Interior View of St. Robert’s Chapel St. Robert’s Chapel, at Knaresborough, Yorkshire, is a very excellent example of a hermitage. It is hewn out of the rock, at the bottom of a cliff, in the corner of a sequestered dell.
A Town, from Barclay’s Shippe of Fools The accompanying cut from Barclay’s “Shippe of Fools,” gives a view in the interior of a mediæval town. The lower story of the houses is of stone, the upper stories of timber, projecting. The lower stories have only small, apparently unglazed windows, while the living rooms with their oriels and glazed lattices are in the first floor.
An Inn In the woodcut the side of the hostelry next to the spectator is supposed to be removed, so as to bring under view both the party of travellers approaching through the corn-fields, and the same travellers tucked into their truckle beds and fast asleep. The sign of the inn will be noticed projecting over the door, with a brush hung from it. Many houses displayed signs in the Middle Ages; the brush was the general sign of a house of public entertainment. On the bench in the common dormitory will be seen the staves and scrips of the travellers, who are pilgrims.
Reclusorium, or Anchorhold, at Rettenden, Essex In a reclusorium, or anchorhold, there was always a “cell” of a certain construction, to which all things else, parlours or chapels, apartments for servants and guests, yards and gardens, were accidental appendages.
Exterior View of St. Robert’s Chapel, Knaresborough St. Robert’s Chapel, at Knaresborough, Yorkshire, is a very excellent example of a hermitage. It is hewn out of the rock, at the bottom of a cliff, in the corner of a sequestered dell. The exterior, a view of which is given below, presents us with a simply arched doorway at the bottom of the rough cliff, with an arched window on the left, and a little square opening between, which looks like the little square window of a recluse. Internally we find the cell sculptured into the fashion of a little chapel, with a groined ceiling, the groining shafts and ribs well enough designed, but rather rudely executed.
A Knight Templar The order of the Knights of the Temple was founded at Jerusalem in 1118 a.d., during the interval between the first and second crusades, and in the reign of Baldwin I. Hugh de Payens, and eight other brave knights, in the presence of the king and his barons, and in the hands of the Patriarch, bound themselves into a fraternity which embraced the fundamental monastic vows of obedience, poverty, and chastity; and, in addition, as the special object of the fraternity, they undertook the task of escorting the companies of pilgrims from the coast up to Jerusalem, and thence on the usual tour to the Holy Places.
‘Diabolus ligatus’
‘St. Piran’
... caused to sytte down and in large wyse to gape
‘latten “Agnus Dei”’
‘Henry’s badge’
‘A wonderful sight’
‘He incontinently fled’
‘... with drawn swords stood in the doorway’
A young novice of the priory
‘... got his arms round a branch’
‘An impromptu entertainment by three minstrels’
A ‘herauld’
‘... compellyd them for to devour the same writte’
‘... playing innumerable pranks’
‘... cast her into a cauldron’
‘The tiger and the mirror’
‘... led through the middle of the city’
‘... called secretly at the chamber dore’
sat for its portrait to Matthew Paris
‘... gyrd abowte his bodye in iij places with towells and gyrdylls’
‘The young Edward III.’
Female Pilgrim We have hitherto spoken of male pilgrims; but it must be borne in mind that women of all ranks were frequently to be found on pilgrimage; and all that has been said of the costume and habits of the one sex applies equally to the other. Here is a cut of a female pilgrim with scrip, staff, and hat.
'... crossed to England’'
‘When a lion looks at you it becomes a leopard’
‘... failed to identify the geese’
... sware ‘gret othes’ and took himself by the hair
Pilgrims
‘The broken bough fell on the head of a man standing down below’
‘... constructed a pantomime dragon on the pattern of the real article’
Sir Launcelot and a Hermit Sir Launcelot and a Hermit
Henry VIII's Army Henry VIII's Army
‘... ducking him in a horse-pond’
‘... fully armed with swords and bucklers’
‘... showed him his injuries’
Robert Berewold in the pillory
The unfortunate “fowle” was “hurten so sore”’
A miracle of Remigius 2
A Market Scene Our illustration represents a market scene, the women sitting on their low stools, with their baskets of goods displayed on the ground before them. The female on the left seems to be filling up her time by knitting; the woman on the right is paying her market dues to the collector, who is habited as a clerk. The background appears to represent a warehouse, where transactions of a larger kind are going on.
