Part 8 (2/2)

The setting of the table was much the same as it had been. Knives were not ordinarily placed upon it, because of the custom of the times for each person to carry his own knife. Salt was regarded with superst.i.tion, and it was thought desirable that it should be placed upon the table before other comestibles. There was little attempt to keep the tiled floor clean except by strewing it with rushes, and for guests or members of the household to throw bones or other debris of the table upon the floor was not looked upon as an offence against manners; indeed, dogs were almost invariably present, and awaited, as customary, their meals at the hands of the guests. However, the directions for behavior at table instructed the person not to spit upon the table, by which intimation it was delicately hinted that the proper place upon which to expectorate was the floor. Again, the guest is told that when he makes sops in the wine, he must either drink all the wine in the gla.s.s or else throw it on the floor. The uncleanliness of the seats is also suggested by the instruction given the learner in etiquette that he should always first look at the seat before occupying it, to be sure there was nothing dirty upon it. Table manners had lost some of their ceremony, but had retained all of their rudeness. Forks were not used to convey food to the mouth, fingers answering every purpose, but it was considered bad manners to eat with a knife. Other rules for the table are curious enough, but are also important as ill.u.s.trating the manners of the century. Some of them are too disgusting to mention; others, not open to this objection, may be instanced. The guest was directed not to dip his meat in the saltcellar to salt it, but to take a little salt with his knife and put it on his meat, not to drink with a dirty mouth, not to offer another person the remains of his pottage, not to eat too much cheese, and to take only two or three nuts when they were placed before him.

Still other rules are not without point, such as not to roll one's napkin into a cord or tie it into knots, and not to get intoxicated during dinner time!

Let us now take a glance at the table service of a n.o.ble dame of the period, where the extreme of etiquette may be expected to prevail. The hunting horn having announced that the meal awaits the guests, squires or pages bear to them scented water for the customary ablutions. This is served in delicately wrought ewers, placed in silver basins. A further touch of delicacy to the repast is often provided by perfumed herbs scattered over the rich damask tablecloth. The guests are not inconvenienced by the crowding of decorative vessels on the board. The numerous courses are well served, for a superior domestic is charged with this duty, and he is a.s.sisted by two varlets. At the sideboard is a squire or page whose sole duty is to serve the wines and drinking vessels; he too is a.s.sisted by a varlet, who places them before the several guests. None of these attendants are required to leave the hall, to which the officers of the kitchen and the cellar bring the dishes and the wines. During the meal the gallery is occupied by the musicians, who, it is to be presumed, will serve to enliven the formalities attendant on the scene. The parlor was a more pretentious room than the hall, and was ornamented with more care. While it was a usual feature of town houses of the period, it had been introduced so comparatively late that its final position in the plan of the house had not become fixed; sometimes it was upon the ground floor, and sometimes upon the floor above, while the larger houses had several such apartments. It had open recesses with fixed seats on each side of the window, and the fireplace was smaller and more comforting than those of the hall. When carpets came into use, the parlor was the first room to be treated to the luxury, and it had the additional distinction of being the only room that contained a cupboard. An inventory of the furniture of the parlor of a fifteenth-century house includes the following: a hanging of worsted, red and green; a cupboard of ash boards; a table and a pair of trestles; a branch of latten, with four lights; a pair of andirons; a pair of tongs; a form to sit upon, and a chair. It will be seen from this list that the furnis.h.i.+ngs for a parlor were not numerous, but they are suggestive of a degree of comfort greatly in advance of that of prior centuries.

This paucity of household furniture did not arise so much from the inability to procure it as from the insecurity of the times. Margaret Paston, in a letter to her husband, written in the reign of Edward IV., says: ”Also, if ye be at home this Christmas, it were well done ye should do purvey a garnish or twain or pewter vessel, two basins and two ewers, and twelve candlesticks, for ye have too few of any of these to serve this place; I am afraid to purvey much stuff in this place, till we be sure thereof.”

