Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/230

 2IO Hijiory of Domejiic Manners No. 147. A King at Chefs. France, and Germany. Another group, in which a king is introduced playing at chefs, forms the fubjeft of our cut No. 147, and is taken from a manufcript of the thirteenth century, in the Harleian colleftion in the Britilh Mufeum (No. 1275), confifting of a nume- rous feries of iUuftrations of the Bible hifl:ory, executed evidently in England. It will be feen that the charafter of chefs as a royal game is fuftained throughout. In this century the game of chefs had become extremely popular among the feudal ariftocracy — including under that head all who could afpire to knighthood. Already, in the twelfth century, direftions for the game had been compofed in Latin verfe, which feems to fliow that, in fpite of the zeal of men like cardinal Damianus, it was popular among the clergy. Towards the latter end of the thirteenth century, a French dominican friar, Jacques de Cefloles, made the game the fubjeft of a moral work, entitled MoraUtas de Scaccario, which became very popular in later times, was publiflaed in a French verfion by Jean de Vignay, and tranilated from this French verfion into Englifli, by Caxton, in his " Boke of ChefTe," fo celebrated among bibliographers. To the age of Jacques de Cefloles belongs an Anglo-Norman metrical treatife on chefs, of which feveral copies are preferved in manufcript (the one I have ufed is in MS. Reg. 13 A. xviii. fol. i6t, v°), and which prefents us with the firft coUeftion of games. Thefe games are dill:inguiflied by quaint names, like thofe given to the old dances ; fuch as de propre confiifion (one's own confufion), ky perde, fey fauve (the lofer wins), ky eft larges, efifages (he that is liberal is wife), w ef chief fet horn penfer (misfortune makes a man refleft), la chace deferce et de chivaler (the chace of the queen and the knight), de dames et de damyceles (ladies and damfels), la latalie de rokes (the battle of the rooks), and the like. It is quite unneceflary to attempt to point out the numerous allufions to the game of chefs during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, when it continued to be extremely popular. Chaucer, in one of his minor poems.