2 It appears not, however, to have been customary to lock the doors during the absence of the family, but merely to leave some one to take care of the house. This, at least, was the case in Winchester, as we learn from the miracles of St. Swithun, by the monk Lantfred.

3 Strutt has engraved, without indicating the manuscript from which it is taken, a small Saxon house, consisting of one hall or place for living in, with a chamber attached, exactly like the domestic chapel and its attached chamber in our cut, No. 12. This seems to have been the usual shape of small houses in the Anglo-Saxon period.

4 William of Malmesbury, de Gest. Pontif. printed in Gale, p. 249, describes the Saxons as cooking their meat in lebete, evidently meaning the sort of vessel figured in the foregoing cuts. The Latin lebes, a cauldron or kettle, is interpreted in the early glossaries by the Anglo-Saxon hwer, or huer, from which we derive the English word ewer; hwÆr-boll or hwÆr-cytel are interpreted in the Anglo-Saxon dictionaries as meaning a frying-pan, which is evidently not correct.

5 There is one of these knives in the Cambridge Museum, which has been there rather singularly labelled “a Roman razor!” Mr. Roach Smith always suspected that these knives were late Saxon, and their similarity in form to those given in the manuscripts shows that he was correct.

6 Post prandium ad pocula, quibus Angli nimis sunt assueti.—Chron. J. Wallingford, in Gale, p. 542.

7 “Duos ciphos argenteos ... ad serviendum fratribus in refectorio, quatenus, dum in eis potus edentibus fratribus ministratur, memoria mei eorum cordibus arctius inculcetur.”—Hist. Ramesiensis, in Gale, p. 406.

8 We shall return to this subject in a subsequent chapter.

9 Regem adhuc tesserarum vel scaccarum ludo longioris tÆdia noctis relevantem invenit.

10 Mater, si juxta focum infantem suum posuerit, et homo aquam in caldarium miserit, et ebullita aqua infans superfusus mortuus fuerit; pro negligentia mater poeniteat, et ille homo securus sit.

11 This, I suppose, is the meaning of the canon of Alfric (No. 9), which allows a layman to marry, with a dispensation, a second time, “if his wife desert him” (gyf his wÍf ÆtfylÐ) but the priest was not allowed to give his blessing to the marriage, because it was a case in which the church enjoined a penance, the performance of which it would be his duty to require. But the meaning of the Anglo-Saxon ecclesiastical laws on this subject is rather obscure.

12 This fact of family priesthood may perhaps explain a circumstance in the early history of Northumbria, which has much puzzled some antiquaries; I mean the story, given by Bede, of the conversion of king Edwin, and of the part acted on that occasion by the Northumbrian priest Coifi. The place where the priesthood was held, and where the temple stood, was called Godmundingaham, a name which it has preserved, slightly modified, to the present day. This name has been the victim of the most absurd attempts at derivation, which are not worth repeating here, because every one who knows the Anglo-Saxon language, and anything of Anglo-Saxon antiquities, is aware that it can only have one meaning—the home, or head residence, of the Godmundings, or descendants of Godmund. Perhaps the priesthood was at this time in the family of the Godmundings, and Coifi may have been then the head of the family.

13 Habebant etiam ex consuetudine patriÆ unoquoque die comam pectere, sabbatis balneare, sÆpe etiam vestituram mutare, et formam corporis multis talibus frivolis adjuvare.—Hist. Eliensis ap. Gale, p. 547.

14 It is curious that the modern English words play (plega), and game (gamen), are both derived from the Anglo-Saxon, which perhaps shows that they represent sentiments we have derived from our Saxon forefathers.

15 Pueri et adolescentes, ... illic convenientes, more Anglorum luctamina et alia ludicra exercebant puerilia, et cantilenis et musicis instrumentis sibi invicem applaudebant, unde propter turbam puerorum et puellarum illic concurrentium, mos inolevit ut in eodem die illic conveniret negotiandi gratia turba vendentium et ementium.—MS. Harl. No. 3601 fol. 12, v^o.

16 This erroneous statement is repeated by most of our writers on such subjects, and will be found in Mr. PlanchÉ’s “History of British Costume.” Statements of this kind made by old writers are seldom to be depended upon; people were led by political bias or personal partiality, to ascribe the introduction of customs that were odious, to persons who were unpopular, or whom they disliked, while they ascribed everything of a contrary character to persons who were beloved.

