NEARLY forty years ago, Dr. Furnivall collected for the Early English
Text Society “divers treatises touching the Manners and Meals of
Englishmen in former days.” Some of these were published in 1868, under
the title _The Babees’ Book_,[1] and others, chiefly of later date, in
1869, under the title _Queene Elizabethes Achademy_.
These two volumes, with their introductions and illustrative matter, to
my mind present the most vivid picture of home life in medieval England
that we have. Aside from their general human interest, they are valuable
to the student of social history, and almost essential to an
understanding of the literature of their time. The whole fabric of the
romances was based upon the intricate system of “courtesy” as here set
forth, and John Russell furnishes an interesting comment on Chaucer and
his school, as do Rhodes and Seager and Weste on the writers of the
sixteenth century. Finally, among these treatises, there is many a plum
by the way for the seeker of proverbs, curious lore, superstitions,
literary oddities. And as comparatively few people have time or
inclination to worry through antiquated English, Dr. Furnivall has long
wished that the substance of his collections might be presented in
modern form. Therefore this little volume has been undertaken.
Doubtless unwritten codes of behaviour are coeval with society; but the
earliest treatises that we possess emphasize morals rather than manners.
Even the late Latin author known as Dionysius Cato (fourth century?),
whose maxims were constantly quoted, translated, imitated, and finally
printed during the late Middle Ages, does not touch upon the niceties of
conduct that we call manners; wherefore one John Garland, an Englishman
educated at Oxford, who lived much in France during the first half of
the thirteenth century, felt bound to supplement Cato on these points.
His work, entitled _Liber Faceti: docens mores hominum, precipue
iuuenum, in supplementum illorum qui a moralissimo Cathone erant omissi
iuuenibus utiles_,[2] is alluded to as _Facet_ in the first piece in
this volume, and serves as basis for part of the _Book of Courtesy_.
But, earlier than this, Thomasin of Zerklaere, about 1215, wrote in
German a detailed treatise on manners called _Der Wälsche Gast_.[3] And
in 1265, Dante’s teacher, Brunetto Latini, published his _Tesoretto_,[3]
which was soon followed by a number of similar treatises in Italian.
While we need not hold with the writer of the _Little Children’s Little
Book_, that courtesy came down from heaven when Gabriel greeted the
Virgin, and Mary and Elizabeth met, we must look for its origin
somewhere; and inasmuch as, in its medieval form at least, it is closely
associated with the practices of chivalry, we may not unreasonably
suppose it to have appeared first in France. And although most of the
extant French treatises belong to the fourteenth or fifteenth centuries,
a lost book of courtesy, translated by Thomasin of Zerklaere, is
sometimes held, on good grounds, to have been derived from French,
rather than from Italian.
In any case, such of the English books as were not taken immediately
from Latin, came from French sources. To be sure, there is a Saxon poem,
based it would seem on Cato, though by no means a translation, called _A
Father’s Instructions to his Son_; but this, although it is greatly
exercised about the child’s soul, takes no thought for his finger-nails
or his nose.
It is not, therefore, surprising to find that nearly all English words
denoting manners are of French origin—_courtesy_, _villainy_, _nurture_,
_dignity_, _etiquette_, _debonaire_, _gracious_, _polite_, _gentilesse_,
&c., while to balance them I can, at this moment, recall only three of
Saxon origin—_thew_ (which belongs rather to the list of moral words in
which Old English abounds), _churlish_ and _wanton_ (without breeding),
both of which, significantly enough, are negative of good manners.
The reason for the predominance of the French terms is simply that
“French use these gentlemen,” as one old writer puts it; that is, from
the Conquest until the latter part of the fourteenth century the
language of the invaders prevailed almost entirely among the upper
classes, who, accordingly, learned their politeness out of French or
Latin books; and it was only with the growth of citizenship and English
together, that these matters came to be discussed in this latter tongue
for the profit of middle-class children, as well as of the “bele babees”
at Court.
