LIFE IN NORMAN ENGLAND
The tall, frowning keep and solid walls of the great stone castles, in which the Norman barons lived, betokened an age of violence and suspicion. Beauty gave way to the needs of safety. Girdled with a green and slimy ditch, round the inner side of which ran a parapeted wall pierced along the top with shot-holes, stood the buildings, spreading often over many acres.
If an enemy managed to cross the moat and force the gateway, in spite of a portcullis crashing from above, and melted lead pouring in burning streams from the perforated top of the rounded arch, but little of his work was yet done; for the keep lifted its huge angular block of masonry within the inner bailey or courtyard, and from the narrow chinks in its ten-foot wall rained a sharp incessant shower of arrows, sweeping all approaches to the high and narrow stair, by which alone access could be had to its interior.
These loopholes were the only windows, except in the topmost story, where the chieftain, like a vulture in his rocky nest, watched all the surrounding country. The day of splendid oriels had not yet come in castle architecture. Thus a baron in his keep could defy, and often did defy, the king upon his throne. Under his roof, eating daily at his board, lived a throng of armed retainers; and around his castle lay farms tilled by martial franklins, who at his call laid aside their implements of husbandry, took up the sword and spear, which they could wield with equal skill, and marched beneath his banner to the war.
The furniture of a Norman keep was not unlike that of an English house. There was richer ornament—more elaborate carving. A faldestol, the original of our arm-chair, spread its drapery and cushions for the chieftain in his lounging moods. His bed now boasted curtains and a roof, although, like the English lord, he still lay only upon straw. Chimneys tunnelled the thick walls, and the cupboards glittered with glass and silver. Horn lanterns and the old spiked candle-sticks lit up his evening hours, when the chess-board arrayed its clumsy men, carved out of walrus-tusk, then commonly called whale's-bone. But the baron had an unpleasant trick of breaking the chess-board on his opponent's head, when he found himself checkmated; which somewhat marred that player's enjoyment of the game. Dice of horn and bone emptied many a purse in Norman England. Draughts were also sometimes played.
Dance and music whiled away the long winter nights; and on summer evenings the castle courtyards resounded with the noise of football, wrestling, boxing, leaping, and the fierce joys of the bull-bait. But out of doors, when no fighting was on hand, the hound, the hawk, and the lance attracted the best energies and skill of the Norman gentleman.
The Normans probably dined at nine in the morning. When they rose they took a light meal; and ate something also after their day's work, immediately before going to bed. Goose and garlic formed a favourite dish. Their cookery was more elaborate, and, in comparison, more delicate, than the preparations for an English feast; but the character for temperance, which they brought with them from the continent, soon vanished.
The poorer classes hardly ever ate flesh, living principally on bread, butter, and cheese; a fact in social life which seems to underlie that usage of our tongue by which the living animals in field or stall bore English names—ox, sheep, calf, pig, deer; while their flesh, promoted to Norman dishes, rejoiced in names of French origin—beef, mutton, veal, pork, venison. Round cakes, piously marked with a cross, piled the tables, on which pastry of various kinds also appeared. In good houses cups of glass held the wine, which was borne from the cellar below in jugs.
Squatted around the door or on the stairs leading to the Norman dining-hall, which was often on an upper floor, was a crowd of beggars or gluttons, who grew so insolent in the days of Rufus, that ushers, armed with rods, were posted outside to beat back the noisy throng, who thought little of snatching the dishes as the cooks carried them to table!