The tall frowning keep and solid walls of the great stone castles, in which the Norman barons lived, betokened an age of violence and suspicion. Beauty gave way to the needs of safety. Girdled with its green and slimy ditch, round the inner edge of which ran a parapeted wall pierced along the top with shot holes, stood the buildings, spreading often over many acres.

If an enemy managed to cross the moat and force the gateway, in spite of a portcullis crashing from above, and melted lead pouring in burning streams from the perforated top of the rounded arch, but little of his work was yet done; for the keep lifted its huge angular block of masonry within the inner bailey or courtyard, and from the narrow chinks in its ten-foot wall rained a sharp incessant shower of arrows, sweeping all approaches to the high and narrow stair, by which alone access could be had to its interior.

These loopholes were the only windows, except in the topmost story, where the chieftain, like a vulture in his rocky nest, watched all the surrounding country. The day of splendid oriels had not yet come in castle architecture.

Thus a baron in his keep could defy, and often did defy, the king upon his throne. Under his roof, eating daily at his board, lived a throng of armed retainers; and around his castle lay farms tilled by martial franklins, who at his call laid aside their implements of husbandry, took up the sword and spear, which they could wield with equal skill, and marched beneath his banner to the war.

With robe ungirt and head uncovered each tenant had done homage and sworn an oath of fealty, placing his joined hands between those of the sitting baron, and humbly saying as he knelt, "I become your man from this day forward, of life and limb and of earthly worship; and unto you I shall be true and faithful, and bear to you faith for the tenements that I claim to hold of you, saving the faith that I owe unto our sovereign lord the king." A kiss from the baron completed the ceremony.

The furniture of a Norman keep was not unlike that of an English house. There was richer ornament—more elaborate carving. A faldestol, the original of our arm-chair, spread its drapery and cushions for the chieftain in his lounging moods. His bed now boasted curtains and a roof, although, like the English lord, he still lay only upon straw. Chimneys tunneled the thick walls, and the cupboards glittered with glass and silver. Horn lanterns and the old spiked candlesticks lit up his evening hours, when the chessboard arrayed its clumsy men, carved out of walrus tusk, then commonly called whale's-bone. But the baron had an unpleasant trick of breaking the chessboard on his opponent's head, when he found himself checkmated; which somewhat marred said opponent's enjoyment of the game. Dice of horn and bone emptied many a purse in Norman England.

Dances and music whiled away the long winter nights; and on summer evenings the castle courtyards resounded with the noise of football, kayles (a sort of ninepins), wrestling, boxing, leaping, and the fierce joys of the bull bait. But out of doors, when no fighting was on hand, the hound, the hawk, and the lance attracted the best energies and skill of the Norman gentleman.

Rousing the forest game with dogs, they shot at it with barbed and feathered arrows. A field of ripening corn never turned the chase aside: it was one privilege of a feudal baron to ride as he pleased over his tenants' crops, and another to quarter his insolent hunting train in the farmhouses which pleased him best! The elaborate details of woodcraft became an important part of a noble boy's education; for the numerous bugle calls and scientific dissection of a dead stag took many seasons to learn.

After the Conquest, to kill a deer or own a hawk came more than ever to be regarded as the special privilege of the aristocracy. The hawk, daintily dressed, as befitted the companion of nobility, with his head wrapped in an embroidered hood, and a peal of silver bells tinkling from his rough legs, sat in state, bound with leathern jesses to the wrist, which was protected by a thick glove. The ladies and the clergy loved him. By many a mere the abbots ambled on their ponies over the swampy soil, and sweet shrill voices cheered the long-winged hawk, as he darted off in pursuit of the soaring quarry.

The author of "Ivanhoe" has made the tournament a picture familiar to all readers of romance. It therefore needs no long description here. It was held in honor of some great event—a coronation, wedding, or victory. Having practiced well during squirehood at the quintain, the knight, clad in full armor, with visor barred and the colors of his lady on crest and scarf, rode into the lists, for which some level green was chosen and surrounded with a palisade.

For days before, his shield had been hanging in a neighboring church, as a sign of his intention to compete in this great game of chivalry. If any stain lay on his knighthood, a lady, by touching the suspended shield with a wand, could debar him from a share in the jousting. And if, when he had entered the lists he was rude to a lady, or broke in any way the etiquette of the tilt yard, he was beaten from the lists with the ashwood lances of the knights.

