Chapter XVIII

IN-DOOR LIFE AND CONVERSATION.--PET ANIMALS.--THE
DANCE.--RERE-SUPPERS.--ILLUSTRATIONS FROM THE “NANCY” TAPESTRY.

As people began to have less taste for the publicity of the old hall, they gradually withdrew from it into the parlours for many of the purposes to which the hall was originally devoted, and thus the latter lost much of its former character. The parlour was now the place commonly used for the family meals. In a curious little treatise on the “most vyle and detestable use of dyce play,” composed near the beginning of the sixteenth century, one of the interlocutors is made to say, “So down we came again,” _i.e._ from the chambers above, “into the parlour, and found there divers gentlemen, all strangers to me; and what should I say more, but to dinner we went.” The dinner hour, we learn from this same tract, was then at the hour of noon; “the table,” we are told, “was fair spread with diaper cloths, the cupboard garnished with much goodly plate.” The cupboard seems now to have been considered a necessary article of furniture in the parlour; it had originally belonged to the hall, and was of simple construction. One of the great objects of ostentation in a rich man’s house was his plate; which, at dinner time, he brought forth, and caused to be spread on a table in sight of his guests; afterwards, to exhibit the plate to more advantage, the table was made with shelves, or steps, on which the different articles could be arranged in rows one above another. It was called in French and Anglo-Norman a _buffet_, or a _dressoir_ (dresser), the latter name, it is said, being given to it because on it the different articles were _dressés_, or arranged. The English had, in their own language, no special name for this article of furniture, so that they called it literally a cup-board, or board for the cups. In course of time, and especially when it was removed from the hall into the parlour, this article was made more elaborately, and doors were added to it, for shutting up the plate when not in use. It thus became equivalent to our modern sideboard. We have seen a figure of a cupboard of this more complicated structure in a cut in our last chapter; and we shall have others of different forms in our next.

Our cut No. 249 is a good representation of the interior of a parlour furnished with the large seat, or settle, and with rather an elaborate and elegant cupboard. The latter, however, does not belong to the picture itself, having been introduced from another in the same manuscript by Mr. Shaw, in his beautiful work the “Dresses and Decorations of the Middle Ages,” from which it is here taken. It is found in a fine manuscript in the British Museum (MS. Reg. 15 D. 1), containing the French translation of the “Historia Scholastica” of Peter Comestor, and written in the year 1470. The subject of this illumination is taken from the Scriptural story of Tobit, who here lies sick and blind on the settle, having just despatched his son Tobias on his journey to the city of Rages. The lady cooking is no doubt intended for his wife Anna; it will be observed that she is following the directions of a book. Cookery books and books of medicinal receipts were now common. The kettle is suspended over the fire by a jack of a construction that occurs not unfrequently in the manuscripts of this period. The settle is placed with its back to the window, which is covered with a large curtain.

As the parlours saved the domestic arrangements of the household from the too great publicity of the hall, so on the other hand they relieved the bedchambers from much of what had previously been transacted in them, and thus rendered them more private. In the poem of the “Lady Bessie,” when the earl of Derby and Humphrey Brereton visit the young princess, they are introduced to her in her bower, or chamber, but she immediately conducts the latter into the parlour, in order to converse with him:--

_She took him in her arms, and kissed him times three;_
_“Welcome,” she said, “Humphrey Brereton;_
_How hast thou spedd in the west countrey?_
_I pray thee tell me quickly and anon.”_
_Into a parlour they went from thence,_
_There were no more but hee and shee._

