STATE OF SOCIETY.--THE FEMALE CHARACTER.--GREEDINESS IN
EATING.--CHARACTER OF THE MEDIÆVAL SERVANTS.--DAILY OCCUPATIONS
IN THE HOUSEHOLD: SPINNING AND WEAVING; PAINTING.--THE GARDEN
AND ITS USES.--GAMES OUT OF DOORS; HAWKING, ETC.--TRAVELLING,
AND MORE FREQUENT USE OF CARRIAGES.--TAVERNS; FREQUENTED BY
WOMEN.--EDUCATION AND LITERARY OCCUPATIONS; SPECTACLES.
During the fifteenth century, society in England was going through a
transition which was less visible on the surface than it was great
and effectual at the heart. France and England were both torn by
revolutionary struggles, but with very different results; for while
in France the political power of the middle classes was destroyed,
and the country was delivered to the despotism of the crown and of
the great lords, in our country it was the feudal nobility which was
ruined, while the municipal bodies had obtained an increased importance
in the state, and the landed gentry gained more independence and
power from the decline of that of the great feudal barons. Yet in
both countries feudalism itself, in its real character, was rapidly
passing away--in France, before the power of the crown; in England,
before the remodelling and reformation of society. While the substance
of feudalism was thus perishing, its outward forms appeared to be
more sought than ever, and the pride and ostentation of rank, and its
arrogance too, prevailed during the fifteenth century to a greater
degree than at any previous period. The court of Burgundy, itself
only in origin a feudal principality, had set itself up as the model
of feudalism, and there the old romances of chivalry were remodelled
and published anew, and were read eagerly as the mirror of feudal
doctrines. The court of Burgundy was remarkable for its wonderful pomp
and magnificence, and for its ostentatious display of wealth; it was
considered the model of lordly courtesy and high breeding, and was the
centre of literature and art; and circumstances had brought the court
of England into intimate connection with it, so that the influence of
Burgundian fashions was greater during this period in England than that
of the fashions of the court of France. There can be no doubt, too,
that the social character in England and in France were now beginning
to diverge widely from each other. The condition of the lower class
in France was becoming more and more miserable, and the upper classes
were becoming more licentious and immoral; whereas, in England, though
serfdom or villanage still existed in name, and in law, the peasantry
had been largely enfranchised, and it was gradually disappearing as a
fact; and their landlords, the country gentry, lived among them in more
kindly and more intimate intercourse, instead of treating them with
tyrannical cruelty, and dragging them off to be slaughtered in their
private wars. Increased commerce had spread wealth among the middle
classes, and had brought with it, no doubt, a considerable increase of
social comfort. Social manners were still very coarse, but it is quite
evident that the efforts of the religious reformers, the Lollards, were
improving the moral tone of society in the middle and lower classes.
People had, moreover, begun now to discuss great social questions. The
example of this had been given in England in the celebrated poem of
“Piers Ploughman,” in the middle of the fourteenth century, and such
questions were mooted very extensively by the Lollards, who held as a
principle the natural equality of man. This was a doctrine which was
accepted very slowly, and was certainly discountenanced by the Roman
Catholic preachers, who encouraged the belief that the division of
society into distinct classes was a permanent judgment of God, and
even invented legends to account for its origin. Long after feudalism
had ceased, it was difficult to disabuse people of the opinion that
the blood which flowed in the veins of a gentleman was of a different
kind from that of a peasant, or even from that of a burgher. One of
the legendary explanations of these divisions of blood is given by a
poetical writer of the reign of Henry VII., named Alexander Barclay,
who has left us seven “eclogues,” as he calls them, on the social
questions which agitated men’s minds in his day. One day, according
to this story, while Adam was absent occupied with his agricultural
labours, Eve sat at home on their threshold, with all her children
about her, when suddenly she became aware of the approach of the
Creator, and, ashamed of the great number of them, and fearful that
her productiveness might be misinterpreted, she hurriedly concealed
those which were the least well-favoured. “Some of them she placed
under hay, some under straw and chaff, some in the chimney, and some
in a tub of draff; but such as were fair and well made she wisely and
cunningly kept with her.” God told her that he had come to see her
children, that he might promote them in their different degrees; upon
which she presented them in their order of birth. God then ordained
the eldest to be an emperor, the second to be a king, and the third
a duke to guide an army; of the rest he made earls, lords, barons,
squires, knights, and “hardy champions.” Some he appointed to be
“judges, mayors, and governors, merchants, sheriffs, and protectors,
aldermen, and burgesses.” While all this was going on, Eve began to
think of her other children, and, unwilling that they should lose their
share of honours, she now produced them from their hiding-places.
They appeared with their hair rough, and powdered with chaff, some
full of straws, and some covered with cobwebs and dust, “that anybody
might be frightened at the sight of them.” They were black with dirt,
ill-favoured in countenance, and mishapen in stature, and God did not
conceal his disgust. “None,” he said, “can make a vessel of silver
out of an earthen pitcher, or goodly silk out of a goat’s fleece, or
a bright sword of a cow’s tail; neither will I, though I can, make a
noble gentleman out of a vile villain. You shall all be ploughmen and
tillers of the ground, to keep oxen and hogs, to dig and delve, and
hedge and dike, and in this wise shall ye live in endless servitude.
