers while he cuts it. This is 
 in exact accordance with the rules given in the ancient " Boke of 
 Kervyng," where this officer is told, " Set never on fyshe, flesche, beest, 
 ne fowle, more than two fyngers and a thombe." It will be observed 
 
 No. 121.— A Royal Feast. 
 
 also that in none of these pictures have the guests any plates; they 
 seem to have eaten with their fingers, and thrown the refuse on the 
 table. We know also that they often threw the fragments on the floor 
 where they were eaten up by cats and dogs, which were admitted into 
 the hall without restriction of number. In the " Boke of Curtasye," 
 already mentioned, it is blamed as a mark of bad breeding to play with 
 the cats and dogs while seated at table — 
 
 Whereso thou sitt at mete in borde {at table), 
 
 Avoide the cat at on bare worde, 
 
 For yf thou stroke cat other dogge, 
 
 Thou art lyke an ape teyghed with a clogge. 
 
 It will be seen that these English directions for good manners at dinner 
 are the same as those before given in Latin verse. It is the same code 
 of directions, ascribed to Robert Grosseteste. Some of these direc- 
 tions for behaviour are very droll, and show no great refinement of 
 
i8o 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 manners. A guest at table is recommended to keep his nails clean, 
 for fear his fellow next him should be disgusted — 
 
 Loke thy naylys ben clene in blythe, 
 Lest thy felaghe lothe therwyth. 
 
 He is cautioned against spitting on the table — 
 
 If thou spit over the borde or elles opone, 
 Thou shalle be holden an uncurtayse mon. 
 
 When he blows his nose with his hand (handkerchiefs were not yet in 
 use), he is told to wipe his hand on his skirt, or on his tippet — 
 
 Yf thy nose thou dense, as may befalle, 
 Loke thy honde thou dense withalle, 
 Prively with skyrt do hit away, 
 Or ellis thurgh thi tepet that is so gay. 
 
 He is not to pick his teeth with his knife, or with a straw or stick, nor 
 to clean them with the table-cloth ; and, if he sits by a gentleman, he 
 is to take care he does not put his knee under the other's thigh ! 
 
 The cleanliness of the white table-cloth seems to have been a matter 
 of pride ; and to judge by the illuminations great care seems to have 
 been taken to place it neatly and smoothly on the table, and to arrange 
 
 tastefully the part which hung down at 
 the sides. Generally speaking, the ser- 
 vice on the table in these illuminations 
 appears to be very simple, consisting of 
 the cups, stands for the dishes of meat 
 (messes, as they were called) brought by 
 the cook, the knives, sometimes spoons 
 for soup and liquids, and bread. Os- 
 tentatious ornament is not often intro- 
 |§§|F duced, and it was perhaps only used at 
 the tables of princes and of the more 
 powerful nobles. Of these ornaments, 
 one of the most remarkable was the nef, 
 or ship — a vessel, generally of silver, which contained the salt-cellar, 
 towel, &c, of the prince, or great lord, on whose table it was brought 
 with great ceremony. It was in the form of a ship, raised on a stand, 
 
 
 No. 122.— The Nef. 
 
GLUTTONY. 
 
 181 
 
 No. 123. — Gluttony. 
 
 and on one end it had some figure, such as a serpent, or castle, per- 
 haps an emblem or badge chosen by its possessor. Our cut No. 122, 
 taken from a manuscript in the French National Library, represents the 
 nef placed on the table. The badge or emblem at the end appears to 
 be a bird. 
 
 Our forefathers seem to have remained a tolerably long time at table, 
 the pleasures of which were by no means despised. Indeed, to judge 
 by the sermons and satires of the Middle Ages, gluttony seems to have 
 been a very prevalent vice among the clergy, as well as the laity • and 
 however miserably the lower classes lived, the tables of the rich were 
 loaded with every delicacy that could be 
 procured. The monks were proverbially 
 bons vivants ; and their failings in this 
 respect are not unfrequently satirised in 
 the illuminated ornaments of the medi- 
 eval manuscripts. We have an example 
 in our cut No. 123, taken from a manu- 
 script of the fourteenth century in the 
 
 Arundel Collection in the British Museum (No. 91); a monk is re- 
 galing himself on the sly, apparently upon dainty tarts or patties, while 
 the dish is held up by a little cloven-footed 
 imp, who seems to enjoy the spirit of the 
 thing, quite as much as the other enjoys the 
 substance. Our next cut (No. 124) is taken 
 from another manuscript in the British Mu- 
 seum, of the same date (MS. Sloane, No. 
 2435), an d forms an appropriate companion 
 to the other. The monk here holds the 
 office of cellarer, and is taking advantage of 
 it to console himself on the sly. 
 
 When the last course of the dinner had 
 been served, the ewer and his companion again carried round the water 
 and towel, and each guest washed. The tables were then cleared and 
 the cloths withdrawn, but the drinking continued. The minstrels were 
 now introduced. To judge by the illuminations, the most common 
 musical attendant on such occasions was a harper, who repeated 
 
 No. 124. — Monastic Devotions. 
 
THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 romances and told stories, accompanying them with his instrument. In 
 one of our cuts of a dinner party (No. 121), given in a former page, 
 we see the harper, apparently a blind man led by his dog, introduced 
 into the hall while the guests are still occupied with their repast. We 
 frequently find a harper thus introduced, who is sometimes represented 
 as sitting upon the floor, as in the accompanying illustration (No. 125) 
 taken from the MS. Reg. 2 B. vii. fol. 71, v°. Another similar repre- 
 sentation occurs at folio 203, v° of the same MS. 
 
 No. 125. — The Harper in the Hall. 
 
 The barons and knights themselves, and their ladies, did not disdain 
 to learn the harper's craft ; and Gower, in his " Confessio Amantis," 
 describes a scene in which a princess plays the harp at table. Appolinus 
 is dining in the hall, of King Pentapolin, with the king and queen and 
 their fair daughter, and all his lords, when, reminded by the scene of the 
 royal estate from which he is fallen, he sorrowed and took no meat ; 
 therefore the king, sympathising with him, bade his daughter take her 
 harp and do all that she could to enliven that " sorry man : " — 
 
 And she to don her faderes heste, 
 Her harpe fette, and in the feste 
 Upon a chaire which thei fette, 
 Her selve next to this man she sette. 
 
 Appolinus, in turn, takes the harp, and proves himself a wonderful 
 
 proficient, and 
 
 When he hath harped alle his fille, 
 The kingis hest to fulfille, 
 Awaie goth dishe, awaie goth cup, 
 Doun goth the borde, the cloth was up, 
 Thei risen and gone out of the halle. 
 
MINSTRELSY. 
 
 183 
 
 The minstrels, or jougleurs, formed a very important class of society 
 in the Middle Ages, and no festival was considered as complete with- 
 out their presence. They travelled singly or in parties, not only 
 from house to house, but from country to country, and they generally 
 brought with them, to amuse and please their hearers, the last new 
 song, or the last new tale. When any great festival was announced, 
 there was sure to be a general gathering of minstrels from all quarters, 
 and as they possessed many methods of entertaining, — for they joined 
 the profession of mountebank, posture-master, and conjurer, with that 
 of music and story-telling, — they were always welcome. No sooner, 
 therefore, was the business of eating done, than the jougleur or jougleurs 
 were brought forward, and sometimes, when the guests were in a more 
 serious humour, they chanted the old romances of chivalry ; at other 
 times they repeated satirical poems, or party songs, according to the 
 feelings or humour of those who were listening to them, or told love- 
 tales or scandalous anecdotes, or drolleries, accompanying them with 
 acting, and intermingling them with performances of various kinds. 
 The hall was proverbially the place for mirth, and as merriment of a 
 coarse description suited the mediaeval taste, the stories and performances 
 of the jougleurs were often of an obscene character, even in the presence 
 of the ladies. In the illuminated manuscripts, the minstrel is most 
 commonly a harper, perhaps because these illuminations are usually 
 found in the old romances of chivalry, where the harper generally 
 acts an important part, for the minstrels were not unfrequently em- 
 ployed in messages and intrigues. In general 
 the harp is wrapped in some sort of drapery, as 
 represented in our cut No. 126, taken from a 
 MS. in the National Library of Paris, which was 
 perhaps the bag in which the minstrel carried 
 it, and may have been attached to the bottom of 
 the instrument. The accompanying scene of 
 minstrelsy, No. 127, is taken from a manuscript 
 of the romance of"Guyron le Courtois " in the 
 French National Library, No. 6976. 
 
 The dinner was always accompanied by music, and itinerant minstrels, 
 mountebanks, and performers of all descriptions, were allowed free 
 
 No. 126. — A Harper. 
 
THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 access to the hall to amuse the guests by their performances. These 
 were intermixed with dancing and tumbling, and often with exhibitions 
 
 u ii n u u 
 
 No. 127. — Minstrelsy. 
 
 of a very gross character, which, however, amid the looseness of mediaeval 
 manners, appear to have excited no disgust. These practices are 
 curiously illustrated in some of the mediaeval illuminations. In the 
 
 No. 128.— King Herod and the Daughter of Herodias. 
 
 account of the death of John the Baptist, as given in the Gospels 
 (Matthew xiv. 6, and Mark vi. 21), we are told, that at the feast given by 
 Herod on his birthday, the daughter of Herodias came into the feasting- 
 hall, and (according to our English version) danced before him and his 
 guests. The Latin Vulgate has saltassel, which is equivalent to the 
 
HERODIAS. 
 
 185 
 
 English word, but the mediaeval writers took the lady's performances 
 to be those of a regular wandering jougleur; and in two illuminated 
 manuscripts of the early part of the fourteenth century, in the British 
 Museum, she is pictured as performing tricks very similar to those 
 exhibited by some of the modern beggar -boys in our streets. In the 
 first of these (No. 128), taken from MS. Reg. 2. B. vii., the princess is 
 supporting herself upon her hands with her legs in the air, to the evident 
 admiration of the king, though the guests seem to be paying less 
 attention to her feats of activity. In the second (No. 129), from the 
 Harleian MS. No. 1527, she is represented in a similar position, but 
 more evidently making a somersault. She is here accompanied by 
 a female attendant, who expresses no less delight at her skill than the 
 king and his guests. 
 
 No. 129. — Herod and the Daughter of Herodias. 
 
 It would appear from various accounts that it was not, unless perhaps 
 at an early period, the custom in France to sit long after dinner at table 
 drinking wine, as it certainly was in England, where, no doubt, the 
 practice was derived from the Anglo-Saxons. Numerous allusions 
 might be pointed out, which show how much our Anglo-Saxon fore- 
 fathers were addicted to this practice of sitting in their halls and drink- 
 ing during the latter part of the day; and it was then that they listened 
 to the minstrel's song, told stories of their own feats and adventures, 
 and made proof of their powers in hard drinking. From some of these 
 allusions, which we have quoted in an earlier chapter, it is equally clear 
 that these drinking-bouts often ended in sanguinary, and not unfre- 
 
1 86 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 quently in fatal, brawls. Such scenes of discord in the hall occur also 
 in the early French metrical romances, but they take place usually at 
 the beginning of dinner, when the guests are taking their places, or 
 during the meal. In " Parise la Duchesse," a scene of this description 
 occurs, in which the great feudal barons and knights fight with the pro- 
 visions which had been served at the tables : " There," says the poet, 
 " you might see them throw cheeses, and quartern-loaves, and great 
 pieces of flesh, and great steel knives " — 
 
 La veissiez jeter fromages et cartiers, 
 
 Et granz pieces de char, et granz cotiauz d'acier. 
 
 — Roman de Parise, p. 173. 
 
 In " Garin le Loherain" (vol. ii. p. 17), at a feast at which the emperor 
 and his empress were present, a fight commences between the two great 
 baronial parties who were their guests, by a chief of one party striking 
 one of the other party with a goblet ; the cooks are brought out of the 
 kitchen to take part in it, with their pestles, ladles, and pot-hooks, led 
 by Duke Begon, who had seized a spit, full of birds, as the weapon 
 which came first to hand ; and the contest is not appeased until many 
 are killed and wounded. 
 
 The preceding remarks, of course, apply chiefly to the tables of the 
 ' prince, the noble, and the wealthy gentleman, where alone this degree 
 of profusion and of ceremony reigned ; and to those of the monastic 
 houses and of the higher clergy, where, if possible, the luxury even of 
 princes was overpassed. The examples of clerical and monastic extra- 
 vagance in feasting are so numerous, that I will not venture on this 
 occasion to enter upon them any further. All recorded facts would 
 lead us to conclude that the ordinary course of living of the monks 
 was much more luxurious than that of the lay lords of the land, who, 
 indeed, seem to have lived, on ordinary occasions, with some degree 
 of simplicity, except that the great number of people who dined at their 
 expense, required a very large quantity of provisions. Even men of 
 rank, when dining alone, or hastily, are described as being satisfied 
 with a very limited variety of food. In the romance of " Garin," when 
 Rigaud, one of the barons of " Garin's " party, arrives at court with 
 important news, and very hungry, the empress orders him to be served 
 with a large vessel of wine (explained by a various reading to be 
 
THE PRODIGAL SON. 
 
 187 
 
 equivalent to a pot), four loaves (the loaves appear usually to have 
 been small), and a roasted peacock — 
 
 On li aporte plain un barris de vin, 
 Et quatre pains, et un paon rosti. 
 
 — Garin le Loherain, vol. ii. p. 257. 
 
 In a pane of painted glass in the possession of Dr Henry Johnson, of 
 Shrewsbury, of Flemish workmanship of about the beginning of the 
 sixteenth century, and representing the story of the Prodigal Son, the 
 prodigal is seated at table with a party of dissolute women, feasting 
 upon a pasty. It is reproduced in our cut No. 130. They appear to 
 have only one drinking-cup among them, but the wine is served from a 
 very rich goblet. We cannot, however, always judge of the character of 
 a feast by the articles placed on the table by the mediaeval illuminators, 
 for they were in the constant habit of drawing things conventionally, 
 and they seem to have found a difficulty — perhaps in consequence of 
 
 No. 130.— Feasting on a Pasty. 
 
 their ignorance of perspective — in representing a crowded table. Our 
 cut No. 131, on the following page, taken from MS. Reg. 10 E. iv., in 
 which we recognise again our old friend the holy-water clerc, represents 
 a table which is certainly very sparingly furnished, although the per- 
 sons seated at it seem to belong to a respectable class in society. 
 Some cooked articles, perhaps meat, on a stand, bread, a single knife 
 
THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 to cut the provisions, and one pot, probably of ale, from which they 
 seem to have drunk without the intervention of a glass, form the whole 
 service. 
 
 We find allusions from time to time to the style of living of the class 
 in the country answering to our yeomanry, and of the bourgeoisie in the 
 towns, which appears to have been sufficiently plain. In the romance 
 of " Berte " (p. 78), when Berte finds shelter at the house of the farmer 
 Symon, they give her, for refreshment, a chicken and wine. In the 
 fabliau of the " Vilain mire " (Barbazan, vol. hi. p. 3), the farmer, who 
 had saved money, and become tolerably rich, had no such luxuries as 
 
 No. 131. — A Dinner t&te-a-tet 
 
 salmon or partridge, but his provisions consisted only of bread and wine, 
 and fried eggs, and cheese in abundance— 
 
 N'orent pas saumon ne pertris, 
 Pain et vin orent, et oes fris, 
 Et du fromage a. grant plente. 
 
 The franklin, in Chaucer, is put forward as an example of great 
 liberality in the articles of provisions : — ' 
 
 An householdere, and that a gret, was he, 
 Seynt Julian he was in his countre, 
 His breed, his ale, was alway after oon ; 
 A bettre envyned man was nowher noon. 
 Withoute bake mete was never his hous, 
 Of fleissch and fissch, and that so plentyvous, 
 It snewed in his hous of mete and drynke, 
 Of alle deyntees that men cowde thynke. 
 
GLUTTONY. 189 
 
 Aftur the sondry sesouns of the yeer, 
 
 He chaunged hem at mete and at soper. 
 
 Ful many a fat partrich had he in mewe, 
 
 And many a brem and many a luce in stevve {fish-pond), 
 
 Woo was his cook, but if his sauce were 
 
 Poynant and scharp, and redy al his gere ; 
 
 His table dormant in his halle alway 
 
 Stood redy covered al the longe day. 
 
 — Chaucer's Cant. Tales, 1. 341. 
 
 A story in the celebrated collection of the Cent. Nouvelles Nouvelles 
 (Nouv. 83), composed soon after the middle of the fifteenth century, 
 gives us some notion of the store of provisions in the house of an 
 ordinary burgher. A worthy and pious demoiselle — that is, a woman of 
 the respectable class of bourgeoisie, who was, in this case, a widow — 
 invited a monk to dine with her, out of charity. They dined without 
 other company, and were served by a chambriere or maid-servant, and 
 a man-servant or valet. The course of meat, which was first placed on 
 the table, consisted of fior'ee, or soup, bacon, pork tripes, and a roasted 
 ox's tongue. But the demoiselle had miscalculated the voracity of her 
 guest, for, before she had made much progress in her poree, he had 
 devoured everything on the table, and left nothing but empty dishes. 
 On seeing this, his hostess ordered her servants to put on the table a 
 piece of good salt beef, and a large piece of choice mutton • but he ate 
 these also, to her no little astonishment, and she was obliged to send 
 for a fine ham, which had been cooked the day before, and which 
 appears to have been all the meat left in the house. The monk de- 
 voured this, and left nothing but the bone. The course which would 
 have followed the first service was then laid on the table, consisting of 
 a " very fine fat cheese," and a dish well furnished with tarts, apples, 
 and cheese, which also quickly followed the meat. It appears from 
 this story that the ordinary dinner of a respectable burgher consisted 
 of a soup, and two or three plain dishes of meat, followed by cheese, 
 pastry, and fruit. An illumination, illustrative of another tale in this 
 collection, in the unique manuscript preserved in the Hunterian Library, 
 at Glasgow, and copied in the annexed cut, No. 132, represents a dinner- 
 table of an ordinary person of this class of society, which is not over 
 largely furnished. We see only bread in the middle, what appears to 
 be intended for a ham at one end, and at the other a dish, perhaps of 
 
190 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 cakes or tarts. The lower classes lived, of course, much more meanly 
 than the others ; but we have fewer allusions to them in the earlier 
 mediseval literature, as they were looked upon as a class hardly worth 
 describing. This class was, no doubt, much more miserable in France 
 than in England. A French moral poem of the fourteenth century, 
 
 No. 132. — A Frugal Repast. 
 
 entitled " Le Chemin de Pauvrete et de Richesse," represents the poor 
 
 labourers as having no other food than bread, garlic, and salt, with 
 
 water to drink : — 
 
 N'y ot si grant ne si petit 
 
 Qui ne preist grant appetit 
 
 En pain sec, en aux, et en sel, 
 
 Ne il ne mengoit riens en el, 
 
 Mouton, buef, oye, ne poucin ; 
 
 Et puis prenoient le bacin, 
 
 A deux mains, plain d'eaue, et biivoient. 
 
 As I have said, the dresser (dressoir) or cupboard was the only im- 
 portant article of furniture in the hall, besides the tables and benches. 
 It was a mere cupboard for the plate, and had generally steps to enable 
 the servants to reach the articles that were placed high up in it, but it is 
 rarely represented in pictured manuscripts before the fifteenth century, 
 when the illuminators began to introduce more detail into their works. 
 The reader may form a notion of its contents, from the list of the service 
 
THE DRESSER. 191 
 
 of plate given by Edward I. ot England to his daughter Margaret, after 
 her marriage with the Duke of Brabant ; it consisted of forty-six silver 
 cups with feet, for drinking; six wine pitchers, four ewers for water, four 
 basins with gilt escutcheons, six great silver dishes for entremets ; one 
 hundred and twenty smaller dishes; a hundred and twenty salts ; one 
 gilt salt, for her own use; seventy-two spoons; and three silver spice- 
 plates with a spice-spoon. 
 
 The dresser, as well as all the furniture of the hall, was in the care of 
 the groom ; it was his business to lay them out, and to take them away 
 again. It appears to have been the usual custom to take away the boards 
 and tressels (forming the tables) at the same time as the cloth. The 
 company remained seated on the benches, and the drinking-cups were 
 handed round to them. So tells us the " Boke of Curtasye" — 
 
 "Whenne they have wasshen, and grace is sayde, 
 Away he takes at a brayde [at once), 
 Avoydes the borde into the flore, 
 Tase away the trestles that been so store. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 The Minstrel. — His position under the Anglo-Saxons. — The Norman 
 Trouvere, Menestrel, and Jougleur. — Their condition. — Rutebeuf. — 
 Different Musical Instruments in use among the Minstrels. — The 
 Beverley Minstrels. 
 
 THE minstrel acted so very prominent a part in the household and 
 domestic arrangements during the Middle Ages, that a volume 
 on the history of domestic manners would be incomplete without some 
 more detailed account of his profession than the slight and occasional 
 notices given in the preceding pages. 
 
 Our information relating to the Anglo-Saxon minstrel is very imper- 
 fect. He had two names — scop, which meant literally a " maker," and 
 belonged probably to the primitive bard or poet ; and glig-man, or gleo- 
 man, the modern gleeman, which signifies literally a man who furnished 
 joy or pleasure, and appears to have had a more comprehensive appli- 
 cation, which included all professional performers for other people's 
 amusement. In "Beowulf" (1. 180), the " song of the bard" {sang scopes) 
 is accompanied by the sound of the harp (hearpan sw'eg) ; and it is prob- 
 able that the harp was the special instrument of the old Saxon bard, 
 who chanted the mythic and heroic poems of the race. The gleemen 
 played on a variety of instruments, and they also exhibited a variety of 
 other performances for the amusement of the hearers or spectators. In 
 our engraving from an Anglo-Saxon illumination (p. 48), one of the 
 gleemen is tossing knives and balls, which seems to have been con- 
 sidered a favourite exhibition of skill down to a much later period. The 
 early English " Rule of Nuns " (printed by the Camden Society) says of 
 the wrathful man, that " he skirmishes before the devil with knives, and 
 he is his knife-tosser, and plays with swords, and balances them upon his 
 
THE ANGLO-SAXON GLEEMEN. 193 
 
 tongue by the sharp point." In the Life of Hereward, the gleeman 
 (whose name is there translated by joculator, ox jongleur) is represented 
 as conciliating the favour of the new Norman lords by mimicking the 
 unrefined manners of the Saxons, and throwing upon them indecent 
 jests and reproaches. But, in the later Anglo-Saxon period at least, 
 the words scop and gleoman appear to have been considered as equi- 
 valent; for, in another hall-scene in "Beowulf," where the scop 
 performs his craft, we are told that — 
 
 Leo^ wses asungen, The lay was sung, 
 
 gleomannes gyd, the gleeman 's recital, 
 
 gamen eft astah, pastime began again, 
 
 beorhtode benc-sweg. the bench-noise became loud. 
 
 — Beowulf, 1. 2323. 
 
 There is here evidently an intimation of merrier songs than those sung 
 by the scop, and whatever his performances were, they drew a louder 
 welcome. And in a fragment of another romance which has come down 
 to us, the gleeman Widseth bears witness to the wandering character of 
 his class, and enumerates in a long list the various courts of different 
 chiefs and peoples which he had visited. We learn, also, that among the 
 Anglo-Saxons there were gleemen attached to the courts or households 
 of the kings and great chieftains. Under Edward the Confessor, as we 
 learn from the Domesday Survey, Berdic, the king's joculator, possessed 
 three villas in Gloucestershire. 
 
 On the Continent, when we first become acquainted with the history 
 of the popular literature, we find the minstrels, the representatives of the 
 ancient bards, appearing as the composers and chanters of the poems 
 which told the stories of the old heroes of romance, and they seem also 
 to have been accompanied usually with the harp, or with some other 
 stringed instrument. They speak of themselves, in these poems, as 
 wandering about from castle to castle, wherever any feasting was going 
 on, as being everywhere welcome, and as depending upon the liberality 
 either of the lord of the feast, or of the guests, for their living. Occa- 
 sional complaints would lead us to suppose that this liberality was not 
 always great, and the poems themselves contain formules of begging 
 appeals, which are not very dignified or delicate. Thus, in the romance 
 of " Gui de Bourgogne," the minstrel interrupts his narrative, to inform 
 his hearers that " Whoever wishes to hear any more of this poem, must 
 
i 9 4 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 make haste to open his purse, for it is now high time that he give me 
 something " — 
 
 Qui or voldra chancon o'ir et escouter, 
 Si voist isnelement sa boursse desfermer, 
 Qu'il est hui mes bien tans qu'il me doie doner. 
 
 — Gui de Bourgogne, 1. 4136. 
 
 In like manner, in the romance of " Huon de Bordeaux," the minstrel, 
 after having recited nearly five thousand lines, makes his excuse for 
 discontinuing until another day. He reminds his auditors that it is 
 near vespers, and that he is weary, and invites them to return next day 
 after dinner, begging each of them to bring with him a viaille, or half- 
 penny, and complaining of the meanness of those who were accustomed 
 to give so small a coin as the poitivine " to the courteous minstrel." The 
 minstrel seems to have calculated that this hint might not be sufficient, 
 and that they would require to be reminded of it, for, after some two or 
 three hundred lines of the next day's recital, he introduces another 
 formule of appeal to the purses of his hearers. " Take notice," he goes 
 on to say, " as may God give me health, I will immediately put a stop 
 to my song ; . . . . and I at once excommunicate all those who shall 
 not visit their purses in order to give something to my wife " — 
 
 Mais sacies bien, se Dix me doinst sante, 
 Ma chancon tost vous ferai desiner ; 
 Tous chiaus escumenie, . . . 
 
 Qui n'iront a. lour bourses pour ma feme donner. 
 
 — Huon de Bordeaux, 1. 5482. 
 
 These minstrels, too, display great jealousy of one another, and especially 
 of what they term the new minstrels, exclaiming against the decadence 
 of the profession. 
 
 / It would appear indeed that these French minstrels, the poets by 
 profession, who now become known to us by the name of trouveres, or 
 inventors (in the language of the South of France, irobadors), held the 
 position towards the jongleurs, or jogleurs* (from the Latin joculatorcs, 
 and this again from jocus, game,) which the Anglo-Saxon scop held 
 
 * The old literary antiquaries, through mistaking the u of the manuscripts for an n, 
 and not attending to the derivation, have created a meaningless word— jongleur, — 
 which never existed, and ought now to be entirely abandoned^ 
 
THE JOUGLEURS. 195 
 
 towards the gleeman. Though the mass of the minstrels did get their 
 living as itinerant songsters, they might be respectable, and sometimes 
 there was a man of high rank who became a minstrel for his pleasure ; 
 but the jougleurs, as a body, belonged to the lowest and most degraded 
 class of mediaeval society, that of the ribalds or letchers, and the more 
 respectable minstrels of former days were probably falling gradually into 
 their ranks. It was the class which abandoned itself without reserve to 
 the mere amusement and pleasure of the aristocracy ; and it seems to 
 have been greatly increased by the Crusades, when the jougleurs of the 
 West were brought into relations with those of the East, and learnt a 
 multitude of new ways of exciting attention and making mirth, of which 
 they were previously ignorant. The jougleurs had now become, in 
 addition to their older accomplishments, magicians and conjurers, and 
 wonderfully skilled in every description of sleight of hand, and it is from \ 
 these qualities that we have derived the modern signification of the 
 word juggler. They had also adopted the profession of the Eastern I 
 story-tellers, as well as their stories, which, however, they turned into 
 verse ; and they brought into the West many other exhibitions which 
 did not tend to raise the standard of Western morals. 
 
 The character of the minstrels, or jougleurs, their wandering life, and 
 the ease with which they were admitted everywhere, caused them to be 1 
 employed extensively as spies, and as bearers of secret news, and led 
 people to adopt the disguise of a minstrel, as one which enabled them 
 to pass through difficulties unobserved and unchallenged. In the story 
 of Eustace the monk, when Eustace sought to escape from England, to 
 avoid the pursuit of King John, he took a fiddle and a bow (a fiddle- 
 stick), and dressed himself as a minstrel, and in this garb he arrived at 
 the coast, and finding a merchant ready to sail, entered the ship with 
 him. But the steersman, who did not recognise the minstrel as one of 
 the passengers, ordered him out. Eustace expostulated, represented 
 that he was a minstrel, and, after some dispute, the steersman, who seems 
 to have had some suspicions either of his disguise or of his skill, con- 
 cluded by putting the question, " At all events, if thou knowest any 
 song, friend, let us have it." The monk was not skilled in singing, but 
 he replied boldly, " Know I one ? Yea ! of ' Agoulant, and Aymon,' or 
 of ' Blonchadin,' or of ' Florence of Rome ' " (these were all early metrical 
 
196 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 romances) ; " there is not a song in the whole world but I know it. I 
 should be delighted, no doubt, to afford you amusement ; but, in truth, 
 the sea frightens me' so much at present, that I could not sing a song 
 worth hearing." He was allowed to pass. Some of those who adopted 
 the disguise of the jougleur were better able to sustain it, and min- 
 strelsy came to be considered a polite accomplishment, perhaps partly on 
 account of its utility. There is, in the History of the Fitz-Warines, a 
 remarkable character of this description named John de Raunpaygne. 
 Fulke Fitz-Warine had formed a design against his great enemy, Moris 
 Fitz- Roger, and he established himself, with his fellow outlaws, in the 
 forest near Whittington, in Shropshire, to watch him. Fulke then 
 called to him John de Raunpaygne. " John," said he, " you know 
 enough of minstrelsy and joglery; dare you go to Whittington, and play 
 before Moris Fitz-Roger, and spy how things are going on ? " "Yea," 
 said John. He crushed an herb, and put it in his mouth, and his face 
 began immediately to swell, and became so discoloured, that his own 
 companions hardly knew him ; and he dressed himself in poor clothes, 
 and "took his box with his instruments. of joglery and a great staff in 
 his hand ; " and thus he went to Whittington, and presented himself at 
 the castle, and said that he was a jogeleur. The porter carried him to 
 Sir Moris, who received him well, inquired in the first place for news, 
 and receiving intelligence which pleased him (it was designedly false), 
 he gave the minstrel a valuable silver cup as a reward. Now, " John 
 de Raunpaygne was very ill-favoured in face and body, and on this ac- 
 count the ribalds of the household made game of him, and treated him 
 roughly, and pulled him by his hair and by his feet. John raised his 
 staff, and struck a ribald on the head, that his brain flew into the 
 middle of the place. ' Wretched ribald,' said the lord, 'what hast 
 thou done?' 'Sir,' said he, 'for God's mercy, I cannot help it; I 
 have a disease which is very grievous, which you may see by my swollen 
 face. And this disease takes entire possession of me at certain hours of 
 the day, when I have no power to govern myself.' Moris swore a great 
 oath, that if it were not for the news he had brought, he would have 
 his head cut off immediately. The jogeleur hastened his departure, for 
 the time he remained there seemed very long." The result of this 
 adventure was the attack upon and slaughter of Moris Fitz-Roger by Fulke 
 
JOHN DE RA UNPA YGNE. 1 97 
 
 Fitz-Warine. Some time after this, Fulke Fitz-Warine, having recovered 
 his castle of Whittington, was lamenting over the loss of his friend, Sir 
 Audulf de Bracy, who had fallen into the hands of King John's 
 emissaries, and was a prisoner in Shrewsbury Castle, where King John 
 had come to make his temporary residence, and again asked the aid of 
 John de Raunpaygne, who promised to make a visit to the king. " John 
 de Raunpaygne knew enough of tabor, harp, fiddle, citole, and joglery ; 
 and he attired himself very richly, like an earl or baron, and he caused 
 his hair and all his body to be entirely dyed as black as jet, so that 
 nothing was white except his teeth. And he hung round his neck a 
 very handsome tabor, and then, mounting a handsome palfry, rode 
 through the town of Shrewsbury to the gate of the castle ; and by many 
 a one was he looked at. John came before the king, and placed him- 
 self on his knees, and saluted the king very courteously. The king 
 returned his salutation, and asked him whence he came. ' Sire,' said 
 he, ' I am an Ethiopian minstrel, born in Ethiopia.' Said the king, 
 ' Are all the people in your land of your colour ? ' ' Yea, my lord, 
 man and woman.' .... John, during the day made great minstrelsy 
 of tabor and other instruments. When the king was gone to bed, Sir 
 Henry de Audelay sent for the black minstrel, and led him into his 
 chamber. And they made great melody ; and when Sir Henry had 
 drunk well, then he said to a valet, ' Go and fetch Sir Audulf de Bracy, 
 whom the king will put to death to-morrow ; for he shall have a good 
 night of it before his death.' The valet soon brought Sir Audulf into 
 the chamber. Then they talked and played. John commenced a 
 song which Sir Audulf used to sing ; Sir Audulf raised his head, looked 
 at him full in the face, and with great difficulty recognised him. Sir 
 Henry asked for some drink ; John was very serviceable, jumped 
 nimbly on his feet and served the cup before them all. John was sly ; 
 he threw a powder into the cup, which nobody perceived, for he was a 
 good jogeleur, and all who drank became so sleepy that, soon after 
 drinking, they lay down and fell asleep." John de Raunpaygne and 
 Sir Audulf de Bracy took the opportunity of making their escape. We 
 have here a mysterious intimation of the fact that the minstrel was 
 employed also in dark deeds of poisoning. Still later on in the story 
 of Fulke Fitz-Warine, the hero himself goes to a tournament in France 
 
THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 in disguise, and John de Raunpaygne resumes his old character of a 
 jougleur. "John," says the narrative, "was very richly attired, and 
 well mounted, and he had a very rich tabor, and he struck the tabor at 
 the entry to the lists, that the hills and valleys rebounded, and the 
 horses became joyful." 
 
 All these anecdotes reveal to us minstrels who were perfectly free, 
 and wandered from place to place at will ; but there were others who 
 were retained by, and in the regular employ of, individuals. The king 
 had his minstrels, and so most of the barons had their household min- 
 strels. In one of the mediaeval Latin stories current in this country 
 probably as early as the thirteenth century, we are told that a jougleur 
 (mimus he is called in the Latin, a word used at this time as synonymous 
 with joculator) presented himself at the gate of a certain lord to enter 
 the hall and eat (for the table in those days was rarely refused to a min- 
 strel), but he was stopped by the porter, who asked him to what lord he 
 was attached, evidently thinking, as was thought some three centuries 
 later, that the treatment merited by the servant depended on the quality 
 of the master. The minstrel replied that his master was God. When 
 the porter communicated this response to his churlish lord, or equally 
 churlish steward, they replied that if he had no other lord, he should not 
 be admitted there. When the jougleur heard this, he said that he was 
 the devil's own servant ! whereupon he was received joyfully, " because 
 he was a good fellow " [quia bomis socius eraf). The records of the 
 thirteenth and fourteenth centuries contain many entries of payment to 
 the king's minstrels, and the names of some of them are preserved. On 
 great festivals at the king's court, minstrels came to seek employment 
 from every part of the world which acknowledged the reign of feudalism. 
 Four hundred and twenty-six minstrels were present at the marriage 
 festivities of the Princess Margaret, daughter of Edward I. ; and several 
 hundred played before the same monarch at the Whitsuntide of 1306. 
 This affluence of minstrels gave rise to the practice of building a large 
 music-gallery at one end of the mediaeval hall, which seems to have been 
 introduced in the fourteenth century. At this time minstrels were some- 
 times employed for very singular purposes, such as for soothing the king 
 when undergoing a disagreeable operation. We learn from the ward- 
 robe accounts that, in the twenty -fifth year of the reign of Edward I. 
 
THE MINSTREL'S PAY AND PRIVATIONS. 199 
 
 (a.d. 1297) twenty shillings, or about fifteen pounds in modern money, 
 was given to the minstrel of Sir John Maltravers as a reward for per- 
 forming before the king while he was bled. 
 
 The king's minstrels, and those of the great lords, were very well 
 paid, but the great mass of the profession, who depended only on what 
 they obtained in gifts at each particular feast, which they recklessly 
 squandered away as soon as they got it, lived a hard as it was a vagabond 
 life. The king's minstrels, in the fourteenth century in England, received 
 from sixpence to sevenpence halfpenny a day, that is, from seven shillings 
 and sixpence to nine shillings and fourpence halfpenny during the whole 
 year. On the other,hand, Colin Muset, one of the best of the French 
 song-writers of the thirteenth century, complains of the want of liberality 
 shown to him by the great baron before whom he had played on the viol 
 in his hotel, and who had given him nothing, not even his wages : — 
 
 Sire quens, j'ai viele 
 Devant vos en vostre ostel ; 
 Si ne m'avez riens donne, 
 Ne mes gages acquite. 
 
 And he laments that he is obliged to go home in poverty, because his 
 wife always received him ill when he returned to her with an empty 
 purse, whereas, when he carried back his matte well stuffed, he was 
 covered with caresses by his whole family. The French poet Rutebeuf, 
 whose works have been collected and published by M. Jubinal, may be 
 considered as the type of the better class of minstrels at this period, and 
 he has become an object of especial interest to us in consequence of the 
 number of his shorter effusions which describe his own position in life. 
 The first piece in the collection has for its subject his own poverty. He 
 complains of being reduced to such distress, that he had been obliged for 
 some time to live upon the generosity of his friends ; that people no 
 longer showed any liberality to poor minstrels ; that he was perishing 
 with cold and hunger ; and that he had no other bed but the bare straw. 
 In another poem, entitled " Rutebeuf 's Marriage," he informs us that his 
 privations were made more painful by the circumstance of his having a 
 shrew for his wife. In a third he laments over the loss of the sight of 
 his right eye, and informs us that, among other misfortunes, his wife had 
 just been delivered of a child, and his horse had broken its leg, so that, 
 
THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 while he had no means of supporting a nurse for the former, the latter 
 accident had deprived him of the power of going to any distance to exer- 
 cise his minstrelsy craft. Rutebeuf repeats his laments on his extreme 
 poverty in several other pieces, and they have an echo in those of other 
 minstrels of his age. We find, in fact, in the verse-writers of the latter 
 half of the thirteenth century, and in some of those of the fourteenth, 
 a general complaint of the neglect of the minstrels, and of the degeneracy 
 of minstrelsy. In a poem against the growing taste for the tabor, printed 
 in M. Jubinal's volume, entitled " Jougleurs et Trouveres," the low state 
 into which the minstrel's art had fallen is ascribed to a growing love for 
 instruments of an undignified character, such as the tabor, which is said 
 to have been brought to us from the Arabs, and the pipe. If an ignorant 
 shepherd from the field, says the writer of this poem, but play on the 
 tabor and pipe, he becomes more popular than the man who plays on 
 the viol ever so well — 
 
 Quar s'uns bergiers de chans tabore et cbalemele, 
 Plus tost est apele que cil qui bien viele. 
 
 Everybody followed the tabor, he says, and the good minstrels were no 
 longer in vogue, though their fiddles were so much superior to the flutes, 
 and flajolets (Jfajols), and tabors of the others. He consoles himself, 
 however, with the reflection that the holy Virgin Mary never loved the 
 tabor, and that no such vulgar instrument was admitted at her wedding ; 
 while she had in various ways shown her favour to the jougleurs. " I 
 pray God," our minstrel continues, " that he will send mischief to him 
 who first made a tabor, for it is an instrument which ought to please 
 nobody. No rich man ought to love the sound of a tabor, which is 
 bad for people's heads ; for, if stretched tight, and struck hard, it may 
 be heard at half a league's distance : " — 
 
 Qui primes fist tabor, Diex li envoit contraire ! 
 Que c'estrument i est qu' a nului ne doit plaire. 
 
 Nus riches hom ne doit son de tabour amer. 
 Quant il est bien tendu et on le vent hurter, 
 De demie grant lieue le puet-on escouter ; 
 Ci a trop mauves son por son chief conforter. 
 
 The musical instruments used by the mediaeval gleemen and min- 
 
MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS OF THE MINSTRELS. 201 
 
 strels form in themselves a not uninteresting subject. Those enumer- 
 ated in the Anglo-Saxon vocabularies are the harp (hearpe, cithara), the 
 byme, or trumpet, the pipe "or whistle," t\\e fithele, 
 viol, or fiddle, the horn, and the trumpet, the 
 latter of which was called in Anglo-Saxon truth 
 and scerga. To these we must certainly add a few 
 others, for the drum or tabor seems to have been 
 in use among them under some form, as well as 
 the cymbal, hand-bells, lyre struck by a plectrum, 
 and the organ, which latter was already the favour- 
 ite church instrument. A portable organ was in 
 use in the Middle Ages, of which we give a figure 
 (No. 133), from a manuscript in the British 
 Museum of the earlier part of the fourteenth cen- 
 tury (MS. Reg. 14 E. iii.) This hand-organ was 
 known also by the name of the dulcimer. It 
 
 OCCUrS again in the following group (No. I34), No. 133.— An Organ Player. 
 
 taken from a manuscript of the fourteenth century 
 in the British Museum (MS. Addit. No. 10,293), where the performer 
 on the dulcimer is accompanied by two other minstrels, one playing on 
 the bagpipe, the other on the viol or fiddle. 
 
 Each of the figures in this group is dressed in a costume so different 
 
 No. i 3 4- — A Group of Minstrels. 
 
 from the others that one might almost suppose them engaged in a mas- 
 querade; and they seem to discountenance the notion that the min- 
 strels were in the habit of wearing any dress peculiar to their class. In 
 this respect, their testimony seems to be confirmed by the circumstance 
 
THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 that minstrels are mentioned sometimes as wearing the dresses which 
 have been given them, among other gifts, as a reward for their perform- 
 ances. The illuminated letter here introduced (No. 135), which is 
 
 No. 135. — David and his Musicians. 
 
 taken from a manuscript of the thirteenth century in the British Museum 
 (MS. Harl. No. 5102), represents King David singing his psalms to the 
 harp, while three musicians accompany him. The first, who sits beside 
 
 No. 136. — Musicians of the Cloister. 
 
 him, is playing on the shalm or psaltery, which is frequently figured in 
 the illuminations of manuscripts. One of the two upper figures is play- 
 ing on bells, which also is a description of music often represented in 
 
ANGLO-SAXON INSTRUMENTS OF MUSIC. 
 
 203 
 
 the illuminations of different periods; and the other is blowing the 
 horn. These are ail instruments of solemn and ecclesiastical music. 
 In the next cut (No. 136), taken from a manuscript of the fourteenth 
 century (MS. Reg. 2 B. vii.), the shalm is placed in the hands of a 
 nun, while a friar is performing on a rather singularly shaped cittern, or 
 lute. 
 
 In other manuscripts we find the ordinary musical instruments placed 
 in the hands of the angels ; as in the early fourteenth century MS. Reg. 
 2 B. vii., in a representation (copied in our cut, No. 137) of the creation, 
 with the morning stars singing together, and all the sons of God shout- 
 ing for joy, an angelic choir are making melody on the trumpet, fiddle, 
 cittern, shalm, and harp. There is another choir of angels at p. 168 of 
 the same MS., with two citterns and two shalms, a fiddle and a trumpet. 
 
 No. 137. — The Angelic Choir. 
 
 Similar representations occur in the choirs of churches. In the bosses 
 of the ceiling of Tewkesbury Abbey Church we see angels playing the 
 cittern (with a plectrum), the harp (with its cover seen enveloping the 
 lower half of the instrument), and the cymbals. In the choir of Lincoln 
 Cathedral, some of the series of angels which fill the spandrels of its 
 arcades, and which have given to it the name of the angel choir, are 
 playing instruments, such as the trumpet, double pipe, pipe and tabret, 
 dulcimer, viol, and harp, as if to represent the heavenly choir attuning 
 their praises in harmony with the human choir below : — " therefore with 
 angels and archangels, and with all the company of heaven, we laud 
 and magnify thy glorious name." We will introduce here, from the 
 Royal MS. 14 E. iii., another drawing of an angelic minstrel (No. 138), 
 
204 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 playing a shalm ; others occur at folio i of the same MS. It has been 
 suggested that the band of village musicians with flute, 
 violin, clarionet, and bass-viol, whom most of us have 
 seen occupying the singing-gallery of some country 
 church, are probably not inaccurate representatives of 
 the band of minstrels who occupied the rood-lofts in 
 mediaeval times. In this period of the Middle Ages, 
 indeed, music seems to have had a great charm for all 
 classes of society, and each class appears in turn in the 
 minstrel character in the illuminations of the manu- 
 scripts. Even the shepherds, throughout the Middle 
 Ages, seem to have been musical, like the swains of 
 Theocritus or Virgil ; for we constantly find them re- 
 presented playing upon instruments ; and in confirma- 
 tion we give a couple of goatherds (No. 139), from MS. 
 Reg. 2 B. vii. fol. 83, of early fourteenth century date ; 
 ^&0 they are playing on the pipe and horn. But, besides 
 
 No. 138.— An Angel t i iese t j ie basrpipe was also a rustic instrument : there 
 
 Playing on the Shalm. ' 01 L 
 
 is a shepherd playing upon one on folio 112 of the 
 same MS. (given in our cut, No. 140) : and again, in the early fourteenth 
 
 No. 139. — A Group of Shepherds. 
 
 No. 140. — A Bagpiper. 
 
 century MS. Reg. 2 B. vi., on the reverse of folio 8, is a group of shep- 
 herds, one of whom plays a small pipe, and another the bagpipes. 
 Chaucer (in the " House of Fame ") mentions — 
 
 Pipes made of grene come, 
 As han thise lytel herde gromes, 
 That kepen besties in the bromes. 
 
ANGLO-SAXON MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS. 
 
 105 
 
 It is curious to find that even at so late a period as the reign of Queen 
 Mary, they still officiated at weddings and other 
 merrymakings in their villages, and even sometimes 
 excited the jealousy of the professors of the joyous 
 science, as we have seen in the early French poem 
 against the taborers. 
 
 I give next (cut No. 141) a representation of a 
 female minstrel playing the tambourine ; it is also 
 taken from a MS. of the fourteenth century (MS. 
 Reg. 2 B. vii. fol. 182). 
 
 The earliest instance yet met with of the modern- No . I4 i._ The Lady and 
 
 Tambourine. 
 
 shaped drum is contained in the Coronation Book 
 of Richard II., preserved in the Chapterhouse, Westminster, and is re- 
 presented in the annexed cut (No. 142). This mediaeval 
 drummer is clearly intended to be playing on two drums 
 at once ; and, in considering their forms and position, we 
 must make some allowance for the mediaeval neglect of 
 perspective. 
 
 In the mediaeval vocabularies we find several lists of 
 musical instruments then best known. Thus John de Gar- 
 lande, in the middle of the thirteenth century, enumerates, as the min- 
 strels who were to be seen in the houses of the wealthy, individuals who 
 performed on the instruments which he terms in Latin, lyra (meaning the 
 harp), tibia (the flute), comu (the horn), vidula (the fiddle), sistrum (the 
 drum), giga (the gittern), symphonia (a symphony), psalterium (the psal- 
 tery), chorus, citola (the cittern), tympanum (the tabor), and cymbala (cym- 
 bals). The English glossaries of the fifteenth century add to these the 
 trumpet, the ribibe (a sort of fiddle), organs, and the crowd. The forms 
 of these instruments of various periods will be found in the illustrations 
 which have been given in the course of the present chapter. It will be 
 well perhaps to enumerate again the most common ; they are the harp, 
 fiddle, cittern or lute, hand-organ or dulcimer, the shalm or psaltery, the 
 pipe and tabor, pipes of various sizes played like clarionets, but called 
 flutes, the double pipe, hand-bells, trumpets and horns, bagpipes, tam- 
 bourine, tabret, drum, and cymbals. We give two further groups of figures 
 in illustration of these instruments, both taken from the Royal MS. so 
 
206 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 often quoted, 2 B. vii. In the first (No. 143) we have a boy (apparently) 
 
 No. 143.— Blowing the Trumpet and Playing on the Cymbals. 
 
 playing the cymbals ; and in the second (No. 144) an example of the 
 
 No. 144. — The Dulcimer and Double Flute. 
 
 double flute, which we have already seen in Anglo-Saxon manuscripts 
 (see before pp. 46 and 77), and which appears to have been one of the 
 musical instruments borrowed immediately from the Romans. In con- 
 clusion of this subject we give a group of musical instruments (No. 145) 
 from one of the illustrations of the celebrated book entitled " Der Weise 
 Konig," a work of the close of the fifteenth century. 
 
 The early commentator on the Dictionarius, or Vocabulary, of John 
 de Garlande, calls the musical instruments instrumenta leccatorum (instru- 
 ments of the letchers or ribalds), and I have already stated that the 
 minstrels, or jougleurs, were considered as belonging generally to that 
 degraded class of society. In the vocabularies of the fifteenth century, 
 
DISREPUTABLE CHARACTER OF THE MINSTRELS. 207 
 
 they are generally classed under the head of reprehensible or disgraceful 
 professions, along with ribalds, heretics, harlots, and so forth. It was 
 the same character which led them, a little later,' to be proscribed in 
 acts of parliament, under the titles of rogues and vagabonds. In the 
 older poetry, too, they are often joined with disgraceful epithets. There 
 is a curious early metrical story, or fabliau, which was made, no doubt, 
 to be recited by the minstrels themselves, although it throws ridicule on 
 their profession ; it is entitled " Les Deux Troveors Ribauz" " The Two 
 Ribald Trouveres," and consists of a ludicrous dispute between them on 
 
 No. 145. — Musical Instruments. 
 
 their qualifications as minstrels. My readers must not suppose that at 
 this time the reciters of poetry were a different or better class than 
 those who performed jugglery and low buffoonery — for, in this poem, 
 either of the two claimants to superiority boasts of his skill equally in 
 possessing in his memory completely, and being able to recite well, the 
 early Chansons de Geste, or Carlovingian romances, the later romances 
 of chivalry, and the fabliaux or metrical stories ; in playing upon the 
 most fashionable musical instruments, such as the citole, the fiddle, 
 and the gigue (gittern) ; in performing extraordinary feats and in sleight 
 
208 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 of hand ; and even in making chaplets of flowers, and in acting as a 
 spy or as a go-between in love intrigues. No doubt there were minstrels 
 who kept themselves more respectable, but they were exceptions to the 
 general character of the class, and were chiefly men in the service of 
 the king or of the great barons. There appears also to have been, for 
 a long time, a continued attempt to raise minstrelsy to a respectable 
 position, and out of this attempt arose, in different places, companies 
 and guilds. Of these, the most remarkable of which we have any 
 knowledge in this country, was the ancient fraternity of minstrels of 
 Beverley, in Yorkshire. When this company originated is not known ; 
 but it was of some consideration and wealth in the reign of Henry VI., 
 when the church of St Mary's,'in that town, was built ; for the minstrels 
 
 No. 146.— The Minstrels of Beverley. 
 
 gave a pillar to it, on the capital of which a band of minstrels were 
 sculptured. The cut above, No. 146, is copied from the engraving of 
 this group, given in Carter's " Ancient Painting and Sculpture." The 
 oldest existing document of the fraternity is a copy of laws of the 
 time of Philip and Mary, similar to those by which all trade-guilds 
 were governed : their officers were an alderman and two stewards or 
 seers {i.e., searchers); and the only items in their laws which throw any 
 light upon the history or condition of the minstrels are — one which 
 requires that they should not take "any new brother except he be 
 mynstrell to some man of honour or worship, or waite of some towne 
 corporate or other ancient town, or else of such honestye and conyng 
 {knowledge) as shall be thought laudable and pleasant to the hearers 
 
DECLINE OF MINSTRELSY. 209 
 
 there ; " and another, to the effect that " no mylner, shepherd, or of 
 
 other occupation, or husbandman, or husbandman servant, playing 
 
 upon pype or other instrument, shall sue {follow) any wedding or other 
 
 thing that pertaineth to the said science, except in his own parish." 
 
 Institutions like these, however, had little effect in counteracting the 
 
 natural decline of minstrelsy, for the state of society in which it existed 
 
 was passing away. It would be curious to trace the changes in its history 
 
 by the instruments which became especially characteristic of the popular 
 
 jougleur. The harp had given way to the fiddle, and already, towards 
 
 the end of the thirteenth century, the fiddle was yielding its place to 
 
 the tabor. In the Anglo-Norman romance of " Horn," of the thirteenth 
 
 century, we are told of a ribald " who goes to marriages to play on the 
 
 tabor " — 
 
 A li piert qu'il est las un lechur 
 
 Ki a ces nocces vient pur juer od tabur ; 
 
 and the curious fabliau of the " King of England and the Jougleur of 
 Ely " describes the latter as carrying his tabor swung to his neck — 
 
 Entour son col porta soiin tabour. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Amusements after Dinner. — Gambling. — The Game of Chess ; its 
 History. — Dice. — Tables. — Draughts. 
 
 ' T HE dinned, even a m0 n g the highest ranhs of soeie.v, was, as 
 -*- I have stated, early in the forenoon ; and, except in the case of 
 great feasts, it appears not to have been customary to sit long after 
 dinner. Thus a great part of the day was left on people's hands, to 
 fill up with some description of amusement or occupation. After the 
 dinner was taken away, and the ceremony of washing had been gone 
 through, the wine cup appears to have been at least once passed round, 
 before they all rose from table. The Camden Society has published an 
 early French metrical romance (" Blonde of Oxford," by Philippe de 
 Reimes), which gives us a very interesting picture of the manners of the 
 thirteenth century. Jean of Dammartin is represented as the son of a 
 noble family in France, who comes to England to seek his fortune, and 
 enters the service of an Earl of Oxford, as one of the esquires in his 
 household. There his duty is to attend upon the Earl's daughter, the 
 Lady Blonde, and to serve her at table. "After the meal, they wash 
 their hands and then go to play, as each likes best, either in forests or 
 on rivers {i.e. hunting or hawking), or in amusements of other kinds. 
 Jean goes to which of them he likes, and, when he returns, he often 
 goes to play in the chambers of the Countess, with the ladies, who 
 oblige him to teach them French." Jean does his best to please them, 
 for which he was qualified by his education, " For he was very well ac- 
 quainted with chamber games, such as chess, tables, and dice, with 
 which he entertains his damsel (Blonde) ; he often says ' check ' and 
 ' mate ' to her, and he taught her to play many a game : " — 
 
THE GAME OF CHESS. 
 
 De jus de cambres seut asses, 
 D'esches, de tables, et de des, 
 Dont il sa damoisele esbat ; 
 Souvent li dist eschek et mat ; 
 De maint jeu a juer l'aprist. 
 
 — Blonde of Oxford, 1. 399. 
 
 This is a correct picture of the usual occupations of the after part of 
 the day among the superior classes of society in the feudal ages ; and 
 scenes in accordance with it are often found in the illuminations of the 
 mediaeval manuscripts. One of these is represented in the engraving 
 No. 147 on the following page, taken from a manuscript of the fifteenth 
 century, containing the romance of the " Quatre Fils d'Aymon," and 
 preserved in the Library of the Arsenal in Paris. In the chamber in 
 front, a nobleman and one of the great ladies of his household are 
 engaged at chess, while in the background we see other ladies enjoying 
 themselves in the garden, which is shown to us with its summer-house 
 and its flower-beds surrounded with fences of lattice-work. It may be 
 remarked, that the attention of the chess-players is withdrawn suddenly 
 from their game by the entrance of an armed knight, who appears in 
 another compartment of the illumination in the manuscript. 
 
 Of the chamber games enumerated in the foregoing extract from the 
 romance of " Blonde of Oxford," that of chess was no doubt looked 
 upon as by far the most distinguished. To play well at chess was con- 
 sidered as a very important part of an aristocratic education. Thus, 
 in the " Chanson de Geste " (metrical romance) of Parise la Duchesse, 
 the son of the heroine, who was brought up by the king in his palace, 
 had no sooner reached his fifteenth year, than, " he was taught first his 
 letters, until he had made sufficient progress in them, and then he learnt 
 to play at tables and chess," and learnt these games so well, " that no 
 man in this world was able to mate him : " — 
 
 Quant l'anfes ot xv. anz et compliz et passez, 
 Premiers aprist a lettres, tant qu'il en sot assez ; 
 Puis aprist-il as tables et a eschas joier, 
 II n'a ome en cest monde qui Ten peust mater. 
 
 — Parise la Dtichesse, p. 86. 
 
 In this numerous cycle of romances, scenes in which kings and princes, 
 as well as nobles, are represented as occupying their leisure with the 
 game of chess, occur very frequently, and sometimes the game forms an 
 
THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 important incident in the story. In " Garin le Loherain," a messenger 
 hurries to Bordeaux, and finds Count Thiebaut playing at chess with 
 Berengier d' Autri. Thiebaut is so much excited by the news, that he 
 
 j No. 147. — A Mediaeval After-Dinner Scene. 1 
 
 pushes the chess-board violently from him, and scatters the chess-men 
 
 about the place — 
 
 Thiebaus l'o'it, a. pou n'enrage vis, 
 Li esches boute, et le jeu espandit. 
 
 — Garin le Loherain, ii. 77- 
 
 So, in the same romance, the Emperor Pepin, arriving at his camp, had 
 no sooner entered his tent than, having put on a loose tunic (pliant), and 
 a mantle, he called for a chess-board and sat down to play — 
 
 Esches demande, si est an jeu assis. — lb., ii. 127. 
 
THE GAME OF CHESS. 213 
 
 Even Witikind, the king of the Pagan Saxons, is represented as amusing 
 himself with this game. When the messenger who carried him news 
 that Charlemagne was on the way to make war upon him, arrived at 
 " Tremoigne," the palace of the Saxon king, he found Witikind playing 
 at chess with Escorfaus de Lutise, and the Saxon queen, Sebile, who was 
 also well acquainted with the game, looking on — 
 
 A lui joe as eschas Escorsaus de Lutise; 
 Sebile les esgarde, qi do jeu est aprise. 
 
 — Chanson des Saxons, i. 91. 
 
 Witikind was so angry at this intelligence, that his face "became as red 
 as a cherry," and he broke the chess-board to pieces — 
 
 D'ire et de mautalant rugist comme cerise ; 
 Le message regarde, le geu pecoie et brise. 
 
 In the " Chanson de Geste " of Guerin de Montglaive, the story turns 
 upon an imprudent act of Charlemagne, who stakes his whole kingdom 
 upon a game of chess, and losing it to Guerin, is obliged to compound 
 with him by surrendering to him his right to the city of Montglaive, then 
 in the possession of the Saracens. 
 
 These " Chansons de Geste," formed upon the traditions of the early 
 Carlovingian period, can only of course be taken as a picture of the 
 manner of the age at which they were composed, that is, of the twelfth 
 and thirteenth centuries, and we know, from historical evidence, that 
 the picture is strictly true. At that period chess certainly was what has 
 been termed the royal game. The celebrated Walter Mapes, writing 
 in the latter half of the twelfth century, gives a curious anecdote relat- 
 ing to tragical events which had occurred at the court of Brittany, ap- 
 parently in the earlier part of the same century. Alan of Brittany, per- 
 haps the last of the name who had ruled over that country, had, at the 
 suggestion of his wife, entrapped a feudatory prince, Remelin, and sub- 
 jected him to the loss of his eyes and other mutilations. Remelin's 
 son, Wigan, having escaped a similar fate, made war upon Alan, and 
 reduced him to such extremities that, through the interference of the 
 king of France, he made his peace with Wigan, by giving him his 
 daughter in marriage; and thus for many years the country remained in 
 peace. But it appears that the lady always shared in her father's feuds, 
 and looked with exulting contempt on her father's mutilated enemy. 
 
214 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 One day she was playing with her husband at chess, and, towards the 
 end of the game, Wigan, called away by some important business, 
 asked one of his knights to take his place at the chess-board. The 
 lady was the conqueror, and when she made her last move, she said to 
 the knight, " It is not to you, but to the son of the mutilated that I 
 say ' mate.' " Wigan heard this sarcasm, and, deeply offended, hurried 
 to the residence of his father-in-law, took him by surprise, and inflicted 
 upon him the same mutilations which had been experienced by Reme- 
 lin. Then, returning home, he engaged in another game with his wife, 
 and, having gained it, threw the eyes and other parts of which her father 
 had been deprived on the chess-board, exclaiming, " I say mate to the 
 daughter of the mutilated." The story goes on to say that the lady 
 concealed her desire of vengeance, until she found an opportunity of 
 effecting the murder of her husband. 
 
 We need not be surprised if, among the turbulent barons of the 
 Middle Ages, the game of chess often gave rise to disputes and sanguinary 
 quarrels. The curious history of the Fitz-Warines, reduced to writing 
 certainly in the thirteenth century, gives the following account of the 
 origin of the feud between King John and Fulk Fitz-Warine, the out- 
 law :— " Young Fulk," we are told, " was bred with the four sons of 
 King Henry II., and was much beloved by them all except John ; for 
 he used often to quarrel with John. It happened that John and Fulk 
 were sitting all alone in a chamber playing at chess ; John took the 
 chess-board and struck Fulk a great blow. Fulk felt himself hurt, 
 raised his foot and struck John in the middle of the stomach, that his 
 head went against the wall, and he became all weak and fainted. Fulk 
 was in consternation ; but he was glad that there was nobody in the 
 chamber but them two, and he rubbed John's ears, who recovered from 
 his fainting-fit, and went to the king his father, and made a great com- 
 plaint. ' Hold your tongue, wretch,' said the king, ' you are always 
 quarrelling. If Fulk did anything but good to you, it must have been 
 by your own desert;' and he called his master, and made him. beat 
 him finely and well for complaining." Similar incidents recur continually 
 in the early romances I have just quoted, as the " Chansons de Geste," 
 which give us so vivid a picture of feudal times. A fatal quarrel of 
 this kind was the cause of the feud between Charlemagne and Ogier le 
 
THE GAME OF CHESS. 215 
 
 Danois. At one of the Easter festivals of the court of Charlemagne, the 
 emperor's son, Charles, and Bauduin, the illegitimate son of Ogier, went 
 to play together. Bauduin and young Charles took a chess-board and 
 sat down to the game for pastime. " They have arranged their chess- 
 men on the board. The king's son first moved his pawn, and young 
 Bauduin moved his aufin (bishop) backwards. The king's son thought 
 to press him very hard, and moved his knight upon the other aufin. 
 The one moved forward and the other backward so long, that young 
 Bauduin said ' mate ' to him in the corner : " — 
 
 II et Callos prisent un esqueluer, 
 Au ju s'asisent por aus esbanier. 
 S'ont lor esches assis sor le tabler. 
 Li fix au roi traist son paon premier, 
 Bauduines traist son aufin arier, 
 Li fix au roi le volt forment coitier, 
 Sus l'autre aufin a trait son chevalier. 
 Tant traist li uns avant et l'autre arier, 
 Bauduine's li dist mat en Tangier. 
 
 — Ogier de Danemarche, 1. 3159. 
 
 The young prince was furious at his defeat, and, not content with treat- 
 ing the son of Ogier with the most insulting language, he seized the 
 chess-board in his two hands, and struck him so violent a blow on the 
 forehead, that he split his head, and scattered his brains over the floor. 
 In a well-known illuminated manuscript of the fifteenth century, in the 
 British Museum (MS. Reg. 15 E. vi.), containing a copy of the romance 
 of " Ogier le Danois," this scene is represented in an illumination which 
 is copied in our cut No. 148, on the next page. Similar incidents are 
 rather common in these old romances. In that of " Parise la Duchesse," 
 her young son, brought up as a foundling at the court of the king of 
 Hungary, becomes an object of jealousy to the old nobles. Four of the 
 sons of the latter conspire to murder him, and it is arranged that they 
 shall invite him to go and play at chess with them in a retired cellar, and, 
 having secretly provided themselves with knives, insult him, in order to 
 draw him into a quarrel, and then stab him to death. " Hugues," they 
 said, " will you come with us to play at chess ? You may gain a hundred 
 francs on the gilt chess-board, and at the same time you will teach us 
 chess and dice ; for certainly you know the games much better than any 
 of us." Hugues seems to have been conscious of the frequency of 
 
216 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 quarrels arising from the game, for it was not until they had promised 
 
 him that they would not seek any cause of dispute, that he accepted 
 
 their invitation. They then led him into the cellar, and sat down at 
 
 the chess-board. " He began by playing with the son of Duke Granier ; 
 
 and each put down a hundred francs in coined money ; but he had 
 
 soon vanquished and mated them all, that not one of them was able to 
 
 mate him : " 
 
 Au fil au due Graner comenca a juer ; 
 Chascuns mist c. frans de deniers moniez ; 
 Mais il les a trestoz et vancus et matez, 
 Que il n'i ot i. sol qui l'an poiist mater. 
 
 — Parise la Duchesse, p. 105. 
 
 Hugues, in kindness, offered to teach them better how to play, without 
 allowing them to risk their money, but they drew their knives upon him, 
 and insulted him in the most outrageous terms. He killed the foremost 
 
 No. 148. — A Quarrel at Chess. 
 
 of them with a blow of his fist, and seizing upon the chess-board for a 
 weapon, for he was unarmed, he " brained " the other three with it. 
 We learn from this anecdote that it was the custom in the Middle x\ges 
 to play at chess for money. 
 
 As I have already remarked, these romances picture to us the manners 
 of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and not those of the Carlovingian 
 era. The period when the game of chess was first introduced into 
 Western Europe can only be conjectured, for writers of all descriptions 
 
THE GAME OF CHESS. 217 
 
 were so much in the habit of employing the notions belonging to their 
 own time in relating the events of the past, that we can place no depen- 
 dence on anything which is not absolute contemporary evidence. The 
 chess-board and men so long preserved in the treasury of St Denis, and 
 said to have belonged to Charlemagne, were, I think, probably, not older 
 than the eleventh century, and appear to have had a Byzantine origin. 
 If the game of chess had been known at the court of Charlemagne, 
 I cannot but think that we should have found some distinct allusion to 
 it. The earliest mention of this game that we know is found in a letter 
 from Damianus, Cardinal Bishop of Ostia, to Alexander II., who was 
 elected to the papacy in 1061, and enjoyed it till 1073. Damianus tells 
 the Pope how he was travelling with a Bishop of Florence, when, " hav- 
 ing arrived in the evening at a hostel, I withdrew," he says, " into the 
 cell of a priest, while he remained with the crowd of travellers in the 
 spacious house. In the morning, I was informed by my servant that the 
 aforesaid bishop had been playing at the game of chess ; which informa- 
 tion, like an arrow, pierced my heart very acutely. At a convenient 
 hour, I sent for him, and said in a tone of severe reproof, ' The hand is 
 stretched out, the rod is ready for the back of the offender,' ' Let the 
 fault be proved,' said he, ' and penance shall not be refused.' ' Was it 
 well,' I rejoined, ' was it worthy of the character you bear, to spend the 
 evening in the vanity of chess-play (in vanitate scachorum), and defile the 
 hands and tongue, which ought to be the mediator between man and the 
 Deity? Are you not aware that, by the canonical law, bishops, who are 
 dice-players, are ordered to be deposed ? ' He, however, making himself 
 a shield of defence from the difference in the names, said that dice was 
 one thing, and chess another ; consequently that the canon only forbade 
 dice, but that it tacitly allowed chess. To which I replied, ' Chess,' I 
 said, ' is not named in the text, but the general term of dice comprehends 
 both the games. Wherefore, since dice are prohibited, and chess is 
 not expressly mentioned, it follows, without doubt, that both kinds of 
 play are included under one term, and equally condemned ? ' " This 
 occurred in Italy, and it is evident from it that the game of chess was 
 then well known there, though I think we have a right to conclude from 
 it, that it had not been long known. There appears to be little room for 
 doubting, that chess was, like so many other mediaeval practices, an 
 
218 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 Oriental invention ; that the Byzantine Greeks derived it from the 
 Saracens, and that from them it came by way of Italy to France. 
 
 The knowledge of the game of chess, however, seems to have been 
 brought more directly from the East by the Scandinavian navigators, to 
 whom such a means of passing time in their distant voyages, and in 
 their long nights at home, was most welcome, and who soon became 
 extraordinarily attached to it, and displayed their ingenuity in elaborately 
 carving chess-men in ivory (that is, in the ivory of the walrus), which 
 seem to have found an extensive market in other countries. In the year 
 183 1, a considerable number of these carved ivory chess-men were found 
 on the coast of the Isle of Lewis, probably the result of some shipwreck 
 in the twelfth century, for to that period they belong. They formed part 
 
 HI? 4 3 2 
 
 No. 149. — Icelandic Chess-men of the Twelfth Century. 
 
 of at least seven sets, and had therefore probably been the stock of a 
 dealer. Some of them were obtained by the British Museum, and a very 
 learned and valuable paper on them was communicated by Sir Frederic 
 Madden to the Society of Antiquaries, and printed in the twenty-fourth 
 volume of the Archceologia. Some of the best of them, however, re- 
 mained in private hands, and have more recently passed into the rich 
 museum of the late Lord Londesborough. We give here two groups of 
 these curious chess-men, taken from the collection of Lord Londes- 
 borough, and from those in the British Museum as engraved in the volume 
 of the Archceologia just referred to. The first group, forming our cut, 
 No. 149, consists of a king (1), from the collection of Lord Londes- 
 
THE GAME OF CHESS. 
 
 219 
 
 borough, and a queen (2), bishop (3), and knight (4), all from the 
 Archceologia ; and the second group (No. 150) presents us with the 
 warriors on foot, to which the Icelanders gave the name of hrokr., and 
 to which Sir Frederic Madden gives the English name of warders, one 
 of them (5) from Lord Londesborough's collection, the other (6) from 
 the British Museum. The rest are pawns, all from the latter collection; 
 they are generally plain and octagonal, as in the group to the right 
 (7), but were sometimes ornamented, as in the case of the other ex- 
 ample (8). 
 
 It will be seen at once that in name and character these chess-men 
 are nearly identical with those in common use, although in costume they 
 are purely Scandinavian. The king sits in the position, with his sword 
 
 657 
 
 No. 150. — Icelandic Chess-men of the Twelfth Century. 
 
 across his knee, and his hand ready to draw it, which is described as char- 
 acteristic of royalty in the old Northern poetry. The queen holds in her 
 hand a drinking-horn, in which at great festivals the lady of the house- 
 hold, of whatever rank, was accustomed to serve out the ale or mead to 
 the guests. The bishops are some seated, and others standing, but all dis- 
 tinguished by the mitre, crosier, and episcopal costume. The knights 
 are all on horseback, and are covered with characteristic armour. 
 The armed men on foot, just mentioned by the name of warders, were 
 peculiar to the Scandinavian set of chess-men, and supplied the place 
 of the rocks, or rooks, in the mediaeval game, and of the modern 
 castle. 
 
 Several of the chess-men had indeed gone through more than one 
 
THE HOMES OF OTHER DA VS. 
 
 modification in their progress from the East. The Arabs and Persians 
 admitted no female among the persons on their chess-board, and the 
 piece which we call the queen was with them the fi/ierz (vizier or coun- 
 cillor). The Oriental name, under the form fers, ferz, orferce, in Latin 
 ferzia, was long preserved in the Middle Ages, though certainly as early 
 as the twelfth century the original character of the piece had been 
 changed for that of a queen, and the names fers and queen became 
 synonymous. It is hardly necessary to say that a bishop would not be 
 found on a Saracenic chess-board. This piece was called by the Persians 
 and Arabs pil or fihil, meaning an elephant, under the form of which 
 animal it was represented. This name was also preserved in its trans- 
 mission to the West, and with the Arab article prefixed became alfil, or 
 more commonly alfin, which was again softened down into aufin, the 
 
 No. 151. — Chess-men of the Thirteenth Century. 
 
 usual name of the piece in the old French and English writers. The 
 character of the bishop must have been adopted very early among the 
 Christians, and it is found under that character among the Northerns, 
 and in England. Such, however, was not the case everywhere. The 
 Russians and Swedes have preserved the original name of the elephant. 
 In Italy and France this piece was sometimes represented as an archer ; 
 and at an early period in the latter country, from a supposed confusion 
 of the Arabic fil with the French fol, it was sometimes called by the 
 latter name, and represented as a court- jester. Roc, the name given by 
 the Saracens to the piece now called the castle, meant apparently a hero, 
 or champion, Persian rokh; the name was preserved in the Middle Ages, 
 but the piece seems to have been first represented under the character 
 
THE GAME OF CHESS. 
 
 of an elephant, and it was no doubt, from the tower which the elephant 
 
 carried on its back that our modern form originated. The Icelanders seem 
 
 alone to have adopted the name in its original meaning, for with them, 
 
 as shown in cut No. 150, the hrokr'xs represented as a warrior on foot. 
 
