All these enjoyments naturally rendered the garden a favourite and important part of every man’s domestic establishment; during the warmer months of the year it was a chosen place of resort, especially after dinner. In the romance of “Garin le Loherain,” Begues is represented as descending from his palace, after dinner, to walk with his fair wife Beatrice in his garden— En son palais fu Begues de Belin;
Après mangier entra en un jardin,
Aveuc lui fu la belle Biatris.
—Roman de Garin, vol. ii. p. 97.
In another part of the same romance, Begues de Belin and his barons, on rising from the table, went to seek recreation in the fields— Quant mangié ont et beu à loisir,
Les napes ostent, et en prés sunt sailli.
—Ibid., vol. i. p. 203.
The manuscript in the British Museum, from which we took our last illustration, furnishes the accompanying representation of a group of ladies walking in the garden, and gathering flowers (No. 196).

In the “Ménagier de Paris,” compiled about the year 1393, its author, addressing his young wife, treats briefly of the behaviour of a woman when she is walking out, and especially when passing along the streets of a town, or going to church. “As you go,” he says, “look straight before you, with your eye-lids low and fixed, looking forward to the ground, at five toises (thirty feet) before you, and not looking at, or turning your eyes, to man or woman who may be to your right or left, nor looking upwards, nor changing your look from one place to another, nor laughing, nor stopping to speak to anybody in the street” (vol. i. p. 15). It must be confessed that this is, in some points, rather hard counsel for a lady to follow; but it is consistent with the general system of formalities of behaviour in the middle ages, upon which the ladies gladly took their revenge when removed from constraint. When two or more persons walked together, it was the custom to hold each other by the hands, not to walk arm-in-arm, which appears to be a very modern practice. In the romance of “Ogier le Danois,” the emperor and Ogier, when reconciled, are thus represented, walking in a friendly manner hand in hand. The ladies in our last engraving are walking in this manner; and in our next (No. 197),—taken from a copy, given in M. du Sommerard’s “Album,” from a manuscript in the library of the arsenal at Paris, written and illuminated for a prince of the house of Burgundy, in the fifteenth century,—the lords and ladies of a noble or princely household are represented as walking out in the same manner. It is well known that the court of Burgundy, in the fifteenth century, offered the model of strict etiquette. This illustration gives us also a very good picture of a street scene of the period to which it belongs. The height of gentility, however, at least, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, seems to have been to hold the lady by the finger only. It is in this manner that, in the romance of “Ogier le Danois,” the hero holds the princess Gloriande— Donques enmainne le bon Danois Ogier,
E Gloriande, qui par le doit le tient.
—Roman d’Ogier, p. 110.
So, in the romance of “La Violette,” at the festivities given by the king, the guests “distributed themselves in couples in the hall (i. e. a gentleman with a lady), one taking the other by the finger, and so they arranged themselves two and two”—

In the curious poem entitled “La Court de Paradis,” the sainted ladies in heaven are represented as thus walking and holding each other by the finger,— L’une tint l’autre par les dois.
—Barbazan, iii. 139.
As a mark of great familiarity, two princes, Pepin’s son, Charles, and the duke Namles, are represented in the romance of “Ogier” as one, Charles, holding his hand on the duke’s shoulder, while the duke held him by his mantle, as they walked along; they were going to church together:—

It may be remarked that sitting was equally a matter of etiquette with walking, though we sometimes meet with ladies and gentlemen seated in a manner which is anything but ceremonious. In the annexed cut (No. 198), taken from a manuscript of the fourteenth century, the reference to which I have unfortunately lost, a number of ladies, seated on the ground, and apparently in the open air, are listening to the admonitions of an episcopal preacher.

