Chapter VII: Part 7

As years advance, symptoms of infirmity appear. The spectacles, and favourite "guilt spoone," and diamond ring, are missing, and found and brought by her attendants, who always have a reward. It has been related of Prince Eugene of Savoy, that his servants took dexterous advantage of his foible of immoderate anger, and threw themselves in the way of his fits of passion, that they might get a sound beating from him, and its never-failing accompaniment, a reward to make it up. Thus, probably, the attendants of Mrs. Jefferies, though in a different method, might make profit of her failing memory, by hiding and reproducing the above valuables, in order to a remuneration. Then, a fair is held at Worcester, and the maids from Horncastle of course attend it: our lady gives each a shilling, when Barbara, the dairy-maid, pretends that she had lost her shilling, and her mistress gave her another. But the maids were always in favour, and not content with making them presents at stated times, she invented vicarious means of slipping vails into their hands.

Age seems to have abated nothing of her generous feeling, or of the ardour of her domestic affections. In all those events which usually bring joy to families, and occasion entries in our parish registers, she heartily sympathised. A marriage, even of a servant, was an occurrence that always appeared highly to interest her. When Miss Acton was married, she gave her a handsome portion, arranged the settlement, and defrayed incidental expenses; and to the entries she adds, "God bless them both." The clerks in the solicitors' offices are not forgotten; and, "Paid the butcher for a fatt weather to present this bride wooman at her wedding-day, 6_s_. 6_d_." The portion was made up in instalments, and on the last payment, she notes: "So I praise God all the 800_l_. is paid, and we are even." Then, what joy was there at a christening, when "ould Mrs. Barckley and myself Joyse Jeffreys were Gossips. God bless hitt: Amen." Also, "Gave the midwyfe, good wyfe Hewes, of Vpper Jedston, the christening day, 10_s_.;" and, "Gave nurce Nott ye same day, 10_s_."

Thus did she continue to go on, with blessings upon her lips and her right hand full of gifts, without intermission, till the grave closed over all that was mortal, and amiable, and singular in the character and conduct of one whose parallel is not easy to be found.

As respects herself, little did she think that, in compiling these accounts, she was about to present, after a lapse of upwards of two centuries, a more expressive memorial of her virtues than any that her surviving relatives could have placed upon her tomb.

"And so it has fallen out, that nothing appears to have been hitherto done to mark the spot where she lies; neither has the exact period of her decease been ascertained, though the codicil of her will carries her forward to 1650, and it has been shown that she was buried in the chancel of the parish church of Clifton-upon-Teme, on the borders of Worcestershire. But her memory is still revered by those to whom her existence and character are known: and a brass tablet has been placed near the spot where she is believed to have been interred, with an inscription transmitting the name and virtues of Mrs. Joyce Jefferies to future times."[49]

FOOTNOTES:

[48] The quantity of salmon caught in the river Wye was formerly so great that it is said to have been usual to insert a clause in the indentures of the Hereford apprentices that they should not be compelled to eat salmon more than twice a week.

[49] The historical details have been, in the main, condensed from "Some Passages in the Life and Character of a Lady resident in Herefordshire and Worcestershire during the Civil War of the Seventeenth Century, collected from her Account Book in the possession of Sir Thomas Edward Winnington, Baronet, of Stamford Court, in the county of Worcester, with Historical Observations and Notes by John Webb, M.A., F.S.A. _Archæologia_, vol. xxxvii. pp. 189-223. 1857."

HOUSE-FURNISHING IN THE MIDDLE AGES.

An accomplished illustrator of our Domestic History in describing the mode of furnishing houses in the Middle Ages, tells us that there were tables of Cyprus and other rare woods, carved cabinets, desks, chess-boards, and, above all, the Bed--the most important piece of furniture in the house, and of which Ralph Lord Basset said, "Whoever shall bear my surname and arms, according to my will, shall have my great bed for life." There was the "standing bed," and the "truckle bed;" on the former lay the lord, and on the latter his attendant. In the daytime the truckle bed, on castors, was rolled under the standing bed. The posts, head-boards, and canopies or spervers of bedsteads were sometimes carved, or painted in colours, but they are generally represented covered by rich hangings. King Edward III. bequeathed to his heir an entire bed marked with the arms of France and England, and Richard, Earl of Arundel, to his wife Philippa, a blue bed, marked with his arms, and the arms of his late wife; to his son Richard a standing bed called clove, also a bed of silk embroidered with the arms of Arundel and Warren; to his son Thomas, his blue bed of silk embroidered with griffins, &c.

The great chamber was often used as a sleeping-room by night and a reception-room by day. Shaw, in his _Decorations of the Middle Ages_, gives the interior of a chamber in which Isabella of Bavaria receives from Christine of Pisa her volume of poems. The Queen is seated on a couch covered with a stuff in red and gold, and there is a bed in the room furnished with the same material, to which are attached three shields of arms. The walls of the chamber were either hung with tapestry or painted with historical subjects. Chaucer, in his Dream, fancies himself in a chamber--

"Full well depainted,
And al the walles with colors fine
Were painted to the texte and glose,
And all the Romaunte of the Rose."

The beds of the better classes were sumptuous and comfortable. Mattresses were used, but sometimes, to receive the bed, loose straw was spread on the sacking. The order for making the royal savage's own lair says, "A yoman with a daggar is to searche the strawe of the kynges bedde that there be none untreuth therein--the bedde of downe to be cast upon that." The lower classes were contented with straw alone; but, as appears from Holinshed's account, more from an ignorant contempt for a pleasant bed, and a soft pillow, than from lack of means to obtain the indulgence. The windows had curtains, and were glazed in the manner described by Erasmus; but in inferior dwellings, such as those of copyholders and the like, the light-holes were filled with linen, or with a shutter.