 A few examples of carved chess-men have been found in different 
 
 parts of England, which show that these highly-ornamented pieces were 
 
 in use at all periods. One of these, represented in our cut No. 151, is 
 
 preserved in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, and, to judge by the 
 
 costume, belongs to the earlier part of the thirteenth century. Its 
 
 material is the tooth of the walrus (the northern ivory) ; it represents 
 
 a knight on both sides, one wielding a lance, the other a sword, the 
 
 £T\ intervening spaces being filled with 
 
 «ilk foliage. Another knight, made of 
 
 yA,. jMdm rea l ivory, is represented in our cut 
 
 f^Al^^^^^^^ No. 152, taken from an engrav- 
 
 Wj^^M^y^3»o^^^®V ing in the third volume of the 
 
 //f >J1IBI\ m\ Archaeological Journal, where it is 
 
 / aM||pII11 \\ nWllil^ stated to be in the possession of 
 
 J\ f fi " jfll^i \ js^I!^- tne -^- ev - J- Eagles, of Worcester. 
 
 ^^^^a^^^^^^ ^^^^^SP^- it belongs to the reign of Edward 
 
 No. 152.— Chess-man of the Fourteenth Century. III. Here the knight is On 
 
 horseback, and wears chain-mail and plate. The body of the horse is 
 entirely covered with chain-mail, over which housings are placed, and 
 the head with plate armour. 
 
 All who are acquainted with the general character of mediseval carving 
 will suppose that these ornamental chess-men were of large dimensions, 
 and consequently rather clumsy for use. The largest of those found in 
 the Isle of Lewis, a king, is upwards of four inches in height, and nearly 
 seven inches in circumference. They were hence rather formidable 
 weapons in a strong hand, and we find them used as such in some of 
 the scenes of the early romances. According to one version of the 
 death of Bauduin, the illegitimate son of Ogier, the young Prince 
 Charles struck him with the rook so violent a blow that he made his 
 two eyes fly out : — 
 
 La le dona Callos le cop mortel 
 Si com juoit as eske's et as des ; 
 
THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 La le feri d'un rok par tel fiertes, 
 Que andus les elx li fist du cief voler. 
 
 — Ogier de Danemarcke, 1. 90. 
 
 A rather rude illumination in one of the manuscripts, of which M. 
 Barrois has given a fac-simile in his edition of this romance, represents 
 Charles striking his opponent with the rook. According to another 
 version of the story, the young Prince, using the rook as a missile, threw 
 it at him. An incident in the romance of the " Quatre Fils dAymon," 
 where the agents of Regnault go to arrest Duke Richard of Normandy, 
 and find him playing at chess, is thus told quaintly in the English 
 version printed by Copeland : — " When Duke Richarde saw that these 
 sergeauntes had him thus by the arm, and helde in his hande a lady of 
 ivery, wherewith he would have given a mate to Yonnet, he withdrew 
 his arme, and gave to one of the sergeauntes such a stroke with it into 
 the forehead, that he made him tumble over and over at his feete ; and 
 then he tooke a rooke, and smote another withall upon his head, that 
 all to-brost it to the brayne." 
 
 The chess-boards were naturally large, and were sometimes made of 
 the precious metals, and of other rich materials. In one romance, the 
 chess-board and men are made of crystal; in another, that of "Alexander," 
 the men are made of sapphires and topazes. A chess-board, preserved 
 in the museum of the Hotel de Cluny, at Paris, and said to have been 
 the one given by the old man of the mountains (the sheikh of the 
 Hassassins) to St Louis, is made of rock-crystal, and mounted in silver 
 gilt. In the romances, the chess-board is sometimes spoken of as made 
 of ormier, or pure gold. But when the game of chess came into exten- 
 sive use, it became necessary not only to make the chess-board and men 
 of less expensive materials and smaller, but to give to the latter simple 
 conventional forms, instead of making them elaborate sculptures. The 
 foundation for this latter practice had already been laid by the Arabs, 
 whose tenets, contrary to those of the Persians, proscribed all images of 
 living beings. The mediaeval conventional form of the rook, a figure with 
 a bi-parted head, somewhat approaching to the heraldic form of the 
 fleur-de-lis, appears to have been taken directly from the Arabs; the 
 knight was represented by a small upright column, the upper part of it 
 bent to one side, and is supposed to have been meant for a rude repre- 
 
THE GAME OF CHESS. 
 
 223 
 
 sentation of the horse's head. The aufin, or bishop, had the same form 
 as the knight, except that the bent end was cleft, probably as an indi- 
 cation of the episcopal mitre. The accompanying figure of a chess- 
 board (No. 153), taken from a manuscript of the earlier part of the 
 fourteenth century (MS. Cotton. Cleopat. B. ix.), but no doubt copied 
 from one of the latter part of the thirteenth century, when the Anglo- 
 Norman metrical treatise on chess which it illustrates was composed, gives 
 all the conventional forms of chess-men used at that time. The piece 
 at the left-hand extremity of the lower row is evidently a king. The 
 other king is seen in the centre of the upper row. Immediately to the 
 left of the latter is the queen, and the two figures below the king 
 
 No. 153. — An Early Chess-board and Chess-men. 
 
 and queen are knights, while those to the left of the queen and 
 white knight are rooks. Those in the right-hand corner at top and 
 bottom, are aufins, or bishops. The pawns on this chess-board bear a 
 striking resemblance to those found in the Isle of Lewis. The same 
 forms with very slight variations present themselves in the scenes of 
 chess-playing as depicted in the illuminated manuscripts. Thus, in a 
 manuscript of the French prose romance of " Meliadus," in the British 
 Museum (MS. Addit. No. 12,228, fol. 23, v°), written between the years 
 1330 and 1350, we have an interesting sketch (given in our cut No. 154) 
 of two kings engaged in this game. The rooks and the bishops are 
 distinctly represented, but the others are less easily recognised, in conse- 
 
224 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 quence of the imperfect drawing. Our next cut (No. 155) is taken from 
 the well known manuscript of the poetry of the German Minnesingers, 
 made for Rudiger von Manesse, early in the fourteenth century, and now 
 
 No. 154. — A Royal Game at Chess. 
 
 preserved in the National Library in Paris, and represents the prince- 
 poet, Otto of Brandenburg, playing at chess with a lady. We have 
 
 No. 155. — A Game at Chess in the Fourteenth Century. 
 
 here the same conventional forms of chess-men, a circumstance which 
 shows that the same types prevailed in England, France, and Germany. 
 
THE GAME OF CHESS. 225 
 
 Another group, in which a king is introduced playing at chess, forms 
 the subject of our cut No 156, and is taken 
 from a manuscript of the thirteenth cen- 
 tury, in the Harleian Collection in the 
 British Museum (No. 1275), consisting of 
 a numerous series of illustrations of the 
 Bible history, executed evidently in Eng- 
 land. It will be seen that the character 
 of chess as a royal game is sustained No . IS 6.-a King at Chess. 
 
 throughout. 
 
 In that century the game of chess had become extremely popular 
 among the feudal aristocracy — including under that head all who could 
 aspire to knighthood. Already, in the twelfth century, directions for 
 the game had been composed in Latin verse, which seems to show that, 
 in spite of the zeal of men like Cardinal Damianus, it was popular 
 among the clergy. Towards the latter end of the thirteenth century, a 
 French Dominican friar, Jacques de Cessoles, made the game the subject 
 of a moral work, entitled " Moralitas de Scaccario," which became very 
 popular in later times, was published in a French version by Jean de 
 Vignay, and translated from this French version into English by 
 Caxton, in his " Boke of Chesse," so celebrated among bibliographers. 
 To the age of Jacques de Cessoles belongs an Anglo-Norman 
 metrical treatise on chess, of which several copies are preserved in 
 manuscript (the one I have used is in MS. Reg. 13 A. xviii. fol.*i6i, 
 v°), and which presents us with the first collection of games. These 
 games are distinguished by quaint names, like those given to the old 
 dances ; such as de firopre confusion (one's own confusion), ky fierde, sey 
 sauve (the loser wins), ky est larges, est sages (he that is liberal is wise), 
 mes -chief fet horn fienser (misfortune makes a man reflect), la chace de 
 ferce el de chivaler (the chase of the queen and the knight), de dames el 
 de damyceles (ladies and damsels), la batalie de rokes (the battle of the 
 rooks), and the like. 
 
 It is quite unnecessary to attempt to point out the numerous allusions 
 to the game of chess during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, when 
 it continued to be extremely popular. Chaucer, in one of his minor 
 poems, the " Boke of the Duchesse," introduces himself in a dream as 
 
226 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 playing at chess with Fortune, and speaks of false moves, as though dis- 
 honest tricks were sometimes practised in the game. He tells us — 
 
 At chesse with me she gan to pleye, 
 
 With hir fals draughtes {moves) dyvers 
 
 She staale on me, and toke my fers (queen) ; 
 
 And whanne I saugh my fers awaye, 
 
 Alias ! I kouthe no lenger playe, 
 
 But seyde, ' ' Farewel, swete ! y wys, 
 
 And farewel al that ever ther ys ! " 
 
 Therwith Fortune seyde, " Chek here ! " 
 
 And "mate" in the myd poynt of the chekkere {chess-board), 
 
 With a powne (pawn) errante, alias ! 
 
 Ful craftier to pleye she was 
 
 Than Athalus, that made the game 
 
 First of the chesse, so was hys name. 
 
 — Robert Bell's Chaucer, vol. vi. p. 157. 
 
 With the breaking up of feudalism, the game of chess seems to have 
 gone to a great extent out of practice, and made way for a comparatively 
 new game, — that of cards, which now became very popular. When 
 Caxton printed his " Boke of Chesse ,; in 1474, he sought only to publish 
 
 No. 157. — Chess in the Fifteenth Century. ' 
 
 a moral treatise, and not to furnish his countrymen with a book of in- 
 structions in the game. The cut of the chess-player given in this book, 
 copied in our cut No. 157, shows some modifications in the forms of 
 the chess-men. The knight, the rook, and the pawn, have preserved 
 
THE GAME OF CHESS. 
 
 their old forms ; but we are led to suppose, by the number of pieces 
 with the bi-partite head, that the bishop had assumed a shape nearly 
 resembling that of the rook. We have just seen Chaucer alluding to 
 one of the legends relating to the origin of this game. Caxton, after 
 Jean de Vignay and Jacques de Cessoles, gives us a strange story how 
 it was invented under Evylmerodach, king of Babylon, by a philosopher, 
 " vvhyche was named in Caldee Exerses, or in Greke Philemetor." 
 
 Meanwhile, the game of chess had continued to flourish in Italy, 
 where it appears to have experienced improvements, and where certainly 
 the forms of the men were considerably modified. An Italian version 
 of the work of Jacques de Cessoles was printed at Florence in 1493, 
 under the title of "Libro de Giuocho delli Scacchi," among the engravings 
 to which, as in most of the editions of that work, there is a picture of a 
 group of chess-players, who are here seated at a round table. The 
 chess-board is represented in our cut, No. 158, and it will be seen at a 
 
 No. 158. — An Italian Chess-board. 
 
 glance that the chess-men present a far greater resemblance to those 
 used at the present day than those given in the older illuminations. 
 Within a few years of the date of this book, a Portuguese, named Dami- 
 ano, who was perhaps residing in Italy, as his work seems to have 
 appeared there first, drew up a book of directions for chess with a set 
 of eighty-eight games, which display considerable ingenuity. An edi- 
 tion of this book was published at Rome as early as 1524, and perhaps 
 this was not the first. The figures of the chess-men are given in this 
 treatise ; that of the king is vase-shaped, not unlike our modern chess- 
 king, but with two crowns ; the queen is similar in shape, but has one 
 crown ; the delfino (bishop) differs from them in being smaller, and 
 having no crown ; the cavallo (knight) has the form of a horse's head ; 
 the rocho, as it is still called, is in the form of a tower, like our modern 
 
228 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 castle ; and the pedona (pawn) resembles a cone, with a knob at the 
 apex. In England, the game of chess seems not to have been much in 
 vogue during the sixteenth century; it is, I believe, only alluded to 
 once in Shakespeare, in a well-known scene in the Tempest, which may 
 have been taken from a foreign story to which he owed his plot. The 
 name of the game had been corrupted into chests or cheasts. The game 
 of chess was expressly discouraged by our " Solomon," James I., as 
 "overwise and philosophicke a folly." An attempt to bring it into 
 more notice appears to have been made early in the reign of Elizabeth, 
 under the patronage of Lord Robert Dudley, afterwards the celebrated 
 Earl of Leicester, who displayed on many occasions a taste for refine- 
 ments of this sort. Instructions were again sought from Italy through 
 France ; for there was printed and published in London, in the year 
 1562, a little volume dedicated to Lord Robert Dudley, under the title 
 of " The Pleasaunt and Wittie Playe of the Cheasts reniewed, with In- 
 structions both to Learn it Easily and to Play it Well ; lately translated 
 out of Italian into French, and now set forth in Englishe by James 
 Rowbotham." Rowbotham gives us some remarks of his own on the 
 character of the game, and on the different forms of the chess-men, 
 which are not uninteresting. He says: — "As for the fashion of the 
 pieces, that is according to the fantasie of the workman, which maketh 
 them after this manner. Some make them lyke men, whereof the 
 kynge is the highest, and the queene (whiche some name amasone or 
 layde) is the next, bothe two crowned. The bishoppes some name 
 alphins, some fooles, and some name them princes, lyke as also they 
 are next Unto the kinge and queene, other some cal them archers, and 
 thei are fashioned accordinge to the wyll of the workeman. The 
 knights some call horsemen, and thei are men on horse backe. The 
 rookes some cal elephantes, cariyng towres upon their backes, and men 
 within the towres. The paunes some cal fote men, as they are 
 souldiours on fote, cariyng some of them pykes, other some harque- 
 bushes, other some halbards, and other some the javelyn and target 
 Other makers of cheastmen make them of other fashions ; but the use 
 thereof wyll cause perfect knowledge." " Our Englishe cheastmen," he 
 adds, " are commonly made nothing like unto these foresayde fashions : 
 to wit, the kynge is made the highest or longest ; the queene is longest 
 
DICE-PLA YING. 
 
 229 
 
 nexte unto him ; the bishoppe is made with a sharpe toppe, and cloven 
 in the middest not muche unlyke to a bishop's myter ; the knight hath 
 his top cut asloope, as thoughe beynge dubbed knight ; the rooke is 
 made lykest to the kynge and the queene, but that he is not so long; 
 the paunes be made the smallest and least of all, and thereby they may 
 best be knowen." 
 
 At an early period the German tribes, as known to the Romans, were 
 notoriously addicted to gambling. We are informed by Tacitus that a 
 German in his time would risk not only his property, but his own per- 
 sonal liberty, on a throw of the dice ; and if he lost, he submitted 
 patiently, as a point of honour, to be bound by his opponent, and 
 carried to the market to be sold into slavery. The Anglo-Saxons ap- 
 pear to have shared largely in this passion, and their habits of gambling 
 are alluded to by different writers. A well-known writer of the first half 
 of the twelfth century, Ordericus Vitalis, tells us that in his time even 
 the prelates of the Church were in the habit of playing at dice. A still 
 more celebrated writer, John of Salisbury, who lived a little later in the 
 same century, speaks of dice-playing as being then extremely prevalent, 
 and enumerates no less than ten different games, which he names in 
 Latin, as follows : — tessera, calculus, tabula (tables), urio vel Dardana 
 pugna (Troy fight), tricolus, senio (sice), monarchus, orbiculi, taliorchus, 
 and vulpes (the game of fox). — " De Nugis Curialium," lib. i. c. 5. 
 The sort of estimation in which the game was then held is curiously 
 illustrated by an anecdote in the Carlovingian romance of " Parise la 
 Duchesse," where the king of the Hungarians wishes to contrive some 
 means of testing the real character (aristocratic or plebeian) of his 
 foundling, young Hugues, not then known to be the son of the Duchess 
 Parise. A party of robbers (which appears not to have been a specially 
 disreputable avocation among the Hungarians of the romance) are 
 employed, first to seduce the youth to Ci the chess and the dice," and 
 afterwards to lead him against his will to a thieving expedition, the 
 object of which was to rob the treasury of the king, his godfather. 
 They made a great hole in the wall, and thrust Hugues through it. 
 The youth beheld the heaps of gold and silver with astonishment, but, re- 
 solving to touch none of the wealth he saw around him, his eyes fell upon 
 a coffer on which lay three dice, " made and pointed in fine ivory " — 
 
230 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 Garde sor i. escrin, si a veil iij. dez, 
 Qui sont de fin yvoire et fait et pointure. 
 
 — Parise la Duchesse, p. 94. 
 
 Hugues seized the three dice, thrust them into his bosom, and, return- 
 ing through the breach in the wall, told the robbers that he had carried 
 away " the worth of four cities." When the robbers heard his explana- 
 tion, they at once concluded, from the taste he had displayed on this 
 occasion, that he was of gentle blood, and the king formed the same 
 opinion on the result of this trial. 
 
 During the period of which we are now speaking — the twelfth and 
 thirteenth centuries — the use of dice had spread itself from the highest 
 to the very lowest class of the population. In its simpler form, that of 
 the game' of hazard, in which the chance of each player rested on the 
 mere throw of the dice, it was the common game of the low frequenters 
 of the taverns, — that class which lived upon the vices of society, and 
 which was hardly looked upon as belonging to society itself. The 
 
 Mediaeval Gamblers. 
 
 practice and results of gambling are frequently referred to in the popular 
 writers of the later Middle Ages. People could no longer stake their 
 personal liberty on the throw, but they played for everything they had 
 — even for the clothes they carried upon them, on which the tavern- 
 keepers, who seem to have acted also as pawnbrokers, readily lent 
 small sums of money. We often read of men who got into the 
 taverner's hands, playing as well as drinking themselves naked ; and in 
 a well-known manuscript of the beginning of the fourteenth century 
 (MS. Reg. 2 B. vii. fol. 167, v°)we find an illumination which represents 
 this process very literally (cut No. 159). One, who is evidently the 
 more aged ot the two players, is already perfectly naked, whilst the 
 other is reduced to his shirt. The illuminator appears to have intended 
 
DICE-PLA YING. 
 
 231 
 
 to represent them as playing against each other till neither had anything 
 left, like the two celebrated cats of Kilkenny, who ate one another up 
 until nothing remained but their tails. 
 
 A burlesque parody on the Church Service, written in Latin, perhaps 
 as early as the thirteenth century, and printed in the " Reliquiae 
 Antiquae," gives us rather a curious picture of tavern manners at that 
 early period. The document is profane, — much more so than any of 
 the parodies for which Hone was prosecuted ; 
 but it is only a moderate example of the general 
 laxness in this respect which prevailed, even 
 among the clergy, in what have been called 
 " the ages of faith." This is entitled " The 
 Mass of the Drunkards," and contains a run- 
 ning allusion to the throwing of the three dice, 
 and to the loss of clothing which followed ; but 
 it is full of Latin puns on words of the Church 
 Service, and the greater part of it would not 
 bear a translation. 
 
 It will have been already remarked that, in 
 all these anecdotes and stories, the ordinary 
 
 number of the dice is three. This appears to have been the number used 
 in most of the common games. In our cut No. 1 60, taken from the illumi- 
 nation in a copy of Jean de Vignay's translation of " Jacobus de Ces- 
 solis " (MS. Reg. 19 C. xi.) the dice-player appears to hold but two dice 
 in his hand; but this is to be laid solely to the charge of the draughtsman's 
 want of skill, as the text tells us distinctly that he has three. We learn also 
 from the text, that in the jug he holds in his right hand he carries his 
 money, a late example of the use of earthen vessels for this purpose. 
 Two dice were, however, sometimes used, especially in the game of 
 hazard, which appears to have been the great gambling game of the 
 Middle Ages. Chaucer, in the " Pardonere's Tale," describes the hazard- 
 ous as playing with two dice. But in the curious scene in the 
 "Towneley Mysteries" (p. 241), a work apparently contemporary with 
 Chaucer, the tormentors, or executioners, are introduced throwing for 
 Chiist's unseamed garment with three dice ; the winner throws fifteen 
 points, which could only be thrown with that number of dice. 
 
 No. 160. — A Dice-Player. 
 
232 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 It would not seem easy to give much ornamentation to the form of 
 dice without destroying their utility, yet this has been attempted at 
 various times, and not only in a very grotesque but in a similar manner 
 at very distant periods. This was done by giving the die the form of a 
 
 man, so doubled up, that when thrown 
 he fell in different positions, so as to 
 show the points uppermost, like an 
 ordinary die. The smaller example 
 represented in our cut No. 161 is 
 No. ^.-Ornamental Dice. Roman, and made of silver, and sev- 
 
 eral Roman dice of the same form are known. It is singular that the 
 same idea should have presented itself at a much later period, and, as 
 far as we can judge, without any room for supposing that it was by imi- 
 tation. Our second example, which is larger than the other, and carved 
 in box-wood, is of German work, and apparently as old as the beginning 
 of the sixteenth century. Both are now in the fine and extensive col- 
 lection of the late Lord Londesborough. 
 
 The simple throwing of the dice was rather an excitement than an 
 amusement ; and at an early period people sought the latter by a com- 
 bination of the dice-throwing with some other system of movements or 
 calculations. In this way, no doubt, originated the different games 
 enumerated by John of Salisbury, the most popular of which was that 
 of tables {tabula or tabulce). This game was in use among the Romans, 
 and was in all probability borrowed from them by the Anglo-Saxons, 
 among whom it was in great favour, and who called the game tcefel 
 (evidently a mere adoption of the Latin name), and the dice teoselas 
 and tcefel-stanas. The former evidently represents the Latin tessellce, 
 little cubes ; and the latter seems to show that the Anglo-Saxon dice 
 were usually made of stones. At a later period, the game of tables, 
 used nearly always in the plural, is continually mentioned along with 
 chess, as the two most fashionable and aristocratic games in use. An 
 early and richly illuminated manuscript in the British Museum — per- 
 haps of the beginning of the fourteenth century (MS. Harl. No. 1257) 
 — -furnishes us with the figures of players at tables represented in 
 our cut No. 162. The table, or board, with bars or points, is here 
 clearly delineated, and we see that the players use both dice and 
 
BACKGAMMON. 
 
 '33 
 
 men, or pieces— the latter round discs, like our modern draughts- 
 men. In another manuscript, belonging to a rather later period 
 of the fourteenth century (MS. Reg. 13 A. xviii. fol. 157, v°), we 
 have a diagram which shows the board as composed of two tables, 
 represented in our cut No. 163. It was probably this construc- 
 tion which caused the name to be used in the plural; and as the 
 Anglo-Saxons always used the 
 name in the singular, as is the 
 case also with John of Salisbury 
 in the twelfth century, while the 
 plural is always used by the / \A1 \ A !3> ^ 
 writers of a later date, we seem 
 justified in concluding that the 
 board used by the Anglo-Saxons " 
 and Anglo-Normans consisted of 
 one table, like that represented in our cut No. 162, and that this was 
 afterwards superseded by the double board. It is hardly necessary to 
 
 No. 162. — A Party at Tables. 
 
 vWxA/V 
 
 /wvw 
 
 \AAAAAy 
 /WVW 
 
 No. 163. — A Table-Board (Backgammon) of the Fourteenth Century. 
 
 point out to our readers that these two pictures of the boards show us 
 clearly that the mediaeval game of tables was identical with our modern 
 backgammon, or rather, we should perhaps say, that the game of back- 
 gammon, as now played, is one of the games played on the tables. 
 In the manuscript last quoted (MS. Reg. 13 A. xviii.) the figure of the 
 
234 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 board is given to illustrate a very curious treatise on the game of tables, 
 written in Latin, in the fourteenth, or even perhaps in the thirteenth 
 century. The writer begins by informing us, that " there are many 
 games at tables with dice, of which the first is the long game, and is 
 the game of the English, and it is common, and played as follows " 
 (multi sunt Indi ad tabulas cttm taxillis, quorum primus est longus Indus, et 
 est ludus Anglicorum, et est communis, et est talis natures), meaning, I 
 presume, that it was the game usually played in England. From the 
 directions given for playing it, this game seems to have had a close 
 general resemblance to backgammon. The writer of the treatise says 
 that it was played with three dice, or with two dice, in which latter case 
 they counted six at each throw for the third dice. In some of the other 
 games described here, two dice only were used. We learn from this 
 treatise the English terms for two modes of winning at the " long game" 
 of tables — the one being called " lympoldyng," the other " lurchyng ; " 
 and a person losing by the former was said to be " lympolded." The 
 writer of this tract gives directions for playing at several other games of 
 tables, and names some of them — such as " paume carie," the Lombard's 
 game (Indus Lombardoruni), the " imperial," the " provincial," " baralie," 
 and " faylys." 
 
 . This game continued long to exist in England under its old name of 
 tables. Thus Shakespeare : — 
 
 This is the ape of form, monsieur the nice, 
 That, when he plays at tables, chides the dice. 
 
 - — Love 's Labour Lost, Act v. Sc. 2. 
 
 The game appears at this time to have been a favourite one in the 
 taverns and ordinaries. Thus, in a satirical tract in verse, printed in 
 1600, we are told of — 
 
 An honest vicker, and a kind consort, 
 That to the alehouse friendly would resort, 
 To have a game at tables now and than, 
 Or drinke his pot as soone as any man. 
 
 — Letting of Humours Blood, 1600. 
 
 And one of the most popular of the satirical writers of that period, 
 Dekker, in his " Lanthorne and Candle-Light," printed in 1620, says, 
 punningly, — " And knowing that your most selected gallants are the 
 
DRAUGHTS. 
 
 235 
 
 onelye table-men that are plaid withal at ordinaries, into an ordinarye did 
 he most gentleman-like convay himselfe in state." We learn from 
 another tract of the same author, the " Gul's Hornbooke," that the table- 
 men at this time were usually painted. 
 
 We hardly perceive how the name of tables disappeared. It seems 
 probable that at this time the game of tables meant simply what we now 
 call backgammon, a word the oldest mention of which, so far as I have 
 been able to discover, occurs in Howell's "Familiar Letters," first printed 
 in 1646. It is there written baggamon. In the " Compleat Gamester," 
 1674, backgammon and ticktack occur as two distinct games at what 
 would have formerly been called tables ; and another similar game was 
 called Irish. Curiously enough, in the earlier part of the last century the 
 game of backgammon was most celebrated as a favourite game among 
 country parsons. 
 
 No. 164. — A Game at Draughts. 
 
 Another game existing in the Middle Ages, but much more rarely 
 alluded to, was called dames, or ladies, and has still preserved that name 
 in French. In English, it was changed for that of draughts, derived no 
 doubt from the circumstance of drawing the men from one square to 
 another. Our cut No. 164, taken from a manuscript in the British 
 Museum of the beginning of the fourteenth century, known commonly 
 as Queen Mary's Psalter (MS. Reg. 2 B. vii.), represents a lady and 
 gentlemen playing at dames, or draughts, differing only from the 
 character of the game at the present day in the circumstance that the 
 draughtsmen are evidently square. 
 
236 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 The mediaeval games were gradually superseded by a new contriv- 
 ance, that of playing-cards, which were introduced into Western 
 Europe in the course of the fourteenth century. It has been suggested 
 that the idea of playing-cards was taken from chess — in fact, that they 
 are the game of chess transferred to paper, and without a board, 
 and they are generally understood to have been derived from the 
 East. Cards, while they possessed some of the characteristics of chess, 
 presented the same mixture of chance and skill which distinguished the 
 game of tables. An Italian writer, probably of the latter part of the 
 fifteenth century, named Cavelluzzo, author of a history of " Viterbo," 
 
 No. 165. — Cards in the Fourteenth Century. 
 
 states that "in the year 1379 was brought into Viterbo the game of 
 cards, which comes from the country of the Saracens, and is with them 
 called naib." Cards are still in Spanish called naipes, which is said to 
 be derived from the Arabic : but they were certainly known in the West 
 of Europe before the date given by Cavelluzzo. Our cut No. 165 is 
 taken from a very fine manuscript of the romance of " Meliadus," in the 
 British Museum (MS. Addit. 12,228, fol. 313, v°), which was written 
 apparently in the south of France between the years 1330 and 1350; 
 it represents a royal party playing at cards, which was therefore con- 
 
THE GAME OF CARDS. 
 
 237 
 
 sidered at that time as the amusement of the highest classes of society. 
 They are, however, first distinctly alluded to in history in the year 1393. 
 In that year Charles VI. of France was labouring under a visitation of 
 insanity; and we find in the accounts of his treasurer, Charles Poupart, 
 an entry to the following effect : — " Given to Jacquemin Gringonneur, 
 painter, for three packs of cards, gilt and diversely coloured, and orna- 
 mented with several devices, to deliver to the lord the king for his 
 amusement, fifty-six sols of Paris." It is clear from this entry that the 
 game of cards was then tolerably well known in France, and that it was 
 by no means new, though it was evidently not a common game, and the 
 
 No. 166. — Cards in the Fifteenth Century. 
 
 cards had to be made by a painter — that is, as I suppose, an illumina- 
 tor of manuscripts. We find as yet no allusion to them in England ; 
 and it is remarkable that neither Chaucer, nor any of the numerous 
 writers of his and the following age, ever speak of them. An illumin- 
 ated manuscript of apparently the earlier part of the fifteenth century, 
 perhaps of Flemish workmanship (it contains a copy of Raoul de 
 Presle's French translation of St Augustine's " Civitas Dei "), presents 
 us with another card-party, which we give in our cut No. 166. Three 
 persons are here engaged in the game, two of whom are ladies. After 
 the date at which three packs of cards were made for the amusement of 
 
238 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 the lunatic king, the game of cards seems soon to have become common 
 in France ; for less than four years later — on the 226" of January 1397 — 
 the Provost of Paris considered it necessary to publish an edict, forbid- 
 ding working people to play at tennis, bowls, dice, cards, or ninepins, 
 on working days. By one of the acts of the Synod of Langres, in 1404, 
 the clergy were expressly forbidden to play at cards. These had now 
 made their way into Germany, and had become so popular there, that 
 early in the fifteenth century card-making had become a regular trade. 
 
 In England, in the third year of the reign of Edward IV. (1463), the 
 importation of playing-cards, probably from Germany, was forbidden, 
 among other things, by act of parliament ; and as that act is understood 
 to have been called for by the English manufacturers, who suffered by 
 the foreign trade, it can hardly be doubted that cards were then manufac- 
 tured in England on a rather extensive scale. Cards had then, indeed, 
 evidently become very popular in England; and only twenty years after- 
 wards they are spoken of as the common Christmas game, for Margery 
 Paston wrote as follows to her husband, John Paston, on the 24th of De- 
 cember in 1483 : — " Please it you to weet (know) that I sent your eldest 
 son John to my Lady Morley, to have knowledge of what sports were used 
 in her house in the Christmas next following after the decease of my 
 lord her husband ; and she said that there were none disguisings, nor 
 harpings, nor luting, nor singing, nor none loud disports, but playing at 
 the tables, and the chess, and cards — such disports she gave her folks 
 
 leave to play, and none other I sent your younger son to the 
 
 Lady Stapleton, and she said according to my Lady Morley's saying in 
 that, and as she had seen used in places of worship {gentlemen 's houses) 
 there as she had been." 
 
 From this time the mention of cards becomes frequent. They formed 
 the common amusement in the courts of England and Scotland under 
 the reigns of Henry VII. and James IV. ; and it is recorded that when 
 the latter monarch paid his first visit to his affianced bride, the young 
 Princess Margaret of England, "he founde the quene playing at the 
 cardes." 
 
 / It must not be forgotten that it is partly to the use of playing-cards 
 
 'that we owe the invention which has been justly regarded as one of the 
 
 greatest benefits granted to mankind. The first cards, as we have seen, 
 
THE ORIGIN OF PRINTING. 239 
 
 were painted with the hand. They were subsequently made more 
 rapidly by a process called stencilling — that is, by cutting the rude 
 forms through a piece of pasteboard, parchment, or thin metal, which, 
 placed on the cardboard intended to receive the impression, was brushed 
 over with ink or colour, which passed through the lines cut out, and 
 imparted the figure to the material beneath. A further improvement 
 was made by cutting the figures on blocks of wood, and literally printing 
 them on the cards. These card-blocks are supposed to have given the 
 first idea of wood-engraving. When people saw the effects of cutting 
 the figures of the cards upon blocks, they began to cut figures of saints 
 on blocks in the same manner, and then applied the method to other 
 subjects, cutting in like manner the few words of necessary explanation. 
 This practice further expanded itself into what are called block-books, 
 consisting of pictorial subjects, with copious explanatory text. Some 
 one at length hit upon the idea of cutting the pages of a regular book 
 on so many blocks of wood, and taking impressions on paper or 
 vellum, instead of writing the manuscript ; and this plan was soon 
 further improved by cutting letters or words on separate pieces of wood, 
 and setting them up together to form pages. The wood was subse- 
 quently superseded by metal. And thus originated the noble art of 
 Printing. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Domestic Amusements after Dinner. — The Chamber and its Furniture. — 
 Pet Animals. — Occupations and Manners of the Ladies. — Supper. — 
 Candles, Lamps, and Lanterns. 
 
 WHEN the dinner was over, and hands washed, a drink was served 
 round, and then the ladies left the table, and went to their , 
 chambers or to the garden or fields, to seek their own amusements, 
 which consisted frequently of dancing, in which they were often joined 
 by the younger of the male portion of the household, while the others 
 remained drinking. They seem often to have gone to drink in another 
 apartment, or secondary hall, perhaps in the parlour. In the romance of 
 " La Violette " (p. 159), we read of the father of a family going to sleep 
 after dinner. In the same romance (p. 152), the young ladies and 
 gentlemen of a noble household are described as spreading themselves 
 over the castle, to amuse themselves, attended by minstrels with music. 
 From other romances we find that this amusement consisted often in 
 dancing, and that the ladies sometimes sang for themselves, instead of 
 having minstrels, We find these amusements alluded to in the fabliaux 
 and romances of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. In one of 
 the fabliaux, a knight having been received hospitably at a feudal 
 castle, after dinner they wash, and drink round, and then they go to 
 dance — 
 
 Ses mains 
 Lava, et puis 1' autre gent toute, 
 Et puis se burent tout a. route, 
 Et por l'amor dou chevalier 
 Se vont trestuit apparillier 
 De faire karoles et dances. 
 
 In the early English romance of " Sir Degrevant," after dinner the ladies 
 
AFTER-DINNER AMUSEMENTS. 241 
 
 go to their chambers to arrange themselves, and then some proceed to 
 amuse themselves in the garden — 
 
 When the lordys were drawin (withdrawn), 
 Ladyes rysen, was not to leyn, 
 And wentten to chaumbur ageyne, 
 
 Anon thei hom dythus (dight) ; 
 Dame Mildore and hyr may (maid) 
 Went to the orcherd to play. 
 
 In the romance ot "Lanfal" we have the same circumstance of dancing 
 after dinner : — 
 
 And after mete Syr Gaweyn, 
 Sir Gyeryes and Agrafayn, 
 
 And Syr Launfal also, 
 Went to daunce upon the grene, 
 Unther the tour ther lay the quene, 
 Wyth syxty ladyes and mo. 
 
 They hadde menstrayles (minstrels) of moch, honours, 
 Fydelers, sytolyrs, and trompours, 
 
 And elles hyt were unryght ;. 
 Ther they playde, for sothe to say, 
 After mete the somerys day, 
 
 All what (till) hyt was neygh nyght. 
 
 It was only on extraordinary occasions, however, that the dancing or 
 walking in the garden continued all day. In the romance of " Blonde 
 of Oxford," the dinner-party quit the table to wander in the fields and 
 forests round the castle, and the young hero of the story, on their return 
 thence, goes to play in the chambers with the ladies : — ■ 
 
 Apres manger lavent leurs mains, 
 Puis s'en vont juer, qui ains ains, 
 Ou en fores ou en rivieres, 
 Ou en deduis d'autres manieres. 
 Jehans au quel que il veut va, 
 Et quant il revent souvant va 
 Jouer es chambres la contesse 
 O les dames. 
 
 There were two classes of dances in the Middle Ages — the domestic 
 dances, and the dances of the jougleurs or minstrels. After the first 
 Crusades, the Western jougleurs had adopted many of the practices of 
 their brethren in the East, and among others it is evident from many allu- 
 sions in old writers that they had brought westward that of the " almehs," 
 
24: 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 or Eastern dancing-girls. These dances formed, like the vulgar fabliaux, 
 a part of the jougleur's budget of representations, and were mostly, like 
 those, gross and indecent. The other class of dances was of a simpler 
 character, — the domestic dances, which consisted chiefly of the carole, 
 in which ladies and gentlemen alternately held by each other's hands 
 and danced in a circle. This mode of dance prevailed so generally, 
 that the word carole became used as a general term for a dance, and 
 caroler, to carole, was equivalent with to dance. The accompanying cut 
 (No. 167), taken from a manuscript of the "Roman de Tristan," of the 
 
 
 No. 167. — Dancing the Carole. 
 
 fourteenth century, in the National Library at Paris (No. 6956), repre- 
 sents a party dancing the carole to the music of pipe and tabor. A 
 dance of another description is represented in our next cut (No. 168), 
 taken from a manuscript in the British Museum (MS. Reg. 2 B. vii. fol. 
 174), also of the fourteenth century. Here the minstrels themselves 
 appear to be joining in the saltitation which they inspire. It is a good 
 illustration of the scene described from the romance of " La Violette." 
 On festive occasions this dancing often continued till supper-time. 
 
 Other quieter games were pursued in the chambers. Among these 
 the most dignified was chess, after which came tables, draughts, and, in 
 the fourteenth century, cards. Sometimes, as described in the preced- 
 ing chapter, they played at sedentary games, such as chess and tables ; 
 or at diversions of a still more frolicsome character. These latter seem 
 to have been most in vogue in the evening after supper. The author 
 
IN-DOOR AMUSEMENTS. 
 
 243 
 
 of the " Menagier de Paris," written about the year 1393 (torn. i. p. 71), 
 describes the ladies as playing, in an evening, at games named brie, and 
 quiferyl (who struck?), and pince merille, and tiers, and others. The 
 first of these games is mentioned about a century and a half earlier by 
 the trouvere Rutebeuf, and by other mediaeval writers ; but all we seem 
 
 No. 168. — A Mediaeval Dance. 
 
 to know of it is, that the players were seated, apparently on the ground, 
 and that one of them was furnished with a rod or stick. We know less 
 still oi pince merille. Qui fery 1 is evidently the game which was, at a 
 later period, called hot-cockles ; and tiers is understood to be the game 
 now called blindman's buff. These, and other games, are not unfre- 
 quently represented in the fanciful drawings in the margins of mediaeval 
 
 No. 169. — The Game of Hoodman-blind. 
 
 illuminated manuscripts ; but as no names or descriptions are given 
 with these drawings, it is often very difficult to identify them. Our cut 
 No. 169, which is given by Strutt, from a manuscript in the Bodleian 
 Library at Oxford, is one of several subjects representing the game of 
 blindman's buff, or, as it was formerly called in England, hoodman-blind, 
 
244 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 because the person blinded had his eyes covered with a hood. It is 
 
 here played by females, but, in other illuminations, or drawings, the 
 
 players are boys or men — the latter plainly indicated by their beards. 
 
 The word hoodman-blind is not found at an earlier period than the 
 
 Elizabethan age, yet this name, from its allusion to the costume, was 
 
 evidently older. A personage in Skakespeare (Hamlet, Act iii. 
 
 Scene 4) asks — 
 
 What devil was 't 
 That thus hath cozen'd you at hoodman-blind ' ? 
 
 Hot-cockles seems formerly to have been a very favourite game. One 
 
 No. 170. — A Game at Hot-cockles. 
 
 of the players was blindfolded, and knelt down, with his face generally 
 
 No. 171. — Shepherds and Shepherdesses. 
 
 on the knee of another, and his hand held out flat behind him ; the other 
 players in turn struck him on the hand, and he was obliged to guess at 
 
THE GAME OF HOT-COCKLES. 245 
 
 the name of the striker, who, if he guessed right, was compelled to take 
 his place. A part of the joke appears to have consisted in the hard- 
 ness of the blow. Our cut No. 170, from the Bodleian manuscript 
 (which was written in 1344), is evidently intended to represent a 
 party of females playing at hot-cockles, though the damsel who plays 
 the principal part is not blindfolded, and she is touched on the back, 
 and not on the hand. Our next cut (No. 171), which represents a party 
 of shepherds and shepherdesses engaged in the same game, is taken 
 from a piece of Flemish tapestry, of the fifteenth century, which is 
 to be seen in the South Kensington Museum. Allusions to this 
 game are found in the writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth cen- 
 turies. Among the " commendatory verses " to the second edition of 
 " Gondibert " (by William Davenant), printed in 1653, is the following 
 rather curious piece of wit, which explains itself, and is, at the same 
 time, an extremely good description of this game : — ■ 
 
 THE POET'S HOT-COCKLES. 
 
 Thus poets, passing time away, 
 
 Like children at hot-cockles play ; 
 
 All strike by turn, and Will is strook 
 
 (And he lies down that writes a book). 
 
 Have at thee, Will, for now I come, 
 
 Spread thy hand faire upon thy bomb ; 
 
 For thy much insolence, bold bard, 
 
 And little sense I strike thus hard. 
 
 " Whose hand was that ? " " 'Twas Jaspar Mayne." 
 
 " Nay, there you're out ; lie down again." 
 
 With Gondibert, prepare, and all 
 
 See where the doctor comes to maul 
 
 The author's hand, 'twill make him reel ; 
 
 No, Will lies still, and does not feel. 
 
 That book 's so light, 'tis all one whether 
 
 You strike with that or with a feather. 
 
 But room for one, new come to town, 
 
 That strikes so hard, he '11 knock him down, 
 
 The hand he knows, since it the place 
 
 Has touched more tender than his face ; 
 
 Important sheriff, now thou lyst down, 
 
 We '11 kiss thy hands, and clap our own. 
 
 The game of hot-cockles has only become obsolete in recent times, if 
 it be even now quite out of use. Most readers will remember the pas- 
 sage in Gay's " Pastorals : " — 
 
246 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 As at hot-cockles once I laid me down, 
 And felt the weighty hand of many a clown, 
 Buxoma gave a gentle tap, and I 
 Quick rose, and read soft mischief in her eye. 
 
 This passage is aptly illustrated by the cut from the tapestry. The 
 same Bodleian manuscript gives us a playful group, reproduced in our 
 cut No. 172, which Strutt believes to be the game called, in more 
 modern times, " frog-in-the-middle." One of the party, who played 
 frog, sat on the ground, while his, or her, comrades surrounded and 
 buffeted him, until he could catch and hold one of them, who then had 
 to take his place. In our cut, the players are females. 
 
 Games of questions and commands, and of forfeits, were also com- 
 
 -^3 
 
 No. 172. — The Game of Frog-in-the-middle. 
 
 mon in mediaeval society. Among the poems of Baudouin and Jean 
 de Conde (poets of the thirteenth century), we have a description of a 
 game of this kind. " One time," we are told, " they were at play among 
 ladies and damsels : there were among them both clever and hand- 
 some ; they took up many games, until, at last, they elected a queen to 
 play at roy-qui-ne-ment (the king who does not lie) ; she, whom they 
 chose, was clever at commands and at questions : " — 
 
 Une foi ierent en dosnoi 
 
 Entre dames et damoiselles ; 
 
 De cointes i ot et de belles. 
 
 De plusieurs deduits s'entremish-ent, 
 
 Et tant c'une royne fistrent 
 
 Pour jouer au roy-qui-ne-ment. 
 
 Ele s'en savoit fmement 
 
 Entremettre de commander 
 
 Et de demandes demander. 
 
 — Barbazan, Fabliaux, torn. i. p. 1 00. 
 
THE GAME OF RAGMAN'S ROLL. 247 
 
 The aim of the questions was, of course, to provoke answers which 
 would excite mirth ; and the sequel of the story shows the great want 
 of delicacy which prevailed in mediaeval society. Another sort of 
 amusement was furnished by what may be called games of chance ; in 
 which the players, in turn, drew a character at hazard. These charac- 
 ters were generally written in verse, in burlesque and often very coarse 
 language, and several sets of them have been preserved in old manu- 
 scripts. They consist of a series of alternate good and bad characters, 
 sometimes only designed for females, but at others for women and men : 
 two of these sets (printed in my " Anecdota Literaria ") were written in 
 England ; one, of the thirteenth century, in Anglo-Norman, the other, 
 of the fifteenth century, in English. From these we learn that the 
 game, in England, was called Rageman, or Ragman, and that the verses, 
 describing the characters, were written on a roll called Ragman's 
 Roll, and had strings attached to them, by which each person drew 
 his or her chance. The English set has a short preface, in which the 
 author addresses himself to the ladies, for whose special use it was 
 compiled : — 
 
 My ladyes and my maistresses echone, 
 Lyke hit unto your humbylle wommanhede 
 Resave in gre {good part) of my sympille persone, 
 This rolle, which withouten any drede', 
 Kynge Ragman me bad mesoure in brede. 
 And cristyned yt the meroure of your chaunce ; 
 Draweth a strynge, and that shal streight yow leyde 
 Unto the verry path of your governaunce— 
 
 i.e., it will tell you exactly how you behave yourself, what is your 
 character. This game is alluded to by the poet Gower in the " Con- 
 fessio Amantis : " — 
 
 Venus, whiche stant withoute lawe, \ 
 
 In non certeyne, but as men drawe 
 
 Of Ragemon upon the chaunce, 
 
 Sche leyeth no peys {weight) in the balaunce. 
 
 The ragman's roll, when rolled up for use, would present a confused 
 mass of strings hanging from it, probably with bits of wax at the end, 
 from which the drawer had to select one. This game possesses a 
 peculiar historical interest. When the Scottish nobles and chieftains 
 acknowledged their dependence on the English crown in the reign of 
 
248 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 Edward I., the deed by which they made this acknowledgment, having 
 all their seals hung to it, presented, when rolled up, much the appearance 
 of the roll used in this game ; and hence, no doubt, they gave it in de- 
 rision the name of the Ragman's Roll. Afterwards it became the custom 
 to call anyroll with many signatures, or any long catalogue, the various 
 headlings of which were perhaps marked by strings, by the same name. 
 This game of chance or fortune was continued, under other names, to a late 
 period. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the burlesque charac- 
 ters were often inscribed on the back of roundels, which were no doubt 
 dealt round to the company like cards, with the inscribed side downwards. 
 -Sometimes the ladies and young men indulged within doors in more 
 active games — among which we may mention especially different games 
 with the ball, and also, perhaps, the whipping-top. We learn from 
 many sources that hand-ball was from a very early period a favourite 
 -recreation with the youth of both sexes. It 
 is a subject not unfrequently met with in the 
 marginal drawings of mediseval manuscripts. 
 The annexed example (cut No. 173), from 
 MS. Harl. No. 6563, represents apparently 
 two ladies playing with a ball. In other in- 
 stances, a lady and a gentleman are similarly 
 tL. occupied. Our cut No. 174 is taken from 
 
 No. 173 — Bait-Playing. 
 
 one of the carvings of the miserere seats in 
 Gloucester Cathedral. The long tails of the 
 hoods belong to the costume of the latter part of the fourteenth century. 
 
 No. 174. — A Game at Ball. 
 
 The whipping-top was also a plaything of considerable antiquity ; I 
 
GAMES OF YOUNG PEOPLE. 
 
 249 
 
 think it may be traced to the Anglo-Saxon period. Our cut No. 175 is 
 taken from one of the marginal drawings of a well-known manuscript in 
 the British Museum (MS. Reg. 2 B. vii.) of the beginning of the four- 
 teenth century. It may be remarked that the knots on the lashes merely 
 mark a conventional manner of representing a whip, for every boy 
 knows that a knotted whip would not do for a top. Mediaeval art was 
 full of such conventionalities. 
 
 Most of these recreations of young people in the Middle Ages were 
 gradually left to a still younger age, and became children's games, and 
 of these the margins of the illuminated manuscripts furnish abundant 
 examples. One of these (taken from the margin of the Royal MS., 10 
 
 No. 175 — Whipping-Top. 
 
 E. iv., of the fourteenth century) will be sufficient for the present 
 occasion. A favourite game, during at least the later periods of the 
 Middle Ages, was that which is now called nine-pins. The French gave 
 it the name of quiiles, which in our language was corrupted into keyles 
 
 No. 176. — The Game of Kay-les. 
 
 and kayles. The lad in our cut (No. 176) is not, as at present, bowling 
 at the pins, but throwing with a stick, a form of the game which was 
 called in French the jeic de quilles a baston, and in English club-kayles. 
 
! 5 o THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 Money was apparently played for, and the game was looked upon as 
 belonging to the same class as hazard. In a series of metrical counsels 
 to apprentices, compiled in the fifteenth century, and printed in the 
 "Reliquiae Antiquae," ii. 223, they are recommended to — 
 
 Exchewe allewey eville company, 
 Caylys, carding, and haserdy. 
 
 When no gaiety was going on, the ladies of the household were em- 
 ployed in occupations of a more useful description, among which the 
 principal were spinning, weaving, knitting, embroidering, and sewing. 
 Almost everything of this kind was done at home at the period of which 
 we are now speaking, and equally in the feudal castle or manor, and in 
 the house of the substantial burgher, the female part of the family spent 
 a great part of their time in different kinds of work in the chambers of 
 the lady of the household. Such work is alluded to in mediaeval writers. 
 from time to time, and we find it represented in illuminated manuscripts, 
 but not so frequently as some of the other domestic scenes. In the 
 romance of the " Death of Garin le Loherain," when the Count Fromont 
 visited the chamber of fair Beatrice, he found her occupied in sewing a 
 very beautiful chainsil, or petticoat : — 
 
 Vint en la chambre a. la Beatriz ; 
 Ele cosoit un molt riche chainsil. 
 
 — Mori de Garin, p. 10. 
 
 In the romance of " La Violette," the daughter of the burgher, in whose 
 house the Count Girard is lodged, is described as being " one day seated 
 in her father's chambers working a stole and amice in silk and gold, very 
 skilfully, and she made in it, with care, many a little cross and many a 
 star, singing all the while a chanson-a-toile" meaning, it is supposed, a 
 song composed for the purpose of being sung by ladies when weaving, 
 to an air which suited their movements : — 
 
 I. jor sist es chambres son pere, 
 
 Une estole et i. amit pere 
 
 De soie et d'or molt soutilment ; 
 
 Si i. fait ententevement 
 
 Mainte croisete et mainte estoile, 
 
 Et dist ceste chanchon a toile. 
 
 — Roman de la Violette, p. 1 13- 
 
OCCUPATIONS OF THE LADIES. 
 
 251 
 
 In one of Rutebeuf's fabliaux, a woman makes excuse for being up late 
 
 at night that she was anxious to finish a piece of linen cloth she was 
 
 weaving : — ■ 
 
 Sire, fet-elle, il me faut traimer 
 A une toile que je fais. 
 
 And in another fabliau, that of " Guillaume au Faucon," a young 
 
 No. 177. — Embroidery. 
 
 No. 178. — A Lady Carding 
 
 "bacheler" entering suddenly the chamber of the ladies, finds them all 
 occupied in embroidering a piece of silk with the ensigns of the lord of 
 the castle. Embroidery, indeed, was a favourite occupation : a lady 
 
 No. 179. — A Lady Spinning. 
 
 thus employed is represented in our cut No. 177, taken from a richly 
 illuminated manuscript of the fourteenth century, in the British Museum 
 (MS. Reg. 2 B. vii.) The ladies, too, not only made up the cloths into 
 dresses and articles of other kinds, but they were extensively employed 
 in the various processes of making the cloth itself. Our cut No. 178, 
 
25: 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 taken from a manuscript of about the same period (MS. Reg. 10 E. iv.), 
 represents the process of carding the wool ; and the 
 same manuscript furnishes us with another cut (No. 
 179), in which a lady appears in the employment 
 of spinning it into yarn. Spinning was supposed 
 to have been the original occupation of the female 
 sex. It was a favourite proverb among the English 
 popular insurgents in the fourteenth and fifteenth 
 centuries : — 
 
 No. 180.— The Three' Fates. 
 
 When Adam dalve, and Eve span, 
 Who was then the gentleman ? 
 
 And, as I have before remarked, we find the ladies thus employed in 
 the illuminated manuscripts of various periods. This appears, indeed, 
 to have been looked upon so generally as the natural occupation of 
 unmarried females, that they have received from it the legal denomina- 
 tion of spinstei's. Our next cut (No. 1 80), taken from an illtfmination 
 in an early French translation of the Metamorphoses of Ovid (in the 
 National Library, MS. 6986), represents three ladies (intended for the 
 three Fates) employed in these domestic occupations, and will give us 
 a notion of the implements they used. 
 
 Domestic animals, particularly dogs and birds, were favourite com- 
 panions of the ladies in their chambers. A favourite falcon had 
 frequently its "perche" in a corner of the chamber; and in the 
 illuminations we sometimes see the lady seated with the bird on her 
 wrist. Birds in cages are also not unfrequently alluded to through the 
 thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. In the romance of " La Violette " 
 a tame lark plays rather an important part in the story. Our cut No. 
 18 r, where we see two birds in a cage together, and which is curious for 
 the form of the cage, is given by Willemin from a manuscript of the 
 fourteenth century at Paris. The hawk, though usually kept only for 
 hunting, sometimes became a pet, and persons carried their hawks on the 
 fist even in social parties within doors. The jay is spoken of as a cage- 
 bird. The parrot under the name of papejay, popinjay, or papingay, is 
 also often spoken of during the Middle Ages, although, in all probability, 
 it was very rare. The favourite talking-bird was the pie, or magpie, 
 which often plays a very remarkable part in mediaeval stories. The 
 
THE TELL-TALE MAGPIE. 
 
 = 53 
 
 No. 181. — Birds Encaged. 
 
 aptness of this bird for imitation led to an exaggerated estimate of its 
 powers, and it is frequently made to give information to the husband 
 of the weaknesses of his wife. Several mediaeval stories turn upon this 
 supposed quality. The good Chevalier de la Tour-Landry, in his book 
 of counsels to his daughters, composed in the second half of the four- 
 teenth century, tells a story of a magpie 
 as a warning of the danger of indulging 
 in gluttony. " I will tell you," he says, 
 " a story in regard to women who eat 
 dainty morsels in the absence of their 
 lords. There was a lady who had a pie 
 in a cage, which talked of everything 
 which it saw done. Now it happened 
 that the lord of the household preserved 
 a large eel in a pond, and kept it very 
 carefully,- in order to give it to some of 
 his lords or of his friends, in case they 
 should visit him. So it happened that 
 the lady said to her female attendant that it would be good to eat 
 the great eel, and accordingly they eat it, and agreed that they would 
 tell their lord that the otter had eaten it. And when the Lord returned, 
 the pie began to say to him, ' My lord, my lady has eaten the eel.' 
 Then the lord went to his pond, and missed his eel ; and he went into 
 the house, and asked his wife what had become of it. She thought to 
 excuse herself easily, but he said that he knew all about it, and that the 
 pie had told him. The result was that there was great quarrelling and 
 trouble in the house ; but when the Lord was gone away, the lady and 
 her female attendant Went to the pie, and plucked all the feathers from 
 his head, saying, ' You told about the eel.' And so the poor pie was 
 quite bald. But from that time forward, when it saw any people who 
 were bald or had large foreheads, the pie said to them, ' Ah ! you told 
 about the eel ! ' And this is a good example how no woman ought to eat 
 any choice morsel by gluttony without the knowledge of her lord, unless 
 it be to give it to people of honour ; for this lady was afterwards mocked 
 and jeered for eating the eel, through the pie which complained of it." 
 The reader will recognise in this the origin of a much more modern story. 
 
254 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 One of the stories in the celebrated mediaeval collection entitled 
 " The Seven Sages," also turns upon the talkative qualities of this bird. 
 There was a burgher who had a pie which, on being questioned, related 
 whatever it had seen, for it spoke uncommonly well the language of the 
 people. Now the burgher's wife was a good-for-nothing woman, and as 
 soon as her husband went from home about business, she sent for her 
 friend out of the town ; but the pie, which was a great favourite of the 
 burgher, told him all the goings on when he returned, and the husband 
 knew that it always spoke the truth. So he became acquainted with 
 his wife's conduct. One day the burgher went from home, and told his 
 wife he should not return that night, and she immediately sent for her 
 friend ; but he was afraid to enter, for " the pie was hung up in his 
 cage on a high perch in the middle of the porch of the house." En- 
 couraged, however, by the lady, the friend ventured in, and passed 
 through the hall to the chamber. The pie, which saw him pass, and 
 knew him well on account of some tricks he had played upon it, called 
 out, " Ah, sir ! you who are in the chamber there, why don't you pay 
 your visits when the master is at home ? " It said no more all the day, 
 but the lady set her wits to work for a stratagem to avert the danger. 
 So when night came, she called her chamber-maiden, and gave her a 
 great jug full of water, and a lighted candle, and a wooden mallet, and 
 about midnight the maiden mounted on the top of the house, and began 
 to beat with the mallet on the laths, and from time to time showed the 
 light through the crevices, and threw the water right down upon the pie 
 till the bird was wet all over. Next morning the husband came home, 
 and began to question his pie. " Sir," it said, " my lady's friend has been 
 here, and stayed all night, and is only just gone away. I saw him go." 
 Then the husband was very angry, and was going to quarrel with his 
 wife, but the pie went on — " Sir, it has thundered and lightned all night, 
 and the rain was so heavy that I have been wet through." " Nay," 
 said the husband, " it has been fine all night, without rain or storm." 
 " You see," said the crafty dame, " you see how much your bird is to 
 be believed. Why should you put more faith in him when he tells 
 tales about me, than when he talks so knowingly about the weather ? " 
 Then the burgher thought he had been deceived, and turning his wrath 
 upon the pie, drew it from the cage and twisted its neck ; but he had 
 
PET ANIMALS. 255 
 
 no sooner done so than, looking up, he saw how the laths had been 
 
 deranged. So he got a ladder, mounted on the roof, and discovered 
 
 the whole mystery. If, says the story, he had not been so hasty, the 
 
 life of his bird would have been saved. In the English version of this 
 
 series of tales, printed by Weber, the pie's cage is made to hang in the 
 
 hall :— 
 
 The burgeis hadde a pie in his halle, 
 That couthe telle tales alle 
 Apertlich {openly), in French langage, 
 And heng in a faire cage. 
 
 In the other English version, edited by the author of this work for the 
 Percy Society, the bird is said to have been, not a pie, but a " popynjay," 
 or parrot, and there are other variations in it which show that it had 
 been taken more directly from the Oriental original, in which, as might 
 be expected, the bird is a parrot. 
 
 Among the animals mentioned as pets we sometimes find monkeys. 
 One of the Latin stories in the collection printed by 
 the Percy Society, tells how a rustic, entering the 
 hall of a certain nobleman, seeing a monkey dressed 
 ' in the same suit as the nobleman's family, and sup- 
 posing, as its back was turned, that it was one of his 
 sons, began to address it with all suitable reverence ; 
 but when he saw that it was only a monkey chat- 
 tering at him, he exclaimed, " A curse upon you ! 
 I thought you had been Tenkin, my lord's son."* 
 
 b J J > J No _ l82 ._L a( jjr and Dog. 
 
 The favourite quadruped, however, has always been 
 
 the dog, of which several kinds are mentioned as lady's pets. Chaucer 
 
 tells us of his prioress, — 
 
 Of smale houndes hadde sche, that sche fedde 
 
 With rostud fleissh and mylk and wastel breed. — Cant. Tales. 1. 147. 
 
 Our cut No. 182, taken from a manuscript of the St Graal, in the British 
 
 * The Latin original of this story is so quaint that it deserves to be given ipsissimis 
 verbis. " De rustico et simia.—' Quidam aulam cujusdam nobilis intrans, vidensque 
 simiam de secta nliorum vestitum, quia dorsum ad eum habebat, filium credidit esse 
 domini, cui cum reverentia qua debuit loqueretur. Invenit esse simiam super eum 
 cachinnantem, cui ille, ' Maledicaris ! ' inquit, ' credidi quod fuisses Jankyn filius 
 domini mei.' " — Latin Stories, p. 122. 
 
256 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 Museum (MS. Addit. No. 10,293, f°l- 3 1 )* written in the thirteenth 
 century, represents a queen seated in conversation, with her dog in her 
 lap. The next cut (No. 183), from an illumination in the interesting 
 manuscript of the " Roman de Meliadus " in the British Museum (MS. 
 Addit. 12,228, fol. 310), belonging to the latter half of the fourteenth 
 century (the reign of our Edward III.), represents the interior of a 
 chamber, with two little dogs gambolling about. In the singular work 
 
 No. 1S3.— Interior of a Chamber. 
 
 on domestic economy, entitled the " Menagier de Paris," written about 
 the year 1393, the lady of the household is particularly recommended 
 to think of the " chamber beasts," such as little dogs, the " chamber 
 birds," &c, inasmuch as these creatures, not having the gift of speech, 
 could not ask for themselves.'"' I have printed in the "Reliquiae 
 Antiquse " a curious Anglo-French poem, of the beginning of the four- 
 teenth century, written as a satire on the ladies of the time, who were 
 too fond of their dogs, and fed them delicately, while the servants were 
 left to short commons (Reliq. Antiq. vol. i. p. 155). Cats are seldom 
 mentioned as pets, except of ill-famed old women. There was a pre- 
 
 * "Item, que par la dicte dame Agnes vous faciez principalment et diligemment pen- 
 ser de vos bestes de chambre, comme petis chiennes, oiselets de chambre ; et aussi la 
 beguine et vous pensez des autres oiseauls domesches, car ils ne pevent parler, et 
 pour ce vous devez parler et penser pour eulx, se vous en avez." — Menagier de Paris, 
 ii. 62. 
 
THE CHAMBER AND ITS FURNITURE. 
 
 257 
 
 judice against them in the Middle Ages, and they were joined in people's 
 imagination with witchcraft, and with other dia- 
 bolical agencies. The accompanying group of 
 an old lady and her cats (cut No. 184) is taken 
 from a carving on one of the misereres in the 
 church of Minster, in the Isle of Thanet. 
 Curiously enough, the English " Rule of Nuns," 
 of the earlier half of the thirteenth century, for- 
 bids the nuns to keep any " beast " but a cat. 
 
 The chamber was, as might be expected, 
 more comfortably furnished than the hall. The No. 184.— The Lady and her 
 
 Cats 
 
 walls were covered with curtains, or tapestry, 
 
 whence this apartment is frequently termed in the fabliaux and romances 
 the chambre encortinee. The story of a fabliau printed in my " Anecdota 
 Literaria " turns upon the facility with which a person might be con- 
 cealed behind the "curtains" of the chamber. Besides a bench or 
 stool to sit upon, there was usually a chair in the chamber. In the 
 fabliau of the " Bouchier d' Abbeville," the priest's lady, when she rises 
 out of bed to dress, is represented as placing herself in a chair — 
 
 En le caiere s'est assisse. 
 
 In the early English romance of " Horn," the lady, receiving a gentle- 
 man into her chamber, gives him a rich chair which would hold seven 
 people (of course one of the wide settles of which we have given several 
 examples in our illustrations), and which is covered, in true regal style, 
 with a baldekin : — 
 
 The miri maiden, also sone 
 
 As Hatherof into chamber come, 
 
 Sche wend (thought) that it were Horn ; 
 A riche cheir was undon, 
 That seiven might sit theron, 
 
 In swiche craft y-corn {chosen). 
 
 A baudekin theron was spred, 
 Thider the maiden hadde him led 
 
 To siten hir befoni, 
 Frout (fruit) and spices sche him bede, 
 Wine to drink, wite and rede, 
 
 Bothe of coppe and horn. 
 
258 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 The chamber was especially distinguished by its fireplace and chimney. 
 The form of the mediaeval fireplace is well-known from the numerous 
 examples still remaining in the chambers of our old castles and mansion- 
 houses. The fire was made on the hearth, upon iron dogs, which had 
 often very ornamental forms. The old romances frequently represent 
 people sitting round the chamber fireplace to hold private conversation. 
 It was here also that the heads of the family, or individual members of 
 it in their own chambers, assembled in the evening when no ceremonious 
 feasting was going on. In a story in the text of the " Seven Sages " 
 printed by Weber, a young married woman is described as sitting in the 
 evening with her lord by the chamber fireside, attended by their squire, 
 who stood before them, and playing with a dog — 
 
 The yonge levedi and hire lord 
 Sete an even by the fer (fire) ; 
 Bifore hem stood here sqmer. 
 
 The bichche lai in hire barm (in her bosom). 
 
 — Weber, iii. 71. 
 
 In " Gautier d'Aupais," when the young damsel sends for her mother, 
 her messenger finds the old lady sitting on a richly-worked counterpoint 
 by a coal fire (probably of charcoal) — 
 
 Sor une courtepointe ouvre d'auqueton 
 Trova seant la dame lez i. feu de charbon. 
 
 — Gautier d'Atipais, p. 25. 
 
 In the romance of " Sir Degrevant," when the lady Myldore has sent 
 for her lover to come privately to her chamber at night, she orders her 
 maiden to prepare a fire, and place fagots of fir-wood to keep it burn- 
 ing— 
 
 Damesel, loke ther be 
 
 A fuyre in the chymene ; 
 
 Fagattus of fyre-tre, 
 
 That fetchyd was yare (formerly). 
 
 — Thornton Romances, p. 234. 
 
 A board is placed on trestles to form a table, and a dainty supper is 
 served, which the lady carves for her lover, and she further treats him 
 with rich wines. In the romance of "Queen Berthe" (p. 102), three 
 persons, holding a secret consultation in the chamber of one of their 
 party, sit on carpets (sur les tafiis); but these were no doubt embroidered 
 
THE SUPPER. 259 
 
 cloths thrown over the seats. Floor-carpets were sometimes used in the 
 chambers, but this was uncommon, and they seem to have been more 
 usually, like the hall, strewn with rushes. It appears that sometimes, 
 as a refinement in gaiety, flowers were mixed with the rushes. In a 
 fabliau in Meon (i. 75), a lady who expects her lover, lights a fire in the 
 chamber, and spreads rushes and flowers on the floor — 
 
 Vient a l'ostel, lo feu esclaire, 
 Jons et flors espandre par l'aire. 
 
 There was an escrin, or cabinet, which stood against the wall, which was 
 often so large that a man might conceal himself behind it. The plot of 
 several mediaeval stories turns upon this circumstance. Chests and 
 coffers were also kept in the chamber; and it contained generally a 
 sm^ll table, or at least the board and trestles for making one, which the 
 lord or lady of the house used when they would dine or sup in private. 
 The practice of thus dining or supping privately in the chamber is not 
 unfrequently alluded to in the old stories and romances. 
 
 Supper, however, being the second meal in the day at which the 
 whole household met together, was generally a more public one, and 
 was held, like the dinner, in the hall, and with much the same forms 
 and services. It was preceded and closed by the same washing of hands, 
 and the table was almost as plentifully covered with viands. After 
 having washed, the company drank round, and it seems to have been 
 the usual custom, on leaving the supper-table, to go immediately to bed, 
 for people in general kept early hours. Thus, in one of the pious stories 
 printed by Meon, in describing a royal supper-party, we are told that, 
 " when they had eaten and washed, they drank and then went to bed" — 
 
 Qant orent mengie, si laverent, 
 Puis burent, et couchier alerent. 
 
 And in another story in the same collection, the lady receives a stranger 
 to supper in a very hospitable manner — "when they had eaten leisurely, 
 then it was time to go to bed " — 
 
 Qant orent mengie par loisir, 
 Si fu heure d'aler gesir. 
 
 Sometimes, however, there were dancing and other amusements between 
 supper and bed-time. Thus, in the romance of " Sir Degrevant," — 
 
2 6o THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 Bleve {quickly) to soper they dyght, 
 Both squiere and knyght ; 
 They daunsed and revelide that nyght, 
 In hert were they blythe. 
 
 In a fabliau published by Barbazan, on the arrival in a nobleman's 
 
 castle of a knight who is treated with especial courtesy, the knights and 
 
 ladies dance after supper, and then, at bed-time, they conduct the 
 
 visitor to his bed-chamber, and drink with him there before they leave 
 
 him : — 
 
 Apres mengier, chascuns comence, 
 De faire caroles et dance, 
 Tant qu'il fu houre de couchier ; 
 Puis anmainment le chevalier 
 En sa chambre ou fait fu son lit, 
 Et la. burent par grant delit ; 
 Puis prinrent congi£. 
 
 Fruit was usually eaten after supper. In a fabliau of the thirteenth 
 century, a noble visitor having been received in the house of a knight, 
 they go immediately to supper. "After they had done eating, they 
 enjoyed themselves in conversation, and then they had fruit," and it was 
 only after this that they washed — 
 
 Apres mengier se sont deduit 
 De paroles, puis si ont fruit. 
 
 In the lay of the " Chevalier a l'Espe'e," Sir Gauwain takes, instead 
 of supper, fruit and wine before he goes to bed. 
 
 The custom of keeping early hours still prevailed, and is very fre- 
 quently alluded to. People are generally described as rising with the 
 sun. Such was the case with the king, in the romance of " Parise la 
 
 Duchesse " — 
 
 Landemain par matin, quand solaus fu levez 
 
 Se leva li rois Hugues. — Parise, ed. P. Paris, p. 219. 
 
 It was the custom, after rising, to attend service either in the church or 
 in the private chapel. In the history of Fulke Fitz-Warine, Jose de 
 Dynan, in his castle of Ludlow, rose early in the morning, heard service 
 in the chapel, after which he mounted to the top of the loftiest tower, 
 to take a view of the country around, then descended and "caused the 
 horn to be sounded for washing." This was no doubt the signal for 
 the household to assemble for breakfast. In Chaucer's " Squyere's Tale," 
 
TIME OF MEALS. 261 
 
 the king's guests, after great feasting and carousing at night, sleep till 
 " prime large " in the morning, that is till six o'clock, which is spoken 
 of in a manner that evidently intimates that they had considerably over- 
 slept themselves. The princess Canace had left her bed long before, 
 and was walking with her maidens in the park. In the " Schipmanne's 
 Tale," too, the lady rises very early in the morning, and takes her walk 
 in the garden. In the' curious " Book " of the Chevalier de la Tour- 
 Landry, we are told of a very pious dame whom he knew, whose daily 
 life was as follows : — She rose early in the morning, had two friars and 
 two or three chaplains in attendance to chant matins while she was 
 rising ; as soon as she left her chamber she went to her chapel, and 
 remained in devotion in her oratory while they said matins and one 
 mass 2 and then she went and dressed and arrayed herself, after which 
 she went to recreate herself in the garden or about the house ; she then 
 attended divine service again, and after it went to dinner ; and during 
 the afternoon she visited the sick, and in due time supped, and after 
 supper called her maitre d 'hotel, and made her household arrangements 
 for the following day. 
 
 The hour of breakfast is very uncertain, and appears not to have been 
 fixed. The hour of dinner was, as already stated, nine o'clock in the 
 morning, or sometimes ten. In the lay of the " Mantel Mautaille'," king 
 Arthur is introduced on a grand festival-day refusing, according to his 
 custom, to begin the dinner till some "adventure " occurs, and the guests 
 wait till near " nonne," when the grand seneschal, Sir Keux, takes upon 
 himself to expostulate, and represents that dinner had been ready a long 
 time (piefd). Nonne is here probably meant for mid-day, or noon. The 
 queen was in her chamber, greatly distressed at having to wait so long 
 for dinner. The regular hour of supper appears to have been five 
 o'clock in the afternoon, but when private it seems not to have been 
 fixed to any particular hour. In summer, at least, people appear usually 
 to have gone to bed when darkness approached; and this was the time 
 at which guests ordinarily took their leave. Thus, at January's wedding- 
 feast, in Chaucer, we are told that — 
 
 Night, with his mantel, that is dark and rude, 
 Gan oversprede themesperie aboute ; 
 For which departed is the lusti route 
 
262 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 Fro January, with thank on every side, 
 Hoom to her houses lustily thay ryde. 
 
 — Cant. Tales, 1. 9672. 
 
