Vlll PREFACE. 



will be glad to see drawn together into one the scat- 

 tered notices which occur most plentifully here, and 

 occasionally elsewhere, upon this matter. 



At his noon meat or dinner, at the Itova nona, or 

 ninth hour of the day,^ for the word noon has now 

 changed its sense, the Saxon spread his table duly 

 and suitably with a table cloth.^ He could place on 

 it for the entertainment of his family and household, 

 the flesh of neat cattle,*' now Normanized, as Sir Walter 

 Scott has made familiar to all, into beef, the flesh of 

 sheep,* now called mutton, of pig, of goat,*" of calf,^ of 

 deer, especially the noble hart,*^ of wild boar," the pea- 

 cock, swan, duck,' culver or pigeon,^ waterfowl, barn- 

 door fowl,'^ geese, '° and a great variety of wild fowl, 

 which the fowler caught with net, noose, birdlime, 

 birdcalls, hawks, and traps ;'^ salmon, eels, hake, pil- 

 chards, eelpouts,^- trout, lampreys, herrings, sturgeon, 

 oysters, crabs, periwinkles, plaice, lobsters, sprats,^^ 

 and so on.^* 



The cookery of these viands was not wholly contemp- 

 tible. It was entrusted to professors of that admired 

 art,^'^ who could, though their accomplishments have 

 been neglected by the annalists, put on the board 

 oyster patties, ^*^ and fowls stuffed with bread and such 

 worts as parsley.''^ Weaker stomachs could have light 



' Horn. II. 256. Also Seo vunne 

 aJjyjTjiobe.vpam mibbaej;^' o'iS non, 

 JI.II. 158 a, The mm was darkened 

 from midday tdl noon. Even here 

 our dictionaries blunder. 



- Beobcla'5, vE.G. 8,lincol. Myj'c 

 hjiBegel, I>ye. 



* Lb. II. vii., etc. 



' Coll. Monasticon, p. •!{). 



■- Lb. II. xvi. 



" Coll. Mon. p. ±1. 



■ Lb. IL xvi. 



"■■ Lb, II. XXX. 2. 



' DD. 504 ; Lb. II. xvi. 2, 



'" Lb. II. xvi. 2, 



" Coll. Mon. p. 25. 



'- Young eels (Kersey). 



'■' Sppoccas not in the dictionaries. 

 JJcsides two passages in which it 

 occurs, reserved for reasons which 

 readers of the Shrine will under- 

 stand, it occurs Coll. Mon. p. 23. 

 See French Celerin, Selerin ; the 

 MS. has Salin. 



' ' Coll. Mon. pp. 23, 24. 



'' Coll. Mon. p. 29. 



'" Lb. II. xxiii. 



"Lb. HLxii. 



