Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/264

 244 Hijiory of Dome/} ic Manners No. 175. The Lady and her Cats. except of ill-famed old women. There was a prejudice againft them in the middle ages, and they were joined in people's imagination with witchcraft, and with other diabolical agencies. The accompanying group of an old lady and her cats (cut No. 175) is taken from a carving on one of the mijereres in the church of Minfter, in the Ille of Thanet. Curioufly enough, the Englifti " Rule of Nuns," of the earlier half of the thir- teenth century, forbids the nuns to keep any " heart" but a cat. The chamber was, as might be expe6ted, more comfortably furnillied than the hall. The walls were covered with curtains, or tapeftry, whence this apartment is frequently termed in the fabliaux and romances the chamlre eiicortmee. The ftory of a fabliau printed in my "Anecdota Literaria" turns upon the facility with which a perfon might be concealed behind the " curtains" of the chamber. Befides a bench or ftool to fit upon, there was ufually a chair in the chamber. In the fabliau of the Bouchier d' Abbeville, the prieft's lady, when flie rifes out of bed to drefs, is reprefented as placing herfelf in a chair — En k caiererejt ajftffe. In the early Englifli romance of " Horn," the lady, receiving a gentleman into her chamber, gives him a rich chair which would hold feven people, and which is covered, in true regal rtyle, with a baldekin : — The m'lr'i maiden, aljo fone As Hatherof into chamber come, Sche ivend (thought) that it ivere Horn ; A riche cheir ivas undon, That fei-ven might Jit theron. In fiviche craft y-corn (chosen). A baudekin theron ivas fpred, Thidcr the maiden hadde him led To Jit en hir heforn, Frout (fruit) and fpices fche him bcdc. Wine to drink, ivite and rede, Bothe of coppe and horn. The