 We must not forget that these remarks apply to the seasons of the year 
 when days were long, for the scenes of most of these romances and tales 
 are laid in the spring and summer months, and especially in May. We 
 have much less information on the domestic relations during winter. 
 
 One reason for keeping early hours was that candles and lamps were 
 too expensive to be used in profusion by people in general. Various 
 ,4 methods of giving artificial light at night are 
 mentioned, most of which seem to have been 
 considered more or less as luxuries. At grand 
 festivals the light was often given by men hold- 
 ing torches. In general, candles were used at 
 supper. The accompanying cut (No 185), taken 
 No. i8s^ASupperT from the manuscript of the St Graal already men- 
 tioned, represents a person supping by candle- 
 light. In the fabliau of " La Borgoise d'Orliens," a lady, receiving her 
 lover into her chamber, spreads a table for him, and lights a great wax 
 candle (grosse chandoile de are). 
 
 Lighting in the Middle Ages was, indeed, effected, in a manner more 
 or less refined, by means of torches, lamps, and candles. The candle, 
 which was the most portable of them all, was employed in small and 
 private evening parties ; and, from an early period, it was used in the 
 bed-chamber. For the table, very handsome candlesticks were made, 
 which were employed by people of rank, and wax candles (cierges) were 
 used on them. They were formed with an upright spike (broche), on 
 which the candle was stuck, not, as now, placed in a socket. Thus, in 
 a scene in one of the fabliaux printed by Barbazan, a good bourgeois has 
 on his supper-table two candlesticks of silver, "very fair and handsome," 
 
 with wax-candles — 
 
 Desor la table ot deus broissins, 
 Ou il avoit cierges, d'argent, 
 Molt estoient bel et gent. 
 
 — Barbazan, vol. iv. p. 184. 
 
 So in the romance of " La Violette," when the count Lisiart arrives at 
 the castle of duke Gerart, on the approach of bedtime, two men-servants 
 
BLOWING OUT THE CANDLE. 263 
 
 make their appearance, each carrying a lighted cierge, or wax-candle, 
 
 and thus they lead him to his chamber — 
 
 Atant lor vinrent doi sergant, 
 Chascuns tenoit j. cerge ardant ; 
 Le conte menerent couchier. 
 
 — La Vioktte, p. 30. 
 
 This, however, appears to have been done as a mark of honour to the 
 
 guest, for, even in ducal castles, common candles seem to have been 
 
 in ordinary use. In a bed-room scene in a fabliau printed by Meon 
 
 (torn. i. p. 268), in which the younger ladies of the duke's family and 
 
 their female attendants slept all in beds in one room, they have but one 
 
 candle (chandoile) and that is. attached to the wood of the bed of the 
 
 duke's daughter, so that it would appear to have had no candlestick. 
 
 One of the damsels who was a stranger, and less familiar than the others, 
 
 was unwilling to take off her chemise until the light was extinguished, 
 
 for it must be remembered that it was the general custom to sleep in 
 
 bed quite naked, and the daughter of the duke, whose bedfellow she 
 
 was to be, blew the candle out — 
 
 Roseite tantost la soufla, 
 Qu'a s' esponde estoit atachie. 
 
 Blowing out the candle was the ordinary manner of extinguishing it. In 
 the " Me'nagier de Paris," or instructions for the management of a gen- 
 tleman's household, compiled in the latter half of the fourteenth century, 
 the lady of the house is told, after having each night ascertained that 
 the house is properly closed and all the fires covered, to see all the ser- 
 vants to bed, and to take care that each had a candle in a " flat-bottomed 
 candle-stick," at some distance from the bed, " and to teach them pru- 
 dently to extinguish their candles before they go into their bed with the 
 mouth, or with the hand, and not with their chemise," i.e. they were to 
 blow their candle out, or put it out with their fingers, not to extinguish 
 it by throwing their shifts upon it— another allusion to the practice of 
 sleeping naked.* Extinguishers had not yet come into general use. 
 People went to bed with a candle placed in a candlestick of a different 
 
 * *< Et ayez fait adviser par avant, qu'ils aient chascun loing de son lit chandelier a 
 platine pour mettre sa chandelle, et les aiez fait introduce sagement de l'estamdre a 
 la bouche ou a la main avant qu'ils entrent en leur lit, et non mie a la chemise."— 
 Me'nagier de Paris, ii. 71. 
 
264 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 description from that used at table ; and we learn from a story in the 
 " Me'nagier de Paris " that it was customary for the servant or servants 
 who had charge of the candles, to accompany them into their bedroom, 
 remain with them till they were in bed, and then carry the candles away. 
 Candles were, however, usually left in the chamber or bedroom all night • 
 and there was frequently a spike, or candlestick, attached to the chim- 
 
 No. 186. — The Cellarer in a Panic. 
 
 ney ; as in the fabliau just quoted, there was, no doubt, a similar spike 
 attached to the wood-work of the bed. The stick, whether fixed or 
 movable, was made for convenience in placing the candle in the 
 chamber, and not for the purpose of carrying it about ; for the latter 
 purpose it appears to have been generally taken off the stick, and 
 carried in the hand. Our cut No. 186, taken from one of the carved 
 stalls of the chapel of Winchester school, represents an individual, per- 
 haps the cellarer or steward, who has gone into the cellar with a candle, 
 which he carries in this manner, and is there terrified by the appearance 
 of hobgoblins. In the fabliau of the " Chevalier a la Corbeille," an old 
 duena, employed to watch over her young mistress, being disturbed in 
 the night, is obliged to take her candle, and go into the kitchen to 
 light it ; from whence we may suppose that it was the custom to keep 
 the kitchen fire alight all night. 
 
 An old poem on the troubles of housekeeping, printed by M. Jubinal 
 in his "Nouveau Recueil de Contes," enumerates candles and a 
 lantern among the necessaries of a household — 
 
 Or faut chandeles et lanterne. 
 
LAMPS. 
 
 265 
 
 . — Man with 
 Lantern. 
 
 A manuscript of the thirteenth century in the French National Library 
 (No. 6956) contains an illumination, which has fur- 
 nished us with the accompanying cut (No. 187), 
 representing a man holding a lantern of the form then 
 in use ; and lanterns are not unfrequently mentioned 
 in old writers. 
 
 It appears to have been a common custom, at least 
 among the better classes of society, to keep a lamp 
 in the chamber to give light during the night. In 
 one of the fabliaux printed in Meon, a man entering 
 the chamber of a knight's lady, finds it lit by a lamp, 
 which was usually left burning in it — 
 
 Une lampe avoit en la chambre, 
 Par costume ardoir i siaut. 
 
 In the English romance of " Sir Eglamour," several lamps are described 
 as burning in a lady's chamber — 
 
 Aftur sopur, as y yow telle, 
 He wendyd to chaumbur with Crystyabelle, 
 There laumpus were brennyng bryght. 
 
 We may suppose, notwithstanding these words, that a lamp gave but a 
 dim light ; and accordingly, we are told in another fabliau that there 
 was little light, or, as it is expressed in the original, " none," in a cham- 
 ber where nothing but a lamp was burning, — 
 
 En la chambre lumiere n'ot, 
 Hors d'un mortier qu'iluec ardoit, 
 Point de clarte ne lor rendoit. 
 
 In the following cut (No. 188), taken from an illumination in a manu- 
 script of the fourteenth century, in the National Library in Paris 
 (No. 6988), a nun, apparently, is arranging her lamp before going 
 to bed. The lamp here consists of a little basin of oil, in which, no 
 doubt, the wick floated ; but the use of the stand under it is not easily 
 explained. 
 
 Lamps were used where a light was wanted in a room for a long 
 time, because they lasted longer without requiring snuffing. The lamps 
 of the Middle Ages were made usually on the plan of those of the 
 
266 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 Romans, consisting, as in the accompanying example, of a small vessel of 
 earthenware or metal, which was filled with oil, and a wick placed in it. 
 This lamp was placed on a stand, or was sometimes suspended on a 
 beam, or perch, or against the wall. We have an example of this in 
 the following cut (No. 188), which explains the term mortier (mortar) 
 
 No. 188. — A Bedroom Chamber Scene. 
 
 of the fabliau ; it was a wick swinging in oil in a basin. Our cut No. 
 189, taken from a manuscript of the fourteenth century in the British 
 Museum (MS. Harl., No. 1227), represents a row of lamps of rather 
 
 No. 189. — Mediaeval Lamps. 
 
 curious form, made to be suspended. In our next cut (No. 190), from 
 a manuscript of the same date (MS. Reg. 2 B. vii.), we have lamps of 
 a somewhat similar form, made to be carried in the hand. 
 
 Torches were used at greater festivals, and for occasions where it was 
 necessary to give light to very large halls full of company. They were 
 usually held in the hand by servants, but were sometimes placed against 
 the wall in holes made to receive them. Torches were not unfrequently 
 used to give light to the chamber also. In one of the stories of the 
 " Seven Sages," a man, bringing a person in secret to the king's cham- 
 ber, " blewe out the torche," in order to cause perfect darkness (Weber 
 
TORCHES. 
 
 267 
 
 iii. 63) ; and in the early English romance of " Sir Degrevant" (Weber 
 iii. 213), where light is wanted in lady's chamber, it is obtained by 
 means of the torches. 
 
 No. 190. — Men carrying Lamps. 
 
 There were other means of giving light, on a still greater scale, which 
 I shall describe in a subsequent chapter, when treating of the fifteenth 
 century. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 TJie Bed and its Furniture. — The Toilette; Bathing. — Chests and Coffers 
 in the Chamber. — The Hutch. — Uses of Rings. — Composition of the 
 Family. — Freedom of Manners. — Social Sentiments, and Domestic 
 Relations. 
 
 IT was now a matter of pride to have the bed furnished with hand- 
 some curtains and coverings. Curtains to beds were so common 
 that being " under the curtain " was used as an ordinary periphrasis for 
 being in bed ; but these curtains appear to have been suspended to the 
 ceiling of the chamber, with the bedstead behind them. With regard 
 to the bed itself, there was now much more refinement than when it 
 was simply stuffed with straw. Beds among the rich were made with 
 down {duvet) ; in the " Roman de la Violette " we are told of a bed 
 made of bofu — which is understood to mean a kind of stuff. From the 
 vocabulary composed by Alexander Neckam early in the thirteenth 
 century, we learn that the bed was covered much in the same way as at 
 present. First, a " quilte " was spread over the bed ; and on this the 
 bolster was placed ; over this was laid a " quilte poynte " or " raye " 
 (courlepointe, or counterpane) ; and on this, at the head of the bed, was 
 placed the pillow. The sheets were then thrown over it, and the whole 
 was covered with a coverlet, the common material of which, according 
 to Neckam, was green say, though richer materials, and even valuable 
 furs, were used for this purpose. In the "Lai del Desire," we are told of 
 a quilt (coille), made in checker-wise-, of pieces of two different sorts of 
 rich stuff, which seems to have been considered as something extremely 
 magnificent — 
 
SLEEPING HABITS. 269 
 
 Sur on bon lit s'ert apuiee ; 
 
 La coilte fu a. eschekers, 
 
 De deus pailles ben faiz e chers. 
 
 Among all classes the appearance of the bed seems to have been a 
 subject of Considerable pride, no doubt from the circumstance of the 
 bedroom being a place for receiving visitors. There were sometimes 
 two or more beds in the same room, and visitors slept in the same 
 chamber with the host and hostess. Beds were also laid for the occa- 
 sion, without bedsteads, sometimes in the hall, at others in the chamber 
 beside the ordinary bed, or in some other room. The plots of many 
 mediaeval stories turn on these circumstances. People therefore kept 
 extra materials for making the beds. In the "Roman du Meunier 
 d'Arleux," when a maiden comes as an unexpected visitor, a place is 
 chosen for her by the side of the fire, and a soft bed is laid down, with 
 very expensive sheets, and a coverlet " warm and furred " — 
 
 Kieute mole, linchex molt chier, 
 Et covertoir chaut et forre. 
 
 One custom continued to prevail during the whole of this period, — 
 that of sleeping in bed entirely naked. So many allusions to this 
 practice occur in the old writers, that it is hardly necessary to say more 
 than state the fact. Not unfrequently this custom is still more strongly 
 expressed by stating that people went to bed as naked as they were 
 born; as in some moral lines in the "Reliquiae Antiquse" (ii. 15), 
 against the pride of the ladies, who are told that, however gay may 
 be their clothing during the day, they will lie in bed at night as naked 
 as they were born. It is true that in some instances in the illuminations 
 persons are seen in bed with some kind of clothing on, but this was 
 certainly an exception to the rule, and there is generally some particular 
 reason for it. Thus, in the "Roman de la Violette" (p. 31), the lady 
 Oriant excites the surprise of her duena by going to bed in a chemise, 
 and is obliged to explain her reason for so singular a practice, namely, 
 her desire to conceal a mark on her body. Our cut No 191, taken 
 from the romance of St Graal, in the British Museum (MS. Addit. No. 
 10,292, fol. 21, v°), represents a king and queen in bed, both naked. 
 The crowns on their heads are a mere conventional method of stating 
 their rank : kings and queens were not in the habit of sleeping in bed 
 
270 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 with their crowns on their heads. In the next cut (No. 192), taken from a 
 a manuscript of the romance of the " Quatre Fils d'Aymon," of the latter 
 part of the fourteenth century, in the National Library in Paris (No. 
 
 No. 191. — King and Queen in Bed. 
 
 6970), there is still less room left for doubt on the subject. The people 
 seem to be sleeping in a public hostelry, where the beds are made in 
 
 No. 192. — Night Scene in a Hostelry. 
 
 recesses not unlike the berths in a modern steamer ; the man on horse- 
 back is supposed to be outside, and his arrival has given alarm to a 
 man who was in bed, and who is escaping without any kind of clothing. 
 
WARM BATHING. 
 
 271 
 
 In the English romance of " Sir Isumbras," the castle of Isumbras is 
 burnt to the ground in the night, and his lady and three children 
 escaped from their beds ; when he hurried to the spot he found them 
 without clothing or shelter — 
 
 A dolefulle syghte the knyghte gane see 
 Of his wyfe and his childir three, 
 
 That fro the fyre were flede ; 
 Alle als nakede als thay were borne 
 Stode togedir undir a thorne, 
 
 Braydede owte of thaire bedd. 
 
 Curiously enough, while so little care was taken to cover the body, the 
 head was carefully covered at night, not with a nightcap, but with a 
 kerchief (convrechief), which was wrapped round it. 
 
 The practice of warm-bathing prevailed very generally in all classes 
 of society, and is frequently alluded to in the mediaeval romances and 
 stories. For this purpose a large bathing-tub was used, the ordinary 
 form of which is represented in the annexed cut (No. 193), taken from 
 
 No. 193. — A Lady Bathing. 
 
 the manuscript of the St Graal, of the thirteenth century, in the British 
 Museum (MS. Addit. No. 10,292, fol. 266). ' People sometimes bathed 
 immediately after rising in the morning; and we find the bath used 
 after dinner, and before going to bed. A bath was also often prepared 
 for a visitor on his arrival from a journey; and, what seems still more 
 singular, in the numerous stories of amorous intrigues, the two lovers 
 usually begin their interviews by bathing together. 
 
 Our cut No. 194, from another volume of the manuscript last quoted 
 
272 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 (MS. Addit. No. 10,293, fol. 266), represents a lady at her toilette. It 
 
 is a subject on which our information at 
 this period is not very abundant. The 
 round mirror of metal which she is em- 
 ploying was the common form during the 
 Middle Ages, and was no doubt derived 
 from the ancients. The details of the 
 ladies' toilette are not often described, but 
 
 No. 194. — Lady at her Toilette. 
 
 the contemporary moralists and satirists 
 condemn, in rather general terms, and evidently with more bitterness 
 than was called for, the pains taken by the ladies to adorn their persons. 
 They are accused of turning their bodies from their natural form by 
 artificial means, alluding to the use of stays, which appear to have been 
 first employed by the Anglo-Norman ladies in the twelfth century. 
 They are further accused of plucking out superfluous hairs from their 
 faces and eyebrows, of dyeing their hair, and of painting their faces. 
 The Chevalier de la Tour-Landry (chap. 76) tells his daughters that the 
 whole intrigue between king David and the wife of Uriah arose out of 
 the circumstance of the lady combing her hair at an open window where 
 she could be seen from without, and says that it was a punishment for 
 the too great attention she gave to the adornment of her head. The 
 toilette of the day seems to have been completed at the first rising from 
 bed in the morning. There are some picturesque lines in the English 
 metrical romance of " Alisaunder," which describe the morning thus : — 
 
 In a moretyde (morrow-tide) hit was ; 
 
 Theo dropes hongyn on the gras ; 
 
 Theo maydenes lokyn in the glas, 
 
 For to tyffen (adorn) heare fas (face). — Weber, i. 169. 
 
 The chamber, as it has been already intimated, was, properly speaking, 
 the women's apartment, though it was very accessible to the other sex. 
 It was usually the place for private conversation, and we often hear of 
 persons entering the chamber for this purpose, and in this case the bed 
 seems to have served usually for a seat. Thus, in the romance of 
 " Eglamour," when, after supper, Christabelle led the knight into her 
 chamber — 
 
PRIVATE INTERVIEWS. 
 
 73 
 
 That lady was not for to hyde, 
 Sche sett hym on hur beddys syde, 
 
 And welcomyd home thet knyght. 
 
 Again, in a fabliau printed by Meon, a woman of a lower grade, wish- 
 ing to make a private communication to a man, invites him into her 
 chamber, and they sit on the bed to converse — 
 
 En une chambre andui en vont, 
 Desor un lit asis se sont. 
 
 And in the fabliau of " Guillaume au Faucon," printed by Barbazan, 
 Guillaume, visiting the lady of a knight in her chamber, finds her seated 
 on the bed, and he immediately takes a seat by her side to converse 
 with her. In the illuminated manuscripts, scenes of this kind occur 
 
 No. 195. — Conversation in the Chamber. 
 
 frequently ; but in the fourteenth century, instead of being seated on 
 the bed, the persons thus conversing sit on the bench which ran 
 along the side of the bed, and belonged to the bedstead. A scene of 
 this kind is represented in our cut No. 195 (taken from a manuscript 
 of the romance of " Meliadus," in the British Museum, MS. Addit. No. 
 12,228, fol. 312), which is a good representation of a bed of the four- 
 teenth century. A lady has introduced a king into her chamber, and 
 they are conversing privately, seated on the bench of the bed. In 
 some of these illuminations, the persons conversing are seated on the 
 bed, with their feet on the bench. 
 
274 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 The illuminators had not yet learned the art of representing things 
 in detail, and they still too often give us mere conventional repre- 
 sentations of beds, yet we see enough to convince us that the bedsteads 
 were already made much more elaborately than formerly. Besides the 
 bench at the side, we find them now with a hutch (huche) or locker at 
 
 No. 196. — Taking Clothes from the Chest. 
 
 the foot, in which the possessor was accustomed to lock up his money 
 and other valuables. This hutch at the foot of the bed is often men- 
 tioned in the fabliaux and romances. Thus, in the fabliau "Du 
 Chevalier a la Robe Vermeille," a man, when he goes to bed, places 
 his robe on a hutch at the foot of the bed — 
 
 Sur une huche aus piez du lit 
 A cil toute sa robe mise. 
 
 Another, having extorted some money from a priest, immediately puts 
 it in the hutch — 
 
 Les deniers a mis en la huche. 
 
 The hutch was indeed one of the most important articles of furniture in 
 the mediaeval chamber. All portable objects of intrinsic value or utility 
 were kept in boxes, because they were thus ready for moving and taking 
 away in case of danger, and because in travelling people carried much 
 of their movables of this description about with them. Hence the uses 
 
TREASURE-CHESTS. 
 
 275 
 
 of the hutch or chest were very numerous and diversified. It was usual 
 to keep clothes of eveiy description in a chest, and illustrations of this 
 practice are met with not uncommonly in the illuminated manuscripts. 
 One of them is given in our cut No. 196, taken from an illumination in 
 a manuscript of the fourteenth century, given by Willemin. Jewels, 
 plate, personal ornaments of all kinds, 
 and all descriptions of " treasure," were 
 similarly locked up in chests. In our 
 cut No. 197, taken also from a manu- 
 script in the British Museum (MS. Reg. 
 2 B. vii., of the beginning of the four- 
 teenth century), a man appears in the 
 act of depositing in a chest fibulae or 
 brooches, rings, buttons, and other ob- 
 jects, and a large vessel probably of 
 silver. Our cut No. 198, from a manu- 
 script in the National Library in Paris 
 (No. 6956), represents a miser examin- 
 ing the money in his hutch, which is here detached from a bed ; but 
 in some other illuminations, a hutch of much the same form appears 
 attached to the bed foot. In Anglo-Saxon the coffer was called a loc, 
 whence our word locker is derived; or a cyste, our chest; or an arc: 
 from the Anglo-Normans we derive the words hutch (Jiuche) and coffer 
 (coffre). The Anglo-Saxons, as we have shown in a former chapter 
 (p. 79), like our forefathers of a later period, kept their treasures in 
 lockers or hutches. In the " Legend of St Juliana," an Anglo-Saxon 
 poem in the Exeter Book, it is remarked in proof of the richness of a 
 chieftain : — 
 
 No. 197. — The Treasure-Chest. 
 
 J)eah ]>e feoh-gestreon 
 under hord-locan, 
 hyrsta linrim, 
 sehte ofer eorJ>an. 
 
 Although he riches 
 
 in his treasure-lockers, 
 
 jewels innumerable, 
 
 possessed upon earth. — Exeter Book, p. 245. 
 
 Among the Anglo-Saxons the lady of the household had the charge 
 of the coffers. In one of the laws of Cnut relating to robberies, it is 
 declared that " if any man bring a stolen thing home to his cot, and he 
 be detected, it is just that the owner have what he went for ; and un- 
 
276 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 less it has been brought under his wife's key-lockers (cceg-locan), let her 
 be clear ; for it is her duty to keep the keys of them, namely, her store- 
 house (hord-ern), and her chest (cyste), and her box (tege)." (Cnut's 
 Laws, No. 180.) 
 
 Larger sums of money were in the Middle Ages preserved in a 
 manner which our early forefathers seem to have learned from the 
 Romans, namely, burial underground. In excavating and exploring 
 old Roman towns in this island, it is no unusual circumstance to find 
 deposits of money, either under the floors of the houses or in the courts. 
 We frequently find deposits of mediaeval money, and of money of a 
 later period, under similar circumstances, and even the bankers, or 
 
 No. 198. — A Miser and his Hoard. 
 
 money-dealers, of those ancient times, seem to have deposited their 
 money in this manner. A very curious history in relation to a deposit 
 of this kind is told in a volume which I edited for the Camden Society 
 some years ago, the scene of which is laid in Ireland, in the English 
 pale.* What we now call banking, and money-lending, had now taken 
 a considerable development in the great extension of commercial 
 relations ; and William Outlawe was a rich banker and money-lender 
 of Kilkenny. He married a lady of property of the neighbourhood, 
 named Alice Kyteler. She became a widow in 1302, married Adam 
 le Blond of Callan, of another rich family, who died in 13 11, when she 
 
 * A Contemporary Narrative of the Proceedings against Dame Alice Kyteler, pro- 
 secuted for sorcery in 1324 by Richard de Ledrede, JBishop of Ossory, edited by 
 Thomas Wright, 4to, 1843. 
 
A BURIED TREASURE. 277 
 
 took to a third husband, Richard de Valle, and before long, on his 
 death, she was married a fourth time, to Sir John le Poer, who belonged 
 to one of the most powerful families in this part of Ireland. By her 
 first husband she had a son, named also William Outlawe, who appears 
 to have inherited his father's property, and succeeded him as banker. 
 In the year 1302, Adam le Blond and Alice his wife intrusted to the 
 keeping of her son, the younger William Outlawe, as banker, the sum of 
 three thousand pounds in money, which he, for security, buried in the 
 earth within his house, then apparently the usual way of keeping money. 
 But the secret had not been kept, and the deposit of so large a sum of 
 money had been noised about, at least among the relatives. One night, 
 William le Kyteler, then sheriff of Kilkenny, who is supposed to have 
 been a kinsman of the Lady Alice, by precept of the seneschal of the 
 liberty of Kilkenny, broke into the house vi et armis, to use the words 
 of the record, dug up this money, and carried it away, as well as a 
 hundred pounds of money belonging to William Outlawe himself, which 
 they found in the house. Such an outrage was not likely to pass with- 
 out some attempt to obtain redress, but the perpetrators, when proceed- 
 ings were taken against them, pleaded that it was treasure trove, having 
 been dug out of the earth, and therefore no proceedings could be 
 taken against them, but by the king, to whom, in that case, it belonged. 
 The money appears not to have been recovered, but the affair appears 
 to have been sinking into something like a family feud, which we can 
 easily understand in Ireland at that time. It finally took another form, 
 and the Lady Alice Kyteler, with her son William Outlawe, and several 
 other persons, were accused of sorcery, and proceedings were taken 
 against them in the ecclesiastical court by the Bishop of Ossory. 
 Among other things, the Lady Alice was accused of procuring the 
 deaths of her four husbands by means of sorcery. She is understood 
 to have made her escape into England. Such were the inconveniences 
 to which bankers were exposed in those turbulent ages. 
 
 But to return to the hutches, or coffers, in which the householder 
 was the guardian of his own money; in the old metrical romances, 
 when a town is taken and sacked, the plunderers are described as 
 hurrying to the chambers, to rifle the chests and coffers, which were 
 kept there. Thus, in the romance of the " Mort de Garin," when 
 
278 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 Fromont's town is taken by the followers of the hero of the romance, 
 " the Lorrains," we are told, " hastened to destroy the town ; there 
 you might see many a chamber broken open, and many a hutch burst 
 and torn, where they found robes, and silver, and pure gold " — 
 
 Loheren poignent por le bore desrochier. 
 La veissiez mainte chambre brisier, 
 Et mainte huche effondrer et percier, 
 Et trovent robes, et argent, et or mien 
 
 — Mort de Gavin, p. 168. 
 
 So in the romance of " Garin," of which that just quoted is the sequel, 
 on a similar occasion, " there you might see them rob the great halls, 
 and break open the chambers, and force the coffers {escrins)" — 
 
 La. veissiez'les grans salles rober ; 
 Chambres brisier, et les escrins forcier. 
 
 — Garin le Loherain, torn. i. p. 197. 
 
 No. 199. — Joseph Buying up the Corn. 
 
 Further on in the same romance, the fair Beatrix, addressing her husband, 
 the Duke Begues, tells him that he has gold and silver in his coffers — 
 
 Or et argent avez en vos escrins. — lb., torn. ii. p. 218. 
 
 Money was indeed commonly kept in the huche or coffer. In the fabliau 
 of " Constant Duhamel," when Constant is threatened by the forester, 
 who had detained his oxen on the pretence that they had been found 
 trespassing, he tells him that he was ready to redeem them, as he had 
 a hundred sols of money in his hutch by his bed — 
 
TREASURE- CHAMBERS. 
 
 279 
 
 J'ai, en ma huche lez mon lit, 
 Cent sols de deniers a vostre oes. 
 
 — Barbazan, iii. 307. 
 
 In the preceding cut No. 199, from a manuscript of the fourteenth 
 century in the British Museum (MS. Reg. 10 E. iv.), Joseph is repre- 
 sented counting out the money from his huche, to buy up the corn of 
 Egypt, during the years of plenty. 
 
 The chests were kept in the chambers, as being the most retired and 
 secure part of the house, and, from the terms in which the breaking 
 open of the chambers is spoken of in the foregoing extracts, we are led 
 to suppose that the chambers themselves were usually locked. The 
 ordinary place for the chests or hutches, or, at least, of the principal 
 chest, was by the side, or more usually at the foot, of the bed. We 
 have "just seen that this was the place in which Constant Duhamel kept 
 his huche. Under these circumstances it was very commonly used for 
 a seat, and is often introduced as such, both in the literature of the 
 Middle Ages, and in the illuminations of the manuscripts. In the 
 romance of "Garin" (torn. i. p. 214), 
 the king's messenger finds the Count of 
 Flanders, Fromont, in a tent, accord- 
 ing to one manuscript, seated on a cof- 
 fer {sor un coffre oil se sist). So, also, 
 in the " Roman de la Violette," p. 25, 
 the heroine and her treacherous guest 
 are represented as seated upon " a cof- 
 fer banded with copper " (sor j. coffre — 
 bende de coivre). Our cut No. 200, 
 taken from one of the engravings in the great work of Willemin, repre- 
 sents a scribe thus seated on a coffer or huche, and engaged apparently 
 in writing a letter. Our next cut No. 201, taken from a manuscript of 
 the fourteenth century in the British Museum (MS. Reg. 15 E. vi.), re- 
 presents a lady and gentleman, seated on apparently a coffer, the former 
 of whom is presenting a ring to the other. 
 
 This latter object, the ring, acts also a very frequent and very impor- 
 tant part in the social history of the Middle Ages. A ring was often 
 given as a token of affection between lovers, as may perhaps be intended 
 
 No. 200. — Sitting on the Huche. 
 
28o 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 by the subject of our last cut, or between relatives or friends. In the 
 romance of " Widukind," torn. ii. p. 20, the queen gives her ring to her 
 lover in a secret interview in her tent. So, in the romance of " Horn," 
 the Lady Rigmel gave her lover, Horn, a ring as a token. It was often, 
 moreover, given not merely as a token of remembrance, but as a means 
 of recognition. In the well-known early English romance of "Sir 
 Tristram," the mother of the hero, dying in childbirth of him after his 
 
 No. 201. — The Token of the Ring. 
 
 father had been slain, gives a ring to the knight to whose care she 
 
 intrusted the infant, as a token by which his parentage should be known 
 
 when he grew up — 
 
 A ring of riche hewe 
 
 Than hadde that levedi (lady) fre ; 
 Sche toke (gave) it Rouhand trewe, 
 
 Hir sone sche bad it be ; 
 Mi brother wele it knewe, 
 
 Mi fader yaf it me. 
 
 This ring . leads subsequently to the recognition of Tristram by his 
 uncle, King Mark. In the romance of "Ipomydon" (Weber's "Metrical 
 Romances," vol. ii. p. 355), the hero similarly receives from his mother a 
 ring, which was to be a token of recognition to his illegitimate brother. 
 So, in the romance, Horn makes himself known in the sequel to Rigmel, 
 by dropping the ring she had given him into the drinking-horn which she 
 was serving round at a feast. Rings were often given to messengers as 
 credentials, or were used for the same purpose as letters of introduction. 
 In the romance of "Floire and Blancefior" (p. 55), the young hero, on 
 his way to Babylon, arrives at a bridge, the keeper of which has a 
 brother in the great city, to whose hospitality he wishes to recommend 
 
CHARMED RINGS. 
 
 Floire, and for that purpose he gives him his ring. " Take this ring 
 to him," he says, " and tell him from me to receive you in his best 
 manner." The message was attended with complete success. In our 
 cut No. 202, taken from a manuscript of the fourteenth century in the 
 British Museum (MS. Reg. 10 E. iv.), the messenger arrives with the 
 letter of which he is the bearer, and at the same time exhibits a ring in 
 the place of credentials. 
 
 There was another circumstance which gave value and importance 
 to rings in the Middle Ages. Not only might rings be charmed by the 
 power of the magician, but it was an article of general belief that the 
 engraved stones of the ancients, which were found commonly enough on 
 old sites, and even the precious stones in general, without any engrav- 
 
 No. 202. — The Delivery of the Ring. 
 
 ing, possessed extraordinary virtues, the benefit of which was imparted 
 to those who carried them on their persons. In the romance of 
 "Melusine" (p. 357), the heroine, when about to leave the house of 
 her husband, gives him two rings, and says, " My sweet love, you see 
 here two rings of gold, which have both the same virtue ; and know 
 well for truth, that so long as you possess them, or one of them, you 
 shall never be overcome in pleading or in battle, if your cause be 
 rightful ; and neither you nor others who may possess them, shall ever 
 die by any weapons." In a story among the collection of the " Gesta 
 Romanorum," edited by Sir Frederick Madden for the Roxburghe Club 
 (p. 150),' a father is made, on his death-bed, to give to his son a ring, 
 " the virtue of which^was, that whosoever should bear it upon him, should 
 have the love of all men." The ring given by the Princess Rigmel to 
 
282 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 Horn, possessed virtues of an equally remarkable description — " Who- 
 ever bore it upon him could not perish ; he need not fear to die either 
 in fire or water, or in field of battle, or in the contention of the tourna- 
 ment." So, in the romance of " Floire and Blanceftor" (p. 42), the 
 queen gives her son a ring which would protect him against all danger, 
 and assure to him the eventual attainment of every object of his wishes. 
 Nor was the ring of Sir Perceval of Galles (Thornton Romances, p. 71) 
 at all less remarkable in its properties, of which the rhymer says — 
 
 Siche a vertue es in the stane, 
 In alle this werlde wote I nane 
 
 Siche stone in a rynge ; 
 A mane that had it in were (war) 
 One his body for to bere, 
 There scholde no dyntys (blows) hym dere (injure), 
 
 Ne to dethe brynge. 
 
 The consideration of the house and its parts and furniture, and of the 
 outward forms of domestic life, leads us naturally to that of the consti- 
 tution of the family. It was the chief pride of the aristocratic class to 
 live very extravagantly, and to support a great household, with an 
 immense number of personal attendants of different classes. In the 
 first place the old system of fostering, which was kept up to a compara- 
 tively late period, added to the number of the lord's or knight's family. 
 As might was literally right in the Middle Ages, each man of worth 
 sought to strengthen himself by the alliances which were formed by 
 finding powerful foster-fathers for his sons, and the personal attachment 
 and fidelity between the chief of the family and his foster-child was 
 often greater even than that between the father and his own son. In 
 addition to the foster-children, men of good family sent their sons to 
 take an honourable kind of service in the families of men of higher 
 rank or greater wealth, where the manners and accomplishments of 
 gentlemen were to be learned in greater perfection than at home ; and 
 the younger sons of great families sought similar service with a view to 
 their advancement in the world. These two classes were the young 
 squires, who served at table, and performed a great number of what we 
 should now call menial offices to the lord and ladies of the household, 
 in all the amusements and recreations of which they took part, and at 
 the same time were instructed in gentlemanly manners and exercises — 
 
FOSTER CHILDREN. 283 
 
 it was a sort of apprenticeship introductory to knighthood. In the 
 same manner the knightly families sent their daughters to serve under 
 the ladies of the greater or lesser feudal chieftains, and they formed that 
 class who, in the French romances and fabliaux, are called the cham- 
 brieres, or chamber attendants, and in the English texts, simply the 
 maidens, of the establishment. The ladies of rank prided themselves 
 upon having a very great number of these chambrieres, or maidens, for 
 they were not only a means of ostentation, but they were profitable, 
 inasmuch as besides attending on the personal wants of their mistresses, 
 they were constantly employed in spinning, weaving, and the various 
 processes of producing cloth, in millinery and dress-making, in em- 
 broidery, and in a great number of similar labours, which were not only 
 required for furnishing the large number of persons who depended upon 
 their lord for their liveries, &c, but which were sometimes sold to 
 obtain money, which was always a scarce thing in the country. The 
 beauty of the fiucettes, as they are often termed in the French text, or 
 maidens, is also spoken of as a subject of pride. In a metrical story 
 printed by Meon (ii. 38), a great lady, receiving a female stranger into 
 her household, became so much attached to her, " that she made more 
 of her than of all her maidens, of whom," it is added, " there were hand- 
 some ones in her chambers " — 
 
 De li la dame fet grant feste, 
 Plus que de totes ses puceles, 
 Dont en ses chambres a de beles. 
 
 And so, in the romance of " Blonde of Oxford " (p. 50), when the 
 countess went with her maidens to visit John, the remark is made that 
 among them there were plenty of beauties — 
 
 Et la contesse et ses puceles, 
 Dont ele avoit asses de beles. 
 
 The usual age for sending a boy to foster appears to have been seven 
 years. That was the age at which Fulke Fitz-Warine was sent to Joce 
 de Dynan in Ludlow Castle. " The lady," the narrative tells us, 
 " became with child ; when she was delivered, at the time ordained by 
 God, they called the child Fulke. And when the child was seven years 
 old, they sent him to Joce de Dynan to teach and nourish ; for Joce 
 
284 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 was a knight of good accomplishment. Joce received him with great 
 honour and great affection, and educated him in his chambers with his 
 own children." Fulke the younger, in the next generation, was taken 
 as his foster-child by the king (Henry II.), and was nourished and 
 educated with the young princes, of whom John, in the sequel, proved 
 a bad foster-brother. The great barons sought to form alliances of this 
 kind with the king, as well as with his great ministers and other men of 
 power. In the romance of " Garin le Loherain " (vol. i. p. 62), King 
 Pepin gives the two orphan sons of Hervis of Metz, Garin and Begon, 
 as foster-children to the Count Hardres, and they thus become severally 
 the foster-brothers, or, as they are termed in the old French, compains 
 (companions), of his two sons, Begon being the foster-brother of 
 Guillaume of Montclin, and Garin of Fromont. Although they belong 
 to rival families, and are each other's enemies through the turbulent 
 scenes which form the subject of the story, the sentiment of the relation- 
 ship by fostering often shows itself. This yearning after something 
 beyond mere ordinary friendship seems to have been often felt in the 
 Middle Ages, and led to various characteristic practices, among which 
 one of the most remarkable was that of sworn brotherhood. Two men 
 — they are generally knights — who felt a sufficiently strong sentiment 
 towards each other, engaged, under the most solemn oaths, in a bond 
 of fraternity for life, implying a constant and faithful friendship to each 
 other. This practice enters largely into the plot of several of the 
 mediaeval romances, as in that of " Amis and Amiloun," and in the 
 curious English metrical romance of " King Athelston," printed in the 
 " Reliquias Antiquse." The desire for this true friendship was not 
 unnaturally increased by the general prevalence of treacherous false- 
 hood and hateful feuds. There is a beautiful passage in the romance 
 of " Garin," just quoted, which illustrates this sentiment, while it fur- 
 nishes an interesting picture of domestic life. " One day," we are told, 
 " Begues was in his castle of Belin, and beside him sat the beautiful 
 Beatris. The duke kissed her both on the mouth and on the cheeks, 
 and very sweetly the duchess smiled. In the middle of the hall she 
 saw her two sons, the eldest of whom was Garin, and the youngest was 
 named Hernaudin ; their ages were respectively twelve years, and ten. 
 Along with them were six damoisels (gentlemen's sons) of worth, and 
 
A DEFINITION OF WEALTH. 285 
 
 they were running and leaping together, and playing, and laughing, and 
 making game. The duke looked at them, and began to sigh ; which 
 was observed by the lady, who questioned him — ' Ah ! rich duke ! why 
 have you sorrowful thoughts ? You have gold and silver in your coffers, 
 falcons in plenty on your perches, and rich cloths, buildings, and mules, 
 and palfreys, and baggage-horses ; and you have crushed all your 
 enemies. You have no neighbour within six days' journey powerful 
 enough to refuse to come to your service if you send for him.' ' Lady/ 
 said the duke, ' what you say is true ; but in one thing you have made 
 a great oversight. Wealth consists neither in rich cloths, nor in money, 
 nor in buildings, nor in horses ; but it is made of kinsmen and friends ; 
 the heart of one man is worth all the gold in a country.' " 
 
 Dist li dus, " Dame, verites avez dit ; 
 Mais d'une chose i avez moult mespris. 
 N'est pas richoise ne de vair ne de gris, 
 Ne de deniers, de murs, ne de roncins, 
 Mais est richoise de parens et d'amins ; 
 Li cuers d'un homme vaut tout l'or d'un pais." 
 
 , — Garin le Loherain, ii. 218. 
 
 The incident of the younger, or even at times the elder, sons of 
 feudal lords or landholders going to seek service is the groundwork of 
 the romance of " Blonde of Oxford," and of the story of " Courtois 
 d' Arras," printed by Meon in his collection of fabliaux and stories. 
 The latter tale is a mediaeval version of the scriptural story of the 
 Prodigal Son. Youths of good family easily found service in this 
 manner, and the service itself was not considered dishonourable, be- 
 cause lords and gentlemen admitted nobody to immediate attendance 
 on their persons but sons of gentlemen — persons of as good blood as 
 themselves. To be a good servant was a gentlemanly accomplishment, 
 and the payment these gentlemanly servants received consisted ordin- 
 arily in their clothing and gifts of various kinds, rarely in money. I 
 have already hinted that the intercourse between the male and female 
 portions of the household was on a footing of familiarity and freedom, 
 and at the same time on a tone of gallantry which could hardly produce 
 a high degree of morality, but the details on this subject, though very 
 abundant, are in great part of a description which cannot here be 
 entered upon. This intercourse extended to what we should now call 
 
2 86 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 the privacy of the bed-chamber. It was usual, indeed, for the ladies to 
 receive visits from the gentlemen, tete-ti-tete, in their chamber. In the 
 fabliau of "Guillaume au Faucon," printed in Barbazan, the young 
 " damoisel," as the noble youth was usually termed, having fallen in 
 love with the beautiful wife of the lord in whose service he was, took 
 an opportunity of visiting her in her chamber, when he knew that all 
 her maidens were employed in another part of the building. Without 
 knocking, he opened the door gently, and found the lady sitting alone 
 on her bed. The lady saluted him with " a sweet smile," and told him 
 to come in and sit on the bed by her side, and there " he laughed, and 
 talked, and played with her, and the lady did the same." 
 
 Rit et parole et joe a. li, 
 Et la dame tot autresi. 
 
 In the midst of these familiarities, Guillaume made his declaration of 
 love, and was rejected, but his pursuit was ultimately successful. In 
 another fabliau of the thirteenth century, that of " Gautier d'Aupais," it 
 is the daughter of his lord and lady with whom the young " damoisel " 
 falls in love, and he takes the opportunity one morning, while the two 
 latter are at church, to pay a visit to the young lady in her chamber. 
 Although in bed on account of illness — and it has been already stated 
 how people went to bed without any clothing — the lady is not surprised 
 by Gautier's visit, but invites him to sit on her bed, and tell her some- 
 thing to amuse her, and he finds the opportunity of making his love 
 with more success than the hero of the other tale. In the same manner, 
 the ladies are continually described as visiting the gentlemen in their 
 chambers, both by day and by night. In "Blonde of Oxford," a 
 fashionable romance composed for the entertainment of the best society, 
 Blonde thus leaves her bed, throwing only a mantle over her person, to 
 pass whole nights with Jean of Dammartin, and their interviews are 
 described in language which would not be allowed in any respectable 
 book at the present day. The Chevalier de la Tour-Landry, in his 
 moral instructions to his daughters, tells them a story to illustrate the ill 
 results of a quarrelsome temper. There was a young lady, he says, the 
 daughter of " a very gentle knight," who quarrelled at the game of tables 
 with a gentleman who had no better temper than herself, and who, pro- 
 
LICENTIOUSNESS OF MEDIAEVAL SOCIETY. 287 
 
 voked by the irritating language she used towards him, told her that she 
 was known to be in the habit of going by night into the men's chambers, 
 and kissing and embracing them in their beds without candle ; and this 
 is told, not in reproof of conduct which was unusually bad, but to show 
 that people who speak ill of others run the risk of having their own fail- 
 ings exposed. Examples of this intercourse of persons of different sexes 
 in their chambers, and of the results which frequently followed, as told in 
 the mediaeval romances and stories, might be multiplied to almost any 
 extent. 
 
 In these stories, the ladies in general show no great degree of deli- 
 cacy, but on the contrary, they are commonly very forward. It is usual 
 with them to fall in love with the other sex, and, so far from attempting 
 to conceal their passion, they often become suitors, and make their 
 advances with more warmth and less delicacy than is shown by the 
 gentlemen in a similar position. Not only are their manners dissolute, 
 but their language and conversation are loose beyond anything that those 
 who have not read these interesting records of mediaeval life can easily 
 conceive, which was a common failing with both sexes. The author of 
 the " Me'nagier de Paris " (ii. 60), in recommending to his daughters 
 some degree of modesty on this point, makes use of words which his 
 modern editor, although printing a text in obsolete language, thought 
 it advisable to suppress. It might be argued that the use of such 
 language is evidence rather of the coarseness than of the immorality of 
 the age, but unfortunately, the latter interpretation is supported by the 
 whole tenor of contemporary literature and anecdote, which leaves no 
 doubt that mediaeval society was profoundly immoral and licentious. 
 
 On the other hand, the gallantry and refinement of feeling which the 
 gentleman is made to show towards the other sex, is but a conventional 
 politeness ; for the ladies are too often treated with great brutality. Men 
 beating their wives, and even women with whom they quarrel who are 
 not their wives, is a common incident in the tales and romances. The 
 Chevalier de laTour-Landry tells his daughters the story of a woman who 
 was in the habit of contradicting her husband in public, and replying to 
 him ungraciously, for which, after the husband had expostulated in vain, 
 he one day raised his fist and knocked her down, and kicked her in the 
 face while she was down, and broke her nose. " And so," says the 
 
THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 knightly instructor, " she was disfigured for life, and thus, through her 
 ill behavour and bad temper, she had her nose spoiled, which was a great 
 misfortune to her. It would have been better for her to be silent and 
 submissive, for it is only right that words of authority should belong to 
 her lord, and the wife's honour requires that she should listen in peace 
 and obedience." The good "chevalier" makes no remark on the 
 husband's brutality, as though it were by no means an unusual occur- 
 rence. Other, and stronger, examples of this brutality of the one sex 
 towards the other, will be found in the early fabliaux. 
 
 A trouvere of the thirteenth century, named Robert de Blois, com- 
 piled a code of instructions in good manners for young ladies in French 
 verse, under the title of the "Chastisement des Dames," which is printed 
 by Barbazan, and forms a curious illustration of feudal domestic man- 
 ners. It was unbecoming in a lady, according to Robert de Blois, to 
 talk too much ; she ought especially to refrain from boasting of the 
 attentions paid to her by the other sex; and she was recommended not 
 to show too much freedom in her games and amusements, lest the men 
 should be encouraged to libertinism. In going to church, she was not 
 to " trot or run," but to walk seriously, not going in advance of her 
 company, and looking straight before her, and not to this side or the 
 other, but to salute " debonairely " all persons she met. She is 
 recommended not to let men put their hands into her breasts, or kiss 
 her on the mouth, as it might lead to greater familiarities. She was 
 not to look at a man too much, unless he were her acknowledged lover; 
 and when she had a lover, she was not to boast or talk too much of him. 
 She was not to expose her body uncovered out of vanity, as her breast, 
 or her legs, or her sides, nor to undress in the presence of men. She 
 was not to be too ready in accepting presents from the other sex. The 
 ladies are particularly warned against scolding and disputing, against 
 swearing, against eating and drinking too freely at table, and against 
 getting drunk, the latter being a practice from which much mischief 
 might arise. A lady was not to cover her face when she went in 
 public, as a handsome face was made to be seen, and it was not good 
 manners to remain with the face covered before a gentleman of rank. 
 An exception, however, is made in the case of ugly or deformed faces, 
 which might be covered. There was another exception to the counsel 
 
RULES OF ETIQUETTE FOR LADIES. 
 
 just mentioned. " A lady who is pale-faced, or has not a good smell, 
 ought to breakfast early in the morning ; for good wine gives a very 
 good colour; and she who eats and drinks well must heighten her 
 colour." One who has bad breath is recommended to eat aniseed, 
 fennel, and cumin to her breakfast, and to avoid breathing in people's 
 faces. A lady is to be very attentive to her behaviour in church, rules 
 for which are given. If she could sing, she was to do so when asked, 
 and not require too much pressing. Ladies are further recommended 
 to keep their hands clean, to cut their nails often, and not to suffer 
 them to grow beyond the finger, or to harbour dirt. In passing other 
 people's houses, ladies were not to look into them ; " for a person often 
 does things privately in his house, which he would not wish to be seen, 
 if any .one should come before his door." For this reason, too, when 
 a lady went into another person's house, she is recommended to cough 
 at the entrance, or to speak out loud, so that the inmates might not 
 be taken by surprise. The directions for a lady's behaviour at table 
 are very particular. " In eating, you must avoid much laughing or 
 talking. If you eat with another (i.e. in the same plate, or of the same 
 mess), turn the nicest bits to him, and do not go picking out the finest 
 and largest for yourself, which is not courteous. Moreover, no one 
 should eat greedily a choice bit which is too large or too hot, for fear 
 of choking or burning herself. .... Each time you drink, wipe your 
 mouth well, that no grease may go into the wine, which is very un- 
 pleasant to the person who drinks after you. But when you wipe your 
 mouth for drinking, do not wipe your eyes or nose with the table-cloth, 
 and avoid spilling from your mouth, or greasing your hands too much." 
 The lady is further, and particularly, recommended not to utter falsehoods. 
 The remainder of the poem consists of directions in making love and 
 receiving the addresses of suitors. The " Book " of the Chevalier de 
 la Tour-Landry contains instructions for young ladies, in substance 
 very much like these, but illustrated by stories and examples. 
 
 The chamber-maidens also went abroad, like the young sons of 
 gentlemen ; .but female servants who came as strangers appear not in 
 general to have been well regarded, and they probably were, or were 
 considered as, a lower class. The circumstance of their having left the 
 country where they were known, was looked upon as prima facie evi- 
 
290 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 dence that their conduct had brought them into discredit there. The 
 author of the " Menagier de Paris " advises his daughter never to take 
 any such chambrieres, without having first sent to make strict inquiries 
 about them in the parts from whence they came. This same early 
 writer on domestic economy divides the servants, who, in a large 
 household, were very numerous, into three classes : those who were 
 employed on a sudden, and only for a certain work, with regard to 
 whom the principal caution given is to bargain with them for the price 
 of their labour before they begin ; those who were employed for a 
 certain time in a particular description of work, as tailors, shoemakers, 
 butchers, and others, who always came to work in the house on materials 
 belonging to the master of the house, or harvest-men, &c, in the 
 country ; and domestic servants who were hired by the year. These 
 latter were expected to pay an absolutely passive obedience to the lord 
 and lady of the household, and to those set in authority by them. 
 The lady of the house had the especial charge of the female servants, 
 and the " Menagier " contains rather minute directions as to her house- 
 keeping duties. She was to require of the maid-servants, " that early 
 in the morning the entrance to your hostel, that is, the hall, and the 
 other places by which people enter and stop in the hostel to converse, 
 be swept and made clean, and that the footstools and covers of the 
 benches and forms be dusted and shaken, and after this that the other 
 chambers be in like manner cleaned and arranged for the day." They 
 were next to attend to and feed all the " chamber animals," such as pet 
 dogs, cage birds, &c. The next thing to be done was to portion out to 
 each servant her or his work for the day. At midday the servants were 
 to have their first meal, when they were to be fed plentifully, but "only 
 of one meat, and not of several, or of any delicacies ; and give them 
 only one kind of drink, nourishing but not heady, whether wine or 
 other ; and admonish them to eat heartily, and to drink well and plen- 
 tifully, for it is right that they should eat all at once, without sitting too 
 long, and at one breath, without reposing on their meal, or halting, or 
 leaning with their elbows on the table ; and as soon as they begin to 
 talk, or to rest on their elbows, make them rise, and remove the table." 
 After their "second labour," and on feast-days, the servants were to 
 have another, apparently a lighter, repast, and lastly, in the evening 
 
FEMALE MEDICAL SKILL. 291 
 
 (au vespre), they were to have another abundant meal, like their dinner, 
 and then, " if the season required it," they were to be " warmed and 
 made comfortable." The lady of the house was then, by herself or a 
 deputy on whom she could depend, to see that the house was closed, 
 and to take charge of the keys, that nobody could go out or come in ; 
 and then to have all the fires carefully " covered," and send all the 
 servants to bed, taking care that they put out their candles properly, to 
 prevent the risk of fire. In the English poem of the " Seven Sages," 
 printed by Weber, the Emperor is described as going to his chamber, 
 after the time of locking windows and gates — 
 
 Whan men leke windowe and gate, 
 
 Themparour com to chambre late. — Weber, iii, 60. 
 
 And it appears from a tale in the same collection, that the doors and 
 windows were unlocked at daybreak — 
 
 Tho {when) the day dawen gan, 
 
 Awai stal the yonge man ; 
 
 Men unlek dore and windowe. — Ibid., p. 87. 
 
 There was another duty performed by the ladies in the mediaeval 
 household, which was a very important one in an age of turbulence, and 
 must not be overlooked — they were both nurses and doctors. Medical 
 men were not then at hand to be consulted, and the sick or wounded 
 man was handed over to the care of the mistress of the house and her 
 maidens. The readers of Chaucer will remember the medicinal know- 
 ledge displayed by Dame Pertelot in the " Nonnes-Preste's Tale." 
 Medicinal herbs were grown in every garden, and were dried or made 
 into decoctions, and kept for use. In the early romances we often 
 meet with ladies who possessed plants and other objects which pos- 
 sessed the power of miraculous cures, and which they had obtained in 
 some mysterious manner. Thus, in the Carlovingian romance of 
 " Gaufrey," when Robastre was so dangerously wounded that there 
 remained no hope of his life, the good wife of the traitor Grifon under- 
 took to cure him. "And she went to a coffer and opened it, and took 
 out of it a herb which has so great virtue that whoever takes it will be 
 relieved from all harm. She pounded and mixed it in a mortar, and 
 then came to Robastre and gave it him. It had no sooner passed his 
 
292 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 throat than he was as sound as an apple " (" Gaufrey," p. 119). So in 
 " Fierabras " (p. 67), the Saracen Princess Floripas had in her chamber 
 the powerful " mandeglore " (mandrake), which she applied to the 
 wounds of Oliver, and they were instantly healed. In the " Roman de 
 la Violette " (p. 104), when Gerart, desperately wounded, is carried 
 into the castle, the maiden who was lady of it took him into a chamber, 
 and there took off his armour, and undressed him, and put him to bed. 
 They examined all his wounds, and applied to them ointments of great 
 efficacy, and under this treatment he soon recovered. In the English 
 romance of "Amis and Amiloun," when Sir Amiloun is discovered 
 struck with leprosy, the wife of his friend Amis takes him into her 
 chamber, strips him of all his clothing, bathes him herself, and then 
 puts him to bed — 
 
 Into hir chaumber she can him lede, 
 
 Aiid kest of al his pover wede {poor clothes), 
 
 And bathed his bodi al bare ; 
 And to a bedde swithe (quickly) him brought, 
 With clothes riche and wele ywrought ; 
 Ful blithe of him thai ware. — Weber, ii. 459. 
 
 To the knowledge of medicines was too often added another knowledge, 
 that of poisons^ — a science which was carried to a great degree of per- 
 fection in the Middle Ages, and of which there were regular professors. 
 The practice of poisoning was, indeed, employed to a frightful extent, 
 and it appears, from a variety of evidence, that women were commonly 
 agents in it. 
 
 A great part of the foregoing remarks apply exclusively to the aristo- 
 cratic portion of society, which included all those who had the right to 
 become knights. Through the whole extent of this class of society 
 one blood was believed to run, which was distinguished from that of all 
 other classes by the title of " gentle blood." The pride of gentle blood, 
 which was one of the distinguishing characteristics of feudalism, was very 
 great in the Middle Ages. It was believed that the mark of this blood 
 could never disappear ; and many of the mediaeval stories turn upon the 
 circumstance of a child of gentle blood having been stolen or abandoned 
 in its earlier infancy, and bred up, without any knowledge of its origin, 
 as a peasant among peasants, or as a burgher among burghers, but dis- 
 playing, as it grew towards manhood, by its conduct, the unmistakable 
 
UPPER AND MIDDLE CLASSES. 293 
 
 proofs of its gentle origin, in spite of education and example. The 
 burgher class — the merchant or tradesman, or the manufacturer — appear 
 always as money-getting and money-saving people, and individuals often 
 became very rich. This circumstance became a temptation, on the one 
 hand, to the aristocrat, whose tendency was usually, through his prodi- 
 gality, to become poor, and, on the other, to the rich man of no blood, 
 who sought to buy aristocratic alliances by his wealth; and intermarriages 
 between the two classes were not very unfrequent. In most cases, at 
 least in the romances and stories, it was an aristocratic young lady who 
 became united with a wealthy merchant, and it was usually a stroke of 
 selfish policy on the part of the lady's father. In the fabliau of the 
 "Vilain Mire" (Barbazan, ii. 1), — the origin of Moliere's "Medecin 
 malgre lui," — and in one or two other old stories, the aristocratic young 
 lady is married to an agriculturist. Marriages of this description are 
 represented as never being happy ; the husband has no sympathy for 
 his wife's gentility, and, according to the code of " chivalry," the lady 
 was perfectly justified in being unfaithful to her husband as often as she 
 liked, especially if she sinned with men who were superior to him in 
 blood. 
 
 It was common for the burgher class to ape gentility, even among 
 people of a lower order ; for the great merchant was often superior in 
 education and in intelligence, as he was in wealth, to the great majority 
 of the aristocratic class. In Chaucer, even the wife of the miller 
 aspired to the aristocratic title of madame — 
 
 Ther durste no wight clepe [call) hir but madame. — Cant. Tales, 1. 3954. 
 
 And in speaking of the wives of various burghers who joined in the 
 pilgrimage, the poet remarks — 
 
 It is right fair for to be clept [called) madame. — Ibid., 1. 378. 
 
 The burghers also cherished a number of servants and followers in their 
 household, or mesnie. In the fabliau of "La Borgoise d'Orliens," the 
 mesnie of the burgher, who is not represented as a person of wealth or 
 distinction, consists of two nephews, a lad who carried water, three 
 chamber-maidens, a niece, two pautoniers, and a ribald, and these were 
 all harboured in the hall. The pautonier was only another name for 
 
294 " THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 the ribald, or perhaps it was a sub-class or division of the infamous 
 class who lived practically upon the society of the Middle Ages. Even 
 the ordinary agriculturist had his mesnie. 
 
 What I have said of the great dissoluteness and immorality of the 
 aristocratic class applies more especially to the households of the greater 
 barons, though the same spirit must have spread itself far through the 
 whole class. The aristocratic class was itself divided into two classes, 
 or rather two ranks,' — the great barons, and the knights and lesser 
 landholders, and the division between these two classes became wider, 
 and the latter more absolutely independent, as the power of feudalism 
 declined. These latter were the origin of that class which in more 
 modern times has been known by the title of the old country gentleman. 
 As far as we can judge from what we know of them, I am led to think 
 that this class was the most truly dignified, and in general the most 
 moral portion of mediaeval society. There is abundant evidence that 
 the tone of morality in the burgher and agricultural classes was not 
 high ; and the whole tenor of mediaeval popular and historical literature 
 can leave no doubt on our minds that in the Middle Ages the clergy 
 were the great corruptors of domestic virtue among both these classes. 
 The character of the women, as described in the old satirists and story- 
 tellers, as well as in records of a still more strictly truthful character, 
 was very low, and, in the towns especially, they are described as spend- 
 ing much of their time in the taverns, drinking and gossiping. Of 
 course there were everywhere — and, it is to be trusted, not a few — 
 bright exceptions to this general character. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Occupations out of Doors. — The Pleasure-Garden. — The Love of Flowers, 
 and the Fashion of making Garlands. — Formalities of the Promenade. 
 — Gardening in the Middle Ages. 
 
 HUMBOLDT, in his "Cosmos,?' has dwelt on the taste for the 
 beauties of nature which has prevailed among various peoples, 
 and at different periods of the world's history, but he appears to me to 
 have by no means appreciated or done justice to the force of this senti- 
 ment among our forefathers in the Middle Ages, and, perhaps I may say, 
 especially in England. In our ancient popular poetry the mention of 
 the season of the year at which an event happens generally draws 
 from the poet some allusion to the charms of nature peculiar to it, to 
 the sweetness of the flowers, the richness of the fruit, or the harmony 
 of the song of birds. In some of the early romances, each new division 
 of the poem is introduced by an allusion of this kind. Thus, at the 
 opening of what the editor calls the first chapter of the second part of 
 the romance of " Richard Coeur-de-Lion," the poet tells us how it — 
 
 Merye is in the tyme of May, 
 
 Whenne foulis synge in her lay ; 
 
 Floures on appyl-trees and perye {pear-tree) ; 
 
 Smale foules synge merye. 
 
 Ladyes strowe here boures {chambers) 
 
 "With rede roses and lylye flowres ; 
 
 Gret joye is in frith {grove) and lake. — Weber, ii. 149. 
 
 Such interruptions of the narrative are frequent in the long romance of 
 " Alexander " (Alexander the Great), and are always expressive. Thus, 
 on one occasion the poet tells us, abruptly enough, how — 
 
 Whan corn ripeth in every steode {place), 
 
 Mury {pleasant) it is in feld and hyde {meadow). — Ibid., i. 24. 
 
296 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 And again, introduced equally abruptly, we are informed — 
 
 In tyme of hervest mery it is ynough ; 
 Peres and apples hongeth on bough. 
 The hay-ward bloweth mery his home ; 
 In every che {every) felde ripe is corne ; 
 The grapes hongen on the vyne ; 
 - Swete is trewe love and fyne. — Weber, p. 238. 
 
 When, indeed, we consider the confined and dark character of most 
 of the apartments of the feudal dwelling^ we cannot be surprised if our 
 mediaeval forefathers loved the recreations which brought them into 
 the open air. Castles and country mansions had always their gardens 
 and pleasure-grounds, which were much frequented by all the different 
 branches of the household. The readers of Chaucer will remember the 
 description of the " noble " knight January— 
 
 Amonges other of his honest thinges, 
 He had a gardyn walled al with stoon, 
 So fair a gardyn wot I nowher noon. 
 
 It is implied, at least, that this garden was extensive, and — 
 
 This noble knight, this January the olde, 
 
 Such deynte hath in it to walk and playe, 
 
 That he wold no wight suffre bere the keye, 
 
 Save he himself.— Chaucer, " The Marchaunde 's Tale." 
 
 So, in the curious popular collection of mediaeval stories, entitled the 
 " Seven Sages," we are told of a rich burgess who 
 
 Hadde, bihinden his paleys, 
 
 A fair gardin of nobleys 
 
 Ful of appel- trees, and als (also) of pirie (pear-trees) ; 
 
 Foules songe therinne murie. 
 
 Amideward that gardyn fre, 
 
 So wax (grew) a pinnote-tre, 
 
 That hadde fair bowes and frut ; 
 
 Therunder was al his dedut (pleasure). 
 
 He made therunder a grene bench, 
 
 And drank therunder many a sschench (cupful). 
 
 — Weber, iii. 23. 
 
 And, again, in the same collection of stories, a prudent mother, counsel- 
 ling her daughter, tells her — 
 
 Daughter, thi loverd (lord) hath a gardin, 
 A wel fair ympe (young tree) is tharin ; 
 
PLEASURE-GARDENS. 297 
 
 A fair harbeth {arbour) hit overspredeth, 
 
 Alle his solas therinne he ledeth. — Weber, iii. 69. 
 
 In Chaucer's " Frankeleyne's Tale," when the lady Dorigen was in want 
 of amusement to make her forget the absence of her husband, her friends, 
 finding that the sea-shore was not sufficiently gay — 
 
 Schope hem for to pleien somwhere elles, 
 
 They leden hire by rivers and by welles, 
 
 And eke in other places delitables ; 
 
 They dauncen, and they pley at dies and tables. 
 
 So on a day, right in the morvve tide, 
 
 Unto a gardeyn that was ther beside, 
 
 In which that they had made her ordinance 
 
 Of vitaile, and of other purveance, 
 
 They gon and plaie hem al the longe day : 
 
 And this was on the sixte morwe of May, 
 
 Which May had painted with his softe schoures 
 
 This gardeyn ful of leves and of floures : 
 
 And craft of mannes hond so curiously 
 
 Arrayed had this gardeyn of suche pris, 
 
 As if it were the verray paradis. 
 
 And after dinner gan thay to daunce 
 And singe also ; sauf Dorigen alone. 
 
 An important incident in the story here occurs, after which- — 
 
 Tho {then) come hir other frendes many on, 
 And in the alleyes romed up and down, 
 And nothing wist of this conclusioun, 
 But sodeynly began to revel newe, 
 Til that the brighte sonne had lost his hewe. 
 
 It would be easy to multiply such descriptions as the foregoing, but 
 we will only refer to the well-known one at the commencement of the 
 "Romance of the Rose," where the carolling is described with more 
 minuteness than usual. There were employed minstrels and "jogelours," 
 and apparently even tumblers, which are thus described in Chaucer's 
 English version : — 
 
 Tho {then) myghtist thou karoles sene, 
 And folk daunce and mery bene, 
 And made many a faire toumyng 
 Upon the grene gras springyng. 
 There myghtist thou se these flowtours, 
 Mynstrales and eke jogelours, 
 
THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 That wel to synge dide her peyne, 
 
 Somme songe songes of Loreyne ; 
 
 For in Loreyn her notes bee 
 
 Fulle swetter than in this contre. 
 
 There was many a tymbester, 
 
 And saillouris {jumpers or tumblers), that I dar wel sweie 
 
 Couthe (knew) her craft ful parfitly, 
 
 The tymbris up ful sotilly 
 
 They caste and hente fulle ofte 
 
 Upon a fynger faire and softe, 
 
 That they ne failide never mo. 
 
 Ful fetys damyseles two, 
 
 Ryght yonge, and fulle of semelyhede, 
 
 In kirtles and noon other wede, 
 
 And faire tressed every tresse, 
 
 Hadde Myrthe doon for his noblesse 
 
 Amydde the karole for to daunce. 
 
 But herof lieth no remembraunce 
 
 How that they daunced queyntly, 
 
 That oon wolde come alle piyvyly 
 
 Agayn that other, and whan they were 
 
 Togidre almost, they threwe yfere (in company) 
 
 Her^mouthis so, that thorough her play 
 
 It semed as they kiste alway. 
 
 To dauncen welle koude they the gise, 
 
 What shulde I more to you devyse? 
 
 These lines show us that our forefathers in the Middle Ages had their 
 dancing girls, just as they had and still have them in the East ; it was 
 one trait of the mixture of Oriental manners with those of Europe which 
 had taken place since the Crusades. 
 
 In these extracts, indeed, we have allusions to the practices of dancing 
 and singing, of playing at chess and tables, of drinking, and even of 
 dining, in the gardens. Our engraving No. 203, taken from the romance 
 of "Alexander," in the Bodleian Library, represents a garden scene, in 
 which two royal personages are playing at chess. Dancing in the open 
 air was a very common recreation, and is not unfrequently alluded to. 
 In the Roman de Geste known by the title of "La Mort de Garin," 
 a large dinner- party is given in a garden — 
 
 Les napes metent pardeanx un jardin. — Mort de Garin, p. 28. 
 And, in the " Roman de Berte " (p. 4), Charles Martel is represented as 
 dining similarly in the garden, at the midsummer season, when the rose 
 was in blossom — 
 
 Entour le saint Jehan, que la rose est fleurie. 
 
FATE OF A CROSS-GRAINED WIFE. 
 
 299 
 
 There is an early Latin story of a man who had a cross-grained wife. 
 One day he invited some friends to dinner, and set out his table in his 
 garden, by the side of a river {fecit poni mensam in horio suo profie aqucwi). 
 The lady seated herself by the water-side, at a little distance from the 
 table, and cast a very forbidding look upon her husband's guests ; upon 
 which he said to her, " Show a pleasant countenance to our guests, and 
 come nearer the table ; " but she only moved farther off, and nearer the 
 
 No. 203. — A Mediaeval Garden-Scene. 
 
 brink of the river, with her back turned to the water. He repeated his 
 invitation in a more angry tone, in reply to which, to show her ill-humour, 
 she drew farther back, with a quick movement of ill-temper, through 
 which, forgetting the nearness of the river, she fell into it, and was 
 drowned. The husband, pretending great grief, sent for a boat, and 
 proceeded up the stream in search of her body. This excited some 
 surprise among his neighbours, who suggested to him that he should go 
 
300 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 down the stream, and not up. "Ah ! " said he, " you did not know my 
 wife — she did everything in contradiction, and I firmly believe that her 
 body has floated against the current, and not with it." 
 
 Even among the aristocratic class the garden was often the place for 
 giving audience and receiving friends. In the romance of " Garin le 
 Loherain," a messenger sent to the Count Fromont, one of the great 
 barons, finds him sitting in a garden surrounded by his friends — 
 
 Trouva Fromont seant en un jardin ; 
 
 Environ lui avoit de ses amins. — Roman de Garin, i. 282. 
 
 A favourite occupation of the ladies in the Middle Ages was making 
 garlands and chaplets of flowers. In the " Lai d'Aristote " (Barbazan, 
 iii. 105, 107), King Alexander's beautiful mistress is described as de- 
 scending early in the morning, walking in the garden alone, and making 
 herself a chaplet of flowers. In another fabliau, published in Germany 
 by Adelbert Keller, a Saracenic maiden descends from her chamber into 
 the garden, performs her toilette at the fountain there, and then makes 
 herself a chaplet of flowers and leaves, which she puts on her head. So 
 Emelie, in Chaucer's " Knight's Tale " — 
 
 Iclothed was sche fressh for to devyse. 
 
 Hire yolwe heer {yellotu hah-) was browdid in a tresse 
 
 Byhynde hire bak, a yerde long, I gesse. 
 
 And in the gardyn at the sonne upriste [sun-rise) 
 
 Sche walketh up and doun wheer as hire liste ; 
 
 Sche gadereth fioures, partye whyte and reede, 
 
 To make a certeyn gerland for hire heede, 
 
 And as an aungel hevenly sche song. 
 
 A little farther on, Arcyte goes at daybreak into the fields to make him 
 a chaplet of the leaves of woodbine or hawthorn, for it must be re- 
 membered that this takes place in the month of May, which was espe- 
 cially the season for wearing garlands. In " Blonde of Oxford," Jean 
 of Dammartin, seeking his mistress, finds her in a meadow making 
 herself a chaplet of flowers — 
 
 Adont de la chambre s'avance, 
 
 De la. la vit en i. prael, 
 
 U ele faisoit un capiel. — Blonde of Oxford, p. 30. 
 
 Our cut No. 204, taken from a well-known manuscript in the British 
 
THE LOVE OF FLOWERS. 
 
 301 
 
 Museum, of the beginning of the fourteenth century (MS. Reg. 2 B. vii.), 
 represents a party of ladies in the garden, gathering flowers, and making 
 garlands. The love of flowers, as I have stated in a former chapter, 
 seems to have prevailed generally among our Anglo-Saxon forefathers, 
 and affectionate allusions to them occur, not unfrequently, in the literary 
 remains of that early period. Many of our old favourite garden-flowers 
 are, I believe, derived from the Anglo-Saxon gardens. Proofs of a 
 similar attachment to flowers might be quoted in abundance from the 
 writings of the period subsequent to the entrance of the Normans. The 
 wearing of garlands or chaplets of flowers was a common practice with 
 
 No. 204. — Ladies making Garlands. 
 
 both sexes. In the romantic history of the Fitz-Warines, written in the 
 thirteenth century, the hero, in travelling, meets a young knight who, in 
 token of his joyous humour, carries a chaplet of flowers on his head. 
 In the later English romance of the " Squyer of Lowe Degree," when 
 the "squyer" was preparing to do his office of carver in the hall — 
 
 There he araied him in scarlet red, 
 And set a chaplet upon his hed ; 
 A belte about his sydes two, 
 Withe brod barres to and fro. 
 
 Walter de Biblesworth talks of ladies dancing the carole, their heads 
 crowned with garlands of the blue-bottle flower — 
 
 Mener karole 
 Desouz chapeau de blaverole. — Vocabularies, p. 161. 
 
3°2 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 Garlands of flowers were also the common rewards for success in the 
 popular games. 
 
 All these enjoyments naturally rendered the garden a favourite and 
 important part of every man's domestic establishment ; during the 
 warmer months of the year it was a chosen place of resort, especially 
 after dinner. In the romance of *' Garin le Loherain," Begues is repre- 
 sented as descending from his palace, after dinner, to walk with his 
 fair wife Beatrice in the garden — 
 
 En son palais fu Begues de Belin ; 
 Apres mangier entra en un jardin, 
 Aveuc lui fu la belle Biatris. 
 
 — Roman de Garin, vol. ii. p. 97. 
 
 In another part of the same romance, Begues de Belin and his barons, 
 on rising from the table, went to seek recreation in the fields — 
 
 Quant mangie ont et beu a. loisir, 
 
 Les napes ostent, et en pres sunt sailli. 
 
