Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/348

 328 Hijlory of Dome ft ic Manners and of feudal vengeance. Our cut No. 220, alfo furnillied by a manufcript of the fourteenth century, reprefents a very deformed cripple, vi^hofe means of locomotion are rather curious. The beggar and the cripple, too, were often only robbers in difguife, who waited their opportunity to attack fingle palfengers, or who watched to give notice to comrades of the approach of richer convo}'s. The mediaeval popular flories give abundant inftances of robbers and others difguifnig themfelves as beggars and cripples. Blindnefs, alfo, was common among thefe objetts of com- miferation in the middle ages 5 often, as in the cafe of mutilation of other kinds, the refult of deliberate violence. The fame manufcript No. 220. A Cnfple. No.zil. A UUnd Man and Dog. I have fo often quoted (MS. Reg. 10 E. iv.), has furniilied our cut No. 221, reprefenting a blind man and his dog. It will be ealily undcrftood, that when travelling was befet with fo many inconveniences, private hofpitality would be looked upon as one of the firft of virtues, for people were often obliged to have recourfe to it, and