Even the townsmen shall laugh you to scorn; yet some of you shall be
allowed to dwell in cities, and shall be admitted to such occupations
as those of makers of puddings, butchers, cobblers, tinkers,
costard-mongers, hostlers, or daubers.” Such, the teller of the story
informs us, was the beginning of servile labour.
A song of the fifteenth century, printed in the collection of songs
and carols edited for the Percy Society, the burthen of which is the
necessity of money in all conditions, describes the different ranks
and their various aspirations in the following order: the yeoman
who desires to become a gentleman, the gentleman who seeks to be a
squire, the squire who would be a knight, the lettered man who seeks
distinction in the schools, the merchant who aspired to rise to wealth,
and the lawyer who sought promotion at the bar. In the interesting
“Recueil de Poésies Françoises des xv^e et xvi^e siècles,” by M. de
Montaiglon (vol. iii. pp. 138, 147), there are two poems, probably of
the latter part of the fifteenth century, entitled _Les Souhaitz des
Hommes_ (the wishes of the men) and _Les Souhaitz des Femmes_ (the
wishes of the women), in which the various classes are made to declare
that which they desire most. Thus dukes, counts, and knights desire
to be skilful in warlike accomplishments; the president in parliament
desires the gold chain and the seat of honour, with wisdom in giving
judgment; the advocate wishes for eloquence in court, and for a fair
bourgeoise or damoiselle at home to make his house joyful; the burgher
wishes for a good fire in winter, and a good supply of fat capons; and
the clergy are made to wish for good cheer and handsome women. The
wishes of the women are on the whole, perhaps, more characteristic than
those of the men. Thus, the queen wishes to be able to love God and the
king, and to live in peace; the duchess, to have all the enjoyments
and pleasures of wealth; the countess, to have a husband who was loyal
and brave; the knight’s lady, to hunt the stag in the green woods; the
damoiselle, or lady of gentle blood, also loved hunting, and wished
for a husband valiant in war; and the chamber-maiden took pleasure in
walking in the fair fields by the river-side; while the bourgeoise
loved above all things a soft bed at night, with a good pillow, and
clean white sheets. That part of society which now comes chiefly under
our notice had fallen into two classes, that which boasted gentle
blood, and the ungentle, or burgher class, and this was particularly
shown among the ladies, for the bourgeoise sought continually to
imitate the gentlewoman, or _damoiselle_, who, on her part, looked on
these encroachments of the other with great jealousy. M. de Montaiglon
has printed in the collection just quoted (vol. v. p. 5) a short poem
entitled, “The Debate between the Damoiselle and the Bourgeoise,” in
which the exclusive rights of gentle blood are strongly claimed and
disputed. We have seen the same ambition of the wives of burghers and
yeomen to ape the gentlewoman as far back as the days of Chaucer, and
it now often becomes a subject of popular satire. Yet we must not
forget that this desire to imitate higher society assisted much in
refining the manners of the middle classes. M. de Montaiglon (vol. ii.
p. 18) has printed a short piece in verse of the latter part of the
fifteenth century, entitled the “Doctrinal des Filles,” containing
the sentiments which teachers sought to implant in the minds of young
ladies, and it will suit England at that time equally with France. The
young ladies are here recommended to be bashful; not to be forward
in falling in love; to pay proper attention to their dress, and to
courteousness in behaviour; and not to be too eager in dancing. From
all that we gather from the writers of the time, the love of dancing
appears at this period to have been carried to a very great degree of
extravagance, and to have often led to great dissoluteness in social
manners, and the more zealous moralists preached against the dance with
much earnestness. The author of our “Doctrinal” admonishes the young
unmarried girl to dance with moderation when she is at the “carol”
(the name of the ordinary dance), lest people who see her dancing too
eagerly should take her for a dissolute woman--
_Fille, quant serez en karolle,_
_Dansez gentiment par mesure,_
_Car, quant fille se desmesure,_
_Tel la voit qui la tient pour folle._
The young lady is next cautioned against talking scandal, against
believing in dreams, against drinking too much wine, and against being
too talkative at table. She was to avoid idleness, to respect the aged,
not to allow herself to be kissed in secret (kissing in public was
the ordinary form of salutation), and not to be quarrelsome. She was
especially to avoid being alone with a priest, except at confession,
for it was dangerous to let priests haunt the house where there were
young females--
_Fille, hormis confession,_
_Seullette ne parlez à prebstre;_
_Laissez-les en leur eglise estre,_
_Sans ce qu’ilz hantent vos maisons._
These lines, written and published in a bigoted Roman Catholic country,
by a man who was evidently a staunch Romanist, and addressed to
young women as their rule of behaviour, present perhaps one of the
strongest evidences we could have of the evil influence exercised by
the Romish clergy on social morals, a fact, however, of which there are
innumerable other proofs.
