- A Benedictine Abbot
The convent is the name especially appropriate to the body of individuals who composed a religious community. The whole convent was under the government of the abbot, who, however, was bound to govern according to the rule of the order. Sometimes he was elected by the convent; sometimes the king or some patron had a share in the election. Frequently there were estates attached to the office, distinct from those of the convent; sometimes the abbot had only an allowance out of the convent estates; but always he had great power over the property of the convent, and bad abbots are frequently accused of wasting the property of the house, and enriching their relatives and friends out of it. - A Clerk
The word clericus—clerk—was one of very wide and rather vague significance, and included not only the various grades of clerks in orders, of whom we have spoken, but also all men who followed any kind of occupation which involved the use of reading and writing; finally, every man who could read might claim the “benefit of clergy,” i.e., the legal immunities of a clerk. - A Dominican Friar
Dominic gave to his order the name of Preaching Friars; more commonly they were styled Dominicans, or, from the colour of their habits, Black Friars—their habit consisting of a white tunic, fastened with a white girdle, over that a white scapulary, and over all a black mantle and hood, and shoes; the lay brethren wore a black scapulary. - A Feat in the XIV. Century
Two boys are depicted holding the hoop, and the third preparing to leap through it, having deposited his cloak upon the ground to receive him. - A Franciscan Friar
The Franciscans were styled by their founder Fratri Minori—lesser brothers, Friars Minors; they were more usually called Grey Friars, from the colour of their habits, or Cordeliers, from the knotted cord which formed their characteristic girdle. Their habit was originally a grey tunic with long loose sleeves (but not quite so loose as those of the Benedictines), a knotted cord for a girdle, and a black hood; the feet always bare, or only protected by sandals. - A Goldsmith’s Shop
Our woodcut represents a mediæval shop of a high class, probably a goldsmith’s. The shopkeeper eagerly bargaining with his customer is easily recognised, the shopkeeper’s clerk is making an entry of the transaction, and the customer’s servant stands behind him, holding some of his purchases; flagons and cups and dishes seem to be the principal wares; heaps of money lie on the table, which is covered with a handsome tablecloth, and in the background are hung on a “perch,” for sale, girdles, a hand-mirror, a cup, a purse, and sword. - A Horse baited with Dogs
A manuscript of the fourteenth century, in the Royal Library, contains the following cruel diversion: horse baiting with dogs - A Justing Toy
Persons of `rank` were taught in their childhood to relish such exercises as were of a martial nature, and the very toys that were put into their hands as playthings, were calculated to bias the mind in their favour. On the opposite page the reader will find two views of a knight on horseback, completely equipped for the just; four wheels originally were attached to the pedestal, which has a hole in the front for the insertion of a cord. The knight and his horse are both made with brass; the spear and the wheels are wanting in the original, but the hole in which the spear was inserted, still remains under the right arm, and it is supplied upon the print by something like it placed in the proper situation. This curious figure was probably made in the fifteenth century. The man represented may be readily separated from the horse, and is so contrived as to be thrown backwards by a smart blow upon the top of the shield or the front of his helmet, and replaced again with much ease: two such toys were requisite; each of them having a string made fast in the front of the pedestal, being then placed at a distance in opposition the one to the other, they were violently drawn together in imitation of two knights tilting; and by the concussion of the spears and shields, if dexterously managed, one or both of the men were cast to the ground. - A Knight Hospitaller
The Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, or the Knights Hospitallers, originally were not a military order; they were founded about 1092 by the merchants of Amalfi, in Italy, for the purpose of affording hospitality to pilgrims in the Holy Land. Their chief house, which was called the Hospital, was situated at Jerusalem, over against the Church of the Holy Sepulchre; and they had independent hospitals in other places in the Holy Land, which were frequented by the pilgrims. Their kindness to the sick and wounded soldiers of the first crusade made them popular, and several of the crusading princes endowed them with estates; while many of the crusaders, instead of returning home, laid down their arms, and joined the brotherhood of the Hospital. During this period of their history their habit was a plain black robe, with a linen cross upon the left breast. - A Knight-Errant
A knight was known to be a knight-errant by his riding through the peaceful country in full armour, with a single squire at his back, as surely as a man is now recognised as a fox-hunter who is seen riding easily along the strip of green sward by the roadside in a pink coat and velvet cap. - A Market Scene
