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— 43 —
and from twenty-six to twenty-eight oxen, with three hundred sheep, and fowls without number, were consumed every day. In the previous Christmas, at Lichfield where the Pope's nuncio and several foreign gentlemen were present, there were spent two hundred tuns of wine, and two thousand oxen, with their appurtenances. It is to be assumed that the pudding was in proportion to the beef; so these, in point of feasting, must have been royal Christmasses indeed.
In the midst of all this grandeur, there was a want of cleanliness and comfort in the rush-strewn floors and imperfectly furnished rooms and tables, that would have been very evident to a modern guest; and the manners at table, even in good society, would rather shock our present fastidious habits. Chaucer, not long previously, in describing the prioresse, who appears to have been a well-bred and educated person for the time, proves the usual slovenliness of the domestic habits, by showing what she avoided—
" At mete was she wel ytauglite withalle; She lette no morsel from hire lippes falle, Ne wette hire fingres in hire sauce depe. Wel co tide she carie a morsel, and wel kepe, Thatte no drope ne felle upon hire brest. In curtesie was sette ful moche hire lest. Hire over lippe wiped she so clene, That in hire cuppe was no ferthing sene, Of grese, whan she dronken hadde hire draught."
or, according to the Roman de la Rose, from whence Chaucer took this account,—
" Et si doit si sagement boy re, Que sur soy n'en espande goutte." #
It must be remembered, however, that there were no forks |
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