Allure the Beasts
Apple Bob
Arms of Fifteenth Cetury
Catching a bear
Cloth for beasts
Country Life
Cultivation of Grain
Dance of Fools
Equestrian
Equestrian performance
Feats in balancing
These kings of jugglers exercised a supreme authority over the art of jugglery and over all the members of this jovial fraternity. It must not be imagined that these jugglers merely recited snatches from tales and fables in rhyme; this was the least of their talents. The cleverest of them played all sorts of musical instruments, sung songs, and repeated by heart a multitude of stories, after the example of their reputed forefather, King Borgabed, or Bédabie, who, according to these troubadours, was King of Great Britain at the time that Alexander the Great was King of Macedonia. The jugglers of a lower order especially excelled in tumbling and in tricks of legerdemain. Feats in Balancing.--Fac-simile of a Miniature in a Manuscript in the Bodleian Library at Oxford (Thirteenth Century).
Fireworks on the water
Fireworks could not fail to be attractive at the Court of the Valois, to which Catherine de Médicis had introduced the manners and customs of Italy. The French, who up to that time had only been accustomed to the illuminations of St. John's Day and of the first Sunday in Lent, received those fireworks with great enthusiasm, and they soon became a regular part of the programme for public festivals. Fireworks on the Water, with an Imitation of a Naval Combat.--Fac-simile of an Engraving on Copper of the "Pyrotechnie" of Hanzelet le Lorrain: 4to (Pont-à-Mousson, 1630).
Free Distribution of bread
Free Distribution of Bread, Meat, and Wine to the People.--Reduced Copy of a Woodcut of the Solemn Entry of Charles V and Pope Clement VII into Bologna, in 1530. In these assemblies, where the King gathered together all his principal vassals once or twice a year, to hold personal communication with them, and to strengthen his power by ensuring their feudal services, large quantities of food and fermented liquors were publicly distributed among the people. The populace were always most enthusiastic spectators of military displays, of court ceremonies, and, above all, of the various amusements which royalty provided for them at great cost in those days: and it was on these state occasions that jugglers, tumblers, and minstrels displayed their talents.
Great Drinkers of the North
The Great Drinkers of the North.--Fac-simile of a Woodcut of the "Histoires des Pays Septentrionaux," by Olaus Magnus, 16mo., Antwerp, 1560.
Hunting with the Leopard
The mode of hunting with these animals was as follows: The sportsmen, preceded by their dogs, rode across country, each with a leopard sitting behind him on his saddle. When the dogs had started the game the leopard jumped off the saddle and sprang after it, and as soon as it was caught the hunters threw the leopard a piece of raw flesh, for which he gave up the prey and remounted behind his master
Jugglers
At first, and down to the thirteenth century, the profession of a juggler was a most lucrative one. There was no public or private feast of any importance without the profession being represented. Their mimicry and acrobatic feats were less thought of than their long poems or lays of wars and adventures, which they recited in doggerel rhyme to the accompaniment of a stringed instrument. The doors of the châteaux were always open to them, and they had a place assigned to them at all feasts. Jugglers exhibiting Monkeys and Bears.--Fac-simile of a Manuscript in the British Museum (Thirteenth Century).
Jugglers in public
A troubadour's story of this period shows that the jugglers wandered about the country with their trained animals nearly starved; they were half naked, and were often without anything on their heads, without coats, without shoes, and always without money. The lower orders welcomed them, and continued to admire and idolize them for their clever tricks, but the bourgeois class, following the example of the nobility, turned their backs upon them. Jugglers performing in public.--From a Miniature of the Manuscript of "Guarin de Loherane" (Thirteenth Century).--Library of the Arsenal, Paris.
La Gaillard
-The Dance called "La Gaillarde."--Fac-simile of Wood Engravings from the "Orchésographie" of Thoinot Arbeau (Jehan Tabourot): 4to (Langres, 1588).
Musicians
Musicians accompanying the Dancing.--Fac-simile of a Wood Engraving in the "Orchésographie" of Thoinot Arbeau (Jehan Tabourot): 4to (Langres, 1588).
Sedentary Occupations of the Peasants.
A small kitchen-garden, which he cultivated himself, was usually attached to the cottage, which was guarded by a large watch-dog. There was also a shed for the cows, whose milk contributed to the sustenance of the establishment; and on the thatched roof of this and his cottage the wild cats hunted the rats and mice. The family were never idle, even in the bad season, and the children were taught from infancy to work by the side of their parents
Somersaults
Somersaults.--Fac-simile of a Woodcut in "Exercises in Leaping and Vaulting," by A. Tuccaro: 4to (Paris, 1599).
Sword Dance
Sword-dance to the sound of the Bagpipe.--Fac-simile of a Manuscript in the British Museum (Fourteenth Century).
The Issue
The Issue de Table.--Fac-simile of a Woodcut in the Treatise of Christoforo di Messisburgo, "Banchetti compositioni di Vivende," 4to., Ferrara, 1549. At the issue de table wafers or some other light pastry were introduced, which were eaten with the hypocras wine. The boute-hors, which was served when the guests, after having washed their hands and said grace, had passed into the drawing-room, consisted of spices, different from those which had appeared at dessert, and intended specially to assist the digestion; and for this object they must have been much needed, considering that a repast lasted several hours. Whilst eating these spices they drank Grenache, Malmsey, or aromatic wines
The Springboard
THe Spring-board Most of the bourgeois and the villagers played a variety of games of agility, many of which have descended to our times, and are still to be found at our schools and colleges. Wrestling, running races, the game of bars, high and wide jumping, leap-frog, blind-man's buff, games of ball of all sorts, gymnastics, and all exercises which strengthened the body or added to the suppleness of the limbs, were long in use among the youth of the nobility
Village Feast
Village Feast Notwithstanding the miseries to which they were generally subject, the rural population had their days of rest and amusement, which were then much more numerous than at present. At that period the festivals of the Church were frequent and rigidly kept, and as each of them was the pretext for a forced holiday from manual labour, the peasants thought of nothing, after church, but of amusing themselves; they drank, talked, sang, danced, and, above all, laughed, for the laugh of our forefathers quite rivalled the Homeric laugh, and burst forth with a noisy joviality.