LIFE IN THE MIDDLE AGES 55 



society. Religion in the Middle Ages was a part of the 

 people's daily life, and its influence permeated even their 

 amusements. Miracles and mystery plays, played in the 

 churches and churchyards, were a common feature in village 

 life ; as were the church ales or parish meetings held four 

 or five times a year, where cakes and beer were purchased 

 from the churchwarden and consumed for the good of the 

 parish. Indeed, there can be no doubt that there was much 

 more sociability than to-day, in the country at least. Labour 

 was lightened by the co-operation of the common fields ; 

 common shepherds and herdsmen watched the sheep and 

 cattle of the different tenants, ' a common mill ground the 

 corn, a common oven baked the bread, a common smith 

 worked at a common forge.' His existence, moreover, was 

 enlivened by a considerable number of sports. A statute at 

 the end of the fourteenth century (12 Ric. II, c. 6) says he 

 was fond of playing at tennis (!), football, quoits, dice, casting 

 the stone, and other games, which this statute forbad him, 

 and enacted that he should use his bow and arrows on Sundays 

 and holidays instead of such idle sport. This is a foretaste 

 of the modern sentiment that seeks to wean him from watching 

 football matches and take to miniature rifle clubs. He was 

 also, like some of his successors, fond of poaching, though he 

 appears to have been rash enough to indulge in it by day. 

 13 Ric. II, c. 13, says he was prone on holidays, when good 

 Christian people be in church hearing divine service, to go 

 hunting with greyhounds and other dogs, in the parks and 

 warrens of the lord and of others, and sometimes these hunts 

 were turned into conferences and conspiracies, ' for to rise and 

 disobey their allegiance', such as preceded the Peasants' Revolt 

 of 1381 ; and accordingly no one who did not own lands worth 

 4os. a year was to keep a dog to hunt, or ferrets, or other 

 ' engines ' : the first game law on the English statute book. 