Early in the fourteenth century one Thomas Blaket, or Blanket, of Bristol, introduced the woollen fabric which still goes by his name. The word _worsted_ comes from the village so named, near Norwich, where that kind of stuff began to be extensively manufactured for wall-hangings in the fourteenth century. A still richer fabric similarly used, called _baudekin_, a kind of brocade, is said to have derived its name from Baldacus, in Babylon, whence, says Blount, it was originally brought.

Few objects of antiquarian curiosity acquired more notoriety than a bedstead or bed, of unusually large dimensions, preserved at Ware, twenty miles from London, on the road to Cambridge. Shakspeare employs it as an object of comparison in his play of _Twelfth Night_, bearing date 1614, where Sir Toby Belch says: "As many lies as will lie in this sheet of paper, though the sheet were big enough for the bed of Ware in England." (Act iii. sc. 2.) Nares, in his _Glossary_, says: "This curious piece of furniture is said to be still in being, and visible at the Crown or at the Bull in Ware. It is reported to be twelve feet square, and to be capable of holding twenty or twenty-four persons." And he refers to Chauncey's _Hertfordshire_ for an account of the bed receiving at once twelve men and their wives, who lay at the top and bottom in this mode of arrangement,--first two men, then two women, and so on alternately,--so that no man was near to any woman but his wife. Clutterbuck, in his History, places the great bed at the Saracen's Head Inn, where a large bedstead is preserved. It is twelve feet square, of carved oak, and has the date 1463 painted on the back; but the style of the carving is Elizabethan--a century later, at least. It was _traditionally_ sold among other movables which belonged to Warwick, the King-maker, at Ware Park, to suit which story the date is thought to have been painted. Again, it is placed at three inns--the Crown, the Bull, and Saracen's Head, at Ware, each of which may have had its "great bed."

Formerly, wealthy persons travelled with their bed in their carriage. Mr. Beckford, of Fonthill, was, probably, the last person who so travelled, in England, some forty years since, when the writer's informant saw the unpacking of the bed, at the inn-door, at Salt Hill.

The Warming-pan did not make its appearance till the Tudor times. In the inventory of the goods of Sir William More, of Loseley, in Surrey, A.D. 1556, occurs "a warmynge," considered to be a warming-pan, and the earliest recorded mention of that article. The old warming-pans were often engraved with armorial bearings, mottoes, and inscriptions. In the _Welsh Levite tossed in a Blanket_, 1691, we read: "Our garters, bellows, and warming-pans wore godly mottoes, &c." We find a warming-pan engraved with the arms of the Commonwealth, and the motto: "ENGLANDS . STATS . ARMES." Another warming-pan has the royal arms, C. R. and "FEARE GOD HONNOR YE KINGE. 1662." Some years ago, there was purchased at the village of Whatcote, in Warwickshire, a warming-pan engraved with a dragon, and the date 1601; probably brought from Compton Wyniatt, the ancient seat of the Earl (now Marquis) of Northampton; the supporters of the Compton family being dragons.

The seats were mostly forms, but Chairs were sometimes used. A MS. of the fourteenth century has this item:--"To put wainscote above the dais in the king's hall, and to make a fine large and well sculptured chair." The early chair was a single seat without arms. The fauldsteuel (fauteuil in modern French) was originally a folding stool of the curule form, but afterwards the form alone was preserved; examples remain from the time of Dagobert up to a late period. Dagobert's seat is considered by some to be of much greater antiquity than his time, and the back and arms are certainly of a later period than the rest. The so-called Glastonbury chair is much to be commended for simplicity of form, perfect strength, and adaptation for comfort.

In the earlier times, chairs and benches were not stuffed but had cushions to sit upon and cloths spread over them: afterwards, as the workmanship improved, they were stuffed and covered with tapestry, leather, or velvet. The forms and workmanship of these seats were generally very rude, but the stuffs that covered them were of great richness and value, and tastefully trimmed with fringes and gimps, fastened with large brass studs or nails.

The description of the furniture in the great chamber at Hengrave, the seat of Sir Robert Kytson, _temp._ Henry VII., enumerates very minutely the various articles; among which are, the carpet, the tables, the cupboards, the chairs, the stools, two great chairs, silk and velvet coverings, curtains to the windows and doors, a great screen, the fire-irons, branches for lights, &c.

The floors, which at an early period were laid with rushes, were at a later one covered with a carpet, called the bord carpet. Still, carpets were used very early in the castles and mansions of the wealthy. The manufacture of carpets is of great antiquity: we read of them in the sacred writings, they were found in the ruins of Pompeii, they were introduced from the East to Spain, from Spain they passed to France and England, and when Eleanor of Castile arrived in London, in 1255, the rooms of her abode were covered with carpets; they were used generally in the palace in the reign of Edward III. Turkey carpets were first advertised for sale in London in 1660. The manufacture of carpets was introduced into France by the celebrated Colbert, in 1664. A manufactory was opened in England during the reign of Henry VIII., but this branch of industry was not permanently established until 1685, when the revocation of the Edict of Nantes drove half a million of Protestants from France, many of whom, settling in this country, established the manufacture of carpets. Brussels carpets were introduced from Tournay into Kidderminster, in 1745.

