Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/190

 170 Hiftofj of Do??ieJiic Manners only one drinking-cup among them, but the wine is ferved from a very rich goblet. We cannot, however, always judge the chara6ter of a feaft by the articles placed on the table by the mediaeval illuminators, for they were in the conftant habit of drawing things conventionally, and they feem to have found a difficulty — perhaps in confequence of their ignorance '^^^^; No. 121. Feajting on a P^^fiy. of perfpe6live — in reprefenting a crowded table. Our cut No. 122, on the following page, taken from MS. Reg. 10 E. iv., in which we recognize again our old friend the holy-water clerc, reprefents a table which is certainly very fparingly furniflied, although the perfons feated at it feem to belong to a refpeftable clafs in fociety. Some cooked articles, perhaps meat, on a ftand, bread, a lingle knife to cut the pro- vifions, and one pot, probably of ale, from which they feem to have drunk without the intervention of a glafs, form the whole fervice. We find allufions from time to time to the ftyle of living of the clafs In the country anfwering to our yeomanry, and of the lourgeoifie in the towns, which appears to have been fufficiently plain. In the romance of " Berte" (p. 78), when Berte finds llielter at the houfe of the farmer Symon,