Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/345

 and Sentiments. 325 manufcript of the beginning of the fourteenth century (MS. Reg. 2 B. vii.), forms part of a group reprefenting the relatives of Thomas Beckett driven into exile by king Henry 11. ; they are making their way to the fea-fliore on foot, perhaps to Ihow that they were not of very high condi- tion in life. In Chaucer, it is a matter of furprile that the ''^chanoun" had fo little luggage that he carried only a male, or portmanteau, on his horfe's crupper, and even that was doubled up {tireyfold) on account of its empti- nefs : — A male tiueyfold on his croper lay, It feemed that he caned litel array ^ jil light for fomer rood this ivorthy man. —Cant. Tales, 1. 12,494. On the contrary, in the romance of " Berte," when the heroine is left to wander in the folitary foreft, the writer laments that flie had " neither pack-horfe laden with coffers, nor clothes folded up in males," which were the ordinary accompaniments of travellers of any confequence : — N'i ot fommier a coffres ne dras troujfe's en male. — R man de Bcrte, p. 42. A traveller, indeed, had many things to carry with him. He took pro- vilions with him, or was obliged, at times, to reckon on what he could kill, or obtain undreffed, and hence he was obliged to carry cooking apparatus with him. He carried flint and fteel to llrike a light, and be able to make a fire, as he might hav^e to bivouac in a folitary place, or in the midft of a foreft. In the romance of " Garin le Loherain," when the count Begues of Belin finds himfelf benighted in the foreft, he prepares for pafling the night comfortably, and, as a matter of courfe, draws out his flint {fufil), and lights a fire :— No. 218. Traiiellers on Foot. Et U quens ejl defous Farire rame'; Prent fan fufil, fa le fu alume, Grant et plenier, merveilleus embrafe'. -Gaiin le Loheiain, ii., p. 231. The