17 The word occurs in the reflections of our first parents on their nakedness, in the poem attributed to CÆdmon. Adam says that when the inclement weather arrives (cymeÐ hÆgles scÚr—the hail shower will come) they had nothing before them to serve for a defence or shade against the storm—

18 This valuable MS. is preserved in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge. It is a very remarkable circumstance, which has not hitherto been noticed, that the illuminations are in general copies from those of the Harleian MS. No. 603, except that the costume and other circumstances are altered, so that we may take them as correct representatives of the manners of the Anglo-Normans.

19 “Quod, mola detritum, et aqua rorante perfusum, more usitato, in camino Æstuante est depositum.” Reg. Dunelm, p. 128. He owns they were so small that they hardly deserved the name of loaves. “Vix enim bis seni panes erant numero, qui tamen minores adeo quantitate fuerant quod indignum videretur panum eos censeri vocabulo.”

20 Quod si super aquas seu ad ignem se calefactura sedisset.—Reg. Dunelm., c. 124.

21 Quidam de villula in confinio posita, artificiosus minister, sub diurno tempore studiosus advenit, cujus negotiationis opus in pectinibus conformandis, tabulatis et scaccariis, talis, spiniferis, et cÆteris talibus, de cornuum vel solidiori ossuum materia procreandis et studium intentionis effulsit.—Reg. Dunelm, c. 88.

22 Quidam Walterus ... qui ad domum sacerdotis villulÆ prÆdictÆ cum hospitibus potaturus accessit. Cum igitur noctis spacium effluxisset, &c.—Reg. Dunelm, c. 17

23 Lantfridus, in his collection of the miracles of St. Swithun, MS. Reg. 15, C. vii., fol. 41, v^o., tells us how—“quidam consul regis, in caducis prÆpotens rebus, cum ingenti comitatu, sicut mos est Anglo-Saxonum, properater equitabat ad quendam vicum in quo grandis apparatus ad necessarios convivandi usus erat illi opipare constructus,” &c.

24 In the description of a splendid hall, in the English metrical romance of kyng Alisaunder (Weber, i. 312), the windows are made “of riche glas.”

25 The old literary antiquaries, through mistaking the u of the manuscripts for an n, and not attending to the derivation, have created a meaningless word—jongleur—which never existed, and ought now to be entirely abandoned.

26 The Latin original of this story is so quaint that it deserves to be given ipsissimis verbis. “De rustico et simia. Quidam aulam cujusdam nobilis intrans, vidensque simiam de secta filiorum vestitum, quia dorsum ad eum habebat, filium credidit esse domini, cui cum reverentia qua debuit loqueretur. Invenit esse simiam super eum cachinnantem, cui ille, ‘Maledicaris!’ inquit, ‘credidi quod fuisses Jankyn filius domini mei.’”—Latin Stories, p. 122.

27 Item, que par la dicte dame Agnes vous faciez principalment et diligemment penser de vos bestes de chambre, comme petis chiennÉs, oiselets de chambre; et aussi la beguine et vous pensez des autres oiseauls domeschÉs, car ils ne pevent parler, et pour ce vous devez parler et penser pour eulx, se vous en avez.—(MÉnagier de Paris, ii. 62.)

28 Et ayez fait adviser par avant, qu’ils aient chascun loing de son lit chandelier À platine pour mettre sa chandelle, et les aiez fait introduire sagement de l’estaindre À la bouche ou À la main avant qu’ils entrent en leur lit, et non mie À la chemise.—(MÉnagier de Paris, ii. 71.)

29 To show the extreme ignorance which has prevailed on the history of English gardening in the middle ages, it need only be mentioned that Loudon, “EncyclopÆdia of Gardening” (edition of 1850), was not aware that the leek had been cultivated in England before the time of Tusser, the latter half of the sixteenth century (p. 854); and states that garlic “has been cultivated in this country since 1548” (p. 855); and that the radish is “an annual, a native of China, and was mentioned by Gerard in 1584” (p. 846).