Our illustration represents a market scene, the women sitting on their low stools, with their baskets of goods displayed on the ground before them. The female on the left seems to be filling up her time by knitting; the woman on the right is paying her market dues to the collector, who is habited as a clerk. The background appears to represent a warehouse, where transactions of a larger kind are going on. - A Mediæval Street and Town Hall
The illustration is a very interesting street-view of the fifteenth century. Take first the right-hand side of the engraving, remove the forest of picturesque towers and turrets with their spirelets and vanes which appear over the roofs of the houses (in which the artist has probably indulged his imagination as to the effect of the other buildings of the town beyond), and we have left a sober representation of part of a mediæval street—a row of lofty timber houses with their gables turned to the street. - A Posture-Master.—XIV. Century
The display of his abilities consisted in twisting and contorting his body into strange and unnatural attitudes. This art was, in doubt, practised by the jugglers in former ages; and a singular specimen of it, delineated on the last mentioned Bodleian MS., in the reign of Edward III., is here represented. The performer bends himself backwards, with his head turned up between his hands, so as nearly to touch his feet; and in this situation he hangs by his hams upon a pole, supported by two of his confederates. - A Present of Fish
The woodcut represents, probably, the cellarer of a Dominican convent receiving a donation of a fish. - A Sally across the Drawbridge
The illuminators are never tired of representing battles and sieges; and the general impression which we gather from them is that a mediæval combat must have presented to the lookers-on a confused melée of rushing horses and armoured men in violent action, with a forest of weapons overhead—great swords, and falchions, and axes, and spears, with pennons fluttering aloft here and there in the breeze of the combat.[Pg 376] We almost fancy we can see the dust caused by the prancing horses, and hear the clash of weapons and the hoarse war-cries, and sometimes can almost hear the shriek which bursts from the maddened horse, or the groan of the man who is wounded and helpless under the trampling hoofs. - A Squire
Squires are unarmed, and mature men of rather heavy type, different from the gay and gallant youths whom we are apt to picture to ourselves as the squires of the days of chivalry attendant on noble knights adventurous. - A Tournament
A Tournament - A tumbling Ape
A tumbling Ape - Adam the Cellarer
The Cellarer was in fact the steward of the house; his modern representative is the bursar of a college. He had the care of everything relating to the provision of the food and vessels of the convent. He was exempt from the observance of some of the services in church; he had the use of horses and servants for the fulfilment of his duties, and sometimes he appears to have had separate apartments. The cellarer, as we have said, wore no distinctive dress or badge; but in the Catalogus Benefactorum of St. Alban’s there occurs a portrait of one “Adam Cellarius,” who for his distinguished merit had been buried among the abbots in the chapter-house, and had his name and effigy recorded in the Catalogus; he is holding two keys in one hand and a purse in the other, the symbols of his office; and in his quaint features—so different from those of the dignified abbot whom we have given from the same book—the limner seems to have given us the type of a business-like and not ungenial cellarer. - Alan Middleton
Clerk in Orders is still the legal description of a clergyman; and men whose occupation is to use the pen are still called clerks, as lawyers’ clerks, merchants’ clerks, &c. Clerks were often employed in secular occupations; for example, Alan Middleton, who was employed by the convent of St. Alban’s to collect their rents, and who is represented in the picture from their “Catalogus Benefactorum” (Nero D. vii., British Museum), is tonsured, and therefore was a clerk. - Alehouse
- Amputation below the knee
This is the first picture of an amputation known From Gerssdorff’s woodcut, reproduced in Gurlt’s “Geschichte der Chirurgie” - An Angel Minstrel
In the MSS. we not unfrequently find the ordinary musical instruments placed in the hands of the angels - An Inn
In the picture in the French National Library, the beds are arranged at the side of the apartment in separate berths, like those of a ship’s cabin, or like the box beds of the Highlands of Scotland. It is necessary, perhaps, to explain that the artist has imagined one side of the room removed, so as to introduce into his illustration both the mounted traveller outside and the interior of the inn. - Ancient sport
The Greeks had a pastime called Hippas, which, we are told, was one person riding upon the shoulders of another, as upon a horse; a sport of this kind was in practice with us at the commencement of the fourteenth century, but generally performed by two competitors who struggled one with the other, and he who pulled his opponent from the shoulders of his carrier was the victor. - Ancient sport
