122 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC ECONOMY. 



and expense. A portion of the charge was borne by the 

 parents of the young man, but the greater part, if the account 

 is complete, must have been defrayed by the corporation who 

 superintended the entertainment. Although the original is 

 preserved in Merton College, it seems to me that the feast 

 was managed by the University, since we find that liveries 

 were given to its officers, the proctors P and bedels. 



The charges of the feast are twofold : liveries and an enter- 

 tainment. These liveries were either of coloured cloth, or of 

 another kind called c stragulatus,' that is, of variegated pattern. 

 There were two qualities, the secta generosorum, and that 

 valettorum, the material for the suit of gentlefolk and servants. 

 The cloth was served out in various lengths, the breadth being 

 uniform, from nine, eight, and seven and a half yards to a 

 yard and a half. The garment was trimmed with fur, the 

 names of the material being various, as miniver, bugeye, 

 popul, and stanlingq. Some of the cloth is trimmed with 

 swansdown. 



The banquet appears to have lasted two days. The quantity 

 of beef and mutton consumed is not large, no wonder, for the 

 feast was held in the winter; but pork, lamb, and veal, are 

 abundantly supplied. Kid is also found, a rare article of food 

 with our ancestors. 



The poultry consumed in the feast is the largest and most 

 characteristic item. Fowls and capons, geese, ducks, swans, 

 and peacocks are purchased for the entertainment. Among 

 wild fowl, we find partridges, teal, wild ducks, gastrimargii, 

 (which I cannot identify,) snipes, plovers, owsels (that is, 

 blackbirds), thrushes, and fieldfares, and lastly, upupse, which 

 should mean hoopoes, though I can hardly imagine that these 

 birds could have been found in this country in winter time. 



P It is suggested, vol. ii. p. 641, that the chancellor at the time was Dr. Rugge, chiefly 

 because he is quoted in another document bearing a date near this. He may have been 

 John Wykham, who is however styled 'master' only. 



( i Miniver is a well-known fur. Stanling is perhaps squirrels' fur. I have been unable 

 to identify the other two kinds. 



