IN-DOOR LIFE AND CONVERSATION.--PET ANIMALS.--THE
DANCE.--RERE-SUPPERS.--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 we 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 _dressés_, 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 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.
[Illustration: _No. 249. A Sick Room._]
Our cut No. 249 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. Shaw, in his beautiful work the “Dresses
and Decorations of 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, 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 go 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 servants 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 therewith. Item, to pay the lady Pole twenty-six
shillings and eightpence for her board.” Margaret Paston, the wife of
John Paston, just mentioned, 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 departed,” 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, 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
London, 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 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. 250
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 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
position 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 gentleman 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. 251), which is taken from an illumination in a manuscript
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.
[Illustration: _No. 250. A Conversation Scene._]
[Illustration: _No. 251. 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_.
_Within his house a pratie litelle cage,_.
_And with hir songe to rejoise his corage_.
And in another of Lydgate’s minor poems, it is said of Spring,--
_Whiche 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_.
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 mediæval poets,
the nightingale.[51] 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 cut No. 252.
[Illustration: _No. 252. Lady and Squirrel._]
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, 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
afternoon, 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. 253, 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 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
(_arrière souper_), 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.
[Illustration: _No. 253. A Dance._]
We have a very curious 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,
probably with truth, to have been the ornament of the tent of Charles
le Téméraire, 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, but 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, compiling
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 Santé”
(the ship 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 personages named Dinner, Supper, and Banquet, who declare
their intention to lead joyous life evening and morning, and they
resolve on imitating Passe-Temps (pastime) and Bonne-Compagnie (good
company). At this moment Bonne-Compagnie herself, who is described as
a dashing damsel (_gorrière damoiselle_), enters with all her people,
namely, Gourmandize (greediness), Friandize (daintiness), Passe-Temps,
already mentioned, Je-Boy-à-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
collation, at which, among other things, are served damsons (_prunes
de Damas_), which appear at this time to have been considered as
delicacies. 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 eating, Je-Boy-à-Vous calls the attention of the company to the
circumstance 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-Compagnie,
make 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
reception, 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 pâtés_, &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 compartment of the tapestry, as it now exists
(for it has undergone considerable mutilation), and is represented in
our cut No. 254. 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-à-Vous,
who has Bonne-Compagnie by his side, and to her left Dinner, the host.
To the right of Passe-Temps 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 an unrefined state of society. The court
fool was licensed to utter with impunity whatever came to his thought,
however mordant or however 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 buildings in the distance, and Supper and Banquet
looking in upon the company. 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’assemblée adviser,_
_Dont par envie prestement_
_Compindrent de viengence user._
[Illustration: _No. 254. A Dinner Party in grand ceremony._]
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 themselves 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 tables and benches,
and treating everybody with great cruelty. After some other scenes,
Banquet comes 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. 255. When
compared with the morality, it presents some variations. In front,
Banquet is standing before the table, opposite to Je-Boy-à-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 là proprement_
_Occirent l’assemblée toute._
The second inscription consists of eight lines moralizing on the final
ruin which often falls on those who make enjoyment the business of
their lives:--
_Les trois folz ont grant volonté_
_De cherche[r] leur malle meschance;_
_Quant on a bien ris et chanté,_
_A la fin fault tourner la chance._
_Ha! vous vellez avoir plaisance!_
_Bien l’auré vous ung tandis;_
_Mès gens quy prenent leur aisence,_
_En fin se treuvent plus mauldiz._
It is remarkable that these eight lines, taken from the tapestry, are
introduced into the morality, and placed in the mouth of the fool at
the end of the first scene.
[Illustration: _No. 255. A Banquet in the Fifteenth Century._]
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
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 subtelty, 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
characters 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 was then valued for being new. Food and liquor
were formerly adulterated in 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 pryvyté_
_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:--
_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 _pocœnium_ 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 introduced
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 bacon in it--an _omelette au lard_. 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 Ospring, 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 set 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 offering seems 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 degré 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 mowe we erly rysen, our jorney for to do_”.
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_.
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 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.