Page:A short history of social life in England.djvu/111

Rh with costly furs. Gloves were a great feature of ecclesiastical dress, and often bequeathed as valuable legacies. But for all their extravagances, the clergy were a great power in the land. Our ancestors attended church regularly and methodically on Sundays and holydays; they sat in pews according to their rank, which remains of feudalism have survived in country churches to this day, while the retainers and servants stood in the "alleys." The walls of the churches were bright with fresco, so that the most ignorant could glean lessons from the stories of the Saints. There were no pulpits yet, and sermons were rare, but the Sacraments of the Church were duly administered, and the faith of our medieval forefathers was touching in its extreme simplicity.

Simple indeed were their lives altogether. They still went early to bed—sleeping between the sheets with nothing on but a nightcap—and rose with the sun. They started off on their hunting and hawking expeditions when the labourers were starting for their work in the fields. Men and women went hawking together, sometimes on horseback, sometimes on foot, but this sport was reserved for the King and nobles, and no poor man might even keep a