Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/70

 50 Hijiory of Domejiic Manners Norman, in which it was called a lers or terfel, from the latter of which is derived the modern French lergeau. Another name for a cradle was cril ; a poem in the Exeter Book (p. 87) fpeaks of did geong on cryhle (a young child in a cradle). Our cut No. 35, alfo taken from the manu- No. 35. Anglo-Saxon Child in its Cradle. fcript of Ceedmon, reprefents an Anglo-Saxon cradle of rather rude con- ftruftion. The illuminators of a later period often reprefent the cradle of elegant form and richly ornamented. The Anglo-Saxon child appears here alfo to be fwaddled, but it is ftill drawn too inaccurately to be decifive on this point. The latter illuminators were more particular and correft in their delineations, and leave no doubt of the univerfal pradice of fwaddling infants. A good example is given in our cut No. ^6, taken from an illuminated manufcript of the fourteenth century, of which a copy is given in the large work of the late M. du Sommerard. There is a very curious paragraph relating to infants in the Poeniten- tiale of Theodore, archbilhop of Canterbury, which furniflies us with a fmgular pifture of early Anglo-Saxon domeftic life, for Theodore flouriflied in the latter half of the feventh century. It may be perhaps right to explain that a Pcenitentiale was a code of ecclefiaftical laws direding the proportional degrees of penance for each particular clafs and degree of crimes and offences againft public and private morals, and that thefe laws penetrate