Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/61

 and Sentiments, 41 dice and by chefs; one name of the article played with, tcefl-Jlan, a table- ftone, would fuit either interpretation ; but another, tcefl-mon, a iable-man, would feem to indicate a game refembling our chels.* The writers immediately after the conqaell fpeak of the Saxons as playing at chels, and pretend that they learnt the game from the Danes. Gaimar, who gives us an interefting ftory relating to the deceit pradifed upon king Edgar (a.d. 973) by Ethelwold, when fent to vifit the beautiful Elfthrida, daughter of Orgar of Devonfliire, defcribes the young lady and her noble father as paffing the day at chefs. Orgar jouout a un efclies, Un giu k'U apr'ifl des Daneh. Od lui jouout Eljiruet la bele. B5^ Q=; The Ramfey hillory, publifted by Gale, defcribing a billiop's vifit to court late at night, fays that he found the king amufing himfelf with fimilar games. f An ecclefiallical canon, enafted under king Edgar, enjoined that a prieft fliould not be a tceflere, or gambler. It was not ufual, in the middle ages, to poflefs much furniture, for in thofe times of infecurity, anything moveable, which could not eafily be concealed, was never fafe from plunderers. Benches, on which feveral perfons could fit together, and a ftool or a chair for a gueft of more conlideration, were the only feats. Our word chair is Anglo- Norman, and the adoption of the name from that language would feem to indicate that the moveable to which it was applied was unknown to the great mafs of the Anglo-Saxon population of the illand. The Anglo-Saxon name for it was fell, a feat, or Jtol; the latter preferved in the modern word ftool. We find chairs of different forms in the illuminations of Anglo-Saxon manufcripts, but ' m iS ^h No. 28. An^lo-Saxcn Chairs. ■j- Regem adhuc tesserarum vel scaccarum ludo longioris tsclia noctis relevantcni invenit. G they
 * We shall return to this subject in a subsequent chapter.