The Greeks had a pastime called Hippas, which, we are told, was one person riding upon the shoulders of another, as upon a horse; a sport of this kind was in practice with us at the commencement of the fourteenth century, but generally performed by two competitors who struggled one with the other, and he who pulled his opponent from the shoulders of his carrier was the victor. - Ancient Wrestling
The manner in which this pastime was exhibited in the western parts of England, at the distance of two centuries, is thus described by Carew, an author then living. "The beholders then cast, or form themselves into a ring, in the empty space whereof the two champions step forth, stripped into their dublets and hosen, and untrussed, that they may so the better command the use of their lymmes; and first shaking hands, in token of friendship, they fall presently to the effect of anger; for each striveth how to take hold of the other with his best advantage, and to bear his adverse party downe; wherein, whosoever overthroweth his mate, in such sort, as that either his backe, or the one shoulder, and contrary heele do touch the ground, is accounted to give the fall. If he be only endangered, and makes a narrow escape, it is called a foyle." - Ancient Wrestling
Other rewards, no doubt, were sometimes proposed, as we may see upon the engraving below, where two men are wrestling for a cock: the original drawing, from a manuscript in the Royal Library, is certainly more ancient than the time of Chaucer. - Anglo-Saxon Dance.—VIII. Century
This engraving represents two persons dancing to the music of the horn and the trumpet, and it does not appear to be a common dance in which they are engaged; on the contrary, their attitudes are such as must have rendered it very difficult to perform - Anglo-Saxon Gleeman—X. Century
We here see a man throwing three balls and three knives alternately into the air, and catching them one by one as they fall, but returning them again in a regular rotation. To give the greater appearance of difficulty to this feat, it is accompanied with the music of an instrument resembling the modern violin. - Anglo-Saxon Gleemen's Bear Dance.—X. Century
One part of the gleeman's profession, as early as the tenth century, was, teaching animals to dance, to tumble, and to put themselves into variety of attitudes, at the command of their masters. This engraving is the copy of a curious though rude delineation, being little more than an outline, which exhibits a specimen of this pastime. The principal joculator appears in the front, holding a knotted switch in one hand, and a line attached to a bear in the other; the animal is lying down in obedience to his command; and behind them are two more figures, the one playing upon two flutes or flageolets, and elevating his left leg while he stands upon his right, supported by a staff that passes under his armpit; the other dancing, in an attitude exceedingly ludicrous. This performance takes place upon an eminence resembling a stage made with earth; and in the original a vast concourse are standing round it in a semicircle as spectators of the sport, but they are so exceedingly ill drawn, and withal so indistinct, that I did not think it worth the pains to copy them. The dancing, if I may so call it, of the flute player, is repeated twice in the same manuscript. - Anglo-saxon harp
The Anglo-saxons frequently accompanied their vocal effusions with a harp, more or less triangular in shape,—an instrument which may be considered rather as constituting the transition of the lyre into the harp. The representation of king David playing the harp is from an Anglo-saxon manuscript of the beginning of the eleventh century, in the British museum. The harp was especially popular in central and northern Europe, and was the favourite instrument of the German and Celtic bards and of the Scandinavian skalds. - Anglo-Saxon Harper and Hoppestere.—X. Century
Here we see a youth playing upon a harp with only four strings, and apparently singing at the same time, while an elderly man is performing the part of a buffoon or posture master, holding up one of his legs, and hopping upon the other to the music. - Anglo-Saxons Feasting and Health-Drinking
- Arquebusier
Picture represents very clearly the half-armour worn by the Arquebusier and the weapon from which they took their name. - Balloon-Ball.—XIV. Century
The balloon-ball, was a large ball made of double leather, which being filled with wind by means of a ventil, says Commenius, was driven to and fro by the strength of men's arms; and for this purpose every one of the players had a round hollow bracer of wood to cover the hand and lower part of the arm, with which he struck the ball. This pastime was usually practised in the open fields, and is much commended for the healthiness of the exercise it afforded. The balloon-ball seems certainly to have originated from the hand-ball, and was, I apprehend, first played in England without the assistance of the bracer; this supposition will be perfectly established if it be granted, and I see no reason why it should not, that the four figures represented below are engaged in the balloon-ball play: the original delineation occurs in a manuscript of the fourteenth century in the Royal Library. - Battering-ram
