Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/355

 and Sentiments. 335 Library at Glafgow, reprefents the exterior and the interior of a public hoftel or inn. Without, we fee the fign, and the bufli fufpended to it, and a company of travellers arriving ; within, the bed-chambers are reprefented, and they illuftrate not only the practice of lodging a number of perfons in the fame bedroom, but alfo that of fleeping in a ftate of perfe6l nudity. Our next cut (No. 225) is a pi6lure of a mediaeval tapllerj it is taken from one of the carved feats, or mifereres, in the hue parilh church, of Ludlow, in Shroplliire. It will, probably, be remarked that the fize of the tapfter's jug is rather difproportionate to that of his barrel 3 but mediaeval artilts often fet perfpeftive and relative proportions at defiance. The tavern in the middle ages feems to have been the ufual fcene of a large portion of the ordinary life of the lower clafs of fociety, and even partially of the middle clafs, and its influence was certainly very injurious on the manners and character of the people. Even the women, as we learn from a number of contemporary fongs and ftories, fpent much of their time drinking and goiliping in taverns, where great latitude was afforded for carrying on low intrigues. The tavern was, in fa6t, the general rendezvous of thofe who fought amufement, of whatever kind. the "Milleres Tale," in Chaucer, Abfolon, "that joly was and gay," and who excelled as a mufician, frequented the taverns and " brewhoufes," meaning apparently the leffer public-houfes where they only fold ale, to exhibit his Ikill — ■ M. 225. A Media-ual Tapjie In al the toun nas breivhoui ne twverne That he ne 'vifited luith his folas, Ther as that any gaylard tLipJler ivas. — Cant. Tales, 1. 3,334. And Chaucer's friar was well acquainted with all the taverns in the towns he vifited — He knciu ivel the ta-vernes in ci'ery toun. And every ojtcller or gay tapftere. — IbiJ. The