We must suppose, from numerous hints and descriptions, that an elaborate
system of manners and customs prevailed long before it was codified. The
Bayeux tapestry (eleventh century) shows a feast, with a server kneeling
to serve, his napkin about his neck, as John Russell prescribes some
four hundred years later.
The romances again, alike in French and in English, describe elaborate
ceremonies, and allude constantly to definite laws of courtesy. Now and
again we find a passage that sets forth the ideal gentleman. Young Horn,
for example, was taught “skill of wood and river” (hunting and hawking),
carving, cup-bearing, and harping “with his nails sharp.” Child Florent
showed his high birth by his love of horse, hawk, and armour, and by his
contempt of gold; but he was not thought ill-mannered to laugh when his
foster-father and mother fell down in their attempt to draw a rusty
sword from its scabbard! Chaucer’s _Squire_ might well have been brought
up on a treatise similar to those included in this volume:
“Well could he sit on horse and fairly ride;
He could songs make and fair could he indite,
Joust and eke dance, and well portray and write.
────────────────
Courteous he was, lowly, and serviceáble,
And carved before his father at the table.”
But the _Prioress_ outmatched him, having possibly learned her manners
in the French of “Stratford-atte-Bowe,” in _Les Contenances de la
Table_, or some such thing:
“At meatë well y-taught was she withal,
She let no morsel from her lippës fall,
Nor wet her fingers in her saucë deep:
Well could she carry a morsel, and well keep,
That no dropë did fall upon her breast;
In courtesy was set full much her lest.[4]
Her over-lippë wipéd she so clean,
That in her cup there was no farthing seen
Of grease, when she drunken had her draught.
Full seemëly after her meat she raught,[5]
And certainly she was of great desport,[6]
And full pleasant, and amiable of port;
And painéd her to counterfeitë cheer
Of court, and to be stately in mannér,
And to be holden digne of reverence.”
These maxims were versified that they might be the more easily
remembered, as we know from various expressions, notably “Learn or be
Lewd” (ignorant), which occurs at the end of several pieces. In 1612 the
principle was stated explicitly, “because children will learn that book
with most readiness and delight through the running of the metre, as it
is found by experience.” And the fact that versified treatises on
manners formed part of the schooling of that day, brings up the subject
of medieval education.
In the first place, this cannot be understood until we have set aside
our modern ideas of master and servant. The old point of view is
picturesquely summed up in a pamphlet of 1598, quoted by Dr. Furnivall.
“Amongst what sort of people should then this serving-man be sought for?
Even the duke’s son preferred page to the prince, the earl’s second son
attendant upon the duke, the knight’s second son the earl’s servant, the
esquire’s son to wear the knight’s livery, and the gentleman’s son the
esquire’s serving-man. Yea, I know at this day gentlemen, younger
brothers that wear their elder brother’s blue coat and badge, attending
him with as reverent regard and dutiful obedience as if he were their
prince or sovereign. Where was then in the prime of this profession
Goodman Tomson’s Jack, or Robin Rush, my Gaffer Russet-coat’s second
son? The one holding the plough, the other whipping the cart-horse,
labouring like honest men in their vocation. Trick Tom the tailer was
then a tiler for this trade; as strange to find a blue coat on his back,
with a badge on his sleeve, as to take Kent Street without a scold, or
Newmarket Heath without a highwayman. But now, being lapped in his
livery, he thinketh himself as good a man, with the shears at his back,
as the Poet Laureate with a pen in his ear.”
From this passage it is clear that at a time not very much earlier,
serving was a profession in which every rank, except royalty itself (if
indeed this is to be omitted, see pp. 1, 179 below), might honourably
wear the livery of a man of higher rank. Indeed, under the system of
entail, this was, in time of peace, the only possible livelihood for a
gentleman’s younger son, unless he had a special aptitude for law or the
Church. Debarred from all trade, he could only offer his services to
some great man who was compelled by his estate to keep up a large
household, and so earn his patronage to provide for the future. It was
fully expected that boys so placed would be helped to opportunities at
Court or abroad, and girls to good marriages. That these patrons really
took an interest in their young servitors, and felt responsible for
their welfare, appears in many accounts of help bestowed upon men who
afterwards became famous in literature, or scholarship, or state-craft.