We have already described the Hall. At the further end of this apartment was generally placed a cupboard called the "Court cupboard," in which the service of plate, such as salvers and gold drinking cups, were arranged on shelves or stages, answering in some respects to our sideboards of the present day. These cupboards, though originally of rude construction, afterwards became elaborate and beautiful pieces of furniture, richly carved in oak: they are often alluded to in old documents. On grand occasions temporary stages, as cupboards, were also erected. At the marriage of Prince Arthur, son of Henry VII., in the hall was a triangular cupboard, five stages high, set with plate valued at 1,200_l_. entirely ornamental; and in the "utter chamber," where the princess dined, was another cupboard set with gold plate, garnished with stones and pearls, valued at 20,000_l_.

In the inventory of Skipton Castle, in Yorkshire, the furniture of the great hall is thus given:--"Imprimis, 7 great pieces of hangings, with the Earl's arms at large in every one of them, and powdered with the several coates of the house. 3 long tables on standard frames, 6 long forms, 1 short ditto, 1 Court cupboard, 1 fayre brass lantern, 1 iron cradle with wheels for charcoal, 1 almes tubb, 20 long pikes."

There is no mention of Mirrors, but they were used at this time, though very small, and of metal polished. The coffre or chest which contained the ladies' trousseaux, was subsequently much ornamented. The wardrobes, so called, were generally small rooms fitted with cupboards called armoiries. In 1253, "the sheriff of Southampton was ordered to make in the king's upper wardrobe, in Winchester Castle, where the king's cloths were deposited, two cupboards or armoiries, one on each side of the fireplace, with arches and a certain partition of board across the same wardrobe."[50]

FOOTNOTES:

[50] Loseley, the fine old domain of the Mores, mentioned in a preceding page (180), lies between two and three miles south-west of Guildford. It had, no doubt, from an early period, its manse, or capital dwelling-house, fortified by a moat, according to the custom of the feudal ages. This dwelling has long since been destroyed, and the present mansion at Loseley is of the age of Elizabeth, and was built between 1562 and 1568. The principal entrance opens into the Hall, but was originally at the end of the passage between the screens which divide the Hall from the Kitchen and Butteries. Latin inscriptions were placed over the doors: that over the Kitchen door was "_Fami, non Gulæ_" (To hunger, not to gluttony); over the Buttery door, "_Siti, non Ebrietati_" (To thirst, not to drunkenness); and over the Parlour door, "_Probis, non Pravis_" (To the virtuous, not the wicked). The finest apartment is the Withdrawing-room, a splendid example of the decorative style of the early part of Elizabeth's reign. It exhibits a rich cornice, on which is the _rebus_ of the More family, a mulberry-tree. The wainscoting is panelled, and the ceiling ornamented with pendent drops and Gothic tracery. The chimney-piece is elaborately enriched: the lower story is Corinthian; and the upper division, or mantel, has grotesque caryatides, supporting a fascia and cornice. The intermediate panelling is emblazoned with the arms of the Mores, which also enrich the glazing of the mullioned windows. In the gallery of the mansion were formerly two gilt chairs with cushions worked by Queen Elizabeth. Here, in 1603, Sir George More entertained King James I. and his Queen.

DRESS.--PERSONAL ORNAMENTS.

From the old accounts of the Laundry we gather some idea of mediæval clothing and personal cleanliness. Four shirts was a large allowance for a nobleman in the fifteenth century; and youths of noble rank were sent to college without a change of linen. It is upon record that Bishop Swinfield, for himself and his whole household, in the thirteenth century, only spent forty-three shillings and twopence for washing; and the Duke of Northumberland's establishment, in the time of Henry VIII. consisting of one hundred and seventy persons, only cost forty shillings for the laundry expenses of a whole year. On the other hand, the institution of "tubbing" was not unknown. Baths are frequently mentioned in the romances, and are occasionally depicted in illuminations. They were large tubs with a curtain over them, after the manner of a modern French bed.

With respect to what we now call "comfort," it is certain that all the appliances of tapestried hangings were far inferior to the modern devices of double walls, sashes, and French casements, &c. as means of excluding draughts of air. But then the costume was suited to the houses. The modern drawing-room life was scarcely possible in a mediæval mansion. It was a necessity to dress more warmly; and, as may be seen in very many mediæval illuminations, almost every one, of either sex, went with covered heads. Just in the same way, in a modern farm-house or cottage, it is common enough for hats and bonnets to be worn habitually indoors.

The flannel in general use, the wadded petticoats, and worsted stuffs and brocaded silks (so thick as almost to stand alone) for gowns, were much better calculated to resist cold and damp than the cobweb fabrics worn by modern females; and the men's clothes were of a more substantial texture, and made much fuller than the scanty modern corresponding garments of thin superfine broadcloth. The thick woollen dresses of the monks also were well contrived for preserving a comfortable portable climate. No part but the face was exposed to the external air, and this was protected by the cowl, so that they were always defended from currents of cold air in the cloisters and vaulted aisles of the now desolate monastic edifices.

Woollen cloths were long the chief material of male and female attire. When new the nap was generally very long; and after being worn for some time it was customary to have it shorn; indeed, this process was repeated as often as the stuff would bear it. Thus we find the Countess of Leicester sending Hicque, the tailor, to London, to get her robes reshorn. Among the materials for dress mentioned, are linen, sindon, which has been variously interpreted to mean satin or very fine linen; scarlet and rayed or striped cloths, of Flemish, French, or Italian make; _pers_, or blue cloth, for the manufacture of which Provence was famous; russet, say or serge, and blanchet or blanket, a name which, it is believed, was given to flannel. The furs named are squirrel and miniver.