The female part of the family now passed in the parlour much of the time which had been formerly passed in their chambers. It was often their place of work. Young ladies, even of great families, were brought up not only strictly, but even tyrannically, by their mothers, who kept them constantly at work, exacted from them almost slavish deference and respect, and even counted upon their earnings. The parental authority was indeed carried to an almost extravagant extent. There are some curious instances of this in the correspondence of the Paston family. Agnes Paston, the wife of sir William Paston, the judge, appears to have been a very harsh mother. At the end of June 1454, Elizabeth Clere, a kinswoman who appears to have lived in great intimacy with the family, sent to John Paston, the lady’s eldest son, the following account of the treatment of his sister Elizabeth, who was of marriageable age, and for whom a man of the name of Scroope had been proposed as a husband. “Therefore, cousin,” writes Jane Clere, “meseemeth he were go for my cousin your sister, without that ye might get her a better; and if ye can get a better, I would advise you to labour it in as short time as ye may goodly, for she was never in so great a sorrow as she is now-a-days, for she may not speak with no man, whosoever come, nor even may see nor speak with my man, nor with servants of her mother’s, but that she beareth her on hand otherwise than she meaneth; and she hath since Easter the most part been beaten once in the week, or twice, and sometimes twice in a day, and her head broken in two or three places. Wherefore, cousin, she hath sent to me by friar Newton in great counsel, and prayeth me that I would send to you a letter of her heaviness, and pray you to be her good brother, as her trust is in you.” In spite of her anxiety to be married, Elizabeth Paston did not succeed at this time, but she was soon afterwards transferred from her paternal roof to the household of the lady Pole. It was still the custom to send young ladies of family to the houses of the great to learn manners, and it was not only a matter of pride and ostentation to be thus surrounded by a numerous train, but the noble lady whom they served did not disdain to receive payment for their board as well as employing them in profitable work. In a memorandum of errands to London, written by Agnes Paston on the 28th of January, 1457, one is a message to “Elizabeth Paston that she must use herself to work readily, as other gentlewomen do, and somewhat to help herself therewith. Item, to pay the lady Pole twenty-six shillings and eightpence for her board.” Margaret Paston, the wife of John Paston, just mentioned, and daughter-in-law of Agnes, seems to have been equally strict with her daughters. At the beginning of the reign of Edward IV., she wrote to her son John concerning his sister Anne, who had been placed in the house of a kinsman of the name of Calthorpe. “Since ye departed,” she says, “my cousin Calthorpe sent me a letter complaining in his writing that forasmuch as he cannot be paid of his tenants as he hath been before this time, he proposeth to lessen his household, and to live the straitlier, wherefore he desireth me to purvey for your sister Anne; he saith she waxeth high (_grows tall_), and it were time to purvey her a marriage. I marvel what causeth him to write so now, either she hath displeased him, or else he hath taken her with default; therefore I pray you commune with my cousin Clare at London, and weet (_learn_) how he is disposed to her-ward, and send me word, for I shall be fain to send for her, and with me she shall but lose her time, and without she will be the better occupied she shall oftentimes move (_vex_) me and put me in great inquietness; remember what labour I had with your sister, therefore do your part to help her forth, that may be to your worship and mine.” There certainly appears here no great affection between mother and daughter.

Among other lessons, the ladies appear to have been taught to be very demure and formal in their behaviour in company. Our cut No. 250 represents a party of ladies and gentlemen in the parlour engaged in conversation. It is taken from an illumination in the manuscript of the romance of the “Comte d’Artois,” formerly in the possession of M. Barrois. They are all apparently seated on benches, which seem in this instance to be made like long chests, and placed along the sides of the wall as if they served also for lockers. These appear to be the only articles of furniture in the room. There is a certain conventional position in most of the ladies of the party which has evidently been taught, even to the holding of the hands crossed. The four ladies with the gentleman between them are no doubt intended to be the attendants on the lady of the house, holding towards her the position of Elizabeth and Anne Paston. We have precisely the same conventional forms in the next cut (No. 251), which is taken from an illumination in a manuscript of the “Legenda Aurea,” in the National Library in Paris (No. 6889). We see here the same demureness and formal crossing of the hands among the young ladies, in presence of their dame. It may be observed that, in almost all the contemporary pictures of domestic scenes, the men, represented as visitors, keep their hats on their heads.

