Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/164

 144 Hijiory of Domejiic Marmers artiflic Iketches of a lefs elaborate charafter, though thele are generally conneded with the lefs refined procelTes of cookery. The mediaeval landlords were obliged to conlume the produce of the land on their own eftates, and^ for this and other very cogent reafons, a large proportion of the provifions in ordinary ufe confifted of falted meat, which was laid up in flore in vafl quantities in the baronial larders. Hence boiling was a much more common method of cooking meat than roafting, for which, indeed, the mediaeval fire, placed on the ground, was much lefs con- venient ; it is, no doubt, for this reafon that the cook is mott frequently reprefented in the mediaeval drawings with the caldron on the fire. In fome inftances, chiefly of the fifteenth century, the caldron is fupported from above by a pot-hook, but more ufually it flands over the fire upon three legs of its own, or upon a three-legged frame. A manufcript in the Britilli Mufeum of the fourteenth century (MS. Reg. to, E. iv.), belonging formerly to the monaftery of St. Bartholomew in Smithfield, contains a feries of fuch illullrations, from which the following are fele6led. In the firft of thefe (No. 98) it is evidently a three-legged caldron which ftands over the fire, to increafe the heat of which the cook makes ufe of a pair of bel- lows, which bears a remarkably clofe refemblance to the fimilar articles made in modern times. No. 98. Makin?' the Pot boil. ,, ,, • i • Bellows were certanuy m common ufe in Anglo-Saxon times, for the name is Anglo-Saxon, ho'lg, Icelig, and lylig ; but as the original meaning of this word was merely a hag, it is probable that the early Anglo-Saxon bellows was of very rude chara6ter : it was fometimes difl;inguiflied by the compound name, hlaji-hcelg, a blaft- bag, or bellows. Our fecond example from this MS. (cut No. 99) is one of a feries of defigns belonging to fome mediaeval ftory or legend, with which I am not acquainted. A young man carrying the veffel for the holy water, and the afperfoir with which it was fprinkled over the people, and who may therefore be fuppofed to be the holy-water clerc, is making