Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/189

 and Sentiments. 169 In "Garin le Loherain" (vol. ii. p. 17), at a feaft at which the emperor and his emprefs were prefent, a fight commences between the two great baronial parties who were their guefts, by a chief of one party flriking one of the other party with a goblet j the cooks are brought out of the kitchen to take part in it, with their peftles, ladles, and pot-hooks, led by duke Begon, who had feized a fpit, full of birds, as the weapon which came firft to hand ; and the conteft is not appeafed until many are killed and wounded. The preceding remarks, of courfe, apply chiefly to the tables of the prince, the noble, and the wealthy gentleman, where alone this degree of profufion and of ceremony reigned 5 and to thofe of the monaftic houfes and of the higher clergy, where, if poffible, the luxury even of princes was overpaffed. The examples of clerical and monaftic extrava- gance in feafting are fo numerous, that I will not venture on this occafion to enter upon them any further. All recorded fafts would lead us to conclude, that the ordinary courfe of living of the monks was much more luxurious than that of the clerical lords of the land, who, indeed, feem to have lived, on ordinary occafions, with fome degree of fimplicity, except that the great number of people who dined at their expenfe, required a very large quantity of provifions. Even men of rank, when dining alone, or haftily, are defcribed as being latisfied with a very limited variety of food. In the romance of " Garin," when Rigaud, one of the barons of " Garin's" party, arrives at court with important news, and very hungry, the emprefs orders him to be ferved with a large velfel of wine (explained by a various reading to be equivalent to a pot), four loaves (the loaves appear ufually to have been fmall), and a roafted peacock — On 11 aporte plain un barr'ii de -vin, Et quatre pains, et un paon rojti. — Garin le Loherain, vol. ii. p. 257. In a pane of painted glafs in the poffeflion of Dr. Henry Johnfon, of Shrewsbury, of Flemilli workmanlliip of about the beginning of the fixteenth century, and reprefenting the ftory of the Prodigal Son, the Prodigal is frated at table with a party of dillblute women, feafting upon a pafty. It is reproduced in our cut No. 121. I'hey appear to have z only