Whatever may have been the effect of such teaching on the better
educated classes, the general character of the women of the middle and
lower classes appears to have been of a description little likely to be
conducive to domestic happiness. All the popular materials for social
history represent their morals as being very low, and their tempers as
overbearing and quarrelsome, the consequence of which was a separation
of domestic life among the two sexes after marriage, the husbands, when
not engaged at their work or business, seeking their amusement away
from the house, and the wives assembling with their “gossips,” often at
the public taverns, to drink and amuse themselves. In the old mysteries
and morality plays, in which there was a good deal of quiet satire on
the manners of the age in which they were composed and acted, Noah’s
wife appears often as the type of the married woman in the burgher
class, and her temper seems to have become almost proverbial. In the
“Towneley Mysteries,” when Noah acquaints his wife with the approach of
the threatened deluge, and of his orders to build the ark, she abuses
him so grossly as a common carrier of ill news, that he is provoked
to strike her; she returns the blow, and they have a regular battle,
in which the husband has the advantage, but he is glad to escape from
her tongue, and proceed to his work. In the “Chester Mysteries,”
Noah’s wife will not go into the ark; and when all is ready, the flood
beginning, and the necessity of taking her in apparent, she refuses to
enter, unless she is allowed to take her gossips with her:--
_Yea, sir, sette up youer saile,_
_And rowe fourth with evill haile,_
_For withouten fayle
I will not oute of this towne,_
_But I have my gossippes everyechone_ (every one)
_One foote further I will not gone_ (go).
_They shall not drowne, by Sante John,_
_And I maye save ther life!_
_They loven me full wel, by Christe!_
_But thout lett them into they cheiste_,_
_Elles_ (otherwise) _rowe nowe wher the leiste_ (where you like),
_And gette thee a newe wiffe_.
It is to be supposed that Noah, when he wanted her, had found her with
her gossips in the tavern. At last, Noah’s three sons are obliged to
drag their mother into the “boat,” when a scene occurs which appears
thus briefly indicated in the text,--
Noye.
_Welckome, wiffe, into this botte!_
Noye’s Wiffe.
_Have thou that for thy note!_ [She beats him.]
Noye.
_Ha, ha! marye, this is hotte!_
_It is good for to be still._
The conversation of these “gossips,” when they met, was loose and
coarse in the extreme, and, as described in contemporary writings, the
practice even of profane swearing prevailed generally among both sexes
to a degree which, to our ears, would sound perfectly frightful--it was
one of the vices against which the moralists preached most bitterly.
Life, indeed, in spite of its occasional refinement in the higher
ranks of society, was essentially coarse at this period, and we can
hardly conceive much delicacy of people who dieted as, for instance,
the family of the earl of Northumberland are reported to have done in
the household book, compiled in 1512, which was published by bishop
Percy. I only give the breakfast allowances, which, on flesh-days,
were “for my lord and my lady,” a loaf of bread “in trenchers,” two
manchets (loaves of fine meal), one quart of beer (or, as we should
now call it, ale), a quart of wine, half a chine of mutton, or a chine
of beef boiled; for “my lord Percy and Mr. Thomas Percy” (the two
elder children), half a loaf of household bread, a manchet, one pottle
of beer (two quarts--they were not yet allowed wine), a chicken, or
else three mutton bones boiled; “breakfasts for the nurcery, for my
lady Margaret and Mr. Ingram Percy” (who in fact were mere children),
a manchet, one quart of beer, and three mutton bones boiled; for my
lady’s gentlewomen, a loaf of household bread, a pottle of beer, and
three mutton bones boiled, or else a piece of beef boiled. It will be
seen here that the family dined two to a plate, or mess, as was the
usual custom in the middle ages. On fish-days, the breakfast allowances
were as follows: for my lord and my lady, a loaf of bread in trenchers,
two manchets, a quart of beer, a quart of wine, two pieces of salt
fish, six baked herrings, or a dish of sprats; for the two elder sons,
half a loaf of household bread, a manchet, a pottle of beer, a dish of
butter, a piece of salt fish, a dish of sprats, or three white (fresh)
herrings; for the two children in the nursery, a manchet, a quart of
beer, a dish of butter, a piece of salt fish, a dish of sprats, or
three white herrings; and for my lady’s gentlewomen, a loaf of bread,
a pottle of beer, a piece of salt fish, or three white herrings. We
shall be inclined, in comparing it with our modern style of living, to
consider this as a very substantial meal to begin the day with.
According to the old moral and satirical writers, excessive greediness
in eating had become one of the prevailing vices of this age. Barclay,
in his “Eclogues,” gives a strange picture of the bad regulations of
the tables at the courts of great people, in the time of Henry VII.
