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 l’autre gent toute,_
_Et puis se burent tout à 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 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_When the lordys were drawin_ (withdrawn),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 of “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,_
_Alle 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:--
_Après manger lavent leurs mains,_
_Puis s’en vont juer, qui ains ains,_
_Ou en forès ou en rivieres,_
_Ou en deduis d’autres manieres._
_Jehans au quel que il veut va,_
_Et quant il revent souvant va_
_Jouer és 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 allusions in old writers that they had brought westward that of
the “almehs,” 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 were 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. 158), taken from
a manuscript of the Roman de Tristan, of the fourteenth century, in the
National Library at Paris (No. 6956), represents a party dancing the
carole to the music of pipe and tabor. A dance of another description
is represented in our next cut (No. 159), 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.
[Illustration: _No. 158. Dancing the Carole._]
[Illustration: _No. 159. A Mediæval Dance._]
[Illustration: _No. 160. The Game of Hoodman-blind._]
[Illustration: _No. 161. A Game at Hot-cockles._]
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 preceding
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 of
the “Ménagier de Paris,” written about the year 1393 (tom. i. p. 71),
describes the ladies as playing, in an evening, at games named _bric_,
and _qui fery?_ (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 _trouvère_ Rutebeuf, and by other mediæval writers;
but all we seem 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 of _pince merille_. _Qui fery?_ 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 unfrequently represented in the
fanciful drawings in the margins of mediæval illuminated manuscripts;
but as no names or descriptions are given with these drawings, it is
often very difficult to identify them. Our cut (No. 160), 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_, 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 Shakespeare (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 of
the players was blindfolded, and knelt down, with his face 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 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 hardness of
the blows. Our cut (No. 161), 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. 162), 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 at present to be
seen in the South Kensington Museum. Allusions to this game are found
in the writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 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’ll knock him down;_
_The hand he knows, since it the place_
_Has toucht more tender than his face;_
_Important sheriff, now thou lyst down,_
_We’ll 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 passage in
Gay’s “Pastorals:”--
_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. 163, 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 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.
[Illustration: _No. 162. Shepherds and Shepherdesses._]
[Illustration: _No. 163. The Game of Frog-in-the-Middle._]
Games of questions and commands, and of forfeits, were also common
in mediæval society. Among the poems of Baudouin and Jean de Condé
(poets of the thirteenth century), we have a description of a game
of this kind. “One time,” we are told, “there was play among ladies
and damsels; there were among them both clever and handsome; 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’entremistrent,_
_Et tant c’une royne fistrent_
_Pour jouer au_ roy-qui-ne-ment.
_Ele s’en savoit finement_
_Entremettre de commander_
_Et de demandes demander._
--Barbazan Fabliaux, tom. i. p. 100.
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 mediæval 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
characters were generally written in verse, in burlesque and often
very coarse language, and several sets of them have been preserved
in old manuscripts. 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 gré_ (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 “Confessio
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
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
derision the name of the _Ragman’s Roll_. Afterwards it became the
custom to call any roll with many signatures, or any long catalogue,
the various headings 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 characters were often inscribed on the back of roundels,
which were no doubt dealt round to the company like cards, with the
inscribed side downwards.
[Illustration: _No. 164. Ball-Playing._]
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 mediæval manuscripts.
The annexed example (cut No. 164), from MS. Harl. No. 6563, represents
apparently two ladies playing with a ball. In other instances, a lady
and a gentleman are similarly occupied. Our cut No. 165 is taken from
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. The whipping-top was also a plaything of
considerable antiquity; I think it may be traced to the Anglo-Saxon
period. Our cut No. 166 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 fourteenth 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.
Mediæval art was full of such conventionalities.
[Illustration: _No. 165. A Game at Ball._]
[Illustration: _No. 166. Whipping-Top._]
[Illustration: _No. 167. The Game of Kayles._]
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 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 _quilles_, which in our language was corrupted into
_keyles_ and _kayles_. The lad in our cut (No. 167) 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 _jeu de quilles à baston_, and
in English _club-kayles_. 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 “Reliquiæ Antiquæ,” 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 employed
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 mediæval
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 count
Fromont visited the chamber of fair Beatrice, he found her occupied in
sewing a very beautiful _chainsil_, or petticoat:--
_Vint en la chambre à la bele Beatriz;_
_Ele cosoit un molt riche chainsil._
--Mort 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-à-toile_,” meaning, it is
supposed, a song of a grave measure, composed for the purpose of being
sung by ladies when weaving:--
_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 à toile._
--Roman de la Violette, p. 113.
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
“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
thus employed is represented in our cut No. 168, 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. 169, 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. 170), in which a lady
appears in the employment of spinning it into yarn. Our next cut (No.
171), taken from an illumination 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.
[Illustration: _No. 168. Embroidery._]
[Illustration: _No. 169. A Lady Carding._]
[Illustration: _No. 170. A Lady Spinning._]
[Illustration: _No. 171. The Three Fates._]
[Illustration: _No. 172. Birds Encaged._]
Domestic animals, particularly dogs and birds, were favourite
companions 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.
172, 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
mediæval stories. The 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
mediæval 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 fourteenth 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.
One of the stories in the celebrated mediæval 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.”
Encouraged, 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 lightened 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 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.
[Illustration: _No. 173. Lady and Dog._]
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 supposing, 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
chattering at him, he exclaimed, “A curse upon you! I thought you had
been Jenkin, my lord’s son.”[26] 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, l. 147.
