Читать книгу Life on a Mediaeval Barony - William Stearns Davis - Страница 15

Table of Contents

[14] Such a law was actually enacted for the entire kingdom of France in 1256.

[15] A mediæval manuscript contains a vivid picture of two gamesters, one of whom had only a shirt left; the other had been reduced to sheer nakedness. Their companions had evidently stripped them almost completely, leaving them to compete for one garment!

[16] We hear scandalous stories of bishops and abbots who did not think it unfit to take their hawks to church. It is alleged that they would strap their precious charges to the altar rail while they were performing the holy offices.

[17] By the thirteenth century a material fraction of the better falcons seem, however, to have been hatched and bred in captivity, thus avoiding this perilous exercise.

[18] The story had it that he was converted to a religious life after meeting in the woods a stag bearing between his horns an image of the Saviour. St. Hubert's feast day was always faithfully celebrated by kings and nobles.

[19] The quotations are from the story of the boar hunt in the romance Garin le Lorrain, with Baron Conon substituted for Duke Begoy in the original.