He describes the tables as served in great confusion, and even as
covered with dirty table-cloths. The food he represents as being bad
in itself, and often ill-cooked. Everybody, he says, was obliged to
eat in a hurry, unless he would lose his chance of eating at all, and
they served the worst dishes first, so that when you had satiated
yourself with food which was hardly palatable, the dainties made their
appearance. This led people to eat more than they wanted. When an
attractive dish did make its appearance, it led literally to a scramble
among the guests:--
_But if it fortune, as seldome doth befall,_
_That at beginning come dishes best of all,
Or_ (before) _thou hast tasted a morsell or twayne,_
_Thy dish out of sight is taken soon agayne._
_Slowe be the servers in serving in alway,_
_But swifte be they after taking thy meate away._
_A speciall custome is used them among,_
_No good dish to suffer on borde to be longe._
_If the dish be pleasaunt, eyther fleshe or fishe,_
_Ten handes at once swarme in the dishe;_
_And if it be fleshe, ten knives shalt thou see_
_Mangling the flesh and in the platter flee;_
_To put there thy handes is perill without fayle,_
_Without a gauntlet or els a glove of mayle._
It would thus seem that the servers left the guests, except those at
the high table, to help themselves. It appears that in the earlier
part of the sixteenth century, the English had gained the character
of keeping the most profuse tables, and being the greatest eaters, in
Europe. A scrap preserved in a manuscript of the reign of Henry VIII.,
and printed in the “Reliquiæ Antiquæ” (vol. i. p. 326), offers rather a
curious excuse for this character. There was a merchant of England, we
are told, who adventured into far countries, and when he had been there
a month or more, a great lord invited this English merchant to dinner.
And when they were at dinner, the lord wondered that he eat not more of
his meat, for, said he, “Englishmen are called the greatest feeders in
the world, and it is reported that one man will eat as much as six of
another nation, and more victuals are consumed there than in any other
region.” “It is true,” the merchant replied, “it is so, and for three
reasonable causes so much victual is served on the table; one of which
is, for love, another, for physic, and the third, for dread. Sir, as
concerns the first, we are accustomed to have many divers meats for our
friends and kinsfolk, because some love one manner of meat, and some
another, and we wish every man to be satisfied. Secondly, in regard of
physic, because for divers maladies which people have, some men will
eat one meat, and some another, it is desirable that everybody should
be suited. The third cause is for dread; for we have so great abundance
and plenty in our realm, of beasts and fowls, that if we should not
kill and destroy them, they would destroy and devour us.” It may be
remarked that, during this period, the English merchants and burghers
in general seem to have kept very good tables, and that the lower
orders, and even the peasantry, appear to have been by no means ill fed.
The confusion in serving at table described by Alexander Barclay was
no doubt caused in a great measure by the numerous troops of riotous
and unruly serving men and followers, who were kept by the noblemen
and greater land-holders, and who formed everywhere one of the curses
of society. Within the household, they had become so unmanageable
that their masters made vain attempts to regulate them; while abroad
they were continually engaged in quarrels, often sanguinary ones,
with countrymen or townsmen, or with the retainers of other noblemen
or gentlemen, in which their masters considered that it concerned
their credit to support and protect them, so that the quarrels of the
servants became sometimes feuds between their lords. The old writers,
of all descriptions, bear witness to the bad conduct of serving men and
servants in general, and to their riotousness, and especially of the
_garçons_, or, as they were called in English, “lads.” Cain’s _garcio_,
in the “Towneley Mysteries,” was intended as a picture of this class,
in all their coarseness and vulgarity; and the character of Jak Garcio,
in the play of “The Shepherds,” in the same collection, is another type
of them.
We have seen that the breakfast in the household of the Percys was
a very substantial meal, but it seems not to have been generally
considered a regular meal, either as to what was eaten at it, or
as to the hour at which it was taken. Perhaps this was left to the
convenience, or caprice, of individuals.[53] We have a curious
description of the division of the occupations of the day in a princely
household, in an account which has been left us of the household
regulations of the duchess of York, mother of king Edward IV., which,
however, were strongly influenced by the pious character of that
princess, who spent much time in religious duties and observances. Her
usual hour of rising was seven o’clock, when she heard matins; she then
“made herself ready,” or dressed herself, for the occupations of the
day, and when this was done, she had a low mass in her chamber. After
this mass, she took something “to recreate nature,” which was, in fact,
her breakfast, though it is afterwards stated that it was not a regular
meal. She then went to chapel, and remained at religious service until
dinner, which, as we are further told, took place, “upon eating days,”
at eleven o’clock, with a first dinner in the time of high mass for
the various officers whose duty it was to attend at table; but, on
fasting days, the dinner hour was twelve o’clock, with a later dinner
for carvers and waiters. After dinner, the princess devoted an hour
to give audience to all who had any business with her; she then slept
for a quarter of an hour, and then spent her time in prayer until the
first peal of even-song (vespers), when “she drank wine or ale at her
pleasure.” She went to chapel, and returned thence to supper, which,
on eating days, was served at five o’clock, the carvers and servers at
table having supped at four. The ordinary diet in the house of this
princess appears to have been extremely simple. On Sunday, Tuesday,
and Thursday, the household was served at dinner with beef and mutton,
and one roast; at supper with “leyched” beef and roast mutton; on
Monday and Wednesday, they had boiled beef and mutton at dinner, and
at supper, the same as on the three other days; on Friday, salt fish
and two dishes of fresh fish; and on Saturday, salt fish, one fresh
fish, and butter, for dinner, and salt fish and eggs for supper.