As I have introduced the subject of the love of our forefathers for trees and flowers, some account of gardening in the middle ages will not be out of place, especially as what has hitherto been written on the history of gardening in England during this early period, has been very imperfect and incorrect. We have no direct information relating to the gardens of our Anglo-Saxon forefathers—in fact, our knowledge is limited to a few words gathered from the old vocabularies. The ordinary names for a garden, wyrt-tun and wyrt-geard, a plant-inclosure and a plant-yard, are entirely indefinite, for the word wyrt was applied to all plants whatever, and perhaps they indicate what we should call the kitchen-garden. The latter word, which was sometimes spelt ort-geard, orc-geard, and orcyrd, was the origin of our modern orchard, which is now limited to an inclosure of fruit-trees. Flowers were probably cultivated in the inclosed space round the houses. It would appear that the Saxons, before they became acquainted with the Romans, cultivated very few plants, if we may judge from the circumstance that throughout the Anglo-Saxon period the names by which these were known were nearly all derived from the Latin. The leek appears to have been the principal table vegetable among the Anglo-Saxons, as it was among the Welsh its name, leac, or leah, is pure Anglo-Saxon, and its importance was considered so much above that of any other vegetable, that leac-tun, the leek-garden, became the common name for the kitchen-garden, and leac-weard, a leek-keeper, was used to designate the gardener. The other alliaceous plants were considered as so many varieties of the leek, and were known by such names as enne-leac, or ynne-leac, supposed to be the onion, and gar-leac, or garlic. Bean is also an Anglo-Saxon word; but, singularly enough, the Anglo-Saxons seem not to have been originally acquainted with peas, for the only name they had for them was the Latin pisa, and pyse. Even for the cabbage tribe, the only Anglo-Saxon name we know is simply the Latin brassica; and the colewort, which was named cawl, and cawl-wyrt, was derived from the Latin caulis. So the turnip was called næpe, from the Latin napus; and rædic, or radish, is perhaps from raphanus.29 Garden cresses, parsley, mint, sage, rue, and other herbs,30 were in use, but mostly, except the cresses, with Latin names.

We have long lists of flowering plants in the Anglo-Saxon vocabularies, but as they are often difficult to identify, and, being chiefly enumerated for their medicinal qualities, are mostly wild plants, they throw little light on the character of the flower-garden. For the garden rose and the lily they used the Roman names rose and lilie; the latter appears to have been an especially favourite flower among the Anglo-Saxons. Among other plants, evidently belonging to the garden, are suthernwood, sutherne-wude, the turnsole or sunflower, called sigel-hwerfe (the gem-turned) or solsæce (which is merely the Latin solsequium), the violet (clæfre), the marigold, called read-clæfre, the gilliflower, hwit-clæfre, the periwinkle, pervincæ, the honeysuckle, hunig-sucle, the piony, for which the Anglo-Saxons had only the Latin word pionia, the daisy, dæges-eage, and the laur-beam, which was perhaps the bay-tree rather than the laurel.

The chief fruit of the Anglo-Saxons was undoubtedly the apple, the name of which, æppel, belongs to their language. The tree was called an apulder, and the only varieties mentioned are the surmelst apulder, or souring apple-tree, and the swite apulder, or sweeting apple-tree. The Anglo-Saxons had orchards containing only apple-trees, to which they gave the name of an apulder-tun, or apple-tree garden; of the fruit of which they made what they called, and we still call, cider, and which they also called æppel-win, or apple-wine. They appear to have received the pear from the Romans, as its name pera, a pear, and piriga, a pear-tree, was evidently taken from pirus. They had also derived from the Roman gardens, no doubt, the cherry-tree (cyrs-treow, or ciris-beam, from the Latin cerasus), the peach (persoc-treow, from persicarius), the mulberry (mor-beam, from morus), the chestnut (cysten, cyst, or cystel-beam, from castaneus),31 perhaps the almond (magdala-treow, from amigdalus), the fig (fic-beam, from ficus), and the pine (pin-treow, from pinus). The small kernels of the pine were used very extensively in the middle ages, in the same way as olives. We must add to these the plum (plum-treow), the name of which is Anglo-Saxon; the medlar, which was known in Anglo-Saxon by a very unexplainable name, but one which was preferred to a comparatively recent period; the quince, which was called a cod-æple, or bag-apple; the nut (hnutu), and the hazel-nut (hæsel-hnutu). They called the olive an oil-tree (ale-beam), which would seem to prove that they considered its principal utility to be for making oil. The vine was well-known to the Anglo-Saxons; they called it the win-treow, or wine-tree, its fruit, winberige, or wine berries, and a bunch of grapes, geclystre, a cluster. We find no Anglo-Saxon words for gooseberries or currants; but our forefathers were well acquainted with the strawberry (strea-berige) and the raspberry, which they called hynd-berige. Perhaps these last-mentioned fruits, which are known to be natives of Britain, were known only in their wild state.32

