of September, half an hour being allowed
for breakfast, and an hour and a half for dinner and a siesta--an
indulgence countenanced from May to August. During the winter, the rule
was that work was to be carried on whilst there was daylight.

Mention has been made of holidays. These, though inevitable, were
evidently regarded as seasons of danger, since the favourite recreations
of labourers, if left to their own devices, were poaching and politics.
Against these twin evils the King's counsellors took precautions in an
act (13 Rich. II., st. I., c. 13), of which the preamble ran:

"Forasmuch as divers artificers, labourers, servants, and grooms,
keep greyhounds and other dogs, and on the holy days, when
Christian people be at church hearing Divine service, they go
a-hunting in parks, warrens, and coningries of lords and others to
the very great destruction of the same, and sometimes under such
colour they make their assemblies, conferences, and conspiracies
for to rise and disobey their allegiance, &c."

Hence none but laymen with 40_s._ and clerks with L10 were suffered to
keep dogs or use ferrets, nets, harepipes, cords, or other engines to
destroy deer. Instead of engaging in such perilous diversions, servants
and labourers were ordered to "have bows and arrows and to use the same
on Sundays and holy days, and leave all playing at tennis or football
and other games called quoits, dice, casting of the stone, kailes
(skittles) and other importune games." Swords and daggers were
prohibited "but in time of war for the defence of the realm of
England"--a wise measure when the country was infested with vagrants and
there were so many liveried retainers prompt to resent a real or
imaginary affront.

DOMESTIC

CHAPTER XIX

RETINUES

At the conclusion of the previous section allusion was made to retinues
as constituting a danger to the industrious members of the body politic.
In this, our final section, we turn, or rather return, from the life of
the fields to that of the hall. Some notice of the interior order of
great houses has appeared in earlier chapters--e.g., that on "Children
of the Chapel"--but such special reference, involving no more than the
religious side of domestic arrangements, leaves a sense of
incompleteness, and this void we must now proceed to fill.

Starting with the peril and annoyance involved in the maintenance of
retinues, the proposition may be easi