Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/138

 1 1 8 Hiftory of Domejiic Manners did not know where it was. The lock was too ftrong and ponderous to be broken or forced, and, after a vain effort to open the door, the evening was allowed to pafs without divine fervice. The ftory goes on to fay, that in the night St. Cuthbert appeared to the prieft, and inquired wherefore he had negleded his fervice. On hearing the explanation, the faint ordered him to go next morning to the fifliing ftation at Padduwel, and buy the firll net of fifli that was drawn out of the river. The prieft obeyed, and in the net was a falmon of extraordinary magnitude, in the throat of which was found the loft key of Norham church. Among the ariftocracy of the land, the education of the boy took what was confidered at that time a very pra6tical turn — he was inftrufted in behaviour, in manly exercifes and the ufe of arms, in carving at table — then looked upon as a moft important accomplifliment among gentlemen — and in fome other branches of learning which we fliould hardly appre- ciate at prefent 5 but fchool learning was no mediaeval gentleman's accomplifliment, and was, in that light, quite an exception, unlefs perhaps to a certain degree among the ladies. In the hiftorical romances of the middle ages, a prince or a baron is fometimes able to read, but it is the refult of accidental circumftances. Thus, in the romance of the "Mort de Garin," when the emprefs of the Franks writes fecret news from Paris to duke Garin, the head of the family of the Loherains, it is remarked, as an unufual circumftance, that the latter was able to read, and that he could thus communicate the fecret information of the emprefs to his friends without the alTiftance of a fcholar or fecretary, which was a great advantage, as it prevented one fource of danger of the betrayal of the correfpondence. "Garin the Loherain," fays the narrator, "was acquainted with letters, for in his infancy he was put to fchool until he had learned both Roman (French) and Latin." De let res Jot li Loherens Gar ins ; Car en fenfance fu a efcole mis, Tant que il Jot et Roman et Latin. — Mort de Garin, p. 105. Education of this kind was beftowed more generally on the bourgeoijie — on the middle and even the lower clafTes ; and to thefe fchool- education