One of the most curious features in the first of these scenes is that of the cages, especially that of the squirrel, which is evidently made to turn round with the animal’s motion, like squirrel-cages of the present day. We have now frequent allusions to the keeping of birds in cages, and parrots, magpies, jays, and various singing birds, are often mentioned among domestic pets. During the earlier half of the century of which we are now more especially speaking, the poems of Lydgate furnish us with several examples. Thus, in that entitled “The Chorle and the Bird,” we are told--

_The chorle_ (countryman) _was gladde that he this birdde hadde take,_.
_Mery of chere, of looke, and of visage,_.
_And in al haste he cast for to make_.
_Within his house a pratie litelle cage,_.
_And with hir songe to rejoise his corage_.

And in another of Lydgate’s minor poems, it is said of Spring,--

_Whiche sesoun prykethe_ (stirs up) _fresshe corages,_
_Rejoissethe beastys walkyng in ther pasture,_
_Causith briddys to syngen in ther cages,_
_Whan blood renewyth in every creature_.

Among these, we find birds mentioned which are not now usually kept in cages. Thus, in a manuscript of the time of Edward IV., we find a receipt for food for that favourite bird of the mediæval poets, the nightingale.[51] Small animals of various kinds were also tamed and kept in the house, either loose or in cages. The plot of some of the earlier fabliaux turns upon the practice of taming squirrels as pets, and keeping them in cages; and this animal continued long to be an especial favourite, for its liveliness and activity. In one of the compartments of the curious tapestry of Nancy, of the fifteenth century, which has been engraved by M. Achille Jubinal, we see a lady with a tame squirrel in her hand, which she holds by a string, as represented in our cut No. 252.

The parlour was now the room where the domestic amusements were introduced. The guest in the early tract on “Dyce Play,” quoted in a former page, tells us, “and, after the table was removed, in came one of the waiters with a fair silver bowl, full of dice and cards. Now, masters, quoth the goodman, who is so disposed, fall too.” Gambling was carried to a great height during the fifteenth century, and was severely condemned by the moralists, but without much success. Dice were the older implements of play, and tables (or backgammon). A religious poem on saints’ days, in a manuscript written about the year 1460, warning against idle amusements, says--

_Also use not to pley at the dice ne at the tablis,_
_Ne none maner gamys, uppon the holidais;_
_Use no tavernys where be jestis and fablis,_
_Syngyng of lewde balettes, rondelettes, or virolais._

After the middle of the fifteenth century, cards came into very general use; and at the beginning of the following century, there was such a rage for card-playing, that an attempt was made early in the reign of Henry VIII. to restrict their use by law to the period of Christmas. When, however, people sat down to dinner at noon, and had no other occupation for the rest of the day, they needed amusement of some sort to pass the time; and a poet of the fifteenth century observes truly,--

_A man may dryfe forthe the day that long tyme dwellis_
_With harpyng and pipyng, and other mery spellis,_
_With gle, and wyth game._

Such amusements as these mentioned, with games of different kinds in which the ladies took part, and dancing, generally occupied the afternoon, from dinner to supper, the hour of which latter meal seems usually to have been six o’clock. The favourite amusement was dancing. A family party at the dance is represented in our cut No. 253, from M. Barrois’ manuscript of the “Comte d’Artois.” The numerous dances which were now in vogue seem to have completely eclipsed the old carole, or round dance, and the latter word, which was a more general one, had displaced the former. The couple here on their legs are supposed to be performing one of the new and tasteful fashionable dances, which were much more lively than those of the earlier period; some of them were so much so as to scandalise greatly the sage moralists of the time. The after-dinner amusements were resumed after supper; and a practice had now established itself of prolonging the day’s enjoyment to a late hour, and taking a second, or, as it was called, a rere-supper (_arrière souper_), which was called the banquet in France, where the three great meals were now the dinner, the supper, and the banquet, and dinner appears to have been considered as the least meal of the three. It was thus, probably, that, in course of time, dinner took the place of supper, and supper that of banquet.

