[256] L. c., C., x., 71 ff. “Papelots” = porridge; “ruel” = bedside; “woneth” = dwell; “witterly” = surely; “and fele to fong,” etc. = “and many [children] to clutch at the few pence they earn; under those circumstances, bread and small beer is held an unusual luxury.” “Pittance” is a monastic word, meaning extra food beyond the daily fare.
[257] An Act of 1495 provided that “from the middle of March to the middle of September work was to go on from 5 a.m. till between 7 and 8 p.m., with half an hour for breakfast, and an hour and a half for dinner and for the midday sleep. In winter work was to be during daylight. These legal ordinances were not perhaps always kept, but they at least show the standard at which employers aimed” (“Social England,” vol. ii., chap. vii.).
[258] Bishop Grosseteste asserted that honest labour on holy days would be far less sinful than the sports which often took their place. “Epp.” (R.S.), p. 74.
[259] “La France pendant la Guerre de Cent Ans” (1890), 95 ff. The essay describes a state of things very similar to what we may gather from English records.
[260] “Universities of Europe,” ii., 669 ff.
[261] Cooper, “Annals of Cambridge,” an. 1410; “Munim. Acad.” (R.S.), 602; Riley, 571; Strutt (1898), p. 49.
[262] “Shillingford Letters,” p. 101. Queke was probably a kind of hopscotch, and penny-prick a tossing game; both enjoyed an evil repute, according to Strutt.
[263] “Rot. Parl.” ii., 64; Myrc., E.E.T.S., i., 334.
[264] “Northumberland Assize Rolls,” p. 323. There is another fatal wrestling-bout in the same roll (p. 348), another in the similar Norfolk roll analysed by Mr. Walter Rye in the Archæological Review (1888), and another exactly answering to John and Willie’s case in Prof. Maitland’s “Crown Pleas for the County of Gloucester,” No. 452.
[265] “C. T.,” A., 3328. Etienne de Bourbon has no doubt that “the Devil invented dancing, and is governor and procurator of dancers”; and he explains the popular proverb, that God’s thunderbolt falls oftener on the church than on the tavern, by the notorious profanations to which churches were subjected. (“Anecdotes,” pp. 269, 397.)