282 
MARllTAGE CEREMO^^ lES. 
charged with fiaxe^ and a spyndle hanging at it, to the intente slice 
might bee myndeful to lyve by hir labour.” 
Chaucer’s Miller of Trumpinlon is represented as wearing a Shef- 
field knife : — 
** A Shefeld thwitel bare he in his hose.” 
And it is observable that all the portraits of Chaucer give him a 
knife hanging at his breast. 
Among the women’s trinkets, A. d. 1560, in the four P’s of 
John Heywood, occur: — 
“ Silkers, swathbands, riband, and sleave laces. 
Girdles, knives, purses, and pin cases.” 
“An olde merchant had hanging at his girdle, a pouch, a spec- 
tacle-case a punniard, a pen and inckhorne, and a handkertchcr, 
with many other trinkets besides : which a merry companion seeing, 
said, it was a habberdashers shop of small wares 
Strewing Herbs, Flowers, or Rushes before the Bridegroom and Bride 
in their way to Church : as also the wearing Nosegays on the 
occasion. 
There was anciently a custom at marriages, of strewing berbs and 
flowers, as also rushes, from the house or houses where persons 
betrothed resided, to the church. 
Every one will call to mind the passage in Shakspeare to this 
purpose : — 
“ Our bridal flowers serve for a buried corse.” 
Armin’s “History of the Two Maids of Morelacke,” 4to. 1609, 
opens thus, preparatory to a wedding, “ Enter a maid strewing 
fioivers, and a serving man perfuming the door. The maid says, 
‘ Strew, strew ;’ — the man, ‘ The Muscadine stays for the bride at 
church.’ ” 
“ It is worthy of remark that something like the ancient custom of 
strewing the threshold of a new-married couple with flowers and 
greens, is, at this day, practised in Holland. Among the festoons 
and foliage, the laurel was always conspicuous : this denoted, no 
doubt, that the wedding-day is a day of triumph.” 
The bell-ringing, &c., used oii these occasions are thus introduced : 
“Lo! where the hamlet’s ivy’d gothic tow’r 
' ; .1 ! With merry peals salutes th’ auspicious hour, 
o - With sounds that thro’ the cheerful village bear 
The happy union of some wedded pair,” 
In Hasket’s “Marriage Present,” the author introduces among 
flowers used on the occasion, primroses, maiden s-blushes, and violets. 
The strewing herbs and flowers on marriage occasions, as mentioned 
iii% note upon the old play of Ram Alley, to have been practised 
formerly, is still kept up in Kent and many other parts of England. 
With regard to nosegays, called by the vulgar in the north of Eng- 
Tahd^ ‘^Posies/’ Stephens has a remarkable passage in ,his character 
bf ^‘A^ plaine Country Bridegroom :” “ He shows,” says he, “ neere 
aifinity betwixt marriage and hanging: and to that purpose he 