Among the minor objects of personal use which appear to have belonged to Margaret de Bohun, in the fifteenth century, the "poume de ambre," or scent-ball, in the composition of which ambergris formed a principal ingredient, deserves notice; this being, perhaps, the earliest evidence of its use. We here learn also that a nutmeg was occasionally used for the like purpose; it was set with silver, decorated with stones and pearls, and was evidently an object rare and highly prized. Amongst the valuable effects of Henry V. according to an inventory dated A.D. 1423, are enumerated a musk-ball of gold, weighing eleven pounds, and another of silver-gilt. At a later period the Pomander was very commonly worn as the pendant of a lady's girdle. The _peres de eagle_ were the stones supposed to be found in the nest of the eagle, to which various medicinal and talismanic properties were attributed. Nor are we cognizant of an earlier mention of coral than that which occurs in this inventory: namely, the paternoster of coral, with large gilded beads, which belonged to Margaret de Bohun, and the three branches of coral which Alianmore de Bohun possessed. Among her effects also is the wooden table "painted for an altar;" it formed part of the movable chapel furniture which persons of rank took with them on journeys, or used when, through infirmity, the badness of roads, or some other cause, valid in those days, they were prevented from attending public worship. Licences to use such portable altars are of frequent occurrence on the older episcopal registers.

John Evelyn, regretting "the simple manners that prevailed in his younger days, and which were now fast fading away," thus describes old-fashioned country life about the middle of the seventeenth century:--

"Men courted and chose their wives for their modesty, frugality, keeping at home, good housewifery, and other economical virtues then in reputation; and the young damsels were taught all these in the country and in their parents' houses. They had cupboards of ancient, useful plate, whole chests of damask for tables, and stores of fine Holland sheets, white as the driven snow, and fragrant of rose and lavender for the bed; and the sturdy oaken bedstead and furniture of the house lasted one whole century; the shovel-board and other long tables, both in hall and parlour, were as fixed as the freehold; nothing was movable save joint-stools, the black jacks, silver tankards, and bowls.... The virgins and young ladies of that golden age, _quæsiverunt lanam et linum_, put their hands to the spindle, nor disdained they the needle; were obsequious and helpful to their parents, instructed in the managery of the family, and gave presages of making excellent wives. Their retirements were devout and religious books, and their recreations in the distillatory, the knowledge of plants and their virtues, for the comfort of their poor neighbours and use of their family, which wholesome, plain diet and kitchen physic preserved in perfect health." As the quaint old ballad hath it--

"They wore shoes of a good broad heel,
And stockings of homely blue;
And they spun them upon their own wheel,
When this old hat was new."

PINS AND PIN-MONEY.

Metal pins are said to have been introduced into this country from France in the fifteenth century: as an article of commerce they are not mentioned in our statutes until the year 1483. Before this date, we are told that ladies were accustomed to fasten their dresses by means of skewers of boxwood, ivory, or bone; this statement has been doubted, but we are assured that, to this day, the Welsh use as a pin the thorn from the hedge.

Stow assigns the first manufacture of metal pins in England to the year 1543; and they seem to have been then so badly made that in the thirty-fourth year of King Henry VIII. (1542-3), Parliament enacted that none should be sold unless they be "double-headed, and have the headdes soudered faste to the shanke of the pynne." In short, the head of the pin was to be well smoothed, the shank well shapen, and the point well rounded, filed, canted, and sharpened. The Act of Parliament, however, appears to have produced no good effect, for in the thirty-seventh year of the same reign it was repealed.

The manufacture of pins was introduced into several towns of Great Britain by individuals who, in some cases, are called the inventors of the article. The pin-makers of former days seem to have been a body somewhat difficult to please, of whom Guillim, in his _Display of Heraldry_, writes:--"The Society of Pinmen and Needlers, now ancient, or whether incorporated, I find not, but only that, in the year 1597, they petitioned the Lord Treasurer against the bringing in of foreign pins and needles, which did much prejudice to the calling." The Pinners' Company was incorporated by Charles I. in 1636; the Hall is on part of the ancient Priory of the Augustine, or Austin Friars; it has been, since the reign of Charles II., let as a Dissenting meeting-house: it is in Pinners'-hall-court, Old Broad-street.

The manufacture of pins formed early a lucrative branch of trade. Sixty thousand pounds, annually, is said to have been paid for them to foreign makers, in the early years of Queen Elizabeth; but, as we have seen, long before the decease of that princess, they were manufactured in this country in great quantities; and in the time of James I., the English artisan is regarded to have "exceeded every foreign competitor in the production of this diminutive, though useful article of dress."

Pennant, in his description of old London Bridge, states that "most of the houses were tenanted by pin or needle makers, and economical ladies were wont to drive from the St. James's end of the town to make cheap purchases." But Thomson, in his minute _Chronicles of London Bridge_, does not mention pin-makers among the trades common on the bridge; haberdashers, who came here _late_ from the Chepe, however, sold pins.

Yet vast quantities of early pins have been recovered from the Thames near the site of the old Bridge. In 1864, Mr. Burnell exhibited to the British Archæological Association fifteen brass pins, varying in length from one inch and three-eighths to five inches and a half, stated to have been found on the paper on which they now are, in a cellar on the northern bank of the Thames, in excavating for the foundations of the South-Eastern Railway bridge. Most, if not all, of these pins have solid globose heads. At the same meeting, Mr. Syer Cuming exhibited two brass pins recovered from the mud of the Thames some years since. One is little less than two inches and a half in length, the other full seven inches and three-quarters long. The heads of both are formed with spiral wire; the shortest being globose, the other somewhat flattened. Mr. Cuming stated that quantities of such early pins as those then produced have been found in and along the banks of the river, some of them measuring upwards of a foot in length. These great pins may have been employed in securing the wide-spreading head-dresses of the Middle Ages, and fastening the ends of the pillow-case, a use not quite obsolete in the time of Swift, who speaks of "corking pins," for this purpose, in his _Directions to Servants_.

