The Connection between Land and Trade. 265 



yearly in honour of the Virgin, began with a short service and 

 ended in a debauch which for the rest of the day converted 

 the sacred edifice, where they were held, into a howling pan- 

 demonium. As for the more secular festivity of the laity, the 

 profusion beggars description ; and the modern reader can only 

 conclude that all AVarwick's 30,000 retainers were present to 

 do justice to the feast in honour of his brother's induction to 

 the archbishopric of York. An undertaking of such heroic 

 proportions as this colossal meal prompts one to inquire not 

 only whether fatal consequences of gluttony were not infre- 

 quent, but whether occasionally a moiety of the guests did not 

 leave as empty as when they came, through the unavoidable 

 miscalculations of the purveyors ? And yet we never read of 

 either occurrence, and can only attribute to the system termed 

 " livery " their secret of successful management. 



In every great household there were half a dozen or more 

 separate departments, each presided over by a distinct official. 

 The specialist of the buttery, for example, kept his accounts 

 and furnished his supplies entirely irrespective of him who 

 supervised the napery ; and again, he who presided over the 

 chandlery was a wholly distinct personage from the chief 

 kitchen official. Every single inmate of the castle had his 

 fixed daily allowance from each department, whose exact pro- 

 portions had been furnished beforehand to each official ; a 

 process that enabled him to keep in store neither more nor less 

 than would be required. To each individual went up daily 

 from the buttery his due allowance, in trenchers of bread, 

 manchetts,^ and other buttery comestibles; and from the chand- 

 lery stores his daily proportion of wax and tallow candles. On 

 the proper week-day each inmate received his fresh linen from 

 the napery department, and at fixed times of the year his new 

 clothing from the tailor. There was no delay, no bad debts, 

 and no waste. No one could complain and no one could bo 

 defrauded. Everything was arranged according to strict rule. 

 There was the same foresight and discipline which now 

 manages the soldier's rations in the barrack -room. But 



^ The allowance included two kinds of bread, of wliicli the trenchers 

 were common and the manchetts fine flour. 



