LINEN. ; )4 y 



the lowest class of students, the servitors at Oxford and the 

 sizars at Cambridge, who received their education and their 

 commons in return for offices which were not at that time 

 considered humiliating, and were often performed by youths 

 who subsequently rose to high rank in the Church. Master 

 the owner of Votes Court studied or resided at Cambridge, and 

 had his sizar in attendance. Hearne in his Diary constantly 

 notes that this or that distinguished Academician had been a 

 servitor in his youth, as for example Mill, the first English 

 editor of a critical Greek Testament, and Potter, who rose to be 

 Archbishop of Canterbury. 



The cheapest kind of table linen was that supplied to the 

 ' children ' at Eton. It has a great many names, and is 

 frequently described as three-quarter cloth, I conclude from 

 the breadth of the material, three quarters of an ell or yard 

 wide, for it does not seem that as yet the modern distinction 

 of the ell and yard had been established, and proofs are 

 occasionally supplied, as under the year 1637, that ell and 

 yard were identical measures. It seems, from occasional 

 entries of a higher quantity of linen for the masters, conducts, 

 and fellows, and described as white, that the table linen of the 

 boys was generally unbleached. But the commonest and 

 coarsest kind of canvas is known as pickling, and appears to 

 be used for cleaning plate. 



The highest priced table linen which I have found is in 1605 

 and 1626. In the former of these years Corpus Christi College, 

 Oxford, bought a cloth for the communion table at 2os. a yard ; 

 and in 1626, New College in the same University purchased 

 at the same rate a table-cloth for Warden Pink. On both 

 these occasions the material is described as damask, and this 

 is generally high-priced. In 1613, King's College, Cambridge, 

 buys broad damask at icxr. a yard, * against the king's visit.' 

 In 1675, Master gives us. a yard for damask, which I conclude 

 to be linen, as it is entered with such products ; and twice, in 

 i'>iH and 1663, table linen is bought at 9^. In the former 

 case it is bought for the Master of S. John's College, in the 



