124 SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC ECONOMY. 



comparative simplicity of the age made natural, and its poverty 

 perhaps necessary. This subordination still lingers in the 

 public schools, where the system of fagging is in genuine suc- 

 cession from the time in which page and esquire performed 

 domestic service to lady and knight. 



It has been observed that there were few books. It will be 

 seen from the index of prices in the second volume that the 

 money value of these articles was very high. There is an 

 ancient catalogue of the books belonging to Merton College, 

 copied by the late Mr. Botfield for a work which he meditated 

 on medieval libraries, in which the price of the books is given, 

 and there is a still more exact account preserved in New 

 College of all the volumes which the founder and his friends 

 presented to that society at the commencement of its aca- 

 demical existence. These observations must apply to larger 

 and more important works. Songs and tales were probably 

 copied freely and circulated, all things considered, pretty 

 widely. The value given to John Senek worth's two books of 

 romance is not very high. 



When the fellows of Merton wished to borrow books from 

 their library they applied to the warden for permission to use 

 the volumes. Each volume thus lent was entered on a slip 

 marked with an indenture, and it appears that the counterpart 

 of the entry was given to the person who borrowed the volume, 

 to be restored when the book was returned, and the entry was 

 cancelled, or the borrower declared quit. Several of these 

 indentures still exist. 



I do not pretend to give any account of the habits and 

 mode of life of our ancestors, beyond commenting on such 

 hints as are supplied by the original authorities which have 

 passed through my hands. Facts bearing upon these details 

 have been collected in great quantity, and as far as I can 

 judge, arranged with great fidelity and exactness by Mr. Wright. 

 Customs once general may linger still in remote rural districts, 

 and be traced to great antiquity, especially when, as for in- 

 stance in the case of harvest festivities, the endurance of the 