In the cut we give a representation of the battering-ram It contains curious contrivances for throwing up scaling-ladders and affixing them to the battlements, from which the inventors of our fire-escapes may have borrowed suggestions; and others for bridging wide moats and rivers with light scaffolding, which could be handled and fixed as easily and quickly as the scaling-ladders. The drawing of the ram only indicates that the machine consists of a heavy square beam of timber, provided, probably, with a metal head, which is suspended by a rope from a tall frame, and worked by manual strength. The cut is especially interesting as an illustration of the style of armour of the latter part of the fifteenth century. It gives the back as well as the front of the figure, and also several varieties of helmet. - Bear and Monkey
A tutored bear and monkey performing - Benedictine Abbess and Nun
The Nuns of Fontevraud was another female order of Augustinians, of which little is known. It was founded at Fontevraud in France, and three houses of the order were established in England in the time of Henry II.; they had monks and nuns within the same enclosure, and all subject to the rule of an abbess. - Benedictine Monk
In the year 529 a.d., St. Benedict, an Italian of noble birth and great reputation, introduced into his new monastery on Monte Cassino—a hill between Rome and Naples—a new monastic rule. To the three vows of obedience, poverty, and chastity, which formed the foundation of most of the old rules, he added another, that of manual labour (for seven hours a day), not only for self-support, but also as a duty to God and man. - Bishop, Abbot, and Clerk
The woodcut represents the characteristic costume of three orders of religious with whom we have been concerned—a bishop, an abbot, and a clerk. - Boat Tilting
Here we may also add the boat justs, or tilting upon the water. The representation of a pastime of this kind is given, from a manuscript of the fourteenth century in the Royal Library. The conqueror at these justs was the champion who could dexterously turn aside the blow of his antagonist with his shield, and at the same time strike him with his lance in such a manner as to overthrow him into the river, himself remaining unmoved from his station; and perhaps not a little depended upon the skill of the rowers. When queen Elizabeth visited Sandwich in 1573, she was entertained with a tilting upon the water, "where certain wallounds that could well swym had prepared two boates, and in the middle of each boate was placed a borde, upon which borde there stood a man, and so they met together, with either of them a staff and a shield of wood; and one of them did overthrowe another, at which the queene had good sport." - Bookcases in the library of the University of Leiden
Another device for combining desk with shelf is to be seen at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, and, as these cases were set up after 1626, we have here a curious instance of a deliberate return to ancient forms. There is evidence that there once existed below the shelf a second desk, which could be drawn in and out as required, so that a reader could stand or sit as he pleased, as you will see from the next illustration. The University of Leiden in Holland adopted a modification of this design, for there the shelf is above the desk, and readers could only stand to use the books - Bowmen and Arbalesters
The man on the right of the cut wears a visored helmet, but it has no amail; his body is protected by a skirt of mail, which appears at the shoulders and hips, and at the openings of his blue surcoat; the legs are in brown hose, and the feet in brown shoes. The centre figure has a helmet and camail, sleeves of mail, and iron breastplate of overlapping plates; the upper plate and the skirt are of red spotted with gold; his hose and shoes are of dark grey. The third man has a helmet with camail, and the body protected by mail, which shows under the arm, but he has also shoulder-pieces and elbow-pieces of plate; his surcoat is yellow, and his hose red. The artist has here admirably illustrated the use of the crossbow. In one case we see the archer stringing it by help of a little winch; in the next he is taking a bolt out of the quiver at his side with which to load his weapon; in the third we have the attitude in which it was discharged. - Bringing up a youth in the middle ages
The manner of bringing up a youth of good family in the Middle Ages was not to send him to a public school and the university, nor to keep him at home under a private tutor, but to put him into the household of some nobleman or knight of reputation to be trained up in the principles and practices of chivalry. First, as a page, he attended on the ladies of the household, and imbibed the first principles of that high-bred courtesy and transcendental devotion to the sex which are characteristic of the knight. From the chaplain of the castle he gained such knowledge of book-learning as he was destined to acquire—which was probably more extensive than is popularly supposed. - Brunschwig’s surgical armamentarium
From Gurlt’s “Geschichte der Chirurgie” Hans von Gerssdorff and Hieronymus Brunschwig, who flourished in the latter half of the fifteenth century in Germany, have both left early printed treatises on Surgery which give excellent woodcuts showing pictures of instruments, operations, and costumes, at the end of the medieval period. - Cabriolet of the Fourteenth Century
The illustration may represent to us the merry Sir Dinadan driving to the tournament of the Castle of Maidens - Cakes and Ale.
