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extra curiam, or those employed in husbandry upon the farms and granges, were from seventy to a hundred and eight.

"If any antiquary should think fit to write a dissertation on the antiquity of nicknames in England, he may meet with ample materials in the Compotus of Bolton; for in this catalogue are found, Adam Blunder, Simon Paunche, Richard Drunken, Tom Noght (or good-for-nothing), Botch Collock, the cooper, and Whirle, the carter; the last I suppose, by an antiphrasis, from the slowness of his rotatory motion.

"The precise number of the garciones†, as they received no wages, it is impossible to discover; but it may be guessed at, from the expense of their clothing and the general consumption of provisions in the house. They wore the coarsest cloth; but the quantity purchased on their account was generally more than for the free servants. The prior alone must have had more than twenty, as their calciatura amounted to more than twenty shillings The cellarer had another class, emper annum.

• A small wooden vessel to draw water; a word still used in Lancashire.

+ From the French garçon.

ployed probably about the kitchen and hall; and even the conversi and armigeri had each a garcio to themselves.

"Among those of the prior are enumerated the huntsman and page of the stable. But the garciones in general were furnished with bows and arrows, undoubtedly for the use of the chase; and certainly assisted in netting for game and fish, the implements of which amusements are distinctly mentioned. In other respects, undoubtedly, they performed the lowest offices of drudgery about the house.

"On the whole, I cannot but persuade myself that the whole establishment at Bolton consisted of more than two hundred persons; an opinion which, with every reasonable allowance for hospitality to strangers, will be fortified by the following accurate statement of one year's provisions :-Wheat flour, used in conventual or gruel (coarse) bread, 319 quarters; barleymeal for the same, 112 quarters; oatmeal for pottage, 80 quarters; ditto for dogs, 39 quarters; provender for the horses, 411 quarters; oats malted for ale, 636 quarters; barley, or mixtilio (to be explained hereafter), 80 quarters. They generally brewed 12 quarters at each

Pandoxation, as it was termed, and that once every week, and sometimes oftener.

"Thus much for their bread, beer, and pottage. With respect to animal food, besides venison, fish, poultry, &c., they slaughtered in one year, 64 oxen, 35 cows, one steer, 140 sheep*, and 69 pigs. To lubricate this immense quantity of shambles-meat, and for every other domestic purpose, they consumed, in the year, only 113 stones of butter; and yet four quarters of fine flour were used in pies and pasties.

"Their spiceries, though expensive, were used with no sparing hand: ex gr. in one year, almonds, 200lb., 33s.; rice, 72lb., 9s.; pepper, 19lb., 21s. 7d.; saffron, 4lb., 238.; cummin, 25lb., 2s. 8d.; one quartern of maces; one race of figs and raisins, &c. &c.

"Most of these were bought for the great festival of the Assumption, which was celebrated as the foundation-day of the priory; and, for the same occasion, the canons purchased three salmons, 24

*"Mutton in the Compotus is always called caro mutilina. Mutilo, of which the derivation and reason are obvious, was a wether. The word was afterwards corrupted into multo, and hence the English mutton.”

lampreys de Naunt*, an esturgeon, 200 and a quarter of lamprons, and 300 eels.

“The reader has now pretty nearly the bill of fare for a festival-dinner at Bolton, almost five cen

turies ago.

"But the canons held that a good dinner required a certain proportion of wine; and accordingly I find, that in one year they paid for one dolium of wine at Hull, 50s.; for two dolia, 67.; for three dolia, 77. 10s.; for one dolium, 56s. 8d. The dolium was a tun of 252 gallons, and the average price about 3d. a gallon; so that the consumption of one year (at least the stock laid in) was nearly 1800 gallons, or at least 8000 bottles, at about the fortieth part of the present value.

"In these entertainments the ear was gratified as well as the palate; for I find, at every festival, the minstrels very liberally rewarded.

"The clothing or habits of the canons were fine

"These, I think, were the Petromyzon Marinus, as the lampron, still called by that name in Cumberland, was the Petr. Fluviatilis. The former were bought cum funatione, ready dressed and highly seasoned. In this state they were probably sent from Nantz. Epicurism is not peculiar to modern times. We learn from Dugdale, that the Neviles sent fish ready cooked from Warwick to Middleham."

cloth of 3s. a yard (much dearer than the finest broad cloth at present); the novices wore frizons; the servants and garciones were clothed in a manufacture of their own refuse wool; their doublets, trowsers, stockings, and even hoods, being of the same material.

"One practice of the canons was good-natured and accommodating: resorting annually to St. Botolph's fair (the great fair of Boston), they purchased articles of dress of a superior quality, such as could not be had at home, for the gentlemen, and even the ladies of Craven, which prove how expensively they were clothed. Half a piece of cloth, with fur, for the lady of Stiveton, 71s. 4.; one robe for Ralph de Otterburn, 198. 4d.; furs bought for sir Adam de Midelton, for two years wear, 19s.

66

Multiply 19s. 4d. by 15, and it will leave 147. 10s. as the price of a single suit for a country gentleman.

"It may also be observed, that ladies, at least of ordinary rank, wore woollen cloth, faced with fur, like the gowns of gentlemen, and probably not greatly differing from them in shape. In this they consulted their own comfort and the nature of the climate.

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