 — Ibid., vol. i. p. 203. 
 
 The manuscript in the British Museum, from which we took our last 
 
 No. 205. — Ladies walking in the Garden. 
 
 illustration, furnishes the accompanying representation of a group of 
 ladies walking in the garden, and gathering flowers (No. 205). 
 
 In the " Menagier de Paris," compiled about the year 1393, its author, 
 addressing his young wife, treats briefly of the behaviour of a woman 
 when she is walking out, and especially when passing along the streets 
 
OUT-DOOR ETIQUETTE. 303 
 
 of a town, or going to church. "As you go," he says, "look straight 
 before you, with your eyelids low and fixed, looking forward to the 
 ground, at five toises (thirty feet) before you, and not looking at or 
 turning your eyes to man or woman who may be to your right or left, 
 nor looking upwards, nor changing your look from one place to another, 
 nor laughing, nor stopping to speak to anybody in the street " (vol. i. 
 
 P- 15)- 
 
 It must be confessed that this is, in some points, rather hard counsel 
 
 for a lady to follow; but it is consistent with the general system of 
 
 formalities of behaviour in the Middle Ages, upon which the ladies 
 
 gladly took their revenge when removed from constraint. When two 
 
 or more persons walked together, it was the custom to hold each other 
 
 by the hands, not to walk arm in arm, which appears to be a very 
 
 modern practice. In the romance of " Ogier le Danois,'' the emperor 
 
 and Ogier, when reconciled, are thus represented, walking in a friendly 
 
 manner hand in hand. The ladies in our last engraving are walking in 
 
 this manner; and in our next (No. 206), — taken from a copy,, given in 
 
 M. du Sommerard's " Album," from a manuscript in the library of the 
 
 Arsenal at Paris, written and illuminated for a prince of the house of 
 
 Burgundy, in the fifteenth century, — the lords and ladies of a noble or 
 
 princely household are represented as walking out in the same manner. 
 
 It is well known that the court of Burgundy, in the fifteenth century, 
 
 offered the model of strict etiquette. This illustration gives us also a 
 
 very good picture of a street-scene of the period to which it belongs. 
 
 The height of gentility, however, at least, in the twelfth and thirteenth 
 
 centuries, seems to have been to hold the lady by the finger only. It 
 
 is in this manner that, in the romance of " Ogier le Danois," the hero 
 
 holds the Princess Gloriande — 
 
 Donques enmainne le bon Danois Ogier, 
 E Gloriande, qui par le doit le tient. 
 
 — Roman d Ogier, p. 1 10. 
 
 So, in the romance of " La Violette," at the festivities given by the 
 king, the guests " distributed themselves in couples in the hall {i.e. a 
 gentleman with a lady), one taking the other by the finger, and so they 
 arranged themselves two and two " — 
 
3<H 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 Quant il orent asses deduit, 
 Par la sale s'acoinsent tuit ; 
 Li uns prent l'autre par le doi, 
 Si s'arangierent doi et doi. 
 
 — Roman de la Viohtte, p. 10. 
 
 In the curious poem entitled " La Court de Paradis," the sainted 
 
 No 206. — A Promenade Scene in the Fifteenth Century.' 
 
 ladies in heaven are represented as thus walking and holding each 
 other by the finger — 
 
 L'une tint l'autre par les dois. — Barhazan, iii. 139. 
 
 As a mark of great familiarity, two princes, Pepin's son Charles, and 
 the Duke Namles, are represented in the romance of " Ogier " as one, 
 
GARDENING. 
 
 3°5 
 
 No. 207 — A Bishop Preaching 
 
 Charles, holding his hand on the duke's shoulder, while the duke held 
 him by his mantle, as they walked 
 along ; they were going to church to- 
 gether : — 
 
 Kalles sa main li tint desus 1'espaule ; 
 Namles tint lui par le mantel de paile. 
 
 ■ — Roman d'Ogier, p. 143. 
 
 It may be remarked that sitting was 
 equally a matter of etiquette with walk- 
 ing, though we sometimes meet with 
 ladies and gentlemen seated in a manner 
 which is anything but ceremonious. In 
 the annexed cut (No. 207), taken from 
 a manuscript of the fourteenth century, 
 the reference to which I have unfortunately lost, a number of ladies, 
 seated on the ground, and apparently in the open air, are listening to 
 the admonitions of an episcopal preacher. 
 
 As I have introduced the subject of the love of our forefathers for 
 trees and flowers, some account of gardening in the Middle Ages will 
 not be out of place, especially as what has hitherto been written on the 
 history of gardening in England during this early period has been very 
 imperfect and incorrect. We have no direct information relating to 
 the gardens of our Anglo-Saxon forefathers — in fact, our knowledge is 
 limited to a few words gathered from the old vocabularies. The or- 
 dinary names for a garden, wyrt-tun and wyrt-geard, a plant-inclosure 
 and a plant-yard, are entirely indefinite, for the word wyrt was applied 
 to all plants whatever, and perhaps they indicate what we should call 
 the kitchen garden. The latter word, which was sometimes spelt ort- 
 geard, orc-geard, and orcyrd, was the origin of our modern orchard, 
 which is now limited to an inclosure of fruit-trees. Flowers were pro- 
 bably cultivated in the inclosed space round the houses. It would 
 appear that the Saxons, before they became acquainted with the Romans, 
 cultivated very few plants, if we may judge from the circumstance that 
 throughout the Anglo-Saxon period the names by which these were 
 known were nearly all derived from the Latin. The leek appears to 
 have been the principal table-vegetable among the Anglo-Saxons, as it 
 
306 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 was among the Welsh; its name, kac, or leak, is pure Anglo-Saxon, 
 and its importance was considered so much above that of any other 
 vegetable, that leac-tun, the leek-garden, became the common name for 
 the kitchen-garden, and kac-weard, a leek-keeper, was used to designate 
 the gardener. The other alliaceous plants were considered as so many- 
 varieties of the leek, and were known by such names as enne-leac, or 
 ynne-leac, supposed to be the onion, and gar-leac, or garlic. Bean is 
 also an Anglo-Saxon word, but, singularly enough, the Anglo-Saxons 
 seem not to have been originally acquainted with peas, for the only 
 name they had for them was the Latin pisa, and pyse. Even for the 
 cabbage tribe, the only Anglo-Saxon name we know is simply the Latin 
 brassica; and the cole wort, which was named cawl, and cawl-wyrt, was 
 derived from the Latin caulis. So the turnip was called nape, from the 
 Latin napits ; and rcedic, or radish, is perhaps from raphanns.* Garden 
 cresses, parsley, mint, sage, rue, and other herbs,t were in use, but 
 mostly, except the cresses, with Latin names. 
 
 We have long lists of flowering plants in the Anglo-Saxon vocabularies, 
 but as they are often difficult to identify, and, being chiefly enumerated 
 for their medicinal qualities, are mostly wild plants, they throw little 
 light on the character of the flower-garden. For the garden rose and 
 the lily they used the Roman names rose and lilie; the latter appears 
 to have been an especially favourite flower among the Anglo-Saxons. 
 Among other plants, evidently belonging to the garden, are southern- 
 wood, sutheme-wude ; the turnsole or sunflower, called sigel-hwerfe (the 
 gem-turned) or soha.ce (which is merely the Latin solsequiuni) ; the violet, 
 {clcefre) ; the marigold, called read-clcefre ; the gilliflower, hwit-clcefre ; the 
 periwinkle, pervincce ; the honeysuckle, hunig-sucle ; the piony, for which 
 the Anglo-Saxons had only the Latin word pwnia; the daisy, dceges-eage ; 
 
 * To show the extreme ignorance which has prevailed on the history of English 
 gardening in the Middle Ages, it need only be mentioned that Loudon, " Encyclo- 
 peedia of Gardening" (edition of 1850), was not aware that the leek had been 
 cultivated in England before the time of Tusser, the latter half of the sixteenth 
 century (p. 854) ; and states that garlic " has been cultivated in this country since 
 1548 " (p. 855) ; and that the radish is " an annual, a native of China, and was men- 
 tioned by Gerard in 1584 " (p. 846). 
 
 + Loudon (p. 887) was not aware that the cultivation of sage dated further back 
 than the time of Gerard, who wrote in 1597, and he could trace back to no older date 
 the cultivation of rue. 
 
FRUIT-TREES. 307 
 
 and the laur-beam, which was perhaps the bay-tree rather than the 
 laurel. 
 
 The chief fruit of the Anglo-Saxons was undoubtedly the apple, the 
 name of which, ceppel, belongs to their language. The tree was called 
 an apulder, and the only varieties mentioned are the sarmelst apulder, or 
 souring apple-tree, and the smite apulder, or sweeting apple-tree. The 
 Anglo-Saxons had orchards containing only apple-trees, to which they 
 gave the name of an apulder-tun, or apple-tree garden ; of the fruit of 
 which they made what they called, and we still call, cider, and which 
 they also called ceppel-win, or apple-wine. They appear to have received 
 the pear from the Romans, as the names pera, a pear, and piriga, a pear- 
 tree, were evidently taken from pirns. They had also derived from the 
 Roman gardens, no doubt, the cherry-tree (cyrs-treow, or ciris-beam, from 
 the Latin cerasus), the peach (persoc-treow, from persicarius), the mulberry 
 (mor-beam, from morns), the chestnut {cysteti, cyst, or cystel-beam, from 
 castaneus),* perhaps the almond {magdala-treow, from amigdalus), the 
 fig (fic-beam, from ficus), and the pine {pin-treow, from pinus). The 
 small kernels of the pine were used very extensively in the Middle Ages, 
 in the same way as olives. We must add to these the plum (phwi-treow), 
 the name of which is Anglo-Saxon; the medlar, which was known in 
 Anglo-Saxon by a very unexplainable name, but one which was preserved 
 to a comparatively recent period ; the quince, which was called a cod- 
 ceple, or bag-apple ; the nut (hnutu), and the hazel-nut (hasel-hmttu). 
 They called the olive an oil-tree {ale-beam), which would seem to prove 
 that they considered its principal utility to be for making oil. The vine 
 was well known to the Anglo-Saxons ; they called it the win-lreow, or 
 wine-tree, its fruit, winberige, or wine berries, and a bunch of grapes, 
 geclystre, a cluster. We find no Anglo-Saxon words for gooseberries or 
 currants ; but our forefathers were well acquainted with the strawberry 
 (strea-berige), and the raspberry, which they called hynd-berige. Perhaps 
 
 * Our word chestnut is derived from the Anglo-Saxon cyste-hnutu, the nut of the 
 cyste-tree. I may remark, on these names of fruits, that Loudon imagined that the 
 peach was "introduced into England about the middle of the sixteenth century" 
 ("Encyclopaedia of Gardening," p. 912); and that of the fig, the "first trees were 
 brought over from Italy by Cardinal Pole, in 1525." He seems to think that 
 quinces and mulberries came into this country also in the course of the sixteenth 
 century. 
 
308 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 these last-mentioned fruits, which are known to be natives of Britain, 
 were known only in their wild state.* 
 
 The earliest account of an English garden is given by Alexander 
 Neckam, who flourished in the latter half of the twelfth century, in the 
 sixty-sixth chapter of the second book of his treatise De Naturis Rerum, 
 which has been edited by the writer of the present volume in the series 
 of historical volumes published under the direction of the Master of 
 the Rolls. He introduces at least one plant, the mandrake, which 
 was fabulous, and gives several names which I shall be obliged to leave 
 in his original Latin, as, perhaps through corruption of the text, I cannot 
 interpret them, but there can be little doubt that it is in general a correct 
 enumeration of the plants and trees cultivated in a complete English 
 garden of the period. "A garden," he says, "should be adorned on 
 this side with roses, lilies, the marigold, molis, and mandrakes ; and on 
 that side with parsley, cost, fennel, southernwood, coriander, sage, savery, 
 hyssop, mint, rue, dittany, smallage, pellitory, lettuce, cresses, ortidano, 
 and the piony. Let there also be beds (arece) enriched with onions, 
 leeks, garlic, melons, and scallions (hinnuilis). The garden is also en- 
 nobled by the cucumber which creeps on its belly, and by the sopori- 
 ferous poppy, as well as by the daffodil and the acanthus. Nor let pot- 
 herbs be wanting, if you can help it, such as beets, herb mercury, orache, 
 the acedula (sorrel ?), and the mallow. It is useful also to the gardener to 
 have anise, mustard, white pepper, and wormwood." Neckam then goes 
 on to the fruit-trees. " A noble garden," he says, " will give you med- 
 lars, quinces, the pearmain [volema), peaches, pears of St Regie, pome- 
 granates, citrons (or lemons), oranges, almonds, dates, and figs." When 
 Neckam speaks of a " noble garden," he, of course, speaks of that of a 
 great baron or prince, and enumerates fruits of choice, and mostly above 
 the common range. Medlars and quinces were formerly held in great 
 esteem and much used. I have ventured to interpret volema as mean- 
 
 * There is, however, an Anglo-Saxon name of a tree which I suspect has been 
 misinterpreted. The glossaries give "ramnus, J>efe-J>orn," and our lexicographers, 
 taking the old sense of the word rhamnus, interpret it, the dog-rose. But in a very 
 curious glossary of names of plants of the middle of the thirteenth century, printed in 
 my "Volume of Glossaries," in which the meaning of the Latin word is given in 
 Anglo-Norman and in English, we have " Ramni, grosiler, J>efe-]>om" (p. 141). I 
 have no doubt that the thefe-thorn was the gooseberry. In the dialect of Norfolk, 
 gooseberries are still called theabes. 
 
GARDEN-FRUITS AND PLANTS. 309 
 
 ing the pearmain, which was considered one of the choicest apples, as 
 the apple is not mentioned in the list, and as in one of the early glossaries 
 that meaning is attached to the word. Peaches were, as we have seen, 
 known to the Anglo-Saxons; and in 1276 we find slips of peach-trees 
 mentioned in an official record as planted in the king's garden at West- 
 minster. The pear of St Regie was one of the choice kinds of pears 
 brought from France, and it and several other kinds of pears are enum- 
 erated in the accounts of the Earl of Lincoln's garden in Holborn 
 (London) in 1296. It is rather surprising that Mr Hudson Turner, in 
 his very valuable volume on domestic architecture, where he supposed 
 that mala aurea in Neckam's list were intended for the golden apples of 
 the Hesperides, should not have known that the malum aureum of the 
 Muddle Ages was the orange. Pomegranates, citrons, oranges, almonds, 
 dates; and figs, are known to have been cultivated in England at differ- 
 ent periods, but it is not probable that the fruit came often to perfection. 
 It may be remarked that Neckam gives a separate chapter to the culti- 
 vation of the vine, which belonged to the vineyard, and not to the 
 garden. After an enumeration of plants which were not grown in West- 
 ern Europe, Neckam gives a list of others, known for their medicinal 
 qualities, some of which can hardly have been planted in a garden, 
 unless it belonged to a physician ; although it appears to have been the 
 custom to devote a corner of the garden to the medicinal plants most 
 in use, in order that they might be ready at hand when wanted. The 
 gardener's tools in the twelfth century, as enumerated by Neckam in his 
 treatise De Utensilibus, were few and simple ; he had an axe, or twibilL, 
 a knife for grafting, a spade, and a pruning-hook. 
 
 John de Garlande lived during the first half of the thirteenth century. 
 He was an Englishman, but had established himself as a scholar in the 
 University of Paris, so that the description of his garden which he gives 
 in his " Dictionarus " may be considered as that of a garden in the 
 neighbourhood of Paris, which, however, probably differed little from 
 a garden in England. It may be considered as the garden of a respect- 
 able burgher. " In Master John's garden are these plants, sage, parsley, 
 dittany, hyssop, celandine, fennel, pellitory, the rose, the lily, and the 
 violet; and at the side (i.e. in the hedge), the nettle, the thistle, and fox- 
 gloves. His garden also contains medicinal herbs, namely, mercury and 
 
THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 the mallow, agrimony, with nightshade, and the marigold." Master John's 
 gardener had also a garden for his pot-herbs, in which grew borage, leeks, 
 garlic, mustard, onions, cibols, and scallions ; and in his shrubbery grew 
 pimpernel, mouseare, self-heal, buglos, adder's-tongue, and " other herbs 
 good for men's bodies." * Master John had in his fruit-garden, cherry- 
 trees, pear-trees, apple-trees, plum-trees, quinces, medlars, peaches, 
 chestnuts, nuts, walnuts, figs, and grapes. Walter de Bibblesworth, 
 writing in England towards the close of the thirteenth century, enum- 
 erates as the principal fruit-trees in a common garden, apples, pears, and 
 
 cherries — 
 
 Pomere, perere, e cerecer ; 
 
 and adds the plum-tree {prune?-), and the quince-tree (coingner). 
 
 The cherry, indeed, appears to have been one of the most popular of 
 
 fruits in England during the mediaeval period. The records of the time 
 
 contain purchases of cherry-trees for the king's garden in Westminster 
 
 in 1238 and 1277, and cherries and cherry-trees are enumerated in 
 
 all the glossaries from the times of the Anglo-Saxons to the sixteenth 
 
 century. The Earl of Lincoln had cherry-trees in his garden in Holborn 
 
 towards the close of the thirteenth century, and during the same century 
 
 we have allusions to the cultivation of the cherry in other parts of the 
 
 kingdom. The allusions to cherries in the early poetry are not at all 
 
 unfrequent, and they were closely mixed up with popular manners and 
 
 feelings. It appears to have been the custom, from a rather early period, 
 
 to have fairs or feasts, probably in the cherry-orchards, during the period 
 
 that the fruit was ripe, which were called cherry-fairs, and sometimes 
 
 cherry-feasts ; and these are remembered, if they do not still exist, in our 
 
 great cherry districts, such as Worcestershire and Kent. They were brief 
 
 moments of great gaiety and enjoyment, and the poets loved to quote 
 
 them as emblems of the transitory character of all worldly things. In 
 
 the latter part of the fourteenth century, the poet Gower, speaking of 
 
 the teachers of religion and morality, says — 
 
 They prechen us in audience 
 
 That no man schalle his soule empeyre [impair'), 
 
 For alle is but a cherye-fayre. 
 
 * It may be well to remark, once for all, that it is almost impossible to identify 
 some of these mediaeval names of plants. 
 
CHERRY FEASTS AND FLOWERS. 311 
 
 And the same writer again — 
 
 Sumtyme I drawe into memoyre, 
 How sorow may not ever laste, 
 And so cometh hope in at laste, 
 Whan I non other foode knowe ; 
 And that endureth but a throwe, 
 Ryght as it were a chery feste. 
 
 So again, under the reign of Henry IV., about the year 1411, Occleve, 
 in his poem " De regimine principum," recently printed for the Rox- 
 burghe Club, says (p. 47) — 
 
 Thy lyfe, my sone, is but a chery-feire. 
 
 During the remainder of the fifteenth century, the allusions to the 
 cherry-fairs are very frequent.* Yet in face of all this, and still more 
 abundant evidence, Loudon (" Encyclopaedia of Gardening," edition of 
 1850) says, "Some suppose that the cherries introduced by the Romans 
 into Britain were lost, and that they were re-introduced in the time of 
 Henry VIII. by Richard Haines (it should be Harris), the fruiterer to 
 that monarch. But though we have no proof that cherries were in 
 England at the time of the Norman Conquest, or for some centuries after 
 it, yet Warton has proved, by a quotation from Lydgate, a poet who 
 wrote about or before 1415, that the hawkers in London were wont to 
 expose cherries for sale, in the same manner as is now done early in the 
 season." 
 
 To turn from the fruit-garden to the flower-garden, modern writers 
 have fallen into many similar mistakes as to the supposed recent date of 
 the introduction of various plants into this country. Loudon, for in- 
 stance, says that we owe the introduction of the gilliflower, or clove-pink 
 (dianthus caryophyllus), to the Flemings who took refuge on our shores 
 from the savage persecutions of the Duke of Alva in the latter half of 
 the sixteenth century ; whereas this flower was certainly well known, 
 under the name of gillofres, ages before. Roses, lilies, violets, 
 and periwinkles, seem to have continued to be the favourite garden- 
 flowers. A manuscript of the fifteenth century in the British Museum 
 (MS. Sloane, No. 1201), furnishes us with a list of plants then considered 
 necessary for a garden, arranged first alphabetically, and then in classes, 
 
 * For many references, the reader is referred to Halliwell's "Dictionary of Archaic 
 and Provincial Words," under the word Cherry-Fair. 
 
312 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 of which I will here give verbatim the latter part, as the best illustration of 
 the mediaeval notion of a garden, and as being, at the same time, a very- 
 complete list. After the alphabetical list, the manuscript goes on : — 
 
 Of the same herbes for potage. 
 Borage, langdebefe (i), vyolettes, malowes, marcury, daundelyoun, avence, 
 myntes, sauge, parcely, goldes (2), mageroum, (3), ffenelle, carawey, red 
 nettylle, oculus Christi (4), daysys, chervelle, lekez, colewortes, rapez, tyme, 
 cyves, betes, alysaundre, letyse, betayne, columbyne, allia, astralogya 
 rotunda, astralogia longa, basillicam (5), dylle, deteyne, hertestong, radiche, 
 white pyper, cabagez, sedewale, spynache, coliaundre, ffoothistylle (6), orage, 
 cartabus, lympens, nepte, clarey, pacience. 
 
 Of the sa.7tie herbes for sauce. 
 Hertestonge, sorelle, pelytory, pelytory of spayne, deteyne, vyolettes, 
 parcely, myntes. 
 
 Also, of the same herbes for the coppe. 
 
 Cost, costmary, sauge, isope, rose mary, gyllofre, goldez, clarey, mage- 
 roum, rue. 
 
 Also, of the same herbes for a salade. 
 
 Buddus of stanmarche (7), vyolette flourez, parcely, red myntes, syves (8), 
 cresse of Boleyne, purselane, ramsons, calamyntes, primerose buddus, dayses, 
 rapounses, daundelyoun, rokette, red nettelle, borage flourez, croppus of red 
 ffenelle, selbestryve, chykynwede. 
 
 Also, herbez to sty lie (distil). 
 
 Endyve, red rose, rose mary, dragans (9), skabiose, ewfrace (10), wermode, 
 mogwede, beteyne, wylde tansey, sauge, isope, ersesmart. 
 
 Also, herbes for savour and beaute. 
 Gyllofre gentyle, mageroum gentyle, brasyle, palma Christi, stycadose, 
 meloncez, arcachaffe, scalacely (11), philyppendula (12), popy royalle, ger- 
 maundre, cowsloppus of Jerusalem, verveyne, dylle, seynt Mare, garlek. 
 
 Also, rotys (roots ) for a gar dyne. 
 Parsenepez, turnepez, radyche, karettes, galyngale, eryngez (13), saffrone. 
 
 Also, for an herbere. 
 Vynes, rosers, lyle's, thewberies (14), almondez, bay-trese, gourdes, date- 
 trese, peche-trese, pyneappulle, pyany romain, rose campy, cartabus, seliane, 
 columbyne gentyle, elabre. 
 
 (1) Buglos. (2) The corn-marigold. (3) Marjoram. (4) Clary. (5) Basil. (6) 
 Probably sowthistle, although it is placed under the letter F in the alphabetical list. 
 (7) The plant Alexander. (8) Cives. (9) The herb serpentine. (10) Eyebright. 
 (11) Better known as Solomon's seal. (12) Dropwort. (13) Eringoes. (14) Goose- 
 berries ? See before, p. 308. 
 
THE MYSTERIES OF GRAFTING. 313 
 
 The processes of gardening were simple and easy, and the gardener's 
 skill consisted chiefly in the knowledge of the seasons for sowing and 
 planting different herbs and trees, and of the astrological circumstances 
 under which these processes could be performed most advantageously. 
 The great ambition of the mediaeval horticulturist was to excel in the 
 various mysteries of grafting, and he entertained theories on this subject 
 of the most visionary character, many of which were founded on the 
 writings of the ancients ; for the mediaeval theorists were accustomed to 
 select from the doctrines of antiquity that which was most visionary, 
 and it usually became still more visionary in their hands. Two English 
 treatises on gardening were current in the fifteenth century, one founded 
 upon the Latin treatise of Palladius, and entitled " Godfrey upon 
 Palladie de Agricultura," the other by Nicholas Bollarde, a monk of 
 Westminster — the monks were great gardeners. These treatises occur 
 not unfrequently in manuscripts, and both are found in the British 
 Museum, in the Sloane MS., No. 7. An abridgment of them was edited 
 by Mr Halliwell, from the Porkington manuscript, in a collection of 
 " Early English Miscellanies," printed for the Warton Club. In these 
 treatises, cherry-trees appear to have been more than any others the 
 subjects of experiment, and to have been favourite stocks for grafting. 
 Among the receipts given in these treatises, we may mention those for 
 making cherries grow without stones, and other fruit without cores ; for 
 making the fruit of trees bear any colour you like ; for making old trees 
 young ; for making sour fruit sweet ; and " to have grapes ripe as soon 
 as pears or cherries." This was to be brought about by grafting the 
 vine on a cherry-tree, according to the following directions, the spelling 
 of which I modernise : — " Set a vine by a cherry till it grow, and at 
 the beginning of February when time is, make a hole through the 
 cherry-tree at what height thou wilt, and draw through the vine branch 
 so that it fill the hole, and shave away the old bark of the vine as much 
 as shall be in the hole, and put it in so that the part shaven fill the hole 
 full, and let it stand a year till they be ' souded ' together, then cut 
 away the root end of the vine, and lap it with clay round about, and 
 keep it so after other graftings aforesaid." This is from Nicholas 
 Bollarde. Godfrey upon Palladius tells us how " to have many roses. 
 Take the hard pepins that be right ripe, and sow them in February or 
 
3 H THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 March, and when they spring, water them well, and after a year com- 
 plete thou mayest transplant them ; and if thou wilt have timely (early) 
 roses, delve about the roots one or two handbreadths, and water their 
 scions with warm water ; and for to keep them long, put them in honey- 
 combs." According to the receipts edited by Mr Halliwell, " If thou 
 wilt that in the stone of a peach-apple (this was the ordinary name for 
 a peach) be found a nut-kernel, graft a spring (sprout) of a peach-tree 
 on the stock of a nut-tree. Also a peach-tree shall bring forth pome- 
 granates, if it be sprong (sprinkled) ofttimes with goat's milk three 
 days when it beginneth to flower. Also the apples of a peach-tree 
 shall wax red, if its scion be grafted on a playne tree." Such were the 
 intellectual vagaries of " superstitious eld." 
 
 Peaches are frequently mentioned among the fruit of the thirteenth 
 and fourteenth centuries ; but nectarines or apricots are not met with 
 before the fifteenth century. The latter was called in old English by 
 their French name of abricots, and subsequently, and still more fre- 
 quently, apricocks. 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 Amusements. — Performing- Bears. — Hawking and Hunting. — Riding. — 
 Carriages. — Travelling. — Inns and Taverns. — Hospitality. 
 
 DURING the period of which we are treating, the same rough 
 sports were in vogue among the uneducated classes that had 
 existed for ages before, and which continued for ages after. Many of 
 these were trials of strength, such as wrestling and throwing weights, 
 with archery, and other exercises of that description ; others were of a 
 less civilised character, such as cock-fighting and bear and bull baiting. 
 These latter were favourite amusements, and there was scarcely a town 
 or village of any magnitude which had not its bull-ring. It was a muni- 
 cipal enactment in all towns and cities that no butcher should be allowed 
 to kill a bull until it had been baited. The bear was an animal in great 
 favour in the Middle Ages, and was not only used for baiting, but was 
 tamed and taught various performances. I have already, in a former 
 chapter, given an example of a 
 dancing-bear under the Anglo- 
 Saxons ; the accompanying cut 
 (No. 208) is another, taken from 
 a manuscript of the beginning of 
 the thirteenth century, in the 
 British Museum (MS. Arundel, 
 No. 91). 
 
 I fear the fact cannot be con- 
 cealed that the ladies of former 
 
 days assisted not unfrequently at these rough and unfeminine pastimes. 
 There can be no doubt that they were customary spectators of the 
 
 No. 208. — A Dancing-Bear. 
 
3i6 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 baiting of bulls and bears. Henry VIII. 's two daughters, Mary and 
 Elizabeth, witnessed this coarse amusement, as we are assured by con- 
 temporary writers, with great satisfaction. The scene represented in 
 our cut No. 209, which is copied from one of the carved seats, of the 
 fourteenth century, in Gloucester Cathedral, is chiefly remarkable for 
 
 No. 209. — Baiting the Bear. 
 
 the small degree of energy — the quiet dignity, in fact — displayed by the 
 actors in it. 
 
 Hawking and hunting, especially the former, were the favourite re- 
 creations of the upper classes. Hawking was considered so honourable 
 an occupation, that people were in the custom of carrying the hawk on 
 their fists when they walked or rode out, when they visited or went to 
 public assemblies, and even in church, as a mark of their gentility. In 
 the illuminations we not unfrequently see ladies and gentlemen seated 
 in conversation, bearing their hawks on their hands. There was gener- 
 ally a, perche in the chamber expressly set aside for the favourite bird, 
 on which he was placed at night, or by day when the other occupations 
 
 of its possessor rendered it inconvenient to 
 carry it on the hand. Such a perche, with 
 the hawk upon it, is represented in our cut 
 No. 210, taken from a manuscript of the 
 romance of " Meliadus," of the fourteenth 
 century (MS. Addit. in the British Museum, 
 No. 12,224). Hawking was in some respects a complicated science; 
 numerous treatises were written to explain and elucidate it, and it was 
 submitted to strict laws. Much knowledge and skill were shown in 
 choosing the hawks, and in breeding and training them, and the value 
 of a well-chosen and well-trained bird was considerable. When carried 
 about by its master or mistress, the hawk was held to the hand by a 
 strap of leather or silk, called a Jesse, which was fitted to the legs of the 
 
 No. 210. — A Hawk on its Perche. 
 
HA WKING. 
 
 317 
 
 bird, and passed between the fingers of the hand. Small bells were also 
 attached to their legs, one on each. The 
 accompanying cut (No. 211), from a manu- 
 script in the Bibliotheque Nationale at Paris 
 (No. 6956), represents the falconer or keeper 
 of the hawks holding in one hand what ap- 
 pears to be the jesse ; he has a bird in his 
 right hand, while another is perched on a 
 short post, which is often alluded to in the 
 directions for breeding hawks. The falconer 
 wears hawks' gloves, which were made ex- 
 pressly to protect the hands against the No 2II ,_ Haw ks and their Keeper, 
 bird's talons. 
 
 Hawking was a favourite recreation with the ladies, and in the illumi- 
 nated manuscripts they often figure in scenes of this kind. Sometimes 
 they are on foot, as in the group represented in our cut No. 212, taken 
 
 No. 212. — Ladies' Hawking. 
 
 from a manuscript in the British Museum (MS. Reg. 2 B. vii.) One 
 lady has let go her hawk, which is in the act of striking a heron ; the 
 other retains her hawk on her hand. The latter, as will be seen, is 
 hooded. Each of the ladies who possess hawks has one glove only — 
 the hawk's glove ; the other hand is without gloves. They took with 
 them, as shown here, dogs in couples to start the game. The dogs used 
 for this purpose were spaniels, and the old treatise on domestic affairs 
 
318 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 entitled " Le Menagier de Paris," gives particular directions for choos- 
 ing them. In the illuminations, hawking parties are more frequently- 
 represented on horseback than on foot ; and often there is a mixture of 
 riders and pedestrians. The treatise just referred to directs that the 
 horse for hawking should be a low one, easy to mount and dismount, 
 and very quiet, that he may go slowly, and show no restiveness. Hawk- 
 ing appears to have commenced at the beginning of August ; and until 
 the middle of that month it was confined almost entirely to partridges. 
 Quails, we are told, came in the middle of August, and from that time 
 forward everything seems to have been considered game that came to 
 hand, for when other birds fail, the ladies are told that they may hunt 
 fieldfares, and even jays and magpies. September and October were 
 the busiest hawking months. 
 
 Hawking was, indeed, a favourite diversion with the ladies, and they 
 not only accompanied the gentlemen to this sport, but frequently en- 
 gaged in it alone. The hawking of the ladies, however, appears to have 
 been especially that of herons and water-fowl ; and this was called going 
 to the river {alter en riviere), and was very commonly pursued on foot. 
 It may be mentioned that the fondness of the ladies for the diversion of 
 hawking is alluded to in the twelfth century by John of Salisbury. The. 
 hawking on the river, indeed, seems to have been that particular branch 
 of the sport which gave most pleasure to all classes, and it is that which 
 is especially represented in the drawings in the Anglo-Saxon manu- 
 scripts. Dogs were commonly used in hawking to rouse the game in 
 the same manner as at the present day, but in hawking on the river, 
 where dogs were of course less effective, other means were adopted. 
 In a manuscript already quoted in the present chapter (MS. Reg. 2 B. 
 vii.), of the beginning of the fourteenth century, a group of ladies hawk- 
 ing on the banks of a river are accompanied by a man, perhaps the fal- 
 coner, who makes a noise to rouse the water-fowl. Our cut No. 213 is 
 taken from a very interesting manuscript of the fourteenth century, made 
 for the monastery of St Bartholomew, in Smithfield, and now preserved 
 in the library of the British Museum (MS. Reg. 10 E. iv.) ; it is part of 
 a scene in which ladies are hawking on a river, and a female is rousing 
 the water-fowl with a tabor. The fountain is one of those conventional 
 objects by which the mediaeval artist indicated a spring, or running 
 
ROUSING THE GAME. 
 
 319 
 
 stream. This seems to have been a very common method of rousing 
 the game ; and it is represented in one of the carved seats, or misereres 
 (as they have been termed technically), in Gloucester Cathedral, which 
 
 , A r4vA-'^-' - 
 
 No. 213. — Rousing Game. 
 
 is copied in our cut No. 214. This scene is rather curiously illustrated 
 by an anecdote told by an old chronicler, Ralph de Diceto, of a man 
 
 No. 214. — Following the Hawk. 
 
 who went to the river to hunt teal with his hawk, and roused them 
 with " what is called by the river-hawkers a tabor." * The tending of 
 the hawks used in these diversions was no slight occupation in the 
 
 "Quidam juvenis de domo domini Lundoniensis episcopi, spiritum habens in 
 avibus coeli ludere, nisum suum docuit cercellas affectare propensius. Itaque juxta 
 sonitum illius ihstrumenti quod a ripatoribus vocatur taiur, subito cercella qusedam 
 alarum remigio pernicitur evolavit. Nisus autem illusus lupum quendam nantem in 
 locis sub undis crispantibus intercepit, invasit, et cepit, et super spatium sicut visum 
 est xl. pedumse cum nova prasda recepit."— Rod. de Diceto, ap. Decern Striptores, 
 col. 666. 
 
320 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 mediaeval household, and was the subject of no little study; they were 
 cherished with the utmost care, and carried about familiarly on the 
 wrist in all places and under all sorts of circumstances. It was a com- 
 mon practice, indeed, to go to church with the hawk on the wrist. 
 One of the early French poets, Gaces de la Buigne, who wrote a metri- 
 cal treatise on hunting in the middle of the fourteenth century, advises 
 his readers to carry their hawks with them wherever there were as- 
 semblies of people, whether in churches or elsewhere — 
 
 La ou les gens sont amasses, 
 Soit en l'eglise, ou autre part. 
 
 This is explained more fully by the author of the " Menagier de Paris" 
 (vol. ii. p. 296), who wrote especially for the instruction of the female 
 members of his family. "At this point of falconry," he says, "it is ad- 
 visable more than ever to hold the hawk on the wrist, and to carry it to 
 
 the pleadings (courts of justice), and 
 among people to the churches, and 
 in other assemblies, and in the 
 streets, and to hold it day and night 
 as continually as possible, and some- 
 times to perch it in the streets, that 
 it may see people, horses, carts, 
 dogs, and become acquainted with 
 
 all things And sometimes, 
 
 in the house, let it be perched on 
 the dogs, that the dogs may see it, 
 and it them." It was thus that the 
 practice of carrying a hawk on the 
 wrist became a distinction of people of gentle blood. The annexed 
 engraving (No. 215), taken from the same manuscript last quoted (MS. 
 Reg. 10 E. iv.), represents a lady tending her hawks, which are seated 
 on their "perche." 
 
 The author of the " Menagier de Paris," a little farther on than the 
 place last quoted (p. 311), goes on to say, "At the end of the month of 
 September, and after, when hawking of quails and partridges is over, 
 and even in winter, you may hawk at magpies, at jackdaws, at teal, 
 
 No. 215. — A Lady and her Hawks. 
 
ARCHERY. 
 
 321 
 
 which are in river, or others, ... at blackbirds, thrushes, jays, and wood- 
 cocks; and for this purpose you may carry a bow and a bolt, in order 
 that, when the blackbird takes shelter in a bush, and dare not quit 
 it for the hawk which hovers over and watches it, the lady or damsel 
 who knows how to shoot may kill it with the bolt." The manuscript 
 which has furnished us with the preceding illustrations gives us the 
 accompanying sketch (No. 216) of a lady shooting with her bolt, or 
 
 No. 216. — Ladies Shooting Rabbits. 
 
 boitjon (as it was termed in French), — an arrow with a large head, for 
 striking birds ; but in this instance she is aiming not at birds, but at 
 rabbits. Archery was also a favourite recreation with the ladies in the 
 Middle Ages, and it no doubt is in itself an extremely good exercise, 
 in a gymnastic point of view. The fair shooters seem to have 
 
 ■^^r- 
 
 No. 217. — The Lady at the Rabbit- Warren. 
 
 employed bolts more frequently than the sharp-headed arrows j but 
 there is no want of examples in the illuminated manuscripts, in 
 which females are represented as using the sharp-headed arrow, and 
 sometimes they are seen shooting at deer. This custom prevailed 
 during a long period, and is alluded to not unfrequently at so late a 
 
322 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 date as the sixteenth century. We learn from Leland's " Collectanea " 
 (vol. iv. p. 278), that when the Princess Margaret, daughter of Henry 
 VII., was on her way to Scotland, a hunting-party was got up for her 
 in the park at Alnwick, and that she killed a buck with an arrow. 
 Similar feats were at times performed by Queen Elizabeth ; but she 
 seems to have preferred the cross-bow to the long-bow. The scene 
 represented in our cut No. 217 is from the same manuscript; the 
 relative proportions of the dog and the rabbit seem to imply a satirical 
 aim. Our next cut (No. 218), taken from MS. Reg. 2 B. vii., repre- 
 sents ladies hunting the stag. One, on horseback, is winding the horn 
 and starting the game, in which the other plants her arrow most skil- 
 
 No. 218. — Ladies Hunting the Stag. 
 
 fully and scientifically. The dog used on this occasion is intended to 
 be a greyhound. 
 
 It must be remarked that, in all the illuminations of the period we 
 are describing, which represent ladies engaged in hunting or hawking, 
 when on horseback they are invariably and unmistakably represented 
 riding astride. This is evidently the case in this group (No. 218). 
 It has been already shown, in former chapters, that from a very early 
 period it was a usual custom with the ladies to ride sideways, or with 
 side-saddles. Most of the mediaeval artists were so entirely ignorant 
 of perspective, and they were so much tied to conventional modes of 
 representing things, that when, no doubt, they intended to represent 
 ladies riding sideways., the latter seem often as if they were riding 
 astride. But in many instances., and especially in the scenes of hunt- 
 
LADIES ON HORSEBACK. 
 
 323 
 
 ing and hawking, there can be no doubt that they were riding in the 
 latter fashion ; and it is probable that they were taught to ride both 
 ways, the side-saddle being considered the most courtly, while it was 
 considered safer to sit astride in the chase. A passage has been often 
 quoted from Gower's " Confessio Amantis," in which a troop of ladies 
 is described, all mounted on fair white ambling horses, with splendid 
 saddles, and it is added that "everichone (every one) ride on side," 
 which probably means that this was the most fashionable style of 
 riding. But, as shown in a former chapter (p. 84), it has been rather 
 hastily assumed that this is a proof that it was altogether a new fashion. 
 Our next cut (No. 219), taken from a manuscript in the French National 
 Library (No. 7178), of the fourteenth century, represents two ladies 
 
 No. 219.— Ladies Riding. 
 
 riding in the modern fashion, except that the left leg appears to be 
 raised very awkwardly ; but this appearance we must perhaps ascribe 
 only to the bad drawing. It must be observed also that these ladies 
 are seated on the wrong side of the horse, which is probably an error 
 of the draughtsman. Perhaps there was a different arrangement of 
 the dress for the two modes of riding, although there was so little of 
 what we now call delicacy in the mediseval manners, that this would 
 be by no means necessary. Chaucer describes the Wife of Bath as 
 wearing spurs, and as enveloped in a " foot-mantle " — 
 
 Uppon an amblere esely sche sat, 
 Wymplid ful wel, and on hire heed an hat 
 
324 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 As brood as is a bocler, or a targe ; 
 
 A foot-mantel aboute hire hupes {hips) large, 
 
 And on hire feet a paire of spores scharpe. 
 
 — Cant. Tales, 1. 471. 
 
 Travelling on horseback was now more common than at an earlier 
 
 period, and this was not unfrequently a subject of popular complaint. 
 
 In fact, men who rode on horseback considered themselves much above 
 
 the pedestrians ; they often went in companies, and were generally 
 
 accompanied with grooms, and other riotous followers, who committed 
 
 all sorts of depredations and violence on the peasantry in their way. A 
 
 satirical song of the latter end of the reign of Edward I., represents our 
 
 Saviour as discouraging the practice of riding. " While God was on 
 
 earth," says the writer, " and wandered wide, what was the reason He 
 
 would not ride ? Because He would not have a groom to go by His side, 
 
 nor the grudging (or discontent) of any gadling to jaw or to chide " — 
 
 Whil God was on erthe 
 
 And wondrede wyde, 
 Whet wes the resoun 
 
 "Why he nolde ryde ? 
 For he nolde no groom 
 
 To go by hys syde, 
 Ne grucchyng of no gedelyng 
 
 To chaule ne to chyde. 
 
 " Listen to me, horsemen," continues this satirist, " and I will tell 
 
 you news — that ye shall hang, and be 
 lodged in hell " — 
 
 Herkneth hideward, horsmen, 
 A tidyng ich ou telle, 
 
 That ye shulen hongen, 
 Ant herbarewen in helle ! 
 
 The clergy were great riders, and 
 abbots and monks are not unfrequently 
 figured on horseback. Our cut No. 
 220 (from MS. Cotton, Nero, D. vii.) 
 V represents an abbot riding, with a hat 
 over his hood ; he is giving his bene- 
 diction in return to the salute of some 
 traveller, 
 knight still carried his spear with him in travelling, as the 
 
 220. — An Abbot Travelling 
 
 passing 
 The 
 
THE TRAPPINGS OF THE HORSE. 
 
 325 
 
 No. 221. — A Knight and his Steed. 
 
 footman carried his staff. In our cut No. 221, from a manuscript of 
 the fourteenth century in the Biblio- 
 theque Nationale in Paris (No. 6963), 
 the rider, though not armed, carries 
 his spear with him. The saddle in 
 this instance is singularly and rather 
 rudely formed. It was a great point 
 of vanity in the Middle Ages in Eng- 
 land to hang the caparisons of the 
 horse with small bells, which made a 
 jingling noise. In the romance of 
 " Richard Coeur de Lion " (Weber, ii. 60), a messenger coming to King 
 Richard has no less than five hundred such bells suspended to his 
 
 horse — 
 
 His trappys wer off tuely sylke, 
 With five hundred belles ryngande. 
 
 And again, in the same romance (vol. ii. p. 223), we are told, in speak- 
 ing of the Sultan of " Damas," that his horse was well furnished in this 
 
 respect — 
 
 Hys crouper heeng al fulle off belles, 
 And hys peytrel, and hys arsoun ; 
 Three myle myghte men here the soun. 
 
 The bridle, however, was the part of 
 the harness usually loaded with bells, 
 and according to Chaucer, it was a 
 vanity especially affected by the 
 monks ; for the poet tells us of his 
 monk, that — 
 
 Whan he rood, men might his bridel heere 
 Gyngle in a whistlyng wynd so cleere, 
 And eek as lowde as doth the chapel belle. 
 — Cant. Tales, 1. 169. 
 
 The rider is seldom furnished with 
 
 a whip, bepause he urged his steed 
 
 forward with his spurs ; but female riders and persons of lower degree 
 
 have often whips, which generally consist of several lashes, each having 
 
 usually a knob at the end. Such a whip is seen in our cut No. 222, 
 
 No. 222. — A Horsewhip. 
 
326 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 taken from a manuscript of the thirteenth century in the British Museum 
 (MS. Arundel. No. 91), which represents a countryman driving a horse 
 of burthen ; and he not only uses the whip, but he tries further to 
 urge him on by twisting his tail. A whip with one lash — rather an 
 unusual example — is in the hand of the woman driving the cart 
 in our cut No. 223, which is taken from a manuscript of the romance 
 of " Meliadus," in the French National Library (No. 6961), belong- 
 ing to the fourteenth century. The lady here is also evidently riding 
 astride. The cart in which she is carrying home the wounded knight 
 is of a simple and rude construction. As yet, indeed, carriages for 
 travelling were very little in use ; and to judge by the illuminations, 
 
 No. 223. — Lady and Cart. 
 
 they were only employed for kings and very powerful nobles in cere- 
 monial processions. 
 
 There was, however, in use from a rather early period, perhaps soon 
 after the Normans established themselves in England, a sort of carriage 
 for the conveyance of ladies, which was rather more elegant in its form 
 than the ordinary cart, though it was called by a name derived from the 
 same Latin root carrus. It was called a car, or, as the letter c was 
 then generally softened, a char. Ladies of rank rode in a char. In the 
 beautiful illuminations to the " Romance of the Rose," in the Harleian 
 manuscript, the lady Venus is represented as riding in a char (drawn 
 by doves instead of horses), which seems to have been considered as a 
 great sign of pride and ostentation in the thirteenth century, and not to 
 be used by ordinary people. An ordonnance of Philip le Bel, King of 
 France, in the year 1294, forbids the use of chars to the wives of citi- 
 
HORSES IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 327 
 
 zens. The accompanying cut (No. 224) is taken from a rather well- 
 known illuminated manuscript of the fourteenth century, " The Luttrell 
 Psalter," and furnishes a good representation of the lady's char of that 
 period. It will be seen that it is a very cumbrous vehicle, drawn by a 
 long team of horses, with two drivers or postilions. It is evidently 
 filled with ladies, some of whose heads are seen through the windows. 
 We may suppose, therefore, that the char was kept for the conveyance 
 of the female portion of the family. 
 
 The horse was, after a man's own limbs, his primary agent of loco- 
 motion. Perhaps no animal is so intimately mixed up with the history 
 of mankind as the horse— certainly none more so. Our Anglo-Saxon 
 forefathers travelled much on foot, and, as far as we know, the great 
 importance in which the horse was held in the Middle Ages in this 
 
 No. 224. — A Lady's Char of the Fourteenth Century. 
 
 part of the world, began with feudalism, and the best and most cele- 
 brated breed of horses in Europe, from the earliest ages of chivalry, was 
 brought from the East. The heroes of early romance and poetry are gener- 
 ally mounted on Arab steeds, and these have often the additional merit of 
 having been won by conquest from the Saracens. In the thirteenth 
 century they were obtained from Turkey and Greece ; and at a 
 later period from Barbary. France, also, had its native breed, which 
 enjoyed a high reputation for many valuable qualities, and especially 
 for its fierceness in war. Gascony, and, on the other side of the Spanish 
 frontier, Castile and Aquitaine, were much celebrated for their horses. 
 The Gascons prided themselves much on their horses, and they dis- 
 played this pride sometimes in a very singular manner. In 11 72, Ray- 
 mond de Venous, Count of Toulouse, held a grand cour fileniere, and, 
 as a display of ostentation, caused thirty of his horses to be burnt in 
 
328 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 presence of the assembly. It was a fine example of the barbarity of 
 feudalism. At the provincial synod of Auch, held in 1303, it was 
 ordered that archdeacons, when they made their diocesan circuits, 
 should not go with more than five horses, which shows that the Gas- 
 con clergy were in the habit of making a great display of cavalry. It 
 appears that at this early period the best horses were imported into 
 England from Bordeaux. It may be mentioned, in passing, that the 
 male horse only was ridden by knights or people of any distinction, and 
 that to ride a mare was always looked upon as a degradation. This 
 seems to have been an old Teutonic prejudice, perhaps a religious 
 superstition. 
 
 The kinds of horses most commonly mentioned in the feudal ages are 
 named in French (which was the language of feudalism), the pakfroi, or 
 palfrey, the dextrier, the roncin, and the sommier. The dextrier, or des- 
 trier, was the ordinary war-horse ; the roncin belonged especially to the 
 servants and attendants ; and the sommier carried the luggage. Ladies 
 especially rode the palfrey. The Orkney Islands appear to have been 
 celebrated for their dextriers. The Isle of Man seems also to have pro- 
 duced a celebrated breed of horses. Brittany was celebrated for its 
 palfreys. The haquen'ee, or hackney, of the Middle Ages, appears to 
 have been especially reserved for females. England seems not to have 
 been celebrated for its horses in the Middle Ages, and the horses of 
 value possessed by the English kings and great nobles were, in almost 
 all cases, imported from the Continent. The ordinary prices of horses 
 in England in the reign of Edward I., was from one to ten pounds, but 
 choice animals were valued much higher. When St Louis returned to 
 France from his captivity, the abbot of Cluny presented to the king and 
 the queen each a horse, the value of which Joinville estimates at five 
 hundred livres, equivalent to about four hundred pounds of our present 
 English money. These must have been horses which possessed some 
 very extraordinary qualities, as the price is quite out of proportion to 
 that of other horses at the same period. In the charters published by 
 M. Guerard, horses are valued at forty sols, and at three pounds at 
 various periods during the eleventh century. In 1202, two roncins are 
 valued at thirty sols each, another at forty, two at fifty each and two at 
 sixty ; the roncin of an arbalester at sixty sols ; a sommier, or baggage- 
 
HORSES IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 329 
 
 horse, at forty sols ; and three horses, of which the kind is not specified, 
 at six pounds each. These appear to have been the ordinary prices at 
 that period ; for, though prices of horses are mentioned as high as thirty- 
 four, thirty-five, and forty pounds, these were only possessed or given 
 as presents by kings. The value of horses went on rising through the 
 thirteenth century, until Philippe le Hardi found it necessary to fix it by 
 an ordonnance, which limited the price which any man, whether lay or 
 clergy, however rich, might give for a palfrey, to sixty pounds toumois, 
 and that to be given by a squire for a roncin to twenty pounds. The 
 prices of horses appear not to have varied much from this during the 
 fourteenth century. In the middle of the century following the prices 
 rose much higher. 
 
 Of the colours of horses, in the Middle Ages, white seems to have 
 been prized most highly, and after that dapple-gray and bay or chestnut. 
 The same colours were in favour among the Arabs. One of the poets 
 of the thirteenth century, Jean Bodel, describes a choice Gascon horse 
 as follows — "His hair," he says, "was more shining than the plumage 
 of a peacock j his head was lean, his eye gray like a falcon, his breast 
 large and square, his crupper broad, his thigh round, and his rump 
 tight. They who saw it said that they had never seen a handsomer 
 animal." The food given to horses in the Middle Ages seems to have 
 been much the same as at the present day. In 1435 the queen of 
 Navarre gave carrots to her horses. Although the mediaeval knight 
 resembled the Arab in his love for his horse, yet the latter was often 
 treated hardly and even cruelly, and the practice of horsemanship was 
 painful to the rider and to the horse. To be a skilful rider was a first- 
 rate accomplishment. One of the feats of horsemanship practised ordi- 
 narily was to jump into the saddle in full armour — 
 
 No foot Fitzjames in stirrup staid, 
 No grasp upon the saddle laid ; 
 But wreath'd his left hand in the mane, 
 And lightly bounded from the plain. 
 
 Though horse-races are mentioned in two of the earliest of the French 
 metrical romances, those of " Renaud de Montauban," and of "Aiol," 
 they seem never to have been practised in France until very recently, 
 when they were introduced in imitation of the English fashion. Post- 
 
330 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 horses were first introduced in France during the reign of Henry II., 
 that is, in the middle of the sixteenth century. 
 
 Great importance was placed in the breeding of horses in the Middle 
 Ages. Charlemagne, in the regulations for the administration of his 
 private domains, gives particular directions for the care of his brood- 
 mares and stallions. Normandy appears to have been famous for its 
 studs of horses in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and documents 
 show that the monks took good care rigorously to exact the tithes of 
 their produce to stock the monastic stables. Traces of the existence of 
 similar studs are found also in other parts of France. At this time a 
 horse was considered the handsomest present that could be made by a 
 king or a great lord, and horses were often given as bribes. Thus, in 
 1227, the monks of the abbey of Troarn obtained from* Guillaume de 
 Tilli the ratification of a grant made to them by his father in consider- 
 ation of a gift to him of a mark of silver and a palfrey ; and the monks 
 of St Evroul, in 1165, purchased a favour of the English Earl of Glou- 
 cester by presenting to him two palfreys estimated to be worth twenty 
 pounds of money of Anjou. Kings frequently received horses as pre- 
 sents from their subjects. The widow of Herbert du Mesnil gave King 
 John of England a palfrey to obtain the wardship of her children ; and 
 one Geoffrey Fitz-Richard gave the same monarch a palfrey for a con- 
 cession in the forest of Beaulieu. In 11 72, Raimond, Count of St 
 Gilles, having become the vassal of the King of England, engaged to pay 
 him an annual tribute of a hundred marks of silver, or ten dextriers, 
 worth at least ten marks each. The English studs appear already in the 
 thirteenth century to have become remarkable for their excellence. 
 
 Travelling, in the Middle Ages, was assisted by few, if any, conveniences, 
 and was dangerous as well as difficult. As I have already stated, the 
 insecurity of the roads made it necessary for travellers to associate to- 
 gether for protection, as well as for company, for their journeys were slow 
 and dull ; and as they were often obliged to halt for the night where 
 there was little or no accommodation, they had to carry a good deal of 
 luggage. An inn was often the place of rendezvous for travellers start- 
 ing upon the same journey. It is thus that Chaucer represents himself 
 as having taken up his quarters at the Tabard, in Southwark, prepara- 
 tory to undertaking the journey to Canterbury ; and at night there 
 
TRA VELLING-PAR TIES. 3 3 1 
 
 arrived a company of travellers bent to the same destination, who had 
 
 gathered together as they came along the road — 
 
 At night was come into that hostelrie 
 Wei nyne and twenty in a companye, 
 Of sondry folk, by aventure ifalle 
 In felaschipe. — Cant. Tales, 1. 23. 
 
 Chaucer obtains the consent of the rest to his joining their fellowship, 
 which, as he describes it, consisted of persons most dissimilar in class 
 and character. The host of the Tabard joins the party also, and it is 
 agreed that, to enliven the journey, each in his turn shall tell a story 
 on the way. They then sup at a common table, drink wine, and go to 
 bed; and at daybreak they start on their journey. They travelled 
 evidently at a slow pace ; and at Boughton-under-Blee — a village a few 
 miles from Canterbury — a canon and his yeoman, after some hard 
 riding, overtake them, and obtain permission to join the company. It 
 would seem that the company had passed a night somewhere on the 
 road, probably at Rochester, — and we should, perhaps, have had an 
 account of their reception and departure, had the collection of the 
 "Canterbury Tales" been completed by their author, — and that the 
 canon sent his yeoman to watch for any company of travellers who 
 should halt at the hostelry, that he might join them, but he had been 
 too late to start with them, and had, therefore, ridden hard to overtake 
 them — 
 
 His yeman eek was ful of curtesye, 
 And seid, " Sires, now in the morwe tyde 
 Oat of your ostelry I saugh you ryde, 
 And warned heer my lord and soverayn, 
 Which that to ryden with yow is ful fayn, 
 For his disport ; he loveth daliaunce." 
 
 — Cant. Tales, 1. 12,515. 
 
 A little farther on, on the road, the Pardoner is called upon to tell his 
 tale. He replies — 
 
 "It schal be doon," quod he, "and that anoon. 
 But first," quod he, "here, at this ale-stake, 
 I will both drynke and byten on a cake." 
 
 —Ibid., 1. 13,735. 
 
 The road-side ale-house, where drink was sold to travellers and to 
 the country people of the neighbourhood, was scattered over the more 
 populous and frequented parts of the country from an early period, and 
 
332 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 is not unfrequently alluded to in popular writers. It was indicated by 
 a stake projecting from the house, on which some object was hung for 
 
 No. 225. — A Pilgrim at the Ale-Stake. 
 
 a sign, and is sometimes represented in the illuminations of manuscripts. 
 
 Our cut No. 225, taken from a manuscript of the fourteenth century, in 
 
 the British Museum (MS. Reg. 10 E. 
 iv.), represents one of those ale-houses, 
 at which a pilgrim is halting to take 
 refreshment. The keeper of the ale- 
 house, in this instance, is a woman, the 
 ale-wife, and the stake appears to be a 
 besom. In another (No. 226), taken 
 from a manuscript copy of the "Moral- 
 ization of Chess," by Jacques de Ces- 
 soles, of the earlier part of the fifteenth 
 century (MS. Reg. 19 C. xi.), a round 
 sign is suspended on the stake, with a 
 figure in the middle, which may possibly 
 
 be intended to represent a bush. A garland was not unfrequently hung 
 
 upon the stake ; on this Chaucer, describing his " sompnour," says : — ■ 
 
 A garland had he set upon his head, 
 
 As gret as it were for an ale-stake. — Cant. Tales, 1. 688. 
 
 A bush was still more common, and gave rise to the proverb that 
 " good wine needs no bush," that is, it will be easily found out with- 
 out any sign to direct people to it. A bush suspended to the sign of 
 a tavern will be seen in our cut (No. 234) a little farther on. 
 
 Lydgate composed his poem of the " Story of Thebes," as a con- 
 
 No. 226. — The Road-side Inn. 
 
TRA VELLING-PARTIES. 
 
 333 
 
 tinuation of Chaucer's " Canterbury Tales," and in the prologue he 
 describes himself as arriving in Canterbury, while the pilgrims were 
 there, and accidentally taking up his lodging at the same inn. He 
 thus seeks and obtains permission to be one of the fellowship, and re- 
 turns from Canterbury in their company. Our cut No. 227, taken 
 from a fine manuscript of Lydgate's poem (MS. Reg. 18 D. ii.), repre- 
 sents the pilgrims leaving Canterbury, and is not only a good illustra- 
 
 No. 227. — The Canterbury Pilgrims. 
 
 tion of the practice of travelling in companies, but it furnishes us with 
 a characteristic picture of a mediaeval town. 
 
 This readiness of travellers to join company with each other was not 
 confined to any class of society, but was general among them all, and 
 not unfrequently led to the formation of friendships and alliances be- 
 tween those who had previously been strangers to one another. In 
 the interesting romance of " Blonde of Oxford," composed in the 
 thirteenth century, when Jean of Dammartin came to seek his fortune 
 in England, and was riding from Dover to London, attended by a 
 faithful servant, he overtook the Earl of Oxford, who was on his way to 
 
334 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 London, with a numerous retinue of armed followers. Jean, having 
 
 learned from the earl's followers who he was, introduced himself to 
 
 him, and was finally taken into his service. Subsequently, in the same 
 
 romance, Jean of Dammartin, returning to England, takes up his lodging 
 
 in a handsome hotel in London, and while his man Robin puts the 
 
 horses in the stable, he walks out into the street, and sees a large 
 
 company who had just arrived, consisting of squires, servants, knights, 
 
 clerks, priests, serving-lads (gar(ons), and men who attended the 
 
 baggage-horses (sommiers). Jean asked one of the squires who they 
 
 all were, what was their business, and where they were going; and 
 
 was informed that it was the Earl of Gloucester, who had come to 
 
 London about some business, and was going on the morrow to Oxford, 
 
 to be married to the Lady Blonde, the object of Jean's affections. Next 
 
 morning the earl began his journey at daybreak, and Jean and his 
 
 servant, who were mounted ready, joined the company. There was 
 
 so little unusual in this, that the intruders seem for a while not to 
 
 have been noticed, until at length the earl observed Jean, and began 
 
 to interrogate him : " Friend," said he, " you are welcome ; what is 
 
 your name ? " — 
 
 Amis, bien fustes vene, 
 Coment fu vostre non pele? 
 
 — Romance of Blonde, 1. 2627. 
 
 Jean gave himself an assumed name, said he was a merchant, and 
 offered to sell the earl his horse, but they could not agree upon the terms. 
 They continued conversing together during the rest of the journey. As 
 they proceeded they encountered a shower of rain, which wetted the earl, 
 who was fashionably and thinly clothed. Jean smiled at the impatience 
 with which he seemed to bear this mishap, and when asked to tell the 
 cause of his mirth, said, " If I were a rich man like you, I should always 
 carry a house with me, so that I could go into it when the rain came, 
 and not get my clothes dirtied and wet." The earl and his followers set 
 Jean. down for a fool, and looked forward to be made merry by him. 
 Soon afterwards they came to the banks of a river, into which the earl 
 rode, without first ascertaining if it were fordable, and he was carried 
 away by the stream, and only saved from drowning by a fisherman in a 
 boat. The rest of the company found a ford, where they passed the 
 
TRAVELLING ON FOOT. 
 
 335 
 
 river without danger. The earl's clothes had now been completely 
 soaked in the water, and, as his baggage-horses were too far in the rear, 
 he made one of his knights strip, and give him his dry clothes, and left 
 him to make the best of his wet ones. " If I were as rich, and had so 
 many men as you," said Jean, laughing again, "I would not be ex- 
 posed to misfortunes of this kind, for I would carry a bridge with me." 
 The earl and his retinue were merry again, at what they supposed to be 
 the folly of their travelling companion. They were now near Oxford, 
 and Jean took his leave of the Earl of Gloucester. We learn, in the 
 course of the story, that all that Jean meant by the house, was that the 
 earl ought to have had at hand a good cloak and cape to cover his fine 
 clothes in case of rain ; and that, by the bridge, he intended to intimate 
 that he ought to have sent some of his men to ascertain the depth of 
 the river before he went into it ! 
 
 These illustrations of the manner and inconveniences of travelling 
 apply more especially to those who could travel on horseback ; but the 
 difficulties were still greater for the numerous class of people who were 
 obliged to travel on foot, and who could rarely make sure of reaching, 
 at the end of each day's journey, a place where they could obtain a 
 lodging. They, moreover, had also to take with them a certain quantity 
 of baggage. Foot-travellers seem to have had sometimes a mule or a 
 donkey, to carry luggage, or for the 
 weak women and children. Every 
 one will remember the mediaeval 
 fable of the old man and his ass, in 
 which a father and his son have the 
 one ass between them. In mediaeval 
 illuminations representing the flight 
 into Egypt, Joseph is often repre- 
 sented as walking, while the Virgin 
 and Child ride upon an ass which 
 he is leading. The party of foot- 
 travellers in our cut No. 228, taken 
 
 No. 228. — Travellers on Foot. 
 
 from a manuscript of the beginning of the fourteenth century (MS. Reg. 
 2. B. vii.), forms part of a group representing the relatives of Thomas 
 Beckett driven into exile by King Henry II. ; they are making their way 
 
336 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 to the sea-shore on foot, perhaps to show that they were not of very 
 
 high condition in life. 
 
 In Chaucer, it is a matter of surprise that the " chanoun " had so 
 
 little luggage that he carried only a male, or portmanteau, on his 
 
 horse's crupper, and even that was doubled up (tweyfold) on account of 
 
 its emptiness : — 
 
 A male tweyfold on his croper lay, 
 
 It seemed that he caried litel array, 
 
 Al light for somer rood this worthy man. 
 
 — Cant. Tales, 1. 12,494. 
 
 On the contrary, in the romance of " Berte," when the heroine is left 
 to wander in the solitary forest, the writer laments that she had "neither 
 pack-horse laden with coffers, nor clothes folded up in males," which 
 were the ordinary accompaniments of travellers of any consequence : — 
 
 N'i ot sommier a coffres ne dras trousses en male. 
 
 — Roman de Berte, p. 42. 
 
 A traveller, indeed, had many things to carry with him. He took pro- 
 visions with him, or was obliged, at times, to reckon on what he could 
 kill, or obtain undressed, and hence he was obliged to carry cooking 
 apparatus with him. He carried flint and steel to strike a light, and be 
 able to make a fire, as he might have to bivouac in a solitary place, or 
 in the midst of a forest. In the romance of " Garin le Loherain," when 
 the Count Begues of Belin finds himself benighted in the forest, he pre- 
 pares for passing the night comfortably, and, as a matter of course, 
 draws out his flint (fusil), and lights a fire — 
 
 Et li quens est desous l'arbre rame ; 
 Prent son fusil, s'a le fu alume, 
 Grant et plenier, merveilleus embrase. 
 
 — Garin le Loherain, ii. p. 231. 
 
 The traveller also often carried materials for laying a bed, if benighted 
 on the road ; and he had, above all, to take sufficient money with him 
 in specie. He sometimes also carried a portable tent with him, or 
 materials for making one. In the English romance of " Ipomydon " 
 (Weber, ii. 343), the maiden messenger of the heiress of Calabria carries 
 her tent with her, and usually lodges at night under it — 
 
 As they rode by the way, 
 
 The mayde to the dwarfe gan saye, 
 
HIGHWA Y ROBBERIES. 
 
 337 
 
 " Undo my tente, and sette it faste, 
 For here a vvhyle I wille me ryste." 
 Mete and drynke bothe they had, 
 That was fro home with them lad. 
 
 It may be remarked that in this story the first thought of every gallant 
 knight who passes is to treat the lady with violence. All these incum- 
 brances, combined with the badness of the roads, rendered travelling 
 slow — of which we might quote abundant examples. At the end of the 
 twelfth century, it took Giraldus Cambrensis four days to travel from 
 Powisland to Haughmond Abbey, near Shrewsbury. The roads, too, 
 were infested with robbers and banditti, and travellers were only safe in 
 their numbers, and in being sufficiently well armed to repel attacks. In 
 
 
 No. 229. — Plundering a Traveller. 
 
 the accompanying cut (No. 229), from a manuscript of the fourteenth 
 century (MS. Reg. 10 E. iv.), a traveller is taking his repose under a 
 tree, — it is, perhaps, intended to be understood that he is passing the 
 night in a wood, — while he is plundered by robbers, who are here jokingly 
 represented in the forms of monkeys. While one is emptying his 
 " male " or box, the other is carrying off his girdle, with the large pouch 
 attached to it, in which, no doubt, the traveller carried his money, and 
 perhaps his eatables. The insecurity of the roads in the Middle Ages 
 was, indeed, very great, for not only were the forests filled with bands 
 of outlaws, who stripped all who fell into their hands, but the knights 
 and landed gentry, and even noblemen, took to the highways not un- 
 
338 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 frequently, and robbed unscrupulously. Moreover, they built their 
 castles near difficult passes, or by a river where there was a bridge or 
 ford, and where, therefore, they commanded it, and there they levied 
 arbitrary taxes on all who passed, and, on the slightest attempt at resist- 
 ance, plundered the traveller of his property, and put him to death or 
 threw him into their dungeons. Incidents of this kind are common in 
 the mediaeval romances and stories. Piers de Bruville, in the history 
 of Fulke Fitz-Warine, may be mentioned as an example of this class of 
 marauders. "At that time," says the story, "there was a knight in the 
 country who was called Piers de Bruville. This Piers used to collect 
 all the sons of gentlemen of the country who were wild, and other ribald 
 people, and used to go about the country, and slew and robbed loyal 
 people, merchants, and others." In the fabliau of the " Chevalier au 
 Barizel," we are told of a great baron who issued continually from his 
 strong castle to plunder the country around. " He watched so closely the 
 roads, that he slew all the pilgrims, and plundered the merchants ; 
 many of them he brought to mishap. He spared neither clergy nor 
 monk, recluse, hermit, nor canon ; and the nuns and lay-sisters he 
 caused to live in open shame, when he had them in his power ; and he 
 spared neither dames nor maids, of whatever rank or class, whether 
 poor or rich, or well educated or simple, but he put them all to open 
 shame" (Barbazan, i. 209). 
 
 The roads, in the Middle Ages, appear also to have been infested 
 with beggars of all descriptions, many of whom were cripples, and persons 
 mutilated in the most revolting manner, the result of feudal wantonness 
 and of feudal vengeance. Our cut No. 230, also furnished by a manu- 
 script of the fourteenth century, represents a very deformed cripple, 
 
 whose means of locomotion are 
 rather curious. The beggar and 
 the cripple, too, were often only 
 robbers in disguise, who waited 
 their opportunity to attack single 
 passengers, or who watched 
 to give notice to comrades of 
 
 No. 230. — A Cripple. 
 
 ■ the approach of richer convoys. 
 The mediaeval popular stories give abundant instances of robbers and 
 
HOSPITALITY IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 339 
 
 others disguising themselves as beggars and cripples. Blindness, also, 
 was common among these objects of commiseration in the Middle 
 Ages ; often, as in the case of mutilation of other kinds, the result of 
 deliberate violence. The same manuscript I have so often quoted 
 (MS. Reg. 10 E. iv.), has furnished our cut No. 231, representing a 
 blind man and his dog. 
 
 It will be easily understood, that when travelling was beset with so 
 many inconveniences, private hospitality would be looked upon as one 
 of the first of virtues, for people were often obliged to have recourse to 
 it, and it was seldom refused. In the country every man's door was 
 open to the stranger who came from a distance, unless his appearance 
 
 ^^^^^^^^'^0^^^^ 
 
 No. 231.— A Blind Man and Dog 
 
 were suspicious or threatening. In this there was a mutual advantage ; 
 for the guest generally brought with him news and information, which 
 was highly valued at a time when communication between one place and 
 another was so slow and uncertain. Hence the first questions put to a 
 stranger were, whence he had come, and what news he had brought with 
 him. The old romances and tales furnish us with an abundance of 
 examples of the wide-spread feeling of hospitality that prevailed during 
 the Middle Ages. Even in the middle and lower classes, people were 
 always ready to share their meals with the stranger who asked for a 
 lodging. The denial of such hospitality was looked upon as exceptional 
 and disgraceful, and was only met with from misers and others who 
 were regarded as almost without the pale of society. The early metrical 
 
34o THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 story of "The Hermit," the foundation of ParnelPs poem, gives us 
 examples of the different sorts of hospitality with which travellers met. 
 The hermit and his companion began their travels in a wild country, 
 and at the end of their first day's journey they were obliged to take up 
 their lodgings with another hermit, who gave them the best welcome he 
 could, and shared his provisions with them. The next evening they 
 came to a city, where everybody shut his door against them, because 
 they were poor, till at length, weary and wet with rain, they sat down 
 on the stone steps of a great mansion ; but the host was an usurer, and 
 refused to receive into his house men who promised him so little profit. 
 Yet at length, to escape their importunities, he allowed them to enter 
 the yard, and sleep under a staircase, where his maid threw them some 
 straw to lie upon, but neither offered them refreshment, except some of 
 the refuse of the table, nor allowed them to go to a fire to dry their 
 clothes. The next evening they sought their lodging in a large abbey, 
 where the monks received them with great hospitality, and gave them 
 plenty to eat and drink. On the fourth day they came to another town, 
 where they went to the house of a rich and honest burgher, who also 
 received them with all the marks of hospitality. Their host washed 
 their feet, and gave them plenty to eat and drink, and they were com- 
 fortably lodged for the night. 
 