After supper, the princess “disposed herself to be familiar with her
gentlewomen,” with “honest mirth;” and one hour before going to bed she
took a cup of wine, went to her privy closet to pray, and was in bed by
eight o’clock.
The duchess of York is of course to be looked upon as a model of piety
and sobriety, and her hours are not perhaps to be taken as exactly
those of other people, and certainly not her occupations. In the French
“Débat de la Damoiselle et de la Bourgeoise,” the latter accuses the
gentlewoman of late rising. “Before you are awake,” she says, “I am
dressed and have attended to my duties; do not therefore be surprised
if we are more diligent than you, since you sleep till dinner-time.”
“No,” replies the damoiselle, “we must spend our evening in dancing,
and cannot do as you, who go to bed at the same time as your hens.”
[Illustration: _No. 265. Lady at her Distaff._]
It has been stated already that, even in the highest ranks of
society, the ladies were usually employed at home on useful, and
often on profitable work. This work embraced the various processes
in the manufacture of linen and cloth, as well as the making it up
into articles of dress, and embroidery, netting, and other similar
occupations. The spinning-wheel was a necessary implement in every
household, from the palace to the cottage. In 1437, John Notyngham, a
rich grocer of Bury St. Edmunds, bequeathed to one of his legatees,
“j spynnyng whel et j par carpsarum,” meaning probably “a pair of
cards,” an implement which is stated in the “Promptorium Parvulorum”
to be especially a “wommanys instrument.” A few years previously,
in 1418, Agnes Stubbard, a resident in the same town, bequeathed to
two of her maids, each, one pair of wool-combs, one “kembyng-stok”
(a combing-stock, or machine for holding the wool to be combed),
one wheel, and one pair of cards; and to another woman a pair of
wool-combs, a wheel, and a pair of cards. John Baret, of Bury, in
1463, evidently a rich man with a very large house and household,
speaks in his will of a part of the house, or probably a room, which
was distinguished as the “spinning house.” Our cut No. 265, from an
illuminated Bible of the fifteenth century in the Imperial Library at
Paris (No. 6829), represents a woman of apparently an ordinary class of
society at work with her distaff under her arm. The next cut (No. 266)
is taken from a fine illuminated manuscript of the well-known French
“Boccace des Nobles Femmes,” and illustrates the story of “Cyrille,”
the wife of king Tarquin. We have here a queen and her maidens employed
in the same kind of domestic labours. The lady on the left is occupied
with her combs, or cards, and her combing-stock; the other sits at her
distaff, also supported by a stock, instead of holding it under her
arm; and the queen, with her hand on the shuttle, is performing the
final operation of weaving.
[Illustration: _No. 266. A Queen and her Damsels at Work._]
Some of the more elegant female accomplishments, which were unknown in
the earlier ages, were now coming into vogue. Dancing was, as already
stated, a more favourite amusement than ever, and it received a new
_éclat_ from the frequent introduction of new dances, of which some of
the old popular writers give us long lists. Some of these, too, were
of a far more active and exciting description than formerly. One of
the personages in the early interlude of “The Four Elements,” talks of
persons--
_That shall both daunce and spryng,_
_And torne clene above the grounde,_
_With fryscas and with gambawdes round,_
_That all the hall shall ryng._
[Illustration: _No. 267. A Lady Artist._]
Music, also, was more extensively cultivated as a domestic
accomplishment; and it was a more common thing to meet with ladies
who indulged in literary pursuits. Sometimes, too, the ladies of the
fifteenth century practised drawing and painting,--arts which, instead
of being, as formerly, restricted almost to the clergy, had now passed
into the hands of the laity, and were undergoing rapid improvement.
The illuminated manuscript of “Boccace des Nobles Femmes,” which
furnished the subject of our last cut, contains several pictures of
ladies occupied in painting, one of which (illustrating the chapter on
“Marcie Vierge”) is represented in our cut No. 267. The lady has her
palette, her colour-box, and her stone for grinding the colours, much
as an artist of the present day would have, though she is seated before
a somewhat singularly formed framework. She is evidently painting her
own portrait, for which purpose she uses the mirror which hangs over
the colour-box. It is rather curious that the tools which lie by the
side of the grinding-stone are those of a sculptor, and not those of
a painter, so that it was no doubt intended we should suppose that
she combined the two branches of the art. In one of the illuminations
of the manuscript of the “Romance of the Rose,” which has been quoted
before, preserved in the British Museum, we have a picture of a male
painter, copied in our cut No. 268, and intended to represent Apelles,
who is working with a palette and easel, exactly as artists do at
the present day: both he and our lady artist in the cut are evidently
painting on board. We begin now also to trace the existence of a great
number of domestic sports and pastimes, some of which still remain in
usage, but which we have not here room to enumerate.
