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footmen also gave him gloves, and received 3s. 4d. in reward. My lord and lady were accustomed to make offerings at high mass on Christmas Day, New Year's Day, and Twelfth Day j but of rather small amount, his lordship's being 12d. and her ladyship's 8d. In lesser establishments there was, of course, less state and smaller payments; and in the household accounts of the Lestranges of Hunstanton, in the eleventh of Henry, is a payment of 4d. to the Lord of Christmas, at Kyngstede. Different sums also are charged for New Year's gifts.
The lower classes still continued the customs of their forefathers, but occasionally required some check, to prevent their revelries becoming of too gross a description, and to amend abuses. In the third of Henry the Eighth, people were forbidden to appear abroad like mummers, their faces covered with vizors, and in disguised apparel. But it was by no means the intention to debar them from proper recreations during this season; many indulgences being afforded them, and their landlords and masters assisted them with the means of enjoying their customary festivities, listening to their legendary tales round the Yule-log, and occasionally joining in their sports; a practice scarcely yet obsolete in some parts of the country, and pity it should become so.
" A Christmas gambol oft' would cheer The poor man's heart through half the year."
In the thirty-third of Henry, when certain games were forbidden to artificers, husbandmen, apprentices, servants, and others of that class, they were still allowed to play at tables, tennis, dice, cards, bowls, clash, coyting, and logating, at Christmas; though there is a proclamation by the Sheriff of York, where the privilege is extended beyond our ideas of |
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