 It would not be difficult to illustrate all the incidents of this story by 
 anecdotes of mediaeval life. The traveller who sought a lodging, with- 
 out money to pay for it, even in private houses, was not always well 
 received. In the fabliau of the "Butcher of Abbeville" (Barbazan, iv. 
 i), the butcher, returning from the market of Oisemont, is overtaken by 
 night at the small town of Bailleuil. He determined to stop for the 
 night there, and, seeing a poor woman at her door, at the entrance of 
 the town, he inquired where he could ask for a night's lodging, and she 
 recommended him to the priest, as the only person in the town who had 
 wine in his cellar. The butcher accordingly repaired to the priest's 
 house, where he found that ecclesiastic sitting on the sill of his door, and 
 asked him to give him a lodging for the sake of charity. The priest, 
 who thought that there was nothing to be gained from him, refused, 
 telling him he would find plenty of people in the town who could give 
 him a bed. As the butcher was leaving the town, irritated by this in- 
 
THE BUTCHER AND THE ABBOT. 341 
 
 hospitable reception, he encountered a flock of sheep, which he learned 
 were the property of the priest ; whereupon, selecting the fattest of them, 
 he dexterously stole it away unperceived, and, returning with it into the 
 town, he went to the priest's door, found him just closing his house, for 
 it was nightfall, and again asked him for lodging. The priest asked 
 him who he was, and whence he came. He replied that he had been 
 to the market at Oisemont, and bought a sheep ; that he was overtaken 
 by night, and sought a lodging; and that, as it was no great considera- 
 tion to him, he intended to kill his sheep, and share it with his host. 
 The temptation was too great for the greedy priest, and he now received 
 the butcher into his house, treated him with great respect, and had a bed 
 made for him in his hall. Now the priest had — as was common with 
 the Catholic priesthood — a concubine and a maid-servant, and they all 
 regaled themselves on the butcher's sheep. Before the guest left next 
 morning, he contrived to sell the sheep's skin and wool for certain con- 
 siderations severally to the concubine and to the maid, and, after his 
 departure, their rival claims led to a quarrel, and even to a battle. While 
 the priest, on his return from the service of matins, was labouring to 
 appease the combatants, his shepherd entered, with the information that 
 his best sheep had been stolen from his flock, and an examination of 
 the skin led to the discovery of the trick which had been played upon 
 him — a punishment, as we are told, which he well merited by his in- 
 hospitable conduct. A Latin story of the thirteenth century may be 
 coupled with the foregoing anecdote. There was an abbot who was 
 very miserly and inhospitable, and he took care to give all the offices in 
 the abbey to men of his own character. This was especially the case 
 with the monk who had the direction of the hospitium, or guest-house. 
 One day came a minstrel to ask for a lodging, but he met with an un- 
 friendly reception, was treated only with black bread and water to drink, 
 and was shown to a hard bed of straw. Minstrels were not usually 
 treated in this inhospitable manner, and our guest resolved to be revenged. 
 He left the abbey next morning, and a little way on his journey he met 
 the abbot, who was returning home from a short absence. " God bless 
 you, good abbot ! " he said, " for the noble hospitality which has been 
 shown to me this night by your monks. The master of your guest- 
 house treated me with the choicest wines, and placed rich dishes on the 
 
342 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 table for me in such numbers, that I would not attempt to count them ; 
 and when I came away this morning, he gave me a pair of shoes, a girdle, 
 and a knife." The abbot hurried home in a furious rage, summoned 
 the offending brother before a chapter, accused him of squandering away 
 the property of the monastery, caused him to be flogged and dismissed 
 .from his office, and appointed in his place another, in whose inhospit- 
 able temper he could place entire confidence. 
 
 These cases of want of hospitality were, however, exceptions to the 
 general rule. A stranger was usually received with great kindness, each 
 class of society, of course, more or less by its own class, though, under 
 such circumstances, much less distinction of class was made than we 
 might suppose. The aristocratic class, which included what we should 
 now call the gentry, sought hospitality in the nearest castle ; for a castle, 
 as a matter of pride and ostentation, was, more or less, like an abbey, 
 a place of hospitality for everybody. This pride was often carried to a 
 very extraordinary extent, an example of which is furnished by the old 
 Shropshire history of the Fitz-Warines of Whittington. We are told that 
 Fulke Fitz-Warine turned the king's highway through the middle of the 
 hall of his manor of Alleston, in order that no traveller might have an 
 excuse for passing by without partaking of his liberality.* Among the 
 richer and more refined classes, great care was taken to show proper 
 courtesy to strangers, according to their rank. In the case of a knight, 
 the lord of the house and his lady, with their damsels, led him into a 
 private room, took off his armour, and often his clothes, and gave him a 
 change of apparel, after careful ablution. A scene of this kind is repre- 
 sented in our next cut (No. 232), taken from a manuscript of the romance 
 of " Lancelot," of the fourteenth century, in the National Library in Paris 
 (No. 6956). The host or his lady sometimes washed the stranger's feet 
 themselves. Thus, in the fabliau quoted above, when the hermit and 
 his companion sought a lodging at the house of a bourgeois, they were 
 received without question, and their hosts washed their feet, and then 
 gave them plenty to eat and drink, and a bed — 
 
 * " Cesti Fouke fust bon viaundour e large ; e fesoit turner le real chemin parmi sa 
 sale a soun maner de Alleston, pur ce que nul estrannge y dust passer s'il n'avoit 
 viaunde, ou herbergage, ou autre honour ou bien du suen." — The Histo7-y of Fulke 
 FitZ' Warine, edited for the Warton Club, by Thomas Wright, p. 1 78. 
 
THE PRACTICE OF HOSPITALITY. 
 
 343 
 
 Li hoste orent leur piez lavez, 
 Bien sont peu et abreviez ; 
 Jusqu'au jor a ese se jurent. 
 
 We might easily multiply extracts illustrative of this hospitable feeling, 
 as it existed and was practised from the twelfth century to the fifteenth. 
 Our cut No. 233, taken from a manuscript of the earlier part of the 
 fourteenth century (MS. Harl. No. 1527), is another representation of 
 the reception of a stranger in this hospitable manner. In the " Roman 
 de la Violette " (p. 233), when its hero, Gerard, sought a lodging at a 
 castle, he was received with the greatest hospitality ; the lord of the 
 castle led him into the great hall, and there disarmed him, furnished 
 him with a rich mantle, and caused him to be bathed and washed. In 
 the same romance (p. 237), when Gerard arrives at the little town of 
 
 No. 232. — Receiving a Stranger. 
 
 No. 233. — Receiving a Guest. 
 
 Mouzon, he goes to the house of a widow to ask for a night's lodging, 
 and is received with the same welcome. His horse is taken into a stable, 
 and carefully attended to, while the lady labours to keep him in conver- 
 sation until supper is ready, after which a good bed is made for him, and 
 they all retire to rest. The comforts, however, which could be offered 
 to the visitor, consisted often chiefly in eating and drinking. People had 
 few spare chambers, especially furnished ones, and, in the simplicity of 
 mediaeval manners, the guests were obliged to sleep either in the same 
 room as the family, or, more usually, in the hall, where beds were made 
 for them on the floor or on the benches. " Making a bed " was a phrase 
 true in its literal sense, and the bed made consisted still of a heap of 
 straw, with a sheet or two thrown over it. The host, indeed, could often 
 furnish no more than a room of bare walls and floor as a protection 
 
344 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 from the weather, and the guest had to rely as much upon his own 
 resources for his personal comforts, as if he had had to pass the night in 
 the midst of a wild wood. Moreover the guests, however numerous and 
 though strangers to each other, were commonly obliged to sleep together 
 indiscriminately in the same room. 
 
 The old Anglo-Saxon feeling, that the duration of the chance visit of 
 a stranger should be limited to the third day, seems still to have pre- 
 vailed. A Latin rhyme, printed in the "Reliquiae Antiques " (i. 91), 
 tells us — 
 
 Verum dixit anus, quod piscis olet triduanus ; 
 
 Ejus de more simili fcetet hospes odore. 
 
 In towns'the hospitality of the burghers was not always given gratis, 
 for it was a common custom, even among the richer merchants, to make 
 a profit by receiving guests. These letters of lodgings were distinguished 
 from the innkeepers, or hostelers, by the title of herbergeors, or people 
 who gave harbour to strangers, and in the larger towns they were sub- 
 jected to municipal regulations. The great barons and knights were in 
 the custom of taking up their lodgings with these herbergeors, rather 
 than "going to the public hostels; and thus a sort of relationship was 
 formed between particular nobles or kings and particular burghers, on 
 the strength of which the latter adopted the arms of their habitual 
 lodgers as their signs. These herbergeors practised great extortions 
 upon their accidental guests, and they appear to have adopted various 
 artifices to allure them to their houses. These extortions are the 
 subject of a very curious Latin poem of the thirteenth century, entitled 
 " Peregrinus " (the Traveller), the author of which describes the arts 
 employed to allure the traveller, and the extortions to which he was 
 subjected. It appears that persons were employed to look out for the 
 arrival of strangers, and that they entered into conversation with them, 
 pretended to discover that they came from the same part of the country, 
 and then, as taking especial interest in their fellow-countrymen, recom- 
 mended them to lodgings. These tricks of the burghers who let their 
 lodgings for hire are alluded to in other mediaeval writers. It appears, 
 also, that both in these lodging-houses and in the public inns, it was 
 not an unusual practice to draw people into contracting heavy bills, 
 which they had not the money to pay, and then to seize their bag- 
 
INNS IN THE MID DIE AGES. 
 
 345 
 
 gage and even their clothes, to several times the amount of the 
 debt. 
 
 Our cut No. 234, taken from an illumination in the unique manu- 
 
 No. 234. — A Hostelry at Night. 
 
 script of the Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles (fifteenth century), in the 
 
 Hunterian Library at Glasgow, represents the exterior and the interior 
 
 of a public hostel or inn. Without, we 
 
 see the sign, and the bush suspended to 
 
 it, and a company of travellers arriving ; 
 
 within, the bed-chambers are represented, 
 
 and they illustrate not only the practice of 
 
 lodging a number of persons in the same 
 
 bedroom, but also that of sleeping in a 
 
 state of perfect nudity. Our next cut (No. \\ n 
 
 235) is a picture of a mediaeval tapster; it ^— [^ 
 
 is taken from one of the carved seats, or 
 
 misereres, in the fine parish church of 
 
 ' x No. 235. — A Mediaeval lapster. 
 
 Ludlow, in Shropshire. It will, probably, 
 
 be remarked that the size of the tapster's jug is rather disproportionate 
 
346 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 to that of his barrel ; but mediaeval artists often set perspective and 
 
 relative proportions at defiance. 
 
 The tavern in the Middle Ages seems to have been the usual scene of 
 
 a large portion of the ordinary life of the lower class of society, and even 
 
 partially of the middle class, and its influence was certainly very injurious 
 
 on the manners and character of the people. Even the women, as we 
 
 learn from a number of contemporary songs and stories, spent much of 
 
 their time drinking and gossiping in taverns, where great latitude was 
 
 afforded for carrying on low intrigues. The tavern was, in fact, the 
 
 general rendezvous of those who sought amusement, of whatever kind. 
 
 In the "Millere's Tale," in Chaucer, Absolon, "that joly was and gay," 
 
 and who excelled as a musician, frequented the taverns and "brewhouses," 
 
 meaning apparently the lesser public-houses where they only sold ale, 
 
 to exhibit his skill — 
 
 In al the toun nas brewhous ne taverne 
 
 That he ne visited with his solas, 
 
 Ther as that any gaylard tapster was. — Cant. Tales, 1. 3334. 
 
 And Chaucer's friar was well acquainted with all the taverns in the towns 
 
 he visited — 
 
 He knew wel the tavernes in every toun, 
 
 And every osteller or gay tapstere. — Ibid. , 1. 240. 
 
 The tavern was especially the haunt of gamblers, who were encouraged 
 by the "tapster," because they brought him his most profitable customers. 
 As I have said before, when his customers had no money, the taverner 
 took their articles of dress for payment, and in doing this he added the 
 profits of the money-lender to those of the taverner. In the fabliau of 
 " Gautier d'Aupais," the young prodigal Gautier, hungry and penniless, 
 arrives towards evening at a tavern, where he finds a number of guests 
 enjoying themselves. His horse is taken to the stable, and he joins the 
 guests, but when the moment comes for paying, and the taverner de- 
 mands three sols, he is induced in his desperation to try his luck at the 
 dice. Instead, however, of retrieving his fortunes, he loses his horse 
 and his robe, and is obliged to return to his father's house on foot and 
 
 in his shirt — 
 
 Si a perdu sa robe et son corant destrier ; 
 En pure sa chemise l'en convint reperier. 
 
 The story of Cortois d'Arras, in the fabliau in "Barbazan" (i. 355), is 
 
INNS IN THE MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 347 
 
 somewhat similar. Young Cortois, also a prodigal, obtains from his 
 father a large sum of money as a compensation for all his claims on the 
 paternal property, and with this throws himself upon the world. As he 
 proceeded, he heard the tavern-boy calling out from the door, " Here is 
 good wine of Soissons, acceptable to everybody ! here credit is given 
 to everybody, and no pledges taken ! " with much more in the same 
 style. Cortois determined to stop at the tavern. " Host," said he, 
 " how much do you sell your wine the septier (a measure of two gallons)? 
 and when was it tapped ? " He was told that it had been fresh tapped 
 that morning, and that the price was six deniers. The host then goes 
 'on to display his accommodations. "Within are all sorts of comforts; 
 painted chambers, and soft beds, raised high with white straw, and made 
 
 No. 236 —The Ale-Wife's End. 
 
 soft with feathers ; here within is hostel for love affairs, and when bed- 
 time comes you will have pillows of violets to hold your head more 
 softly • and, finally, you will have electuaries and rose-water, to wash 
 your mouth and your face." Cortois orders a gallon of wine, and im- 
 mediately afterwards a belle demoiselle makes her appearance, for such 
 were in these times reckoned among the attractions of the tavern. It 
 is soon arranged between the lady and the landlord that she is to be 
 Cortois' chamber-companion, and they all begin drinking together, the 
 taverner persuading his guest that he owes this choice wine to the lady's 
 love. They then go to carouse in the garden, and they finish by plunder- 
 
348 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 ing him of his money, and he is obliged to leave his clothes in pledge 
 for the payment of his tavern expenses. The ale-wife was especially 
 looked upon as a model of extortion and deceit, for she cheated un- 
 blushingly, both in money and measure, and she is pointed out in 
 popular literature as an object of hatred and of satire. Our cut No. 
 236, also furnished by one of the carved misereres in Ludlow Church, 
 represents a scene from Doomsday : a demon is bearing away the de- 
 ceitful ale-wife, who carries nothing with her but her gay head-dress and 
 her false measure ; he is going to throw her into " hell-mouth," while 
 another demon is reading her offences as entered in his roll, and a third 
 is playing on the bagpipes by way of welcome. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 Education. — Literary Men and Scribes. — Punishments : the Stocks; the 
 
 Gallows. 
 
 I PUT together in a short chapter two parts of my subject which 
 may at the first glance seem somewhat discordant, but which, I 
 think, on further consideration, will be found to be rather closely re- 
 lated — they are, education and punishment for offences against the law. 
 It can hardly be doubted, indeed, that, as education becomes more 
 general and better regulated, if the necessity of punishment is not en- 
 tirely taken away, its cruelty is greatly diminished. 
 
 During the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries, there was 
 certainly a general feeling of the necessity of extending and improving 
 education. It was during this period that our great universities rose 
 into existence and flourished, and these schools, which provided for the 
 higher development of the mind, had their thousands of students, in- 
 stead of the hundreds who frequent them at the present day. But the 
 need of some provision for education was felt most in regard to that less 
 elevated degree of instruction which was required for the more youthful 
 mind, — in fact, it was long before the people of the Middle Ages could 
 be persuaded that literary education was of any use at all, except for 
 those who were to be made great scholars ; the clergy itself, unfortunately, 
 did not see the necessity of popular education, and although the schools 
 in parish churches were long continued, they appear to have been con- 
 ducted more and more with negligence. It was the mercantile class in 
 the towns which made the first step in advance, by the establishment of 
 those foundations which have continued to the present time under the 
 name of grammar-schools. These schools are traced back to the thir- 
 teenth century, when the merchant-guilds, by whom they were founded, 
 
35 o THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 began to assume a greater degree of importance, and they were usually 
 intended for the general benefit of the town, but were combined with 
 an ecclesiastical establishment for performing services for the souls of 
 the members of the guilds, in consequence of which, at the Reformation, 
 they became involved in the superstitious uses, and were dissolved and 
 refounded in the reign of Edward VI., so that they are now generally 
 known as King Edward's foundations. The great object of these 
 schools was to give the instruction necessary for admission into the 
 universities ; and they were in some degree the answer to an appeal 
 which came deeply from the mass of the people, — for there was at this 
 time a great spontaneous eagerness for learning, both for the sake of the 
 learning itself, and because it was a road to high distinction, which was 
 not open to the masses in any other direction. It was a very common 
 practice for poor youths to go about the country during vacation-time, 
 to beg money to keep them at school during term. In Piers Plough- 
 man, among the objects of legitimate charity, the writer enumerates 
 
 money given to — 
 
 Sette scolers to scole, 
 Or to som othere craftes. 
 
 —Piers Ploughman, Vis., 1. 4525. 
 
 And in the popular complaints of the burden of taxation, involuntary 
 and voluntary, the alms given to poor scholars are often enumerated. 
 
 Independent, however, of what may be considered more especially as 
 scholarship, a considerable amount of instruction began now to be 
 spread abroad. Reading and writing were becoming much more 
 general accomplishments, especially among ladies. Among the amuse- 
 ments of leisure hours, indeed, reading began now to occupy a much 
 larger place than had been given to it in former ages. Even still, 
 popular literature — in the shape of tales and ballads and songs — was, 
 in a great measure, communicated orally. But much had been done 
 during the fourteenth century towards spreading a taste for literature 
 and knowledge ; books were multiplied, and were extensively read ; and 
 wants were already arising which soon led the way to that most import- 
 ant of modern discoveries, the art of printing. Most gentlemen had 
 now a few books, and men of wealth had considerable libraries. The 
 wills of this period, still preserved, often enumerate the books possessed 
 
LIBRARIES. 
 
 35i 
 
 by the testator, and show the high value which was set upon them. 
 Many of the illuminations of the fourteenth century present us with 
 ingenious, and sometimes fantastic, forms of book-cases and book- 
 
 No. 237. — A Monk at his Studies. 
 
 stands. In our cut No. 237, from a manuscript of metrical relations of 
 miracles of the Virgin Mary, now preserved in the library of the city of 
 Soissons in France, we have a monk reading, seated before a book- 
 
 No. 238.— A Mediaeval Writer. 
 
 stand, the table of which moves up and down on a screw. Upon this 
 table is the inkstand, and below it apparently the inkbottle ; and the 
 
352 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 table has in itself receptacles for books and paper or parchment. In 
 the wall of the room are cupboards, also for the reception of books, as 
 we see by one lying loose in them. The man is here seated on a stool; 
 but in our cut No. 238, taken from a manuscript in the National 
 Library in Paris (No. 6985), he is seated in a chair, with a writing-desk 
 attached to it. The scribe holds in his hand a pen, with which he is 
 writing, and a knife to scratch the parchment where anything may need 
 erasion. The table here is also of a curious construction, and it is 
 covered with books. Other examples are found, which show that con- 
 siderable ingenuity was employed in varying the forms of such library 
 tables. 
 
 The next cut (No. 239) is taken from one of the illuminations to a 
 manuscript of the " Moralisation of Chess," by Jacques de Cessoles 
 (MS. Reg. 19 C. xi.), and is intended as a sort of figurative representa- 
 tion of the industrial class of society. It is curious because the figure 
 is made to carry some of the principal implements of the 
 chief trades or manufactures, and thus gives us their 
 ordinary forms. We need only repeat the enumeration 
 of these from the text. It is, we are told, a man who 
 holds in his right hand a pair of shears (unes forces) ; in 
 his left hand he has a great knife (un grant coustel); 
 " and he must have at his girdle an inkstand {line escrip- 
 toire), and on his ear a pen for writing (el sur Voreille une 
 penne a escripre)." Accordingly we see the ink-pot and 
 the case for writing implements suspended at the girdle, 
 No. 239.— industry, but by accident the pen does not appear on the ear in 
 our engraving. It is curious through how great a length 
 of time the practice of placing the pen behind the ear has continued 
 in use. 
 
 The punishments of the Middle Ages are remarkable, still more so in 
 other countries than in England, for a mixture of a small amount of 
 feeling of strict justice with a very large proportion of the mere feeling 
 of vengeance. Savage ferocity in the commission of crime led to no 
 less savage cruelty in retaliation. We have seen, in a former chapter, 
 that this was not the sentiment of our Anglo-Saxon forefathers, 
 whose criminal laws were extremely mild ; but after the Norman Con- 
 
MEDIAEVAL PUNISHMENTS. 
 
 353 
 
 quest, more barbarous feelings on this subject were brought over from 
 the Continent. Imprisonment itself, even before trial, was made fright- 
 fully cruel ; the dungeons into which the accused were thrown were 
 often filthy holes, sometimes with water running through them, and, as 
 a refinement in cruelty, loathsome reptiles were bred in them, and the 
 prisoners were not only allowed insufficient food, but they were some- 
 times stripped naked, and thrown into prison in that condition. In the 
 early English romance of the " Seven Sages " (the text printed by 
 Weber), when the emperor was persuaded by his wife to order her step- 
 son for execution, he commanded that he should be taken, stripped 
 naked of his clothes, and then hanged aloft — 
 
 Quik he het (commanded) his sone take, 
 
 And spoili him of clothes nake, 
 
 And beten him with scourges stronge, 
 
 And afterwards him hegge (high) anhonge (hang). 
 
 — Weber, hi. 21. 
 
 At the intercession of one of the wise men, the youth is respited and 
 thrown into prison, but without his clothing ; and when, on a subse- 
 quent occasion, he was brought out of prison for judgment, he remained 
 still naked. 
 
 Our three cuts which follow illustrate the subject of mediaeval punish- 
 ments for crimes and offences. The first (No. 240) is taken from a 
 
 No. 240. — A Party in the Stocks. 
 
 well-known manuscript, in the British Museum, of the fourteenth cen- 
 tury (MS. Reg. 10. E. iv.), and represents a monk and a lady, whose 
 career has brought them into the stocks, an instrument of punishment 
 which has figured in some of our former chapters. It is a very old 
 
354 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 mode of punishing offenders, and appears, under the Latin name of 
 cippus, in early records of the Middle Ages. An old English poem, 
 quoted by Mr Halliwell in his Dictionary, from a manuscript at least as 
 old as the fifteenth century, recounting the punishments to which some 
 misdoers were condemned, says — 
 
 And twenty of thes oder ay in a pytt, 
 In stokkes and feturs for to sytt. 
 
 The stocks are frequently referred to in writers of the sixteenth and 
 seventeenth centuries, and they have not yet become entirely obsolete. 
 The Leeds Mercury for April 14, i860, informs us that, " A notorious 
 character, named John Gambles, of Stanningley (Pudsey), having been 
 convicted some months ago for Sunday gambling and sentenced to sit in 
 the stocks for six hours, left the locality, returned lately, and suffered 
 his punishment by sitting in the stocks from two till eight o'clock on 
 Thursday last." They were formerly employed also, in place of fetters, 
 in the inside of prisons — no doubt in order to cause suffering by irk- 
 some restraint ; and this was so common that the Latin term cippus, 
 and the French ceps, were commonly used to designate the prison itself. 
 It may be remarked of these stocks, that they present a peculiarity 
 which we may perhaps call a primitive character. They are not sup- 
 ported on posts, or fixed in any way to the spot, but evidently hold the 
 people who are placed in them in confinement merely by their weight, 
 and by the impossibility of walking with them on the legs, especially 
 when more persons than one are confined in them. This is probably 
 the way in which they were used in prisons. 
 
 A material part of the punishment of the stocks, when employed in 
 the open air, consisted, of course, in the public disgrace to which the 
 victim was exposed. We might suppose that the shame of such ex- 
 posure was keenly felt in the Middle Ages, from the frequency with 
 which it was employed. This exposure before the public was, we 
 know, originally the chief characteristic of the ducking-stool, for the 
 process of ducking the victim in the water seems to have been only 
 added to it at a later period. Our cut No. 241, taken from an illumina- 
 tion in the unique manuscript of the " Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles," in 
 the Hunterian Library at Glasgow, represents a person thus exposed to 
 
MEDIAEVAL PUNISHMENTS. 
 
 355 
 
 the scorn and derision of the populace in the executioner's cart, which 
 is drawn through the streets of a town. To be carried about in a cart 
 was always considered as especially disgraceful, probably because it was 
 thus that malefactors were usually conducted to the gallows, or, in 
 France, to the guillotine. In the early romances of the cycle of King 
 Arthur, we have an incident which forms an apt illustration of the pre- 
 valence of this feeling. Sir Lancelot, when hastening to rescue his 
 lady, Queen Guenever, has the misfortune to lose his horse, and, meet- 
 ing with a carter, he seizes his cart as the only means of conveyance, 
 for the weight of his armour prevented him from walking. Queen 
 Guenever and her ladies, from a bay window of the castle of Sir Melia- 
 
 No. 241. — An Offender Exposed to Public Shame. 
 
 graunce, saw him approach, and one of the latter exclaimed, " See, 
 madam, where as rideth in a cart a goodly armed knight ! I suppose 
 that he rideth to hanging." Guenever, however, saw by his shield that 
 it was Sir Lancelot. "'Ah, most noble knight,' she said, when she 
 saw him in this condition, ' I see well that thou hast been hard bested, 
 when thou ridest in a cart.' Then she rebuked that lady that compared 
 him to one riding in a cart to hanging. ' It was foul mouthed,' said 
 the queen, ' and evil compared, so to compare the most noble knight 
 
356 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 of the world in such a shameful death. Jhesu ! defend him and 
 keep him/ said the queen, ' from all mischievous end.' " 
 
 Our next cut (No. 242) is taken from the same manuscript in the 
 British Museum which furnished us with No. 240. The playful 
 draughtsman has presented a scene from the world " upso-down," in 
 
 No. 242. — A Criminal drawn to the- Gallows. 
 
 which the rabbits (or perhaps hares) are leading to execution their old 
 enemy the dog. 
 
 The gallows and the wheel were instruments of execution of such 
 
 No. 243. — Mediaeval Ornaments of the Landscape. 
 
 common use in the Middle Ages that they were continually before 
 people's eyes. Every town, every abbey, and almost every large manorial 
 lord, had the right of hanging, and a gallows or tree with a man hanging 
 upon it was so frequent an object in the country that it seems to have 
 been considered as almost a natural ornament of a landscape, and it 
 
THE GALLOWS. 357 
 
 is thus introduced by no means uncommonly in mediaeval manuscripts. 
 The two examples given in our cut No. 243 are taken from the illumi- 
 nations in the manuscript of the romance of the " Chevalereux Comte 
 d'Artois," in the manuscript from which this romance was printed by 
 M. Barrois. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 Old English Cookery. — History of " Gourmandise." — English Cookery 
 of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries. — Bills of Fare. — Great 
 Feasts. 
 
 I HAVE spoken of the ceremonious forms of the service of the 
 mediseval table, but we are just now arrived at the period when we 
 begin to have full information on the composition of the culinary dishes 
 in which our ancestors indulged, and it will perhaps be well to give a 
 brief summary of that information as illustrative both of the period we 
 have now been considering, and of that which follows. 
 
 There is a part of the human frame, not very noble in itself, which, 
 nevertheless, many people are said to worship, and which has even exer- 
 cised at times a considerable influence over man's destinies. Gastrolatry, 
 indeed, is a worship which, at one time or other, has prevailed in different 
 forms over all parts of the world — its history takes an extensive range, 
 and is not altogether without interest. One of the first objects of search 
 in a man who has just risen from savage life to civilisation is rather 
 naturally refinement in his food, and this desire more than keeps pace 
 with the advance of general refinement, until cookery becomes one 
 of the most important of social institutions. During all periods of 
 which we read in history, great public acts, of whatever kind, even to 
 the consecration of a church, have been accompanied with feasting ; 
 and the same rule holds good throughout all the different phases of our 
 social relations. . The materials for the history of eating are, indeed, 
 abundant, and the field is extensive. 
 
 William of Malmesbury, as we have seen before, tells us that the 
 Anglo-Saxons indulged in great feasting, and lived in very mean houses; 
 whereas the Normans eat with moderation, but built for themselves 
 
THE LOVE OF THE TABLE. 359 
 
 magnificent mansions. Various allusions in old writers leave little room 
 for doubt that our Anglo-Saxon forefathers indulged in much eating 3 
 but, as far as we can gather, for our information is very imperfect, this 
 indulgence consisted more in the quantity than in the quality of the food, 
 for their cookery seems to have been in general what we call " plain." 
 Refinement in cookery appears to have come in with the Normans ; and 
 from the twelfth century to the sixteenth we can trace the love of the 
 table continually increasing. The monks, whose institution had, to a 
 certain degree, separated them from the rest of the world, and who 
 usually, and from the circumstances perhaps naturally, sought sensual 
 gratifications, fell soon into the sin of gluttony, and they seem to have led 
 the way in refinement in the variety and elaborate character of their 
 dishes. Giraldus Cambrensis, an ecclesiastic himself, complains in very 
 indignant terms of the luxurious table kept by the monks of Canterbury 
 in the latter half of the twelfth century ; and he relates an anecdote 
 which shows how far at that time the clergy were, in this respect, in 
 advance of the laity. One day, when Henry II. paid a visit to Win- 
 chester, the prior and monks of St Swithin met him, and fell on their 
 knees before him to complain of the tyranny of their bishop. When the 
 king asked what was their grievance, they said that their table had been 
 curtailed of three dishes. The king, somewhat surprised at this com- 
 plaint, and imagining, no doubt, that the bishop had not left them 
 enough to eat, inquired how many dishes he had left them. They 
 replied, ten ; at which the king, in a fit of indignation, told them that 
 he himself had no more than three dishes to his table, and uttered an 
 imprecation against the bishop, unless he reduced them to the same 
 number. 
 
 But although we have abundant evidence of the general fact that our 
 Norman and English forefathers loved the table, we have but imperfect 
 information on the character of their cookery until the latter half of the 
 fourteenth century, when the rules and receipts for cooking appear 
 to have been very generally committed to writing, and a certain 
 number of cookery-books belonging to this period and to the following 
 century remain in manuscript, forming very curious records of the 
 domestic life of our forefathers. From these I will give a few illustra- 
 tions of this subject. These cookery books sometimes contain plans for 
 
360 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 dinners of different descriptions, or, as we now should say, bills of fare, 
 which enable us, by comparing the names of the dishes with the receipts 
 for making them, to form a tolerably distinct notion of the manner in 
 which our forefathers fared at table from four to five hundred years ago. 
 The first example we shall give is furnished by a manuscript of the 
 beginning of the fifteenth century, and belongs to the latter part of the 
 century preceding; that is, to the reign of Richard II., a period re- 
 markable for the passion for luxurious living : it gives us the following 
 bill of fare for the ordinary table of a gentleman, which I will arrange in 
 the form of a bill of fare of the present day, modernising the language, 
 except in the case of obsolete words. 
 
 First Course. 
 Boar's head enarmed (larded), and " bruc'e," for pottage. 
 Beef. Mutton. Pestles [legs) of Pork. 
 Swan. Roasted Rabbit. Tart. 
 
 Second Course. 
 Drope and Rose, for pottage. 
 Mallard. Pheasant. Chickens, " farsed " and roasted. 
 " Malachis," baked. 
 
 T/iird Course. 
 Conings (rabbits), in gravy, and hare, in " brase"," for pottage. 
 Teals, roasted. Woodcocks. Snipes. 
 " Raffyolys," baked. " Flampoyntes." 
 
 It may be well to make the general remark, that the ordinary num- 
 ber of courses at dinner was three. To begin, then, with the first dish, 
 boar's-head was a favourite article at table, and needs no explanation. 
 The pottage which follows, under the name of bruce, was made as fol- 
 lows, according to a receipt in the same cookery-book which has fur- 
 nished the bill of fare : — 
 
 Take the umbles of a swine, and parboil them (boil them slowly), and cut 
 them small, and put them in a pot, with some good broth ; then take the 
 whites of leeks, and slit them, and cut them small, and put them in, with 
 minced onions, and let it all boil ; next take bread steeped in broth, and 
 " draw it up " with blood and vinegar, and put it into a pot, with pepper and 
 cloves, and let it boil ; and serve all this together. 
 
 In the second course, drqpe is probably an error for drore, a pottage, 
 which, according to the same cookery-book, was made as follows : — 
 
RECEIPTS FOR COOKING. 361 
 
 Take almonds, and blanch and grind them, and mix them with good meat 
 broth, and seethe this in a pot ; then mince onions, and fry them in fresh 
 " grease," and put them to the almonds ; take small birds, and parboil them, 
 and throw them into the pottage, with cinnamon and cloves and a little 
 " fair grease," and boil the whole. 
 
 Rose was made as follows : — 
 
 Take powdered rice, and boil it in almond-milk till it be thick, and take 
 the brawn of capons and hens, beat it in a mortar, and mix it with the preced- 
 ing, and put the whole into a pot, with powdered cinnamon and cloves, and 
 whole mace, and cover it with saunders (sandal-wood). 
 
 It may be necessary to explain that almond-milk consisted simply of 
 almonds ground and mixed with milk or broth. The farsure, or stuff- 
 ing, for chickens was made thus : — 
 
 Take fresh pork, seethe it, chop it small, and grind it well ; put to it hard 
 yolks of eggs, well mixed together, with dried currants, powder of cinnamon 
 and maces, cubebs, and cloves whole, and roast it. 
 
 I am unable to explain the meaning of malachis, the dish which 
 concludes this course. 
 
 The first dish in the third course, coneys, or rabbits, in gravy, was 
 made as follows : — 
 
 Take rabbits, and parboil them, and chop them in " gobbets," and seethe 
 them in a pot with good broth ; then grind almonds, " dress them up," with 
 beef broth, and boil this in a pot ; and, after passing it through a strainer, 
 put it to the rabbits, adding to the whole cloves, maces, pines {the kernels of 
 the pine-cone), and sugar ; colour it with sandal-wood, saffron, bastard or other 
 wine, and cinnamon powder mixed together, and add a little vinegar. 
 
 Not less complicated was the boar in hrase, or brasey : — 
 
 Take the ribs of a boar, while they are fresh, and parboil them till they are 
 half boiled ; then roast them, and, when they are roasted, chop them, and 
 put them in a pot with good fresh beef broth and wine, and add cloves, 
 maces, pines, currants, and powdered pepper ; then put chopped onions in 
 a pan, with fresh grease, fry them first and then boil them ; next, take bread, 
 steeped in broth, " draw it up " and put it to the onions, and colour it with 
 sandal-wood and saffron, and as it settles, put a little vinegar mixed with 
 powdered cinnamon to it ; then take brawn, and cut it into slices two inches 
 long, and throw it into the pot with the foregoing, and serve it all up 
 together. 
 
 Raffyolys were a sort of patties, derived from Italy, where they are still 
 
3 62 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 used as a delicacy under the name of raviuoli ; they were made as 
 follows : — 
 
 Take swine's flesh, seethe it, chop it small, add to it yolks of eggs, and 
 mix them well together ; put to this a little minced lard, grated cheese, pow- 
 dered ginger, and cinnamon ; make of this balls of the size of an apple, and 
 wrap them up in the cawl of the swine, each ball by itself ; make a raised 
 crust of dough, and put the ball in it, and bake it ; when they are baked, 
 take yolks of eggs well beaten, with sugar and pepper, coloured with saffron, 
 and pour this mixture over them. 
 
 Flamfioyntes (pork-pies) were made thus : — 
 
 Take good "interlarded" pork, seethe it, and chop it, and grind it small ; 
 put to it good fat cheese grated, and sugar and pepper ; put this in raised 
 paste like the preceding ; then make a thin leaf of dough, out of which cut 
 small "points," fry these in grease, and then stick them in the foregoing 
 mixture after it has been put in the crust, and bake it. 
 
 Such was a tolerably respectable dinner at the end of the fourteenth 
 century ; but the same treatise gives us the following bill of fare, for a 
 larger dinner, though still arranged in three courses : — 
 
 First Course. 
 
 Browet farsed, and charlet, for pottage. 
 
 Baked mallard. Teals. Small birds. Almond milk served with them. 
 
 Capon roasted with the syrup. 
 
 Roasted veal. Pig roasted " ' endored,' and served with the yolk on his neck 
 
 over gilt." Herons. 
 
 A " leche." A tart of flesh. 
 
 Second Course. 
 
 Browet of Almayne and Viaunde rial for pottage. 
 
 Mallard. Roasted rabbits. Pheasant. Venison. 
 
 Jelly. A leche. Urchynnes {hedgehogs). 
 
 Pome de orynge. 
 
 Third Course. 
 
 Boar in egurdouce, and Mawmene, for pottage. 
 
 Cranes, Kid. Curlew. Partridge. (All roasted). 
 
 A leche. A crustade. 
 
 A peacock endored and roasted, and served with the skin. 
 
 Cockagris. Flampoyntes. Daryoles. 
 
 Pears in syrup. 
 
 Browet, or brewet, was the English word for a pottage, from the Anglo- 
 
RECEIPTS FOR COOKING. 363 
 
 Saxon briw. The receipt for making farsed browet, or browet farsyn, 
 is literally as follows : — 
 
 Take almonds and pound them, and mix with beef broth, so as to make it 
 thick, and put it in a pot with cloves, maces, and figs, currants, and minced 
 ginger, and let all this seethe ; take bread, and steep it in sweet wine, and 
 " draw it up," and put it to the almonds with sugar ; then take conyngs 
 {rabbits), or rabbettes {young rabbits), or squirrels, and first parboil and then 
 fry them, and partridges parboiled ; fry them whole for a lord, but otherwise 
 chop them into gobbets ; and when they are almost fried, cast them in a pot, 
 and let them boil all together, and colour with sandal-wood and saffron ; 
 then add vinegar and powdered cinnamon strained with wine, and give it a 
 boil ; then take it from the fire, and see that the pottage is thin, and throw 
 in a good quantity of powdered ginger. 
 
 It is repeated, at the end of this receipt, that, for a lord, a coney, 
 rabbit, squirrel, or partridge, should be served whole in this manner. 
 The other pottage in this course, charlet, was less complex, and was 
 made thus : — 
 
 Take sweet cow's milk, put it in a pan, throw into it the yolks and white 
 of eggs, and boiled pork, pounded, and sage ; let it boil till it curds ; and 
 colour it with saffron. 
 
 The following was the syrup for a capon : — 
 
 Take almonds, and pound them, and mix them with wine, till they make 
 a thick " milk," and colour it with saffron, and put it in a saucepan, and put 
 into it a good quantity of figs and currants, and add ground ginger, cloves, 
 galingale {a spice tmich used in the Middle Ages), and cinnamon ; let all this 
 boil ; add sugar, and pour it over your capon or pheasant. 
 
 The leche in this first course was, perhaps, the dish which is called in 
 the receipts a leche lumbarde, which was made thus : — 
 
 Take raw pork, and pull off the skin, and pick out the skin sinews, and 
 pound the pork in a mortar with raw eggs ; add to it sugar, salt, raisins, 
 currants, minced dates, powdered pepper, and cloves ; put it in a bladder, 
 and let it seethe till it be done enough, and then cut it into slips of the form 
 of peas-cods : grind raisins in a mortar, mix them with red wine, and put to 
 them almond-milk, coloured with sandal-wood and saffron, and add pepper 
 and cloves, and then boil the whole ; when it is boiled, mix cinnamon and 
 ginger with wine and pour on it, and so serve it. 
 
 Browet of Almayjie, which comes in with the second course of this 
 dinner, was a rather celebrated pottage. It was made in the following 
 manner : — 
 
364 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 Take coneys, and parboil them, and chop them in gobbets, and put them, 
 with ribs of pork or kid into a pot, and seethe it ; then take ground almonds, 
 and mix them with beef broth, and put this in a pot with cloves, maces, 
 pines, minced ginger, and currants, and with onions, and boil it, and colour it 
 with saffron, and when this is boiled, take the flesh out from the broth, and 
 put it in it ; and take " alkanet " {alkanel is explained in the dictionaries as 
 the name of a plant, wild buglos ; it appears to have been used in cookery to 
 give colour), and fry it, and press it into the pot through a strainer, and 
 finally add a little vinegar and ground ginger mixed together. 
 
 The composition of viande royale was as follows : — 
 
 Take Greek wine, or Rhenish wine, and clarified honey, and mix them 
 well with ground rice, ginger, pepper, cinnamon, and cloves, saffron, sugar, 
 mulberries, and sandal-wood ; boil the mixture, and salt it, and take care 
 that it be thick. 
 
 Pome de oringe was quite a different thing to what we should expect 
 from the name. It was made as follows : — 
 
 Take pork liver, pound it well raw, and put to it ground pepper, cloves, 
 cinnamon, saffron, and currants ; make of this balls like apples, and wet 
 them well in the white of eggs, and then put them in boiling water, and let 
 them seethe, and when they have seethed a while, take them out, and put 
 them on a spit, and roast them well ; then take parsley, and grind it, and 
 wring it up with eggs through a strainer, and put a little flour to it, and with 
 this " endore " the balls while roasting, and, if you will, you may take saffron, 
 sandal-wood, or indigo, to colour them. 
 
 Endore was the technical term of the kitchen for washing over an 
 article of cookery with yolks of eggs, or any other liquid, to give a 
 shiny appearance to its exterior when cooked, as if it were gilt. 
 
 Both the pottages in the third course are rather elaborate ones. The 
 following was the process of making boar in egurdoitce, or egredouce, a 
 word which of course means " sour-sweet : — 
 
 Take dates, washed clean, and currants, and boil them, and pound them 
 together, and in pounding put cloves to them, and mix them up with vinegar, 
 or clarey, or other sweet wine, and put it in a fair pot, and boil it well ; and 
 then put to it half a quartern of sugar, or else honey, and half an ounce of 
 cinnamon in powder, and in the " setting down " take a little vinegar and 
 mix with it, and half an ounce of ground ginger, and a little sandal-wood 
 and saffron ; and in the boiling put minced ginger to it ; next, take fresh 
 brawn, and seethe it, and then cut it in thin slices, and lay three in a dish, 
 and then take half a pound of pines, and fry them in fresh grease, and throw 
 the pines into it ; and when they are thoroughly hot take them out with a 
 skimmer, and let them dry, and cast them into the same pot ; and then put 
 the syrup above the brawn in the dishes, and serve it. 
 
RECEIPTS FOR COOKING. 365 
 
 Mawmene was made according to the following receipt : — 
 
 Take almonds and blanch them and pound them, and mix them with water 
 or wine, and take the brawn of capons or pheasants, and pound it small, 
 and mix it with the other, and add ground rice, and put it in a pot and let it 
 boil ; and add powder of ginger and cloves, and cinnamon and sugar; and 
 take rice, and parboil and grind it, and add it to them, and colour it 
 with sandal-wood, and pour it out in dishes ; and take the grains of pome- 
 granates and stick in it, or almonds or pines fried in grease, and strew sugar 
 over it. 
 
 The following was the manner of making the crustade, mentioned in 
 
 the third course of this bill of fare : — 
 
 Take chickens, and pigeons, and small birds, and make them clean, and 
 chop them to pieces, and stew them all together in a good broth made of 
 fair grease and ground pepper and cloves, and add verjus to it, and colour 
 it with saffron ; then make raised crusts, and pinch them and lay the 
 flesh therein, and put to it currants, and ground ginger, and cinnamon ; 
 and take raw eggs, and break them, and strain them through a strainer 
 into the pottage of the stew, and stir it well together, and pour it into 
 the raised crusts, above the flesh, and then place the covers on them and 
 serve them. 
 
 The process of serving a peacock " with the skin " also requires some 
 explanation. The skin was first stripped off, with the feathers, tail, and 
 neck and head, and it was spread on a table and strewed with ground 
 cummin ; then the peacock was taken and roasted, and " endored " 
 with raw yolks of eggs ; and when roasted, and after it had been allowed 
 to cool a little, it was sewn into the skin, and thus served on the table, 
 always with the last course, when it looked as though the bird were 
 alive. To make cokagrys, you must 
 
 Take an old cock and pull him, and wash him, and skin him all but the 
 legs, and fill him full of the stuffing made for the pome de oringe ; and also 
 take a pig and skin him from the middle downwards, and fill him full of the 
 same stuffing, and sew them fast together, and seethe them ; and when they 
 have seethed a good while, take them up and put them on a spit, and roast 
 them well, and endore them with yolks of eggs mixed with saffron ; and 
 when they are roasted, before placing them on the table, lay gold and silver 
 foil on them. 
 
 Flampoyntes have been already explained. Pears in syrup were merely 
 boiled in wine, and seasoned with sugar and spices. 
 
 In these bills of fare, our readers who believe in the prevalence of 
 " old English roast beef," will find that belief singularly dissipated, for 
 
366 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 our ancestors seem to have indulged in all sorts of elaborately made 
 dishes, in which immense quantities of spices were employed. The 
 number of receipts in these early cookery-books is wonderfully great, and 
 it is evident that people sought variety almost above all other things. 
 Among the Sloane manuscripts in the library of the British Museum, 
 there is a very complete cookery-book (MS. No. 1201) belonging to the 
 latter part of the fifteenth century, which gives seven bills of fare of 
 seven dinners, each to differ entirely in the dishes composing it from 
 the other, with the object, of course, of giving a different dinner every 
 day during seven consecutive days. In the foregoing bills of fare, we 
 have seen that on flesh-days no fish was introduced on the table, but fish 
 is introduced along with flesh in the seven dinners just alluded to, which 
 are, moreover, curious for the number of articles, chiefly birds, introduced 
 in them, which we are not now accustomed to eat. The first of these 
 bills of fare, which are all limited to two courses, runs as follows : — 
 
 First Course, of Eleven Dishes. 
 
 Nowmbles (umbles) of an harte. Vyand ryalle. The syde of an hert rostede- 
 
 Swanne with chauderoun. Fesaunt rostede. Bytore {bittern) rostede. 
 
 Pyke, and grete gurnarde. 
 
 Haggesse of Almayne. Blaunche custade. 
 
 A sotelte, a blake bore enarmede with golde. 
 
 Second Course, of Eleven Dishes. 
 
 Gele. Cream of almonds. 
 
 Kynd kydde. Fillets of an herte endored. Squyrelle rost. 
 
 Chykons {chickens) ylarded. Partriche and lark rost. 
 
 Perche and porpoys rost. 
 
 Frytours Lumbard. Payne puffe {puff-bread). 
 
 A sotelte, a castelle of sylver with fanes {vanes or flags) of gold. 
 
 It appears that at this time it was considered more absolutely neces- 
 sary than at an earlier period, that each course at table should be 
 accompanied with a subtilty, or ornamental device in pastry, representing 
 groups of various descriptions, as here a black boar and a castle. We 
 have here the porpoise eaten among fishes, and the squirrel among 
 animals; we have before seen hedgehogs served at table. In the 
 " Menagier de Paris," a French compilation, made in the year 1393, a 
 hedgehog is directed to have its throat cut, and to be skinned and 
 
A BILL OF FARE. 367 
 
 emptied, and then to be arranged as a chicken, and pressed and well 
 dried in a towel; after this it was to be roasted and eaten with "cameline," 
 a word the exact meaning of which seems not to be known ; or in pastry, 
 with duckling sauce. Squirrels were to be treated as rabbits. The 
 same book gives directions for cooking magpies, rooks, and jackdaws. 
 The second of the seven bills of fare given in the Sloane manuscript 
 contains turtles (the bird) and throstles, roasted ; in the third we have 
 roasted egrets (a species of heron), starlings, and linnets; in the fourth, 
 " martinettes ;" in the fifth, barnacles, "molette," sparrows, and, among 
 fishes, minnows ; and in the sixth, roasted cormorants, heathcocks, 
 sheldrakes, dotterels, and thrushes. The seventh bill of fare runs 
 thus : — 
 
 First Course, of Nine Dishes. 
 
 Long wortes {vegetables). An hen in dubate. 
 
 Shuldres of motoun. 
 
 Wylde goos. Wode doves. 
 
 Fresh laumprey. Grete codlynge. 
 
 Bonsomers. Tortons, in paste. 
 
 Second Course, of Ten Dishes. 
 
 Pynnonade {a confection of almonds and pines). 
 
 Malardes of the rivere. 
 
 Cotes, rost, and dampettes. 
 
 Quayles, and goldefynche. 
 
 Ele reversed. Breme' de mere. 
 
 Frypours ryalle. Viande en feast. 
 
 Quarters of lambe. 
 
 The bills of fare I have thus given are intended for dinners of mode- 
 rate size, but I might easily have given much larger ones, though we 
 should have learned nothing more by them than by the smaller ones, 
 from which the reader will be able to form a very good judgment of the 
 general style of eating among our forefathers, when they lived well. The 
 fifteenth century, especially, was celebrated for its great feasts, at which 
 the consumption of provisions was enormous. The bills of expenses of 
 some of them have been preserved. In the sixth year of the reign of 
 Edward IV. (a.d. 1466), George Nevile was made archbishop of York, 
 and the account of the expenditure for the feast on that occasion contains 
 the following articles : — Three hundred quarters of wheat, three hundred 
 
368 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 tuns of ale, one hundred tuns of wine, one pint of hypocras, a hundred 
 and four oxen, six wild bulls, a thousand sheep, three hundred and four 
 calves, the same number of swine, four hundred swans, two thousand 
 geese, a thousand capons, two thousand pigs, four hundred plovers, a 
 hundred dozen of quails, two hundred dozen of the birds called " rees," 
 a hundred and four peacocks, four thousand mallards and teals, two 
 hundred and four cranes, two hundred and four kids, two thousand 
 chickens, four thousand pigeons, four thousand crays, two hundred and 
 four bitterns, four hundred herons, two hundred pheasants, five hundred 
 partridges, four hundred woodcocks, one hundred curlews, a thousand 
 egrettes, more than five hundred stags, bucks, and roes, four thousand 
 cold venison pasties, a thousand " parted " dishes of jelly, three thousand 
 plain dishes of jelly, four thousand cold baked tarts, fifteen hundred hot 
 venison pasties, two thousand hot custards, six hundred and eight pikes 
 and breams, twelve porpoises and seals, with a proportionate quantity 
 of spices, sugared delicacies, and wafers or cakes. 
 
 On the enthronation of William Warham as archbishop of Canterbury 
 in 1504, the twentieth year of the reign of Henry VII., a feast was 
 given for which the following provisions were purchased : — Fifty-four 
 quarters of wheat, twenty shillings' worth of fine flour for making wafers, 
 six tuns or pipes of red wine, four of claret wine, one of choice white 
 wine, and one of white wine for the kitchen, one butt of malmsey, one 
 pipe of wine of Osey, two tierces of Rhenish wine, four tuns of London 
 ale, six of Kentish ale, and twenty of English beer, thirty-three pounds' 
 worth of spices, three hundred lings, six hundred codfish, seven barrels 
 of salted salmon, forty fresh salmon, fourteen barrels of white herrings, 
 twenty cades of red herrings (each cade containing six hundred herrings, 
 which would make a total of twelve thousand), five barrels of salted 
 sturgeons, two barrels of salted eels, six hundred fresh eels, eight thou- 
 sand whelks, five hundred pikes, four hundred tenches, a hundred carps, 
 eight hundred breams, two barrels of salted lampreys, eighty fresh 
 lampreys, fourteen hundred fresh lamperns, a hundred and twenty-four 
 salted congors, two hundred great roaches, a quantity of seals and por- 
 poises, with a considerable quantity of other fish. It will be under- 
 stood at once that this feast took place on a fish day. 
 
 This habit of profuse and luxurious living seems to have gradually 
 
RETURN TO SIMPLER LIVING. 369 
 
 declined during the sixteenth and first part of the seventeenth century, 
 until it was extinguished in the great convulsion which produced the 
 Interregnum. After the Restoration, we find that the table, among all 
 classes, was furnished more soberly, and with plainer and more sub- 
 stantial dishes. 
 
 2 A 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 Slow Progress of Society in the Fifteenth Century. — Enlargement of the 
 Houses. — The Hall and its Furniture. — Arrangement of the Table for 
 Meals. — Absence of Cleanliness. — Manners at Table. — The Parlour. 
 
 THE progress of society in the two countries which were most 
 closely allied in this respect, England and France, was slow 
 during the fifteenth century. Both countries were engaged either in 
 mutual hostility or in desolating civil wars, which so utterly checked 
 all spirit of improvement, that the aspect of society differed little be- 
 tween the beginning and the end of the century in anything but dress. 
 At the close of the fourteenth century, the middle classes in England 
 had made great advance in wealth and independence, and the Wars of 
 the Roses, which were so destructive to the nobility, as well as the 
 tendency of the crown to set the gentry up as a balance to the power 
 of the feudal barons, helped to make that advance more certain and 
 rapid. This increase of wealth appears in the multiplication of furniture 
 and of other household implements, especially of those of a more valu- 
 able description. We are surprised, in running our eye through the 
 wills and inventories during this period, at the quantity of plate which 
 was usually possessed by country gentlemen and respectable burghers. 
 There was also a great increase both in the number and magnitude of the 
 houses which intervened between the castle and the cottage. Instead 
 of having one or two bedrooms, and turning people into the hall to 
 sleep at night, we now find whole suites of chambers ; while, where 
 before the family lived chiefly in the hall, privacy was sought by the 
 addition of parlours, of which there were often more than one in an 
 ordinary sized house. The hall was in fact already beginning to diminish 
 in importance in comparison with the rest of the house. Whether in 
 town or country, houses of any magnitude were now generally built 
 
ARCHITECTURE IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. 371 
 
 round an interior court, into which the rooms almost invariably looked, 
 only small and unimportant windows looking towards the street or 
 country. This arrangement of course originated in the necessity of 
 studying security — a necessity which was never felt more than in the 
 fifteenth century. We have less need to seek our illustrations from manu- 
 scripts during this period, on account of the numerous examples of 
 
 No. 244. — Court of a House of the Fifteenth Century. 
 
 buildings which still remain in a greater or less state of perfection, but 
 still an illumination now and then presents us with an interesting picture 
 of the architectural arrangements of a dwelling-house in the fifteenth 
 century, which may be advantageously compared with the buildings 
 that still exist. One of these is represented in our cut No. 244, taken 
 from an illuminated copy of the French translation of Valerius Maximus 
 (MS. No. 6984, in the National Library in Paris). The building to 
 
37- 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 the left is probably the staircase turret of the gateway ; that before us 
 is the mass of the household apartments. We are supposed to be 
 standing within the court. At the foot of the turret is the well, a very 
 important object within the court, where it was always placed in 
 houses of this description, as in the troubles of those days the house- 
 hold might be obliged to shut themselves up for a day or two and 
 depend for their supply of water entirely on what they could get within 
 their walls. 
 
 Our last cut (No. 244) is a remarkably good and perfect repre- 
 sentation of the exterior, looking towards the court, of the domestic 
 buildings. The door on the ground floor to the right is probably, to 
 judge by the position of the windows, the entrance to the hall. The 
 steps leading to the first floor are outside the wall, an arrangement which 
 is not uncommon in the existing examples of houses of this period in 
 England. It is perhaps 'what was called in French the fierrin, as 
 
 mentioned before. We have also here 
 the open gallery round the chambers 
 on the first floor, which is so frequently 
 met with in our houses of the fifteenth 
 century. It is probable that within the 
 door at the top of the external flight of 
 steps, as here represented, a short stair- 
 case led up to the floor on which the 
 chambers were situated. Perhaps it 
 may have been a staircase into the gal- 
 §§?; lery, as the opening round the corner 
 to the right seems to be a door from 
 the gallery into the chambers. 
 
 In another illumination in the same 
 manuscript (cut No. 245), a knight is represented knocking at the door 
 of a house into which he seeks admittance. The plain knocker and the 
 ring will be recognised at once by all who have been accustomed to exa- 
 mine the original doors still remaining in many of our very old buildings. 
 The person preparing to enter knocks with his left hand to announce 
 his approach, while with the right hand he turns the ring and thus un- 
 latches the door. It is a practice which still exists in France and in some 
 
 No. 245. — A Knight at the Door. 
 
THE HALL AND ITS FURNITURE. 373 
 
 other parts of the Continent. The knocker, instead of being plain, as in 
 this cut, was often very ornamental. This is, of course, the outer door 
 of the house, and our readers will not overlook the loophole and the 
 small window through which the person who knocked might be examined, 
 and, if necessary, interrogated, before he was admitted. 
 
 Let us now pass through the door on the ground floor, always open 
 by day, into the hall. This was still the most spacious apartment in the 
 house, and it was still also the public room, open to all who were admitted 
 within the precincts. The hall continued to be scantily furnished. The 
 permanent furniture consisted chiefly in benches, and in a seat with a 
 back to it for the superior members of the family. The head table at 
 least was now generally a permanent one, and there were in general 
 more permanent tables, or tables dormant, than formerly, but still the 
 greater part of the tables in the hall were made for each meal by placing 
 boards upon trestles. Cushions, with ornamental clothes, called bankers 
 and dorsers, to be placed over the benches and backs of the seats of the 
 better persons at the table, were now also in general use. Tapestry was 
 suspended on the walls of the hall on special occasions, but it does not 
 appear to have been of common use. Another article of furniture had 
 now become common — the buffet, or stand, on which the plate and other 
 vessels were arranged. These articles appear to have been generally in 
 the keeping of the butler, and only to have been brought into the hall 
 and arranged on the buffet at meal times, for show as much as for use. 
 The dinner party in our cut No. 246, taken from an illumination of a 
 manuscript of the romance of the " Comte d'Artois," formerly in the 
 possession of M. Barrois, a distinguished and well-known collector in 
 Paris, represents a royal party dining at a table with much simplicity. 
 The ornamental vessel on the table is probably the salt-cellar, which was 
 a very important article at the feast. Besides the general utility of salt, 
 it was regarded with profoundly superstitious feelings, and it was con- 
 sidered desirable that it should be the first article placed on the table. 
 We have still a feeling of superstition with regard to the spilling of salt. 
 A metrical code for the behaviour of servants, written in the fifteenth 
 century, directs that, in preparing the table for meals, the table-cloth was 
 first to be spread, and then, invariably and in all places, the salt was to 
 be placed upon it ; next were to be arranged successively, the knives, the 
 
374 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 bread, the wine, and then the meat, after which the waiter was to bring 
 other things, when each was called for — 
 
 Tu dois mettre preincrement 
 En tous lieux et en tout hostel 
 La nappe, et apres le sel ; 
 Cousteaulx, pain, vin, et puis viande, 
 Puis apporter ce qu'on demande. 
 
 In this cut (No. 246) it will be seen that the " nappe " is duly laid, 
 and upon it are seen the salt-cellar, the bread (round cakes), and the 
 cups for wine. Knives are wanting, and the plates seldom appear on 
 the table in these dinner scenes of the fifteenth century, any more than 
 
 ; No. 246. — A Dinner-Scene at Court. 
 
 in the previous period. This, no doubt, arose from the common prac- 
 tice at that time of people carrying their own knives with them in a 
 sheath attached to the girdle. We find, moreover, few knives enumer- 
 ated in our inventories of household goods and chattels. In the English 
 metrical " Stans Puer ad Mensam," or rules for behaviour at table, 
 written by Lydgate, the guest is told to "bring no knyves unskoured to 
 the table," which can only mean that he is to keep his own knife that 
 he carries with him clean. The two servants are here duly equipped 
 
FURNITURE-INVENTORIES. 
 
 375 
 
 for duty, with the towel thrown over the shoulder. The table appears 
 to be placed on two board-shaped trestles, but the artist has forgotten to 
 indicate the seats. But in our next cut (No. 247), a very private party, 
 taken from a manuscript of the early French translation of the Deca- 
 meron (in the National Library at Paris, No. 6887), are placed in a seat 
 with a back to it, although the table is still evidently a board placed 
 upon trestles. It may be remarked that in dinner scenes of this cen- 
 tury, the gentlemen at table are almost always represented with their 
 hats on their heads. This appears to have been a part of good man- 
 ners, its object being to prevent the man's hair from falling off upon 
 the meat. I am told that the same feeling and practice still exists 
 
 No. 247. — A Private Dinner. 
 
 among the peasantry in France. It would seem to show that our 
 mediaeval forefathers did not keep their hair well brushed. 
 
 As I have already hinted, the inventories of this period give us 
 curious information on the furniture of houses of different descriptions. 
 We learn from one of these, made in 1446, that there were at that time 
 belonging to the hall of the priory of Durham, one dorsal or dorser, 
 embroidered with the birds of St Cuthbert and the arms of the church, 
 five pieces of red cloth (three embroidered and two plain), no doubt 
 for the same purpose of throwing over the seats ; six cushions ; three 
 basins of brass ; and three washing-basins. A gentleman at Northaller- 
 ton, in Yorkshire, who made his will in 1444, had in his hall thirteen 
 jugs or pots of brass, four basins, and two ewers (of course, for washing 
 the hands), three candlesticks, five (metal) dishes, three kettles, nine 
 vessels of lead and pewter, "utensils of iron belonging to the hall," 
 valued at two shillings — probably the fire-irons —one dorser and one 
 
376 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 banker. An inventory of a gentleman's goods in the year 1463, appar- 
 ently in the southern part of England (printed in the " New Retrospec- 
 tive Review "), gives, as the contents of the hall, — a standing spear, a 
 hanging of stained work, a mappa-mundi (a map of the world) of parch- 
 ment — a curious article for the hall — aside-table, one "dormond" table 
 (a permanent table), a beam with six candlesticks. 
 
 A vocabulary of the fifteenth century (" Volume of Vocabularies," 
 p. 197) enumerates, as the ordinary furniture of the hall, a board, a 
 trestle, a banker, a dorser, a natte (table-cloth), a table dormant, a basin, 
 
 No. 248. — Reception of the Minstrel. 
 
 a laver, fire on a hearth, a brand or torch, a yule-block, an andiron, 
 tongs, a pair of bellows, wood for the fire, a long settle, a chair, a bench, 
 a stool, a cushion, and a screen. The permanent or dormant table is 
 shown in the scene given in our cut No. 248, taken from the beautifully 
 illuminated manuscript of the " Roman de la Violette," at Paris, some 
 fac-similes from which were privately distributed by the Comte de Bas- 
 tard, from whom I had the honour of receiving a copy. We have here 
 also the seat with its back, and the buffet with its jugs and dishes. In 
 our cut No. 246, we had the waits or trumpeters, who were always 
 attached to the halls of great people to announce the commencement of 
 
ETIQUETTE AT TABLE. 377 
 
 the dinner. Only persons of a certain rank were allowed this piece of 
 ostentation ; but everybody had minstrelsy to dinner who could obtain 
 it, and when it was at hand. The wandering minstrel was welcome in 
 every hall, and for this very reason the class of ambulatory musicians 
 was very numerous. In the scene given in our cut No. 248, the wan- 
 dering minstrel, or, according to the story, a nobleman in that disguise, 
 has just arrived, and he is allowed, without ceremony or suspicion, to 
 seat himself at the fire, apparently on a stool, beside the two individuals 
 at dinner. 
 
 The floor of the hall was usually paved with tiles, or with flag stones, 
 and very little care appears to have been shown to cleanliness, as far as 
 it was concerned, except that it was usual to strew it with rushes. 
 Among the various French metrical " Contenances de Table," or direc- 
 tions for behaviour at table, of the fifteenth century, the person in- 
 structed is told that he must not spit tipo?i the table at dinner-time — 
 
 Ne craiche par dessus la table, 
 Car c'est chose desconvenable, 
 
 which is necessarily an intimation that he must spit upon the floor. In 
 another of these pieces he is told that when he washes his mouth at 
 table, he must not reject the water into the basin — 
 
 Quant ta bouche tu laveras, 
 Ou bacin point ne cracheras. 
 
 The reason for this rule was evidently the circumstance that one basin 
 might serve for all the company; but the alternative again was of course 
 to spit the water out upon the floor. Again, in one of these codes, the 
 learner is told that when he makes sops in his wine, he must either drink 
 all the wine in the glass, or throw what remains on the floor — 
 
 Enfant, se tu faiz en ton verre 
 Souppes de vin aucunement, 
 Boy tout le vin entierement, 
 Ou autrement le gecte a. terre. 
 
 Or, as it is expressed in another similar code more briefly — 
 
 Se tu fais souppes en ton verre, 
 Boy le vin ou le gette a terre. 
 
 There can be no doubt that all this must have made an extremely dirty 
 
378 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 floor. Another rather naive direction shows that no more attention was 
 paid to the cleanliness of the benches and seats ; it is considered neces- 
 sary to tell the scholar always to look at his seat before he sits down at 
 table, to assure himself that there is nothing dirty upon it ! — 
 
 Enfant, prens de regarder peine 
 Sur le siege ou tu te sierras, 
 Se aucune chose y verras 
 Qui soit deshonneste ou vilaine. 
 
 The fireplace at the side of the hall, with hearth and chimney, were 
 now in general use. An example is given in our last cut ; another will 
 be seen in our cut No. 249, and here, though evidently in the hall, and 
 
 No. 249. — A Monastic Feast. 
 
 a monastic hall too, the process of cooking is pursued at it. The monks 
 appear to be taking a joyous repast, not quite in keeping with the strict 
 rule of their order, and the way in which they are conducting themselves 
 towards the women who have been introduced into the monastery does 
 not speak in favour of monastic continence. This picture is from a 
 manuscript Bible of the fifteenth century, in the National Library in 
 Paris (No. 6829). 
 
 Manners at table appear to have been losing some of the strictness 
 
ETIQUETTE AT TABLE. 379 
 
 and stiffness of their ceremonial, while they retained their rudeness. 
 The bowl of water was carried round to the guests, and each washed 
 his hands before dinner, but the washing after dinner appears now to 
 have been commonly omitted. In one of the directions for table 
 already quoted, the scholar is told that he must wash himself when 
 he rises from bed in the morning, once at dinner, and once at supper, 
 in all thrice a day — 
 
 Enfant, d'honneur lave tes mains 
 A ton lever, a. ton disner, 
 Et puis au soupper, sans finer ; 
 Ce sont trois foys a tout le moins. 
 
 And again, in another similar code — 
 
 Lave tes mains devant disner, 
 Et aussi quant vouldras soupper. 
 
 Still people put their victuals to their mouth with their fingers, for, 
 though forks were certainly known in the previous century, they were 
 not used for conveying the food to the mouth. It was considered, never- 
 theless, bad manners to carry the victuals to the mouth with the 
 
 knife — 
 
 Ne faiz pas ton morsel conduire 
 A ton coustel, qui te peult nuire. 
 
 Another practice strictly forbidden in these rules was picking your 
 teeth with your knife while at table. From the use thus made of the 
 hand, in the absence of forks, it may be supposed that we should have 
 directions for keeping it clean during the process of eating. One of 
 these appears droll enough to us at the present day. It is directed that 
 a person sitting at table in company is not to blow his nose with the 
 hand with which he takes his meat. Handkerchiefs were not yet in use, 
 and the alternative of course was that, if any one felt the need of per- 
 forming the operation in question, he was to lay down his knife, and to 
 do it with the hand which held it. In one of the French codes this 
 direction is given rather covertly, as follows — 
 
 Ne touche ton nez a main nue 
 Dont ta viande est tenue. 
 
 But in another it is enunciated more crudely, thus — 
 
3 8o 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 Enfant, se ton nez est morveux, 
 Ne le torche de la main nue 
 De quoy ta viande est tenue ; 
 Le fait est vilain et honteux. 
 
 All these circumstances show a state of manners which was very far from 
 
 refined. 
 
 Among other directions for table, you are told not to leave your spoon 
 
 in your platter ; not to return back to your plate the food you have put 
 
 in your mouth ; not to dip your meat in the salt-cellar to salt it, but to 
 
 take a little salt on your knife and put it on the meat ; not to drink from 
 
 a cup with a dirty mouth ; not to offer to another person the remains of 
 
 your pottage; not to eat much cheese; to take only two or three nuts, 
 
 when they are placed before you ; not to play with your knife ; not to 
 
 .No. 250. — A Domestic Scene. 
 
 roll your napkin into a cord, or tie it in knots ; and not to get intoxi- 
 cated during dinner-time ! 
 
 The above cut (No. 250), repeated here from an earlier part of 
 our volume (p. 107), represents one of the backed seats, after a pat- 
 tern of this century. It is taken from a manuscript of the romance 
 of Launcelot du Lac, in the National Library in Paris (No. 594). It is 
 probable that this seat belonged to the parlour, or, as the name signifies, 
 conversation-room. The custom still continued of making seats with 
 divisions, so that each person sat in a separate compartment. A triple 
 seat of this kind is represented in our cut No. 251, taken from a manu- 
 script of the French Boccaccio in the National Library in Paris. 
 
 The parlour seems to have been ornamented with more care, and to 
 have been better furnished than the hall. This apartment appears to 
 
THE PARLOUR AND ITS FURNITURE. 
 
 38i 
 
 have been placed sometimes on the ground floor, and sometimes on the 
 floor above, and large houses had usually two or three parlours. It had 
 often windows in recesses, with fixed seats on each side ; and the fire- 
 place was smaller and more comfortable than that of the hall. As car- 
 pets came into more general use, the parlour was one of the first rooms 
 to receive this luxury. In the inventory I have already quoted from the 
 
 No. 251. — A Triple Seat. 
 
 " New Retrospective Review," the following articles of furniture are 
 described as being in the parlour — 
 
 A hanging of worsted, red and green. 
 
 A cupboard of ash-boards, 
 
 A table, and a pair of trestles. 
 
 A branch of latten, with four lights. 
 
 A pair of andirons. 
 
 A pair of tongs. 
 
 A form to sit upon. 
 
 And a chair. 
 
 This will give us a very good idea of what was the usual furniture of the 
 parlour in the fifteenth century. The only movable seats are a single 
 bench, and one chair — perhaps a seat with a back like that shown above. 
 The table was even here formed by laying a board upon trestles. The 
 cupboard was peculiar to this part of the house ; many of my readers 
 will probably remember the parlour cupboards in our old country houses, 
 
38: 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 the branched candlestick of metal, suspended from the ceiling, and the 
 tongs and andirons for the fire. 
 
 The principal articles of furniture in the parlour are all exhibited in 
 illuminations in manuscripts of the same period. The "hanging of 
 worsted " was, of course, a piece of tapestry for the wall, or for some 
 part of the wall, for the room was in many, perhaps in most, cases, only 
 partially covered. Sometimes, indeed, it appears only to have been 
 hung up on occasions, perhaps for company, when the tapestry seems 
 to have been placed behind the chief seat* The wall itself was fre- 
 
 No. 252. — Morgan le Fay showing King Arthur the Paintings of the Adventures of Lancelot. 
 
 quently adorned with paintings, in common houses rude and merely 
 ornamental, while in others of a better class they represented histories, 
 scenes from romances, and religious subjects, much like those exhibited 
 on the tapestries themselves. In the above cut (No. 252), taken from 
 a beautifully illuminated manuscript of the romance of " Lancelot," in 
 the National Library at Paris, No. 6784, we have a representation of a 
 parlour with wall-paintings of this kind. Morgan le Fay is showing 
 King Arthur the adventures of Lancelot, which she had caused to be 
 painted in a room in her palace. Paintings of this kind are very often 
 
 * A Bury will, of the date of 1522, mentioned a little farther on, enumerates among 
 the household furniture " the steynyd clothes hangyng abowte the parlour behynde 
 the halle chemny." 
 
WALL-PAINTINGS. 
 
 333 
 
 alluded to in the old writers, especially in the poets, as every one knows 
 who has read the " Romance of the Rose," the works of Chaucer, or 
 that singular and curious poem, the " Pastyme of Pleasure," by Stephen 
 Hawes. Chaucer, in his " Dream," speaks of— 
 
 A chamber paint 
 Full of stories old and divers, 
 More than I can as now reherse. 
 
 There was in the castle of Dover an apartment called Arthur's Hall, 
 and another named Guenevra's Chamber, which have been supposed 
 to be so called from the subjects of the paintings with which they 
 were decorated; and a still more curious illustration is furnished 
 
 N . 253.— Wall-Paintings still remaining in a House at Salisbury. 
 
 by an old house of this period still existing in New Street, Salisbury, 
 a room in which preserves its painting in distemper, occupying the 
 upper part of the wall, like the story of Lancelot in the pictures of 
 the room of Morgan le Fay. I give a sketch of the side of this room 
 occupied by the painting in the accompanying cut (No. 253). It 
 occupies the space above the fireplace, and the windows looking into 
 the street, but it has been much damaged by modern alterations in the 
 house. The subject, as will at once be seen, was of a sacred character, 
 the offering of the three kings. 
 