30 Loudon (p. 887) was not aware that the cultivation of sage dated farther back than the time of Gerard, who wrote in 1597, and he could trace back to no older date the cultivation of rue.

31 Our word chestnut is derived from the Anglo-Saxon cyste-hnutu, the nut of the cyste-tree. I may remark, on these names of fruits, that Loudon imagined that the peach was “introduced into England about the middle of the sixteenth century” (“EncyclopÆdia of Gardening,” p. 912); and that of the fig, the “first trees were brought over from Italy by Cardinal Pole, in 1525.” He seems to think that quinces and mulberries came into this country also in the course of the sixteenth century.

32 There is, however, an Anglo-Saxon name of a tree which I suspect has been misinterpreted. The glossaries give “ramnus, Þefe-Þorn,” and our lexicographers, taking the old sense of the word rhamnus, interpret it, the dog-rose. But in a very curious glossary of names of plants of the middle of the thirteenth century, printed in my “Volume of Glossaries,” in which the meaning of the Latin word is given in Anglo-Norman and in English, we have “Ramni, grosiler, Þefe-Þorn” (p. 141). I have no doubt that the thefe-thorn was the gooseberry. In the dialect of Norfolk, gooseberries are still called theabes.

33 It may be well to remark, once for all, that it is almost impossible to identify some of these mediÆval names of plants.

34 For many references, the reader is referred to Halliwell’s “Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words,” under the word Cherry-Fair.

35 Buglos.

36 The corn-marigold.

37 Marjoram.

38 Clary.

39 Basil.

40 Probably sowthistle, although it is placed under the letter F in the alphabetical list.

41 The plant Alexander.

42 Cives.

43 The herb serpentine.

44 Eyebright.

45 Better known as Solomon’s seal.

46 Dropwort.

47 Eringoes.

48 Gooseberries? See before, p. 296.

49 Quidam juvenis de domo domini Lundoniensis episcopi, spiritum habens in avibus coeli ludere, nisum suum docuit cercellas affectare propensius. Itaque juxta sonitum illius instrumenti quod a ripatoribus vocatur tabur, subito cercella quÆdam alarum remigio pernicitur evolavit. Nisus autem illusus lupum quendam nantem in locis sub undis crispantibus intercepit, invasit, et cepit, et super spatium sicut visum est xl. pedum se cum nova prÆda recepit.—Rad. de Diceto, ap. Decem Striptores, col. 666.

50 A Bury will, of the date 1522, mentioned a little further on, enumerates among the household furniture “the steynyd clothes hangyng abowte the parlour behynde the halle chemny.”

51 This receipt is curious enough to be given here; it is as follows:—“Fyrst, take and geve hym yelow antes, otherwyse called pysmerys, as nere as ye may, and the white ante or pysmers egges be best bothe wynter and somer, ij. tymes of the day an handful of bothe. Also, geve hym of these sowes that crepe with many fete, and falle oute of howce rovys. Also, geve hym whyte wormes that breede betwene the barke and the tre.”—ReliquiÆ AntiquÆ, vol. i. p. 203.

52 Dagswain was a sort of rough material of which the commoner sort of coverlets were made. A hap-harlot or hop-harlot, was also a very coarse kind of coverlet. Harlot was the term applied to a low class of vagabonds, the ribalds, who wandered from place to place in search of a living; and the name appears to have been given to this rug as being only fit to be the lot or hap of such people.

53 At a rather later period, sir Thomas Elyot, in his “Castell of Helth” (printed in 1541), recommends that breakfast should be taken about four hours before dinner, considering it therefore as a light meal, and he advises, in a sanitary view, that not less than six hours should be allowed to elapse between dinner and supper.

54 The reader who wishes for further information on the ornamental plate of the middle ages, and especially of the age of the Renaissance and succeeding period, may consult with advantage lord Londesborough’s handsome and valuable volume, the “Miscellanea Graphica,” and the “Illustrated Descriptive Catalogue of the Collection of Antique Silver Plate formed by Albert, lord Londesborough, now the property of lady Londesborough,” printed by her ladyship for private distribution; the latter of which contains no less than a hundred and fourteen examples of ornamental plate excellently engraved by Mr. Fairholt, among which are several fine examples of the nef, or ship.