DIGITISED MANUSCRIPTS

ee) tis calling, and for which they were rebuked by their superiors. From the already remote period of the rule of the Danes in England the practice of drinking had been introduced into the country. In the year 965 an edict was issued by Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, directing each village should have only one alehouse ; that pins should be fastened into every drinking-cup at prescribed distances, and that who- ever should drink beyond those marks at one draught should be subjected to severe punishment. That the monks of the twelfth century are not entirely to be absolved from indulging too freely in the national beverage is proved by an edict which was issued at that time by the Abbot of Westminster, enjoining ‘that priests should not go to drinking bouts or drink to pegs.’ It is very doubtful whether the habits of the nobles of the day were restricted in a similar manner. Their education was confined to the early and constant use of arms. In the year 1164 Henry IT. sent an embassy to the Pope, consisting of an Archbishop, four Bishops, together with the Earl of Arundel and several others of the greatest Barons in the land. After the pre- lates had made their speeches, the Earl of Arundel rose, and prefaced his remarks by saying, ‘We who are illiterate laymen don’t understand a word of what the Bishops have said to your Holiness.’ In 1215, when King John subscribed the Magna