[127] Statute 9 Edward II, cap. 11, Articuli Cleri, A.D. 1315–1316.
[128] “Fleta,” lib. i. cap. 20, § 68, 72.
[129] “Rolls of Parliament,” iii. p. 501, A.D. 1402.
[130] Ibid., iii. p. 82, A.D. 1379–80. The clergy, on the other hand, complain that the sheriffs sometimes come “with their wives and other excessive number of people on horseback as well as on foot,” to stay in monasteries, under pretext of collecting monies for the king. Ibid. p. 26, A.D. 1377.
[131] “Inventories of St. Mary’s Hospital, or Maison Dieu, Dover,” by M. E. C. Walcott, “Archæologia Cantiana,” London, 1869.
[132] “Mensæ de medio removentur,” or, in the English version by S. Bateman, of 1582, fol. 81, “when they have eaten, boord, clothes, and reliefe bee borne awaye”—description of a dinner in England, by Bartholomew the Englishman (de Glanville), 13th century. “Bartholomi Anglici de proprietatibus rerum,” Frankfort, 1609, lib. vi. cap. 32. Smollett, in the eighteenth century, notes the existence of similar customs in Scotland; people dine, then sleep in the hall, where mattresses are stretched, replacing the tables (“Humphrey Clinker”).
[133] “Hall and chamber, for litter, 20d.; hall and chamber, for rushes, 16d.; hall, &c., for litter, 1d., &c.” Extracts from the “Rotulus familiæ,” 18 Ed. I, “Archæologia,” vol. xv. p. 350. The king was then at Langley Castle, Buckinghamshire.
[134] Turner and Parker, “Domestic Architecture in England, from Edward I to Richard II,” Oxford, 1853, p. 75. See also in “Archæologia,” vi. p. 366, the illustrated description of the royal hall at Eltham.
[135] Eclogue III in the edition of the “Cytezen and Vplondyshman,” published by the Percy Society, 1847, p. li.
[136] “The Vision concerning Piers the Plowman,” ed. Skeat, Text B, passus x. line 96.