348 PEOSE HALIBUTICS. 



sculptures and pictures ; and these necessary helps to 

 public devotion are also to be found on the enrichments 

 of architecture/ A grotesque figure^ with outstretched 

 arms, holding up the fish, and the wassail bowl, is shown 

 in one of the capitals in the crypt of Canterbury Cathe- 

 dral. So early as the middle of the fourteenth century 

 opsophagy was enjoined, in order that men should slay 

 their bodies with the cold fleme of fish-eating ;* and in 

 support of it, as the amusing author just cited further 

 instructs us, one Juan Ruez wrote a poem, ' which is 

 not without humour and sprightliness, in which the 

 beasts and the fish are arrayed in mortal combat, and 

 which ends in the total discomfiture of the former, the 

 figh and the holy^ause obtaining the victory, and Mrs. 

 Lent condemnijfig Mr. Carnal for his contumacy, to fast 

 (unless iu case of iUness) upon one spare meal of fish a 

 day.' Perhaps, however, in their origin, these compulsory 

 fish-meals were not so much based on religious motives as 

 on those suggested by political expediency ; it was even 

 thought by some, that the practice should be enforced, 

 as in accordance with a law of nature. As x)ld Tusser 

 sings, 



Tlie land doth, will, the sea doth wish, 

 Spare sometimes flesh, and feed on fish; 



and in compliance with some such notion, we find, after 

 the Reformation, the law enjoining it stiU. in force. The 

 sumptuary requirements of Edward VI. and Elizabeth 

 were just as stringent ia this matter as the Papal. The 

 statute 3 Edward III., c. 6, p. 19, professes to have these 

 three objects in view : 1st, the better observance of Fri- 

 days and Saturdays, and other times of accustomed ab- 

 stinence ; 2nd, that fishermen may thereby the rather 

 be set to work ; and 3rd, that by eating fish, much flesh 

 may be saved and increased. Burnet, in his ' History 



* Tyndal. 