We have a very curious illustration of the extravagant living at table of the latter half of the fifteenth century, in the curious allegorical tapestry long preserved at Nancy, in Lorrain, and said by tradition, probably with truth, to have been the ornament of the tent of Charles le Téméraire, duke of Burgundy, when he laid siege to Nancy in 1477, and was defeated and slain. It is of Flemish workmanship, and no doubt pictures the manners of the Burgundian nobles and gentry, but at that time the court of Burgundy was the model of the fashionable life of western Europe. It happens, curiously enough, that a few years later a rather obscure French writer, named Nicole de La Chesnaye, compiling one of those allegorical dramas then so popular under the title of “Moralities,” took the story of this tapestry as his subject, and has thus left us the full explanation of what might otherwise have been not easily understood. The title of this morality is “La Nef de Santé” (the ship of health), and a second title is “La condamnacion des bancquetz” (the condemnation of banquets); and its object is to show the unhappy consequences of the extravagance in eating and drinking, which then prevailed. It opens with a conversation between three allegorical personages named Dinner, Supper, and Banquet, who declare their intention to lead joyous life evening and morning, and they resolve on imitating Passe-Temps (pastime) and Bonne-Compagnie (good company). At this moment Bonne-Compagnie herself, who is described as a dashing damsel (_gorrière damoiselle_), enters with all her people, namely, Gourmandize (greediness), Friandize (daintiness), Passe-Temps, already mentioned, Je-Boy-à-Vous (I drink to you), Je-Pleige-d’Autant (I pledge the same), and Acoustumance (custom). Each names what he prefers in good cheer, and Bonne-Compagnie, to begin the day, orders a collation, at which, among other things, are served damsons (_prunes de Damas_), which appear at this time to have been considered as delicacies. There is here a marginal direction to the purport that, if the morality should be performed in the season when real damsons could not be had, the performers must have some made of wax to look like real ones. They now take their places at table, and, while they are eating, Je-Boy-à-Vous calls the attention of the company to the circumstance that Gourmandize, in his haste to eat the damsons, had swallowed a snail. Passe-Temps next proposes a dance, and chooses for his partner the lady Friandize, comparing her to Helen, and telling her that he was Paris. She, in reply, compares herself to Medea, and her partner to Jason. Then the musicians, “placed on a stage or some higher place,” are to play a measure “pretty short.” Dinner, Supper, and Banquet next make their appearance, and, addressing Bonne-Compagnie, make their apology for entering without being invited; but the lady receives them well, asks their names, and, in return, tells them those of her people. Dinner, to show his gratitude for this friendly reception, invites the whole party to go to his feast, which is just ready; and Supper invites them to a second repast, and Banquet to a third. They accept the invitation of Dinner, and are served with _friture_, _brouet_, _potage_, _gros pâtés_, &c. Meanwhile Supper and Banquet look upon the party from “some high window,” and converse on the consequences likely to follow their excesses. This scene is represented in the first compartment of the tapestry, as it now exists (for it has undergone considerable mutilation), and is represented in our cut No. 254. It is a good picture of a seignorial repast of the fifteenth century. There are people at table, besides those enumerated in the morality, who are here indicated by their names: Passe-Temps at one end of the table, a lady to his left, and after her Je-Boy-à-Vous, who has Bonne-Compagnie by his side, and to her left Dinner, the host. To the right of Passe-Temps sits the lady Gourmandize, and to her right Je-Vous-Pleige (I pledge you), and next to him Friandize. The cups in which they are drinking are flat-shaped, and appear, by the colours in the original, to be of glass, with the brims, and other parts in some, gilt. The minstrels, in the gallery, are playing with trumpets. Among the attendants, we see the court fool, with his bauble, who had now become an ordinary, and almost a necessary, personage in the household of the rich; it was the result of an increasing taste for the coarse buffoonery which characterised an unrefined state of society. The court fool was licensed to utter with impunity whatever came to his thought, however mordant or however indecent. Beside him are two valets with dogs, which appear to have been usually admitted to the hall, and to have eaten the refuse on the spot. A window above gives us a view of the country, with buildings in the distance, and Supper and Banquet looking in upon the company. An inscription in the upper corner to the right tells us how these two personages came slyly to look at the assembly, and how through envy they conspired to take vengeance upon the feasters--