And as for the girls, Dr. Furnivall quotes an amusing instance of a
mistress who, when reproached with dismissing a gentlewoman without due
cause, thereby injuring her chances for the future, immediately allowed
her forty shillings a year towards her maintenance while she herself
lived.
Among rich men it was the custom to receive a number of boys for
training in this way. In the household of Lord Percy there were nine
young “henchmen” who served him as cup-bearers and in various other
capacities. To these he allowed servants, one for each two, unless they
were “at their friends’ finding,” in which case they might have one
apiece. Likewise, in his household, his second son was carver, his
third, sewer.
But while in a rich man’s household, younger sons might receive as good
a training as if they had been sent elsewhere for the purpose, the case
of the younger sons of a poor gentleman might be sufficiently wretched.
Orlando, in _As You Like It_, speaks feelingly on this point. Although
his father had left 1000 crowns for his upbringing, he was so neglected
that he says: “His (his brother’s) horses are bred better, for, besides
that they are fair with their feeding, they are taught their manage, and
to that end riders dearly hired;[7] but I, his brother, gain nothing
under him but growth ... he lets me feed with his hinds, bars me the
place of a brother, and as much as in him lies, mines my gentility with
my education.”
The alternative to such a life of hardship was either to enter the
Church or depend upon its charity, or to serve in the household of a man
of rank. While only a few were fitted for the religious life or cared to
undertake it, “many poor gentlemen ... left beggars in consequence of
the inheritance devolving to the eldest son,” were supported by the
charity of the Church, as we are told by an Italian visitor to England
in 1496-7.
The case of an unmarried daughter living at home, though less desperate,
was even in well-to-do families sufficiently uncomfortable, as is
plainly hinted in a letter written by Margaret Paston to her husband in
1469. She implores him to find his sister “some worshipful place,” and
concludes: “I will help to her finding, for we be either of us weary of
other.”
The practice of sending children seven or eight years old away from
their parents was ostensibly that they “might learn better manners”; but
the Italian visitor mentioned above concluded uncharitably that the real
reason was, the English had but small affection for their children, and
liked to keep all their comforts to themselves, and moreover knew that
they would be “better served by strangers than by their own children.”
However absurd this may seem at first glance, I incline to think that
the foreigner may have touched upon truth here, as is borne out by many
instances of Spartan, even brutal, treatment of children by parents in
those days. Still, the fact remains that the loss of home life and
parental tenderness was balanced by gain in discipline, education,
social opportunity, and the opening up of careers.
The education of the various children addressed in these treatises
varied according to their social status. As early as the twelfth century
certainly, and perhaps earlier, it was customary for “bele babees,” with
boys and girls, to have a tutor either at home, or in the household of
the great man with whom they were placed. If they went to school, there
were at first the monastic and conventual institutions; then later, the
universities and grammar-schools. But, in the case of girls like the
_Good Wife’s_ daughter, who sold homespun in the market-place, and had
to be admonished not to get drunk often, I doubt whether there would be
any education beyond her mother’s teaching.
The universities, at first, were frequented chiefly by poor men’s sons,
and scarcely attended by the upper classes. In Chaucer’s time, the
_Clerk of Oxenford_ was lean and threadbare, and had but little gold,
and his two Cambridge scholars were in no better case. Nearly two
centuries later, Sir Thomas More says: “Then may we yet like poor
scholars of Oxford, go a-begging with our bags and wallets, and sing
‘_Salve, Regina_’” (a carol) “at rich men’s doors.” However, gradually
during the sixteenth century, a university education became so
fashionable that rich men’s sons crowded in, and “scrooged” (I quote Dr.