The earliest account of an English garden is given by Alexander Neckam, who flourished in the latter half of the twelfth century, in the sixty-sixth chapter of the second book of his treatise, De naturis rerum, which exists only in manuscripts (I quote from one in the British Museum, MS. Reg. 12 G. xi.). He introduces at least one plant, the mandrake, which was fabulous, and gives several names which I shall be obliged to leave in his original Latin, as, perhaps through corruption of the text, I cannot interpret them, but there can be little doubt that it is in general a correct enumeration of the plants and trees cultivated in a complete English garden of the period. “A garden,” he says, “should be adorned on this part with roses, lilies, the marigold, molis, and mandrakes, and on that part with parsley, cost, fennel, southernwood, coriander, sage, savery, hyssop, mint, rue, dittany, smallage, pellitory, lettuce, cresses, ortulano, and the piony. Let there also be beds (areæ) enriched with onions, leeks, garlic, melons, and scallions (hinnuilis). The garden is also ennobled by the cucumber which creeps on its belly, and by the soporiferous poppy, as well as by the daffodil and the acanthus. Nor let pot-herbs be wanting, if you can help it, such as beets, herb mercury, orache, the acedula, (sorrel?) and the mallow. It is useful also to the gardener to have anise, mustard, white pepper, and wormwood.” Neckam then goes on to the fruit-trees. “A noble garden,” he says, “will give you medlars, quinces, the pearmain (volema), peaches, pears of St. Regle, pomegranates, citrons (or lemons), oranges, almonds, dates, and figs.” When Neckam speaks of a “noble garden,” he of course speaks of that of a great baron or prince, and enumerates fruits of choice, and mostly above the common range. Medlars and quinces were formerly held in great esteem, and much used. I have ventured to interpret volema as meaning the pearmain, which was considered one of the choicest apples, as the apple is not mentioned in the list, and as in one of the early glossaries that meaning is attached to the word. Peaches were, as we have seen, known to the Anglo-Saxons; and in 1276 we find slips of peach-trees mentioned in an official record as planted in the king’s garden at Westminster. The pear of St. Regle was one of the choice kinds of pears brought from France, and it and several other kinds of pears are enumerated in the accounts of the earl of Lincoln’s garden in Holborn (London) in 1296. It is rather surprising that Mr. Hudson Turner, in his very valuable volume on domestic architecture, where he supposes that mala aurea in Neckam’s list were intended for the golden apples of the Hesperides, should not have known that the malum aureum of the middle ages was the orange. Pomegranates, citrons, oranges, almonds, dates, and figs, are known to have been cultivated in England at different periods, but it is not probable that the fruit came often to perfection. It may be remarked that Neckam gives a separate chapter to the cultivation of the vine, which belonged to the vineyard, and not to the garden. After an enumeration of plants which were not grown in Western Europe, Neckam gives a list of others, known for their medicinal qualities, some of which can hardly have been planted in a garden, unless it belonged to a physician; although it appears to have been the custom to devote a corner of the garden to the medicinal plants most in use, in order that they might be ready at hand when wanted. The gardener’s tools in the twelfth century, as enumerated by Neckam in his treatise De Utensilibus, were few and simple; he had an axe, or twibill, a knife for grafting, a spade, and a pruning-hook.

