Our cut No. 262, taken from the same manuscript of the Bible which furnished our last illustration, represents the hutch also in its place at the foot of the bed. This sketch is interesting, both as showing more distinctly than the others the rings of the bed-curtains, and the rods attached to the celure, and as a particularly good illustration of the habit which still continued in all classes and ranks of society, of sleeping in bed entirely naked. The same practice is shown in several of our other cuts (see Nos. 256, 260, and 261), and, indeed, in all the illuminated manuscripts of the fifteenth century which contain bedroom scenes. Wherever this is not the case, there is some evident reason for the contrary, as in our cut No. 257. During this period we have not so many pictorial illustrations of the toilet as might be expected. The ladies’ combs were generally coarse and large in the teeth, but often very elaborately and beautifully ornamented. The mirror was, as at former periods, merely a circular piece of metal or glass, set in a case, which was carved with figures or ornaments externally. The vocabularies mention the mirror as one of the usual objects with which a chamber should be furnished.

Our cut No. 263 is taken from a manuscript (MS. Cotton. Tiberius, A. vii. fol. 93, r^o) of the English translation of the singular work of the French writer, Guillaume de Deguilleville, entitled “Le Pélerinage de la Vie Humaine,” a poem which bears a striking resemblance in its general character to the “Pilgrim’s Progress” of Bunyan. The English version, which is in verse, and entitled simply the “Pilgrim,” has been ascribed to Lydgate. In the course of his adventures, the pilgrim comes to the lady Agyographe, who is represented as dealing in “mercerye,” but the enumeration of articles embraced under that term is rather singular:— Quod sche, “Geve (if) I schal the telle,
Mercerye I have to selle;
In boystes (boxes) soote (sweet) oynementis,
Therewith to don allegementis (to give relief)
To ffolkes whiche be not glade,
But discorded and mallade,
And hurte with perturbacyouns
Off many trybulacyouns.
I have knyves, phylletys, callys,
At ffeestes to hang upon wallys;
Kombes mo than nyne or ten,
Bothe ffor horse and eke ffor men;
Merours also, large and brode,
And ffor the syght wonder gode;
Off hem I have fful greet plenté,
For ffolke that haven volunté
Byholde hemsilffe therynne.”
Our cut represents the interior of the house of the lady mercer, with the various articles enumerated in the text; the boxes of ointment, the horse-combs, the men’s combs, and the mirrors. She first offers the pilgrim a mirror, made so as to flatter people, by representing them handsomer than they really were, which the pilgrim refuses:— “Madame,” quod I, “yow not displeese,
This myroure schal do me noon eese;
Wherso that I leese or wynne,
I wole nevere looke thereinne.”
But ryght anoon myne happe it was
To loken in another glasse,
In the whiche withouten wene (without doubt)
I sawe mysylff ffoule and uncleene,
And to byholde ryght hydous,
Abhomynabel, and vecyous.
That merour and that glas
Schewyd (showed) to me what I was.
In the celebrated “Romance of the Rose,” one of the heroines, Belacueil, is introduced, adorning her head with a fillet, and with this head-dress contemplating herself in a mirror:— Belacueil souvent se remire,
Dedans son miroer se mire,
Savoir s’il est si bien seans.
There is a representation of this scene in the beautiful illuminated manuscript of the “Romance of the Rose” in the British Museum (MS. Harl. No. 4425), in which, singularly enough, the mirror itself, which is evidently of glass, is represented as being convex, though perhaps we must attribute this appearance to the unskilfulness of the designer, who in his attempt to show that the mirror was round, failed in perspective. In our first cut, from Guillaume de Deguilleville, it will be observed that the artist, in order to show that the articles intended to be represented are mirrors, and not plates, or any other round implements, has drawn the reflections of faces, although nobody is looking into them. Another peculiarity in the illumination of the “Romance of the Rose,” a portion of which is represented in our cut No. 264, is that the mirror is fixed against the wall, instead of being held in the hand when used, as appears to have been more generally the case. Standing-mirrors seem not to have been yet in use; but before the end of the fifteenth century, glass mirrors, which appear to have been invented in Belgium or Germany, came into use.

CHAPTER XX.
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.”

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.

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—

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.

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 condite (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—

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—

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.

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.

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—

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.