Furnivall) poor students out of the proceeds of endowments left
expressly for them. Still, in 1517, the old ideal of a gentleman as yet
held its own, as is amusingly related by Pace in his _De Fructu_. He
tells how “one of those whom we call gentlemen, who always carry some
horn hanging at their backs, as though they would hunt during dinner,
said: ‘I swear by God’s body I would rather that my son should hang than
study letters. For it becomes the sons of gentlemen to blow the horn
nicely, and to hunt skilfully, and elegantly carry and train a hawk. But
the study of letters should be left to the sons of rustics....’”
But Pace was equal to him. “You do not seem to me to think aright, good
man,” said I, “for if any foreigner were to come to the king, such as
are ambassadors of princes, and an answer had to be given to him, your
son if he were educated as you wish, could only blow his horn, and the
learned sons of rustics would be called to answer, and they would be far
preferred to your hunter or fowler son,” &c.
The fashion among noblemen of sending their sons abroad to study, either
at a university or with a tutor, did not prevail widely until later. In
the twelfth century, indeed, the “English nation” was famous at the
University of Paris, but was composed largely of poor but earnest
students, some of whom became famous men; and even these had ceased to
study there before the fifteenth century.
Younger sons of good birth, in the service of a man of rank, were
usually taught by a “maistyr” or tutor in the household in which they
were placed. It is only in later books like Seager’s that these rules of
demeanour were applied extensively to schoolboys. Doubtless gentlemen’s
sons went to Winchester (after 1373) and to Eton (after 1440); but of
the thirty grammar-schools endowed before 1500, all the others were
attended chiefly by the middle classes. The early monastic schools
doubtless entertained young noblemen; but the cathedral schools founded
by Henry VIII. seem to have been for citizens’ children, such as the boy
in Symon’s _Lesson of Wisdom_, who is urged to learn fast so that when
the old bishop dies he may be ready to take his place. However, even
earlier we find complaints of the monastic schools which helped each
shoemaker to educate his son, and each beggar’s brat to be a writer and
finally a bishop, so that lords’ sons must kneel to him.
In general, the system of education implied in the _Babees’ Book_ is
that described in the household ordinances of Edward IV. for the young
henchmen in charge of a “maistyr,” who should teach them to ride cleanly
and surely, to draw them also to jousts, to ... “wear their harness, to
have all courtesy in words, deeds, and degrees, diligently to keep them
in rules of goings and sittings, after they be of honour.” They learned
also “sundry languages,” and harping, piping, singing and dancing.
Likewise, their master sat always with them at table in the hall, to see
“how mannerly they eat and drink, and to their communication and other
forms of court, after the book of _Urbanitie_[8].” Clearly it would seem
that one of the very treatises in this collection was studied by these
young pages of Edward IV.
What languages they learned and what else studied we are not told in
detail; but in Henry VIII.’s time, young Gregory Cromwell, son of the
Earl of Essex, studied French, writing, fencing, “casting accounts,”
instrumental music, &c. He was also made to read English aloud for the
pronunciation, and was taught the etymology of Latin and French words.
His day was as follows: After Mass, he read first the Colloquium on
_Pietas Puerilis_ (_De Civilitate Morum Puerilium_) by Erasmus (written
1530), of which he had to practice the precepts. Now this is nothing
more than a collection of maxims similar to the _Facet_ mentioned in the
_Babees’ Book_, together with learned _Scholia_ in Latin and Greek;
hence, he had the same kind of thing to learn—only more elaborate—as the
boys mentioned a hundred years earlier studied in _Urbanitie_. Doubtless
his master approved the beginning of Erasmus: “Est autem uel prima
uirtutis ac honestatis pars, tenere præcepta de moribus.” The specific
nature of these directions appears in the following:
“Cleanliness of teeth must be cared for, but to whiten them with powder
does for girls. To rub the gum with salt or alum is injurious.... If
anything sticks to the teeth, you must get it out, not with a knife, or
with your nails after the manner of dogs and cats, or with your napkin,
but with a toothpick, or quill or small bone taken from the tibias of
cocks or hens. To wash the mouth in the morning with pure water is both
mannerly and healthful; to do it often is foolish.” Indeed, Erasmus’s
treatise is only a superior book of courtesy.