 The window to the left of the fireplace, which is one of the original 
 
384 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 windows of this house, has a deep sill, or seat, which was intended as 
 one of the accommodations for sitting down. This was not unfrequently 
 made with a recess in the middle, so as to form a seat on each side, on 
 which two persons might sit face to face, and which was thus more con- 
 venient both for conversation, and for looking through the window at 
 what was going on without. This appears to have been a favourite seat 
 with the female part of the household when employed in needlework 
 and other sedentary occupations. There is an allusion to this use of 
 the window sill in the curious old poem of the Lady Bessy," which is 
 probably somewhat obscured by the alterations of the modern copyist ; 
 when the young princess kneels before her father, he takes her up and 
 seats her in the window — 
 
 I came before my father the king, ' 
 
 And kneeled down upon my knee ; 
 I desired him lowly of his blessing, 
 
 And full soon he gave it unto me. 
 And in his arms he could me thring, 
 
 And set me in a window so high. 
 
 The words of our inventory, " a form to sit upon, and a chair," 
 describe well the scanty furnishing of the rooms of a house at this 
 period. The cause of this poverty in movables, which arose more 
 from the general insecurity of property than the inability to procure it, 
 is curiously illustrated by a passage from a letter of Margaret Paston to 
 her husband, written early in the reign of Edward IV. " Also," says 
 the lady to her spouse, " if ye be at home this Christmas, it were well 
 done ye should do purvey a garnish or twain of pewter vessel, two 
 basins and two ewers, and twelve candlesticks, for ye have too few of 
 any of these to serve this place ; I am afraid to purvey much stuff in 
 this place, till we be surer thereof." As yet, a form or bench continued 
 to be the usual seat, which could be occupied by several persons at 
 once. One chair, as in the inventory just mentioned, was considered 
 enough for a room, and was no doubt preserved for the person of most 
 dignity, perhaps for the lady of the household. Towards the latter 
 end of this period, however, chairs, made in a simpler form, and stools, 
 the latter very commonly three-legged, became more abundant. Yet 
 in a will dated so late as 1522 (printed in the "Bury Wills" of the 
 Camden Society), an inhabitant of Bury in Suffolk, who seems to have 
 
CHAIRS. 
 
 385 
 
 possessed a large house, and, for the time, a considerable quantity of house- 
 hold furniture, had, of tables and chairs, only "a tabyll of waynskott with 
 to (two) joynyd trestelles, ij. joynyd stolys (stools) of the best, a gret joynyd 
 cheyre at the deyse in the halle — the grettest close cheyre, ij. fote stoles 
 — a round tabyll of waynskott with lok and key, the secunde joynyd 
 cheyer, ij. joynyd stolys." The ordinary forms of chairs and stools at 
 the latter end of the fifteenth century are shown in our cut No. 254, 
 
 No. 254. — Sculpture from the H6teI-de-Ville, Brussels. 
 
 taken from a very curious sculpture in alto-relievo on one of the columns 
 of the H6tel-de-Ville, at Brussels. At this time we begin to find 
 examples of chairs ingeniously constructed, for folding up or taking to 
 pieces, so as to be easily laid aside or 
 carried away. Some of these resemble 
 exactly our modern camp-stools. A 
 curious bedroom chair of this construc- 
 tion is represented in our cut No. 255, 
 taken from a fine illuminated manu- 
 script of the romance of the " Comte 
 dArtois," of the fifteenth century, in 
 the collection of M. Barrois of Paris, 
 but now, I believe, in the library of 
 Lord Ashburnham. The construction 
 of this chair, which seems to have been 
 common at this period, is too evident 
 to need explanation. It explains the 
 phrase, used in some of our old writers, of unfolding a chair. 
 
 No. 255. — A Bedroom Chair. 
 
 2 B 
 
386 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 At this time much greater use appears to have been made of candles 
 than formerly, and they seem to have been constructed of different sub- 
 stances and qualities. Candlesticks, made usually of the mixed metal 
 called laton or latten (an alloy of brass), were found in all houses ; 
 they appear to have been still mostly made with a spike on which the 
 candle was stuck, and sometimes they were ornamented, and furnished 
 with mottoes. John Baret, who made his will at Bury, in 1463, pos- 
 sessed a " candylstykke of laten with a pyke," two " lowe candylstikkez 
 of a forth " {i.e. to match), and three " candelstykkes of laton where- 
 upon is wretyn grace me governed A testament dated in 1493 enumer- 
 ates "a lowe candilstyke of laton, 0011 of my candelstykes, and ij. high 
 candilstykes of laton." In the will of Agas Herte of Bury, in 1522, 
 " ij. belle canstykes and a lesser canstyke," occurs twice, so that they 
 seem to have formed two sets, and there is a third mention of " ij. bell 
 canstykes." We also find mention at this time of double candlesticks, 
 which were probably intended to be placed in an elevated position to 
 give light to the whole apartment. Our inventory of the contents of 
 the parlour contains " a branch of latten, with four lights," which was 
 no doubt intended for this purpose of lighting the whole room (a sort 
 of chandelier), and appears to have been identical with the candlebeam, 
 
 not unfrequently mentioned in the old 
 inventories. A widow of Bury, named 
 Agnes Ridges, who made her will in 1492, 
 mentions " my candylbeme that hangyth 
 in my hall with vj. bellys of laton standyng 
 thereon," i.e. six cups in which the candles 
 were placed. Our cut No. 256 repre- 
 sents a candlebeam with four lights. It is 
 slung round a simple pulley in the ceiling, 
 by a string which was fixed to the ground. 
 It is taken from a manuscript of the 
 " Traite' des Tournois " (treatise of tourna- 
 ments), by King Rene, in the National 
 Library at Paris, No. 8352 ; and as the 
 scene is represented as taking place in a princely hall, which is fitted 
 up for a festive entertainment, we may take it as a curious proof of the 
 
 No. 236. — A Candlebeam. 
 
CANDLE AND TORCH-HOLDERS. 
 
 387 
 
 rudeness which was still mixed up with the magnificence of the fifteenth 
 century. In a fine illumination in a manuscript of Froissart in the 
 British Museum (MS. Reg. 18 E. 2), representing the fatal masque at 
 the court of Charles VI. of France, in 1393, in which several of the 
 courtiers were burned to death, we have, in the king's palace, a chande- 
 lier exactly like that in our last cut, except that each candlestick on the 
 beam contains two candles— a " double candlestick." This manuscript 
 is of the latter part of the fifteenth century. It had been the custom, 
 on festive occasions, or in ceremonies where large apartments required 
 
 No. 257. — Candle and Torch-holders. 
 
 to be lighted, to do this by means of torches which servants held in 
 their hands. This custom was very common, and is frequently spoken 
 of or alluded to in the mediaeval writers. Nevertheless, the inconveni- 
 ence and even danger attending it, led to various plans for superseding 
 it. One of these was, to fix up against the walls of the room frames for 
 holding the torches, of which an example is given in the accompanying 
 cut No. 257, representing a torch-frame, still preserved in the Palazzo 
 Strozzi at Florence. One of the group, it will be observed, has a long 
 spike, intended to hold a large candle. Candlesticks fixed to the wall 
 
388 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 in various manners are seen in manuscripts of the fifteenth century ; 
 and an example is given in our cut No. 258, taken from a part of the 
 same illumination of Froissart mentioned before. The candle is here 
 placed before a little image, on the upper part of the fireplace, but 
 
 No. 258. — Ladies Seated. 
 
 whether this was for a religious purpose or not, is not clear. In this 
 cut, the three princesses are seated on the large chair or settle, which is 
 turned with its back to the fire. This important article of furniture is 
 now found in the parlour as well as in the hall. 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 In-door Life and Conversation. — Pet Animals. — The Dance. — Rere- 
 * Slippers. — Illustrations from the" Nancy" Tapestry. 
 
 AS people began to have less taste for the publicity of the old hall, 
 they gradually withdrew from it into the parlours for many of 
 the purposes to which the hall was originally devoted, and thus the 
 latter lost much of its former character. The parlour was now the place 
 commonly used for the family .meals. In a curious little treatise on 
 the " most vyle and detestable use of dyce play," composed near the 
 beginning of the sixteenth century, one of the interlocutors is made to 
 say, " So down Ave came again," i.e. from the chambers above, " into the 
 parlour, and found there divers gentlemen, all strangers to me ; and what 
 should I say more, but to dinner we went." The dinner hour, we learn 
 ' from this same tract, was then at the hour of noon ; " the table," we are 
 told, " was fair spread with diaper cloths, the cupboard garnished with 
 much goodly plate." The cupboard seems now to have been considered 
 a necessary article of furniture in the parlour; it had originally belonged 
 to the hall, and was of simple construction. One of the great objects of 
 ostentation in a rich man's house was his plate ; which at dinner-time 
 he brought forth, and caused to be spread on a table in sight of his 
 guests ; afterwards, to exhibit the plate to more advantage, the table was 
 made with shelves, or steps, on which the different articles could be 
 arranged in rows one above another. It was called in French and Anglo- 
 Norman a buffet, or a dressoir (dresser), the latter name, it is said, being 
 given to it because on it the different articles were dresses, or arranged. 
 ' The English had, in their own language, no special name for this article 
 of furniture, so that they called it literally a cup-board or board for the 
 cups. In course of time, and especially when it was removed from the 
 
39° 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 hall into the parlour, this article was made more elaborately, and doors 
 were added to it, for shutting up the plate when not in use. It thus 
 became equivalent to our modern sideboard. We have seen a figure 
 of a cupboard of this more complicated structure in a cut in our last 
 chapter ; and we shall have others of different forms in our next. 
 
 No. 259. — A Sick-Room. 
 
 Our cut No. 259 is a good representation of the interior of a parlour 
 furnished with the large seat, or settle, and with rather an elaborate and 
 elegant cupboard. The latter, however, does not belong to the picture 
 itself, having been introduced from another in the same manuscript by 
 Mr Henry Shaw, in his beautiful work, " The Dresses and Decorations of 
 
THE PARLOURS. 391 
 
 the Middle Ages," from which it is here taken. It is found in a fine 
 manuscript in the British Museum (MS. Reg. 15 D. 1), containing the 
 French translation of the " Historia Scholastica" of Peter Comestor, 
 and written in the year 1470. The subject of this illumination is taken 
 from the scriptural story of Tobit, who here lies sick and blind on the 
 settle, having just despatched his son Tobias on his journey to the city 
 of Rages. The lady cooking is no doubt intended for his wife Anna ; 
 it will be observed that she is following the directions of a book. 
 Cookery-books and books of medicinal receipts were now common. 
 The kettle is suspended over the fire by a jack of a construction that 
 occurs not unfrequently in the manuscripts of this period. The settle 
 is placed with its back to the window, which is covered with a large 
 curtain. 
 
 As the parlours saved the domestic arrangements of the household 
 from the too great publicity of the hall, so, on the other hand, they 
 relieved the bedchambers from much of what had previously been 
 transacted in them, and thus rendered them more private. In the 
 poem of the " Lady Bessie," when the Earl of Derby and Humphrey 
 Brereton visit the young princess, they are introduced to her in her 
 bower, or chamber, but she immediately conducts the latter into the 
 parlour, in order to converse with him — 
 
 She took him in her arms, and kissed him times three ; 
 
 "Welcome," she said, "Humphrey Brereton; 
 How hast thou spedd in the west countrey ? 
 
 I pray thee tell me quickly and anon." 
 Into a parlour they went from thence, 
 
 There were no more but hee and shee. 
 
 The female part of the family now passed in the parlour much of the 
 time which had been formerly passed in their chambers. It was often 
 their place of work. Young ladies, even of great families, were brought 
 up not only strictly, but even tyrannically, by their mothers, who kept 
 them constantly at work, exacted from them almost slavish deference 
 and respect, and even counted upon their earnings. The parental 
 authority was indeed carried to an almost extravagant extent. There 
 are some curious instances of this in the correspondence of the Paston 
 family. Agnes Paston, the wife of Sir William Paston, the judge, 
 appears to have been a very harsh mother. At the end of June 1454, 
 
39 2 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 Elizabeth Clere, a kinswoman who appears to have lived in great 
 intimacy with the family, sent to John Paston, the lady's eldest son, 
 the following account of the treatment of his sister Elizabeth, who was 
 of marriageable age, and for whom a man of the name of Scroope had 
 been proposed as a husband. " Therefore, cousin," writes Jane Clere, 
 " meseemeth he were good for my cousin your sister, without that ye 
 might get her a better ; and if ye can get a better, I would advise you 
 to labour it in as short time as ye may goodly, for she was never in so 
 great a sorrow as she is now-a-days, for she may not speak with no man, 
 whosoever come, nor even may see nor speak with my man, nor with ser- 
 vants of her mother's, but that she beareth her on hand otherwise than 
 she meaneth ; and she hath since Easter the most part been beaten once 
 in the week, or twice, and sometimes twice in a day, and her head broken 
 in two or three places. Wherefore, cousin, she hath sent to me by 
 friar Newton in great counsel, and prayeth me that I would send to you 
 a letter of her heaviness, and pray you to be her good brother, as her 
 trust is in you." In spite of her anxiety to be married, Elizabeth Paston 
 did not succeed at this time, but she was soon afterwards transferred 
 from her paternal roof to the household of the Lady Pole. It was still 
 the custom to send young ladies of family to the houses of the great to 
 learn manners, and it was not only a matter of pride and ostentation to 
 be thus surrounded by a numerous train, but the noble lady whom they 
 served did not disdain to receive payment for their board, as well as 
 employing them in profitable work. In a memorandum of errands to 
 London, written by Agnes Paston on the 28th of January 1457, one is 
 a message to " Elizabeth Paston that she must use herself to work 
 readily, as other gentlewomen do, and somewhat to help herself there- 
 with. Item, to pay the Lady Pole twenty-six shillings and eightpence 
 for her board." Margaret Paston, the wife of John Paston, just men- 
 tioned, and daughter-in-law of Agnes, seems to have been equally strict 
 with her daughters. At the beginning of the reign of Edward IV., she 
 wrote to her son John concerning his sister Anne, who had been placed 
 in the house of a kinsman of the name of Calthorpe. " Since ye de- 
 parted," she says, " my cousin Calthorpe sent me a letter complaining 
 in his writing that forasmuch as he cannot be paid of his tenants as 
 he hath been before this time, he proposeth to lessen his household, 
 
FEMALE MANNERS. 
 
 393 
 
 and to live the straitlier, wherefore he desireth me to purvey for 
 your sister Anne ; he saith she waxeth high {grows tall), and it were 
 time to purvey her a marriage. I marvel what causeth him to write so 
 now, either she hath displeased him, or else he hath taken her with 
 default; therefore I pray you commune with my cousin Clare at Lon- 
 don, and weet {learn) how he is disposed to her-ward, and send me 
 word, for I shall be fain to send for her, and with me she shall but lose 
 her time, and without she will be the better occupied she shall oftentimes 
 move {vex) me and put me in great inquietness ; remember what labour 
 
 No. 260. — A Conversation Scene. 
 
 I had with your sister, therefore do your part to help her forth, that 
 may be to your worship and mine." There certainly appears here no 
 great affection between mother and daughter. 
 
 Among other lessons, the ladies appear to have been taught to be 
 very demure and formal in their behaviour in company. Our cut No. 
 260 represents a party of ladies and gentlemen in the parlour engaged 
 in conversation. It is taken from an illumination in the manuscript of 
 the romance of the " Comte d'Artois," formerly in the possession of M. 
 Barrois. They are all apparently seated on benches, which seem in this 
 instance to be made like long chests, and placed along the sides of the 
 
394 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 wall as if they served also for lockers. These appear to be the only- 
 articles of furniture in the room. There is a certain conventional posi- 
 tion in most of the ladies of the party, which has evidently been taught, 
 even to the holding of the hands crossed. The four ladies with the 
 gentlemen between them are no doubt intended to be the attendants 
 on the lady of the house, holding towards her the position of Elizabeth 
 and Anne Paston. We have precisely the same conventional forms in 
 the next cut (No. 261), which is taken from an illumination in a manu- 
 script of the " Legenda Aurea," in the National Library in Paris (No. 
 6889). We see here the same demureness and formal crossing of the 
 hands among the young ladies, in presence of their dame. It may be 
 observed that, in almost all the contemporary pictures of domestic 
 scenes, the men, represented as visitors, keep their hats on their heads. 
 
 No. 261. — A Social Group of the Fifteenth Century. 
 
 One of the most curious features in the first of these scenes is that of 
 the cages, especially that of the squirrel, which is evidently made to turn 
 round with the animal's motion, like squirrel-cages of the present day. 
 We have now frequent allusions to the keeping of birds in cages ; and 
 parrots, magpies, jays, and various singing birds, are often mentioned 
 among domestic pets. During the earlier half of the century of which 
 we are now more especially speaking, the poems of Lydgate furnish us 
 with several examples. Thus, in that entitled " The Chorle and the 
 Bird," we are told — 
 
 The chorle {countryman) was gladde that he this birdde hadde take, 
 Mery of chere, of looke, and of visage, 
 And in al haste he cast for to make 
 
DOMESTIC PETS. 
 
 395 
 
 "Within his house a pratie litelle cage, 
 And with hir songe to rejoice his corage. 
 
 And in another of Lydgate's minor poems, it is said of Spring — 
 
 Which sesoun prykethe (stirs up) fresshe corages, 
 Rejoissethe beastys walkyng in ther pasture, 
 Causith briddys to syngen in ther cages, 
 Whan blood renewyth in every creature. 
 
 In another illumination of a manuscript of the fourteenth century, in 
 
 the Parisian National Library, we see a 
 
 figure of. a lady carrying a cage with two 
 
 birds in it. It is represented in our cut 
 
 No. 262 — repeated here from p. 253. 
 
 Among these, we find birds mentioned 
 
 which are not now usually kept in cages. 
 
 Thus, in a manuscript of the time of 
 
 Edward IV., we find a receipt for food 
 
 for that favourite bird of the mediaeval 
 
 poets, the nightingale.* Small animals 
 
 of various kinds were also tamed and 
 
 kept in the house, either loose or in cages. 
 
 The plot of some of the earlier fabliaux 
 
 turns upon the practice of taming squirrels as pets, and keeping them in 
 
 cages ; and this animal continued long to be an especial favourite, for 
 
 its liveliness and activity. In one of the compartments of the curious 
 
 tapestry of Nancy, of the fifteenth century, which has been engraved by 
 
 M. Achille Jubinal, we see a lady with a tame squirrel in her hand, which 
 
 she holds by a string, as represented in our next cut (No. 263). 
 
 The parlour was now the room where the domestic amusements were 
 introduced. The guest in the early tract on " Dyce Play," quoted in a 
 former page, tells us, " And after the table was removed, in came one of 
 the waiters with a fair silver bowl, full of dice and cards. Now, masters, 
 
 * This receipt is curious enough to be given here ; it is as follows : — " Fyrst, take 
 and geve hy'm yelow antes, otherwyse called pysmerys, as nere as ye may, and the 
 white ante or pysmers egges be best bothe wynter and somer, ij. tymes of the day an 
 handful of bothe. Also, geve hym of these sowes that crepe with many fete, and falle 
 oute of howce rovys. Also, geve hym whyte wormes that breede betwene the barke 
 and the tre." — Reliquia Antiques, vol. i. p. 203. 
 
 No. 262. — Birds in Cage. 
 
396 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 No. 263. — Lady and Squirrel. 
 
 quoth the goodman, who is so disposed, fall too." Gambling was 
 carried to a great height during the fifteenth 
 century, and was severely condemned by the 
 moralists, but without much success. Dice 
 were the older implements of play, and tables 
 (or backgammon). A religious poem on saints' 
 days, in a manuscript written about the year 
 1460, warning against idle amusements, 
 says — 
 
 Also use not to pley at the dice ne at the tablis, 
 Ne none maner gamys, uppon the holidais ; 
 Use no tavernys where be jestis and fablis, 
 Syngyng of lewde balettes, rondelettes, or virolais. 
 
 After the middle of the fifteenth century, 
 cards came into very general use ; and at the 
 beginning of the following century, there was such a rage for card- 
 playing, that an attempt was made early in the reign of Henry VIII. to 
 restrict their use by law to the period of Christmas. When, however, 
 people sat down to dinner at noon, and had no other occupation for the 
 rest of the day, they needed amusement of some sort to pass the time ; 
 and a poet of the fifteenth century observes truly — 
 
 A man may dryfe forthe the day that long tyme dwellis 
 With harpyng and pipyng, and other mery spellis, 
 With gle, and wyth game. 
 
 ' Such amusements as these mentioned, with games of different kinds in 
 which the ladies took part, and dancing, generally occupied the after- 
 noon from dinner to supper, the hour of which latter meal seems usually 
 to have been six o'clock. The favourite amusement was dancing. A 
 family party at the dance is represented in our cut No. 264, from M. 
 Barrois' manuscript of the " Comte d'Artois." The numerous dances 
 which were now in vogue seem to have completely eclipsed the old 
 carole, or round dance, and the latter word, which was a more general one, 
 had displaced the former. The couple here on their legs are supposed 
 to be performing one of the new and tasteful fashionable dances, which 
 were much more lively than those of the earlier period ; some of them 
 were so much so as to scandalise greatly the sage moralists of the time. 
 
THE NANCY TAPESTRY DRAMATISED. 
 
 397 
 
 The after-dinner amusements were resumed after supper ; and a practice 
 had now established itself of prolonging the day's enjoyment to a late 
 hour, and taking a second, or, as it was called, a rere-supper (arriere 
 sonper\ which was called the banquet in France, where the three great 
 meals were now the dinner, the supper, and the banquet, and dinner 
 appears to have been considered as the least meal of the three. It was 
 thus, probably, that, in course of time, dinner took the place of supper, 
 and supper that of banquet. 
 
 We have a very remarkable illustration of the extravagant living at 
 table of the latter half of the fifteenth century, in the curious allegorical 
 tapestry long preserved at Nancy, in Lorrain, and said by tradition, 
 
 No. 264. — A Dance. 
 
 probably with truth, to have been the ornament of the tent of Charles 
 le Temeraire, Duke of Burgundy, when he laid siege to Nancy in 1477, 
 and was defeated and slain. It is of Flemish workmanship, and no 
 doubt pictures the manners of the Burgundian nobles and gentry. At 
 that time the court of Burgundy was the model of the fashionable life of 
 Western Europe. It happens, curiously enough, that a few years later 
 a rather obscure French writer, named Nicole de La Chesnaye, compil- 
 ing one of those allegorical dramas then so popular under the title of 
 " Moralities," took the story of this tapestry as his subject, and has thus 
 left us the full explanation of what might otherwise have been not easily 
 understood. The title of this Morality is " La Nef de Sante " (the ship 
 
398 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 of health), and a second title is " La Condamnacion des Bancquetz " 
 (the condemnation of banquets) ; and its object is to show the unhappy- 
 consequences of the extravagance in eating and drinking which then 
 prevailed. It opens with a conversation between three allegorical per- 
 sonages named Dinner, Supper, and Banquet, who declare their inten- 
 tion to lead joyous life evening and morning, and they resolve on 
 imitating Passe-Temps (pastime) and Bonne-Compagnie (good com- 
 pany). At this moment Bonne-Compagnie herself, who is described as 
 a dashing damsel (gorriere damoiselle), enters with all her people, namely, 
 Gourmandize (greediness), Friandize (daintiness), Passe-Temps, already 
 mentioned, Je-Boy-a-Vous (I drink to you), Je-Pleige-d'Autant (I pledge 
 the same), and Acoustumance (custom). Each names what he prefers 
 in good cheer, and Bonne-Compagnie, to begin the day, orders a colla- 
 tion, at which among other things are served damsons {primes de 
 Dumas), which appear at this time to have been considered as deli- 
 cacies. There is here a marginal direction to the purport that, if the 
 Morality should be performed in the season when real damsons could 
 not be had, the performers must have some made of wax to look like 
 real ones. They now take their places at table, and while they are eat- 
 ing, Je-Boy-a-Vous calls the attention of the company to the circum- 
 stance that Gourmandize, in his haste to eat the damsons, had 
 swallowed a snail. Passe-Temps next proposes a dance, and chooses 
 for his partner the Lady Friandize, comparing her to Helen, and telling 
 her that he was Paris. She, in reply, compares herself to Medea, and her 
 partner to Jason. Then the musicians, " placed on a stage or some 
 higher place," are to play a measure " pretty short." Dinner, Supper, 
 and Banquet next make their appearance, and, addressing Bonne-Com- 
 pagnie, offer their apology for entering without being invited ; but the 
 lady receives them well, asks their names, and in return tells them 
 those of her people. Dinner, to show his gratitude for this friendly re- 
 ception, invites the whole party to go to his feast, which is just ready ; 
 and Supper invites them to a second repast, and Banquet to a third. 
 They accept the invitation of Dinner, and are served with, friture, brouet, 
 potage, gros pates, &c. Meanwhile Supper and Banquet look upon the 
 party from " some high window," and converse on the consequences 
 likely to follow their excesses. This scene is represented in the first 
 
THE NANCY TAPESTRY DRAMATISED. 
 
 399 
 
 compartment of the tapestry, as it now exists (for it has undergone con- 
 siderable mutilation), and is represented in our cut No. 265. It is a 
 good picture of a seignorial repast of the fifteenth century. There are 
 people at table besides those enumerated in the Morality, who are here 
 indicated by their names : Passe-Temps at one end of the table, a lady 
 to his left, and after her Je-Boy-a-Vous, who has Bonne-Compagnie by 
 his side, and to her left Dinner, the host. To the right of Passe-Temps 
 
 No. 265. — A Dinner-Party in Grand Ceremony. 
 
 sits the Lady Gourmandize, and to her right Je-Vous-Pleige (I pledge 
 you), and next to him Friandize. The cups in which they are drinking 
 are flat-shaped, and appear, by the colours in the original, to be of glass, 
 with the brims, and other parts in some, gilt. The minstrels, in the 
 gallery, are' playing with trumpets. Among the attendants, we see the 
 court fool, with his bauble, who had now become an ordinary, and 
 almost a necessary, personage in the household of the rich ; it was the 
 result of an increasing taste for the coarse buffoonery which characterised 
 
4 oo THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 an unrefined state of society. The court fool was licensed to utter 
 with impunity whatever came to his thought, however mordant or how- 
 ever indecent. Beside him are two valets with dogs, which appear to 
 have been usually admitted to the hall, and to have eaten the refuse on 
 the spot. A window above gives us a view of the country, with build- 
 ings in the distance, and Supper and Banquet looking in upon the com- 
 pany. An inscription in the upper corner to the right tells us how these 
 two personages came slyly to look at the assembly, and how through 
 envy they conspired to take vengeance upon the feasters — 
 
 Soupper et Bancquet 
 Vindrent l'assemblee adviser, 
 Dont par envie prestement 
 Compindrent de viengence user. 
 
 The Morality next introduces the Diseases who are to be the executors 
 of the vengeance of Supper and Banquet, and who, according to the 
 stage-directions, are to be dressed " very strangely, so that you would 
 hardly know whether they are women or men." These are Apoplexy, 
 Paralysis, Pleurisy, Cholic, Quinsy, Dropsy, Jaundice, Gravel, and 
 Gout. At the end of this scene, Supper and Banquet address them- 
 selves to these people, and ask them to undertake an assault on Bonne- 
 Compagnie and the other guests of Dinner ; and they consent at once, 
 and Supper places them in an ambuscade in his dwelling. Meanwhile 
 the feast ends, and Bonne-Compagnie says grace, and orders the player 
 on the lute to perform his duty, whereupon " the instrument sounds, 
 and the three men shall lead out the three women, and shall dance 
 whatever dance they please, while Bonne-Compagnie remains seated." 
 Supper and Banquet then present themselves in turn to invite Bonne- 
 Compagnie and her people, and they go first to Supper, who receives 
 them with extraordinary hospitality. But Supper was a wicked traitor ; 
 and the stage-directions inform us that, while the guests were enjoying 
 themselves, his agents, the Diseases, were to be introduced watching 
 them through a window. As soon as the substantial viands are eaten, 
 Supper goes to order what was called the issue, or dessert ; and in his 
 absence Bonne-Compagnie orders the minstrels to play an air, and they 
 obey. While the dessert is preparing, Supper goes to the Diseases, to 
 ask if they are ready, and they arm and attack the guests, overthrowing 
 
THE NANCY TAPESTRY DRAMATISED. 401 
 
 tables and benches, and treating everybody with great cruelty. After- 
 some other scenes, Banquet conies to announce that his feast is ready, 
 condoles with the sufferers on the treatment they had received from 
 Supper, though he is meditating still greater treachery himself, and they 
 go and feast with him. The Diseases, ready at his command, make a 
 much more fatal' attack upon the guests. 
 
 Banquet's feast forms the second compartment of the tapestry of 
 Nancy in its present state, and is represented in our cut No. 266. 
 When compared with the Morality, it presents some variations. In 
 front, Banquet is standing before the table, opposite to Je-Boy-a-Vous 
 and Je-Pleige-d'Autant, and appears to be replying to Bonne-Compagnie, 
 who is seated between Passe-Temps and Acoustumance. Further to 
 the left Banquet appears again, with his hand on his sword, addressing 
 the Diseases, who are at the entrance of the hall, waiting for his signal 
 for the attack. At the lower corner on the left we see Supper, talking 
 with another important personage, probably intended to represent 
 Dinner. Above, to the right, through a window, we see Banquet again, 
 with one of his attendants fastening on his armour, while another holds 
 his casque, which he has not yet placed on his head. The first of the 
 inscriptions in this compartment of the tapestry, which is on the left, 
 tells how, while the guests are feasting in all jollity, Banquet and his 
 rout arm and come to slaughter the whole assembly — 
 
 Chiere ilz tyrent joyeulsement, 
 Y estant Bancquet et la route 
 Qui s'armerent, et la proprement 
 Occirent l'assemblee toute. 
 
 The second inscription consists of eight lines moralising on the final 
 
 ruin which often falls on those who make enjoyment the business of 
 
 their lives — 
 
 Les trois folz ont grant volonte 
 
 De cherche[r] leur malle meschance ; 
 
 Quant on a bien ris et chante, 
 
 A la fin fault tourner la chance. 
 
 Ha ! vous vellez avoir plaisance ! 
 
 Bien l'aure vous ung tandis ; 
 
 Mes gens quy prenent leur aisence, 
 
 En fin se treuvent plus mauldiz. 
 
 It is remarkable that these eight lines, taken from the tapestry, are 
 
 2 c 
 
4-02 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 introduced into the Morality, and placed in the mouth of the fool at the 
 end of the first scene. 
 
 It will be remarked at once that there is a much greater display of 
 luxury in the banquet-scene than in the dinner-scene. Upon the table 
 
THE RERE-SUPPER. 4°3 
 
 are two peacocks, each with a shield hung to its neck, no doubt to show 
 the armorial bearings of the host ; a boar's head, dressed in the most 
 fashionable manner; a subtilty, representing a ship filled with birds, 
 surrounded by a sea full of fishes, and having a tall mast, with a sail 
 made of silk and ermine, and surmounted by a figure of a naked female, 
 intended probably to represent the goddess Venus. There are also on 
 the table four candles of coloured wax. A noble dresser stands against 
 the wall, covered with vessels of gold and of glass, but the metal far 
 predominates. The minstrels are standing apparently on the floor on 
 a level with the guests, and consist of a man playing on the cittern or 
 lute, a harper, and one who plays on the pipe and drum, the latter 
 instrument a substitute for the tabor. The valets with the dogs are 
 again introduced, but we miss the court fool. 
 
 The remaining portions of the tapestry represent the attack of the 
 Diseases, and the great havoc they made among the guests. 
 
 The banquet was known in England by that name, as well as by the 
 name of rere-supper. In the curious English Morality play, entitled 
 " The Interlude of the Four Elements," printed early in the sixteenth 
 century, the same distinction is made between the three meals as in the 
 French Morality described above. Sensual-appetite, one of the char- 
 acters in the piece, leads Humanity to the tavern to dine, and orders a 
 dinner of three courses, with a choice variety of wines. As they are 
 leaving after dinner, the taverner reminds them that they were to return 
 to supper; and then Humanity proposes a cup of "new" wine, as 
 though wine were then valued for being new. Food and liquor were 
 formerly adulterated in a more dishonest manner even than in modern 
 times, and the taverner answers the demand jokingly — 
 
 Ye shall have wyne as newe as can be, 
 For I may tell you in pryvyte 
 Hit was brued but yester nyght. 
 
 But he immediately adds — 
 
 But than I have for your apetyte 
 A cup of wyne of olde claret ; 
 There is no better, by this lyght. 
 
 After supper they go to dance, and meanwhile Sensual-appetite goes 
 to prepare the banquet — 
 
404 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 I shall at the towne agayne 
 
 Prepare for you a banket, 
 
 Of metys that be most delycate, 
 
 And most pleasaunt drynkes and wynes therate, 
 
 That is possyble to get. 
 
 Which shall be in a chamber feyre 
 
 Preparyd poynt devyse {in perfection), 
 
 With damaske water made so well 
 
 That all the howse thereof shall smell 
 
 As it were Paradyse. 
 
 In " Acolastus," a work by the grammarian Palsgrave, published in 
 1540, the banquet is still identified with the rere-supper, when he speaks 
 of " the rere-supper, or banket, where men syt downe to drynke and 
 eate agayne after their meate." And again, still later, Higins, in his 
 " Nomenclator," published in 1585, explains the Latin word fiocoznium 
 by " a reare-supper, or a banket after supper." The term rere-supper 
 was in use throughout the fifteenth century. An English vocabulary of 
 that century speaks of a meal between dinner and supper, under the 
 name of " a myd-dyner under-mete," the same which, no doubt, was 
 called by a French word a bever, as consisting especially in taking a 
 drink, and which, removed to the time between breakfast and dinner, 
 is now called a luncheon. 
 
 In the introduction to Lydgate's " Story of Thebes," which is 
 given as a continuation of the " Canterbury Tales," the poet pretends 
 to have arrived at the inn in Canterbury when it was occupied by the 
 pilgrims, who invite him to sup with them, and he joins their company. 
 " Our host," who is the leader of the pilgrims, offers him his place at 
 their supper heartily — 
 
 Praying you {he says) to suppe with us this night, 
 And ye shall have made, at your devis, 
 A great pudding, or a round hagis, 
 A French moile, a tansie, or a froise. 
 
 These appear to have been the usual favourite dishes at an ordinary 
 supper of this date (the first half of the fifteenth century). The hagis 
 appears to have been much the same dish as the Scottish haggis of the 
 present day. The moile was a dish made of marrow and grated bread. 
 The tansie was a kind of omelet, resembling apparently what the French 
 now call an omelette aux fines herbes ; while the froise had small strips of 
 
THE DINNER. 
 
 405 
 
 bacon in it — an omelette au lai'd. This latter was a very favourite dish 
 among the monks. After supper, the guests, or at least some of them, 
 are represented as taking " strong nottie ale " before going to bed. 
 They rise early, "anon as it is day," and start on their return towards 
 London ; and they take no meal before dinner, having it 
 
 Fully in purpose to come to dinere 
 Unto Ofspring, and breake there our fast. 
 
 There is a longer preface to the supplementary tale of " Beryn," 
 written about the same date as the " Story of Thebes," and printed in 
 the edition of Chaucer's works by Urry, in which the divisions of the 
 day are tolerably well described. The pilgrims there arrived at their 
 destination in Canterbury " at mydmorowe," which is interpreted in 
 the glossaries as meaning nine o'clock in the forenoon, and then took 
 their lodgings, " ordeyned " their dinner, and, while it was preparing, 
 went to make their offerings to the shrine of St Thomas in the cathedral 
 church. Meanwhile the Pardoner had separated from the company, 
 and engaged in a low intrigue with the " tapster," or barmaid, who offers 
 him a drink, but he tells her he had not yet broken his fast — we are to 
 conclude that this was the case with the rest of the company — and 
 
 She start into the town, and fet {fetched) a py al hote. 
 
 Meat-pies appear to have been very common articles of food in the 
 Middle Ages, and to have been kept always ready at the cooks' shops. 
 The offerings seem to have taken but a small space of time, and then — 
 
 They set their signys upon their hedes, and som oppon their capp, 
 And sith to the dyner-ward they gan for to stapp (step) ; 
 Every man in his degre wissh (washed) and toke his sete, 
 As they wer wont to doon at soper and at mete ; 
 And wer in silence for a tyme, tyl good ale gan arise. 
 
 It appears, therefore, that people did not hold conversation while eating, 
 but that the talk and mirth began with the liquor, whether ale or wine. 
 It was then agreed that they should remain that day in Canterbury, 
 and all sup together at night — 
 
 " Then al this after-mete I hold it for the best 
 
 To sport and pley us," quod the hoost, " ech man as hym lest (likes), 
 
 And go by tyme to soper, and to bed also, 
 
 So mo we we erly rysen, our jorney for to do." 
 
406 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 Accordingly they all walk forth into the city, where the knight, who with 
 
 his son had put on fresh gowns, took the latter to the town walls to 
 
 explain to him their strength, and the character of the defences ; and as 
 
 many of the rest as had changes of apparel with them imitated their 
 
 example, and they separated in parties, according to their different 
 
 tastes. The monk, the parson, and the friar, went to visit some clerical 
 
 acquaintance, and indulged in spiced wine. The ladies remained at 
 
 home — 
 
 The wyfe of Bath was so wery, she had no wyl to walk ; 
 
 She toke the priores by the honde, "Madam, wol ye stalk 
 
 Pryvely into the garden to se the herbis growe ? 
 
 And after with our hostis wife in her parlour rowe {talk) ? 
 
 I wol gyve yowe the wyne, and ye shul me also ; 
 
 For tyl we go to soper we have naught ellis to do." 
 
 The prioress assents to this proposal — 
 
 and forth gon they wend, 
 
 Passing forth sofftly into the herbery ; 
 
 For many a herb grew for sewe (pottage) and surgery ; 
 
 And all the aleys fair and parid, and raylid, and ymakid ; 
 
 The sauge and the isope yfrethid and istakid ; 
 
 And othir beddis by and by fresh ydight, 
 
 For comers to the hooste right a sportful sight. 
 
 When the guests reassembled, they agreed that the knight should be 
 their " marshall " of the table, and he ordered them all to wash, and 
 then appointed them to their seats, that they might be properly seated 
 together, for this was part of his duty. They thus sat two and two, each 
 couple, no doubt, at one dish — 
 
 They wissh (washed), and sett right as he bad, eche man wyth his fere, 
 
 And begonne to talk of sportis and of chere 
 
 That they had the aftir-mete whiles they wer out ; 
 
 For othir occupacioune, tyll they wer servid about, 
 
 They had not at that tyme, but eny man kitt (cut) a loff (loaf). 
 
 Thus it would appear that nothing eatable was as yet placed on the 
 table but bread. Presently, the supper was served round to them, of 
 which there was only one " service," out of courtesy on the part of the 
 rich members of the company towards those who were poor, as there 
 was to be an equal division of the expenses of the supper. In return, 
 the highest places of the table were yielded to the persons of best estate, 
 and these, as an acknowledgment, gave a cup of wine round at their 
 
DRINKING BY THE MOON. 407 
 
 own expense, and then left the table to retire to their beds. But the 
 less genteel of the company, the miller and the cook, with the sompnour 
 the yeoman, the reeve, and the manciple, remained " drinking by the 
 moon," — that is, they had no candle. There was, however, one candle 
 in the bedroom, which seems to have served to light the whole company, 
 — for it is evident that they all slept in beds in one room, — and this 
 candle was only put out when they were all gone to bed, which was the 
 moment the Pardoner awaited to steal away and pursue his intrigue. 
 Next morning they were out of their beds so early that they left the 
 town on their homeward journey at sunrise. 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 The Chamber and its Furniture and Uses, — Beds. — Hutches and Coffers. 
 — The Toilette; Mirrors. 
 
 THE chambers were now, except in smaller houses, mostly above 
 the ground-floor ; and, as I have already observed, the privacy 
 of the chamber was much greater than formerly. In the poem of "Lady 
 Bessy," quoted in a former chapter (the whole poem is given in Mr 
 Halliwell's privately printed " Palatine Anthology "), when the Earl of 
 Derby was plotting with the Lady Bessy for calling in the Earl of Rich- 
 mond, he proposed to repair secretly to her in her chamber, in order to 
 prepare the letters — 
 
 "We must depart {separate), lady," the earle said then ; 
 
 " Wherefore keep this matter secretly, 
 And this same night, betwix nine and ten, 
 
 In your chamber I think to be. 
 Look that you make all things ready, 
 
 Your maids shall not our councell hear, 
 For I will bring no man with me 
 
 But Humphrey Brereton, my true esquire. " 
 He took his leave of that lady fair, 
 
 And to her chamber she went full light, 
 And for all things she did prepare, 
 
 Both pen and ink, and paper white. 
 
 The earl, on his part — 
 
 unto his study went, 
 
 Forecasting with all his might 
 To bring to pass all his intent ; 
 
 He took no rest till it was night, 
 And when the stars shone fair and bright, 
 
 He him disguised in strange mannere ; 
 He went unknown of any wight, 
 
 No more with him but his esquire. 
 
THE CHAMBER AND ITS FURNITURE. 
 
 409 
 
 And when he came her chamber near, 
 
 Full privily there can he stand ; 
 To cause the lady to appeare 
 
 He made a sign with his right hand. 
 And when the lady there him wist, 
 
 She was as glad as she might he ; 
 Charcoals in chimneys there were cast, 
 
 Candles on sticks standing full high. 
 She opened the wickett, and let him in, 
 
 And said, " Welcome, lord and knight soe free ! " 
 A rich chair was set for him, 
 
 And another for that fair lady ; 
 They ate the spice, and drank the wine, 
 
 He had all things at his intent. 
 
 The description given in these lines agrees perfectly with the repre- 
 sentations of chambers in the illuminated manuscripts of the latter 
 
 No. 267 — Interior of the Chamber. 
 
 part of the fifteenth century, when the superior artistic skill of the 
 illuminators enabled them to draw interiors with more of detail than 
 in former periods. We have almost .invariably the chimney, and one 
 "rich chair/' if not more. In our cut No. 267, we have a settle in 
 the chamber, which is turned to the fire, and a chair beside the 
 bed. This picture is taken from a manuscript of the early French 
 translation of Josephus, in the National Library in Paris (No. 7015), 
 
4io 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 and represents the death of the Emperor Nero, as described by that 
 writer. All the furniture of this chamber is of a superior description. 
 The large chair by the bedside is of very elegant design; and the settle, 
 which is open at the back, is ornamented with carved panels. Our next 
 cut (No. 268), taken from a manuscript of Lydgate's metrical Life of 
 St Edmund (MS. Harl. No. 2278, fol. 13, v°), represents the birth of 
 that saint. This room is more elaborately furnished than the former. 
 
 No. 268. — The Nursing Chamber. 
 
 The fittings of the bed are richer ; the chimney is more ornamental in 
 its character, and is curious as having three little recesses for holding 
 candlesticks, cups, and other articles ; and we have a well-supplied 
 cupboard, though of simple form, From the colours in the manuscript, 
 all the vessels appear to be of gold, or of silver-gilt. The seat before 
 the fire in this cut (No. 268) seems to be the hutch, or chest, which in 
 Nos. 272 and 273 we shall see placed at the foot of the bed, from which 
 it is here moved to serve the occasion. 
 
THE CHAMBER AND ITS FURNITURE. 411 
 
 The lady seated on this chest appears to be wrapping up the new-born 
 infant in swaddling-clothes ; a custom which, as I have remarked on a 
 former occasion, and as we shall see again farther on, prevailed universally 
 till a comparatively recent period. Infants thus wrapped up are fre- 
 quently seen in the illuminated manuscripts ; and their appearance is 
 certainly anything but picturesque. We have an exception in one of 
 the sculptures on the columns of the Hotel de Ville at Brussels (repre- 
 sented in our cut No. 269), which also furnishes us with a curious ex- 
 ample of a cradle of the latter part of the fifteenth century. 
 
 It will, no doubt, have been remarked that in these cuts we observe 
 no' traces of carpets on the floor. In our cut No. 267, the floor is evi- 
 dently boarded ; but more generally, as in our cuts Nos. 268, 271, and 
 
 No. 269. — A Cradle. 
 
 272, it appears chequered, or laid out in small squares, which may be 
 intended to represent tiles, or perhaps parquetry. There is more evi- 
 dence of tapestried or painted walls ; although this kind of ornamenta- 
 tion is only used partially, and chiefly in the dwellings of the richer 
 classes. The walls in the chamber in cut No. 268 appear to be painted. 
 In the same cut we have an example of an ornamental mat. 
 
 The most important article of furniture in the chamber was the bed, 
 which began now to be made much more ornamental than in previous 
 times. We have seen in the former period the introduction of the canopy 
 and its curtains, under which the head of the bed was placed. The 
 celure, or roof, of the canopy was now often enlarged, so as to extend 
 over the whole bed ; and it, as well as the tester, or back, was often 
 adorned with the arms of the possessor, with religious emblems, with 
 
4 i2 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 flowers, or with some other ornament. There were also sometimes 
 costers, or ornamental cloths for the sides of the bed. The curtains, 
 sometimes called by the French word ridels, were attached edgeways to 
 the tester, and were suspended sometimes by rings, so as to draw back- 
 wards and forwards along a pole; but more frequently, to judge by the illu- 
 minations, they were fixed to the celure in the same manner as to the tester, 
 and were drawn up with cords. At the two corners of the celure portions 
 of curtain were left hanging down like bags. The curtains which draw 
 up are represented in our cuts Nos. 270 and 271. Those in cuts Nos. 
 272 and 273, if not in Nos. 267 and 268, are evidently drawn along poles 
 with rings. The latter method is thus alluded to in the old metrical 
 romance of " Sir Degrevant " — 
 
 That was a marvelle thynge, 
 To se the riddels hynge, 
 With many red golde rynge 
 That thame up bare. 
 
 The celure and tester were fixed to the wall and ceiling of the apart- 
 ment, and were not in any way attached to the bed itself; for the large 
 four-post bedsteads were introduced in the sixteenth century. In some 
 illuminations the bed is seen placed within a square compartment sepa- 
 rated from the room by curtains which seem to be suspended from the 
 roof. This appears to have been the first step towards the more modern 
 four-post bedsteads. In one of the plates in D'Agincourt's " Histoire 
 de TArt " (Peinture, pi. 109), taken from a Greek fresco of the twelfth or 
 thirteenth century in a church at Florence, we have the curtains arranged 
 thus in a square tent in the room, where the cords are not suspended 
 from the roof, but supported by four corner-posts. The bed is placed 
 within, totally detached from the surrounding posts and curtains. The 
 space thus left between the bed and the curtains was perhaps what was 
 originally called in French the ruelle (literally, the " little street ") of the 
 bed, a term which was afterwards given to the space between the 
 curtains of the bed and the wall, which held rather an important place 
 in old French chamber life, and especially in the stories of chamber 
 intrigue. 
 
 The bedstead itself was still a very simple structure of wood, as shown 
 in our cut No. 270, which represents the bed of a countess. It is taken 
 
BEDS. 
 
 413 
 
 from the manuscript of the romance 'of the " Comte d'Artois," which has 
 already furnished subjects for our previous chapters on the manners of 
 the fifteenth century. The lady's footstool is no less rude than the bed- 
 stead. The bed here evidently consists of a hard mattress. It was still 
 often made of straw, and the bed is spoken of in the glossaries as placed 
 upon a stramentum, which is interpreted by the English word litter : 
 but feather-beds were certainly in general use during the whole of the 
 
 No. 270. — A Bed of the Fifteenth Century. 
 
 fifteenth century. In the latter part of the fourteenth century, Chaucer 
 (Dreme, v. 250) thus described a very rich bed — 
 
 Of downe of pure dovis white 
 
 I wol yeve him a fethir bed, 
 
 Rayid with gold, and right well cled 
 
 In fine blacke sattin d'outremere, 
 
 And many a pilowe, and every bere {pillow cover) 
 
 Of clothe of Raines to slepe on softe ; 
 
 Him thare (need) not to turnen ofte. 
 
 Agnes Hubbard, a lady of Bury, in Suffolk, who made her will in 141 8, 
 left, among other things, " one feather-bed " (unum ledum de filiwiis). 
 A rich townsman of the same place bequeathed, in 1463, to his niece, 
 " certeyne stuffe of ostihnent," among which he enumerates " my grene 
 hanggyd bedde steynyd with my armys therin, that hanggith in the 
 chambyr ovir kechene. with the curtynez, the grene keveryng longgyng 
 therto ; another coverlyte, ij. blankettes, ij. peyre of good shetes, the 
 
414 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 trampsoun, the costerys of that cha'mbyr and of the drawgth chambyr 
 next, tho that be of the same soort, a grete pilve {pillow) and a smal 
 pilve; the fethirbeed is hire owne that hire maistresse gaf hire at London." 
 After enumerating other articles of different kinds, the testator proceeds — 
 " And I geve hire the selour and the steynyd clooth of the coronacion of 
 Our Lady, with the clothes of myn that long to the bedde that she hath 
 loyen {lain) in, and the beddyng in the draught chamber for hire ser- 
 vaunth to lyn in ; and a banker of grene and red lying in hire chambyr 
 with the longe chayer {a settle, probably) ; and a stondyng coffre and a 
 long coffre in the drawth chambyr." William Honyboorn, also of Bury, 
 bequeathed to his wife in 1493, "my best ffether bedde with the traun- 
 some, a whyte selour and a testour theron, with iij. white curteyns therto, 
 a coverlight white and blewe lyeng on the same bedde, with the blan- 
 kettes." The same man leaves to his daughter, " a ffether bedde next 
 the best, a materas lyeng under the same, iiij. peyr shetys, iij. pelowes, a 
 peyr blankettes." John Coote, who made his will at Bury in 1502, left 
 to his wife, for term of her life, " alle my plate, brasse, pewter, hanggynges, 
 celers, testers, fetherbeddes, traunsoms, coverlytes, blankettes, shetes, 
 pelows, and all other stuff of hussold {household) ; " and afterwards be- 
 queaths these articles separately to his son and daughter, after their 
 mother's death : — " I will that William Coote have my beste hanged 
 bede, celer, testor, and curteyns longgyng to the same, the beste fether- 
 bede, the beste coverlyght, the beste peyer of blankettes, the beste peyer 
 shetes ; and Alys Coote to have the next hanged bede, celer, and testour, 
 wyth the ij de fetherbede, blankettes, and the ij de peyer shetes." In the 
 will of Anne Barett, of Bury, dated in 1504, we read, " Item, I bequeth 
 to Avyse my servaunte x. marc, a ffether bed, a traunsom, a payre shetes, 
 a payre blankettes, coverlyght." Lastly, the will of Agar Herte, a 
 widow of the same town, made in 1522, contains the following items : — 
 " Item, I bequethe to Richard Jaxson, my son, a ffetherbed, ij. trawnsoms, 
 a matras, ij. pelowes, iiij. payer of schetes, a payer of blankettes, and a 
 coveryng of arasse, and a secunde coverlyght, a selour and a testour 
 steynyd with mowers, and iij. curtenys;" . . . "Item, I bequethe to 
 Jone Jaxson, my dowghter, a fetherbed, a matras, a bolster, ij. pelowes, 
 iiij. payer of schetes, a payer of blankettes, a coverlyght with ffiowre de 
 lyce, a selour and a testour steynyd with Seynt Kateryn at the hed and 
 
BEDDING. 415 
 
 the crusifix on the selour, ... a secunde coverlyght, ij. pelow-beris 
 (pillow-covers), the steynyd clothes abowte the chamber where I ly ; " 
 ..." Item, I bequethe to Fraunces Wrethe a ffetherbed, a bolster, a 
 payer of blankettes, my best carpet, a new coverlyght with fflowers, ij. 
 payer of schetes, ij. pelows with the berys." 
 
 These extracts from only one set of wills are sufficient to show the 
 great advance which our forefathers had made during the fourteenth 
 century in the comfort and richness of their beds, and how cautious we 
 ought to be in receiving general observations on the condition of previous 
 ages by those who write at a subsequent period. I make this observation 
 in allusion to the account so often quoted from Harrison, who, in the 
 description of England written in Essex during the reign of Elizabeth, 
 and inserted in Holinshed's " Chronicles," informs us that " our fathers 
 (yea, and we ourselves also) have lien full oft upon straw pallets, on 
 rough mats, covered onelie with a sheet, under coverlets made of dag- 
 swain,* or hopharlots (I use their own terms), and a good round log 
 under their heads instead of a bolster. If it were so that our fathers, or 
 the good-man of the house, had, within seven years after his marriage, 
 purchased a matteres, or flocke bed, and thereto a sacke of chafife to reste 
 his heade upon, he thought himselfe to be as well lodged as the lord of 
 the towne, so well were they contented. Pillowes, said they, were 
 thought meete onelie for women in child-bed. As for servants, if they 
 had anie sheet above them it was well, for seldom had they anie under 
 their bodies to keepe them from the pricking straws that ran oft through 
 the canvas of the pallet, and rased their hardened hides." A description 
 like this could only apply to the lower classes in society, who had as yet 
 participated but little in the march of social improvement. 
 
 As the privacy of the chamber had become greater, it seems now to 
 have been much less common in private mansions for several people to 
 sleep in the same room, which appears more rarely to have had more 
 than one bed. But a bed of a new construction had now come into 
 use, called a truckle or trundle bed. This was a smaller bed which 
 
 * Dagswain was a sort of rough material of which the commoner sorts of coverlets 
 were made. A hap-harlot, or hop-harlot, was also a very coarse kind of coverlet. 
 Harlot was a term applied to a low class of vagabonds, the ribalds, who wandered 
 from place to place in search of a living ; and the name appears to have been given 
 to this rug as being only fit to be the lot or hap of such people. 
 
416 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 rolled under the larger bed, and was designed usually for a valet, or 
 servant. The illuminations in the manuscript of the romance of the 
 " Comte d'Artois," already quoted more than once, furnish us with the 
 early example of a truckle-bed represented in our cut No. 271. The 
 Count d'Artois lies in the bed under the canopy, while the truckle-bed 
 is occupied by his valet (in this case, his wife in disguise). The truckle- 
 bed is more frequently mentioned in the sixteenth and seventeenth 
 centuries. Every reader will remember the speech of mine host of the 
 Garter, in the " Merry Wives of Windsor" (act iv. sc. 5), who says of 
 Falstaff 's room, " There 's his chamber, his house, his castle, his stand- 
 ing-bed and truckle-bed." It was the place allotted to the squire, when 
 
 / / 
 
 \\\\\\\ 
 
 / / / / / I 1 \ \ \ \ \ \ \~1 
 
 No. 271. — A Truckle-bed. 
 
 accompanying the knight on " adventures." So in Hudibras (part ii. 
 
 canto ii.) — 
 
 When Hudibras, whom thoughts and aking, 
 'Twixt sleeping kept all night and waking, 
 Began to rub his drowsy eyes, 
 And from his couch prepared to rise, 
 Resolving to despatch the deed 
 He vow'd to do, with trusty speed ; 
 But first, with knocking loud and bawling, 
 He roused the squire, in truckle lolling. 
 * 
 In the English universities, the master-of-arts had his pupil to sleep in 
 
 his truckle-bed. 
 
 The chamber, as the most private part of the house, was stored with 
 
HUTCHES AND COFFERS. 
 
 417 
 
 chests and coffers, in which the person who occupied it kept his money, 
 his deeds and private papers, and his other valuables. Margaret 
 Paston, writing from Norwich to her husband about the year 1459, gives 
 a curious account of the preparations for his reception at home. " I 
 have," she says, " taken the measure in the drawte chamber, there as 
 ye would your coffers and your cowntewery {supposed to mean a desk for 
 writing), should be set for the while, and there is no space beside the 
 bed, though the bed were removed to the door, for to set both your 
 board {table) and your coffers there, and to have space to go and sit 
 
 No. 272. — A Bedroom Scene. 
 
 beside ; wherefore I have purveyed that ye shall have the same drawte 
 chamber {withdrawing room — the origin of our name of drawing-room for 
 the salon) that ye had before, thereat ye shall lye to yourself; and when 
 your gear is removed out of your little house, the door shall be locked, 
 and your bags laid in one of the great coffers, so that they shall be safe, 
 I trust." The hucches {hutches) or chests, and coffers, in the bed- 
 chamber, are frequently mentioned in old writings. The large hutch 
 seems to have been usually placed at the foot of the bed. In one of 
 our preceding cuts (No. 268) we have seen it moved from its place to 
 make a temporary seat before the fire. The above cut (No. 272), 
 taken from a manuscript Latin Bible in the National Library in Paris 
 
 2 D 
 
4 i 8 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 (No. 6829), shows us the hutch in its usual place, and opened so as to 
 expose its contents to our view. It is here evidently filled with money, 
 and the persons who have entered the chamber seem to be plundering 
 it. In a very popular old story, the same in substance as that of King 
 Lear and his daughters, an old man, on the marriage of his daughter, 
 weakly gives up all his property to the young married pair, trusting to 
 their filial love for his sustenance, and they go on treating him worse 
 and worse, until he is saved from actual destitution by a deception he 
 practises upon them. In one version of the story, given in English 
 verse in a manuscript of the fifteenth century, the father goes to a 
 friend and borrows a large sum of money in gold, which he places in 
 his coffer, and, having invited them to his dwelling, and persuaded them 
 to remain all night, he contrives that early in the morning they shall, as 
 by accident, espy him counting his gold. The unfilial children, who 
 supposed that he had given them all he possessed, were astonished to 
 find him still rich, and were induced, by their covetousness, to treat 
 him better during the rest of his life. The poem describes the old 
 man leaving his bed to count the gold in his chest — 
 
 But on the morow, at brode daylight, 
 The fadir ros, and, for they shulden here 
 What that he dide, in a boistous manere 
 Unto his chest, which thre lokkes hadde, 
 He went, and therat wrethed he ful sadde, 
 And whan it was opened and unshit, 
 The bagged gold bi the merchaunt hym lent 
 He hath untied, and streight forth with it 
 Unto his beddis feete gone is and went. 
 What doth thanne this sel man and prudent 
 But out the gold on a tapit hath shot, 
 That in the bagges left ther no grot. 
 
 —MS. Harl. 372, fol. $&, v°. 
 
 Robbers, or plunderers in time of war, when breaking into a house, 
 always made direct for the chamber. Among the letters of the Paston 
 family, is a paper by a retainer of Sir John Fastolf, who had a house in 
 Southwark, giving an account of his sufferings during the attack upon 
 London by Jack Cade and the commons of Kent in 1450, in which he 
 tells how " the captain (Cade) sent certain of his meny to my chamber 
 in your rents, and there broke up my chest, and took away one obliga- 
 tion of mine 'that was due unto me of ^36 by a priest of Paul's, and 
 
A ROBBERY. 
 
 419 
 
 one other obligation of one Knight of ^io, and my purse with five 
 rings of gold, and 17s. 6d. of gold and silver ; and one harness (suite of 
 armour) complete of the touch of Milan ; and one gown of fine perse 
 blue, furred with martens ; and two gowns, one furred with bogey (budge), 
 and one other lined with frieze." One of John Paston's correspondents, 
 writing from London on the 28th of October 1455, gives the following 
 still more pertinent account of the robbing of a man's house : — " Also 
 there is great variance between the Earl of Devonshire and the Lord 
 Bonvile, as hath been many day, and much debate is like to grow 
 thereby; for on Thursday at night last past, the Earl of Devonshire's son 
 and heir came, with sixty men of arms, to Radford's place in Devon- 
 shire, which (Radford) was of counsel with, my Lord Bonvile; and they 
 set a house on fire at Radford's gate, and cried and made a noise as 
 though they had been sorry for the fire; and by thet cause Radford's men 
 set open their gates and yede (went) out to see the fire ; and forthwith 
 the earl's son aforesaid entered into the place, and entreated Radford 
 to come down of his chamber to speak with them, promising him that 
 he should no bodily harm have; upon which promise he came down, 
 and spoke with the said earl's son. In the mean time his meny (retinue) 
 rob his chamber, and rifled his hutches, and trussed such as they could 
 get together, and carried it away on his own horses." As soon as this 
 was done, Radford, who was an eminent lawyer residing at Po°"hill, 
 near Kyrton, and now aged, was led 
 forth and brutally murdered. In the 
 stories and novels of the Middle Ages, 
 the favoured lover who has been ad- 
 mitted secretly into the chamber of 
 his mistress is often concealed in the 
 hutch or chest. 
 
 Our cut No. 273, taken from the 
 same manuscript of the Bible which 
 furnished our last illustration, repre- 
 sents the hutch also in its place at the 
 
 foot of the bed. This sketch is inter- 
 No. 273. — A Xady in Bed. . 
 
 esting, both as showing more distinctly 
 
 than the others the rings of the bed-curtains, and the rods attached 
 
420 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 to the celure, and as a particularly good illustration of the habit which 
 still continued in all classes and ranks of society, of sleeping in bed 
 entirely naked. The same practice is shown in several of our other 
 cuts (see Nos. 267, 271, and 272), and indeed, in all the illuminated 
 manuscripts of the fifteenth century which contain bedroom scenes. 
 Wherever this is not the case, there is some evident reason for the 
 contrary, as in our cut No. 268. During this period we have not so 
 many pictorial illustrations of the toilet as might be expected. The 
 ladies' combs were generally coarse and large in the teeth, but often very 
 elaborately and beautifully ornamented. The mirror was, as at former 
 
 No. 274. — A Dealer in Mercery. 
 
 periods, merely a circular piece of metal or glass, set in a case, which 
 was carved with figures or ornaments externally. The vocabularies 
 mention the mirror as one of the usual objects with which a chamber 
 should be furnished. 
 
 Our cut No. 274 is taken from a manuscript (MS. Cotton. Tiberius, 
 A. vii. fol. 93, v°) of the English translation of the singular work of the 
 French writer, Guillaume de Deguilleville, entitled " Le Pelerinage de 
 la Vie Humaine," a poem which bears a striking resemblance in its 
 general character to the " Pilgrim's Progress " of Bunyan. The English 
 version, which is in verse, and entitled simply the " Pilgrim/' has been 
 ascribed to Lydgate. In the course of his adventures, the pilgrim comes 
 to the Lady Agyographe, who is represented as dealing in " mercerye," 
 
MIRRORS. 421 
 
 but the enumeration of articles embraced under that term is rather 
 
 singular — «-, 
 
 Quod sche, " Geve [if) I schal the telle, 
 Mercerye I have to selle; 
 In boystes [boxes) soote [siueet) oynementis, 
 Therewith to don allegementis [to give relief) 
 To ffolkes whiche be not glade, 
 But discorded and mallade, 
 And hurte with perturbacyouns 
 Off many trybulacyouns. 
 I have knyves, phylletys, callys, 
 At ffeestes to hang upon wallys ; 
 Kombes mo than nyne or ten, 
 Bothe ffor horse and eke ffor men ; 
 Merours also, large and brode, 
 And ffor the syght wonder gode ; 
 Off hem I have fful greet plente, 
 For ffolke that haven volunte 
 Byholde hemsilffe therynne." 
 
 Our cut represents the interior of the house of the lady mercer, with the 
 various articles enumerated in the text; the boxes of ointment, the horse- 
 combs, the men's combs, and the mirrors. She first offers the pilgrim 
 a mirror, made so as to natter people, by representing them hand- 
 somer than they really were, which the pilgrim refuses — 
 
 "Madame," quod I, "yow not displeese, 
 
 This myroure schal do me noon eese ; 
 
 Wherso that I leese or wynne, 
 
 I wole nevere looke thereinne. " 
 
 But ryght anoon myne happe it was 
 
 To loken in another glasse, 
 
 In the whiche withouten wene [zvithout doubt) 
 
 I sawe mysylff ffoule and uncleene, 
 
 And to byholde ryght hydous, 
 
 Abhomynabel, and vecyous. 
 
 That merour and that glas 
 
 Schewyd [showed) to me what I was. 
 
 In the celebrated " Romance of the Rose," one of the heroines, Bela- 
 cueil, is introduced adorning her head with a fillet, and with this head- 
 dress contemplating herself in a mirror — 
 
 Belacueil souvent se remire, 
 Dedans son miroer se mire, 
 Savoir s'il est si bien seans. 
 
 There is a representation of this scene in the beautiful illuminated manu- 
 
422 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 script of the " Romance of the Rose " in the British Museum (MS. Harl. 
 No. 4425), in which, singularly enough, the mirror itself, which is 
 evidently of glass, is represented as being convex, though perhaps we 
 must attribute this appearance to the unskilfulness of the designer, who, 
 
 in his attempt to show that the mirror 
 was round, failed in perspective. In 
 our first cut, from Guillaume de De- 
 guilleville, it will be observed that the 
 artist, in order to show that the articles 
 intended to be represented are mirrors, 
 and not plates, or any other round im- 
 plements, has drawn the reflections of 
 faces, although nobody is looking into 
 them. Another peculiarity in the illu- 
 mination of the " Romance of the Rose," a portion of which is repre- 
 sented in our cut No. 275, is that the mirror is fixed against the wall,' 
 instead of being held in the hand when used, as appears to have been 
 more generally the case. Standing-mirrors seem not to have been 
 yet employed ; but before the end of the fifteenth century, glass mirrors, 
 which appear to have been invented in Belgium or Germany, came 
 into use. 
 
 No. 275. — Lady and Mirror. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 State of Society. — The Female Character. — Greediness in Eating. — 
 Character of the Mediaeval Servants. — Daily Occupations in the 
 Household ; Spinning and Weaving ; Fainting. — The Garden and 
 its Uses. — Games out of Doors ; Hawking, &*c. — Travelling, and 
 more frequent use of Carriages.— Taverns ; Frequented by Women. 
 — Education and Literary Occupations ; Spectacles. 
 
 DURING the fifteenth century, society in England was going 
 through a transition which was less visible on the surface than 
 it was great and effectual at the heart. France and England were both 
 torn by revolutionary struggles, but with very different results ; for while 
 in France the political power of the middle classes was destroyed, and 
 the country was delivered to the despotism of the crown and of the 
 great lords, in our country it was the feudal nobility which was ruined, 
 while the municipal bodies had obtained an increased importance in 
 the state, and the landed gentry gained more independence and power 
 from the decline of that of the great feudal barons. Yet in both coun- 
 tries feudalism itself, in its real character, was rapidly passing away — 
 in France, before the power of the crown ; in England, before the re- 
 modelling and reformation of society. While the substance of feudalism 
 was thus perishing, its outward forms appeared to be more sought 
 than ever, and the pride and ostentation of rank, and its arrogance too, 
 prevailed during the fifteenth century to a greater degree than at any 
 previous period. The court of Burgundy, itself only in origin a feudal 
 principality, had set itself up as the model of feudalism, and there the 
 old romances of chivalry were remodelled and published anew, and 
 were read eagerly as the mirror of feudal doctrines. The court of Bur- 
 gundy was remarkable for its wonderful pomp and magnificence, and 
 
424 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 for its ostentatious display of wealth ; it was considered the model of 
 lordly courtesy and high breeding, and was the centre of literature and 
 art ; and circumstances had brought the court of England into intimate 
 connection with it, so that the influence of Burgundian fashions was 
 greater during this period in England than that of the fashions of the 
 court of France. There can be no doubt, too, that the social character 
 in England and in France were now beginning to diverge widely from 
 each other. The condition of the lower class in France was becoming 
 more and more miserable, and the upper classes were becoming more 
 licentious and immoral ; whereas, in England, though serfdom or villan- 
 age still existed in name, and in law the peasantry had been largely 
 enfranchised, its serfdom was gradually disappearing as a fact — their 
 landlords, the country gentry, living among them in more kindly and 
 more intimate intercourse, instead of treating them with tyrannical 
 cruelty and dragging them off to be slaughtered in their private wars. 
 Increased commerce had spread wealth among the middle classes, and 
 had brought with it, no doubt, a considerable increase of social comfort. 
 Social manners were still very coarse, but it is quite evident that the 
 efforts of the religious reformers, the Lollards, were improving the moral 
 tone of society in the middle and lower classes. 
 
 People had, moreover, begun now to discuss great social questions. 
 An example of this had been given in England in the celebrated poem 
 of " Piers Ploughman," in the middle of the fourteenth century, and 
 such questions were mooted very extensively by the Lollards, who held 
 as a principle the natural equality of man. This was a doctrine which 
 was accepted very slowly, and was certainly discountenanced by the 
 Roman Catholic preachers, who encouraged the belief that the division 
 of society into distinct classes was a permanent judgment of God, and 
 even invented legends to account for its origin. Long after feudalism 
 had ceased, it was difficult to disabuse people of the opinion that the 
 blood which flowed in the veins of a gentleman was of a different kind 
 from that of a peasant, or even from that of a burgher. One of the 
 legendary explanations of these divisions of blood is given by a poetical 
 writer of the reign of Henry VII., named Alexander Barclay, who has 
 left us seven " Eclogues," as he calls them, on the social questions 
 which agitated men's minds in his day. One day, according to this 
 
ORIGIN OF SOCIAL DISTINCTIONS. 425 
 
 story, while Adam was absent occupied with his agricultural labours, 
 Eve sat at home on their threshold with all her children about her, 
 when suddenly she became aware of the approach of the Creator, and, 
 ashamed of the great number of them, and fearful that her productiveness 
 might be misinterpreted, she hurriedly concealed those which were the 
 least well-favoured. " Some of them she placed under hay, some under 
 straw and chaff, some in the chimney, and some in a tub of draff; but 
 such as were fair and well-made she wisely and cunningly kept with 
 her." God told her that he had come to see her children, that he 
 might promote them in their different degrees ; upon which she pre- 
 sented them in their order of birth. God then ordained the eldest to 
 be an emperor, the second to be a king, and the third a duke to guide 
 an army ; of the rest he made earls, lords, barons, squires, knights, and 
 "hardy champions." Some he appointed to be "judges, mayors, and 
 governors, merchants, sheriffs, and protectors, aldermen, and burgesses." 
 While all this was going on, Eve began to think of her other children, 
 and, unwilling that they should lose their share of honours, she now 
 produced them from their hiding-places. They appeared with their 
 hair rough, and powdered with chaff, some full of straws, and some 
 covered with cobwebs and dust, " that anybody might be frightened 
 at the sight of them." They were black with dirt, ill-favoured in coun- 
 tenance, and misshapen in stature, and God did not conceal his disgust. 
 " None," he said, " can make a vessel of silver out of an earthen 
 pitcher, or goodly silk out of a goat's fleece, or a bright sword of a 
 cow's tail ; neither will I, though I can, make a noble gentleman out 
 of a vile villain. You shall all be ploughmen and tillers of the ground, 
 to keep oxen and hogs, to dig and delve, and hedge and dike, and in 
 this wise shall ye live in endless servitude. Even the townsmen shall 
 laugh you to scorn ; yet some of you shall be allowed to dwell in cities, 
 and shall be admitted to .such occupations as those of makers of pud- 
 dings, butchers, cobblers, tinkers, costard-mongers, hostlers, or daubers." 
 Such, the teller of the story informs us, was the beginning of servile 
 labour. 
 
