Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/401

 and Sentiments. 381 furnished with the large feat, or fettle, and with rather an elaborate and elegant cupboard. The latter, however, does not belong to the picture itfelf, having been introduced from another in the fame manufcript by Mr. Shaw, in his beautiful work the "Drefles and Decorations of the Middle Ages," from which it is here taken. It is found in a fine manu- fcript in the Britiſh Muſeum (MS. Reg. 15 D. 1), containing the French tranflation of the "Hiftoria Scholaftica" of Peter Comeftor, and written in the year 1470. The fubject of this illumination is taken from the Scrip- tural ftory of Tobit, who here lies fick and blind on the ſettle, having juft defpatched his fon Tobias on his journey to the city of Rages. The lady cooking is no doubt intended for his wife Anna; it will be obferved that the is following the directions of a book. Cookery books and books of medicinal receipts were now common. The kettle is fufpended over the fire by a jack of a conftruction that occurs not unfrequently in the manu- fcripts of this period. The fettle is placed with its back to the window, which is covered with a large curtain. As the parlours faved the domeftic arrangements of the houſehold from the too great publicity of the hall, fo on the other hand they relieved the bedchambers from much of what had previoutly been tranfacted in them, and thus rendered them more private. In the poem of the "Lady Beflie," when the earl of Derby and Humphrey Brereton vifit the young princeſs, they are introduced to her in her bower, or chamber, but the immediately conducts the latter into the parlour, in order to converfe with him :—

The female part of the family now paffed in the parlour much of the time which had been formerly paffed in their chambers. It was often their place of work. Young ladies, even of great families, were brought up not only ftrictly, but even tyrannically, by their mothers, who kept them conftantly at work, exacted from them almoft flavish deference and refpect,