[15] Pueri et adolescentes, ... illic convenientes, more Anglorum luctamina et alia ludicra exercebant puerilia, et cantilenis et musicis instrumentis sibi invicem applaudebant, unde propter turbam puerorum et puellarum illic concurrentium, mos inolevit ut in eodem die illic conveniret negotiandi gratia turba vendentium et ementium.—MS. Harl. No. 3601 fol. 12, vo.
[16] This erroneous statement is repeated by most of our writers on such subjects, and will be found in Mr. Planché’s “History of British Costume.” Statements of this kind made by old writers are seldom to be depended upon; people were led by political bias or personal partiality, to ascribe the introduction of customs that were odious, to persons who were unpopular, or whom they disliked, while they ascribed everything of a contrary character to persons who were beloved.
[17] The word occurs in the reflections of our first parents on their nakedness, in the poem attributed to Cædmon. Adam says that when the inclement weather arrives (cymeð hægles scúr—the hail shower will come) they had nothing before them to serve for a defence or shade against the storm—
“Nys unc wuht beforan
to scur sceade.”
[18] This valuable MS. is preserved in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge. It is a very remarkable circumstance, which has not hitherto been noticed, that the illuminations are in general copies from those of the Harleian MS. No. 603, except that the costume and other circumstances are altered, so that we may take them as correct representatives of the manners of the Anglo-Normans.
[19] “Quod, mola detritum, et aqua rorante perfusum, more usitato, in camino æstuante est depositum.” Reg. Dunelm, p. 128. He owns they were so small that they hardly deserved the name of loaves. “Vix enim bis seni panes erant numero, qui tamen minores adeo quantitate fuerant quod indignum videretur panum eos censeri vocabulo.”
[20] Quod si super aquas seu ad ignem se calefactura sedisset.—Reg. Dunelm., c. 124.
[21] Quidam de villula in confinio posita, artificiosus minister, sub diurno tempore studiosus advenit, cujus negotiationis opus in pectinibus conformandis, tabulatis et scaccariis, talis, spiniferis, et cæteris talibus, de cornuum vel solidiori ossuum materia procreandis et studium intentionis effulsit.—Reg. Dunelm, c. 88.
[22] Quidam Walterus ... qui ad domum sacerdotis villulæ prædictæ cum hospitibus potaturus accessit. Cum igitur noctis spacium effluxisset, &c.—Reg. Dunelm, c. 17
[23] Lantfridus, in his collection of the miracles of St. Swithun, MS. Reg. 15, C. vii., fol. 41, vo., tells us how—“quidam consul regis, in caducis præpotens rebus, cum ingenti comitatu, sicut mos est Anglo-Saxonum, properater equitabat ad quendam vicum in quo grandis apparatus ad necessarios convivandi usus erat illi opipare constructus,” &c.