 A song of the fifteenth century, printed in the collections of songs 
 and carols edited for the Percy Society, the burthen of which is the 
 necessity of money in all conditions, describes the different ranks and 
 
426 THE HOMES OF OTHER DA VS. 
 
 their various aspirations in the following order : the yeoman who desires 
 to become a gentleman, the gentleman who seeks to be a squire, the 
 squire who would be a knight, the lettered man who seeks distinction 
 in the schools, the merchant who aspired to rise to wealth, and the 
 lawyer who sought promotion at the bar. In the interesting " Recueil 
 de Poe'sies Francoises des xv e et xvi e Siecles," by M. de Montaiglon 
 (vol. iii. pp. 138, 147), there are two poems, probably of the latter part 
 of the fifteenth century, entitled "Les Souhaitz des Homines" (the wishes 
 of the men) and " Les Souhaitz des Femmes" (the wishes of the women), 
 in which the various classes are made to declare that which they desire 
 most. Thus dukes, counts, and knights desire to be skilful in warlike 
 accomplishments ; the president in parliament desires the gold chain 
 and the seat of honour, with wisdom in giving judgment ; the advocate 
 wishes for eloquence in court, and for a fair bourgeoise or damoiselle at 
 home to make his house joyful ; the burgher wishes for a good fire in 
 winter, and a good supply of fat capons ; and the clergy are made to wish 
 for good cheer and handsome women. The wishes of the women are on 
 the whole, perhaps, more characteristic than those of the men. Thus, 
 the queen wishes to be able to love God and the king, and to live in peace; 
 the duchess, to have all the enjoyments and pleasures of wealth; the 
 countess, to have a husband who was loyal and brave ; the knight's lady, 
 to hunt the stag in the green woods ; the damoiselle, or lady of gentle 
 blood, also loved hunting, and wished for a husband valiant in war ; 
 and the chamber-maiden took pleasure in walking in the fair fields by 
 the river-side; while the bourgeoise loved, above all things, a soft 
 bed at night, with a good pillow, and clean white sheets. That part 
 of society which now comes chiefly under our notice had fallen into 
 two classes, that which boasted gentle blood, and the ungentle, or 
 burgher class, and this was particularly shown among the ladies, for the 
 bourgeoise sought continually to imitate the gentlewoman, or damoiselle, 
 who, on her part, looked on these encroachments of the other with 
 great jealousy. M. de Montaiglon has printed in the collection just 
 quoted (vol. v. p. 5) a short poem entitled, " The Debate between the 
 Damoiselle and the Bourgeoise," in which the exclusive rights of gentle 
 blood are strongly claimed and disputed. We have seen the same 
 ambition of the wives of burghers and yeomen to ape the gentlewoman 
 
COUNSELS TO YOUNG LADIES. 427 
 
 as far back as the days of Chaucer, and it now often becomes the subject 
 of popular satire. Yet we must not forget that this desire to imitate 
 higher society assisted much in refining the manners of the middle 
 classes. M. de Montaiglon (vol. ii. p. 18) has printed a short piece in 
 verse of the latter part of the fifteenth century, entitled " The Doctrinal 
 des Filles," containing the sentiments which teachers sought to implant 
 in the minds of young ladies, and it will suit England at that time 
 equally with France. The young ladies are here recommended to be 
 bashful ; not to be forward in falling in love ; to pay proper attention 
 to their dress, and to courteousness in behaviour ; and not to be too 
 eager in dancing. From all that we gather from the writers of the time, 
 the love of dancing appears at this period to have been carried to a 
 very great degree of extravagance, and to have often led to great dis- 
 soluteness in social manners, and the more zealous moralists preached 
 against the dance with much earnestness. The author of our "Doc- 
 trinal " admonishes the young unmarried girl to dance with moderation 
 when she is at the " carol " (the name of the ordinary dance), lest people 
 who see her dancing too eagerly should take her for a dissolute woman — 
 
 Fille, quant serez en karolle, 
 Dansez gentiment par mesure, 
 Car, quant fille se desmesure, 
 Tel la voit qui la tient pour folle. 
 
 The young lady is next cautioned against talking scandal, against 
 
 believing in dreams, against drinking too much wine, and against being 
 
 too talkative at table. She was to avoid idleness, to respect the aged, 
 
 not to allow herself to be kissed in secret (kissing in public was the 
 
 ordinary form of salutation), and not to be quarrelsome. She was 
 
 especially to avoid being alone with a priest, except at confession, for 
 
 it was dangerous to let priests haunt the house where there were young 
 
 females — 
 
 Fille, hormis confession, 
 Seulette ne parlez a prebstre ; 
 Laissez-les en leur eglise estre, 
 Sans ce qu'ilz hantent vos maisons. 
 
 These lines, written and published in a bigoted Roman Catholic country, 
 by a man who was evidently a staunch Romanist, and addressed to 
 young women as their rule of behaviour, present perhaps one of the 
 
428 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 strongest evidences we could have of the evil influence exercised by the 
 
 Romish clergy on social morals — a fact, however, of which there are 
 
 innumerable other proofs. 
 
 Whatever may have been the effect of such teaching on the better 
 
 educated classes, the general character of the women of the middle and 
 
 lower classes appears to have been of a description little likely to be 
 
 conducive to domestic happiness. All the popular materials, for social 
 
 history represent their morals as being very low, and their tempers as 
 
 overbearing and quarrelsome; the consequence of which was a separation 
 
 of domestic life among the two sexes after marriage — the husbands, when 
 
 not engaged at their work or business, seeking their amusement away 
 
 from the house, and the wives assembling with their "gossips," often at 
 
 the public taverns, to drink and amuse themselves. In the old Mysteries 
 
 and Morality plays, in which there was a good deal of quiet satire on 
 
 the manners of the age in which they were composed and acted, Noah's 
 
 wife appears often as the type of the married woman in the burgher class, 
 
 and her temper seems to have become almost proverbial. In the 
 
 " Towneley Mysteries," when Noah acquaints his wife with the approach 
 
 of the threatened deluge, and of his orders to build the ark, she abuses 
 
 him so grossly as a common carrier of ill news that he is provoked to 
 
 strike her ; she returns the blow, and they have a regular battle, in which 
 
 the husband has the advantage, but he is glad to escape from her tongue 
 
 and proceed to his work. In the " Chester Mysteries," Noah's wife will 
 
 not go into the ark ; and when all is ready, the flood beginning, and the 
 
 necessity of taking her in apparent, she refuses to enter unless she is 
 
 allowed to take her gossips with her — 
 
 Yea, sir, sette up youer saile, 
 
 And rowe fourth with evill haile, 
 
 For withouten fayle 
 
 I will not oute of this towne, 
 
 But I have my gossippes everyechone (every one) 
 
 One foote further I will not gone (go). 
 
 They shall not drowne, by Sante John, 
 
 And I maye save ther life ! 
 
 They loven me full wel, by Christe ! 
 
 But thout lett them into they cheiste, 
 
 Elles (othei'wise) rowe nowe wher the leiste (where you like), 
 
 And gette thee a newe wiffe. 
 
 It is to be supposed that Noah, when he wanted her, had found her with 
 
A SUBSTANTIAL BREAKFAST 429 
 
 her gossips in the tavern. At last Noah's three sons are obliged to drag 
 their mother into the " boat," when a scene occurs which appears thus 
 briefly indicated in the text — 
 
 Noye. 
 Welckome, wiffe, into this botte ! 
 
 Noye's Wiffe. 
 Have thou that for thy note ! [She beats him.] 
 
 Noye. 
 Ha, ha ! marye, this is hotte ! 
 It is good for to be still. 
 
 The conversation of these " gossips," when they met, was loose and 
 coarse in the extreme, and, as described in contemporary writings, the 
 practice even of profane swearing prevailed generally among both sexes 
 to a degree which, to our ears, would sound perfectly frightful — it was 
 one of the vices against which the moralists preached most bitterly. Life, 
 indeed, in spite of its occasional refinement in the higher ranks of society, 
 was essentially coarse at this period, and we can hardly conceive much 
 delicacy of people who dieted as, for instance, the family of the Earl of 
 Northumberland are reported to have done in the household book, com- 
 piled in 15 1 2, which was published by Bishop Percy. I only give the 
 breakfast allowances, which, on flesh-days, were " for my lord and my 
 lady," a loaf of bread "in trenchers," two manchets (loaves of fine meal), 
 one quart of beer (or, as we should now call it, ale), a quart of wine, half 
 a chine of mutton, or a chine of beef boiled ; for " my lord Percy and Mr 
 Thomas Percy" (the two elder children), half a loaf of household bread, 
 a manchet, one pottle of beer (two quarts — they were not yet allowed 
 wine), a chicken, or else three mutton bones boiled ; " breakfasts for 
 the nurcery, for my lady Margaret and Mr Ingram Percy " (who in fact 
 were mere children), a manchet, one quart of beer, and three mutton 
 bones boiled ; for my lady's gentlewomen, a loaf of household bread, a 
 pottle of beer, and three mutton bones boiled, or else a piece of beef 
 boiled. It will be seen here that the family dined two to a plate, or 
 mess, as was the usual custom in the Middle Ages. On fish-days, the 
 breakfast allowances were as follows : for my lord and my lady, a loaf 
 of bread in trenchers, two manchets, a quart of beer, a quart of wine, 
 two pieces of salt fish, six baked herrings, or a dish of sprats ; for the 
 
43o THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 two elder sons, half a loaf of household bread, a manchet, a pottle of 
 beer, a dish of butter, a piece of salt fish, a dish of sprats, or three white 
 (fresh) herrings • for the two children in the nursery, a manchet, a quart 
 of beer, a dish of butter, a piece of salt-fish, a dish of sprats, or three 
 white herrings ; and for my lady's gentlewomen, a loaf of bread, a pottle 
 of beer, a piece of salt fish, or three white herrings. We shall be inclined, 
 in comparing it with our modern style of living, to consider this as a 
 very substantial meal to begin the day with. 
 
 According to the old moral and satirical writers, excessive greediness 
 in eating had become one of the prevailing vices of this age. Barclay, 
 in his " Eclogues," gives a strange picture of the bad regulations of the 
 tables at the courts of great people in the time of Henry VII. He 
 describes the tables as served in great confusion, and even as covered 
 with dirty table-cloths. The food he represents as being bad in itself, 
 and often ill-cooked. Everybody, he says, was obliged to eat in a hurry, 
 unless he would lose his chance of eating at all, and they served the 
 worst dishes first, so that when you had satiated yourself with food which 
 was hardly palatable, the dainties made their appearance. This led 
 people to eat more than they wanted. When an attractive dish did 
 make its appearance, it led literally to a scramble among the guests — 
 
 But if it fortune, as seldome doth befall, 
 That at beginning come dishes best of all, 
 Or (before) thou hast tasted a morsell or twayne, 
 Thy dish out of sight is taken soon agayne. 
 Slowe be the servers in serving in alway, 
 But swifte be they after taking thy meate away. 
 A speciall custome is used them among, 
 No good dish to suffer on borde to be longe. 
 If the dish be pleasaunt, eyther fleshe or fishe, 
 Ten handes at once swarme in the dishe ; 
 And if it be fleshe, ten knives shalt thou see 
 Mangling the flesh and in the platter flee ; 
 To put there thy handes is perill without fayle, 
 Without a gauntlet or els a glove of mayle. 
 
 It would thus seem that the servers left the guests, except those at 
 the high table, to help themselves. It appears that in the earlier part 
 of the sixteenth century, the English had gained the character of keep- 
 ing the most profuse tables, and being the greatest eaters, in Europe. 
 A scrap preserved in a manuscript of the reign of Henry VIII., and 
 
GREEDINESS AT TABLE. 431 
 
 printed in the " Reliquiae Antiquae" (vol. i. p. 326), offers rather a 
 curious excuse for this character. There was a merchant of England, 
 we are told, who adventured into far countries, and when he had been 
 there a month or more, a great lord invited this English merchant to 
 dinner. And when they were at dinner, the lord wondered that he ate 
 not more of his meat, for, said he, " Englishmen are called the greatest 
 feeders in the world, and it is reported that one man will eat as much 
 as six of another nation, and more victuals are consumed there than 
 in any other region." " It is true," the merchant replied, " it is so, and 
 for three reasonable causes so much victual is served on the table ; one 
 of which is, for love, another for physic, and the third, for dread. Sir, 
 as concerns the first, we are accustomed to have many divers meats 
 for our friends and kinsfolk, because some love one manner of meat, 
 and some another, and we wish every man to be satisfied. Secondly, 
 in regard of physic, because for divers maladies which people have, some 
 men will eat one meat, and some another, it is desirable that everybody 
 should be suited. The third cause is for dread ; for we have so great 
 abundance and plenty in our realm, of beasts and fowls, that if we 
 should not kill and destroy them, they would destroy and devour us." It 
 may be remarked that, during this period, the English merchants and 
 burghers in general seem to have kept very good tables, and that the lower 
 orders, and even the peasantry, appear to have been by no means ill fed. 
 The confusion in serving at table described by Alexander Barclay was 
 no doubt caused in a great measure by the numerous troops of riotous 
 and unruly serving-men and followers, who were kept by the noblemen 
 and greater landholders, and who formed everywhere one of the curses 
 of society. Within the household, they had become so unmanageable 
 that their masters made vain attempts to regulate them ; while abroad 
 they were continually engaged in quarrels, often sanguinary ones, with 
 countrymen or townsmen, or with the retainers of other noblemen or 
 gentlemen, in which their masters considered that it concerned their 
 credit to support and protect them, so that the quarrels of the servants 
 became sometimes feuds between their lords. The old writers, of all 
 descriptions, bear witness to the bad conduct of serving-men and servants 
 in general, and to their riotousness, and especially of the garfous, or, 
 as they were called in English, " lads." Cain's gartio, in the " Towneley 
 
432 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 Mysteries," was intended as a picture of this class, in all their coarseness 
 and vulgarity ; and the character of Jack Garcio, in the play of " The 
 Shepherds," in the same collection, is another type of them. 
 
 We have seen that the breakfast in the household of the Percys was 
 a very substantial meal, but it seems not to have been generally con- 
 sidered a regular meal, either as to what was eaten at it, or as to the 
 hour at which it was taken. Perhaps this was left to the convenience, 
 or caprice, of individuals.* We have a curious description of the 
 division of the occupations of the day in a princely household, in an 
 account which has been left us of the household regulations of the 
 Duchess of York, mother of King Edward IV., which, however, were 
 strongly influenced by the pious character of that princess, who spent 
 much time in religious duties and observances. Her usual hour of 
 rising was seven o'clock, when she heard matins ; she then " made her- 
 self ready," or dressed herself, for the occupations of the day, and when 
 this was done, she had a low mass in her chamber. After this mass she 
 took something a to recreate nature," which was, in fact, her breakfast, 
 though it is afterwards stated that it was not a regular meal. She then 
 went to chapel, and remained at religious service until dinner, which, 
 as we are further told, took place, " upon eating days," at eleven o'clock, 
 with a first dinner in the time of high mass for the various officers 
 whose duty it was to attend at table ; but, on fasting days, the dinner 
 hour was twelve o'clock, with a later dinner for carvers and waiters. 
 After dinner, the princess devoted an hour to give audience to all who 
 had any business with her; she then slept for a quarter of an hour, 
 and then spent her time in prayer until the first peal of even-song 
 (vespers), when " she drank wine or ale at her pleasure." She went to 
 chapel, and returned thence to supper, which, on eating days, was 
 served at five o'clock, the carvers and servers at table having supped at 
 four. The ordinary diet in the house of this princess appears to have 
 been extremely simple. On Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday, the 
 household was served at dinner with beef and mutton, and one roast ; 
 
 * At a rather later period, Sir Thomas Elyot, in his " Castell of Helth" (printed 
 in 1 541), recommends that breakfast should be taken about four hours before dinner, 
 considering it therefore as a light meal, and he advises, in a sanitary view, that not 
 less than six hours should be allowed to elapse between dinner and supper. 
 
DOMESTIC OCCUPATIONS. 
 
 433 
 
 at supper with " leyched " beef and roast mutton ; on Monday and 
 Wednesday, they had boiled beef and mutton at dinner, and at supper, 
 the same as on the three other days ; on Friday, salt fish and two dishes 
 of fresh fish ; and on Saturday, salt fish, one fresh fish, and butter, for 
 dinner, and salt fish and eggs for supper. After supper, the princess 
 " disposed herself to be familiar with her gentlewomen," with " honest 
 mirth ; " and one hour before going to bed she took a cup of wine, went 
 to her privy closet to pray, and was in bed by eight o'clock. 
 
 The Duchess of York is of course to be looked upon as a model of 
 piety^and sobriety, and her hours are not perhaps to be taken as exactly 
 those of other people, and certainly not her occupations. In the 
 French " Debat de la Damoiselle et de la Bourgeoise," the latter 
 accuses the gentlewoman of late rising. " Before you are awake," she 
 says, " I am dressed and have attended to my duties ; do not therefore 
 be surprised if we are more diligent than you, since you sleep till 
 dinner-time." " No," replies the damoiselle, " we must spend our 
 evening in dancing, and cannot do as you, who go to bed at the 
 same time as your hens." 
 
 It has been stated already, that, even in the highest ranks of society, the 
 ladies were usually employed at home on useful, and often on profitable 
 work. This work embraced the various processes in the manufacture 
 of linen and cloth, as well as the making them up into articles of dress, and 
 embroidery, and knitting, and other similar occupations. The spinning- 
 wheel was a necessary implement in every 
 household, from the palace to the cottage. In 
 1437, John Notyngham, a rich grocer of Bury 
 St Edmunds, bequeathed to one of his 
 legatees, "j spynnyng whel et j par carp- 
 sarum," meaning probably " a pair of cards/' 
 an implement which is stated in the " Promp- 
 torium Parvulorum" to be especially a 
 "wommanys instrument." A few years pre- 
 viously, in 141 8, Agnes Stubbard, a resident 
 in the same town, bequeathed to two of her 
 maids, each one pair of wool-combs, one " kembyng-stok " (a comb- 
 ing-stock, or machine for holding the wool to be combed), one wheel, 
 
 2 E 
 
434 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 and one pair of cards ; and to another woman a pair of wool-combs, a 
 wheel, and a pair of cards. John Baret, of Bury, in 1463, evidently a rich 
 man with a very large house and household, speaks in his will of a part 
 of the house, or probably a room, which was distinguished as the " spin- 
 ning-house." Our cut No. 276J from an illuminated Bible of the fifteenth 
 century in the Imperial Library at Paris (No. 6829), represents a woman 
 of apparently an ordinary class of society at work with her distaff under 
 her arm. The next cut (No. 277) is taken from a fine illuminated manu- 
 script of the well-known French " Boccace des Nobles Femmes," and 
 illustrates the story of" Cyrille," the wife of King Tarquin. We have 
 
 No. 277. — A Queen and her Damsels at Work. 
 
 here a queen and her maidens employed in the same kind of domestic 
 labours. The lady on the left is occupied with her combs or cards, and 
 her combing-stock ; the other sits at her distaff, also supported by a stock, 
 instead of holding it under her arm ; and the queen, with her hand on 
 the shuttle, is performing the final operation of weaving. 
 
 Some of the more elegant female accomplishments, which were 
 unknown in the earlier ages, were now coming into vogue. Dancing 
 was, as already stated, a more favourite amusement than ever, and it 
 received a new eclat from the frequent introduction of new dances, of 
 which some of the old popular writers give us long lists. Some of these, 
 
FEMALE DEVOTION TO THE FINE ARTS. 
 
 435 
 
 too, were of a far more active and exciting description than formerly. 
 
 One of the personages in the early interlude of " The Four Elements," 
 
 talks of persons — 
 
 That shall both daunce and spryng, 
 And torne clene above the grounde, 
 With fryscas and with gambawdes round, 
 That all the hall shall ryng. 
 
 Music, also, was more extensively cultivated as a domestic acomplish- 
 ment; and it was a more common thing to meet with ladies who 
 indulged in literary pursuits. Sometimes, too, the ladies of the fifteenth 
 centurj- practised drawing and painting, — arts which, instead of being, 
 as formerly, restricted almost to the clergy, had now passed into the 
 hands of the laity, and were undergoing rapid improvement. The illu- 
 
 No. 278.— A Lady Artist. 
 
 minated manuscript of " Boccace des Nobles Femmes," which furnished 
 the subject of cut No. 277, contains several pictures of ladies occupied 
 in painting, one of which (illustrating the chapter on "Marcie Vierge") 
 is represented in our cut No. 278. The lady has her palette, her colour- 
 box, and her stone for grinding the colours, much as an artist of the 
 present day would have, though she is seated before a somewhat singu- 
 larly formed framework. She is evidently painting her own portrait, for 
 which purpose she uses the mirror which hangs over the colour-box. 
 It is rather curious that the tools which lie by the side of the grinding- 
 stone are those of a sculptor, and not those of a painter, so that it was 
 no doubt intended that we should suppose that she combined the two 
 
436 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 branches of the art. In one of the illuminations of the manuscript of 
 the " Romance of the Rose," which has been quoted before, preserved 
 in the British Museum, we have a picture of a male painter, copied in 
 our cut No. 279, and intended to represent Apelles, who is working 
 with a palette and easel, exactly as artists do at the present day : both 
 he and our lady artist in the cut are evidently painting on board. We 
 begin now also to trace the existence of a great number of domestic 
 
 No. 279. — A Painter at his Easel. 
 
 sports and pastimes, some of which still remain in usage, but which we 
 have not here room to enumerate. 
 
 Out of doors, the garden continued to be the favourite resort of the 
 ladies. It would be easy to pick out numerous descriptions of gardens 
 from the writers of the fifteenth century. Lydgate thus describes the 
 garden of the rich " churl " — 
 
 Whilom ther was in a smal village, 
 
 As myn autor makethe rehersayle, 
 
 A chorle, whiche hadde lust and a grete corage 
 
 Within hymself, be diligent travayle, 
 
 To array his gardeyn with notable apparayle, 
 
 Of lengthe and brede yelicke [equally) square and longe, 
 
 Hegged and dyked to make it sure and stronge. 
 
 Alle the aleis were made playne with sond (sand), 
 The benches (banks) turned with newe turvis grene, 
 
GARDENS AND THEIR DECORATION. 437 
 
 Sote herbers {srveet beds of plants), with condite {fountain) at the honde, 
 
 That wellid up agayne the sonne schene, 
 
 Lyke silver stremes as any cristalle clene, 
 
 The burbly wawes {bubbling waves) in up-boyling, 
 
 Rounde as byralle ther bcamys out shynynge. 
 
 Amyddis the gardeyn stode a fressh lawrer {laurel), 
 Theron a bird syngyng bothe day and nyghte. 
 
 And at a somewhat later period, Stephen Hawes, in his singular poem 
 entitled "The Pastime of Pleasure," describes a larger and more magni- 
 ficent garden. Amour arrives at the gate of the garden of La Bel Pucel, 
 and requests the portress to conduct him to her mistress — ■ 
 
 " Truly," quod she, "in the garden grene 
 Of many a swete and sundry flowre 
 She maketh a garlonde that is veray shene, 
 Wythe trueloves wrought in many a coloure, 
 Replete with sweteness and dulcet odoure ; 
 And all alone, wythout company, 
 Amyddes an herber she sitteth plesantly." 
 
 From the description of this " gloryous " garden that follows, we 
 might imagine that the practice of cutting or training trees and flowers 
 into fantastic shapes, as was done with box-trees in the last century, had 
 prevailed among the gardeners of the fifteenth. The garden of La Bel 
 Pucel is described as being — 
 
 Wyth Flora paynted and wrought curyously, 
 In divers knottes of marvaylous gretenes ; 
 Rampande lyons stode up wondersly, 
 Made all of herbes with dulcet swetenes, 
 Wyth many dragons of marvaylos likenes, 
 Of dyvers floures made ful craftely, 
 By Flora couloured wyth colours sundry. 
 
 Amiddes the garden so moche delectable 
 
 There was an herber fayre and quadrante, 
 
 To paradyse right well comparable, 
 
 Set all about with floures fragraunt ; 
 
 And in the myddle there was resplendyshaunte 
 
 A dulcet spring and marvaylous fountaine, 
 
 Of golde and asure made all certaine. 
 
 Eesyde whiche fountayne, moost fayre lady 
 
 La Bel Pucel was gayly syttyng ; 
 
 Of many floures fayre and ryally 
 
 A goodly chaplet she was in makynge. 
 
438 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 I have had occasion before to observe that garlands and chaplets of 
 flowers were in great request in the Middle Ages, and the making of 
 them was a favourite occupation. Our cut No. 280, taken from the 
 illuminated calendar prefixed to the splendid manuscript " Heures " of 
 Anne of Brittany in the National Library in Paris, where it illustrates 
 the month of May, represents the interior of a garden, with a lady thus 
 employed with her maidens. This garden appears to be a square piece 
 of ground, surrounded by a high wall, with a central compartment or 
 lawn enclosed by a fence of trellis-work and a hedge of rose-trees. 
 Pictures of gardens will also be found in the MS. of the 
 " Romance of the Rose," already referred to, and in other illumi- 
 
 y == y=M^f^j ;r y=i = p^ 
 
 No. 280. — A Lady and her Maidens weaving Garlands. 
 
 nated books, but the illuminators were unable to represent the 
 elaborate descriptions of the poets. Besides flowers, every garden con- 
 tained herbs for medicinal and other purposes, such as love-philtres, 
 which were in great repute in the Middle Ages. In the romance of 
 " Gerard de Nevers " (or La Violette), an old woman goes into the 
 garden attached to the castle where she lives, to gather herbs for mak- 
 ing a deadly poison. This incident is represented in our cut No. 281, 
 taken from a magnificent illuminated manuscript of the prose version of 
 this romance in the National Library in Paris. The garden is here 
 again surrounded by a wall, with a postern gate leading to the country, 
 and we have the same trellis-fencings as before. It appears to have 
 
OUT-DOOR GAMES. 
 
 439 
 
 been the usual custom thus to enclose and protect the beds in a garden 
 with a trellis-fence. 
 
 The various games and exercises practised by people out of doors 
 seem to have differed little at this time from those belonging to former 
 periods, except that from time to time we meet with allusions to 
 kinds of amusement which have not before been mentioned, although 
 they were probably well known. Among the drawings of the borders 
 of illuminated manuscripts, from the thirteenth century to the beginning 
 of the sixteenth, we meet with groups of children and of adults, which 
 
 No. 281. — A Lady gathering Herbs. 
 
 represent, doubtless, games of which both the names and the explana- 
 tions are lost ; and sometimes we are surprised to find thus represented 
 games which otherwise we should have supposed to be of modern 
 invention. One very curious instance may be stated. In the rather 
 celebrated manuscript of the French romance of " Alexander " in the 
 Bodleian Library at Oxford, which was written and illuminated in the 
 fourteenth century, we have representations of a puppet-show, which 
 
44° 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 appears to be identical with our modern Punch and Judy. We copy- 
 one of these curious early drawings in our cut No. 282. 
 
 Among the pastimes most popular at this time with the lower and 
 middle classes were archery, the practice of which was enforced by 
 authority, and shooting with the cross-bow, as well as most of the ordi- 
 nary rough games known at a later period, such as football and the like. 
 The English archers were celebrated throughout Europe. The poet 
 
 No. 282. — A Puppet-Show. 
 
 Barclay, who wrote at the close of the century, makes the shepherd in 
 one of his eclogues not only boast of his skill in archery, but he adds — 
 
 I can dance the ray ; I can both pipe and sing, 
 If I were mery ; I can both hurle and sling ; 
 I runne, I wrestle, I can welle throwe the barre, 
 No shepherd throweth the axeltree so farre ; 
 If I were mery, I could well leape and spring ; 
 I were a man mete to serve a prince or king. 
 
 Bull-baiting, bear-baiting, and such like sports, were also pursued with 
 avidity; and even gentlemen and young noblemen took part in them. 
 Any game, in fact, which produced violent exercise and violent excite- 
 ment was in favour with all ranks. Among the higher classes, hunting 
 and hawking were pursued with more eagerness than ever, and they be- 
 come now the subject of numerous written treatises, setting forth their laws 
 and regulations. When gentlemen were riding out for pleasure, they 
 were usually accompanied with hawks and hounds. In the next cut 
 (No 283), taken from an illuminated manuscript of the French Boccaccio 
 at Paris (National Library, MS. No. 6887), a party thus attended meets 
 another party on horseback, and they are in the act of saluting each 
 
CARRIAGES. 
 
 441 
 
 other. Horses were still almost the only conveyance from place to 
 place, though we now more often meet with pictures of carriages ; but, 
 though evidently intended to be very gorgeous, they are of clumsy con- 
 
 No. 283. — A Party Hawking. 
 
 struction, and seem only to have been used by princes or great nobles. 
 I give two examples from a superbly illuminated manuscript of the 
 French translation of " Valerius Maximus," in the great National Library 
 
 No. 284. — A Royal Carriage and Escort. 
 
 in Paris (No. 6984), executed in the latter part of the fifteenth century. 
 The first (cut No. 284) is a royal car, in which a throne has been placed 
 for the king, who sits in it in state. His guards lead the horses. The 
 form of the carriage is very simple ; it is a mere cart on wheels, without 
 
442 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 any springs, and has a covering supported on two large hoops, which are 
 strengthened by cross-bars resembling the spokes of a wheel. In the 
 second example (cut No. 285), the carriage bears some resemblance to a 
 modern omnibus. It is intended to represent the incident in Roman his- 
 tory, where the unfilial Tullia caused her charioteer to drive over the body 
 of her father, Servius Tullus, who had been slain by her husband Tarquin 
 the Proud. The ladies appear to sit on benches inside the carriage, while 
 the driver is mounted on the horse nearest to it. These carriages still 
 retained the name of carts, although they appear to have been used chiefly 
 on state occasions. Riding in them must have been very uneasy, and 
 they were exposed to accidents. When Richard II. made his grand 
 entry into London, a ceremony described by Richard de Maidstone in 
 
 No. 285. — Tullia Riding over her Father's Body. 
 
 Latin verse, the ladies of the court rode in two cars, or carts, one of 
 which fell over, and exposed its fair occupants in a not very decorous 
 manner to the jeers of the multitude. 
 
 As yet carriages seem not to have been used in travelling, which was 
 performed on horseback or on foot. During the century of which we 
 are speaking, especially after the accession of Henry VI. to the English 
 throne, the roads were extremely insecure, the country being infested by 
 such numerous bands of robbers that it was necessary to travel in con- 
 siderable companies, and well armed. From this circumstance, and 
 from the political condition of the age, the retinue of the nobility and 
 gentry presented a very formidable appearance ; and such as could only 
 afford to travel with one or two servants generally attached themselves 
 
TAVERNS AND THEIR FREQUENTERS. 
 
 443 
 
 to some powerful neighbour, and contrived to make their occasions of 
 locomotion coincide with his. We find several allusions to the dangers 
 of travelling in the Paston Letters. In a letter dated in 1455 or 1460 
 (it is uncertain which), Margaret Paston desires her husband, then in 
 London, to pay a debt for one of their friends, because on account of 
 the robbers who beset the road, money could not be sent safely from 
 Norfolk to the capital. A year or two 
 earlier, we hear of a knight of Suffolk 
 riding with a hundred horsemen, armed 
 defensively and offensively, besides the 
 accompaniment of friends. As tra- 
 velling, however, became frequent, it 
 led to the multiplication of places of 
 entertainment on the roads, and large 
 hostelries and inns were now scattered 
 pretty thickly over the country, not 
 only in all the smaller towns, but often 
 
 No. 286.— A Publican. 
 
 in villages, and sometimes even in comparatively lonely places. In' the 
 manuscript of the French Boccaccio in the Imperial Library (No. 6887), 
 there is a picture (copied in our cut No. 286) representing a publican 
 serving his liquor on a bench outside his door. 
 
 The tavern was the general lounge of the idle, and even of the indus- 
 trious during their hours of relaxation ; and in the towns a good part of 
 the male population who had not domestic establishments of their own 
 appear to have lived at the taverns and eating-houses, the allurements 
 of which drew them into every sort of dissipation, which ended in the 
 ruin of men's fortunes and health. The poet Occleve, in his reminis- 
 cences of his own conduct, describes the life of the riotous young men 
 of his time. The sign which hung at the tavern door, he says, was 
 always a temptation to him, which he could seldom resist. The tavern 
 was the resort of women of light character, and was the scene of brawls 
 and outrages ; by the former of which he was frequently seduced into 
 extravagant expenditure, but his want of courage, he confesses, kept him 
 out of the latter. Westminster gate was then celebrated for its taverns 
 and cooks' shops, at which the poet Occleve's lavishness made him a 
 welcome guest — ■ 
 
444 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 Wher was a gretter maister eek than y, 
 
 Or bet acqweyntid at Westmynster yate, 
 
 Among the taverneres namely (especially) 
 
 And cookes ? Whan I cam, eerly or late, 
 
 I pynchid nat at hem in myne acate (purchase of provisions), 
 
 But paied hem al that they axe wolde ; 
 
 Wherfore I was the welcomer algate {always), 
 
 And for a verray (true) gentilman yholde. 
 
 Here he spent his nights in such a manner that he went to bed later 
 than any of his companions, except perhaps two, whose time of going 
 to bed he says that he did not know, it was so late, but he asserts that 
 they loved their beds so well that they never left them till near prime, 
 or six o'clock in the morning, which thus appears, at the beginning of 
 the fifteenth century, to have been considered an excessively late hour 
 for rising. 
 
 The tavern was also the resort of women of the middle and lower 
 orders, who assembled there to drink, and to gossip. It has been 
 already stated that, in the mysteries, or religious plays, Noah was repre- 
 sented as finding his wife drinking with her gossips at the tavern when 
 he Wanted to take her into the ark. The meetings of gossips in taverns 
 form the subjects of many of the popular songs of the fifteenth and 
 sixteenth centuries, both in England and France. It appears that these 
 meetings of gossips in taverns were the first examples of what we now call 
 a pic-nic, for each woman took with her some provisions, and with these 
 the whole party made a feast in common. A song of perhaps the middle 
 of the fifteenth century, printed in my collection of "Songs and Carols," 
 edited for the Percy Society, gives us rather a picturesque description of 
 one of these gossip-meetings. The women, having met accidentally, the 
 question is put where the best wine was to be had, and one of them 
 replies that she knows where could be procured the best drink in the 
 town, but that she did not wish her husband to be acquainted with it — 
 
 I know a drawght of mery-go-downe, 
 The best it is in all thys towne ; 
 But yet wold I not, for my gowne, 
 My husbond it wyst, ye may me trust. 
 
 The place of meeting having thus been fixed, they are represented as 
 proceeding thither two and two, not to attract observation, lest their 
 husbands might hear of their meeting. "God might send me a stripe or 
 
GOSSIPING HABITS OF THE WOMEN. 445 
 
 two," said one, "if my husband should see me here." "Nay," said 
 Alice, another, " she that is afraid had better go home ; I dread no 
 man." Each was to carry with her some goose, or pork, or the wing of 
 a capon, or a pigeon pie, or some similar article — 
 
 And ich (each) off them wyll sumwhat bryng, 
 
 Gosse, pygge, or capons wyng, 
 
 Pastes off pigeons, or sum other thyng. 
 
 Accordingly, on arriving at the tavern, they call for wine " of the best," 
 
 and then — 
 
 Ech of them brought forth ther dysch ; 
 Sum brought flesh, and sume fysh. 
 
 Their conversation runs first on the goodness of the wines, and next on 
 the behaviour of their husbands, with whom they are all dissatisfied. 
 In one copy of the song, a harper makes his appearance, whom they 
 hire, and dance to his music. When they pay their reckoning, they 
 find, in one copy of the song, that it amounts to threepence each, and 
 rejoice that it is so little, while in another they find that each has to pay 
 sixpence, and are alarmed at the greatness of the amount. They agree 
 to separate, and go home by different streets, and they are represented 
 as telling their husbands that they had been to church. This is no 
 doubt a picture of a common scene in the fifteenth century. Among 
 the municipal records of Canterbury, there is preserved the deposition 
 of a man who appears to have been suspected of a robbery, and who, 
 to prove an alibi, describes all his actions during three days. On one 
 of these, Monday, he went after eight o'clock in the evening to a tavern, 
 and there he found "wyfes" drinking, "that is to say, Goddarde's wyfe, 
 Cornewelle's wyfe, and another woman," and he had a halfpennyworth 
 of beer with them. This was apparently at the beginning of the reign 
 of Henry VIII. 
 
 It has been intimated before, that literature and reading had now 
 become more general accomplishments than formerly. We can trace 
 among the records of social history a general spreading of education, 
 which showed an increasing intellectual agitation ; in fact, education, 
 without becoming more perfect, had become more general. I have 
 already given figures of the implements of writing at an earlier period. 
 In one of the compartments of the tapestry of " Nancy " (of the latter 
 
446 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 part of this century), engravings of which have been published by M. 
 
 Achille Jubinal, we have a figure of a scribe (cut No. 287) with all 
 
 his apparatus of writing, — the pen, the 
 penknife, and the portable pen-case with 
 ink-stand attached. But the most curious 
 article which this scribe has in use is a 
 pair of spectacles. Spectacles, however, we 
 know had been in existence long before 
 this period. A century earlier, Chaucer's 
 ^mmuL "Wife of Bath" observed rather senten- 
 tiously — 
 
 No 287. — A Scribe, in Spectacles, 
 from the Tapestry of Nancy. 
 
 Povert ful often, whan a man is lowe, 
 Maketh him his God and eek himself to knowe. 
 Povert a spectacle is, asthinketh me, 
 Thurgh which he may his verray frendes se. 
 
 Lydgate, addressing an old man who was on the point of marrying a 
 
 young wife, tells him to 
 
 Loke sone after a potent {staff) and spectacle ; 
 Be not ashamed to take hem to thyn ease. 
 
 John Baret, of Bury St Edmunds, in 1463, left by will to one of the 
 monks of Bury, his ivory tables (the tabulce. for writing on), and a pair of 
 spectacles of silver-gilt : — " Item : To daun Johan Janyng, my tablees 
 of ivory, with the combe, and a payre spectacles of silvir and ovir-'gilt." 
 This shows that already in the middle of the fifteenth century, a pair . 
 of spectacles was not an uncommon article. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 Changes in English Domestic Majtneis during the period between the 
 Reformation and the Commonwealth. — The Country Gentleman s 
 House. — Its Hall. — The Fireplace and Fire. — Utensils. — Cookery. — 
 Usual Hours for Meals. — Breakfast. — Dinner, and its Forms and 
 Customs. — The Banquet. — Custom of Drinking Healths. 
 
 THE Reformation brought with it, or at all events it was coeval with, 
 a general revolution in society. Although the nobility still kept 
 up much of their ancient state, feudalism was destroyed during the 
 reigns of the first two Tudors, while the lower and middle classes of the 
 population were rising in condition and in the consciousness of their 
 own importance, and with this rise came an increase of domestic com- 
 forts and social development. It was on the ruins of the monastic pro- 
 perty, confiscated by Henry VIII., that the English gentlemen gained 
 their highest position, and, by their independence of the old aristocracy, 
 they assisted in finally breaking its power, and thus gave a new character 
 to English society, which at the same time was experiencing influences 
 that came successively from without. Till the reign of Elizabeth, and 
 after her accession to the throne, there was a close connection with the 
 Netherlands and Germany, and we imported most of our novelties and 
 fashions from our Protestant neighbours on the Continent ; whilst, from 
 Elizabeth's reign onwards, and with little intermission to.the present time, 
 France has been our principal model for imitation. This is a point 
 which is the more necessary to be observed in treating of this subject, 
 because during the period between the Reformation and the Common- 
 wealth, the art of engraving in this country had been carried to little 
 perfection, and was comparatively rarely practised, and we are obliged 
 
448 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 to look for our pictoral illustrations of manners to the works of foreign 
 artists. 
 
 In towns, domestic architecture experienced no great change in the 
 course of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Small narrow streets, 
 with buildings chiefly of the class we term half-timber houses— the best 
 of which had their lower story of stone, while those above, each project- 
 
 No. 288. — Houses in the Streets of a Town, Fifteenth Century. 
 
 ing beyond the one below it, consisted of a timber framework filled up 
 with bricks — occupied the greater part of the town, and gave it a compact 
 appearance which was quite inconsistent with our modern notions of 
 sanitary arrangement. In the interior the rooms were generally small 
 and dark, but domestic comfort seems not to have been so much over- 
 looked as we are in the habit of supposing. Our cut No. 288, taken 
 from an engraving in the English edition of Barclay's " Ship of Fools," 
 i 57°j gives us a good representation of the general appearance of houses 
 
THE HALL LN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 449 
 
 in a town at that period. In the country a greater change had taken 
 place in all but the houses of the peasantry. The older castles had 
 become obsolete, and, with the increasing power and efficiency of the 
 laws, it was no longer necessary to consult strength before convenience. 
 The houses of the gentry were, however, still built of considerable ex- 
 tent, and during the sixteenth century the older domestic arrangements 
 were only slightly modified. Now, however, instead of seeking a strong 
 position, people chose situations that were agreeable and healthful, where 
 they might be protected from inclemency of weather, and where gardens 
 and^rchards might be planted advantageously. Thus, like the earlier 
 monastic edifices, a gentleman's house was built more frequently on low 
 ground than on a hill. 
 
 In the sixteenth century, the hall continued to hold its position as the 
 
 No. 289. — The " Hundred Men's Hall," at St Cross, near Winchester. 
 
 great public apartment of the house, and in its arrangements it still 
 differed little from those of an earlier date ; it was indeed now the only 
 part of the house which had not been affected by the increasing taste for 
 domestic privacy. We have many examples of the old Gothic hall in 
 this country, not only as it existed and was used in the sixteenth century, 
 but, in some cases, especially in colleges, still used for its original purposes. 
 
 2 F 
 
45° 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 One of the simplest, and at the same time best, examples is found in the 
 Hospital of St Cross, near Winchester, and a sketch of the interior, as 
 represented in our cut No. 289, will serve to give a general notion of the 
 arrangements of this part of the mansion in former days. As the hall was 
 frequently the scene of festivities of every description, a gallery for the 
 musicians was considered one of its necessary appendages. In some 
 cases, as at Madresfield in Worcestershire, a gallery ran round two or 
 more sides of the hall ; but generally the music-gallery occupied one 
 end of the hall, opposite the dais. Under it was a passage, separated 
 
 No. 290. — Fireplace in the Great Hall at Penshurst, Kent. 
 
 from the hall by a wooden screen, usually of panel-work, and having on 
 the opposite side the kitchen and buttery. In the large halls, the fire- 
 place still frequently occupied the centre of the hall, where there was a 
 small, low platform of stone. This is distinctly seen in the foregoing 
 view of the interior of the hall of St Cross. In our cut No. 290 we give 
 another example of this kind of fireplace, from the hall at Penshurst in 
 Kent, where it is still occupied by the iron dogs, or andirons, that sup- 
 ported the fuel. It may be observed that these latter, in the North of 
 England and in some other parts, were called cobirons. 
 
 The implements attached to the fireplace had hitherto been few in 
 number, and simple in character, but they now became more numerous. 
 
FIRE-IRONS. 45 1 
 
 In the inventories previous to the sixteenth century they are seldom 
 mentioned at all, and the glossaries speak only of tongs and bellows. 
 In the will of John Baret of Bury, made in 1463, " a payre of tongys and 
 a payre belwys " are mentioned. John Hedge, a large householder of 
 the same town in 1504, speaks of "spytts, rakks, cobernys, aundernnys, 
 trevettes, tongs, with all other iryn werkes moveabyll within my house 
 longying." This' would seem to show that cobirons and andirons were 
 not identical, and it has been supposed that the former denomination 
 belonged more particularly to the rests for supporting the spit. The 
 schoolmaster of Bury, in 1552, bequeathed to his hostess, "my cob- 
 bornes, the fire pany (? pan), and the tonges." If we turn to the North, 
 we find in the collection of wills published by the Surtees Society a 
 more frequent enumeration of the fire implements. William Blakeson, 
 prebendary of Durham, possessed in 1549 only "a payre of cobyrons 
 and one payre of tongys." In 1551, William Lawson, of Newcastle-on- 
 Tyne, had in his hall " one yryn chymney, and a poor, with one pake 
 of tonges," which are valued at the rather high sum of thirty shillings. 
 This is the first mention of the iron chimney, or grate, but it occurs con- 
 tinually after the middle of the sixteenth century. In 1557, the "iron 
 chymney " of the parish clerk of St Andrews in Newcastle was valued at 
 twenty shillings. The fire implements in the hall of the farm-house at 
 West Runcton, near Northallerton, in 1562, were "j. cryssett, ij. rachyn- 
 crokes, j. pair of tonges, one paire off cobyrons, j. speitt, one paire off 
 potes." We find the cresset frequently included among the implements 
 attached to the fireplace. The racking-crook was the pothook. In 
 1564, John Bynley, minor canon of Durham, had in his hall "one iron 
 chimney, with a bake (back), porre (a por, or poker), tongs, fier shoel 
 ( fire-shovel), spette (spit), and a littell rake pertening thereto." The 
 fire-irons in the hall of Margaret Cottam, widow, of Gateshead, in 1564, 
 were " one iron chimney, one porr, one payre of toynges, gibcrokes, 
 rakincroke, and racks." The gibcrokes was probably a sort of pothook 
 or jack. Nearly the same list of articles occurs frequently in subsequent 
 inventories. In 1567, a housekeeper of Durham had among other such 
 articles "a gallous (gallo7us) of iron, with iiij. crocks." The gallows 
 was, of course, the cross-bar of iron, which projected across the chimney, 
 and from which the crooks or chains with hooks at the end for sustain- 
 
452 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 ing pots were suspended ; as the gallows turned upon hinges, the pot 
 could be moved over the fire, or from it, at pleasure, without being taken 
 from the hook, and as the crooks, of which there were usually more 
 than one, were of different lengths, the pot might be placed lower to the 
 fire or higher from it, at will. From the character of some of these 
 
 No. 291. — Ornamental Fire-irons, Sixteenth Century. 
 
 adjuncts to the fireplace, it is evident that the hall fire was frequently 
 used for cooking. The sixteenth century was the period at which 
 ornamentation was carried to a very high degree in every description of 
 household utensil, and to judge from the valuation of some of these 
 articles in the inventories, they were no doubt of elegant or elaborate 
 work. Numerous examples of ornamental ironwork, specially applied 
 to fire dogs or andirons, will be found in Mr M. A. Lower's interesting 
 
FIRE-IRONS. 
 
 453 
 
 paper on the ironworks of Sussex; and many others, still more elabo- 
 rate, are preserved in some of our old gentlemen's houses in different 
 parts of the country ; but this ornamentation was carried to a far higher 
 degree in the great manufactories on the Continent, from whence our 
 countrymen in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries obtained a large 
 portion of their richer furniture. The figure in the middle of the group 
 of fire-irons represented in our cut No. 291, is an example of a fire-dog 
 of this elaborate description, preserved 
 in the collection of Count Brancaleoni, 
 in Paris, whence also the other articles 
 in the cut are taken. Most of them 
 explain themselves ; the implement 
 to the right is a somewhat singularly 
 formed pair of tongs; that immediately 
 beneath the fire-dog is an instrument 
 for moving the logs of wood which then 
 served as fuel. As a further example 
 of the remarkable manner in which 
 almost every domestic article was at this period adorned, we may point 
 out a box-iron, for ironing linen, &c. (cut No. 292), which is also pre- 
 
 No. 292. — A. Box-iron, Sixteenth Century. 
 
 No. 293. — Fireplace and Pothook. 
 
 served in one of the French collections; such an article was of course 
 not made to be exposed to the action of the fire, and this circumstance 
 
454 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 gave rise to the contrivance of forming it into a box, with a separate 
 iron which was to be heated and placed inside. 
 
 The fire-irons, as we find them enumerated in writings or pictured 
 in engravings, appear to have formed the same list, or nearly so, though 
 of course differing in form and ornament according to the varying 
 fashions of the day, until at a considerably later period they were reduced 
 to the modern trio of shovel, poker, and tongs. The single pothook, 
 with a contrivance for lengthening it and shortening it, is shown in our 
 cut No. 293, taken from one of the remarkable wood engravings in 
 
 No. 294. — The Fireplace and its uses. 
 
 No. 295. — A Cook cleaning his Dishes. 
 
 <; Der Weiss Konig," — a series of prints illustrative of the youthful life 
 of Maximilian I. of Germany, who ascended the imperial throne in 1493. 
 The engravings are of the sixteenth century, and the form of the fire- 
 place belongs altogether to the age of the Renaissance. The gallows, 
 with its pothooks or crokes of different lengths, appears in our cut No. 
 294, taken from Barclay's "Ship of Fools," the edition of 1570, though 
 the design is somewhat older. The method of attaching the crooks to 
 
THE FIREPLACE. 
 
 455 
 
 one side of the fireplace, when not in use, is exhibited in this engraving, 
 as also the mode in which other smaller utensils were attached to the 
 walls. In this latter instance there are no dogs or andirons in the fire- 
 place, but the pot or boiler is simply placed upon the fire, without other 
 support. There were, however, other methods of placing the pot upon 
 the fire ; and in one of the curious wooden sculptures in the church of 
 Kirby Thorpe, in Yorkshire, representing a cook cleaning his dishes, 
 the boiler is placed over the fire in a sort of four-legged frame, as repre- 
 sented in the preceding cut, No. 295. 
 
 Early in the seventeenth century the fireplace had taken nearly its 
 
 No. 296. — Frying Fritters. 
 
 present form, although the dogs or andirons had not yet been super- 
 seded by the grate, which, however, had already come into use. This 
 later form of the fireplace is shown in our cut No. 296, taken from one 
 of an interesting series of prints, executed by the French artist Abraham 
 Bosse in the year 1633. It represents a domestic party frying fritters 
 
456 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 in Lent. One of the dogs is seen at the foot of the opening of the 
 fireplace. 
 
 In the sixteenth century, the articles of furniture in the hall con- 
 tinued to be much the same as in the century preceding. It continued 
 to be furnished with hangings of tapestry, but they seem not always to 
 have been in use ; and they were still placed not absolutely against the 
 wall, but apparently at a little distance from it, so that people might 
 conceal themselves behind them. If the hall was not a very large one, 
 a table was placed in the middle, with a long bench on each side. 
 There was generally a cupboard, or a " hutch," if not more, with side 
 tables, one or more chairs, and perhaps a settle, according to the taste 
 or means oi the possessor. We hear now also of tables with leaves, 
 and of folding-tables, as well as of counters, or desks, for writing, and 
 dressers, or small cupboards. The two latter articles were evidently, 
 from their names, borrowed from the French. Cushions were also kept 
 in the hall, for the seats of the principal persons of the household, or 
 for the females. The furniture of the hall of William Lawson of New- 
 castle-upon-Tyne, in 155 1, consisted of one table of wainscot, valued 
 at twenty shillings ; two double counters, valued together at thirty shil- 
 lings ; a drawer and two forms, estimated at five shillings ; two cushions 
 and two chairs, also valued at five shillings ; five other cushions, valued 
 at twelve shillings ; two carpet cloths and a cupboard cloth, valued to- 
 gether at ten shillings ; and the hangings in the hall, estimated to be 
 worth fifty shillings. This seems to have been a very well furnished 
 hall ; that of Robert Goodchild, parish clerk of St Andrew's in New- 
 castle, in 1557, contained an almery (or large cupboard), estimated at 
 ten shillings ; a counter " of the myddell bynde," six shillings ; a cup- 
 board, three shillings and fourpence ; five basins and six lavers, eight 
 shillings ; seventeen " powder {pewter) doblers," seventeen shillings ; 
 six pewter dishes and a hand-basin, five shillings ; six pewter saucers, 
 eighteen pence ; four pottle pots, five shillings and fourpence ; three pint 
 pots and three quart pots, three shillings ; ten candlesticks, six shillings; 
 a little pestle and a mortar, two shillings ; three old chairs, eighteen- 
 pence ; six old cushions, two shillings ; and two counter-cloths. Much 
 of the furniture of English houses at this time was imported from 
 Flanders. Jane Lawson, in the year last mentioned, had in her hall at 
 
THE FURNITURE OF THE HALL. 457 
 
 Little Burdon in Northumberland, " Flanders counters with their car- 
 pets." She had also in the hall, a long side-table, three long forms and 
 another form, two chairs, three stools, six new cushions and three old 
 cushions, and an almery. The whole furniture of the hall of the rec- 
 tory-house of Sedgefield in Durham, which appears to have been a large 
 house and well entertained, consisted of a table of plane-tree with joined 
 frame, two tables of fir with frames, two forms, a settle, and a pair of 
 trestles. The hall of Bertram Anderson, a rich and distinguished mer- 
 chant and alderman of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, in 1570, was furnished 
 with two tables with the carpets {table covers), three forms, one dozen 
 cushions, half-a-dozen green cushions, one counter with the carpet, two 
 " basinges " (basins), and two covers, one chair, and one little chair. 
 This is a striking proof of the rarity of chairs even at this late date. 
 Buffet stools, which are supposed to be the stools with a flat top and a 
 hole in the middle through which the hand might be passed to lift them, 
 are also mentioned among the articles of furniture in the hall at this 
 period. The furniture of the hall at the manor-house of Croxdale, in 
 the county of Durham, in the year 157 1, consisted of one cupboard, 
 one table, two buffet stools, and one chair ; yet Salvin of Croxdale was 
 looked upon as one of the principal gentry of the Palatinate. In enum- 
 erating the furniture of the ancient hall, we must not forget the arms 
 which were usually displayed there, especially by such as had dependent 
 upon them a certain number of men whom it was their duty or their 
 pride to arm. The hall of a rich merchant of Newcastle, named John 
 Wilkinson, contained, in 1571, the following furniture: one almery, one 
 table of wainscot, one counter, one little counter, one dresser of wain- 
 scot, one " pulk," three chairs, three forms, three buffet stools, six 
 cushions of tapestry, six old cushions of tapestry, six green cushions, 
 two long carpet cloths, two short carpet cloths, one say carpet cloth, 
 the " hyngars" in the hall; on the almery head, one basin and ewer, one 
 great charger, three new " doblers," one little chest for sugar, and one 
 pair of wainscot tables ; and of arms, two jacks, three sallets of iron, 
 one bow and two sheaves of arrows, three bills, and two halberts. Some 
 of the entries in these inventories are amusing ; and, while speaking of 
 arms, it may be stated that a widow lady of Bury, Mary Chapman, who 
 would appear to have been a warlike dame, making her will in 1649, 
 
45 3 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 leaves to one of her sons, among other things, " also my muskett, rest, 
 bandileers, sword, and head-piece, my jacke, a fine paire of sheets, and 
 a hutche." In 1577, Thomas Liddell, merchant of Newcastle, had in 
 his hall, " three tables of waynscoot, sex qwyshons of tapestery, a cow- 
 borde, three wainscoot formes, two chayrs, three green table-clothes, 
 fower footstoles, sixe quyshons, two candlesticks, a louckinge glasse, sexe 
 danske pootts of powther [pewter), two basins, and two vewers (ewers), 
 a laver and a basinge, fyve buffatt stules." It is curious thus to trace 
 the furniture of the hall at different periods, and compare them with each 
 other ; and we cannot but remark from the frequency with which the 
 epithet old is applied to different articles, towards the end of the cen- 
 tury, that the hall was beginning rapidly to fall into disuse. The cause 
 of this was no doubt the increasing taste for domestic retirement, and 
 the wish to withdraw from the publicity which had always attended the 
 hall, and it gradually became the mere entrance-lobby of the house, the 
 place where strangers or others were allowed to remain until their pre- 
 sence had been announced, which is the sense in which we commonly use 
 the word "hall," as part of the house, at the present day. In the enum- 
 eration of the parts of a house given in the English edition of 
 Comenius's " Janua Linguarum," in the middle of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury, there is no mention of a hall. " A house," we are told in this 
 quaint book, " is divided into inner rooms, such as are the entry, the 
 stove, the kitchen, the buttery, the dining-room, the gallery, the bed- 
 chamber, with a privy made by it ; baskets are of use for carrying things 
 to and fro ; and chests (which are made fast with a key) for keeping 
 them. The floor is under the roof. In the yard is a well, a stable, and 
 a bath. Under the house is the cellar." 
 
 It has already been remarked that tables with leaves begin to be 
 mentioned frequently after the commencement of the sixteenth century. 
 Andrew Cranewise, of Bury, in 1558, enumerates "one cupborde in the 
 hall, one plaine table with one leafe." He speaks further on, in the same 
 will, of " my best folte (fold or folding) table in the hall, and two great 
 hutches." In 1556, Richard Claxton, of Old Park, in the county of 
 Durham, speaks of a " folden-table " in the parlours, which was valued 
 at two shillings. These folding-tables appear to have been made in a 
 great variety of forms, some of which were very ingenious. Our cut No. 
 
METHODS OF LIGHTING. 
 
 459 
 
 297 represents a very curious folding-table of the sixteenth century, which 
 was long preserved at Flaxton Hall, in Suffolk, but perished in the fire 
 when that mansion was burnt a few years ago. As represented in the 
 cut, which shows the table folded up so as to be laid aside, the legs pull 
 out, and the one to the right fits into the lion's mouth, where it is 
 secured by the pin which hangs beside it. 
 
 The methods of lighting the hall at night were still rather clumsy and 
 not very perfect. Of course, when the apartment was very large, a few 
 candles would produce comparatively little effect, and it was therefore 
 found necessary to use torches, and inflammable masses of larger size. 
 
 No. 297.— A Folding-Table. 
 
 One method of supplying the deficiency was to take a small pan, or port- 
 able fireplace, filled with combustibles, and suspend it in the place where 
 light was required. Such a receptacle was usually placed at the top of 
 a pole, for facility of carrying about, and was called a cresset, from an 
 old French word which meant a night-lamp. The cresset is mentioned 
 by Shakespeare and other writers as though it were chiefly used in 
 processions at night, and by watchmen and guides. The first figure in 
 our cut No. 298, taken from Douce's "Illustrations of Shakespeare," 
 represents one of the cressets carried by the marching watch of London 
 
460 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 in the sixteenth century. From the continual mention of the cresset 
 along with the fire-irons of the hall, in the wills published by the Surtees 
 Society, we can hardly doubt its being used, at least in the North of 
 England, for lighting the hall itself. An improvement of the common 
 cresset consisted in enclosing the flame, by whatever material it was fed, 
 in a case made of some transparent substance, such as horn, and thus 
 making it neither more nor less than a large lantern fixed on the end of 
 a pole. The form of this implement was generally globular, and, no 
 doubt from its appearance when carried in the night it was denominated 
 a. moon. The "moon "was borne by servants before the carriages of 
 their masters, to guide them along country lanes, and under other similar 
 circumstances. The second figure in our cut No. 298 represents a 
 
 No. 298. — Cresset and Moon. 
 
 "moon" which was formerly preserved at Ightham Moat House, in 
 Kent ; the frame was of brass, and the covering of horn. To assist in 
 lighting the hall, sometimes candlesticks were fixed to the walls round 
 the hall, and this perhaps will explain the rather large number of candle- 
 sticks sometimes enumerated among the articles in that part of the house. 
 In our cut No. 293, we have an example of a candlestick placed on a 
 frame, which, turning on a pivot or hinges, may be turned back against the 
 wall when not in use. 
 
 During the period of which we are now speaking, almost everything 
 connected with the table underwent great change. This was at least the 
 case with resrard to the hours of meals. The usual hour of breakfast was 
 
MEAL-HOURS. 461 
 
 seven o'clock in the morning, and seems scarcely to have varied. Dur- 
 ing the sixteenth century, the hour of dinner was eleven o'clock, or just 
 four hours after breakfast. "With us," says Harrison in his description 
 of England, prefixed to " Holinshed's Chronicle," "the nobilitie, gentrie, 
 and students (he means the Universities), doo ordinarilie go to dinner 
 at eleven before noone, and to supper at five, or between five and sixe, 
 at afternoone." Before the end of the century, however, the dinner 
 hour appears to have varied between eleven and twelve. In a book en- 
 titled the " Haven of Health," written by a physician named Cogan, and 
 printed in 1584, we are told : " When foure houres be past after breake- 
 fast, a man may safely take his dinner, and the most convenient time 
 for dinner is about eleven of the clocke before noone. The usual time 
 for dinner in the universities is at eleven, or elsewhere about noon." 
 In Beaumont and Fletcher, the hour of dinner was still eleven : " I 
 never come in to my dining-room," says Merrythought, in the " Knight 
 of the Burning Pestle," " but at eleven and six o'clock." " What hour 
 is 't, Lollis ? " asks a character in the " Changeling," by their contem- 
 porary Middleton. " Towards eating-hour, sir." " Dinner time ? thou 
 mean'st twelve o'clock." And other writers at the beginning of the 
 seventeenth century speak of twelve o'clock and seven as the hours of 
 dinner and supper. This continued to be the usual hour of dinner at 
 the close of the same century. 
 
 During the reign of Elizabeth, and afterwards, persons of both sexes 
 appear to have broken their fast in the same substantial manner as was 
 observed by the Percies at the beginning of the century, and as de- 
 scribed in a previous chapter 5 yet, though generally but four hours in- 
 terposed between this and the hour of dinner, people seem to have 
 thought it necessary to take a small luncheon in the interval, which, no 
 doubt from its consisting chiefly in drinking, was called a bever. " At 
 ten," says a character in one of Middleton' s plays, " we drink, that 's 
 mouth-hour ; at eleven, lay about us for victuals, that 's hand-hour ; at 
 twelve, go to dinner, that 's eating-hour." " Your gallants," says 
 Appetitus, in the old play of " Lingua," " never sup, breakfast, nor 
 bever without me." 
 
 The dinner was the largest and most ceremonious meal of the day. 
 The hearty character of this meal is remarked by a foreign traveller in 
 
THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 England, who published his " Memoires et Observations " in French 
 in 1698. " Les Anglois," he tells us, " mangent beaucoup a diner; ils 
 mangent a reprises, et remplissent le sac. Leur souper est leger. 
 Gloutons a midi, fort sobres au soir." In the sixteenth century, dinner 
 still began with the same ceremonious washing of hands as formerly ; 
 and there was considerable ostentation in the ewers and basins used for 
 this purpose. Our cut No. 299 represents ornamental articles of this 
 description, of the sixteenth century, taken from an engraving in Whit- 
 ney's " Emblems," printed in 1586. This custom was rendered more 
 
 necessary by the circumstance that 
 at table people of all ranks used 
 their fingers for the purposes to 
 which we now apply a fork. This 
 article was not used in England for 
 the purpose to which it is now ap- 
 -J plied until the reign of James I. It 
 is true that we have instances of 
 forks even so far back as the pagan 
 
 No. 299. — A Basin and Ewer, Sixteenth Century. 
 
 Anglo-Saxon period, but they are 
 often found coupled with spoons, and on considering all the circum- 
 stances, I am led to the conviction that they were in no instance used 
 for feeding, but merely for serving, as we still serve salad and other 
 articles, taking them out of the basin or dish with a fork and spoon. In 
 fact, to those who have not been taught the use of it, a fork must neces- 
 sarily be a very awkward and inconvenient instrument. We know that 
 the use of forks came from Italy, the country to which England owed 
 many of the new fashions of the beginning of the seventeenth century. 
 It is curious to read Coryat's account of the usage of forks at table as 
 he first saw it in that country in the course of his travels. " I observed," 
 says he, " a custome in all those Italian cities and townes through which 
 I passed, that is not used in any other country that I saw in my travels, 
 neither doe I thinke that any other nation of Christendome doth use it, 
 but only Italy. The Italian, and also most strangers that are com- 
 morant in Italy, doe alwaies at their meals use a little forke, when they 
 cut their meate. For while with their knife which they hold in one 
 hande they cut the meat out of the dish, they fasten their forke, which 
 
INTRODUCTION OF FORKS. 463 
 
 they hold in their other hande, upon the same dish, so that whatsoever 
 he be that sitting in the company of any others at meale, should un- 
 advisedly touch the dish of meate with his fingers, from which all at 
 the table do cut, he will give occasion of offence unto the company, as 
 having transgressed the laws of good manners, insomuch that for his error 
 he shall be at the least browbeaten, if not reprehended in wordes. This 
 forme of feeding I understand is generally used in all places of Italy, their 
 forkes being for the most part made of yron or Steele, and some of 
 silver, but those are used only by gentlemen. The reason of this their 
 curiosity is, because the Italian cannot by any means indure to have 
 his dish touched with fingers, seeing all men's fingers are not alike 
 cleane. Hereupon I myself thought good to imitate the Italian fashion 
 by this forked cutting of meate, not only while I was in Italy, but also 
 in Germany, and oftentimes in England since I came home ; being 
 once quipped for that frequent using of my forke by a certain learned 
 gentleman, a familiar friend of mine, one Mr Lawrence Whittaker, who 
 in his merry humour doubted not to call me at table furrifer, only for 
 using a forke at feeding, but for no other cause." Furrifer, in Latin, it 
 need hardly be observed, meant literally one who carries a fork, but its 
 proper signification was a villain who deserves the gallows. 
 
 The usage of forks thus introduced into England appears soon to 
 have become common. It is alluded to more than once in Beaumont 
 and Fletcher, and in Ben Jonson, but always as a foreign fashion. In 
 Jonson's comedy of " The Devil is an Ass," we have the following 
 
 dialogue : — 
 
 Ulcere. Have I deserv'd this from you two, for all 
 My pains at court to get you each a patent ? 
 
 Gilt. For what ? 
 
 Meerc. Upon my project o' the forks. 
 
 Sle. Forks ? What be they ? 
 
 Meerc. The laudable use of forks, 
 Brought into custom here, as they are in Italy, 
 To th' sparing o' napkins. 
 
 In fact the new invention rendered the washing of hands no longer so 
 necessary as before ; and though it was still continued as a polite form 
 before sitting down to dinner, the practice of washing hands after dinner 
 appears to have been entirely discontinued. 
 
 Our cut No. 300 taken from the English edition of the " Janua Lin- 
 
464 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 guarum" of Comenius, represents the forms of dining in England under 
 the Protectorate. It will be best described by the text which accom- 
 panies it in the book, and in which each particular object is mentioned. 
 " When a feast is made ready," we are told, " the table is covered with 
 a carpet and a table-cloth by the waiters, who besides lay the trenchers, 
 spoons, knives, with little forks, table-napkins, bread, with a salt-sellar. 
 Messes are brought in platters, a pie in a plate. The guests, being 
 brought in by the host, wash their hands, out of a laver or ewer, over a 
 hand-basin, or bowl, and wipe them with a hand-towel ; then they sit at 
 the table on chairs. The carver breaketh up the good cheer, and divid- 
 eth it. Sauces are set amongst roste-meat in sawsers. The butler 
 
 m& 
 
 No. 300. — A Dinner-Party in the Seventeenth Century. 
 
 filleth strong wine out of a cruse, or wine-pot, or flagon, into cups, or 
 glasses, which stand on a cup-board, and he reacheth them to the mas- 
 ter of the feast, who drinketh to his guests." It will be observed that 
 one salt-cellar is here placed in the middle of the table. This was the 
 usual custom ; and as one long table had been substituted for the several 
 tables formerly standing in the hall, the salt-cellar was considered to 
 divide the table into two distinct parts, guests of more distinction being 
 placed above the salt, while the places below the salt were assigned to 
 inferiors and dependants. This usage is often alluded to in the old 
 dramatists. Thus, in Ben Jonson, it is said of a man who treats his 
 inferiors with scorn, " he never drinks below the salt,''' i.e. he never ex- 
 changes civilities with those who sit at the lower end of the table. And 
 
A BANQUET IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. 465 
 
 in a contemporary writer, it is described as a mark of presumption in 
 an inferior member of the household " to sit above the salt." Our cut 
 No. 301, taken from an engraving by the French artist, Abraham Bosse, 
 published in 1633, represents one of the first steps in the laying out of the 
 
 No. 301. — Laying out the Dinner-table, 1633. 
 
 dinner-table. The plates, it will be seen, are laid, and the salt-cellar 
 
 is duly placed in the middle of the table. The servant is now placing 
 
 the napkins — 
 
 The pages spread a table out of hand, 
 
 And brought forth nap'ry rich, and plate more rich. 
 
 — Harrington's Ariosto, Ixii. 71. 
 
 The earlier half of the sixteenth century was the period when the 
 pageantry of feasting was carried to its greatest degree of splendour. In 
 the houses of the noble and wealthy, the dinner itself was laid out with 
 great pomp, was almost always accompanied with music, and was not 
 unfrequently interrupted with dances, mummings, and masquerades. A 
 picture of a grand feast carried on in this manner is given in one of the 
 illustrations to the German work on the exploits of the Emperor Maxi- 
 milian, published at the time under the title of " Der Weiss Konig." 
 An abridged copy of this engraving is given in our cut No. 302. The 
 table profusely furnished, the rich display of plate on the cupboards, the 
 band in front, and the mummers entering the hall, are all strikingly 
 characteristic of the age. The dresser, or cupboard, was now one of 
 the great means of display among the higher orders of society, who 
 invested vast wealth in its furniture, consisting of vessels made of the 
 
 2 G 
 
466 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS, 
 
 precious metals and of crystal, sometimes set with precious stones, and 
 often adorned with the most beautiful sculpture, or moulded into singu- 
 lar or elaborate forms. So much attention was given to the. arrange- 
 ment of the plate on the dresser, and to the ceremonies attending it, 
 that it was made a point of etiquette how many steps, or gradations, 
 
 No. 302. — Mummers at a Feast. 
 
 on which the rows of plate were raised one above another, members of 
 each particular rank of society might have on their cupboards. Thus, 
 a prince of royal blood only might have five steps to his cupboard ; four 
 were allowed to nobles of the highest rank, three to nobles under that 
 of duke, two to knights-bannerets, and one to persons who were merely 
 
ORNAMENTAL PLATE. 467 
 
 of gentle blood. These rules, however, were probably not universally 
 obeyed. It was the duty of the butler to have charge of the plate in 
 the hall, and his station there was usually at the side of the cupboard, 
 as in the engraving taken from "Der Weiss Konig " (No. 302). Com- 
 paratively few examples of the domestic plate of an early period have 
 survived the revolutions of so many ages, during which they were often 
 melted for the metal, and those which remain are chiefly in the posses- 
 sion of corporations or public bodies ; but several fine collections of 
 the ornamental plate of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries have been 
 made, and among these one of the best and most interesting is that of 
 the late Lord Londesborough.* 
 
 A dinner scene on a smaller scale is represented in our next cut (No. 
 303), copied from one in which Albert Diirer represents Herodias 
 dancing and performing before Herod at his solitary meal. This 
 pageantry at dinner was succeeded, and apparently soon superseded, 
 in the higher society by masques after dinner, which continued to be 
 very fashionable until the breaking out of the civil commotions in the 
 middle of the seventeenth century. During the period of the Pro- 
 tectorate and the Commonwealth the forms of eating and drinking 
 were much simplified, and all that expensive ostentation, which had 
 arisen in the high times of feudal power, and had become burdensome 
 to the aristocracy after it had been weakened by the reigns of the 
 Tudors, disappeared. 
 
 The regular order of service at dinner seems to have been still three 
 courses, each consisting of a number and variety of dishes, according 
 to the richness of the entertainment. To judge from the early cookery 
 books, which have been described in a former chapter, our ancestors, 
 previous to the sixteenth century, in the better classes of society, were 
 not in the habit of placing substantial joints on the table, but instead 
 
 * The reader who wishes for further information on the ornamental plate of the 
 Middle Ages, and especially of the age of the Renaissance and succeeding period, 
 may consult with advantage Lord Londesborough's handsome and valuable volume, 
 the "Miscellanea Graphica," and the "Illustrated Descriptive Catalogue of the 
 Collection of' Antique Silver Plate formed by Albert, Lord Londesborough, now 
 the property of Lady Londesborough," printed by her ladyship for private distribu- 
 tion ; the latter of which contains no less than a hundred and fourteen examples of 
 ornamental plate excellently engraved by Mr Fairholt, among which are several fine 
 examples of the nef, or ship. 
 
468 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 of them had a great variety of made dishes, a considerable proportion of 
 which were eaten with a spoon. At the tables of the great, there was 
 a large attendance of servants, and the guests were counted off, not, as 
 before, in couples, but in fours, each four being considered as one 
 party, under the title of a mess, and probably having a dish among 
 them, and served by one attendant. This custom is often alluded to in 
 the dramatists, and it is hardly necessary to observe that it was the origin 
 
 No. 303. — Herodias dancing before Herod. 
 
 of our modern term in the army. The plate, as well as the porcelain 
 and earthenware, used at table during the greater part of this period, 
 was so richly diversified, that it would require a volume to describe it, 
 nor would it be easy to pick out a small number of examples that might 
 illustrate the whole. Our cut No. 304 represents a peculiar article 
 of this period, which is not undeserving of remark, two knife-cases, 
 made of leather, stamped and gilt. 
 
 From what has been said, it will be seen that our popular saying of 
 
TABLE SERVICE OF THE LOWER CLASSES. 
 
 469 
 
 " the roast beef of old England," is not so literally true as we are 
 accustomed to suppose. While, however, the style of living we have 
 been describing prevailed generally among the higher ranks and the 
 
 No. 304. — Knife-cases. 
 
 richer portion of the middle classes, particularly in towns, that of the 
 less affluent classes remained simple and even scanty, and a large 
 portion of the population of the country pro- 
 bably indulged in fresh meat only at inter- 
 vals, or on occasions when they received it 
 in their lord's kitchen or hall. A few plain 
 jugs, such as those represented in our cut No. 
 305, taken from a wooden sculpture in the 
 church of Kirby Thorpe, in Yorkshire, with 
 platters or trenchers in pewter or wood, formed 
 the whole table service of the inferior classes. 
 It was the revolution in the middle of the 
 seventeenth century which first abolished this 
 extravagant ostentation, and brought into 
 fashion a plainer table and more substantial 
 meats. A foreigner, who had been much in 
 England in the latter part of the seventeenth century, and published his 
 observations in French at the Hague in 1698, tells us that the English 
 of that period were great eaters of meat — " I have heard," says he, " of 
 
 No. 305. — Drinking Vessels. 
 
