Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/84

 64 Hijiory of Domejiic Manners plega (play of hands).* In the glolTaries, p/egere (a player), and plega- man (a playman), are uled to reprefent the Roman gladiator; and plega-hus (a playhoufe), and plega-ftow (a play-place), exprefs a theatre, or more probably an amphitheatre. Recent difcoveries have fliown that there was a theatre of confiderable dimenfions in the Roman town of Verulamium (near St. Alban's) ; and old writers tell us there was one at the Silurian Ifca (Caerleon), though thefe buildings were doubtlefs of rare occurrence ; but every Roman town of any importance in the illand had its amphitheatre outfide the walls for gladiatorial and other exlii- bitions. The refult of modern refearches feems to prove that moft of the Roman towns continued to exifl after the Saxon fettlement of the ifland, and we can have no doubt that the amphitheatres, at lead for awhile, continued to be devoted to their original purpofes, although the perform- ances were modified in chara6ter. Some of them (like that at Rich- borough, in Kent, lately examined), were certainly furrounded by walls, while others probably were merely cut in the ground, and furrounded by a low embankment formed of the material thrown out. The firft of thefe, the Saxons would naturally call a play-houfe, while the other would receive the no lefs appropriate appellation of a play-flow, or place for playing. Among the illuftrations of the Anglo-Saxon manufcript of the Pfalms (MS. Harl., No. 603), to which we have fo often had occa- fion to refer, there is a very curious pifture, evidently intended to repre- fent an amphitheatre outfide a town. It is copied in our cut No. 41. The rude Anglo-Saxon draughtfman has evidently intended to reprefent an embankment, occupied by the fpeftators, around the fpot where the performances take place. The fpeftator to the left is exprefiing his approbation by clapping with his hands. The performances themfelves are fingular : we have a party of minftrels, one of them playing on the Roman double pipes, fo often reprefented in Anglo-Saxon manufcripts, while another is dancing to him, and the third is performing with a tame bear, which is at the moment of the i-eprefentation fimulating fleep. are both derived from the Anglo-Saxon, which perhaps shons that they represent sentiments we have derived from our Saxon forefathers. Games
 * It is curious that the modern Enolish words play (pkga), and game (gamen),