Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/193

 and Senti?ne?Jts. 173 the earlier medireval literature, as they were looked upon as a clafs hardly worth delcribing. This clals was, no dovibt, much more milerable in France than in England. A French moral poem of the fourteenth 23. A Frugal Repafl. century, entitled " Lc Chemin de Pauvrete ct de Richeffe," reprefents the poor labourers as having no other food than bread, garlic, and lalt, with water to drink : — Ny otji grant ne fi petit Qm ne pre'ijt grant appetit En pain fee, en aux, et en fcl, Ne il ne mengoit riens en el, Mouton, buef, oye, ne poucin ; Et puis prenoient le bac'm, A deux malm, plain d^eaue, et bwuoicnt. As I have faid, the dreller {drc[](nr) or cupboard was the only impor- tant article of furniture in the hall, befides the tables and benches. It was a mere cupboard for the plate, and had generally fteps to enable the fervants to reach the articles that were placed high up in it, but it is rarely reprefented in pictured manufcripts before the fifteentli century, when the illuminators began to introduce more detail into their works. The