For some time after their introduction pins must have been costly, for we find that they were acceptable New Year's gifts to ladies, and that presents of money were made for buying pins; whence money set apart for the use of ladies received the name of _pin-money_.

In France, three centuries ago, there was a tax for providing the queen with pins; from whence the term of _pin-money_ has been, undoubtedly, applied by us to that provision for married women, with which the husband is not to interfere. In Bellon's _Voyages_, 1553, we read:--"Quand nous donnons l'argent a quelque chambrière, nous _disons pour ses épingles_."

Pins must soon have been made and sold at a very cheap rate, to justify the common remark, "Not worth a pin," and equivalent expressions in some of our early writers, such as Tusser:

"His fetch is to flatter, to get what he can;
His purpose once gotten, a _pin_ for thee than."

Pins are of various sizes, from the blanket-pin, three inches in length, to the smallest ribbon-pins, of which 300,000 only weigh one pound. Insect-pins, used by entomologists, are of finer wire than ordinary pins, and vary in length from three inches to a size smaller than ribbon-pins. It has been calculated that ten tons of pins are made every week in England alone, requiring from fourteen to fifteen tons of brass-wire.

"What becomes of all the pins?" a question every day asked, received an answer, a few years since, upon the opening of an old sewer for repair, in Rea-street, Birmingham. At the bottom of it was a deposit as hard as the "slag" from a blast furnace, and in this deposit a vast number of pins were embedded: a piece about the size of a man's fist bristled with them, and this was but a specimen of a great mass of such matter. In another way, too, the deposit was a curiosity; for, independently of the pins, it inclosed a heterogeneous collection of old pocket-knives, marbles, buttons, &c.

Anciently, there were local springs, known as _Pin Wells_, in passing which the country maids dropped into the water a crooked pin to propitiate the fairy of the well. In some places, rich and poor believed this superstition.

PROVISIONS:

BREAD-MAKING, GROCERY, AND CONFECTIONERY.

Under the designation of _Panis_, Mr. Hudson Turner thinks that grain and flour, as well as bread, were included. It would appear that bread of different degrees of fineness was used. Thus, in the Household Expenses of Eleanor, Countess of Leicester, third daughter of King John, and wife of the celebrated Simon de Montfort, 1265, "the earliest known memorial of the domestic expenditure of an English subject," we find that there was "bread purchased for the Countess," and "bread for the kitchen." Loaves or cakes were made of bolted flour, are twice mentioned, as well as cakes, or wastells, perhaps biscuits; on one occasion half a quarter of flour is set down for pastry. It is inferred that the bread generally used in the family was made of a mixture of wheat and rye. As the dogs were fed with corn, it may be concluded that the servants fared no worse: at any rate there is no distinct notice of bread made of barley, oats, or the more inferior grain which were commonly used in France and other countries.

It is not clear that their bread was leavened with yeast, as that article occurs but once, and then in connexion with malt. The price of the quarter of wheat or rye varied from 5_s_. to 5_s_. 8_d_.; of oats, from 2_s_. to 2_s_. 4_d_.; twenty-five quarters, however, were bought at Sandwich, at 1_s_. 10_d_. When grain was brought from the Countess' manors, some of the prices were rather below the average. The bailiff of Chalton was allowed 5_s_. the quarter for wheat, 4_s_. for barley, and 2_s_. 4_d_. for oats; the bailiff of Braborne had 4_s_. 4_d_. for wheat, and 1_s_. 3_d_. for oats.

The Manchet is a fine white roll, named, according to Skinner, from _michette_, French; or from _main_, because small enough to be held in the hand:

"No manchet can so well the courtly palate please
As that made of the meal fetch'd from my fertil leaze."

Drayton's _Polyolbion_.

Here are two olden recipes for manchets:

"_Lady of Arundel's Manchet._--Take a bushel of fine wheat-flour, twenty eggs, three pound of fresh butter; then take as much salt and barm as to the ordinary manchet; temper it together with new milk pretty hot, then let it lie the space of half an hour to rise, so you may work it up into bread, and bake it: let not your oven be too hot."--_True Gentlewoman's Delight_, 1676.

"Take a quart of cream, put thereto a pound of beef-suet minced small, put it into cream, and season it with nutmeg, cinnamon, and rose-water; put to it eight eggs and but four whites, and two grated manchets; mingle them well together and put them in a buttered dish; bake it, and being baked, scrape on sugar, and serve it."--_The Queene's Royal Cookery_, 1713.

Manchets are used in the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge to this day. The manchets and cheese, and fine ale, of Magdalen College are well known.

The Manciple, a purveyor of victuals, a clerk of the kitchen, or caterer, still subsists in the universities, where the name is therefore preserved; but Archdeacon Nares believed nowhere else. One of Chaucer's pilgrims is a manciple of the Temple, of whom he gives a good character for his skill in purveying.

It is curious to find that one of the domestic arts which is somewhat neglected in the households of the present generation, should, in the last century, have been considered an accomplishment of such importance as to be taught in schools: this was Pastry-making. There was then resident in London one of the ancient family of the Kidders, of Maresfield, in Sussex, and a descendant of Richard Kidder, Bishop of Bath and Wells. This was Edward Kidder, a pastrycook, or, as he calls himself, "pastry-master," who carried on his business in Queen Street, Cheapside, and was induced to open two schools in the metropolis to teach the art of making pastry, one at his own place of business, and the other in Holborn. He also gave instructions to ladies at their private houses. So popular did his system of teaching become, that he is said to have instructed nearly 6,000 ladies in this art. He also published a book of _Receipts of Pastry and Cookery_, for the use of his scholars, printed entirely in copper-plate, with a portrait of himself, in the full wig and costume of the day, as a frontispiece. He died in 1739, at the age of seventy-three. By will, he gave to his wife, Mary Kidder, a gold watch, a diamond ring, and all the other rings and trinkets used by her, and also all the furniture of the best room in which she lay in the house in Queen Street; and to his daughters, Elizabeth and Susan, he bequeathed all his money, bank-stock, plate, jewellery, &c. Susan, among other bequests, gave to her cousin, George Kidder, of Canterbury, pastrycook, 150_l_. and the copper-plates for the receipt-book.

