without loss of life, of which numerous instances have been recorded. These were the diversions of persons of high rank; and the sports of hunting and hawking were in no less estimation with the Anglo-Normans, since kings, ecclesiastics, and nobles, pursued them with the greatest avidity and delight. The rigorous preservation of the royal game has been already mentioned; and an instance of the care which was taken to preserve the animals for chasing, may be seen in Edward the Confessor receiving annually from his manor of Barton near Gloucester, 3000 loaves of bread for the mainte... nance of his dogs. The oppression and eagerness with which the chase was then pursued, is vividly delineated by John of Salisbury, a conventual author who died in 1128. "By these pursuits," says he," they lose their humanity, and become monsters like the animals they chase; shepherds and their flocks are driven from their pastures, that wild beasts may range in them at large: should one of these potent sportsmen approach your dwelling, hasten to bring out every refreshment which you have in your house, or whatever you can beg or borrow of your neighbours, lest you should find the fatal consequences of your neglect, and perhaps be accused of treason. Some of the Norman sports, however, were of a domestic and more thoughtful character. The very ancient game of chess was played by Richard I. on his voyage to the Holy Land; and ten sorts of games with dice, are recounted by an author of the twelfth century. They also appear to have been warmly and universally played; since Mat Edward IV., several merchants were permitted to miss Calais, and carry their wool to the Mediterranean ports. There appears to have been little or no linen at this period made in England, since, in 1422, the Duke of Bedford, then Regent of France, endeavoured to persuade the Norman Parliament of the great advantages to be gained by sending the linen of Normandy in exchange for the English lead, wool, &c. It is probable, as in a former instance, that a list of articles licensed by Henry VI. in 1428, to be exported to the King of Portugal, contains some of the best productions of this country at the time. Six silver cases, gilt; two pieces of scarlet woollen; one piece of sanguine dyed in grain; two pieces of mustyro devillers, an inferior kind of velvet; two thousand vessels of mixed metal, consisting of plates, dishes, basons, &c. The alterations of the national coin in the fourteenth century, were not considerable; for though some changes were made by Edward III. in the silver, no new species was added. In 1344, however, he struck golden florins of 6s. with halves and quarters; but finding these pieces too high, he recalled them, and coined the gold noble at 68. 8d. The art of coinage, however, was still in a very imperfect state, being effected by a hammer, after the metal had been cast into plates or long thin bars, marked into circles and cut by shears. The silver pieces were blanched by boil ing. There were no remarkable changes in the English coin of the fifteenth century; but Henry IV. ordained that a standard pound of gold should make 45 nobles, and that a sort of base money called galley-halfpence, should no longer be payable to the "great deceit of the people." Henry V. di other along upon the ice, were also practised in the winter season, upon the frozen fields without the city. In comparison with the Saxons, and especially with the Danes, the Normans were temperate and delicate in their meals when they first invaded England; though it was not long before they equalled or excelled their predecessors. A contemporary author censures the Barons when going to war, for having their horses laden with wine instead of weapons, luncheons instead of lances, spits instead of spears, bottles instead of battleaxes. But the Anglo-Saxon custom of four meals in the day, was altered to two; and Robert de Mellent, the prime-minister and favourite of Henry I., used his endeavours to reduce them to one. The principal of these, the dinner, was at 3 o'clock in the morning, and the supper at 5 in the afternoon; in which there appears to have been sometimes a great variety of dishes; since William de Longchamp, Bishop of Ely, is said to have had at his table, all the sorts of beasts that roam on the land, of fishes that swim in the water, and of birds that fly in the air, and there were also many of which the composition is now unknown. The most esteemed kind of bread, was a sort of ginger bread called "peppered bread;" but wastel bread and simnel cakes were part of the allowance of the King of Scots when in England, whence it is concluded that they were made of the finest meal. The wine of this period is supposed to have been principally brought from France, though some sorts, like Rhenish, were also made in England; and there were also in use several sorts of other liquors, composed of honey, some of the incorporated trades of the ancient English cities, especially Coventry and Chester.. Some of these performances have been printed, as a most interesting account of the latter by J. H. Markland, Esq., privately edited for the Roxburghe Club; and a Dissertation on the pageants or mysteries anciently performed at Coventry, by Mr Thomas Sharp, Covent. 1825, 4to. There were also Moralities, or serious reflections on human life in verse, which were generally extremely dull, and were probably but seldom understood. That there were entertainments, however, of a more diverting kind, is ascertained from the numbers of minstrels and jongleurs, retained and encouraged by the great. At the wedding of Prince, Robert of France, at Compeigne, in 1237, some of them danced on ropes, and others rode on oxen dressed in scarlet, sounding their horns at the approach of every dish. In 1332, a company of men was ordered to be whipped through London, for spreading slanderous reports in ale-houses. These are supposed to have been Mummers, a species of dramatic performers, often of the lowest and most scurrilous kind, who always went about masked, were lawless and profligate, and were at length proscribed by a statute in 1511. There were but few very remarkable changes in the sports and pastimes of the fifteenth century, since those engaged in by the great, were principally the tournament, hunting, and hawking, though the latter appears to have been used by inferior persons-in consequence, perhaps, of that provision in the Forest Charter which allows that every freeman may keep hawks, falcons, &c. in his own woods. The wake, or wakeing, a favourite religious amusement of the commonalty, oppressed, on account of that very privilege. A separate treasury, called the Exchequer of the Jews, was established for receiving the revenue arising from them, consisting of fines for law proceedings and misdemeanours, ransoms, compositions, &c. which they paid for having the King's benevolence, license to trade, &c. They also paid some of the nobles and ecclesiastics for protection, since the Prior of Dunstable protected many Jews, each paying him two silver spoons every year; and even the livings of the clergy were sometimes mortgaged to them. The enormous sums which they disbursed at different periods, show that they had amassed considerable wealth, by the money-transactions which they effected all over England; for, being a very numerous body, they were settled in almost all the principal towns of the kingdom, and they had paid to the Crown between 1265 and 1273, the sum of 420,000l. 15s. 4d. King Edward I., however, at last determined on wholly abolishing usury; and an Act called the Statute of Judaism, was passed in 1289, by which it was entirely prohibited in England, and the Jews, though not formally banished, left the kingdom to the number of 15,060. By virtue of the King's writs of safe conduct through the country, they assembled in London, where some of the richest of them embarked, with their treasure, on board a vessel of great burthen, and sailed down the Thames to Queenborough. The master of the ship, a man yet worse than the most usurious of his passengers, entered into a conspiracy with his mariners to destroy them and casting anchor, remained so until the vessel was dry aground at ebb-tide. The Jews were then invited to : |