John de Garlande lived during the first half of the thirteenth century. He was an Englishman, but had established himself as a scholar in the university of Paris, so that the description of his garden which he gives in his “Dictionarius” may be considered as that of a garden in the neighbourhood of Paris, which, however, probably hardly differed from a garden in England. It may be considered as the garden of a respectable burgher. “In master John’s garden are these plants, sage, parsley, dittany, hyssop, celandine, fennel, pellitory, the rose, the lily, and the violet; and at the side (i. e. in the hedge), the nettle, the thistle, and foxgloves. His garden also contains medicinal herbs, namely, mercury and the mallow, agrimony, with nightshade, and the marigold.” Master John’s gardener had also a garden for his potherbs, in which grew borage, leeks, garlic, mustard, onions, cibols, and scallions; and in his shrubbery grew pimpernel, mouseare, selfheal, buglos, adderstongue, and “other herbs good for men’s bodies.”33 Master John had in his fruit-garden, cherry-trees, pear-trees, apple-trees, plum-trees, quinces, medlars, peaches, chestnuts, nuts, wallnuts, figs, and grapes. Walter de Bibblesworth, writing in England towards the close of the thirteenth century, enumerates as the principal fruit-trees in a common garden, apples, pears, and cherries— Pomere, perere, e cerecer;
and adds the plum-tree (pruner), and the quince-tree (coingner).

The cherry, indeed, appears to have been one of the most popular of fruits in England, during the mediæval period. The records of the time contain purchases of cherry-trees for the king’s garden in Westminster in 1238 and 1277, and cherries and cherry-trees are enumerated in all the glossaries from the times of the Anglo-Saxons to the sixteenth century. The earl of Lincoln had cherry-trees in his garden in Holborn towards the close of the thirteenth century, and during the same century we have allusions to the cultivation of the cherry in other parts of the kingdom. The allusions to cherries in the early poetry are not at all unfrequent, and they were closely mixed up with popular manners and feelings. It appears to have been the custom, from a rather early period, to have fairs or feasts, probably in the cherry orchards, during the period that the fruit was ripe, which were called cherry-fairs, and sometimes cherry-feasts; and these are remembered, if they do not still exist, in our great cherry districts, such as Worcestershire and Kent. They were brief moments of great gaiety and enjoyment, and the poets loved to quote them as emblems of the transitory character of all worldly things. In the latter part of the fourteenth century, the poet Gower, speaking of the teachers of religion and morality, says:— They prechen us in audience
That no man schalle his soule empeyre (impair),
For alle is but a cherye-fayre.
And the same writer again:— Sumtyme I drawe into memoyre,
How sorow may not ever laste,
And so cometh hope in at laste,
Whan I non other foode knowe;
And that endureth but a throwe,
Ryght as it were a chery-feste.
So again, under the reign of Henry IV., about the year 1411, Occleve, in his poem “De regimine principum,” recently printed for the Roxburgh Club, says (p. 47),—

During the rest of the fifteenth century, the allusions to the cherry-fairs are very frequent.34 Yet in face of all this, and still more, abundant evidence, Loudon (“Encyclopædia of Gardening,” edition of 1850) says, “Some suppose that the cherries introduced by the Romans into Britain were lost, and that they were re-introduced in the time of Henry VIII. by Richard Haines (it should be Harris), the fruiterer to that monarch. But though we have no proof that cherries were in England at the time of the Norman conquest, or for some centuries after it, yet Warton has proved, by a quotation from Lidgate, a poet who wrote about or before 1415, that the hawkers in London were wont to expose cherries for sale, in the same manner as is now done early in the season.”

To turn from the fruit-garden to the flower-garden, modern writers have fallen into many similar mistakes as to the supposed recent date of the introduction of various plants into this country. Loudon, for instance, says that we owe the introduction of the gilliflower, or clove-pink (dianthus caryophyllus), to the Flemings, who took refuge on our shores from the savage persecutions of the duke of Alva, in the latter half of the sixteenth century; whereas this flower was certainly well known, under the name of gillofres, ages before. Roses, lilies, violets, and periwinkles, seem to have continued to be the favourite garden-flowers. A manuscript of the fifteenth century in the British Museum (MS. Sloane, No. 1201) furnishes us with a list of plants then considered necessary for a garden, arranged first alphabetically, and then in classes, of which I will here give verbatim the latter part, as the best illustration of the mediæval notion of a garden, and as being, at the same time, a very complete list. After the alphabetical list, the manuscript goes on:—

Of the same herbes for potage.