His manners attended to, young Gregory wrote for one or two hours, read
Fabyan’s _Chronicle_, and gave the rest of the day to his lute and
virginals. When he rode, his master used to tell him stories of the
Greeks and Romans, which he had to repeat; and his recreations were
hunting, hawking and shooting with the long bow.
A harsher system prevailed with Queen Elizabeth’s wards, according to
Sir Nicholas Bacon. They went to church at 6 o’clock, studied Latin
until 11, dined from 11 to 12, had music from 12 to 2, French from 2 to
3, Latin and Greek from 3 to 5, then prayers, supper, and “honest
pastimes” until 8, then music until 9, and so to bed.
The curricula in these various schools doubtless emphasized the usual
Latin subjects (Greek was not taught in England before 1500) of the
Middle Ages. Thus we find an account of the “disputations” in a London
grammar-school, dating from 1174. But that athletic sports were popular
even at that early time, appears from the same narrative, in which we
read of football, sham fights, water-quintain, archery, running,
leaping, wrestling, stone-casting, flinging bucklers, sliding and
skating (on bones), besides the brutal sports of hog-, boar- and
cock-fighting, bull- and bear-baiting.
At the other extreme we find the account of a school-day in 1612. Work
begins at 6, and those who come first have the best places. At 9
o’clock, there is given 15 minutes for breakfast and recreation; then
work continues until 11 or past (to balance the 15 minutes off). Dinner
follows, and then work until 3 or 3.30, then 15 minutes off, and work
until 5.30, when school closes with a piece of a chapter, two staves of
a psalm and prayer by the master.
It is probable, however, that these two descriptions are but two sides
of the same medal; that Fitzstephen’s holidays were balanced by work
days as tedious as those described by Brinsley.[9]
A singular fact to be noted in the English courtesy books is the almost
complete absence of allusions to women. Barring the _Good Wife_ and
_Wise Man_, which are distinctly middle class in tone, we have
practically nothing to represent the elaborate directions for conduct in
some of the foreign treatises. Yet it cannot be doubted that the English
system of patronage led to social problems and rules for the demeanour
of young men and women together, such as prevailed abroad. Undoubtedly,
too, the association of a lord’s pages and a lady’s maidens must have
furthered the arrangement of marriages, perhaps not always in the way
desired. Take, for example, the case of Anne Boleyn. After seven years’
service with the royal ladies of France, she came home and was placed in
the household of Queen Katharine. Meanwhile, there was attendant upon
Cardinal Wolsey a certain young Lord Percy, who, whenever his master was
with the king, would “resort for pastime into the queen’s chamber, and
there would fall in dalliance among the queen’s maidens.” In the end, he
and Mistress Anne were secretly troth-plight; but Wolsey discovered the
arrangement and sent the girl home, whereat she “smoked” (we say
_fumed_) until she was recalled and heard of the great love the king
bore her “in the bottom of his stomach”; then she “began to look very
hault and stout, having all manner of jewels or rich apparel that might
be gotten for money.” And doubtless there are many other similar
complications to be found among old records, and more have perished, or
were never written down at all.