Some dishes of the olden dinner-table are not very inviting. Our ancestors had no objection to stale fish; and blubber, if they could get it from a stray whale, or grampus or porpoise, was considered a delicacy. Yet some of the old dishes have stood the test of ages, as we see in the case of a Christmas Pie, the receipt to make which is preserved in the books of the Salters' Company, in the City of London.

"For to make a moost choyce Paaste of Gamys to be eten at ye Feste
of Chrystemasse" (17th Richard II. A.D. 1394). A pie so made by
the Company's cook in 1836 was found excellent. It consisted of a
pheasant, hare, and capon; two partridges, two pigeons, and two
rabbits; all boned and put into paste in the shape of a bird, with
the livers and hearts, two mutton kidneys, forced-meats, and
egg-balls, seasoning, spice, catsup, and pickled mushrooms, filled
up with gravy made from the various bones.

We must, however, remember that Cookery flourished in the reign of Richard II., who rebuilt Westminster Hall, and gave therein a _house-warming_, at which old Stow says, "he feasted ten thousand persons." Richard is also said to have kept 2,000 cooks, who left to the world their famous cookery-book, the "Form of Cury, or, a Roll of English Cookery," compiled about the year 1390, by the master-cooks of the Royal Kitchen.

Sugar was at first regarded as a spice, and was introduced as a substitute for honey after the Crusades. It was sold by the pound in the thirteenth century, and was procurable even in such remote towns as Ross and Hereford. Before the discovery of America, however, Sugar was a costly luxury, and only used on rare occasions. About 1459, Margaret Barton, writing to her husband, who was a gentleman and landowner of Norfolk, begs that he will vouchsafe "to buy her a pound of sugar." Again: "I pray that ye will vouchsafe to send me another sugar-loaf, for my old one is done." The art of refining sugar, and what is called loaf-sugar, was discovered by a Venetian about the end of the fifteenth, or the beginning of the sixteenth century. Sugar-candy is of much earlier date; for in Marin's _Storia di Commercio de Veneziani_, there is an account of a shipment made at Venice for England, in 1319, of 100,000 pounds of sugar, and 10,000 pounds of sugar-candy. Refined or loaf-sugar is thus mentioned in a roll of provisions in the reign of Henry VIII.: "two loaves of sugar, weighing sixteen pound two ounces, at ---- per pound." A letter from Sir Edward Wotton to Lord Cobham, dated Calais, March 6, 1546, informs him that he had taken up for his lordship twenty-five sugar-loaves, at six shillings a loaf, "which is eightepence a pounde." Up to the close of the fifteenth century its price varied from one-and-sixpence to three shillings a pound, "or, on an average, to a sum equivalent to about thirty shillings at present." Sugar has become to us almost a necessary of life. "We consume it in millions of tons; we employ thousands of ships in transporting it. Millions of men spend their lives in cultivating the plants from which it is extracted, and the fiscal duties imposed upon it add largely to the revenue of nearly every established government. It may be said, therefore, to exercise a more direct and extended influence, not only over the social comfort, but over the social condition, of mankind, than any other production of the vegetable kingdom, with the exception, perhaps, of cotton alone."--_J. F. W. Johnston, M.A._[51]

Coffee is mentioned in Burton's _Anatomy of Melancholy_, date 1621, several years before coffee-houses were introduced into England. The first coffee-house was opened in 1650, at Oxford, by Jacobs, a Jew, "at the Angel; and there it (coffee) was, by some who delighted in novelty, drunk." About this time, Mr. Edwards, a Turkey merchant, brought from Smyrna to London, one Pasqua Rosee, a Ragusan youth, who prepared this drink for him every morning. But the novelty thereof, drawing too much company to him, he allowed his said servant, with another of his son-in-law, to sell coffee publicly, and they set up the first coffee-house in London, in St. Michael's Alley, in Cornhill. The sign was Pasqua Rosee's own head.

Tea was first sold in London by Thomas Garway, in Change Alley, in 1651, at from 16_s_. to 50_s_. per pound; it had been previously sold at from six pounds to ten pounds per pound. Pepys, in his _Diary_, tells, Sept. 25, 1669, of his sending "for a cup of Tea, a China drink he had not before tasted." Henry Bennet, Earl of Arlington, about 1666, had introduced Tea at Court. And, in Sir Charles Sedley's _Mulberry Garden_, we are told that "he who wished to be considered a man of fashion always drank wine-and-water at dinner, and a dish of tea afterwards."[52]

Spices and other condiments are mentioned in the Countess of Leicester's accounts, viz., anise, cinnamon, ginger, pepper, cloves, cummin, dried fennel, saffron, sugar, liquorice, mustard, verjuice, and vinegar, the prices of which were very low. It must not be supposed, from the low prices of some of these articles, that they were generally used in the country; the arrival of a ship laden with spices was an event of such importance, and perhaps rarity, that the King usually hastened to satisfy his wants before the cargo was landed. Thus in the 10th of Henry the Third, the bailiffs of Sandwich were commanded to detain, upon their coming to port, two great ships laden with spices and precious merchandises, which were expected from Bayonne; and not to allow anything to be sold until the King had had his choice of their contents.