_Soupper et Bancquet_
_Vindrent l’assemblée adviser,_
_Dont par envie prestement_
_Compindrent de viengence user._

The morality next introduces the Diseases who are to be the executors of the vengeance of Supper and Banquet, and who, according to the stage directions, are to be dressed “very strangely, so that you would hardly know whether they are women or men.” These are Apoplexy, Paralysis, Pleurisy, Cholic, Quinsy, Dropsy, Jaundice, Gravel, and Gout. At the end of this scene, Supper and Banquet address themselves to these people, and ask them to undertake an assault on Bonne-Compagnie and the other guests of Dinner; and they consent at once, and Supper places them in an ambuscade in his dwelling. Meanwhile the feast ends, and Bonne-Compagnie says grace, and orders the player on the lute to perform his duty, whereupon “the instrument sounds, and the three men shall lead out the three women, and shall dance whatever dance they please, while Bonne-Compagnie remains seated.” Supper and Banquet then present themselves in turn to invite Bonne-Compagnie and her people, and they go first to Supper, who receives them with extraordinary hospitality. But Supper was a wicked traitor; and the stage directions inform us that, while the guests were enjoying themselves, his agents, the Diseases, were to be introduced watching them through a window. As soon as the substantial viands are eaten, Supper goes to order what was called the _issue_, or dessert; and in his absence Bonne-Compagnie orders the minstrels to play an air, and they obey. While the dessert is preparing, Supper goes to the Diseases, to ask if they are ready, and they arm and attack the guests, overthrowing tables and benches, and treating everybody with great cruelty. After some other scenes, Banquet comes to announce that his feast is ready, condoles with the sufferers on the treatment they had received from Supper, though he is meditating still greater treachery himself, and they go and feast with him. The Diseases, ready at his command, make a much more fatal attack upon the guests.

Banquet’s feast forms the second compartment of the tapestry of Nancy in its present state, and is represented in our cut No. 255. When compared with the morality, it presents some variations. In front, Banquet is standing before the table, opposite to Je-Boy-à-Vous and Je-Pleige-d’Autant, and appears to be replying to Bonne-Compagnie, who is seated between Passe-Temps and Acoustumance. Further to the left Banquet appears again, with his hand on his sword, addressing the Diseases, who are at the entrance of the hall, waiting for his signal for the attack. At the lower corner on the left we see Supper, talking with another important personage, probably intended to represent Dinner. Above, to the right, through a window, we see Banquet again, with one of his attendants fastening on his armour, while another holds his casque, which he has not yet placed on his head. The first of the inscriptions in this compartment of the tapestry, which is on the left, tells how, while the guests are feasting in all jollity, Banquet and his rout arm and come to slaughter the whole assembly--

_Chiere ilz tyrent joyeulsement,_
_Y estant Bancquet et la route_
_Qui s’armerent et là proprement_
_Occirent l’assemblée toute._

The second inscription consists of eight lines moralizing on the final ruin which often falls on those who make enjoyment the business of their lives:--

_Les trois folz ont grant volonté_
_De cherche[r] leur malle meschance;_
_Quant on a bien ris et chanté,_
_A la fin fault tourner la chance._
_Ha! vous vellez avoir plaisance!_
_Bien l’auré vous ung tandis;_
_Mès gens quy prenent leur aisence,_
_En fin se treuvent plus mauldiz._

It is remarkable that these eight lines, taken from the tapestry, are introduced into the morality, and placed in the mouth of the fool at the end of the first scene.