It is something of a shock to turn from the elaborate rules for carving
and serving, as set forth by Russell and others, to the domestic records
of the time. The mingled splendour and squalor of the Middle Ages almost
passes belief. We read of priceless hangings and costumes that cost each
a small fortune, yet Erasmus describes the floors in noblemen’s houses
as sometimes encumbered with refuse for twenty years together.[10] King
Edward IV. was provided with a barber who shaved him once a week, and
washed his head, feet, and legs, _if_ he so desired. A proper bath,
according to Russell, seems to have been an event to be heralded with
flowers and resorted to chiefly as curative. We see to-day the splendid
palaces and castles, such as Hampton Court and Windsor, Knole and
Penshurst and Warwick, built by kings and noblemen, and yet Henry VIII
had to enact a law against the filthy condition of the servants in his
own kitchen, and Wolsey, passing through the suitors in Westminster
Hall, carried disinfectants concealed in an orange. It is this contrast
in manners, doubtless, which will first strike the reader. A young
nobleman had to be instructed not only how to hold his carving-knife
with a thumb and two fingers, but also not to dip his meat into the
salt-cellar, or lick the dust out of dish with his tongue, or wipe his
nose on the table-cloth; and other instructions were added too primitive
for translation. Undoubtedly, the general impression that one derives
is, as Dr. Furnivall puts it, of “dirty, ill-mannered, awkward young
gawks,” whose “maistyrs” were greatly to be pitied. But, on the whole,
it is surprising to note how little the fundamental bases of good
manners have altered. Though we are not to-day so plain-spoken, our
ideals are similar to those of our ancestors, but theirs was the greater
difficulty of attainment. Personal cleanliness, self-respect, reverence
to one’s better, and consideration for one’s neighbour seem to have been
then as they are now, the foundation-stones.
On the other hand, it is interesting to notice the development of
manners with improved conditions of life. One code was altered with the
introduction of the handkerchief, another with the use of the fork
(apparently first mentioned in 1463, but not common until after 1600,
though it had long been in use on the Continent), and so on, so that by
degrees social expedients and ceremonies change, while essentials
remain.
Of each of the pieces here included I give a brief account in the notes.
Needless to say, they form only a small portion of an enormous practical
literature, though they are fairly representative of the English branch
of it, for the time that they cover. In order to bring even so much
within the compass of this small volume, it has been found necessary to
condense. The principle of condensation has been as follows: whenever a
text is particularly wordy for the matter that it contains, or has been
found difficult to reproduce in modern language in the old verse-form,
it has been done simply into prose. In cases where the metrical form has
been preserved, perhaps both rhythm and rhyme have suffered in the
translation; but in no instance has there been any poetic beauty lost,
for the plain reason that the literary value of these productions is
nil. In addition to a few omissions on grounds of taste, I have put
aside various recipes and dietaries, hoping to use them later in a book
devoted entirely to that sort of thing; and for the same reason, I have
omitted considerable portions of Russell’s work, in which he deals with
the dietetic properties and values of different kinds of food, describes
various sorts of wines, enters into the details of carving fish, flesh,
and fowl, and sets forth numerous recipes and elaborate menus. It is all
interesting but has little to do with manners. Likewise, I have omitted
Wynkyn de Worde’s _Book of Carving_, which seems to be only a prose
version of Russell, portions of Rhodes’s work which deal rather with
professional serving-men, and of Seager’s and West’s books, which treat
of morals rather than manners. Further, I have omitted the various Latin
and French poems on the subject, and a number of odds and ends of a
generally didactic character, which, it seemed, could be best spared.
In translating, I have tried to keep as much as possible the quaint
flavour of the originals, especially in the case of those rendered into
modern English in the verse form. To that end I have retained old words
and constructions whenever they seemed intelligible, although eccentric
and perhaps ungrammatical to-day. When an archaic word alone conveyed
the exact meaning, or was especially picturesque, I have left it, with a
gloss at the bottom of the page, where also I refer to notes at the end,
on points which seem to require special elucidation. My aim throughout
has been to make the texts clear with the minimum of alteration.
Doubtless I could have improved the metre frequently by merely a change
in order of words; but I thought it better to meddle as little as
possible, except for the sake of clearness; and so the verse often bumps
along cheerfully, regardless of rhythm, style, and grammar. I think I
may claim that in substance the modernised _Babees’ Book_ is as near as
possible to its original.
About half of the translations have been made by Miss L. J. Naylor.
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