Borage, langdebefe35, vyolettes, malowes, marcury, daundelyoun, avence, myntes, sauge, parcely, goldes36, mageroum37, ffenelle, carawey, red nettylle, oculus Christi38, daysys, chervelle, lekez, colewortes, rapez, tyme, cyves, betes, alysaundre, letyse, betayne, columbyne, allia, astralogya rotunda, astralogia longa, basillicam39, dylle, deteyne, hertestong, radiche, white pyper, cabagez, sedewale, spynache, coliaundre, ffoothistylle40, orage, cartabus, lympens, nepte, clarey, pacience.

Hertestonge, sorelle, pelytory, pelytory of spayne, deteyne, vyolettes, parcely, myntes.

Cost, costmary, sauge, isope, rose mary, gyllofre, goldez, clarey, mageroum, rue.

Buddus of stanmarche41, vyolette flourez, parcely, red myntes, syves42, cresse of Boleyne, purselane, ramsons, calamyntes, primerose buddus, dayses, rapounses, daundelyoun, rokette, red nettelle, borage flourez, croppus of red ffenelle, selbestryve, chykynwede.

Endyve, rede rose, rose mary, dragans43, skabiose, ewfrace44, wermode, mogwede, beteyne, wylde tansey, sauge, isope, ersesmart.

Gyllofre gentyle, mageroum gentyle, brasyle, palma Christi, stycadose, meloncez, arcachaffe, scalacely45, philyppendula46, popy royalle, germaundre, cowsloppus of Jerusalem, verveyne, dylle, seynt Mare, garlek.

Parsenepez, turnepez, radyche, karettes, galyngale, eryngez47, saffrone.

Vynes, rosers, lylés, thewberies48, almondez, bay-trees, gourdes, date-trese, peche-trese, pyneappulle, pyany romain, rose campy, cartabus, seliane, columbyne gentyle, elabre.

The processes of gardening were simple and easy, and the gardener’s skill consisted chiefly in the knowledge of the seasons for sowing and planting different herbs and trees, and of the astrological circumstances under which these processes could be performed most advantageously. The great ambition of the mediæval horticulturist was to excel in the various mysteries of grafting, and he entertained theories on this subject of the most visionary character, many of which were founded on the writings of the ancients; for the mediæval theories were accustomed to select from the doctrines of antiquity that which was most visionary, and it usually became still more visionary in their hands. Two English treatises on gardening were current in the fifteenth century, one founded upon the Latin treatise of Palladius, and entitled “Godfrey upon Palladie de Agricultura,” the other by Nicholas Bollarde, a monk of Westminster—the monks were great gardeners. These treatises occur not unfrequently in manuscripts, and both are found in the British Museum, in the Sloane MS., No. 7. An abridgment of them was edited by Mr. Halliwell, from the Porkington manuscript, in a collection of “Early English Miscellanies,” printed for the Warton Club. In these treatises, cherry-trees appear to have been more than any others the subjects of experiment, and to have been favourite stocks for grafting. Among the receipts given in these treatises we may mention those for making cherries grow without stones, and other fruit without cores; for making the fruit of trees bear any colour you like; for making old trees young; for making sour fruit sweet; and “to have grapes ripe as soon as pears or cherries.” This was to be brought about by grafting the vine on a cherry-tree, according to the following directions, the spelling of which I modernise:—“Set a vine by a cherry till it grow, and at the beginning of February when time is, make a hole through the cherry-tree at what height thou wilt, and draw through the vine branch so that it fill the hole, and shave away the old bark of the vine as much as shall be in the hole, and put it in so that the part shaven fill the hole full, and let it stand a year till they be ‘souded’ together, then cut away the root end of the vine, and lap it with clay round about, and keep it so after other graftings aforesaid.” This is from Nicholas Bollarde. Godfrey upon Palladius tells us how “to have many roses. Take the hard pepins that be right ripe, and sow them in February or March, and when they spring, water them well, and after a year complete thou mayst transplant them; and if thou wilt have timely (early) roses, delve about the roots one or two handbreadths, and water their scions with warm water; and for to keep them long, put them in honeycombs.” According to the receipts edited by Mr. Halliwell, “If thou wilt that in the stone of a peach-apple (this was the ordinary name for a peach) be found a nut-kernel, graft a spring (sprout) of a peach-tree on the stock of a nut-tree. Also a peach-tree shall bring forth pomegranates, if it be sprong (sprinkled) oft times with goat’s milk three days when it beginneth to flower. Also the apples of a peach-tree shall wax red, if its scion be grafted on a playne tree.” Such were the intellectual vagaries of “superstitious eld.”

