Here the ladies kept their singing birds, of which they were extremely fond.
KING AND JESTER
From MS. in British Museum. Harl. 1892.
Then, for recreation in the daily life, we have the morning mass, the several services of the Church, the work of the shop for the craftsman, the house for his wife; in summer evenings ramblings in the fields, rowing on the river, dancing in the streets, athletics of all kinds, for the young; for the men the tavern with its songs and drink; for the women, talk in the street at the house doors in the summer; in the evening, work and music and singing and talk before the fire. In addition to the festivals and the rejoicings on stated days there was the procession of the watch, the miracle play within the church or without, the Royal pageants and the City ridings. The procession of the watches has been given in London in the Time of the Tudors, p. 362.
| THE SQUIRE | THE MILLER | |
| THE SERJEANT-AT-LAW | THE REEVE |
TYPES OF CHAUCER’S CHARACTERS
From the Ellesmere MS.
What part, if any, had cards in the houses of Mediæval London? The origin of card-playing need not concern us here. Probably the theory that cards first appeared at Viterbo, whither they were brought from the East, is true; that they spread over Italy, Germany, France, and Spain is quite certain. In the year 1393 occurs the well-known and often-quoted passage in the account of the Treasurer of France, Charles Poupart. “Givin to Grinfonneur, painter, for three packs of cards, gilt and coloured, and variously ornamented, for the amusement of the King, fifty-six livres.” From this passage it has been argued that cards were invented for the solace of the mad King Charles VI. But if they were a new invention the entry would not have been made with such simplicity, and, in fact, we now know that cards had before this date been brought into France. Whatever was known or practised in France speedily crossed over to England. Yet it is remarkable that Chaucer makes no mention of card-playing. In the year 1463 it was practised. This is proved by a clause in an Act of 1463, by which the importation of cards, among other wares of foreign manufacture, was forbidden. In one of the Paston Letters, dated Dec. 24, 1484, Margery Paston tells her husband that in a certain great lady’s house there were at Christmas “no disguisings, nor harpings, nor luting, nor singing, nor none loud disputes; but playing at the tables, chess and cards.” It may therefore be assumed that card-playing was known in London during the fifteenth century; that it was not an amusement or a form of gambling belonging to the common sort, but that it belonged to the wealthier class. This is what we should expect from the cost of the early cards with their gold and their hand-painted faces and backs. Of gambling with dice a great deal is said, and it would appear the lower classes as well as the upper classes were greatly addicted to dice and games of pure chance. Every tavern had its gaming table; the keeper advanced money to those who lost: there were then as now gamesters acharnés who gambled away all that they had and more. In the satirical drawings of the time they are represented as having stripped themselves of everything, including every shred of clothing. The lower classes of London have always been, and are still, incurably addicted to the pursuit of fortune, blind and incapable of favouritism. Laying on the odds and backing his fancy takes the place with the young Londoner of the old-fashioned dice.