Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/243

 and Sentiments. 223 France, and that it was by no means new, though it was evidently not a common game, and the cards had to be made by a painter — that is, as I fappofe, an illuminator of manufcripts. We find as yet no allufion to them in England 3 and it is remarkable that neither Chaucer, nor any of the numerous writers of his and the following age, ever fpeak of them. An illuminated manufcript of apparently the earlier part of the fifteenth century, perhaps of Flemilh workmanfliip (it contains a copy of Raoul de Prefle's French tranflation of St. Auguftine's " Civitas Dei"), prefents us with another card-party, which we give in our cut No. ij;. Three the Fifteenth Cenf.iry. perfons are here engaged in the game, two of whom are ladies. After the date at which three packs of cards were made for the amufement of the lunatic king, the game of cards feems foou to have become common in France j for lefs than four years later — on the 32nd of January, 1397 — the provoll of Paris confidered it neceflary to publilh an edid, forbidding working people to play at tennis, bowls, dice, cards, or ninepins, on working days. By one of the a6ts of the fynod of Langres, in i4°4» f^e clergy