The simple joust was the shock of two knights, who galloped with leveled spears at each other, aiming at breast or head, with the object either of unhorsing the antagonist, or, if he sat his charger well, of splintering the lance upon his helmet or his shield. The mellay hurled together, at the dropping of the prince's baton, two parties of knights, who hacked away at each other with ax and mace and sword, often gashing limbs and breaking bones in the wild excitement of the fray. Bright eyes glanced from the surrounding galleries upon the brutal sport; and when the victor, with broken plume, and battered armor, dragged his weary limbs to the footstool of the beauty who presided as Queen over the festival, her white hands decorated him with the meed of his achievements.

The Normans probably dined at nine in the morning. When they rose they took a light meal; and ate something also after their day's work, immediately before going to bed. Goose and garlic formed a favorite dish. Their cookery was more elaborate, and, in comparison, more delicate, than the preparations for an English feed; but the character for temperance, which they brought with them from the Continent, soon vanished.

The poorer classes hardly ever ate flesh, living principally on bread, butter, and cheese,—a social fact which seems to underlie that usage of our tongue by which the living animals in field or stall bore English names—ox, sheep, calf, pig, deer; while their flesh, promoted to Norman dishes, rejoiced in names of French origin—beef, mutton, veal, pork, venison. Round cakes, piously marked with a cross, piled the tables, on which pastry of various kinds also appeared. In good houses cups of glass held the wine, which was borne from the cellar below in jugs.

Squatted around the door or on the stair leading to the Norman dining hall, was a crowd of beggars or lickers, who grew so insolent in the days of Rufus, that ushers, armed with rods, were posted outside to beat back the noisy throng, who thought little of snatching the dishes as the cooks carried them to table!

The juggler, who under the Normans filled the place of the English gleeman, tumbled, sang, and balanced knives in the hall; or out in the bailey of an afternoon displayed the acquirements of his trained monkey or bear. The fool, too, clad in colored patchwork, cracked his ribald jokes and shook his cap and bells at the elbow of roaring barons, when the board was spread and the circles of the wine began. While knights hunted in the greenwood or tilted in the lists, and jugglers tumbled in the noisy hall, the monk in the quiet scriptorium compiled chronicles of passing events, copied valuable manuscripts, and painted rich borders and brilliant initials on every page. These illuminations form a valuable set of materials for our pictures of life in the Middle Ages.

Monasteries served many useful purposes at the time of which I write. Besides their manifest value as centers of study and literary work, they gave alms to the poor, a supper and a bed to travelers; their tenants were better off and better treated than the tenants of the nobles; the monks could store grain, grow apples, and cultivate their flower beds with little risk of injury from war, because they had spiritual thunders at their call, which awed even the most reckless of the soldiery into a respect for sacred property.

Splendid structures those monasteries generally were, since that vivid taste for architecture which the Norman possessed in a high degree, and which could not find room for its display in the naked strength of the solid keep, lavished its entire energy and grace upon buildings lying in the safe shadow of the Cross. Nor was architectural taste the only reason for their magnificence. Since they were nearly all erected as offerings to Heaven, the religion of the age impelled the pious builders to spare no cost in decorating the exterior with fretwork and sculpture of Caen stone, the interior with gilded cornices and windows of painted glass.

As schools, too, the monasteries did no trifling service to society in the Middle Ages. In addition to their influence as great centers of learning, English law had enjoined every mass priest to keep a school in his parish church, where all the young committed to his care might be instructed. This custom continued long after the Norman Conquest. In the Trinity College Psalter we have a picture of a Norman school, where the pupils sit in a circular row around the master as he lectures to them from a long roll of manuscript. Two writers sit by the desk, busy with copies resembling that which the teacher holds.

The youth of the middle classes, destined for the cloister or the merchant's stall, chiefly thronged these schools. The aristocracy cared little for book-learning. Very few indeed of the barons could read or write. But all could ride, fence, tilt, play, and carve extremely well; for to these accomplishments many years of pagehood and squirehood were given.

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The foregoing description of manners and customs during the age of feudalism has been adapted from a popular "History of England," by W. F. Collier. A much fuller description may be found in Knight's "History of England," and in Green's "Short History of the English People." The period described was in many respects the most romantic in the history of the world, and many delightful and instructive books have been written concerning it. Read Scott's "Ivanhoe" and "The Talisman." Reference may also be had to Pauli's "Pictures of Old England," and Jusserand's "English Wayfaring Life in the Middle Ages."