[Illustration: _No. 268. A Painter at his Easel._]
Out of doors, the garden continued to be the favourite resort of the
ladies. It would be easy to pick out numerous descriptions of gardens
from the writers of the fifteenth century. Lydgate thus describes the
garden of the rich “churl:”--
_Whilom ther was in a smal village,_
_As myn autor makethe rehersayle,_
_A chorle, whiche hadde lust and a grete corage_
_Within hymself, be diligent travayle,_
_To array his gardeyn with notable apparayle,_
_Of lengthe and brede yelicke_ (equally) _square and longe,_
_Hegged and dyked to make it sure and stronge._
_Alle the aleis were made playne with sond_ (sand),
_The benches_ (banks) _turned with newe turvis grene,_
_Sote herbers_ (sweet beds of plants), _with (fountain)
_at the honde,
_That wellid up agayne the sonne schene,_
_Lyke silver stremes as any cristalle clene,
The burbly wawes_ (bubbling waves) _in up boyling,_
_Rounde as byralle ther beamys out shynynge_.
_Amyddis the gardeyn stode a fressh lawrer_ (laurel),
_Theron a bird syngyng bothe day and nyghte_.
And at a somewhat later period, Stephen Hawes, in his singular poem
entitled “The Pastime of Pleasure,” describes a larger and more
magnificent garden. Amour arrives at the gate of the garden of La Bel
Pucel, and requests the portress to conduct him to her mistress--
_“Truly,” quod she, “in the garden grene_
_Of many a swete and sundry flowre_
_She maketh a garlonde that is veray shene,_
_Wythe trueloves wrought in many a coloure,_
_Replete with swetenes and dulcet odoure;_
_And all alone, wythout company,_
_Amyddes an herber she sitteth plesauntly.”_
From the description of this “gloryous” garden that follows, we might
imagine that the practice of cutting or training trees and flowers into
fantastic shapes, as was done with box-trees in the last century, had
prevailed among the gardeners of the fifteenth. The garden of La Bel
Pucel is described as being--
_Wyth Flora paynted and wrought curyously,_
_In divers knottes of marvaylous gretenes;_
_Rampande lyons stode up wondersly,_
_Made all of herbes with dulcet swetenes,_
_Wyth many dragons of marvaylos likenes,_
_Of dyvers floures made ful craftely,_
_By Flora couloured wyth colours sundry._
_Amiddes the garden so moche delectable_
_There was an herber fayre and quadrante,_
_To paradyse right well comparable,_
_Set all about with floures fragraunt;_
_And in the myddle there was resplendyshaunte_
_A dulcet spring and marvaylous fountaine,_
_Of golde and asure made all certaine._
* * * * *
_Besyde whiche fountayne, the moost fayre lady_
_La Bel Pucel was gayly syttyng;_
_Of many floures fayre and ryally_
_A goodly chaplet she was in makynge._
[Illustration: _No. 269. A Lady and her Maidens weaving Garlands._]
I have had occasion before to observe that garlands and chaplets of
flowers were in great request in the middle ages, and the making of
them was a favourite occupation. Our cut No. 269, taken from the
illuminated calendar prefixed to the splendid manuscript “Heures” of
Anne of Brittany in the Imperial Library in Paris, where it illustrates
the month of May, represents the interior of a garden, with a lady thus
employed with her maidens. This garden appears to be a square piece
of ground, surrounded by a high wall, with a central compartment or
lawn enclosed by a fence of trellis-work and a hedge of rose trees.
Pictures of gardens will also be found in the MS. of the “Romance of
the Rose” already referred to, and in other illuminated books, but the
illuminators were unable to represent the elaborate descriptions of the
poets. Besides flowers, every garden contained herbs for medicinal and
other purposes, such as love-philtars, which were in great repute in
the middle ages. In the romance of “Gerard de Nevers” (or La Violette),
an old woman goes into the garden attached to the castle where she
lives, to gather herbs for making a deadly poison. This incident is
represented in our cut No. 270, taken from a magnificent illuminated
manuscript of the prose version of this romance in the Imperial
Library in Paris. The garden is here again surrounded by a wall, with
a postern gate leading to the country, and we have the same trellis
fencings as before. It appears to have been the usual custom thus to
enclose and protect the beds in a garden with a trellis fence.
[Illustration: _No. 270. A Lady gathering Herbs._]
The various games and exercises practised by people out of doors
seem to have differed little at this time from those belonging to
former periods, except that from time to time we meet with allusions
to kinds of amusement which have not before been mentioned, although
they were probably well known. Among the drawings of the borders of
illuminated manuscripts, from the thirteenth century to the beginning
of the sixteenth, we meet with groups of children and of adults,
which represent, doubtless, games of which both the names and the
explanations are lost; and sometimes we are surprised to find thus
represented games which otherwise we should have supposed to be of
modern invention. One very curious instance may be stated. In the now
rather celebrated manuscript of the French romance of “Alexander,” in
the Bodleian Library at Oxford, which was written and illuminated in
the fourteenth century, we have representations of a puppet show, which
appears to be identical with our modern Punch and Judy. We copy one of
these curious early drawings in our cut No. 271.
