Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/106

 86 HiJJory of Do?neJiic Manners by what is evidently a flaircafe of ftone. In our cut No, ^6, taken from a manufcript of the earher half of the twelfth century in the Cottonian library (Nero, C. iv.), and illuftrating the ftory of the marriage feafi; at Cana, the ftaircafe is apparently of wood, little better than a ladder, and the fervants who are carrying up the wine affift themfelves in mounting by means of a rope. It is a pi6lure which at the fame time exliibits feveral chara6teriftics of domeftic life — the wine velfels, the cupboard in which they are kept, and the well in the court-yard, the latter being indicated by the tree. The butler, finding wine run fliort, fends the fen^ant to draw water from the well. It may be remarked that this appears to have been the common machinery of the draw-well among our forefathers in the middle ages — a rude lever, formed by the attach- ment of a heavy weight, perhaps of lead, at one end of the beam, which was futhcient to raife the other end, and thus draw up the bucket. It occurs in illuminations in manufcripts of various periods j our example in cut No. (^"i is taken from MS. Harl. No. 1257, of the fourteenth century. No. 57. ADraiu-Wdl. No. 58. Norman Cooks and Whatever truth there may be in William of Malmelbury's account of the fobriety of the Normans, there can be no doubt that the kitchen and the