Wall paintings had come into use in the houses of the better sort, and the hardwood finis.h.i.+ngs of the parlor and other important rooms displayed elaborate carvings and a ma.s.siveness and dignity of scheme.

Among the newer styles of chairs was one of the folding sort, which exactly resembled our camp stools. Griffins, centaurs, and the like were patterns for candle and torch holders, which were often of wrought iron of an elaborate design. The branch of latten with four lights, mentioned in the inventory quoted, referred to a sort of chandelier, holding four candles, which was suspended from the centre of the ceiling and was raised and lowered by means of a cord and pulley.

As the people began to lose taste for the hall, on account of its publicity, they gradually withdrew from it to the parlors for many of the purposes to which the hall had been originally devoted. The recess seat at the windows was the favorite place for the female members of the household when employed in needlework and other sedentary occupations, and the apartment was commonly used for the family meals.

In a little treatise dating at the close of the fifteenth century, one of the speakers is made to say: ”So down we came again into the parlor, and there found divers gentlemen, all strangers to me; and what should I say more, but to dinner we went.” The table, we are told, ”was fair spread with diaper cloths, the cupboard garnished with goodly plate.” Also, the parlors relieved the bedchambers of many of the uses to which they had been put, and secured to them greater privacy. Largely because of the lack of any other place, ladies had been accustomed to receive their friends in their bedchambers, but now the parlor was used for a reception room, and there was spent much of the time which the female part of the family had previously pa.s.sed in the bower or the chamber.

Young ladies of even the great families were brought up very strictly by their mothers, who kept them constantly at work and exacted from them an almost slavish respect. It appears from the correspondence of the Paston family, to which reference has been made, that the wife of Sir William Paston, the judge, was a very harsh mother. Jane Claire, a kinswoman, sent to John Paston, the lady's eldest son, an account of the severe treatment of his sister Elizabeth at Mrs. Paston's hands. The young lady was of marriageable age, and a man by the name of Scroope had been suggested as her husband. Jane Claire writes: ”Meseemeth he were good for my cousin, your sister, without that ye might get her a better; and if ye can get a better, I would advise you to labour it in as short time as ye may goodly, for she was never in so great a sorrow as she is now-a-days, for she may not speak with no man, whosoever come, nor even may see nor speak with my man, nor with servants of her mother's, but that she beareth her on hand otherwise than she meaneth; and she hath since Easter the most part been beaten once in a week, or twice, and sometimes twice in a day, and her head broken in two or three places. Wherefore, cousin, she hath sent to me by friar Newton in great council, and prayeth me that I would send to you a letter of her heaviness, and pray you to be her good brother, as her trust is in you.” Elizabeth Paston's matrimonial desires were not realized at this time, as she was transferred from the household of her parents to that of the Lady Pole; this was in accordance with the custom which we have already noticed of sending away young ladies to great houses, where they received their education and served to fill up the measure of pride of the great lady to whose train they were attached. The larger the number of such maidens a lady could boast of, the greater was her importance; nor did she hesitate to accept payment for the board of those of whom she thus took charge, and from whom she derived further profit by employing them at lace making or other suitable work.

Young ladies were taught to be very demure and formal in their behavior in company, where they sat bolt upright, with their hands crossed, or in other constrained att.i.tudes. In a poem, written about 1430, ent.i.tled _How the Good Wife Taughte Hir Dougtir_, we have the rules which were enforced upon girls for their conduct in society, and particularly the advice which was tendered the girl with regard to her marriage and her subsequent conduct. The love of G.o.d and attendance upon church were enjoined, and in the performance of the latter duty she was not to be deterred by bad weather. She was to give liberally to alms, and while in attendance upon divine service was to pray and not to chatter. Courtesy was recommended in all of the relations of life; and when the time came that she was sought in marriage, she was told not to look upon her suitor with scorn, whoever he might be, nor to keep the matter a secret from her friends. She was not to sit close to him, because ”synne mygte be wrought,” and a slander be thereby raised, which, she is informed, is difficult to still. She was counselled, when married, to love her husband and answer him meekly; she was to be well mannered, not to be rude, nor to laugh boisterously--or, to give it as it is expressed in the poem, ”but lauge thou softe and myslde.” Her outdoor conduct also was regulated for her. She was not to walk fast, nor to toss her head, nor to wriggle her shoulders; she was not to use many words, nor to swear, for all such manners come to evil. She was to drink only in moderation, ”For if thou be ofte drunke, it falle thee to schame.” She was to exercise due discretion in all of her relations with the other s.e.x, and to accept from them no presents. She was herself to work and to see that those under her were kept employed; to have faults set right at once, keep her own keys, and to be careful whom she trusted.

