Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/129

 and Sentiments. 109 We begin now to be a little better acquainted with the domeftic occupations of the ladies, but we Ihall be able to treat more fully of thefe in a fubfequent chapter. Not the lead ufual of thefe was weaving, an art which appears to have been pradifed very extenfively by the female portion of the larger houfeholds. The manufcript Pfalter in Trinity College, Cambridge, furnilhes us with the very curious group of female weavers given in our cut No. 73. It explains itfelf, as much, at leaft, as it can eafily be explained, and I will only obferve that the fciffors here employed are of the form common to the Romans, to the Saxons, and to the earlier Normans 3 they are the Saxon fcear, and this name, as well as the form, is ftill preferved in that of the "fliears" of the modern clothiers. Mufic was alfo a favourite occupation, and the number No. 74. A Norman Organ. of mufical inftruments appears to be confiderably increafed. Some of thefQ feem to have been elaborately conftrufted. The manufcript laft mentioned furnifhes us with the accompanying figure of a large organ, of laborious though rather clumfy workmanlhip. In the dwellings of the nobles and gentry, there was more fliow of fur- niture