A miracle of Remigius
The Canterbury Pilgrims The woodcut from a MS. of Lydgate’s “Storie of Thebes”, gives a general view of a town. The travelers in the foreground are a group of Canterbury pilgrims.
An Inn In the picture in the French National Library, the beds are arranged at the side of the apartment in separate berths, like those of a ship’s cabin, or like the box beds of the Highlands of Scotland. It is necessary, perhaps, to explain that the artist has imagined one side of the room removed, so as to introduce into his illustration both the mounted traveller outside and the interior of the inn.
A Fourteenth Century House A Fourteenth Century House
A Knight Hospitaller The Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, or the Knights Hospitallers, originally were not a military order; they were founded about 1092 by the merchants of Amalfi, in Italy, for the purpose of affording hospitality to pilgrims in the Holy Land. Their chief house, which was called the Hospital, was situated at Jerusalem, over against the Church of the Holy Sepulchre; and they had independent hospitals in other places in the Holy Land, which were frequented by the pilgrims. Their kindness to the sick and wounded soldiers of the first crusade made them popular, and several of the crusading princes endowed them with estates; while many of the crusaders, instead of returning home, laid down their arms, and joined the brotherhood of the Hospital. During this period of their history their habit was a plain black robe, with a linen cross upon the left breast.
... thrust a leaden bodkin into the head of that image
Sir Percival at the Reclusorium The reclusorium, or anchorhold, seems sometimes to have been, like the hermitage, a house of timber or stone, or a grotto in a solitary place. In Sir T. Mallory’s “Prince Arthur” we are introduced to one of these, which afforded all the appliances for lodging and entertaining even male guests.
Bringing up a youth in the middle ages The manner of bringing up a youth of good family in the Middle Ages was not to send him to a public school and the university, nor to keep him at home under a private tutor, but to put him into the household of some nobleman or knight of reputation to be trained up in the principles and practices of chivalry. First, as a page, he attended on the ladies of the household, and imbibed the first principles of that high-bred courtesy and transcendental devotion to the sex which are characteristic of the knight. From the chaplain of the castle he gained such knowledge of book-learning as he was destined to acquire—which was probably more extensive than is popularly supposed.
‘Hakeney’
‘Dymoke of Scrivelsby’
An Early Representation of the Whale Fishery It will be seen that the whale has been killed, and the successful adventurers are “cutting out” the blubber very much after the modern fashion.
A Knight-Errant A knight was known to be a knight-errant by his riding through the peaceful country in full armour, with a single squire at his back, as surely as a man is now recognised as a fox-hunter who is seen riding easily along the strip of green sward by the roadside in a pink coat and velvet cap.
Playing at Jousting The woodcut shows us a group of pages imbibing chivalrous usages even in their childish sports, for they are “playing at jousting.” It is easy to see the nature of the toy. A slip of wood forms the foundation, and represents the lists; the two wooden knights are movable on their horses by a pin through the hips and saddle; when pushed together in mimic joust, either the spears miss, and the course must be run again, or each strikes the other’s breast, and one or other gives way at the shock, and is forced back upon his horse’s back, and is vanquished.
Baptism of Clovis
View of Jerusalem View of Jerusalem
Courtyard of a House The cut, from a MS. in the French National Library, gives the interior of the courtyard of a great house. We notice the portion of one of the towers on the left, the draw-well, the external stair to the principal rooms on the first floor, the covered unglazed gallery which formed the mode of communication from the different apartments of the first floor, and the dormer windows.