Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/457

 and Sentiffie?its. 437 part of the male population who. had not domeftic eftablifhments of their own appear to have lived at the taverns and eating-houfes, the allure- ments of which drew them into every fort of dillipation, which ended in the ruin of men's fortunes and health. The poet Occleve, in his reminifcences of his own condu6l, defcribes the life of the riotous young men of his time. The fign which hung at the tavern door, he fays, was always a temptation to him, which he could feldom refill. The tavern was the refort of women of light charafter, and was the icene of brawls and outrages ; by the former of which he was frequently feduced into extravagant expenditure, but his want of courage, he confefles, kept him out of the latter. Weftminfter gate was then celebrated for its taverns and cooks' fliops, at which the poet Occleve's lavilhnefs made him a welcome gueft : — Wher ivas a gretter maifler eek than y, Or bet acq'zveyntid at Wejlmynfter yate. Among the ta-verneres namely (especially) And cookes ? Whan I cam, eerly or late, I pynchtd nat at hem in myne acate (purchase of provisions), But paied hem as that they axe ivolde ; Wherfore I ivas the ivelcomer algate (always), And for a -verray (true) gentilman yholdi. Here he fpent his nights in fuch a manner that he went to bed later than any of his companions, except perhaps two, whofe time of going to bed he fays that he did not know, it was fo late, but he afferts that they loved their beds fo well that they never left them till near prime, or fix o'clock in the morning, which thus appears, at the beginning of the fifteenth century, to have been confidered an excellively late hour for rifing. The tavern was alfo the refort of women of the middle and lower orders, who affembled there to drink, and to gollip. It has been already ftated that, in the myfi:eries, or religious plays, Noah was reprefented as finding his wife drinking with her gollips at the tavern when he wanted to take her into the ark. The meetings of golfips in taverns form the fubjefts of many of the popular fongs of the fifteenth and fixteenth centuries, both in England and France. It a])pears that thefe meetings of