Among the glories of olden confectionery was March-pane, a biscuit composed of sugar and almonds, like those now called Macaroons. It is also called _massepain_ in some old books. The word March-pane exists, with little variation, in almost all the European languages; yet the derivation of it is uncertain. In the Latin of the Middle Ages, March-panes were called _Martii panes_, which gave occasion to Hermolaus Barbaras to inquire into their origin, in a letter to Cardinal Piccolomini, who had some sent to him as a present. Balthazar Bonifacius says they were named from Marcus Apicius, the famous epicure. Minshew, following Hermolaus, will have them originally sacred to Mars, and stamped with a castle.

Whatever was the origin of their name, the English receipt-books show that they were composed of almonds and sugar, pounded and baked together. Here is a receipt:

"_To make a March-pane._--Take two pounds of almonds, being
blanched, and dryed in a sieve over the fire, beate them in a
stone mortar, and when they bee small, mixe them with two pounds
of sugar beeing finely beaten, adding two or three spoonefuls of
rose-water, and that will keep your almonds from oiling: when your
paste is beaten fine, drive it thin with a rowling pin, and so lay
it on a bottom of wafers; then raise up a little edge on the side,
and so bake it; then yce it with rose-water and sugar, then put it
into the oven againe, and when you see your yce is risen up and
drie, then take it out of the oven and garnish it with pretie
conceipts, as birdes and beasts being cast out of standing-moldes.
Sticke long comfits upright into it, cast bisket and carrowaies in
it, and so serve it: you may also print of this march-pane paste
in your moldes for banqueting dishes. And of this paste our comfit
makers at this day make their letters, knots, armes, escutcheons,
beasts, birds, and other fancies."--_Delightes for Ladies_ 1608.

March-pane was a constant article in the desserts of our ancestors, and appeared sometimes on more solemn occasions. When Elizabeth visited Cambridge, the University presented their chancellor, Sir William Cecil, with two pairs of gloves, a march-pane, and two sugar-loves. In the old play of _Wits_ we find a reference to

"----dull country madams that spend
Their time in studying recipes to make
March-pane and preserve plumbs."

Castles and other figures were often made of march-pane for splendid desserts, and were demolished by shooting or throwing sugar-plums at them.

_Almonds_ are an olden delicacy of our table, and have for ages
been very extensively used in a variety of preparations.
Almond-milk, composed of almonds ground and mixed with milk or
other liquid, was a favourite beverage, as was also almond-butter
and almond-custard. The antiquity of the practice of serving
almonds and raisins together at dessert seems to be shown from the
name Almonds-and-raisins being given as that of an old English
game in _Useful Transactions in Philosophy_, 1700.

_Biscuits_ (originally Biskets) of various kinds were in use in
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; among which that most in
repute was called Naples Biscuit, from the place where it was
first made: it occurs in the Carpenters' Company's books in 1644.

_Orange-Flower Water_ has been a favourite perfume in England
since the reign of James I. It occurs in Copley's _Wits, Fits, and
Fancies_, 1614; and in the _Accomplished Female Instructor_, 1719,
is the following recipe:--Take two pounds of orange-flowers, as
fresh as you can get them, infuse them in two quarts of white
wine, and so distil them, and it will yield a curious perfuming
spirit.--_Orange Butter_ was made, according to the _Closet of
Rarities_, 1706, by beating up new cream, and then adding
orange-flower and red wine, to give it the colour and scent of an
orange.[53]

DESSERT FRUITS.

The only kinds of fruits named in the Countess of Leicester's Expenses, are apples and pears: three hundred of the latter were purchased at Canterbury; probably from the gardens of the monks. It is believed, however, that few other sorts were generally grown in England before the latter end of the fifteenth century; although Matthew Paris, describing the bad season of 1257, observes that "apples were scarce, and pears scarcer, while quinces, vegetables, cherries, plums, and all shell-fruits, were entirely destroyed." These shell-fruits were probably the common hazel-nut, walnuts, and perhaps chestnuts: in 1256, the Sheriffs of London were ordered to buy two thousand chestnuts for the King's use. In the Wardrobe Book of the 14th of Edward the First, before quoted, we find the bill of Nicholas, the royal fruiterer, in which the only fruits mentioned are pears, apples, quinces, medlars, and nuts. The supply of these, from Whitsuntide to November, cost 21_l_. 14_s_. 1-1/2_d_. This apparent scarcity of indigenous fruits naturally leads to the inquiry, what foreign kinds besides those included in the term spicery, such as almonds, dates, figs, and raisins, were imported into England in this and the following century? In the time of John and of Henry the Third, Rochelle was celebrated for its pears and conger eels: the Sheriffs of London purchased a hundred of the former for Henry, in 1223.

In the 18th of Edward the First, a large Spanish ship came to Portsmouth; out of the cargo of which the Queen bought one frail of Seville figs, one frail of raisins or grapes, one bale of dates, and two hundred and thirty pomegranates, fifteen citrons, and seven ORANGES. The last item is important, as Le Grand d'Aussy could not trace the orange in France to an earlier date than 1333; here we find it known in England in 1290; and it is probable that this was not its first appearance. The marriage of Edward with Eleanor of Castile naturally led to a greater intercourse with Spain, and, consequently, to the introduction of other articles of Spanish produce than the leather of Cordova, olive-oil, and rice, which had previously been the principal imports from that fertile country, through the medium of the merchants of Bayonne and Bordeaux. It is to be regretted that the series of Wardrobe Books is incomplete, as much additional information on this point might have been derived from them. At all events it appears certain that Europe is indebted to the Arab conquerors of Spain for the introduction of the orange, and not to the Portuguese, who are said to have brought it from China. An English dessert in the thirteenth century must, it is clear, have been composed chiefly of dried and preserved fruits--dates, figs, apples, pears, nuts, and the still common dish of almonds and raisins.