Our cut No. 173, from a manuscript of the St. Graal, in the British
Museum (MS. Addit. No. 10,293, fol. 31), written in the thirteenth
century, represents a queen seated in conversation, with her dog
in her lap. The next cut (No. 174), 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 gamboling about. In the
singular work on domestic economy, entitled the “Ménagier 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.[27] I have printed in
the “Reliquiæ Antiquæ” a curious Anglo-Norman poem, of the beginning
of the fourteenth 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 prejudice against them in the middle ages, and they
were joined in people’s imagination with witchcraft, and with other
diabolical agencies. The accompanying group of an old lady and her cats
(cut No. 175) 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, forbids
the nuns to keep any “beast” but a cat.
[Illustration: _No. 174. Interior of a Chamber._]
[Illustration: _No. 175. The Lady and herCats._]
The chamber was, as might be expected, more comfortably furnished than
the hall. The walls were covered with curtains, or tapestry, whence
this apartment is frequently termed in the fabliaux and romances the
_chambre encortinée_. The story of a fabliau printed in my “Anecdota
Literaria” turns upon the facility with which a person might be
concealed 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 gentleman
into her chamber, gives him a rich chair which would hold seven people,
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 beforn,_
_Frout_ (fruit) _and spices sche him bede,_
_Wine to drink, wite and rede,_
_Bothe of coppe and horn_.
The chamber was especially distinguished by its fireplace and chimney.
The form of the mediæval 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 represented sitting in the evening with her lord by the chamber
fireside, attended by their squire, and playing with a dog--
_The yonge levedi and hire lord_
_Sete an even by the fer_ (fire);
_Biforen hem stod here squier_.
* * * * *
_The bichche lai in hire barm (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 coutepointe ouvré d’auqueton_
_Trova seant la dame lez i. feu de charbon._
--Gautier d’Aupais, 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
burning--
_Damesele, loke ther be_
_A fuyre in the chymené;_
_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 tapis_); but these were no doubt
embroidered 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, strewed 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 à 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 mediæval stories turns upon this circumstance. Chests
and coffers were also kept in the chamber; and it contained generally
a small 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 drunk, and then went to bed”--
_Qant orent mengié, 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 mengié par loisir,_
_Si su heure d’aler gesir._
Sometimes, however, there were dancing and other amusements between
supper and bed-time. Thus, in the romance of “Sir Degrevant,”--
_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 into his bed-chamber, and drink with him there before they
leave him:--
_Après mengier, chascuns comence_
_De faire caroles et dance,_
Tant qu’il fu houre de couchier;_
_Puis anmainment le chevalier_
_En sa chambre où fait fu son lit,_
_Et là burent par grant delit;_
_Puis prinrent congié._
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--
_Après mengier se sont deduit_
_De paroles, puis si ont fruit._
In the lay of the “Chevalier à l’Espée,” 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
frequently 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
“Squyeres Tale,” 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 which evidently intimates
that they had considerably overslept themselves. The princess Canace
had left her bed long before, and was walking with her maidens in the
park. In the “Schipmannes 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, 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 she called her _maître d’hôtel_, 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 Mautaillé,” 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 (_pieçà_). _Nonne_ is here probably meant for midday,
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_
_Fro January, with thank on every side,_
_Hoom to her houses lustily thay ryde._
--Cant. Tales, l. 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.
[Illustration: _No. 176. A Supper._]
One reason for keeping early hours was that candles and lamps were too
expensive to be used in profusion by people in general. Various 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 holding torches. In general, candles
were used at supper. The accompanying cut (No. 176), taken from the
manuscript of the St. Graal already mentioned, represents a person
supping by candlelight. 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 cire_).
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,_
_Où 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
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 Violette, p. 30.
This, however, appears to have been done as a mark of honour to the
guest, for, even in ducal castles common candles appear to have been
in ordinary use. In a bedroom scene in a fabliau printed by Meon
(tom. 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’à s’esponde estoit atachie._
Blowing out the candle was the ordinary manner of extinguishing it.
In the “Ménagier de Paris,” or instructions for the management of a
gentleman’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 servants to bed, and to take care that each
had a candle in a “flat-bottomed candlestick,” at some distance from
the bed, “and to teach them prudently 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.[28]
Extinguishers had not yet come into general use. People went to bed
with a candle placed in a candlestick of a different description from
that used at table; and we learn from a story in the “Ménagier 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 chimney; 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. 177, taken from one of the carved stalls of the chapel
of Winchester school, represents an individual, perhaps 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 à la Corbeille,” an old
dueña, 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 in all night.
[Illustration: _No. 177. The Cellarer in a Panic._]
[Illustration: _No. 178. Man with Lantern._]
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._
A manuscript of the thirteenth century in the French National Library
(No. 6956) contains an illumination, which has furnished us with the
accompanying cut (No. 178), 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
chamber where nothing but a lamp was burning,--
_En la chambre lumiere n’ot,_
_Hors d’un mortier qu’iluec ardoit,_
_Point de clarté ne lor rendoit._
In the accompanying cut (No. 179), taken from an illumination in a
manuscript 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.
[Illustration: _No. 179. A Bedroom Chamber Scene._]
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
Romans, consisting, as in the foregoing 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
preceding cut (No. 179), which explains the term _mortier_ (mortar) of
the fabliau, it was a wick swinging in oil in a basin. Our cut No.
180, taken from a manuscript of the fourteenth century in the British
Museum (MS. Harl., No. 1227), represents a row of lamps of rather
curious form, made to be suspended. In our next cut (No. 181), 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.
[Illustration: _No. 180. Mediæval Lamps._]
[Illustration: _No. 181. Men carrying Lamps._]
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 holds 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
chamber, “blewe out the torche,” in order to cause perfect darkness
(Weber, iii. 63); and in the early English romance of “Sir Degrevant”
(Weber, iii. 213), where light is wanted in a lady’s chamber, it is
obtained by means of the torches.
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.