Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/236

 2l6 Hijlory of Domejiic Manners 150). One, who is evidently the more aged of the two players, is already perfectly naked, whillt the other is reduced to his fliirt. The illuminator appears to have intended to reprefent them as playing againft each other till neither had anything left, like the two celebrated No. 150. Mcdta'val Gamblers,. cats of Kilkenny, who ate one another up until nothing remained but their tails. A burlefque parody on the church fervice, written in Latin, perhaps as early as the thirteenth century, and printed in the " Rdiquice Antiqiice^' gives us rather a curious pi6ture of tavern manners at that early period. The document is profane,^ — much more fo than any of the parodies for which Hone was profecuted^ but it is only a moderate example of the general laxnefs in this refpeft which prevailed, even among the clergy, in what have been called "the ages of faith." This is entitled "The Mafs of the Drunkards," and contains a running allufion to the throwing of the three dice, and to the lofs of clothing which followed ; but it is full of Latin puns on the words of the church fervice, and the greater part of it would not bear a tranllation. It will have been already remarked that, in all thefe anecdotes and ftories, the ordinary num- ber of the dice is three. This appears to have in moll of the common games. In our cut No. 151, taken from the illumination in a copy of Jean de Vignay's tranilation No. 151. A Dice- Player. been the number ufed