PREFACE. 



XI 



brine.^ Salt fm* salted meats,- which also were quite 

 familiar to them, might be got from the saltpans on 

 the sea shore. 



The dishes, on which their meats were served, were 

 sometimes of silver,^ nor was this esteemed a high 

 distinction.'^ The vessels from which they drank were 

 sometimes of glass f and those they had also transpa- 

 rent in quality.'^' The supply upon the tables of a chief- 

 tain, who had many retainers, was abundant, and not 

 over studious of luxury and refinement.' When not 

 engaged in war or hunting, the princes thought a good 

 deal of their gormandize.^ Festive assemblies were more 

 frequent than among other races of men ; they were 

 duly ordered, and attended by gleemen, from whose 

 lips the honeysweets of song flowed readily and freely, 

 and whose reward came from the munificence of the 

 prince. The feasts not rarely lasted through the 

 night.*' 



In the monastic colloquy, an exercise for students, 

 who were to be "bilingues," capable of conversing in 

 their own language and in that of Rome, which is, 

 therefore, quite destitute of artifice or ambition, a boy 

 is asked what he has to eat. His reply i^^, worts (that 

 is, kitchen herbs), fish, cheese, butter, beans, and flesh 

 meats. He drinks ale, and, if he cannot get that, water, 

 for he cannot afford wine. This is the daily diet of 

 a boy under education in a monastery. 



Altogether, if the comfortable prejudices of modernism 

 do not shut out trustworthy and contemporary testi- 



' CD. 451. 



- Lb. p. 234, etc. 



^ Discus argenteus regalibus 

 epulis refertus, Becla, III. vi. 



* Est videre apud illos argentese 

 vasa, legatis et pi'incipibus eorum 

 muneri datse, non in alia vilitate 

 quam qua; bumo finguntur. Tacitus, 

 Germ. 5. 



■' Calicem is translated slsej-yaer, 

 Beda, p. 618, line 12. 



« C.E. 78, ult. 



■ Epiilffi et, quanquam incompti, 

 largi tamen adparatus, Tacit. Germ. 

 14. 



* Dediti somno ciboque. Tacit. 

 Germ. 15. 



'■' Tacit. Germ. 22. 