Peaches are frequently mentioned among the fruit of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries; but nectarines or apricots are not met with before the fifteenth century. The latter were called in old English by their French name of abricots, and subsequently, and still more frequently, apricocks.

CHAPTER XIV.
AMUSEMENTS.—PERFORMING BEARS.—HAWKING AND HUNTING.—RIDING.—CARRIAGES.—TRAVELLING.—INNS AND TAVERNS.—HOSPITALITY.

During the period of which we are treating, the same rough sports were in vogue among the uneducated classes that had existed for ages before, and which continued for ages after. Many of these were trials of strength, such as wrestling and throwing weights, with archery, and other exercises of that description; others were of a less civilised character, such as cockfighting and bear and bull-baiting. These latter were favourite amusements, and there was scarcely a town or village of any magnitude which had not its bull-ring. It was a municipal enactment in all towns and cities that no butcher should be allowed to kill a bull until it had been baited. The bear was an animal in great favour in the middle ages, and was not only used for baiting, but was tamed and taught various performances. I have already, in a former chapter, given an example of a dancing bear under the Anglo-Saxons; the accompanying cut (No. 199) is another, taken from a manuscript of the beginning of the thirteenth century, in the British Museum (MS. Arundel. No. 91).

I fear the fact cannot be concealed that the ladies of former days assisted not unfrequently at these rough and unfeminine pastimes. There can be no doubt that they were customary spectators of the baiting of bulls and bears. Henry VIII.’s two daughters, Mary and Elizabeth, witnessed this coarse amusement, as we are assured by contemporary writers, with great satisfaction. The scene represented in our cut No. 200, which is copied from one of the carved seats, of the fourteenth century, in Gloucester cathedral, is chiefly remarkable for the small degree of energy—the quiet dignity, in fact—displayed by the actors in it.

Hawking and hunting, especially the former, were the favourite recreations of the upper classes. Hawking was considered so honourable an occupation, that people were in the custom of carrying the hawk on their fists when they walked or rode out, when they visited or went to public assemblies, and even in church, as a mark of their gentility. In the illuminations we not unfrequently see ladies and gentlemen seated in conversation, bearing their hawks on their hands. There was generally a perche in the chamber expressly set aside for the favourite bird, on which he was placed at night, or by day when the other occupations of its possessor rendered it inconvenient to carry it on the hand. Such a perche, with the hawk upon it, is represented in our cut No. 201, taken from a manuscript of the romance of “Meliadus,” of the fourteenth century (MS. Addit. in the British Museum, No. 12,224). Hawking was in some respects a complicated science; numerous treatises were written to explain and elucidate it, and it was submitted to strict laws. Much knowledge and skill were shown in choosing the hawks, and in breeding and training them, and the value of a well-chosen and well-trained bird was considerable. When carried about by its master or mistress, the hawk was held to the hand by a strap of leather or silk, called a jesse, which was fitted to the legs of the bird, and passed between the fingers of the hand. Small bells were also attached to their legs, one on each. The accompanying cut (No. 202), from a manuscript in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris (No. 6956), represents the falconer or keeper of the hawks holding in one hand what appears to be the jesse; he has a bird in his right hand, while another is perched on a short post, which is often alluded to in the directions for breeding hawks. The falconer wears hawks’ gloves, which were made expressly to protect the hands against the bird’s talons.

