[102]Blount’s Fragmenta Antiquitatis. Ed. Beckwith, p. 80, 1815. Testa de Nevill, p. 235 a (118). We know, however, that our forefathers, long before this, possessed beds, or rather cots, hung round with rich embroidered canopies. For their general love, too, of comfort and personal ornament and dress, we need go no further than to Chaucer’s description of “Richesse,” in his Romaunt of the Rose. Englishmen, however, were still then, as now, ever ready to lead a rough life if necessary, and to make their toil their pleasure.
[103]In that portion of it which comes under the title of “In Forestâ et circa eam.” See chap. iii. [p. 31].
[104]All over England did the church towers serve as landmarks, alike in the fen and forest districts. Lincolnshire and Yorkshire can show plenty of such steeples. At St. Michael’s at York, to this hour, I believe, at six every morning, is rung the bell whose sound used to guide the traveller through the great forest of Galtres; whilst at All Saints, in the Pavement, in the same city, is shown the lantern, which every night used to serve as a beacon.
[105]The following measurements may have some interest, and can be compared with those of the oaks and beeches in the Forest, given in chap. ii. [p. 16], foot-note:—Circumference of the oak, twenty-two feet eight inches. Yew, seventeen feet. An enormous yew, completely hollow, however, stands in Breamore churchyard, measuring twenty-three feet four inches. There are certainly no yews in the Forest so large as these; and their evidence would further show that at all events the Conqueror did not destroy the churchyards. As here, too, there remains some Norman work in the doorway of Breamore church.
[106]For some account of these barrows, see [chapter xvii.]
[107]The word is from the French merise. At Wood Green, in the northern part of the Forest, a “merry fair” of these half-wild cherries is held once a week during the season, probably similar to that of which Gower sung.
[108]An objection, that the lime-tree was not known so early in England, has been taken to this derivation. This is certainly a mistake. In that fine song of the Battle of Brunanburh, we find—
“Bordweal clufan
Heowan heaþolinde
Hamora lafan.”