The garden of the Earl of Lincoln, now in the midst of one of the most densely-peopled quarters of London, was highly kept long before the Earl's mansion became an Inn of Court. His Lordship's bailiff's accounts, in the reign of Edward I. (1295-6), show the garden to have produced apples, pears, hedge nuts, and cherries, sufficient for the Earl's table, and to yield by sale in one year, 135_l_., modern currency. The vegetables grown were beans, onions, garlick, leeks; hemp was grown; the cuttings of the vines were much prized; of pear-trees there were several varieties: the only flowers named are roses. In the previous reign (Henry III.) a considerable quantity was cultivated as gardens within the walls of the metropolis; and we read, from time to time, in the coroners' rolls, of mortal accidents which befel youths attempting to steal apples in the orchards of Paternoster Row and Ivy Lane, almost in the shadow of St. Paul's Cathedral.

ORNAMENTAL FRUIT TRENCHERS.

The usages of social life amongst our ancestors present us with several interesting instances of their ingenuity in keeping before them the rule of life by monitory inscriptions, or texts, placed over doorways, upon walls, and upon articles in daily domestic use, thus making it "plain upon the tables, that he may run that readeth it." We find this good advice upon the curiously-ornamented Fruit-trenchers in fashion during the sixteenth century. The only set of tablets, or trenchers, of this description, rectangular in form, hitherto noticed, are in the possession of Mrs. Bird, of Upton-cum-Severn. They are twelve in number, formed of thin leaves of light-coloured wood, possibly lime-tree, measuring about 5-3/4 inches by 4-1/2 inches, and inclosed in a wooden case, formed like a book, with clasps, the sides decorated like bookbinding.

On removing a sliding-piece, the upper tablets may be taken out. They are curiously painted and gilt; every one presenting a different design, and inscribed with verses from Holy Writ, conveying some moral admonition. Each tablet relates to a distinct subject. These legends are inclosed in compartments, surrounded by various kinds of foliage, and the old-fashioned flowers of an English garden--the campion, honeysuckle, and gillyflower--each tablet being ornamented with a different flower. One trencher bears the oak-leaf and acorns, and the texts inscribed upon it relate to the uncertainty of human life. Upon the others are found admonitions against covetousness, hatred, malice, gluttony, profane swearing, and evil speaking; with texts in which the virtues of benevolence, patience, chastity, forgiveness of injuries, and so forth, are inculcated.

The following are the texts in the centre, relating to inebriety, the spelling modernized:--"Woe be unto you that rise up early to give yourselves to drunkenness, and all your minds go on drinking, that ye sit swearing thereat until it be night. The harp, the lute, the tabour, the thalme, and plenty of wine are at your feasts, but the Word of the Lord do ye not behold, neither consider ye the work of His hands." In the four compartments of the margin: "Take heed that your heart be not overwhelmed with feasting and drunkenness." "Through gluttony many perish." "Through feasting many have died, but he that eateth measurably prolongeth life." "Be no wine-bibber." The sides thus ornamented, were coated with a hard transparent varnish; the reverse, which probably was the side upon which the fruit or comfits were laid, is smooth and clear, without varnish or colour. These curious fruit-trenchers were found amongst a variety of old articles at Elmley Castle, Worcestershire, about forty years since. They were exhibited during the Meeting of the Archæological Institute at Winchester, in 1845, and brought to light other sets of fruit-trenchers. One of these, belonging to Jervoise Clarke Jervoise, Esq., of Idsworth Park, Hants, consisted of ten trenchers, in the form of roundels, ornamented like those just described, and inclosed in a box, which bears upon its cover the royal arms, France and England quarterly, surmounted by the Imperial crown. The supporters are the lion and the dragon, indicating that these roundels are of the time of Queen Elizabeth. On each are inscribed a rhyming stanza and Scripture texts. Thus, under the symbol of a skull, is (modernized)--

"Content thyself with thine estate,
And send no poor wight from thy gate;
For why this counsel I ye give,
To learn to die, and die to live."

These roundels have been described as trenchers for cheese or sweetmeats. Some antiquaries, however, consider them as intended to be used in some social game, like modern conversation-cards: their proper use appears to be sufficiently proved by the chapter on "Posies" in the _Art of English Poesie_, published in 1589, which contains the following:--"There be also another like epigrams that were sent usually for New Yeare's gifts, or to be printed or put upon banketting dishes of sugar-plate, or of March-paines, &c.; they were called Nenia or Apophoreta, and never contained above one verse, or two at the most, but the shorter the better. We call them poesies, and do paint them now-a-days upon the back sides of our fruit-trenchers of wood, or use them as devices in ringes and armes."

It was customary in olden times to close the banquet with "confettes, sugar-plate, fertes with other subtilties, with Ipocrass," served to the guests as they stood at the board after grace was said. The period has not been stated at which the fashion of desserts and long sittings after the principal meal of the day became an established custom. It was, doubtless, at the time when that repast, which, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, had been at eleven before noon, amongst the higher classes in England, took the place of the supper, usually served at five, or between five and six, at that period.[54] The prolonged revelry, once known as the "reare supper," may have led to the custom of following up the dinner with a sumptuous dessert. Be this as it may, there can be little question that the concluding service of the social meal--composed, as Harrison, who wrote about the year 1579, informs us, of "fruit and conceits of all sorts,"--was dispensed upon the ornamental trenchers above described.