[27] Hoare’s edit. of Giraldus Cambrensis.
[28] Parry’s History of Parliaments, p. 54.
[29] This custom still exists, after the lapse of more than five hundred years, in some of the midland counties of England.
[30] “Archæologia,” vol. xxix., p. 169.
[31] Ibid., p. 174.
[32] “Archæologia,” vol. xxix., p. 174.
[33] Sir J. Mackintosh.
[34] Pearson’s Hist. of England, vol. ii., p. 292.
[35] Blaauw on “the Barons’ war,” p. 34.
[36] The “Chronicle of Lanercost” gives us this anecdote of the manners of that day: “Richard de Clare, earl of Gloucester, paid a visit to Robert Grosstête, bishop of Lincoln, who received him with great honour, and desired his seneschal to provide a fitting dinner. At table the earl was seated at his host’s right hand, and it was a day when meat was not permitted by the Church. It was customary to eat choice sea wolves [the dog‐fish, still eaten in parts of Normandy], and the servant placed a very fine fish before the bishop, and a smaller one before the earl. The bishop was angry, and said, ‘Take away this fish, or else bring the earl one equally fine.’ The servant said that there was no other so large. ‘Then,’ said the bishop, ‘take away this first and give it to the poor, and bring me one like the earl’s.’”—“Chronicle of Lanercost,” p. 44.