It will be remarked at once that there is a much greater display of luxury in the banquet scene than in the dinner scene. Upon the table are two peacocks, each with a shield hung to its neck, no doubt to show the armorial bearings of the host; a boar’s head, dressed in the most fashionable manner; a subtelty, representing a ship filled with birds, surrounded by a sea full of fishes, and having a tall mast, with a sail made of silk and ermine, and surmounted by a figure of a naked female, intended probably to represent the goddess Venus. There are also on the table four candles, of coloured wax. A noble dresser stands against the wall, covered with vessels of gold and of glass, but the metal far predominates. The minstrels are standing apparently on the floor on a level with the guests, and consist of a man playing on the cittern, or lute, a harper, and one who plays on the pipe and drum, the latter instrument a substitute for the tabor. The valets with the dogs are again introduced, but we miss the court fool.

The remaining portions of the tapestry represent the attack of the Diseases, and the great havoc they made among the guests.

The banquet was known in England by that name, as well as by the name of rere-supper. In the curious English morality play, entitled “The Interlude of the Four Elements,” printed early in the sixteenth century, the same distinction is made between the three meals as in the French morality described above. Sensual-appetite, one of the characters in the piece, leads Humanity to the tavern to dine, and orders a dinner of three courses, with a choice variety of wines. As they are leaving after dinner, the taverner reminds them that they were to return to supper; and then Humanity proposes a cup of “new” wine, as though wine was then valued for being new. Food and liquor were formerly adulterated in more dishonest manner even than in modern times, and the taverner answers the demand jokingly--

_Ye shall have wyne as newe as can be,_
_For I may tell you in pryvyté_
_Hit was brued but yester nyght._

But he immediately adds--

_But than I have for your apetyte_
_A cup of wyne of olde claret;_
_There is no better, by this lyght._

After supper they go to dance, and meanwhile Sensual-appetite goes to prepare the banquet:--

_I shall at the towne agayne_
_Prepare for you a banket,_
_Of metys that be most delycate,_
_And most pleasaunt drynkes and wynes therate,_
_That is possyble to get._
_Which shall be in a chamber feyre_
_Preparyd poynt devyse_ (in perfection),
_With damaske water made so well_
_That all the howse thereof shall smell_
_As it were Paradyse_.

In “Acolastus,” a work by the grammarian Palsgrave, published in 1540, the banquet is still identified with the rere-supper, when he speaks of “the rere-supper, or banket, where men syt downe to drynke and eate agayne after their meate.” And again, still later, Higins, in his “Nomenclator,” published in 1585, explains the Latin word _pocœnium_ by “a reare-supper, or a banket after supper.” The term rere-supper was in use throughout the fifteenth century. An English vocabulary of that century speaks of a meal between dinner and supper, under the name of “a myd-dyner under-mete,” the same which, no doubt, was called by a French word, a _bever_, as consisting especially in taking a drink, and which, removed to the time between breakfast and dinner, is now called a luncheon.

In the introduction to Lydgate’s “Story of Thebes,” which is introduced as a continuation of the “Canterbury Tales,” the poet pretends to have arrived at the inn in Canterbury when it was occupied by the pilgrims, who invite him to sup with them, and he joins their company. “Our host,” who is the leader of the pilgrims, offers him his place at their supper heartily:

_Praying you_ (he says) _to suppe with us this night,_
_And ye shall have made, at your devis,_
_A great pudding, or a round hagis,_
_A French moile, a tansie, or a froise_.

These appear to have been the usual favourite dishes at an ordinary supper of this date (the first half of the fifteenth century). The _hagis_ appears to have been much the same dish as the Scottish haggis of the present day. The _moile_ was a dish made of marrow and grated bread. The _tansie_ was a kind of omelet, resembling apparently what the French now call an _omelette aux fines herbes_; while the _froise_ had small strips of bacon in it--an _omelette au lard_. This latter was a very favourite dish among the monks. After supper, the guests, or at least some of them, are represented as taking “strong nottie ale” before going to bed. They rise early, “anon as it is day,” and start on their return towards London; and they take no meal before dinner, having it