Hawking was a favourite recreation with the ladies, and in the illuminated manuscripts they often figure in scenes of this kind. Sometimes they are on foot, as in the group represented in our cut No. 203, taken from a manuscript in the British Museum (MS. Reg. 2 B. vii.). One lady has let go her hawk, which is in the act of striking a heron; the other retains her hawk on her hand. The latter, as will be seen, is hooded. Each of the ladies who possess hawks has one glove only—the hawk’s glove; the other hand is without gloves. They took with them, as shown here, dogs in couples to start the game. The dogs used for this purpose were spaniels, and the old treatise on domestic affairs entitled “Le Ménagier de Paris,” gives particular directions for choosing them. In the illuminations, hawking parties are more frequently represented on horseback than on foot; and often there is a mixture of riders and pedestrians. The treatise just referred to directs that the horse for hawking should be a low one, easy to mount and dismount, and very quiet, that he may go slowly, and show no restiveness. Hawking appears to have commenced at the beginning of August; and until the middle of that month it was confined almost entirely to partridges. Quails, we are told, came in in the middle of August, and from that time forward everything seems to have been considered game that came to hand, for when other birds fail, the ladies are told that they may hunt fieldfares, and even jays and magpies. September and October were the busiest hawking months.

Hawking was, indeed, a favourite diversion with the ladies, and they not only accompanied the gentlemen to this sport, but frequently engaged in it alone. The hawking of the ladies, however, appears to have been especially that of herons and water-fowl; and this was called going to the river (aller en rivière), and was very commonly pursued on foot. It may be mentioned that the fondness of the ladies for the diversion of hawking is alluded to in the twelfth century by John of Salisbury. The hawking on the river, indeed, seems to have been that particular branch of the sport which gave most pleasure to all classes, and it is that which is especially represented in the drawings in the Anglo-Saxon manuscripts. Dogs were commonly used in hawking to rouse the game in the same manner as at the present day, but in hawking on the river, where dogs were of course less effective, other means were adopted. In a manuscript already quoted in the present chapter (MS. Reg. 2 B. vii.), of the beginning of the fourteenth century, a group of ladies hawking on the banks of a river are accompanied by a man, perhaps the falconer, who makes a noise to rouse the water-fowl. Our cut No. 204 is taken from a very interesting manuscript of the fourteenth century, made for the monastery of St. Bartholomew, in Smithfield, and now preserved in the library of the British Museum (MS. Reg. 10 E. iv.); it is part of a scene in which ladies are hawking on a river, and a female is rousing the water-fowl with a tabor. The fountain is one of those conventional objects by which the mediæval artist indicated a spring, or running stream. This seems to have been a very common method of rousing the game; and it is represented in one of the carved seats, or misereres (as they have been termed technically), in Gloucester cathedral, which is copied in our cut No. 205. This scene is rather curiously illustrated by an anecdote told by an old chronicler, Ralph de Diceto, of a man who went to the river to hunt teal with his hawk, and roused them with “what is called by the river-hawkers a tabor.”49 The tending of the hawks used in these diversions was no slight occupation in the mediæval household, and was the subject of no little study; they were cherished with the utmost care, and carried about familiarly on the wrist in all places and under all sorts of circumstances. It was a common practice, indeed, to go to church with the hawk on the wrist. One of the early French poets, Gaces de la Buigne, who wrote a metrical treatise on hunting in the middle of the fourteenth century, advises his readers to carry their hawks with them wherever there were assemblies of people, whether in churches or elsewhere— Là où les gens sont amassés,
Soit en l’église, ou autre part.
This is explained more fully by the author of the “Ménagier de Paris” (vol. ii. p. 296), who wrote especially for the instruction of the female members of his family. “At this point of falconry,” he says, “it is advisable more than ever to hold the hawk on the wrist, and to carry it to the pleadings (courts of justice), and among people to the churches, and in other assemblies, and in the streets, and to hold it day and night as continually as possible, and sometimes to perch it in the streets, that it may see people, horses, carts, dogs, and become acquainted with all things.... And sometimes, in the house, let it be perched on the dogs, that the dogs may see it, and it them.” It was thus that the practice of carrying a hawk on the wrist became a distinction of people of gentle blood. The annexed engraving (No. 206), taken from the same manuscript last quoted (MS. Reg. 10 E. iv.), represents a lady tending her hawks, which are seated on their “perche.”

