Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/54

 34 Hiftory of Domejiic Manners whole day with mulic and dancing in great glee." The cut. No. 24 (taken from the Harl. MS., No. 603), is a perfe6t illuftration of this incident of Saxon ftory. The cup-bearer is ferving the guefl: with wine from a veffel which is evidently a Saxon imitation of the Roman amphora; it is perhaps the Anglo-Saxon ye/?er ov fcefter ; a word, no No. 24. Drinking and Minjtreljy. doubt, taken from the Latin fextarius, and carrying with it, in general, the notion of a certain meafure. Jn Saxon tranllations from the Latin, amphora is often rendered by fefler. We have here a choice party of minftrels and gleemen. Two are occupied with the harp, which appears, from a companion of Beowulf with the later writers, to have been the national inftrument. It is not clear from the pi6ture whether the two men are playing both on the fame
 * ';f^s: harp, or whether one is merely holding the inftru-

ment for the other. Another is perhaps intended to reprefent the Anglo-Saxon Jithelere, playing on the fithele (the modern Englilh words Jiddler and fiddle) ; but his inftrument appears rather to be the cittern, which was played with the fingers, not with ^°' ''^' F^tJfrf'^""' ^^'"^ ^°' ^'^other reprefentation of this performer, from the fame manufcript, is given in the cut No. 25, where the inftrument is better defined. The other two minftrels, in No. 24, are playing on the horn, or on the Saxon pip, or pipe. The two dancers are evidently a man and a woman, and another lady to the extreme right feems %'/!