Nooks and Corners of English Life, Past and Present

In large manors, it was the duty of the reeve to ascertain whether a tenant intended to do the service, or chose rather to pay for a substitute. The reeve had to deal with perso...

In his _Sylva_, Evelyn thus deplores the former devastation: "Methinks that I still hear, sure I am that I feel, the _dismal groans_ of our forests, when that late dreadful Hurr...

Travelling, in the Saxon times, was very different from what it is in the present day: coaches were not invented, and the only vehicles which went upon wheels were carts and wag...

It is curious to find chimneys constructed of so combustible a material as wood. In the _Liber Albus_ of the City of London, 1419, it is ordered by Wardmote "that no chimney be...

On the 10th of February, messengers arrive from the King of Navarre, to announce, as it appears elsewhere, his escape from captivity; an indication that Isabella was still busy...

In the valuable collection of pictures in Warwick Castle are a curious portrait of Queen Elizabeth, painted very early in her reign; portrait of Sir Philip Sydney, the intimate...

From Neckam we learn how great was the love for animals in the Middle Ages; how ready people, apparently of all classes, were to observe and note the peculiarities of animated n...

"But let us substitute distance of space for distance of time; and, instead of comparing situations of the same country at different periods, compare different countries at the...

In England, individual marks were in use from the fourteenth to the middle of the seventeenth centuries, probably much earlier; and when a yeoman affixed his mark to a deed, he...

Edward II., when he fell into the hands of his enemies, was, for a time, imprisoned here. In 1635, the castle and manor came into the possession of Sir John Bankes, Lord Chief J...

Few objects of antiquarian curiosity acquired more notoriety than a bedstead or bed, of unusually large dimensions, preserved at Ware, twenty miles from London, on the road to C...

The Roman castles in this country are numerous, and some of them still in very perfect condition, such as Burgh Castle and Richborough. More popularly known is Pevensey, once a...

Banbury Cheese, which Shakspeare mentions, is no longer made, but it was formerly so well known as to be referred to as a comparison. Bishop Williams, in 1664, describes the cli...

It is painful to reflect upon this prostration of a splendid intellect; and we are but slightly relieved by Lord Chesterfield's statement, in one of his Letters, published by Lo...

By way of relaxation to these serious duties, which, with the necessary supervision of the dressing and spinning of wool, hemp, and flax, must have kept the good dame pretty ful...

The leaders of those days deemed it a point of honour to fight hand to hand, if possible, and Oxford and Norfolk managed to engage in a personal encounter. After shivering their...

Although the charge of treason was for the present abandoned, Wolsey was indicted for a _præmunire_, the result of which was, to place him at the King's mercy as to all his good...

The Lady Elizabeth kept her state at Hatfield with no small cost and splendour. At a subsequent period, after her imprisonment at Woodstock, her Highness obtained permission to...

It has been frequently remarked that the general decay of local traditions, or the difficulty of obtaining particulars of events, or the sites of the most remembered passages of...

"Take a quart of cream, put thereto a pound of beef-suet minced small, put it into cream, and season it with nutmeg, cinnamon, and rose-water; put to it eight eggs and but four...

The Greek letters were used by the Druids for keeping the public or private records, the only matters which they reduced to writing. The Druid schools and seminaries were held i...

Hitherto, we have mostly spoken of palaces and mansions. It is, however, very difficult to discover any fragments of houses inhabited by the gentry, before the reign, at soonest...

It is maintained by some antiquaries that London is almost of Roman origin. In the "Conquest of Britain," by Claudius, A.D. 44, "the first care of the Romans was, to make good m...

Fosbroke remembered when no other but wooden dishes of this kind were used in farm-houses in Shropshire. The general form of the trencher was round; yet the _trencher-cap_ of ou...

Among the richest specimens extant of the embattled mansions are Wingfield Manor-house, in Derbyshire; Cowdray, in Sussex;[32] Kelmingham Hall, in Suffolk; Penshurst, in Kent; D...

About the year 1853, there was discovered in Aberdeenshire a Pict's house, in the parish of Tarland. It is a subterranean vault, nearly semicircular, and from five to six feet i...

Pictures of the Domestic Manners of our forefathers, at some of the most attractive periods of English History, form the staple of the present volume. These Pictures are supplem...

The late Mr. Rickman, the antiquary, was of opinion that Abury and Stonehenge cannot reasonably be carried back to a period antecedent to the Christian era. In an Essay communic...