had excess of divers meats and drinks, boiled, roasted, grilled, and fried." They had "mortries," and blancmanges, "and such maner bake metes, and dish metes brenning of wild fire, paynted and castelled with paper and somblable waste, so that it is abusion to think."
The latter ornaments were what they called their "intermeats" (entremets). These represented battles, sieges, &c., introduced between the courses for the amusement of the guests. At a banquet given by Charles V. of France to the Emperor Charles IV., in 1378, there came a great ship into the hall as if of itself, the machinery being concealed. It came with all its masts, sails, rigging, and colours—the arms of Jerusalem—flying. Geoffrey of Boullion, with several knights armed cap-à-ie, wore represented on deck. Then appeared the walls of Jerusalem, and a regular siege, assault, and conquest of the city was gone through.
As for the drinks of this period, ale and cider satisfied the common people; but a great variety of foreign wines were imported and consumed by the wealthy. Warton, in his "History of English Poetry," quotes the following enumeration of wines known and used at this time:—
"Ye shall have Rumney and Malespine,
Both Ypocraase and Vernage wine,
Montreso and wine of Greke,
Both Algrade and Despiceeke,
Antioch and Bastarde,
Pyment also, and Garnarde;
Wine of Greke and Muscadell,
Both Clare, Pymeut, and Rochell."
Pyment, yprocras, and claret were compounded of wine, honey, and spices of different kinds, and in different proportions; and were considered as great delicacies. People of rank had two meals a day—dinner and supper. Princes and people of high rank had a kind of collation just before going to bod, called "the wines," consisting of delicate cakes and wine warmed and spiced. It would appear by a passage in Chaucer that they ate spiced condiments after their meals, as we take a dessert.
"There was eke wexing many a spice,
As clove, gilofre, and licorice,
Gingiber, and grain de Paris;
And many a spice delitable.
To etan whan men rise fro table."
It is clear that those who had wealth knew no contemptible amount of the art of good living.
The costumes of this period were rich and varied. Great complaints are made by the historians of the extravagance in dress, and laws were enacted both to restrain the excesses in dressing and eating. Edward II. decreed that none of the great men of his realm should have more than two courses at their meals, each to consist of only two kinds of flesh, except prelates, earls, barons, and the greatest men of the land, who might have an intermeat of one kind. In 1363, sumptuary laws restricting dress in like manner were passed in Parliament, but we are told that some of these laws were not at all regarded. "The squire endeavoured to outshine the knight, the knight the baron, the baron the earl, and the earl the very king himself."
Shoes of the Time of Edward II. From the Frieze in Edward the Confessor's Chapel, Westminster.
Tilting Helmet found at Lynn. Thirteenth Century. From an Engraving by the Antiquarian Etching Club.
We have examples of the different royal robes of the kings of that time in their statues. Henry III., in Westminster Abbey, has a long and very full tunic, and a mantle fastened by a fibula on the right shoulder, both devoid of ornament. But the boots are exceedingly splendid, being fitted or crossed with lines, and each square of the fret containing a lion or leopard. The cloth he wore is said to have been inwoven with gold, and on his head he wore a coronet or small chaplot of gold. Edward I. has no statue, but on opening his tomb, he was found dressed very much like Henry III.; his tunic was of red silk, his mantle of crimson satin.
Edward II., in his effigies in Gloucester Cathedral, appears in a loose tunic with long streamers or tippets at the elbows, and his mantle open in front.
Edward III. appears in his loose tunic and mantle, both richly embroidered. His son William, in York Cathedral, in a close embroidered tunic and mantle, with jagged edges.