470 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 many people in England who have never eaten bread, and ordinarily 
 they eat very little ; they nibble sometimes a little bit, while they eat 
 flesh by great mouthfuls. Generally speaking, the tables are not 
 served with delicacy in England. There are some great lords who 
 have French and English cooks, and where you are served much 
 in the French fashion ; but among persons of the middle condition 
 of which I am speaking, they have ten or twelve sorts of common 
 meat, which infallibly come round again in their turns at different 
 times, and of two dishes of which their dinner is composed, as 
 for instance, a pudding, and a piece of roast beef. Sometimes they 
 will have a piece boiled, and then it has always lain in salt some days, 
 and is flanked all round with five or six mounds of cabbage, carrots, 
 turnips, or some other herbs or roots, seasoned with salt and pepper, 
 with melted butter poured over them. At other times they will have 
 a leg of mutton, roasted or boiled, and accompanied with the same 
 delicacies ; poultry, sucking-pigs, tripe, and beef tongues, rabbits, 
 pigeons, all well soaked with butter, without bacon. Two of these 
 dishes, always served one after the other, make the ordinary dinner 
 of a good gentleman, or of a good burgher. When they have boiled 
 meat, there is sometimes somebody who takes a fancy to broth, which 
 consists of the water in which the meat has been boiled, mixed with a little 
 oatmeal, with some leaves of thyme, or sage, or other such small herbs. 
 The pudding is a thing which it would be difficult to describe, on account 
 of the diversity of sorts. Flour, milk, eggs, butter, sugar, fat, marrow, 
 raisins, &c, are the more common ingredients of a pudding. It is 
 baked in an oven ; or boiled with the meat ; or cooked in fifty other 
 fashions. And they are grateful for the invention of puddings, for it 
 is a manna to everybody's taste, and a better manna than that of the 
 desert, inasmuch as they are never tired of it. Oh ! what an excellent 
 thing is an English pudding ! To come in pudding time, is a proverbial 
 phrase, meaning, to come at the happiest moment in the world. Make 
 a pudding for an Englishman, and you will regale him, be he where he 
 will. Their dessert needs no mention, for it consists only of a bit of 
 cheese. Fruit is only found at the houses of great people, and only 
 among few of them." The phrase, " to come in pudding time," occurs 
 as early as the beginning of the seventeenth century. 
 
A SUMPTUOUS BANQUET. 471 
 
 The absence of the dessert at the English table, of which the writer 
 just quoted complains, arose from the abandonment in the middle of the 
 seventeenth century of an old custom. In the earlier part of that century 
 and in the century previous, when the company rose from the dinner- 
 table, they proceeded to what was then called the banquet, which was 
 held in another apartment, and often in an arbour in the garden, or, as it 
 was called, the garden-house. The banquet of an earlier period, the 
 fifteenth century, was, as we have already seen, a meal after supper. In 
 Massinger's play of the " City Madam," a sumptuous dinner is described 
 as follows : — 
 
 The dishes were raised one upon another, 
 
 As woodmongers do billets, for the first, 
 
 The second, and third course ; and most of the shops 
 
 Of the best confectioners in London ransack'd 
 
 To furnish out a banquet. 
 
 In another of Massinger's dramas, one of the characters says : — 
 
 We '11 dine in the great room, but let the musick 
 And banquet be prepared here. 
 
 It appears, therefore, that the banquet was often accompanied with 
 music. At the banquet the choice wines were brought forth, and the 
 table was covered with pastry and sweetmeats, of which our forefathers at 
 this period appear to have been extremely fond. A usual article at the 
 banquet was marchpanes, or biscuits made of sugar and almonds, in 
 different fanciful forms, such as men, animals, houses, &c. There was 
 generally one at least in the form of a castle, which the ladies and gentle- 
 men were to batter to pieces in frolic, by attacking it with sugar-plums. 
 Taylor, the water-poet, calls them — 
 
 Castles for ladies, and for carpet knights, 
 
 Unmercifully spoil'd at feasting fights, 
 
 Where battering bullets are fine sugared plums. 
 
 On festive occasions, and among people who loved to pass their time at 
 table, the regular banquet seems to have been followed by a second, or, as 
 it was called, a rere-banquet. These rere-banquets are mentioned by the 
 later Elizabethan writers, generally as extravagances, and sometimes with 
 the epithet of " late," so that perhaps they took the place of the soberer 
 supper. People are spoken of as partaking " somewhat plentifully 
 
472 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 of wine " at these rere-banquets. The rere-supper was still in use, and 
 appears also to have been a meal distinguished by its profusion both in 
 eating and drinking. It was from the rere-supper that the roaring-boys, 
 and other wild gallants of the earlier part of the seventeenth century, 
 sallied forth to create noise and riot in the streets. 
 
 One of the great characteristics of the dinner-table at this period was 
 the formality of drinking, especially that of drinking healths, so much 
 cried down by the Puritans. This formality was enforced with great 
 strictness and ceremony. It was not exactly the modern practice of giving 
 a toast, but each person in turn rose, named some one to whom he indi- 
 vidually drank (not one of the persons present), and emptied his cup. 
 " He that begins the health," we are told in a little book published in 
 1623, ".first uncovering his head, he takes a full cup in his hand, and 
 setting his countenance with a grave aspect, he craves for audience; 
 silence being once obtained, he begins to breathe out the name, per- 
 adventure, of some honourable personage, whose health is drunk to, and 
 he that pledges must likewise off with his cap, kiss his fingers, and bow 
 himself in sign of a reverent acceptance. When the leader sees his 
 follower thus prepared, he sups up his broth, turns the bottom of the cup 
 upward, and, in ostentation of his dexterity, gives the cup a phillip to 
 make it cry twango. And thus the first scene is acted. The cup being 
 newly replenished to the breadth of a hair, he that is the pledger must 
 now begin his part ; and thus it goes round throughout the whole com- 
 pany." In order to ascertain that each person had fairly drunk off his 
 cup, in turning it up he was to pour all that remained in it on his nail, 
 and if there were too much to remain as a drop on the nail without 
 running off, he was made to drink his cup full again. This was termed 
 drinking on the nail, for which convivialists invented a mock Latin 
 phrase, and called it drinking saper-nagulum, or sufier-naculum. 
 
 This custom of pledging in drinking was as old as the times of the 
 Anglo-Saxons, when it existed in the "wass heil," and " drinc heil," 
 commemorated in the story of the British Vortigern and the Saxon 
 Rowena, and it is alluded to in several ballads of the fourteenth and 
 fifteenth centuries, as in that of "King Edward and the Shepherd," 
 where the man who drinks pledges his companion with the word " passe- 
 lodion," and the other replies by " berafrynde," and in that of " The 
 
DRINKING HEALTHS. 473 
 
 Kyng and the Hermyt," where the words of pledging and reply are 
 " fusty bandyas," and " stryke pautnere." Both these ballads are printed 
 in Hartshorne's " Ancient Metrical Tales." The drinking of the health 
 of absent individuals appears to have been introduced at a later period, 
 and was carried to its greatest degree of extravagance on the Continent. 
 The person whose health a man gave was usually expected to be his 
 mistress ; and in France he was expected, in doing this, to drink as many 
 times his glass or cup full of wine as there were letters in her name. 
 Thus, in Ronsard's " Bacchanales," the gallant drinks nine times to his 
 mistress Cassandre, because there were nine letters in her name— 
 
 Neuf fois, au nom de Cassandre, 
 
 Je vois prendre 
 Neuf fois du vin du flacon ; 
 Affin de neuf fois le boire 
 
 En memoire 
 Des neuf lettres de son nom. 
 
 And a less celebrated poet, of a rather later date, Guillaume Colletet, in 
 a piece entitled " Le Trebuchement de lTvrongne," printed at Paris in 
 1627, introduces one of his personages drinking six times to his mistress, 
 because her name was Cloris — 
 
 Six fois je m'en vas boire au beau nom de Cloris, 
 Cloris, le seul desir de ma chaste pensee. 
 
 The manner of pledging at table, as it still existed in England, is 
 described rather ludicrously in the "Memoires d'Angleterre," of the 
 year 1698, already quoted. "While in France," the author says, "the 
 custom of drinking healths is almost abolished among people of any 
 distinction, as being equally importunate and ridiculous, it exists here in 
 all its ancient force. To drink at table, without drinking to the health 
 of some one in especial, among ordinary people, would be considered 
 as drinking on the sly, and as an act of incivility. There are in this 
 proceeding two principal and singular grimaces, which are universally 
 observed among people of all orders and all sorts. It is, that the person 
 to whose, health another drinks, if he be of inferior condition, or even 
 equal, to that of him who drinks, must remain as inactive as a statue 
 while the drinker drinks. If, for instance, he is in the act of taking 
 something from a dish, he must suddenly stop, return his fork or spoon 
 
474 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 to its place, and wait, without stirring more than a stone, until the other 
 has drunk ; after which, the second grimace is to make him an iriclinabo; 
 at the risk of dipping his periwig in the gravy in his plate. I confess 
 that, when a foreigner first sees these manners, he thinks them laughable. 
 Nothing appears so droll as to see a man who is in the act of chewing 
 a morsel which he has in his mouth, of cutting his bread, of wiping his 
 mouth, or of doing anything else, who suddenly takes a serious air, when 
 a person of some respectability drinks to his health, looks fixedly at this 
 person, and becomes as motionless as if a universal paralysis had seized 
 him, or he had been struck by a thunderbolt. It is true that, as good 
 manners absolutely demand this respectful immobility in the patient, it 
 requires also a little circumspection in the agent. When any one will 
 drink to the health of another, he must fix his eye upon him for a 
 moment, and give him the time, if it be possible, to swallow his morsel." 
 It is hardly necessary to observe that this custom is the origin of our 
 modern practice of " taking wine " with each other at table, which is 
 now also becoming obsolete. 
 
CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 Household Furniture. — The Parlour. — The Chamber. 
 
 AS social peace and security became more established in the country, 
 people began to be more lavish in all the articles of house- 
 hold furniture, which thus became much more numerous during the 
 period of which we are now treating. It also went through its fashions 
 and its changes, but in the progress of these changes, it became less 
 ponderous and more elegant. Until the middle of the sixteenth century, 
 and perhaps later in some parts of the island, where social progress was 
 slower, the old arrangements of a board laid upon trestles for a table 
 still prevailed, though it was gradually disappearing ; and, although the 
 term of "laying" the board in a literal sense was no longer applicable, 
 
 No. 306.— Table of Sixteenth Century. 
 
 it has continued to be used figuratively, even to our own times. Richard 
 Kanam, of Soham, in the county of Cambridge, whose will was proved 
 so late as the 12th of April 1570, left, among other household furniture, 
 " one table with a payer of tressels, and a thicke forme." The first step 
 
476 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 in the change from tables of this kind appears to have been to fix the 
 trestles to the board, thus making it a permanent table. The whole 
 was strengthened by a bar running from trestle to trestle, and orna- 
 mental wood-work was afterwards substituted in place of the trestles. 
 A rather good example of a table of this description is given in the cut 
 on the preceding page (No. 306), taken from that well-known publi- 
 cation, the " Stultifera Navis " of Sebastian Brandt. This, however, was 
 a clumsy construction, and it soon gave way to the table with legs, the 
 latter being usually turned on the lathe, and sometimes richly carved. 
 This carving went out of use in the unostentatious days of the Common- 
 wealth and the Protectorate, to make way for plain table legs, and it 
 never quite recovered its place. 
 
 We have seen already that in the latter part of the previous century, 
 in the chairs and stools, the joinery work of Flanders was taking the 
 
 No. 307. — Henry VIIT.'s Chair. 
 
 place of the older rude and clumsy seats. This taste still prevailed in 
 the earlier half of the sixteenth century, and a large proportion of the 
 furniture used in this country, as well as of the earthenware and other 
 household implements, during the greater part of that century, were 
 imported from Flanders and the Netherlands. Hence, in the absence 
 
CHAIRS AND COUCHES. 
 
 477 
 
 No. 308. — Chair of Duke de Nivernois. 
 
 of engravings at home, we are led to look at the works of the Flemish 
 and German artists for illustrations of domestic manners at this period. 
 The seats of the description just 
 mentioned were termed joint (or 
 joined) stools or chairs. A rather 
 fine example of a chair of this work, 
 which is, as was often the case, three- 
 cornered, is preserved in the Ash- 
 molean Museum at Oxford, where 
 it is reported to have been the chair 
 of Henry VIII., on what authority 
 I know not. It is represented in 
 our cut No. 307. These "''joined" 
 chairs and stools were laid aside for 
 furniture of a more elegant form, 
 which was used during the reign of 
 Elizabeth and her immediate suc- 
 cessors, and of which examples are so common that it is hardly necessary 
 to give one here. This fashion appears to have been brought from 
 France. An example of rather peculiar style is given in our cut No. 
 308, taken from a picture executed in 1587, representing Louis de Gon- 
 zagues, Duke of Nivernois. 
 
 Hitherto the cushions were merely adjuncts to the chairs, but by 
 another advance in convenience the cushion was soon made as a part of 
 the chair or stool, which at the same time became simpler in form again. 
 Our cut No. 309, taken from one of the prints of Abraham Bosse, dated 
 in 1633, represents the general character of the chairs and stools used 
 in France at that date, as they are drawn in the works of this artist, and 
 also the manner in which they were arranged round a room when not 
 in use. On the left appears the end of a cushioned bench, which was 
 generally of the length of two or three stools, and appears as a common 
 article of furniture. Among other articles of furniture now introduced 
 was the couch, or, as we should call it, the sofa. This was called, in 
 the age of Shakespeare, a day-bed, and appears to have been in some 
 discredit, as an article indicating excess of luxury. Large cupboards, 
 usually termed court-cupboards, and often very richly carved, were 
 
478 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 now in general use, for containing, under lock and key, the plate and 
 other valuables. In allusion to the carvings on these cupboards, which 
 usually consisted of faces more or less grotesque, and not very artificially 
 executed, Corbet, in his " Iter Boreale," speaks of a person — 
 
 . With a lean visage, like a carv'd face 
 On a court-cupboard. 
 
 The sixteenth century was especially the age of tapestries, and no 
 gentleman could consider his rooms furnished if they wanted these 
 important adjuncts. They were now elaborately worked into great 
 historical pictures, sacred or profane, or mythological or other subjects, 
 to suit the varieties of tastes. Sir John Elyot, in his " Governor," re- 
 
 No. 309. — Stools and Chairs of the age of Charles I. 
 
 minds his readers that " semblable decking oughte to bee in the house 
 of a noblemanne, or man of honoure ; I meane concerning ornaments 
 of hall and chambers in arras, painted tables, and images concernynge 
 historyes, wherein is represented some monument of vertue most cun- 
 ningly," &c. At the commencement of the seventeenth century this 
 practice was already beginning to go out of fashion, and it was not long 
 afterwards that it was entirely laid aside : and the walls were again 
 covered with panels, or painted, or whitewashed, and adorned with pic- 
 tures. In our last cut (No. 309) of the date of 1633, we see the walls 
 thus decorated with paintings. 
 
 The rapid social revolution which was now going on, gradually pro- 
 
THE PARLOUR AND ITS FURNITURE. 
 
 479 
 
 No. 310. — A Chandelier of the Sixteenth 
 Century. 
 
 duced changes in most of the articles of domestic economy. Thus, the 
 old spiked candlestick >vas early in 
 the century superseded by the 
 modern socket candlestick. The 
 chandelier represented in our cut 
 No. 310, taken from one of Albert 
 Diirer's prints of the " Life of the 
 Virgin," published in 1509, in its 
 spikes for the candles and its other 
 characteristics, belongs to a ruder 
 and earlier style of household furni- 
 ture, and has nothing in common 
 with the rich chandeliers which now 
 began to be used. 
 
 The parlour appears in the six- 
 teenth century to have been a room the particular use of which was in a 
 state of transition. Subsequently, as domestic life assumed greater 
 privacy than when people lived publicly in the hall, the parlour became 
 the living room ; but in the sixteenth century, though in London it was 
 already used as the dining-room, in the country it appears to have been 
 considered as a sort of amalgamation of a store-room and a bedroom. 
 This is best understood from the different inventories of its furniture 
 which have been preserved. In 1558, the parlour of Robert Hyndmer, 
 rector of Sedgefield, in the county of Durham, contained — " a table 
 with a joined frame, two forms, and a carpet; carved cupboards; a plain 
 cupboard ; nine joined stools; hangings of tapestry; and a turned 
 chair." In the parlour at Hilton Castle, in the same county, in 1559, 
 there were — " one iron chimney, two tables, one counter, two chairs, 
 one cupboard, six forms, two old carpets, and three old hangings." In 
 1564, Margaret Cottom, a widow of Gateshead, had in her parlour — 
 " one inner bed of wainscot, a stand, a bed, a presser of wainscot, three 
 chests, a Dantzic coffer ; " a considerable quantity of linen and cloth of 
 different kinds, and for different purposes ; " tallow candles, and wooden 
 dishes, a feather bed, a bolster, and a cod (pillow), two coverlets, two 
 happyings {coverlets of a coarser kind), three blankets, three cods {pillows), 
 with an old mattress ; five cushions, a steel cap, and a covering ; a tin 
 
480 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 bottle, a cap-case with a lock." In the house of William Dalton, a 
 wealthy merchant of Durham, in 1556, the parlour must have been very- 
 roomy indeed to contain all the " household stuff " which it holds in the 
 inventory, namely, " a chimney, with a pair of tongs ; a bedstead close 
 made ; a feather-bed, a pair of sheets, a covering of apparels, an ' ovese ' 
 bed, a covering wrought of silk ; a cod {pillow), and a pillow-bere ; a 
 trundle-bed, a feather-bed, a twilt {quilt), a happing {coverlet), and a 
 bolster ; a stand-bed, a feather-bed, a mattress, a pair of blankets, a red 
 covering, a bolster, and curtains ; eight cods, and eight pillow-beres ; 
 seven pair of linen sheets ; eight pair of strakin {a sort 0/ kersey) sheets ; 
 six pair of harden {hemperi) sheets ; thirteen yards of diaper tabling ; ten 
 
 No. 311. — A Dying Man and his Treasures. 
 
 yards and a half of table-cloth ; twenty-one yards of towelling ; four 
 hand towels ; two dozen napkins ; five pillow-beres ; two head sheets ; 
 a pair of blankets ; two ' overse ' beds, and three curtains ; a cupboard ; 
 a table, with a carpet ; a counter, with a carpet ; a Dantzic chest ; a 
 bond chest ; a bond coffer ; an ambry ; a long settle, and a chair ; 
 three buffet stools ; a little stool ; two forms ; red hangings ; a painted 
 cloth ; three chests ; a stand-bed, a pair of blankets, two sheets, a 
 covering, and two cods; an 'ambre call.'" In 1567, the parlour at 
 Beaumont Hill, a gentleman's house in the north, contained the follow- 
 ing furniture : — " One trundle-bed, with a feather-bed ; two coverlets, a 
 bolster, two blankets, two carpet table-cloths, two coverlets, one presser, 
 
THE FURNITURE OF A BED-CHAMBER. 
 
 481 
 
 a little table, one chest, three chairs, and three forms." In other in- 
 ventories, down to the end of the century, we find the parlour con- 
 tinuing to be stored in this indiscriminate manner. 
 
 This period also differs from former periods in the much greater 
 number of beds, and greater abundance of bed-furniture, we find in the 
 houses. We have often several beds in one chamber. Few of the 
 principal bedrooms had less than two beds. The form of the bedstead 
 was now almost universally that with four posts. Still in the engravings 
 of the sixteenth century, we find the old couch-bed represented. Such 
 appears to be the bed in our cut No. 311, taken from Whitney's " Em- 
 blems," an English book printed in Leyden at 1586. We have here 
 
 No. 312. — A Bed-chamber and its Furniture. 
 
 another, and rather a late example, of the manner in which money was 
 hoarded up in chests in the chambers. The couch-bed is still more 
 distinctly shown in our cut No. 312, taken from Albert Durer's print of 
 St Jerome, dated in 15 n. This print is remarkable for its detail of the 
 furniture of a bed-chamber, and especially for the manner in which the 
 various smaller articles are arranged and suspended to the walls. Not 
 
 2 H 
 
482 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 No. 313. — A Time-piece, &c. 
 
 the least remarkable of these articles is the singular combination of a 
 clock and an hour-glass, which is placed against the wall as a time- 
 piece. This seems, however, to have been not uncommon. A time- 
 piece of the same kind is represented in our cut No. 313, which is 
 taken from a print of St Jerome at prayer, by Hans Springen Kelle, 
 without date, but evidently belonging to the earlier half of the sixteenth 
 century. The method of suspending or attaching to the walls the 
 
 smaller articles in common use, such as 
 scissors, brushes, pens, papers, &c, is here 
 the same as in the former. Our next cut 
 (No. 314), from a print by Aldegraver, 
 dated in 1553, represents evidently a large 
 four-posted bedstead, which is remarkable 
 for its full and flowing curtains. The 
 plate appears here to be kept in the bed- 
 chamber. Chests, cupboards, presses, 
 &c, become now very numerous in the 
 bedrooms, and Ave begin to meet with 
 tables and chairs more frequently. In 1567, the principal chamber in 
 the house of Mrs Elizabeth Hutton, at Hunwick, contained the follow- 
 ing articles : — " In napery, in linen sheets, sixteen pair ; certain old 
 harden {Jmnfieii) sheets, and sixteen pillowberes (pillotv-cases) ; two 
 Dantzic chests, a little chest bound with iron, a candle-chest, and 
 another old chest ; a press with two floors and five doors ; a folding- 
 table, seven little cushions, and two long cushions of crool {a sort of fine 
 worsted) wrought with the needle, and a carpet cloth that is in working 
 with crools for the same ; six feather beds, with six bolsters, and a 
 coarse feather-bed tick ; eight mattresses, and nine bolsters ; twelve 
 pillows, twelve pair of blankets, and six happings ; twenty coverlets, 
 three coverings for beds of tapestry, and two of dornix {Tournay); a 
 carpet cloth of tapestry work, five yards long, and a quarter deep ; five 
 standing-beds, with cords ; two testers with curtains of saye, and two 
 testers with curtains of crool." In the principal chamber in the house 
 of Lady Catherine Hedworth, in 1568, the following furniture is 
 enumerated : — " One trussing-bed, one feather-bed, one pair of blankets, 
 one pair of sheets, one bolster, one pillow with a housewife's covering, 
 
THE FURNITURE OF THE BED-CHAMBER. 
 
 483 
 
 four pillows, two Flanders chests, one almery, two cupboards, three 
 coffers, two cupboard stools, three buffet forms, one little buffet stool, 
 two little coffers, five mugs, three old cushions." The principal cham- 
 ber of Thomas Sparke, suffragan Bishop of Berwick, whose goods were 
 appraised in 1572, was furnished with the following articles: — "A 
 stand-bed, with a testron of red saye and fringe, and a truckle-bed ; a 
 Cypres chest, a Flanders chest, a desk, three buffet stools ; the said 
 chamber hung with red saye." At Crook Hall, in the suburbs of 
 
 No. 314. — A Bed of the Sixteenth Century. 
 
 Durham, in 1577, the principal chamber contained three beds ; another 
 chamber contained four beds; and a third two' beds. These lists 
 furnish good illustrations of the various prints from which we have 
 already given some sketches. 
 
 Our cut No. 315 represents the usual form of the bedstead in the 
 seventeenth century, and the process of " making " the bed ; it is taken 
 from a print by the French artist, Abraham Bosse, of the date 1631. 
 Another of his prints, of the same date, has furnished us with a sketch of 
 
4 8 4 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 a bedroom party (cut No. 316), which is no inapt illustration of domestic 
 
 No. 315. — A Bed of the Seventeenth Century. 
 
 manners in the seventeenth century. It represents a custom which pre- 
 
 No. 316. — A Bedroom Party. 
 
 vailed especially in France. A woman, after childbirth, kept her room 
 
A SINGULAR CUSTOM. 485 
 
 in state, and with great ceremony, and received there daily her female 
 acquaintances, who passed the afternoon in gossip. This practice, and 
 especially the conversation which took place at it, were frequent sub- 
 jects of popular satire, and formed the groundwork of one of the most 
 celebrated books of the reign of Louis XIIL, entitled " Les Caquets de 
 l'Accouche'e," first published in 1622. An edition of this curious satire 
 has been recently published by M. Ed. Fournier, in the introduction to 
 which, as well as in the text, the reader will find abundant information 
 on this subject. 
 
CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 Occupations of the Ladies. — Games and Enjoyments. — Roughness of 
 English Sports at this Period. — The Hothouses, or Baths. — The 
 Ordinaries. — Domestic Pets. — Treatment of Children. — Methods of 
 Locomotion. — Conclusion. 
 
 ^RING the period at which we are now arrived, almost all the 
 relations of domestic life underwent a great change, and nothing 
 hardly could produce a wider difference than that between the manners 
 and sentiments of the reign of Henry VII. , and those of that of Charles 
 II. This was especially observable in the occupations of the female sex, 
 which were becoming more and more frivolous. In the earlier portion 
 of the period referred to, women in general were confined closely to 
 their domestic labours, in spinning, weaving, embroidering, and other 
 
 work of a similar kind. A hand- 
 loom was almost a necessary article 
 of furniture in a well - regulated 
 household, and spinning was so uni- 
 versal an occupation, that we read 
 sometimes of an apartment in the 
 house set apart for it — a family 
 spinning-room. Even to this pre- 
 sent day, in legal language, the only 
 occupation acknowledged, as that 
 of an unmarried woman, is that of 
 a spinster. Our cut (No. 317) re- 
 presents a party of ladies at their domestic labours ; it is taken from 
 Israel van Mechelin's print of " The Virgin ascending the Steps of the 
 Temple," where this domestic scene is introduced in a side compart- 
 
 No. 317. — Ladies at Work: 
 
GAMBLING. 
 
 487 
 
 ment. Two are engaged at the distaff, the old poetical emblem ot the 
 sex. Another is cutting out the cloth for working, with a pair of shears 
 of very antiquated form. The shape of the three-cornered joined chair 
 in this group is worthy of remark. The female in our cut No. 318 is 
 also seated in a chair of rather peculiar construction, though it has oc- 
 curred before at an earlier period (cut No. 255, p. 385), and we meet 
 with it again in our next cut (No. 319). It is what was sometimes 
 called a folding-chair. This cut is taken from one of the illustrations 
 to the English edition of Erasmus's " Praise of Folly," printed in 1676, 
 
 No. 318. — A Lady at the Loom. 
 
 but it is a copy of the earlier originals. The great weaving establish- 
 ments in England appear to have commenced in the sixteenth century, 
 with the Protestant refugees from France and the Netherlands. 
 
 The old domestic games continued to be practised in the middle and 
 upper classes of society, although they were rather extensively super- 
 seded by the pernicious rage for gambling which now prevailed through- 
 out English society. This practice had been extending itself ever since 
 the beginning of the fifteenth century, and had been accompanied with 
 another evil practice among the ladies, that of drinking. It need hardly 
 be observed that these two vices furnished constant themes to the 
 dramatists and satirists of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries ; the 
 example set by the court under James I. caused them to increase 
 greatly, and they rose to the highest pitch of extravagance under 
 
THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 Charles II. Barclay's " Ship of Fools " (the early English edition) has 
 furnished us with the group of female gamesters represented in our cut 
 No. 319. It will be seen that the ladies are playing with cards and dice, 
 
 No. 319. — A Party of Ladies, 
 
 and that the ale jug is introduced as an accompaniment. In fact we 
 must look upon it as a tavern-party, and the round table, as far as we 
 
 No. 320. — A Gamblers' Dispute. 
 
 can judge, appears to be fixed in the ground. The same book furnishes 
 us with an illustration (cut No. 320), in which two gamblers are quarrel- 
 ling over a game at backgammon. A child is here the jug-bearer or 
 
GAMBLING. 
 
 489 
 
 guardian of the liquor. Our cut No. 321 represents a gambling scene 
 
 No. 321. — A Party at Dice. 
 
 of a rather later period, taken from Whitney's " Emblems," printed in 
 1586 ; dice are here the implements of play. 
 
 No. 322. — A Gambling-party of the Sixteenth Century. 
 
 A very curious piece of painted glass in the possession of Mr 
 
49° 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 Fairholt, of German manufacture, and forming part, apparently, of a 
 series illustrative of the history of the Prodigal Son, represents a party 
 of gamblers, of the earlier part of the sixteenth century, who are playing 
 with two dice. It is copied in our cut No. 322. The original bears 
 the inscription, " Jan Van Hassell Tryngen sin hausfrau" with a mer- 
 chant's mark and the date 1532. Three dice, however, continued to be 
 used long after this date, and are, from time to time, alluded to during 
 the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 
 
 I have, in a former chapter, traced the history of playing-cards down 
 to the latter half of the fifteenth century. After that time, they are 
 frequently mentioned. They formed the common amusement in the 
 
 No. 323. — Cards early in the Sixteenth Century. 
 
 courts of Scotland and England under the reigns Henry VII. and 
 James IV. ; and it is recorded that when the latter monarch paid his first 
 visit to his affianced bride, the young Princess Margaret of England, 
 " he founde the quene playing at the cardes." 
 
 In Germany at this time card-playing was carried to an extravagant 
 degree, and it became an object of attack and satire to the reformers 
 among the clergy. Our cut No. 323 represents a German card-party 
 in a tavern, taken from an early painted coffer in the Museum of Old 
 German Art at Nuremberg. The design of the cards is that of packs 
 of fancifully ornamented cards made in Germany at the close of the 
 fifteenth century. The German satirists of that age complain that the 
 
CARDS AND DICE. 491 
 
 rage for gambling had taken possession of all classes of society, and 
 levelled all ranks, ages, and sexes ; that the noble gambled with the 
 commoner, and the clergy with the laity. Some of the clerical refor- 
 mers declared that card-playing as well as dice was a deadly sin, and 
 others complained that this love of gambling had caused people to 
 forget all honourable pursuits. The clergy, moreover, complained that 
 it acted upon people's tempers, and that it had greatly increased the 
 prevalence of the sin of blasphemy. 
 
 A similar outcry was raised in our own country ; and a few years later 
 ii arose equally loud. A short anonymous poem on the ruin of the 
 realm, belonging apparently to the earlier part of the reign of Henry 
 VIII. (MS. Harl. No. 2252, fol. 25, v°), complains of the nobles and 
 
 gentry — 
 
 Before thys tyme they lovyd for to juste, 
 
 And in shotynge chefely they sett ther mynde, 
 And ther landys and possessyons now sett they nioste, 
 And at cardes and dyce ye may them ffynde. 
 
 " Cardes and dyce " are from this time forward spoken of as the great 
 blot on contemporary manners ; and they seem for a long time to have 
 driven most other games out of use. Roy, in his remarkable satire 
 against Cardinal Wolsey, complains that the bishops themselves were 
 addicted to gambling— 
 
 To play at the cardes and dyce 
 Some of theym are no thynge nyce, 
 Both at hasard and mom-chaunce. 
 
 The rage for cards and dice prevailed equally in Scotland. Sir David 
 Lindsay's Popish parson, in 1535, boasts of his skill in these games — 
 
 Thoch I preich nocht, I can play at the caiche ; 
 I wot there is nocht ane amang yow all 
 Mair ferylie can play at the fute-ball ; 
 And for the cartis, the tabels, and the dyse, 
 Above all parsouns I may beir the pryse. 
 
 The same celebrated writer, in a poem against Cardinal Beaton, repre- 
 sents that prelate as a great gambler — 
 
 In banketting, playing at cartis and dyce, 
 Into sic wysedome I was haldin wyse, 
 And spairit nocht to play with king nor knicht 
 Thre thousand crownes of golde upon ane night. 
 
492 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 Though gardening and horticulture in general, as arts, were under- 
 going considerable improvement during this period, the garden itself 
 appears to have been much more neglected, except as far as it was the 
 scene of other pastimes. A bowling-green was the most important part 
 of the pleasure-garden in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries ; and 
 bowls, and exercises of a similar character, were the favourite amuse- 
 ments of all classes. The gardens themselves, which were apart from 
 the house, and made more retired by lofty walls inclosing them, were 
 usually adorned with alcoves and summer-houses, or, as they were then 
 more usually termed, garden-houses, but these were chiefly celebrated, 
 especially in the seventeenth century, as places of intrigue. There are 
 continual allusions to this usage in the popular writers of the time. 
 Thus, one of the personages in Beaumont and Fletcher's "Woman- 
 Hater " exclaims, " This is no garden-house : in my conscience she went 
 forth with no dishonest intent." And, in the play of the " Mayor of 
 Quin sborough, " — 
 
 Poor soul, she 's entic'd forth by her own sex 
 To be betray'd to man, who in some garden-house, 
 Or remote walk, taking his lustful time, 
 Binds darkness on her eyes, surprises her. 
 
 A character in another old play, " The London Prodigal," seeking em- 
 ployment of a rather equivocal character, says, " Now God thank you, 
 sweet lady, if you have any friend, or garden-house, where you may 
 employ a poor gentleman as your friend, I am yours to command in all 
 secret service." 
 
 Amid the gaiety which was so especially characteristic of this age, a 
 spirit of vulgar barbarity had arisen and^ spread itself very widely, and 
 the popular games most practised were in general coarse and cruel. A 
 foreign writer already quoted, but one who was evidently a very unpre- 
 judiced observer, has left us some rather amusing remarks on this subject 
 which are worthy of being repeated. " The English," he says, " have 
 games which are peculiar to them, or at least which they affect and 
 practise more than people do elsewhere. To see cocks fight is a royal 
 pleasure in England. Their combats of bulls and dogs, of bears and 
 dogs, and sometimes of bulls and bears, are not combats to the last 
 gasp, like those of cocks. Everything that is called fighting is a deli- 
 
THE ENGLISH LOVE OF A FAIR FIGHT. 493 
 
 cious thing to an Englishman. If two little boys quarrel in a street, the 
 passers stop, make in a moment a ring round them, and encourage them 
 to settle it by blows of the fist. If it comes to fighting, each takes off 
 his cravat and his jacket, and gives them in charge to one of the com- 
 pany ; then begin the blows of the fist, in the face if possible, the blows 
 of the foot on their shins, the pulling of one another by the hair, &c. 
 The one who has knocked the other down, may give him one blow or 
 two when he is down, but no more, and every time the one who is down 
 will rise, the other must return to the combat as long as he pleases. 
 During the combat, the circle of spectators encourage the combatants 
 to the great joy of their hearts, and never separate them, so long as 
 things are done according to rule. And these spectators are not only 
 other children, and street porters, but all sorts of respectable people, 
 some of whom make their way through the crowd to see nearer, others 
 mount upon the shops, and all would pay for places, if stages could be 
 built up in a moment. The fathers and mothers of the little boys who 
 are fighting look on like the others, and encourage the one who gives 
 way, or is wanting in strength. These kind of combats are less frequent 
 among grown-up men than among children, but they are not uncommon. 
 If the driver of a hackney-coach has a dispute about his fare, with a 
 gentleman whom he has carried, and the gentleman offers to settle the 
 dispute by fighting, the coachman agrees to it willingly. The gentle- 
 man takes off his sword, disposes of it in some shop, with his walking- 
 stick, his gloves, and his cravat, and fights in the manner I have 
 described. If the coachman is well beaten, which is almost always the 
 case, he is considered as paid ; but if he beats, he who is beaten must 
 pay the sum that was in question, and that which caused the quarrel. 
 I once saw the late Duke of Grafton fighting in the open street in the 
 middle of the Strand with a coachman, whom he thrashed in a terrible 
 manner. In France, we treat such kind of people with blows of a stick, 
 or, sometimes, of the flat of the sword ; but in England that is never 
 done; they never use a sword or stick against those who are not similarly 
 armed ; and if any unlucky foreigner (for it would never come into the 
 mind of an Englishman) should strike with the sword any one who had 
 not got one, it is certain that in an instant a hundred persons would 
 fall upon him, and perhaps beat him so that he would never recover. 
 
494 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 Wrestling is also one of the diversions of the English, especially in the 
 northern provinces. Ringing the bells is one of their great pleasures, 
 especially in the country ; there is a way of doing it, but their peal is 
 quite different from those of Holland and the Low Countries. In winter 
 football is a useful and charming exercise ; it is a ball of leather, as 
 large as a man's head, and filled with wind ; it is tossed with the feet 
 in the streets. To expose a cock in a place, and kill it at a distance 
 of forty or fifty paces with a stick, is also a very diverting thing ; but 
 this pleasure only belongs to a certain season. This also is the case 
 with the dances of the milkwomen, with the throwing at one another of 
 tennis-balls by girls, and with divers other little exercises." Such was 
 the rude character of the amusement of all classes of our population 
 during the seventeenth century. 
 
 The ladies still had their household pets, though they varied some- 
 times in their character, which perhaps arose in some measure from 
 the circumstance that the discovery of or increased communication 
 with distant countries, brought the knowledge of animals and birds 
 which were not so well known before. Thus, in the sixteenth century, 
 monkeys appear to have been much in fashion as domestic favourites, 
 and we not unfrequently find them in prints in attendance upon ladies. 
 Since the discovery of the West Indies, and the voyages of the Portu- 
 guese to the coast of Africa, parrots had become much more common 
 than formerly. In pictures of the period of 
 which we are speaking, we often find these, as 
 well as smaller domestic birds, in cages of various 
 forms. In our cut No. 324, taken from Whit- 
 ney's " Emblems " (printed in 1585), we have a 
 parrot in its cage, and a small bird (perhaps 
 meant for a canary), the latter of which is draw- 
 No. 3,4-Birds and Birdcage. ™g up its water to drink in a manner which 
 has been practised in modern times, and sup- 
 posed to be a novelty. It is very unsafe indeed to assume that any 
 ingenious contrivances of this kind are modern, for we often meet with 
 them unexpectedly at a comparatively early date. 
 
 With the multiplicity of new fashions in dress now introduced, the 
 work of the toilette became much greater and more varied, and many 
 
HOTHOUSES. 
 
 495 
 
 customs were introduced from France, from Italy, and from the East. 
 Among customs derived from the latter quarter, was the introduction of 
 the eastern hot and sweating baths, which became for a considerable 
 period common in England. They were usually known by the plain 
 English name of hothouses, but their eastern origin was also sometimes 
 indicated by the preservation of their Persian name of hummums. This 
 name is still retained in London by the two modern hotels which occupy 
 the sites of establishments of this description in Covent Garden. Sweat- 
 ing in hothouses is spoken of by Ben Jonson; and a character in the old 
 play of "The Puritan," speaking of a laborious undertaking, says, "Marry, 
 it will take me much sweat; I were better go to sixteen hothouses." They 
 
 No. 325. — A Hothouse. 
 
 seem to have been mostly frequented by women, and became, as in the 
 East, favourite places of rendezvous for gossip and company. They were 
 soon used to such an extent for illicit intrigues, that the name of a hot- 
 house or bagnio became equivalent to that of a brothel; and this circum- 
 stance probably led eventually to their disuse. A very rare and curious 
 broadside woodcut of the reign of James I., entitled "Tittle-tattle, or the 
 Several Branches of Gossiping," which in different compartments repre- 
 sents pictorially the way in which the women of that age idled away their 
 time, gives in one part a sketch of the interior of a hothouse, which is 
 copied in our cut No. 325. In one division of the hothouse the ladies 
 are bathing in tubs, while they are indulging themselves with an abun- 
 
496 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 dance of very substantial dainties ; in the other, they appear to be still 
 more busily engaged in gossip. The whole broadside is a singularly 
 interesting illustration of contemporary manners. A copy of it will be 
 found in the print-room of the British Museum ; and it may be remarked 
 (which I think has not been observed before), that it is copied from a 
 large French etching of about the same period, a copy of which is in the 
 print department of the National Library in Paris. 
 
 This is sufficient to show the close resemblance at this time between 
 manners in France and in England. In the former country, the resort 
 of women in company to the hot-baths is not unfrequently alluded to, 
 and their behaviour and conversation there are described in terms of 
 satire which cannot always be transferred to our modern pages. In 
 these popular satires, the bathers are sometimes chambrieres, and at 
 others good bourgeoises. The picnics, which had formerly taken place 
 at the tavern, were now transferred to the hot-bath, each of a party of 
 bathers carrying some contribution to the feast, which they shared in 
 common. Thus, in the popular piece entitled " Le Banquet des Cham- 
 brieres fait aux Estuves," printed in 15 41, it is the chamber-maidens 
 who go to the bath, and they begin immediately to produce their con- 
 tributions, one exclaiming — 
 
 j'ay du pore frais, 
 
 Une andouille et quatre saulcices. 
 
 To which a second adds,— - 
 
 j'aye une cottelette, 
 
 Qui le ventre quasi m'eschaulde. 
 And a third, — 
 
 Moy, un paste a sauce chaulde. 
 
 The women are seen eating their picnic feast in one compartment of 
 our cut. This practice soon passed from the servant maids of the 
 bourgeoisie to their mistresses, and from the burghers' wives to ladies of 
 higher condition. Our word picnic, representing the French fiiquenique, 
 the origin or derivation of which word seems not to be clearly known, 
 appears to have come into use at the latter end of the last century, 
 when people of rank formed evening parties at which they joined in 
 such picnic suppers, to which each brought his or her contribution. 
 
ORDINARIES. 
 
 497 
 
 The term is now applied almost solely to such collations in the fields 
 or in the open air. 
 
 We have already seen how, at an earlier period, men of a superior 
 rank in Loudon, and probably in at least the larger country towns, lived 
 much in the taverns and cooks' shops, or eating-houses. This practice 
 continued, and underwent various modifications, the principle of which 
 was the establishment of houses where a public table was served at 
 fixed hours, at which a gentleman could take his place on payment of 
 a certain sum, much in the same style as our modern tables d'hote. 
 Gradually these establishments became gambling-houses, and men 
 settled down after dinner to cards, dice, and other games. They were 
 called ordinaries, and in the reign of Elizabeth they had become an im- 
 
 No. 326. — Swaddling a Child. 
 
 portant part of the social system. It was here that people went to hear 
 the news of the day, or the talk of the town ; and to frequent the ordin- 
 ary became gradually considered as a necessary part of the education 
 of a gentleman of fashion. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, 
 the usual price of an ordinary appears to have been two shillings ; but 
 there were ordinaries at eighteen-pence, and at some fashionable ordin- 
 aries the price was much higher. 
 
 The general treatment of children, their costume, and their amuse- 
 ments, remained much as formerly, and closely resembled those of France 
 and Germany as they were then, and as they have existed in some 
 parts even to our own days. The pernicious practice of swathing or 
 swaddling the child as soon as it was born prevailed everywhere, and 
 
 2 I 
 
498 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 the infant was kept in this condition until it became necessary to teach 
 it the use of its limbs. The process of swaddling is shown in our cut No. 
 326, taken from one of the prints by Bosse, published in 1633, which 
 furnish such abundant illustration of contemporary manners. The period 
 during which boys were kept in petticoats was very short, for at a very 
 early age they were dressed in the same dress as grown-up people, like 
 little miniature men. Our only representatives of the appearance of little 
 boys in the sixteenth century are found in one or two old educational 
 establishments, such as the Blue-Coat School in London. The costume 
 of a child during the short transition period between his swathes and 
 his breeches is represented in our cut No. 327, of a boy riding upon his 
 wooden horse. It is taken from a German woodcut of the date of 
 
 1549- 
 In the sixteenth century little improvement had taken place in the 
 
 means of locomotion, which was still 
 performed generally on horseback. 
 Coaches, by that name, are said to 
 have been introduced into England 
 only towards the middle of the six- 
 teenth century. They were made in 
 various forms and sizes, according to 
 fashion or caprice, and, as already 
 stated, towards the end of the century 
 they were divided into two classes, 
 known by the foreign names of coaches 
 and earaches. The latter appear to have been larger and clumsier than 
 the former, but to have been considered more stately j and from the 
 old play of " Tu Quoque," by Green (a drama of Elizabeth's reign), we 
 learn that it was considered more appropriate to the town (and probably 
 to the court) while the coach was left to the country :— 
 
 Nay, for a need, out of his easy nature, 
 May' st draw him to the keeping of a coach 
 For country, and carroch for London. 
 
 Our cut No. 328, taken from a contemporary painting, represents the 
 carriage of a lady of rank, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. It is no 
 
 No. 327. — A Boy a-cock-horse. 
 
COACHES. 
 
 499 
 
 doubt a coach, as the caroch is spoken of as drawn by six horses. The 
 latter seems soon to have gone out of use, but the coach, under different 
 forms, has remained in use and retained its name to the present time. 
 
 No. 328. — A Lady's Coach in Elizabeth's time. 
 
 Ben Jonson, in his comedy of " The Devil is an Ass," gives us a 
 great notion of the bustle attending a caroch : — 
 
 Have with them for the great caroch, six horses, 
 And the two coachmen, with my ambler bare, 
 And my three women. 
 
 Coaches of any kind, however, were evidently not in very common use 
 until after the beginning of the seventeenth century. Women in general, 
 
 No. 329. — Riding on a Pillion. 
 
 at least those who were not skilful horsewomen, when the distance or 
 any other circumstance precluded their going on foot, rode on a pillion 
 
500 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 or side-saddle behind a man, one of her relatives or friends, or some- 
 times a servant. The preceding cut (No. 329) represents a couple 
 thus mounted, the lady holding in her hand the kind of fan which was 
 used at the period. From a comparison of the figure of the Anglo- 
 Saxon ladies on horseback, who were evidently seated in the saddle as 
 in a chair, sideways to the horse, we are led to suppose that the Anglo- 
 Saxon lady's saddle, and probably the saddle for females in general 
 .during the Middle Ages, was the same as that which was known in the 
 sixteenth and seventeenth centuries by the name of a pillion. The 
 rider placed her feet usually on a narrow board, which was called in 
 
 No. 330. — A Lady carried in her Chair. 
 
 French the planchette. It is evident that a woman could not be very 
 solidly seated in this manner, and not only did she want the command 
 over the horse which would enable her to take part in any very active 
 exercises, but it was considered almost necessary to place a man on a 
 saddle before her. We have, accordingly, seen that, from a very early 
 period, when engaged in hunting and in any sort of active riding, the 
 lady used a saddle, as at present, in which she raised one leg over a 
 part of the saddle-bow, made for that purpose, and placed the other 
 foot in the stirrup, by which she obtained a firm seat, and a command 
 over the horse. Different writers have ascribed, without any reason, 
 the introduction of this mode of riding for ladies to various individuals, 
 and Brantome seems to have thought that this practice was first brought 
 
COACHES. 
 
 501 
 
 into fashion by Catherine de Medicis. The cut No. 329 is taken from a 
 drawing in the curious Album of Charles de Bousy, containing dates 
 from 1608, to 1638, and now preserved among the Sloane Manuscripts 
 (No. 3415) in the British Museum; and the same manuscript has 
 also furnished us with the cut (No. 330) of a lady of rank carried 
 in her chair, with her chair-bearers and attendants. Ladies, and 
 especially persons suffering from illness, were often carried in horse- 
 litters, and there are instances of chairs mounted somewhat like the 
 one here represented, and carried by horses. The first attempt towards 
 the modern gig or cabriolet appears to have been a chair fixed in a cart, 
 something in the style of that represented in our cut No. 331, which in 
 
 No. 331.— A Mediaeval Cabriolet. 
 
 its ornamentation has a very mediaeval character, although it is given as 
 from a manuscript in the National Library in Paris (No. 6808), of the 
 beginning of the sixteenth century. 
 
 The close of the period of which we are here speaking introduces us 
 to one in which the manners and customs of our forefathers were less 
 widely different from those of our own days ; and the history of domestic 
 manners since that time, characterised less by broad outline of the 
 general features in its revolutions than by a gradual succession of minute 
 changes and fashions which must be traced from day to day, is less 
 capable of being treated in the comprehensive style of these pages. 
 Having now, therefore, brought down our sketch of the history of the 
 
5<32 
 
 THE HOMES OF OTHER DAYS. 
 
 domestic manners of our forefathers to the middle of the seventeenth 
 century, we shall here, for the reason just stated, conclude it, and 
 leave to some worthier labourer, or to some future occasion, the task of 
 tracing more minutely the history of domestic manners and sentiments 
 during the period which followed the Middle Ages. 
 
INDEX 
 
 A. 
 
 Adulteration of food, 403. 
 
 Ale, Welsh, 39, 44. 
 
 Ale-house, roadside, 331, 332. 
 
 Ale-stake, 332. 
 
 Ale-wife, the, 347. 
 
 Amphitheatres, Roman, in Britain, 77, 
 78, 125. 
 
 Amusements of the Anglo-Saxons, 76. 
 
 domestic, 118. 
 
 out-of-doors, 125 ; after-dinner, 
 
 211, 24O. 
 
 Animals, domestic, and pets, 252-257. 
 
 Archery, a favourite amusement among 
 the ladies, 321 ; practised generally, 
 440. 
 
 Architecture, domestic, of the Anglo- 
 Normans, 95, 96. 
 
 Axes, Anglo-Saxon, 21. 
 
 B 
 
 Backgammon, the game of, 235. 
 
 Bacon, the principal flesh eaten by the 
 Anglo-Saxons, 37. 
 
 Bagpipe, 201, 202, 204. 
 
 Ball, playing with the, 248. 
 
 Bankers, 373. 
 
 Banking in the Middle Ages, 276. 
 
 Banquet, the meal, 397, 401, 403. 
 
 Barnwell, near Cambridge, the fair of, 80. 
 
 Bathing, the practice of, 271. 
 
 Bear, dancing, antiquity of this exhibiton 
 in England, 78, 315, 3 16. 
 
 Bed-chambers and their furniture, 124, 
 125, 268, 415, 481-485. 
 
 Beds, 124, 270, 411-415. 
 
 Anglo-Saxon, 59, 60 ; Anglo- 
 Norman, 123. 
 
 Bee-hives, 103. 
 
 Beggars, 338, 339. 
 
 Bellows, 163. 
 
 Benches for sitting, 158. 
 
 Beowulf, the poem of, 14, 15. 
 
 Bever, a meal, 404. 
 
 Beverley, the sculptured minstrels at, 
 
 208. 
 Bibblesworth, Walter de, his Vocabulary, 
 
 61. 
 Birds, tamed, different kinds of, 252, 253, 
 
 394, 494- 
 Birmingham, origin of the name, 3. 
 Blood, aristocratic, belief concerning it, 
 
 292. 
 Bourgeoisie, their mode of living, 188- 
 
 190. 
 Bourne Park, near Canterbury, 21. 
 Bower, the chamber, Anglo-Saxon, 22. 
 Bows and arrows, 126, 127. 
 Boxing, English, 493. 
 Box-iron, ornamented, 453. 
 Bread, Anglo-Saxon forms of, 40. 
 Breakfast among the Anglo-Normans, 
 
 106. 
 Breakfasts of the Peixy family, 429. 
 Buckets, Anglo-Saxon, 20. 
 Buffet, 389. 
 
 ■ for the plate, 373. 
 
 Bull-baiting, 316. 
 
 Bur (bower), the Anglo-Saxon name of 
 
 the chamber, 4, 12, 14, 22. 
 
 Cabinets, 259. 
 
 Cabriolet, origin of the, 501. 
 
 Ca^dmon, the poet, 45. 
 
 Caer Caradoc, the mountain, 7. 
 
 Caldron, forms of the, 163-166. 
 
 Candlebeam, or chandeliers, 386, 3S7. 
 
506 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Candles, 57, 58, 120, 121, 123, 262, 263, 
 264, 386. 
 
 Candlesticks in the fifteenth century, 386 ; 
 in the sixteenth century, 479. 
 
 Cards, the game of, its history, 236-239, 
 490, 491. 
 
 Caroches, a kind of coach, 498, 499. 
 
 Carole, the dance, 242. 
 
 Carriages, 441, 499. 
 
 for travelling, 86. 
 
 Cart or car, the Anglo-Saxon, 85. 
 
 Cats, their character, 256, 257. 
 
 Cellarer, the office of, 155. 
 
 Chairs, 52, 53, 107. 
 
 Chairs and stools, their forms, 385. 
 
 of the sixteenth century, 476, 477. 
 
 for carrying persons, and chair- 
 bearers, 500, 501. 
 
 Chamber, the, 4, 14, 22, 25, 51, 61, 142. 
 
 the women's room, 145. 
 
 and its furniture and uses, in early 
 
 English times, 257-259, 272-275, 408, 
 409, 480, 481. 
 
 manners of the, 286. 
 
 Chambrieres, or chamber maidens, 290. 
 
 Chandeliers, 386, 479. 
 
 Char, the carriage, 326, 327. 
 
 Chariot, Anglo-Saxon, 86. 
 
 Chedder, King Edward's hunting party 
 there, 81, 82. 
 
 Cheminee (the fire-place), 96. 
 
 Cherries, cultivated by the Anglo-Saxons, 
 95 ; and generally in England during 
 the Middle Ages, 310, 311. 
 
 Cherry-fairs, 310. 
 
 Chess, the game of, 52, 119, 120, 211-228. 
 
 Chests, 122, 138, 274-280, 480. 
 
 Children, Anglo-Saxon, without clothing 
 when young, 57 ; their treatment, 61, 
 63,411. 
 
 Chimneys, 112. 
 
 Church Stretton, 8. 
 
 Churning, 305. 
 
 Cittern, the musical instrument, 202, 203. 
 
 Clergy, Anglo-Saxon, addicted to hunt- 
 ing, 81 ; corrupters of domestic man- 
 ners in the Middle Ages, 294. 
 
 Cnithad (boyhood), period of, among 
 the Anglo-Saxons, 65. 
 
 Coaches, 498. 
 
 Coal, mineral, known to the Romans and 
 
 Anglo-Saxons, 32, 113. 
 Cock-fighting, peculiar to the English, 
 
 492. 
 Cold- Harbour, origin and meaning of the 
 
 word, 88. 
 Cook, duties of the, 38 ; origin of the 
 
 name, 39. 
 Cookery, Anglo-Norman, 104 ; early 
 
 English, 165, 358-369- 
 Cooks, among the Anglo-Normans, 99, 
 
 100. 
 Cottage, the modern English, 5. 
 Courtesy, 139. 
 Couch, the, 478. 
 
 Counter, or table for writing, 456. 
 Couples, guests placed in, at table, 1 75. 
 Cupboards, among the Anglo-Normans, 
 
 122, 155 ; at a later period, 190. 
 Curtains, bed, 412-419. 
 
 of chamber, 257. 
 
 Cymbals, 206. 
 
 Cynewulf, King, murder of, 24. 
 
 D. 
 Dais, of the hall, 172. 
 Dames, game of, 220. 
 Damsons, considered as delicacies, 398. 
 Dances, the different descriptions of, 241, 
 
 242. 
 Dancing, among the Anglo-Saxons, 46 ; 
 
 in the mediaeval hall, 184; at later 
 
 times, 396, 434. 
 Dancing after dinner, 241. 
 Dice, the game of, 119, 229-232, 491. 
 Dinner, manners of the Anglo-Saxons at, 
 
 49. 
 
 scenes, 34-36. 
 
 Dinner- table, among the Anglo-Saxons, 
 
 101 ; among the Anglo-Normans, 101, 
 
 102. 
 ■ manners at, in the fifteenth cen- 
 tury, 377-380; in the seventeenth 
 
 century, 464. 
 Dishes, 36. 
 Dogs, value of, among the Anglo-Saxons, 
 
 80, 81. 
 Dorsers, 373. 
 Draughts, the game of, 235. 
 
INDEX. 507 
 
 Drawing, practised by the ladies of the 
 fifteenth century, 435. 
 
 Frog-in-the-middle, the game of, 246. 
 Furniture of houses in the fifteenth cen- 
 
 Drawing-room, 417. 
 
 Dress, of the Anglo-Saxons at a late 
 
 tury, 375, 376. 
 
 period, 93 ; of the early Normans, 94. 
 
 G. 
 
 Gallantry, its origin, 116. 
 
 Gallows, the Anglo-Saxon, 71. 
 
 Gambling, 488-491. 
 
 Games among the Anglo-Saxons, 51 ; 
 among the Anglo-Normans and early 
 English, 119, 210 ; later, 487. 
 
 frolicsome, in the Middle Ages, 
 
 243- 
 Garden, the place of amusement, 241, 295. 
 
 Dresser, or cupboard, 190, 389. 
 Drinking, among the Anglo-Saxons, 41 ; 
 among the Anglo-Normans, 127. 
 
 
 
 
 * healths, 472, 473. 
 
 E. 
 Education, 131, 132. 
 
 the pleasure, 295. 
 
 Gardening, the practice of, in the Middle 
 Ages, 305-3I4- 
 
 Gardens, Anglo-Saxon, 73, 78 ; Anglo- 
 Norman, in, 147; English, 436, 437. 
 
 Garlands, love of, 300, 301, 438. 
 
 Gentility, pride of, 292, 293. 
 
 Gleeman, the Anglo-Saxon, 47. 
 
 Edward the Elder, King, his hunting- 
 party at Chedder, 81. 
 
 Embroidery, among the Anglo-Saxons, 
 66 ; among the English, 250. 
 
 F. 
 
 Fairs, origin of, 80. 
 Faldestol, the fautenil, 108. 
 Feast, a monastic, 378. 
 
 Greediness in eating, 430. 
 
 Grendel, the monster, and his mother, 15, 
 
 16. 
 Grosseteste, Robert, Bishop of Lincoln, 
 
 the author of the School Code of 
 
 Feasting, the pageantry of, 465. 
 Feasts, among the Anglo-Normans, 97. 
 Female character in the fifteenth century, 
 
 426-428. 
 Feudalism, its origin, 113; state of society 
 
 under, 115, 116. 
 Feudal manners, 117, 1 1 8. 
 Fiddle, the, 46. 
 Fire-irons, 451-455. 
 Fire-places in the house, 112. 
 Fire-place in the hall, its changes, 455. 
 Floor, strewed with rushes, 173, 259, 
 
 Manners, 138. 
 Guest-houses, 88. 
 Guild-houses, 88. 
 
 H. 
 
 Hall, the, 4, 10, 11, 14, 15, 16, 22, 23, 
 27, 3°> 32, 97, in, 141, 153^160, 
 37o, 373. 449, 4SO- 
 
 
 475- 
 Ham, meaning of the word in Anglo- 
 
 377- 
 Flowers, love of, 295-301. 
 
 Saxon, 2, 3, 4, 28. 
 Hanging, the punishment of death among 
 
 the Anglo-Saxons, 71, 356. 
 Harlots, the name of a class in mediseval 
 
 74- 
 
 Food of the Anglo-Saxons, 37. 
 
 Forks, unknown to the Anglo-Saxons, 39. 
 
 society, 415. 
 
 Harp, its use, 46, 47, 182, 183. 
 
 Hawking, among the Anglo-Saxons, 83 ; 
 at later periods, 317-321. 
 
 Health-drinking among the Anglo-Sax- 
 ons, 45. 
 
 Hedgehogs, how cooked, 366. 
 
 Fostering, practice of, and foster-children, 
 
 282-284. 
 Fowlers, Anglo-Saxon, 83. 
 Friends, sworn, 284. 
 
So8 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Herbergeors, 344. 
 
 Herodias, dancing, 184, 185, 468. 
 
 Home, origin and history of the word, 
 
 4, 5- 
 
 Honey, 103. 
 
 Hoodman-blind, the game of, 243. 
 
 Horn, for drinking, 43, 102. 
 
 the musical instrument, 202-204. 
 
 Horse, wooden, for children, 498. 
 
 Horsemanship among the Anglo-Saxons, 
 84, 85, 317. 
 
 Horse-races, 329. 
 
 Horses, in the Middle Ages, 327; dif- 
 ferent breeds, 328, 329. 
 
 Hospitality, Anglo-Saxon, 34, 74, 89. 
 
 Anglo-Norman, 127 ; later, 339- 
 
 344- 
 
 Hostelers, 344.. 
 
 Hot-cockles, the game of, 243-246. 
 
 Hothouses, the sweating-baths, their 
 character and uses, 495. 
 
 Hours, early, kept by our ancestors, 260. 
 
 House, the Anglo-Saxon, 22, 24, 25, 26. 
 
 the early English, 141 ; an Anglo- 
 Norman, 144 ; of the fifteenth century, 
 37o, 37i, 448. 
 
 Hrothgar, the Anglo-Saxon chieftain, 
 14. 
 
 Hummums, 494. 
 
 Hunting, among the Anglo-Saxons, 8o, 
 81. 
 
 among the Anglo-Normans, 126. 
 
 Hutch, or chest, kept in the chamber, 
 274,275,277-279, 417,418. 
 
 ing, the Anglo-Saxon patronymic, 3. 
 Inns, Anglo-Saxon, 88. 
 Ivory, in the Middle Ages, made of the 
 horn of the walrus, 218. 
 
 Jougleurs, 48, 194, 195, 198. 
 
 K. 
 
 Kayles, the game of, 249. 
 
 Keys, 155. 
 
 Kitchen, origin of the name, 39. 
 
 < the Anglo-Norman, 99, 100. 
 
 the mediaeval, 162. 
 
 Knife, the Anglo-Saxon, 21, 40. 
 Knife-cases, ornamental, 469. 
 Knives, 374. 
 Kyteler, the Lady Alice, her story, 276. 
 
 Ladies, young, of the family, treated 
 
 harshly, 391, 392. 
 their occupations, 121, 122, 250, 
 
 251, 252, 433, 486. 
 
 their behaviour in company, 393. 
 
 ■ their out-door behaviour, 303, 
 
 3°4- 
 
 hawking and hunting, 317-322. 
 
 their manner of riding, 322-324. 
 
 Lady, origin of the word, 37. 
 
 Lamps among the Anglo-Saxons, 58 ; at 
 
 later periods, 265, 266. 
 Lanterns, 121, 265. 
 Larder, origin of the word, 37. 
 Latin, taught to the children, 134. 
 Latten, a mixed metal, 386. 
 Lecheurs, 98, 117. 
 Leek, the favourite vegetable in the 
 
 Middle Ages, 305, 306. 
 Libraries, 351. 
 
 Liquors drunk by the Anglo-Saxons, 43. 
 Literature, domestic, 139. 
 Longmynds, the mountains, 7. 
 Ludlow, the road from Shrewsbury to, 
 
 6, 11. 
 Lute, the, 203. 
 Luxury of the Anglo-Saxons, 93. 
 
 M. 
 Magpie, the favourite talking bird, 252- 
 
 255- 
 
 Maidens, numerous in the feudal house- 
 hold, 283. 
 
 Manners, good, taught in the school, 134, 
 
 "35- 
 
 Manor, the, 5, 141. 
 
 Marches of Wales, 6. 
 
 Marriage among the Anglo-Saxons, 67 ; 
 
 among the Anglo-Saxon priesthood, 69. 
 Masques after dinner, 467. 
 Mead, 43. 
 Meals, daily, hours of the, 106, 261, 405, 
 
 432, 460. 
 
INDEX. 509 
 
 Meals, Anglo-Saxon, 33. 
 
 Pavement, tessellated, 14. 
 
 Meat, manner of cooking, among the 
 
 Peaches, known to the Anglo-Saxons, 
 
 Anglo-Saxons, 37, 38. 
 
 307 ; cultivated in England during the 
 
 Meat-pies, 405. 
 
 Middle Ages, 308, 309. 
 
 Mess, origin of the term, 468. 
 
 Peacock, how served at table, 369. 
 
 Milking, among the Anglo-Normans, 105. 
 
 Perche, the, or frame for hanging objects, 
 
 Millichope, ancient manor-house at, 149. 
 
 156, 157- 
 
 Minstrel, the, 15, 45, 47, 48, 49> *39- 
 
 Percy family, their diet, 429. 
 
 Minstrelsy, Anglo-Saxon, 45. 
 
 Picnics, 444, 496. 
 
 in thr hill t8t-t8i "'ll 
 
 Pillions, women riding on, 499, 500. 
 Pipe, the musical instrument, 204. 
 
 Mirrors, 420, 421, 422. 
 
 Money, reckoned by weight among the 
 
 Pipe, double, 77, 78, 206. 
 
 Anglo-Saxons, 91 ; mode of keeping it, 
 
 Plate, ornamental, 467. 
 
 91, 92. 
 
 Poetry, 139. 
 
 and valuable^ how kept in the 
 
 Pottery, Anglo-Saxon, 18, 19, 20. 
 Anglo-Norman, 103. 
 
 Middle Ages, 274, 275, 276. 
 
 Monkeys, domesticated, 255, 494. 
 
 Priesthood, among the Anglo-Saxons, 
 
 Monks, bons-vivants, 181. 
 
 its character, 68. 
 
 Morning, the time of rising among the 
 
 Printing, art of, its origin, 238, 239. 
 
 Anglo-Normans, 105. 
 
 Psaltery, the musical instrument, 202, 
 
 Mummings and masquerades at dinner, 
 
 203. 
 
 465- 
 
 Pudding, love of the English for, 470. 
 
 Music-galleries in the halls, 198, 450. 
 
 Punishments, the Anglo-Saxon, 73. 
 
 Musical Instruments, 45, 46, 122, 123, 
 
 of the Middle '\ce f " or "'— 7 ^7 
 
 
 200-209. 
 
 Puppet-Show of the fourteenth century, 
 
 Musicians, among the Anglo-Saxons, 47. 
 
 440. 
 
 R. 
 
 Ragman, the game of, 247. 
 
 N. 
 Nancy, the tapestry there, 397-403. 
 
 Nef, the, on the dinner- table, 180. 
 
 Ragman's Roll, 248. 
 
 Nightingales, domesticated, and their 
 
 Rere-banquet, 471. 
 
 food, 395. 
 
 Rere-supper, 403, 404. 
 
 Normans, their splendid mansions, 93, 
 
 Ribalds, or lechers, a class of mediseval 
 
 95. 
 
 society, 97, 98, 116, 195. 
 
 Norton Camp, II, 12. 
 
 Riding, the clergy great riders, 324 ; 
 
 
 costume of the knight when riding, 
 
 O. 
 
 3 2 5- 
 
 Ordinaries, their history, 497. 
 
 Ring, uses of the, in the Middle Ages, 
 
 Organs, among the Anglo-Normans, 123. 
 
 279-282. 
 
 Outlawe, William, the banker, his story, 
 
 Roads, Roman, 14. 
 
 276. 
 
 insecurity of the, 90, 337, 442. 
 
 P. 
 
 Robbers, 337, 338. 
 
 Painting, as a domestic accomplish- 
 
 Roy-qui-ne-ment, game of, 246. 
 Ruelle, of the bed, 412. 
 
 ment, 435, 436. 
 Parlour, the, 154, 370, 380-382, 389, 
 
 Rutebeuf, the trouvere, 199, 200. 
 
 391- • 
 
 
 furniture of tlie J.7Q 
 
 S. 
 
 domestic dmu^cment^ of trie 11^ 
 
 Salt, regarded with superstitious feelings, 
 373. 464- 
 
 396. 
 
 Parrots, 252. 
 
 Salt-cellar, the, 373. 
 
5io 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Scissors, 122. 
 
 Scholars, begging, 350. 
 
 Scholarship, of what it consisted, 350. 
 
 Schools. Norman, 130-132 ; of later 
 
 times, 350. 
 
 domestic, 133. 
 
 Scribe, the, 446. 
 
 Seats, among the Anglo-Normans, 107, 
 
 108, 109. 
 Servants, cruel treatment of, by the 
 
 Anglo-Saxon ladies, 69, 70. 
 Service, young gentlemen going to seek, 
 
 282. 
 Serving-men, character of, in the fifteenth 
 
 century, 431. 
 Sester, the Anglo-Saxon, 45. 
 Settle, the, 109, 409. 
 Shalm, the musical instrument, 202, 203. 
 Shears, 122. 
 Side-saddles used by women, 84, 129, 
 
 3 22 > 3 2 3- 
 Snuffers, Anglo-Saxon, 58. 
 Social distinctions, origin of, 424. 
 Soler, the upper room of a house, 24, 96, 
 
 146-149. 
 Spectacles, use of, 446. 
 Spence, the room so called, 153. 
 Spinster, origin of the word, 252. 
 Spits, 35. 
 Squirrels, domesticated, and kept in cages, 
 
 394. 396. 
 
 cooked for the table, 366. 
 
 Stans Puer ad Mensam, the Latin treatise 
 
 on domestic manners, 135. 
 Stocks, the punishment of, 130, 353, 354. 
 Stokesay, the ancient manor house of, 8, 
 
 9,10, 11,95. 
 Stones, precious, their various " virtues," 
 
 281-283. 
 Street, origin of the word, 8. 
 Stretton, origin of the name, 8. 
 Subtilty, an ornamental device at table, 
 
 366. 
 Supernaculum, explanation of the term, 
 
 472. 
 Supper, provisions and manners at, 259, 
 
 404,406. 
 Sutton, in Herefordshire, 12. 
 Swaddling of children, 62, 62, 65, 497, 
 
 Sweetmeats, use of, 471. 
 Swine, how bred by the Anglo-Saxons, 
 82. 
 
 T. 
 
 Table of the Anglo-Saxon chamber, 576. 
 
 of the hall, 33. 
 
 dormant, the, 159. 
 
 Tables of different kinds, 458. 
 
 the game of, 120, 232. 
 
 Tabor, the musical instrument, 200, 209. 
 
 Tambourine, the, 205. 
 
 Tapestry of the Hall, 31. 
 
 of the walls, 382, 383, 478. 
 
 Taverns, 128, 346-348, 443, 444- 
 
 among the Anglo-Saxons, 89. 
 
 Theatres, Roman, in Britain, 77. 
 
 Timber, the material of which the Anglo- 
 Saxon houses were built, 27. 
 
 Toilette of the ladies, 272, 294. 
 
 Toll collectors, 91. 
 
 Ton, tun, origin of this termination in 
 names, 8, 12, 28. 
 
 Top, whipping, 249. 
 
 Town, Anglo-Saxon, 79. 
 
 Travelling among the Anglo-Saxons, 90 ; 
 among the Anglo-Normans, 128, 129; 
 at a later period, 330-348, 442. 
 
 Trenchers, meaning of the word, 1 76. 
 
 Trouveres, French, 194. 
 
 Truckle-bed, 415, 416. 
 
 Tumbler, the drinking-cup, origin of the 
 name, 17. 
 
 U. V. 
 
 Umbrellas, among the Anglo-Saxons, 
 
 87, 88. 
 Uriconium, the Roman city, 7. 
 Ushers of the hall, 97. 
 Villains, their position, 1 14. 
 Vineyards in England, 44. 
 Visitor, reception of a, 160. 
 
 W. 
 
 Waggon, or Waen, the Anglo-Saxon, 85. 
 
 Waghe, or wall, 23. 
 
 Wake, the Anglo-Saxon, 80. 
 
 Wall, the Anglo-Saxon, 22. 
 
 Watchmen in the Anglo-Saxon houses, 25 
 
 Wealtheow, the Anglo-Saxon queen, 15. 
 
 Wells, 99, 371. 
 
INDEX. 5 1 1 
 
 Welsh princes, their tribute to King 
 
 Athelstan, 80. 
 Whalebone in England in the Middle 
 
 Ages, 119. 
 Whips, Anglo-Saxon, 86. 
 Windows, Anglo-Norman, 196 ; early 
 
 English, 153. 
 Wine, among the Anglo-Saxons, 44 ; 
 
 among the Anglo-Normans, 103. 
 Women, Anglo-Saxon, their household 
 
 duties and character, 65 ; their cruelty 
 
 to their servants, 69, "jo. 
 their employments, 66, 121, 122. 
 
 Women, the physicians in the Middle 
 
 Ages, 291, 292. 
 riding on a pillion, 499. 
 
 
 496. 
 
 to them, 288. 
 Wrecinsetas, the people, 7. 
 Wrekin, the Shropshire mountain, 7. 
 Writing, implements of, 109, 130, 279, 
 
 35i. 352. 
 Wroxeter, 7. 
 
 THE END, 
 
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 EDINBURGH AND LONDON 
 



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