[Illustration: _No. 271. A Puppet Show._]
Among the pastimes most popular at this time with the lower and middle
classes were archery, the practice of which was enforced by authority,
and shooting with the crossbow, as well as most of the ordinary rough
games known at a later period, such as football and the like. The
English archers were celebrated throughout Europe. The poet Barclay,
who wrote at the close of the century, makes the shepherd in one of his
eclogues not only boast of his skill in archery, but he adds--
_I can dance the ray; I can both pipe and sing,_
_If I were mery; I can both hurle and sling;_
_I runne, I wrestle, I can welle throwe the barre,_
_No shepherd throweth the axeltree so farre;_
_If I were mery, I could well leape and spring;_
_I were a man mete to serve a prince or king._
[Illustration: _No. 272. A Party Hawking._]
[Illustration: _No. 273. A Royal Carriage and Escort._]
Bull-baiting, bear-baiting, and such like sports, were also pursued
with avidity; and even gentlemen and young noblemen took part in
them. Any game, in fact, which produced violent exercise and violent
excitement was in favour with all ranks. Among the higher classes,
hunting and hawking were pursued with more eagerness than ever, and
they become now the subjects of numerous written treatises, setting
forth their laws and regulations. When gentlemen were riding out for
pleasure, they were usually accompanied with hawks and hounds. In the
annexed cut (No. 272), taken from an illuminated manuscript of the
French Boccaccio at Paris (Imperial Library, MS. No. 6887), a party
thus attended meets another party on horseback, and they are in the act
of saluting each other. Horses were still almost the only conveyance
from place to place, though we now more often meet with pictures of
carriages; but, though evidently intended to be very gorgeous, they
are of clumsy construction, and seem only to have been used by princes
or great nobles. I give two examples from a superbly illuminated
manuscript of the French translation of “Valerius Maximus,” in the
great national library in Paris (No. 6984), executed in the latter part
of the fifteenth century. The first (cut No. 273) is a royal car, in
which a throne has been placed for the king, who sits in it in state.
His guards lead the horses. The form of the carriage is very simple;
it is a mere cart on wheels, without any springs, and has a covering
supported on two large hoops, which are strengthened by cross-bars
resembling the spokes of a wheel. In the second example (cut No. 274),
the carriage bears some resemblance to a modern omnibus. It is intended
to represent the incident in Roman history, where the unfilial Tullia
caused her charioteer to drive over the body of her father, Servius
Tullus, who had been slain by her husband Tarquin the Proud. The
ladies appear to sit on benches inside the carriage, while the driver
is mounted on the horse nearest to it. These carriages still retained
the name of carts, although they appear to have been used chiefly on
state occasions. Riding in them must have been very uneasy, and they
were exposed to accidents. When Richard II. made his grand entry into
London, a ceremony described by Richard de Maidstone in Latin verse,
the ladies of the court rode in two cars, or carts, one of which fell
over, and exposed its fair occupants in a not very decorous manner to
the jeers of the multitude.
[Illustration: _No. 274. Tullia Riding over her Father’s Body._]
As yet carriages seem not to have been used in travelling, which was
performed on horseback or on foot. During the century of which we are
speaking, especially after the accession of Henry VI. to the English
throne, the roads were extremely insecure, the country being infested
by such numerous bands of robbers that it was necessary to travel in
considerable companies, and well armed. From this circumstance, and
from the political condition of the age, the retinue of the nobility
and gentry presented a very formidable appearance; and such as could
only afford to travel with one or two servants generally attached
themselves to some powerful neighbour, and contrived to make their
occasions of locomotion coincide with his. We find several allusions
to the dangers of travelling in the Paston Letters. In a letter dated
in 1455 or 1460 (it is uncertain which), Margaret Paston desires her
husband, then in London, to pay a debt for one of their friends,
because, on account of the robbers who beset the road, money could not
be sent safely from Norfolk to the capital. A year or two earlier,
we hear of a knight of Suffolk riding with a hundred horsemen, armed
defensively and offensively, besides the accompaniment of friends. As
travelling, however, became frequent, it led to the multiplication
of places of entertainment on the roads, and large hostelries and
inns were now scattered pretty thickly over the country, not only in
all the smaller towns, but often in villages, and sometimes even in
comparatively lonely places. In the manuscript of the French Boccaccio
in the Imperial Library (No. 6887), there is a picture (copied in our
cut No. 275) representing a publican serving his liquor on a bench
outside his door.
[Illustration: _No. 275. A Publican._]
The tavern was the general lounge of the idle, and even of the
industrious, during their hours of relaxation; and in the towns a good
part of the male population who had not domestic establishments of
their own appear to have lived at the taverns and eating-houses, the
allurements of which drew them into every sort of dissipation, which
ended in the ruin of men’s fortunes and health. The poet Occleve, in
his reminiscences of his own conduct, describes the life of the riotous
young men of his time. The sign which hung at the tavern door, he says,
was always a temptation to him, which he could seldom resist. The
tavern was the resort of women of light character, and was the scene of
brawls and outrages; by the former of which he was frequently seduced
into extravagant expenditure, but his want of courage, he confesses,
kept him out of the latter. Westminster gate was then celebrated for
its taverns and cooks’ shops, at which the poet Occleve’s lavishness
made him a welcome guest:--
_Wher was a gretter maister eek than y,_
_Or bet acqweyntid at Westmynsler yate,_
_Among the taverneres namely_ (especially)
_And cookes? Whan I cam, eerly or late,_
_I pynchid nat at hem in myne acate_ (purchase of provisions),
_But paied hem as that they axe wolde;_
_Wherfore I was the welcomer algate_ (always),
_And for a verray_ (true) _gentilman yholde_.
