On the feast of St. Bartholomew were held athletic sports with races, archery, and wrestling. At Holyrood they went nutting in the woods; at Martinmas they feasted—I know not why. Then in the long summer days they celebrated the eves of festivals and the festivals themselves by a kind of open-house hospitality. Then burned bonfires in the streets—this was partly with a view to keep off infection; and certainly in their narrow streets it was necessary to renew the air as much as possible. Then the wealthier sort spread tables before their doors and furnished them on the vigils with bread and drink, and on the festival days with meat and drink, to which they would invite all passers-by, “praising God for His benefits bestowed upon them.” There were feasts of reconciliation and amity for those who had quarrelled. The feast of reconciliation was a ceremony observed down to the last century.
A kind of Flower Feast was held on the vigil of St. John the Baptist, and on the days of St. Peter and St. Paul the Apostles. Then every man’s door was decorated with “green birch, long fennel, St. John’s wort, orpin, white leten, and such like.” Garlands of flowers were hung up among the leaves, with small lamps of glass containing enough oil to last all through the night; there were branches of wrought iron hung out over the street thus decorated, and some houses had hundreds of lamps hung up all over them. Picture to yourself a street in Old London, narrow, with lofty gabled houses projecting in each storey, so that at the top one might almost shake hands across. Even in the soft and limpid twilight of a June evening it is generally almost dark in the streets thus deprived of the sky; but to-night it is lighter than at noontide. There are rows on rows, one row above the others of bright lamps, red and blue and green, gleaming among green branches and white flowers; there are people dancing and pledging each other, there is music—nay, not pipe and tabor only, but harp and rebeck, flute and silver bells, drum and syrinx. And of course the lads and maidens are dancing with all the spirit they possess.
A HUNTING PARTY
From fourteenth-century MS. Bibliothèque Nat. de Paris.
Dancing was a passion with everybody. From the Queen to the milkmaid all the women danced; from the King to the craftsman all the young men danced. They danced in the streets whenever it was possible, which was one of the reasons why May-day was so joyous a festival. The more courtly people had dances dignified and stately, such as the Danse au Virlet, in which each performer sang a verse, and then they all danced round singing the same verse in chorus; the Pas de Brabant, where every man knelt to his partner; the Danse au chapelet, where every man kissed his partner; they danced together singing minstrels’ songs; they danced in the garden, they danced in the meadow, they went out at night to dance with tapers in their hands; they danced to beautiful music played by an orchestra. But for the humbler folk the street was the ball-room, and the pipe and tabor the music; while the dance was the simple Hey, or a round with capers of surprising agility, or the interlacing of hands and the dancing round a maypole.
The wrestling match filled much the same place in the civic mind as the football match of the present day. It was not a sport so much as a battle, and occasionally, as in the case of London v. Westminster, it caused serious riots and disturbances. The usual prize at a wrestling match was a ram, or a ram and a ring. Sometimes there were more valuable prizes, as in the old poem, “A mery Geste of Robin Hood,” quoted by Strutt,[10] in which a white bull, a courser with saddle and bridle, a pair of gloves, a gold ring, and a pipe of wine, were prizes. In Chaucer’s Prologue we read, “At wrastling he wolde have alwey the ram.” And Matthew Paris mentions a wrestling match at Westminster, A.D. 1222, at which a ram was the prize.
Then there was the valuable right of hunting in the forest of Middlesex. The country was nearly covered with a vast forest, opened up here and there by the clearings of charcoal-burners, woodcutters, and licensed huntsmen. The forest of Middlesex extended on the east side far into Essex. It was filled with fallow deer, red deer, wild swine, and wild boar. Of vermin there were wolves still, wild cats, foxes, badgers, and the smaller creatures. The rabbit warren or the coney garth was found on every estate, partly for food and partly for the fur. Two thousand rabbits were supplied in one year for the table of a rich Norfolk squire. Hares and pheasants were bred in the coney garth. The crane, the bittern, the great bustard, together with wild ducks and smaller birds innumerable, were also found—by the marshes along the river side or in the forests. It is noted that in London even the craftsmen feasted freely on hares and rabbits.
Music was even a more favourite form of recreation than dancing. To learn the use of some instrument was part of every gentleman’s education. The details of the education of the lower class are scanty, but there is a treasury of manners and customs in Chaucer, from which it is certain that all classes learned and practised music of some kind. For instance. Of the Squire, he is said to have been singing or fluting all the day.
Of the Nun the poet says—