No. 165. A Game at Ball.
No. 166. Whipping-Top.
No. 167. The Game of Kayles.
Most of these recreations of young people in the middle ages were gradually left to a still younger age, and became children’s games, and of these the margins of the illuminated manuscripts furnish abundant examples. One of these (taken from the margin of the Royal MS., 10 E. iv., of the fourteenth century) will be sufficient for the present occasion. A favourite game, during at least the later periods of the middle ages, was that which is now called nine-pins. The French gave it the name quilles, which in our language was corrupted into keyles and kayles. The lad in our cut ([No. 167]) is not, as at present, bowling at the pins, but throwing with a stick, a form of the game which was called in French the jeu de quilles à baston, and in English club-kayles. Money was apparently played for, and the game was looked upon as belonging to the same class as hazard. In a series of metrical counsels to apprentices, compiled in the fifteenth century, and printed in the “Reliquiæ Antiquæ,” ii. 223, they are recommended to—
Exchewe allewey eville company,
Caylys, carding, and haserdy.
When no gaiety was going on, the ladies of the household were employed in occupations of a more useful description, among which the principal were spinning, weaving, knitting, embroidering, and sewing. Almost everything of this kind was done at home at the period of which we are now speaking, and equally in the feudal castle or manor, and in the house of the substantial burgher, the female part of the family spent a great part of their time in different kinds of work in the chambers of the lady of the household. Such work is alluded to in mediæval writers, from time to time, and we find it represented in illuminated manuscripts, but not so frequently as some of the other domestic scenes. In the romance of the “Death of Garin le Loherain,” when count Fromont visited the chamber of fair Beatrice, he found her occupied in sewing a very beautiful chainsil, or petticoat:— Vint en la chambre à la bele Beatriz;
Ele cosoit un molt riche chainsil.
—Mort de Garin, p. 10.
In the romance of “La Violette,” the daughter of the burgher, in whose house the count Girard is lodged, is described as being “one day seated in her father’s chambers working a stole and amice in silk and gold, very skilfully, and she made in it, with care, many a little cross and many a star, singing all the while a chanson-à-toile,” meaning, it is supposed, a song of a grave measure, composed for the purpose of being sung by ladies when weaving:— I. jor sist es chambres son pere,
Une estole et i. amit pere
De soie et d’or molt soutilment,
Si i fait ententevement
Mainte croisete et mainte estoile,
Et dist ceste chanchon à toile.
—Roman de la Violette, p. 113.
In one of Rutebeuf’s fabliaux, a woman makes excuse for being up late at night that she was anxious to finish a piece of linen cloth she was weaving:— Sire, fet-elle, il me faut traimer
A une toile que je fais.
And in another fabliau, that of “Guillaume au Faucon,” a young “bacheler” entering suddenly the chamber of the ladies, finds them all occupied in embroidering a piece of silk with the ensigns of the lord of the castle. Embroidery, indeed, was a favourite occupation: a lady thus employed is represented in our cut [No. 168], taken from a richly illuminated manuscript of the fourteenth century, in the British Museum (MS. Reg. 2 B. vii.) The ladies, too, not only made up the cloths into dresses and articles of other kinds, but they were extensively employed in the various processes of making the cloth itself. Our cut [No. 169], taken from a manuscript of about the same period (MS. Reg. 10 E. iv.), represents the process of carding the wool; and the same manuscript furnishes us with another cut (No. 170), in which a lady appears in the employment of spinning it into yarn. Our next cut ([No. 171]), taken from an illumination in an early French translation of the Metamorphoses of Ovid (in the National Library, MS. 6986), represents three ladies (intended for the three Fates) employed in these domestic occupations, and will give us a notion of the implements they used.
| No. 168. Embroidery. | No. 169. A Lady Carding. |