Here he spent his nights in such a manner that he went to bed later
than any of his companions, except perhaps two, whose time of going
to bed he says that he did not know, it was so late, but he asserts
that they loved their beds so well that they never left them till
near prime, or six o’clock in the morning, which thus appears, at
the beginning of the fifteenth century, to have been considered an
excessively late hour for rising.
The tavern was also the resort of women of the middle and lower orders,
who assembled there to drink, and to gossip. It has been already stated
that, in the mysteries, or religious plays, Noah was represented as
finding his wife drinking with her gossips at the tavern when he wanted
to take her into the ark. The meetings of gossips in taverns form the
subjects of many of the popular songs of the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries, both in England and France. It appears that these meetings
of gossips in taverns were the first examples of what we now call a
pic-nic, for each woman took with her some provisions, and with these
the whole party made a feast in common. A song of perhaps the middle of
the fifteenth century, printed in my collection of “Songs and Carols,”
edited for the Percy Society, gives us rather a picturesque description
of one of these gossip-meetings. The women, having met accidentally,
the question is put where the best wine was to be had, and one of them
replies that she knows where could be procured the best drink in the
town, but that she did not wish her husband to be acquainted with it:--
_I know a drawght of mery-go-downe,_
_The best it is in all thys towne;_
_But yet wold I not, for my gowne,_
_My husbond it wyst, ye may me trust._
The place of meeting having thus been fixed, they are represented as
proceeding thither two and two, not to attract observation, lest their
husbands might hear of their meeting. “God might send me a stripe or
two,” said one, “if my husband should see me here.” “Nay,” said Alice,
another, “she that is afraid had better go home; I dread no man.” Each
was to carry with her some goose, or pork, or the wing of a capon, or
pigeon pie, or some similar article--
_And ich_ (each) _off them wyll sumwhat bryng,_
_Gosse, pygge, or capons wyng,_
_Pastés off pigeons, or sum other thyng_.
Accordingly, on arriving at the tavern, they call for wine “of the
best,” and then
_Ech off them brought forth ther dysch;_
_Sum brought flesh, and sume fysh._
Their conversation runs first on the goodness of the wines, and next on
the behaviour of their husbands, with whom they are all dissatisfied.
In one copy of the song, a harper makes his appearance, whom they hire,
and dance to his music. When they pay their reckoning, they find, in
one copy of the song, that it amounts to threepence each, and rejoice
that it is so little, while in another they find that each has to
pay sixpence, and are alarmed at the greatness of the amount. They
agree to separate, and go home by different streets, and they are
represented as telling their husbands that they had been to church.
This is no doubt a picture of a common scene in the fifteenth century.
Among the municipal records of Canterbury, there is preserved the
deposition of a man who appears to have been suspected of a robbery,
and who, to prove an alibi, describes all his actions during three
days. On one of these, Monday, he went after eight o’clock in the
evening to a tavern, and there he found “wyfes” drinking, “that is to
say, Goddardes wyfe, Cornewelles wyfe, and another woman,” and he had a
halfpennyworth of beer with them. This was apparently at the beginning
of the reign of Henry VIII.
[Illustration: _No. 276. A Scribe, in Spectacles, from the tapestry of
Nancy._]
It has been intimated before, that literature and reading had now
become more general accomplishments than formerly. We can trace among
the records of social history a general spreading of education, which
showed an increasing intellectual agitation; in fact, education,
without becoming more perfect, had become more general. I have already
given figures of the implements of writing at an earlier period. In one
of the compartments of the tapestry of “Nancy” (of the latter part of
this century), engravings of which have been published by M. Achille
Jubinal, we have a figure of a scribe (cut No. 276) with all his
apparatus of writing,--the pen, the penknife, and the portable pen-case
with ink-stand attached. But the most curious article which this scribe
has in use is a pair of _spectacles_. Spectacles, however, we know had
been in existence long before this period. A century earlier, Chaucer’s
“Wife of Bath” observed rather sententiously:--
_Povert ful often, whan a man is lowe,_
_Maketh him his God and eek himself to knowe._
_Povert a_ spectacle _is, as thinketh me,_
_Thurgh which he may his verray frendes se_.
Lydgate, addressing an old man who was on the point of marrying a young
wife, tells him to
_Loke sone after a potent_ (staff) _and_ spectacle;
_Be not ashamed to take hem to thyn ease_.
John Baret, of Bury St. Edmunds, in 1463, left by will to one of the
monks of Bury, his ivory tables (the _tabulæ_ for writing on), and a
pair of spectacles of silver-gilt:--“Item: To daun Johan Janyng, my
tablees of ivory, with the combe, and a payre spectacles of sylvir and
ovir-gilt.” This shows that already in the middle of the fifteenth
century, a pair of spectacles was not an uncommon article.