The in-door amusements of the ordinary classes of society appear not to have undergone much change during the earlier Norman period, but the higher classes lived more splendidly and more riotously; and, as far as we can judge, they seem to have been coarser in manners and feelings. The writer of the life of Hereward has left us a curious picture of Norman revelry. When the Saxon hero returned to Brunne, to the home of his fathers, and found that it had been taken possession of by a Norman intruder, he secretly took his lodging in the cottage of a villager close by. In the night he was roused from his pillow by loud sounds of minstrelsy, accompanied with boisterous indications of merriment, which issued from his father’s hall, and he was told that the new occupants were at their evening cups. He proceeded to the hall, and entered the doorstead unobserved, from whence he obtained a view of the interior of the hall. The new lord of Brunne was surrounded by his knights, who were scattered about helpless from the extent of their potations, and reclining in the laps of their women. In the midst of them stood a jougleur, or minstrel, alternately singing and exciting their mirth with coarse and brutal jests. It is a first rough sketch of a part of mediæval manners, which we shall find more fully developed at a somewhat later period. The brutality of manners exhibited in the scene which I have but imperfectly described, and which is confirmed by the statements of writers of the following century, soon degenerated into heartless ferocity, and when we reach the period of the civil wars of Stephen’s reign, we find the amusements of the hall varied with the torture of captive enemies.
In his more private hours of relaxation, the Norman knight amused himself with games of skill or hazard. Among these, the game of chess became now very popular, and many of the rudely carved chessmen of the twelfth century have been found in our island, chiefly in the north, where they appear to have been manufactured. They are usually made of the tusk of the walrus, the native ivory of Western Europe, which was known popularly as whale’s bone. The whalebone of the middle ages is always described as white, and it was a common object of comparison among the early English poets, who, when they would describe the delicate complexion of a lady, usually said that she was “white as whale’s bone.” These, as well as dice, which were now in common use, were also made of horn and bone, and the manufacture of such articles seems to have been a very extensive one. Even in the little town of Kirkcudbright, on the Scottish border, there was, in the middle of the twelfth century, a maker of combs, draughtsmen, chessmen, dice, spigots, and other such articles, of bone and horn, and stag’s horn appears to have been a favourite material.[21]
In the Chanson de Roland, Charlemagne and his knights are represented, after the capture of Cordova from the Saracens, as sitting in a shady garden, some of them playing at tables, and others at chess. Sur palies blancs siedent cil cevalers,
As tables juent pur els esbaneier,
E as eschecs li plus saive e li veill
E escremissent cil bacheler leger.
Chess, as the higher game, is here described as the amusement of the chiefs, the old, and the wise; the knights play at tables, or draughts; but the young bachelors are admitted to neither of these games, they amuse themselves with bodily exercises—sham fights.
No. 72. A Norman Lantern.
Although such games were not unusually played by day, they were more especially the amusements which employed the long evenings of winter, and candles appear at this time to have been more generally used than at a former period. They still continued to be fixed on candlesticks, and not in them, and spikes appear sometimes to have been attached to tables or other articles of furniture, to hold them. Thus, in one of the pretended miracles told by Reginald of Durham, a sacristan, occupied in committing the sacred vestments to the safety of a cupboard, fixed his candle on a stick or spike of wood on one side (candelam ... in assere collaterali confixit), and forgetting to take away the candle, locked the cupboard door, and only discovered his negligence when he found the whole cupboard in flames. Another ecclesiastic, reading in bed, fixed his candle on the top of one of the sides (spondilia) of his bed. Another individual bought two small candles (candelas modicas) for an obolus, but the value of the coin thus named is not very exactly known. The candle appears to have been usually placed at night in or on the chimney, or fire-place, with which the chamber was now furnished. In Fierabras (p. 93), a thief, having obtained admission in the night to the chamber of the princess Floripas, takes a candle from the chimney, and lights it at the fire, from which we are led to suppose that it was usual to keep the fire alight all night. Isnelement et tost vient à la ceminée,
Une chandelle a prinse, au fu l’a alumée.
On another occasion (p. 67), a fire is lit in the chimney of Floripas’s chamber, and afterwards a table is laid there, and dinner served. Lanterns were now also in general use. The earliest figure of a lantern that I remember to have met with in an English manuscript is one furnished by MS. Cotton. Nero, C. iv., which is represented in our cut ([No. 72]). It differs but little from the same article as used in modern times; the sides are probably of horn, with a small door through which to put the candle, and the domed cover is pierced with holes for the egress of the smoke.
No. 73. Occupations of the Ladies.
We begin now to be a little better acquainted with the domestic occupations of the ladies, but we shall be able to treat more fully of these in a subsequent chapter. Not the least usual of these was weaving, an art which appears to have been practised very extensively by the female portion of the larger households. The manuscript Psalter in Trinity College, Cambridge, furnishes us with the very curious group of female weavers given in our cut [No. 73]. It explains itself, as much, at least, as it can easily be explained, and I will only observe that the scissors here employed are of the form common to the Romans, to the Saxons, and to the earlier Normans; they are the Saxon scear, and this name, as well as the form, is still preserved in that of the “shears” of the modern clothiers. Music was also a favourite occupation, and the number of musical instruments appears to be considerably increased. Some of these seem to have been elaborately constructed. The manuscript last mentioned furnishes us with the accompanying figure of a large organ, of laborious though rather clumsy workmanship.