If her children gave her trouble and were not submissive, she must not curse or scold them, but ”take a smert rodde, and bete them on a rowe til thei crie mercy.” Besides all these enjoinments, she was impressed with the duty of benevolence, and was to act as physician to all those about her.

The position of woman at this time was clearly defined. Certainly the woman of the middle cla.s.ses had taken her proper place in society. She did not disdain to look after the affairs of her establishment, nor was this regarded as in any way derogatory to her dignity; and this was also true of women in the highest rank. It is said that, as a rule, the husband and wife were in full accord, and confided in one another upon terms of equality. The wife was careful of her charge at home, and heedful of her husband's purse; she generally made her own as well as her children's clothing, if the material were to be had.

No wife of to-day could show greater solicitude for the comfort and well-being of her husband than did Dame Paston, the wife of John Paston, who in 1449 wrote to her husband a letter from which we may extract the following: ”And I pray you also, that ye be wel dyetyd of mete and drynke, for that is the grettest helpe that ye may have now to your helthe ward.”

The wife was the companion of her husband when he was at home, and in his absence entertained his guests with all the graces of hospitality.

The duties of the day did not leave her a great deal of time for leisure, for, besides directing the conduct of the establishment and looking after her maidens, teaching them the arts of housewifery, spinning, weaving, carding wool and hackled flax, embroidery, and garment making, there were the pet birds and squirrels in cages to be looked after and fed. But life was not all labor, nor were the maidens of the household surfeited with instruction. In their periods of relaxation, they danced, played chess and draughts, and read the latest thing in romances with as keen interest as the modern society girl evinces in the most recent novel. To be informed in all such matters was essential to the standards of culture of the day.

One of the pleasantest features of the country life of the period was the garden. The English women of to-day are no fonder of outdoor recreation and exercise than were their predecessors of the fifteenth century. Alone, or in parties of their own s.e.x, or with male company, they wandered over the fields, gathering wild flowers and picnicking in the woods, spreading upon the gra.s.s their lunch of bread, wine, fish, and pigeon pies. They rode on horseback, and went hunting, hawking, and rabbit chasing. Their presence at the tournament gave it its greatest interest, and the successful contestants considered the awards that were made them by their ladies doubly valuable, as indicating at once their prowess upon the field and their conquests in that no less interesting sphere of sentiment where Cupid bestows the favors.

Perhaps at no other time in English history have ladies shown such fondness for pets as in the fifteenth century. There are frequent references to them in the literature of the day, and they appear in many of the ill.u.s.trations; parrots, magpies, jays, and various singing birds are often mentioned among domestic pets. Various kinds of small animals were also tamed and kept in the house, either loose or in cages, squirrels being especially in favor because of their liveliness and activity. Gambling was one of the most popular vices of the day.