The author of the “Ménagier de Paris,” a little farther on than the place last quoted (p. 311), goes on to say, “At the end of the month of September, and after, when hawking of quails and partridges is over, and even in winter, you may hawk at magpies, at jackdaws, at teal, which are in river, or others, ... at blackbirds, thrushes, jays, and woodcocks; and for this purpose you may carry a bow and a bolt, in order that, when the blackbird takes shelter in a bush, and dare not quit it for the hawk which hovers over and watches it, the lady or damsel who knows how to shoot may kill it with the bolt.” The manuscript which has furnished us with the preceding illustrations gives us the accompanying sketch (No. 207) of a lady shooting with her bolt, or boujon (as it was termed in French),—an arrow with a large head, for striking birds; but in this instance she is aiming not at birds, but at rabbits. Archery was also a favourite recreation with the ladies in the middle ages, and it no doubt is in itself an extremely good exercise, in a gymnastic point of view. The fair shooters seem to have employed bolts more frequently than the sharp-headed arrows; but there is no want of examples in the illuminated manuscripts in which females are represented as using the sharp-headed arrow, and sometimes they are seen shooting at deer. This custom prevailed during a long period, and is alluded to not unfrequently at so late a date as the sixteenth century. We learn from Leland’s “Collectanea” (vol. iv. p. 278), that when the princess Margaret, daughter of Henry VII., was on her way to Scotland, a hunting-party was got up for her in the park at Alnwick, and that she killed a buck with an arrow. Similar feats were at times performed by queen Elizabeth; but she seems to have preferred the cross-bow to the long-bow. The scene represented in our cut No. 208 is from the same manuscript; the relative proportions of the dog and the rabbit seem to imply a satirical aim. Our next cut (No. 209), taken from MS. Reg. 2 B. vii., represents ladies hunting the stag. One, on horseback, is winding the horn and starting the game, in which the other plants her arrow most skilfully and scientifically. The dog used on this occasion is intended to be a greyhound.

It must be remarked that, in all the illuminations of the period we are describing, which represent ladies engaged in hunting or hawking, when on horseback they are invariably and unmistakeably represented riding astride. This is evidently the case in this group (No. 209). It has been already shown, in former chapters, that from a very early period it was a usual custom with the ladies to ride sideways, or with side-saddles. Most of the mediæval artists were so entirely ignorant of perspective, and they were so much tied to conventional modes of representing things, that when, no doubt, they intended to represent ladies riding sideways, the latter seem often as if they were riding astride. But in many instances, and especially in the scenes of hunting and hawking, there can be no doubt that they were riding in the latter fashion; and it is probable that they were taught to ride both ways, the side-saddle being considered the most courtly, while it was considered safer to sit astride in the chase. A passage has been often quoted from Gower’s “Confessio Amantis,” in which a troop of ladies is described, all mounted on fair white ambling horses, with splendid saddles, and it is added that “everichone (every one) ride on side,” which probably means that this was the most fashionable style of riding. But, as shown in a former chapter (p. 72), it has been rather hastily assumed that this is a proof that it was altogether a new fashion. Our next cut (No. 210), taken from a manuscript in the French National Library (No. 7178), of the fourteenth century, represents two ladies riding in the modern fashion, except that the left leg appears to be raised very awkwardly; but this appearance we must perhaps ascribe only to the bad drawing. It must be observed also that these ladies are seated on the wrong side of the horse, which is probably an error of the draughtsman. Perhaps there was a different arrangement of the dress for the two modes of riding, although there was so little of what we now call delicacy in the mediæval manners, that this would be by no means necessary. Chaucer describes the Wife of Bath as wearing spurs, and as enveloped in a “foot-mantle:”—