A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages

by Thomas Wright

No. 262. A Lady in Bed.

Our cut [No. 262], taken from the same manuscript of the Bible which furnished our last illustration, represents the hutch also in its place at the foot of the bed. This sketch is interesting, both as showing more distinctly than the others the rings of the bed-curtains, and the rods attached to the celure, and as a particularly good illustration of the habit which still continued in all classes and ranks of society, of sleeping in bed entirely naked. The same practice is shown in several of our other cuts (see Nos. 256, 260, and 261), and, indeed, in all the illuminated manuscripts of the fifteenth century which contain bedroom scenes. Wherever this is not the case, there is some evident reason for the contrary, as in our cut No. 257. During this period we have not so many pictorial illustrations of the toilet as might be expected. The ladies’ combs were generally coarse and large in the teeth, but often very elaborately and beautifully ornamented. The mirror was, as at former periods, merely a circular piece of metal or glass, set in a case, which was carved with figures or ornaments externally. The vocabularies mention the mirror as one of the usual objects with which a chamber should be furnished.

No. 263. A Dealer in Mercery.

Our cut [No. 263] is taken from a manuscript (MS. Cotton. Tiberius, A. vii. fol. 93, r^o) of the English translation of the singular work of the French writer, Guillaume de Deguilleville, entitled “Le Pélerinage de la Vie Humaine,” a poem which bears a striking resemblance in its general character to the “Pilgrim’s Progress” of Bunyan. The English version, which is in verse, and entitled simply the “Pilgrim,” has been ascribed to Lydgate. In the course of his adventures, the pilgrim comes to the lady Agyographe, who is represented as dealing in “mercerye,” but the enumeration of articles embraced under that term is rather singular:— Quod sche, “Geve (if) I schal the telle,
Mercerye I have to selle;
In boystes (boxes) soote (sweet) oynementis,
Therewith to don allegementis (to give relief)
To ffolkes whiche be not glade,
But discorded and mallade,
And hurte with perturbacyouns
Off many trybulacyouns.
I have knyves, phylletys, callys,
At ffeestes to hang upon wallys;
Kombes mo than nyne or ten,
Bothe ffor horse and eke ffor men;
Merours also, large and brode,
And ffor the syght wonder gode;
Off hem I have fful greet plenté,
For ffolke that haven volunté
Byholde hemsilffe therynne.”
Our cut represents the interior of the house of the lady mercer, with the various articles enumerated in the text; the boxes of ointment, the horse-combs, the men’s combs, and the mirrors. She first offers the pilgrim a mirror, made so as to flatter people, by representing them handsomer than they really were, which the pilgrim refuses:— “Madame,” quod I, “yow not displeese,
This myroure schal do me noon eese;
Wherso that I leese or wynne,
I wole nevere looke thereinne.”
But ryght anoon myne happe it was
To loken in another glasse,
In the whiche withouten wene (without doubt)
I sawe mysylff ffoule and uncleene,
And to byholde ryght hydous,
Abhomynabel, and vecyous.
That merour and that glas
Schewyd (showed) to me what I was.
In the celebrated “Romance of the Rose,” one of the heroines, Belacueil, is introduced, adorning her head with a fillet, and with this head-dress contemplating herself in a mirror:— Belacueil souvent se remire,
Dedans son miroer se mire,
Savoir s’il est si bien seans.
There is a representation of this scene in the beautiful illuminated manuscript of the “Romance of the Rose” in the British Museum (MS. Harl. No. 4425), in which, singularly enough, the mirror itself, which is evidently of glass, is represented as being convex, though perhaps we must attribute this appearance to the unskilfulness of the designer, who in his attempt to show that the mirror was round, failed in perspective. In our first cut, from Guillaume de Deguilleville, it will be observed that the artist, in order to show that the articles intended to be represented are mirrors, and not plates, or any other round implements, has drawn the reflections of faces, although nobody is looking into them. Another peculiarity in the illumination of the “Romance of the Rose,” a portion of which is represented in our cut [No. 264], is that the mirror is fixed against the wall, instead of being held in the hand when used, as appears to have been more generally the case. Standing-mirrors seem not to have been yet in use; but before the end of the fifteenth century, glass mirrors, which appear to have been invented in Belgium or Germany, came into use.

No. 264. Lady and Mirror.

CHAPTER XX.
STATE OF SOCIETY.—THE FEMALE CHARACTER.—GREEDINESS IN EATING.—CHARACTER OF THE MEDIÆVAL SERVANTS.—DAILY OCCUPATIONS IN THE HOUSEHOLD: SPINNING AND WEAVING; PAINTING.—THE GARDEN AND ITS USES.—GAMES OUT OF DOORS; HAWKING, ETC.—TRAVELLING, AND MORE FREQUENT USE OF CARRIAGES.—TAVERNS; FREQUENTED BY WOMEN.—EDUCATION AND LITERARY OCCUPATIONS; SPECTACLES.

During the fifteenth century, society in England was going through a transition which was less visible on the surface than it was great and effectual at the heart. France and England were both torn by revolutionary struggles, but with very different results; for while in France the political power of the middle classes was destroyed, and the country was delivered to the despotism of the crown and of the great lords, in our country it was the feudal nobility which was ruined, while the municipal bodies had obtained an increased importance in the state, and the landed gentry gained more independence and power from the decline of that of the great feudal barons. Yet in both countries feudalism itself, in its real character, was rapidly passing away—in France, before the power of the crown; in England, before the remodelling and reformation of society. While the substance of feudalism was thus perishing, its outward forms appeared to be more sought than ever, and the pride and ostentation of rank, and its arrogance too, prevailed during the fifteenth century to a greater degree than at any previous period. The court of Burgundy, itself only in origin a feudal principality, had set itself up as the model of feudalism, and there the old romances of chivalry were remodelled and published anew, and were read eagerly as the mirror of feudal doctrines. The court of Burgundy was remarkable for its wonderful pomp and magnificence, and for its ostentatious display of wealth; it was considered the model of lordly courtesy and high breeding, and was the centre of literature and art; and circumstances had brought the court of England into intimate connection with it, so that the influence of Burgundian fashions was greater during this period in England than that of the fashions of the court of France. There can be no doubt, too, that the social character in England and in France were now beginning to diverge widely from each other. The condition of the lower class in France was becoming more and more miserable, and the upper classes were becoming more licentious and immoral; whereas, in England, though serfdom or villanage still existed in name, and in law, the peasantry had been largely enfranchised, and it was gradually disappearing as a fact; and their landlords, the country gentry, lived among them in more kindly and more intimate intercourse, instead of treating them with tyrannical cruelty, and dragging them off to be slaughtered in their private wars. Increased commerce had spread wealth among the middle classes, and had brought with it, no doubt, a considerable increase of social comfort. Social manners were still very coarse, but it is quite evident that the efforts of the religious reformers, the Lollards, were improving the moral tone of society in the middle and lower classes.