It was not until after the middle of the fifteenth century that cards came into very general use, but by the beginning of the following century card playing had pa.s.sed from the stage of fad and become a pa.s.sion. After the table was removed, one of the servants would bring in a silver bowl full of dice and cards, and the company would be invited to play. So general and widespread was the practice that early in the reign of Henry VIII. an attempt was made to restrict the use of cards to the Christmas holidays. Women were hardly less inveterate devotees of this and other games of chance than the men, although it is not to be concluded that they took such games as seriously or risked as large sums as did the other s.e.x. Dinner was served at noon, and the games, along with dancing, usually occupied the time of the leisure cla.s.ses until supper, which seems to have been served at six o'clock. There was, of course, no other form of amus.e.m.e.nt that was so well adapted to polite circles, or that could be partic.i.p.ated in with as much pleasure by the ladies, as dancing. Many new dances had been introduced and become fas.h.i.+onable, and these were much more lively than those of the earlier period, some so spirited, indeed, as to scandalize the moralists of the time. After supper the amus.e.m.e.nts were resumed, and continued until a late hour, when a second, or, as it was called, a ”rere-supper,” was served.

After the members of the household and the guests were surfeited with amus.e.m.e.nts, or the lateness of the hour made sleep welcome, they retired to rest in the upper chambers. These bedrooms were much more private than they had formerly been. In the poem _Lady Bessy_, when the Earl of Derby is represented as plotting with Lady Bessy in aid of the Earl of Richmond, he tells her that he will repair secretly to her chamber:

”'We must depart (separate), lady,' the earl said then; Wherefore, keep this matter secretly, And this same night, betwixt nine and ten, In your chamber I think to be.

Look that you make all things ready, Your maids shall not our councell hear, For I will bring no man with me But Humphrey Brereton, my true esquire.'

He took his leave of that lady fair, And to her chamber she went full light, And for all things she did prepare, Both pen and ink, and paper white.”

The bedstead now came to be much more ornamental than in previous times. The canopy which had formerly adorned the head of this article of furniture was now usually enlarged so as to cover it entirely.

It was often decorated with the arms of the owner, with religious emblems, flowers, or some other form of ornamentation. The bed itself consisted of a hard mattress, and was often made only of straw, although feather beds were used to some extent throughout the century.

Chaucer describes a couch of unusual luxury as follows:

”Of downe of pure dovis white I wol yeve him a fethir bed, Rayid with gold, and right well cled In fine blacke sattin d'outremere, And many a pilowe, and every bere (pillow cover) Of clothe of Raines to slepe on softe; Him thare (need) not to turnen ofte.”

This description of a bed in the latter part of the fourteenth century holds good for the succeeding century, although the bed increased in luxuriousness of hangings. Feather beds and bed covers are frequently mentioned in the bequests of the times; by their description, they show the increase in the comfort and richness of beds, and, by their mention in wills, the value that was placed upon them. With the increase of privacy which the bedchambers afforded at this time, the practice of several people sleeping in the same room was less general.

The women of the manor house, who may be regarded as succeeding the women of the castles, were notable for their intelligence, purity, and good sense, as revealed to us by the letters and literature of the times. Their features, as depicted in ill.u.s.trations, give evidence of refinement and culture as well as beauty; to these attractions was added that of graceful carriage. Although their dresses fitted closely to the figure, tight lacing had not yet become the custom. Paris was then, as now, the gla.s.s of fas.h.i.+on for the women of Europe, and the English woman considered her form to approach perfection the more nearly as it conformed to the model established in France. At this period, the ladies were given to similar extremes of dress and adornment to those which have furnished an indictment against them since fas.h.i.+on first held sway over the feminine mind. All cla.s.ses of society were influenced by the all-important matter of style, and the women of each grade of the social scale found their chief contentment in copying the manners and dress of those above them. Earlier we found occasion to notice, in brief, the sumptuary legislation by which it was sought to limit extravagances in fas.h.i.+on; but the laws have yet to be framed which can serve permanently to control woman's desires.

So that we shall, perforce, have to continue our discussion of the evolution--or as the moralists of the Middle Ages would have expressed it, if they had possessed the facility of verbal coinage which is common enough with us, the ”devilution”--of woman's attire, just as though law had never attempted its regulation.

The intricacies of the women's coiffure were many. The practice of dyeing the hair or otherwise altering its color is of ancient date.

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