Chapter XXXIII: The Social History of England (3)

Tournaments, hunting, dancing, pageants, mummings, and disguisings were the amusements of the great, even the greatest, princes, and were the delectation of the people when they could witness them. At a masquerade at the court of Charles VI. in Paris, in 1388, the king and five young noblemen had dressed themselves as savages, with long hair of flax fixed to their robes by pitch, which caught fire from the torches, and the king was rescued with difficulty, while four of his companions were burnt to death.

The drama appeared in that day under the form of "Mysteries and Moralities," or "Miracle-plays," which were acted in the churches and monasteries by the clergy and monks, and in which the most sacred passages and personages of the Scriptures were introduced in the most free and extraordinary manner. From the clergy the drama by degrees passed over to the laity. In the streets the tragetours, or jugglers, gave extensive amusement; and, according to Chaucer, legerdemain must have reached considerable perfection, for he says the tragetours could make people believe they saw a boat come swimming into a hall; a lion walk in; flowers spring up as in a meadow; ripe grapes, red and white, appear on imaginary vines, castles, looking solid lime and stone, appear, and then vanish again.

_Reproduced by André & Sleigh, Ld., Bushey, Herts._

THE CORONATION OF HENRY IV. IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY IN 1399.]

Such is the picture of England in the fourteenth century. In arms she had won eternal and unequalled fame; in poetry, literature, and art she had made brilliant advances. Her churches were piles of glorious poetry in stone; and in poetry itself she had a Chaucer; in architecture, a Wykeham; in philosophy, Bacon and Grosseteste; a number of learned historians; Wycliffe had made the Bible common property, and given religion new wings, sending it to the cottage and the dwelling of the industrious citizen. In the constitution, the Great Charter had been confirmed, and many excellent statutes passed, restraining the royal and baronial power, and extending that of the people. Gunpowder and cannon were come to change all warfare, and make strong castles useless. Manufactures had been introduced by the noble Queen Philippa of Hainault. Gardens of culinary vegetables, of medicinal herbs, and of flowers, as well as _pomaria_, or orchards, were becoming general, though vineyards were fast dying out; and, altogether, it must be pronounced a distinguished and progressive era, which did its duty to the common country and to posterity--except in the two important domains of morals and of humanity.