- Cannon
Those more terrible engines of war which ultimately revolutionised the whole art of warfare, which made the knight’s armour useless, and the trebuchet and arbalest the huge toys of an unscientific age, were already introduced; though they were yet themselves so immature, that for a time military men disputed whether the old long bow or the new fire-arm was the better weapon, and the trebuchet still held its place beside the cannon. - Cannon and Mortar
Cannon and Mortar - Carillon, Netherlands
The idea of forming of a number of bells a musical instrument such as the carillon is said by some to have suggested itself first to the English and Dutch; but what we have seen in Asiatic countries sufficiently refutes this. Moreover, not only the Romans employed variously arranged and attuned bells, but also among the Etruscan antiquities an instrument has been discovered which is constructed of a number of bronze vessels placed in a row on a metal rod. Numerous bells, varying in size and tone, have also been found in Etruscan tombs. Among the later contrivances of this kind in European countries the sets of bells suspended in a wooden frame, which we find in mediæval illuminations, deserve notice. In the British museum is a manuscript of the fourteenth century in which king David is depicted holding in each hand a hammer with which he strikes upon bells of different dimensions, suspended on a wooden stand. - Chaining of Books
The system of chaining, as adopted in this country, would allow of the books being readily taken down from the shelves, and laid on the desk for reading. One end of the chain was attached to the middle of the upper edge of the right-hand board; the other to a ring which played on a bar set in front of the shelf on which the book stood. The fore-edge of the books, not the back, was turned forwards. A swivel, usually in the middle of the chain, prevented tangling. The chains varied in length according to the distance of the shelf from the desk. The bar was kept in place by a rather elaborate system of iron-work attached to the end of the bookcase, and secured by a lock which often required two keys—that is, the presence of two officials—to open it. To illustrate this I will shew you a sketch of one of the bookcases in Hereford Cathedral. - Charlemagne
Portrait of Charlemagne, whom the Song of Roland names the King with the Grizzly Beard.--Fac-simile of an Engraving of the End of the Sixteenth Century. Charlemagne was the first who recognised that social union, so admirable an example of which was furnished by Roman organization, and who was able, with the very elements of confusion and disorder to which he succeeded, to unite, direct, and consolidate diverging and opposite forces, to establish and regulate public administrations, to found and build towns, and to form and reconstruct almost a new world. We hear of him assigning to each his place, creating for all a common interest, making of a crowd of small and scattered peoples a great and powerful nation; in a word, rekindling the beacon of ancient civilisation. When he died, after a most active and glorious reign of forty-five years, he left an immense empire in the most perfect state of peace - Citole
A small psalterium with strings placed over a sound-board was apparently the prototype of the citole; a kind of dulcimer which was played with the fingers. The names were not only often vaguely applied by the mediæval writers but they changed also 89in almost every century. The psalterium, or psalterion (Italian salterio, English psaltery), of the fourteenth century and later had the trapezium shape of the dulcimer. - Club-Ball.—XIII. Century
The next specimen of ball, taken from a drawing more ancient than the former, a genealogical roll of the kings of England to the time of Henry III. in the Royal Library, presents two players only, and he who is possessed of the bat holds the ball also, which he either threw into the air and struck with his bat as it descended, or cast forcibly upon the ground, and beat it away when it rebounded; the attention of his antagonist to catch the ball need not be remarked, it does not appear in either of these instances how the game was determined. - Club-Ball.—XIV. Century
Club-ball is a pastime clearly distinguished from cambuc or goff, in the edict above mentioned established by Edward III. The difference seems to have consisted in the one being played with a curved bat and the other with a straight one. The illustration , from a MS. in the Bodleian Library, dated 1344, exhibits a female figure in the action of throwing the ball to a man who elevates his bat to strike it. Behind the woman at a little distance appear in the original delineation several other figures of both sexes, waiting attentively to catch or stop the ball when returned by the batsman: these figures have been damaged, and are very indistinct in many parts, for which reason I did not think it proper to insert them. - Costume of Slaves or Serfs, from the Sixth to the Twelfth Centuries
Costumes of Slaves or Serfs, from the Sixth to the Twelfth Centuries, collected by H. de Vielcastel, from original Documents in the great Libraries of Europe. - Costume of the Franks in the Eighth Century
Costume of the Franks in the Eighth Century