GENERAL DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH. 65 



with which game was preserved. But during half the year 

 salted meat and hard fish formed the subsistence of the greater 

 part of the community, and the relish of game was the higher, 

 from the fact that it formed so agreeable a contrast to the 

 customary diet of winter and spring. It may be doubted, 

 too, whether the smaller kinds of game were very abundant. 

 Partridges were plentiful enough, and were, it appears, gene- 

 rally captured by hawks, and occasionally in nets. Hares 

 may have existed, probably did, but I have never seen an 

 entry of them. Pheasants were, it seems, unknown. Rab- 

 bits were found in some localities, but they are very dear. 



The medieval feast was a scene of rude plenty ; the cookery 

 even were we to judge by the state of the art as suggested 

 in the contents of the c forme of cury,' a composition of the 

 date of Richard the Second was fanciful rather than skilful. 



Except on the score of abundance, the diet of the farmer 

 and peasant differed but little. It is easy to estimate what 

 it was only by noting the conveniences in which it was 

 deficient. 



The peasant's home was, we may believe, built of the 

 coarsest material, most frequently of wattles daubed with 

 mud or clay. Bricks never appear to be used. The 

 manor-house is generally built of stone, but the tenements 

 by which it was surrounded were of the meanest description. 

 We, whom the progress of mechanical skill and agricultural 

 science have made acquainted with a number of conveni- 

 ences, now regularly distributed, but utterly unknown to our 

 forefathers, cannot realise the privations of a medieval winter, 

 the joy of a medieval spring, and the glad thankfulness of an 

 abundant harvest. Familiar with cheap artificial light, we 

 cannot easily comprehend a state of things in which the 

 purchase of a pound of candles would have almost absorbed 

 a workman's daily wages. The offering of a candle at the 

 shrine of a saint was a natural' tribute, because it was a 

 choice personal enjoyment. Few persons could have afforded 

 to break the curfew. The lights of a medieval church, the 



F 



