Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/257

 and Sentiments. ^2>7 tices, compiled ii:i the fifteenth century, and printed in the " ReHquiae Antiquae," ii. 223, they are recommended to — Excheive allnvey eville company, Caylys, carding^ and haferdy. When no gaiety was going on, the ladies of the houfehold were em- ployed in occupations of a more ufeful defcription, among which the prin- cipal were fpinning, weaving, knitting, embroidering, and fewing. Almoft everything of this kind was done at home at the period of which we are now fpeaking, and equally in the feudal calUe or manor, and in the houfe of the fubftantial burgher, the female part of the family fpent a great part of their time in diiferent kinds of work in the chambers of the lady of the houfehold. Such work is alluded to in mediaeval writers, from time to time, and we find it reprefented in illuminated manufcripts, but not fo frequently as fome of the other domeftic fcenes. In the romance of the "Death of Garin le Loherain," when count Fromont vifited the chamber of fair Beatrice, he found her occupied in fewing a very beautiful chainjil, or petticoat : — yint en la chambre a la bele Beatri-z ; Ele cojoit un molt r'lche chainjil. — Mort de Gaiin, p. 10. In the romance of "La Violette," the daughter of the burgher, in whofe houfe the count Girard is lodged, is defcribed as being " one day feated in her father's chambers working a ftole and amice in filk and gold, very Ikilfully, and llie made in it, with care, many a little crofs and many a liar, finging all the while a chanfon-d-toile," meaning, it is fuppofed, a fong of a grave meafure, compofed for the purpofe of being lung by ladies when weaving : — /. jorjiji es chambres Jon pere, Une ejiole et i. amit pcre Defoie et d^or molt J'outilment , Si i fait entente-vement Mainte croifete et mainte efioile, Et dijl cejte chanchon a toile. — It imaii de la Violi^tte, p. 113. In one of Rntebeul's fabliaux, a woman makes excufe for being up late at