_Fully in purpose to come to dinere_
_Unto Ospring, and breake there our fast._

There is a longer preface to the supplementary tale of “Beryn,” written about the same date as the “Story of Thebes,” and printed in the edition of Chaucer’s works by Urry, in which the divisions of the day are tolerably well described. The pilgrims there arrived at their destination in Canterbury “at mydmorowe,” which is interpreted in the glossaries as meaning nine o’clock in the forenoon, and then took their lodgings, “ordeyned” their dinner, and, while it was preparing, went to make their offerings to the shrine of St. Thomas in the cathedral church. Meanwhile the Pardoner had separated from the company, and engaged in a low intrigue with the “tapster,” or barmaid, who offers him a drink, but he tells her he had not yet broken his fast--we are to conclude that this was the case with the rest of the company--and

_She start into the town, and set a py al hote._

Meat pies appear to have been very common articles of food in the middle ages, and to have been kept always ready at the cooks’ shops. The offering seems to have taken but a small space of time, and then--

_They set their signys upon their hedes, and som oppon their capp,_
_And sith to the dyner-ward they gan for to stapp_ (step);
_Every man in his degré wissh_ (washed) _and toke his sete,_
_As they wer wont to doon at soper and at mete;_
_And wer in silence for a tyme, tyl good ale gan arise_.

It appears, therefore, that people did not hold conversation while eating, but that the talk and mirth began with the liquor, whether ale or wine. It was then agreed that they should remain that day in Canterbury, and all sup together at night--

“_Then al this after-mete I hold it for the best_
_To sport and pley us,” quod the hoost, “ech man as hym lest_ (likes),
_And go by tyme to soper, and to bed also,_
_So mowe we erly rysen, our jorney for to do_”.

Accordingly they all walk forth into the city, where the knight, who with his son had put on fresh gowns, took the latter to the town walls to explain to him their strength, and the character of the defences; and as many of the rest as had changes of apparel with them imitated their example, and they separated in parties, according to their different tastes. The monk, the parson, and the friar, went to visit some clerical acquaintance, and indulged in spiced wine. The ladies remained at home:--

_The wyfe of Bath was so wery, she had no wyl to walk;_
_She toke the priores by the honde, “Madam, wol ye stalk_
_Pryvely into the garden to se the herbis growe?_
_And after with our hostis wife in her parlour rowe_ (talk)?
_I wol gyve yowe the wyne, and ye shul me also;_
_For tyl we go to soper we have naught ellis to do._”

The prioress assents to this proposal--

----_and forth gon they wend,_
_Passing forth sofftly into the herbery;_
_For many a herb grew for sewe_ (pottage) _and surgery;_
_And all the aleys fair and parid, and raylid, and ymakid;_
_The sauge and the isope yfrethid and istakid;_
_And othir beddis by and by fresh ydight,_
_For comers to the hooste right a sportful sight_.

When the guests reassembled, they agreed that the knight should be their “marshall” of the table, and he ordered them all to wash, and then appointed them to their seats, that they might be properly seated together, for this was part of his duty. They thus sat two and two, each couple, no doubt, at one dish--

_They wissh_ (washed), _and sett right as he bad, eche man wyth
his fere,_
_And begonne to talk of sportis and of chere_
_That they had the aftir-mete whiles they wer out;_
_For othir occupacioune, tyll they wer servid about,_
_They had not at that tyme, but eny man kitt_ (cut) _a loff_.

Thus it would appear that nothing eatable was as yet placed on the table but bread. Presently, the supper was served round to them, of which there was only one “service,” out of courtesy on the part of the rich members of the company towards those who were poor, as there was to be an equal division of the expenses of the supper. In return, the highest places of the table were yielded to the persons of best estate, and these, as an acknowledgment, gave a cup of wine round at their own expense, and then left the table to retire to their beds. But the less genteel of the company, the miller and the cook, with the sompnour, the yeoman, the reeve, and the manciple, remained “drinking by the moon,”--that is, they had no candle. There was, however, one candle in the bedroom, which seems to have served to light the whole company,--for it is evident that they all slept in beds in one room,--and this candle was only put out when they were all gone to bed, which was the moment the Pardoner awaited to steal away and pursue his intrigue. Next morning they were out of their beds so early that they left the town on their homeward journey at sunrise.