For men as well as for women strict laws were made, even if they were not strictly obeyed. Toward the end of the fourteenth century serving men in England were forbidden to wear cloth costing more than two marks, that is, sixteen ounces of silver, apiece. Men practicing any handicraft might wear cloth only and no jewelry; while if their wives ventured to wear any fur save that of lamb, coney, cat, and fox, they were in danger of getting into trouble. Squires whose income from land was two hundred marks a year were allowed to wear cloth of silver and a "reasonable" amount of silver ornamentation. A gentleman with the same income, but not a squire, was limited to cloth, and even a "reasonable" amount of jewelry was forbidden him. Even a knight with an annual income of £200 was forbidden to wear cloth of gold and the ermine and minever, or perhaps squirrel, that were sacred to royalty. Shoes were worn with pointed toes so long that they had to be fastened to the knees with slender chains of gold or silver. Laws were passed limiting the length of those toes to two inches; but sumptuary laws, as laws concerning dress are called, are rarely obeyed; and while the lawmakers continued to make them, the people moved on serenely and broke as many of them as their purses or their credit would permit. To the humbler folk it was a mark of rising in the world to dress themselves a little more richly than the law permitted; and as for the great folk, it would have been strange enough if these people so independent in other affairs had shown themselves meek and yielding in the matter of the clothes that they put on their own backs and paid for out of their own pockets. The wearers of the crown hardly set them an example of simplicity, for it is said that Richard II had a coat of cloth of gold decorated with precious stones which was worth thirty thousand marks. His nobles had no hesitation in following the lead of their lord, and it is claimed that one of them had two hundred and fifty "new sutes of apparell of cloth of gold or tissue." Such was the dress of the day, and the sombre old stone walls of the castles must have afforded a most excellent background for its display.

These brilliant costumes were not for everyday wear, however, for even in a fortified castle there were common days and a home life. The hall was the centre of this home life, the general living room, as has been said. Of course its size varied greatly according to the wealth and wishes of the master of the castle. One hall is described as being able to hold one thousand men. Others were small; but whether their dimensions were wide or narrow, the general character did not alter. For seats there were chairs and benches, and sometimes handsome cushions on the floor, and there was always a fireplace, for many generations in the centre of the room, wherein big round logs blazed and glowed. Even the best of fires in an open fireplace, however, are inclined to "burn the face and freeze the back," and the tapestry on the walls served a useful purpose in adding to the comfort of the hall. In the castles of wealthy nobles, these hangings were sometimes made of brocade or cloth of gold and silver brought from the East; but in the fifteenth very handsome tapestries were woven in Europe, especially in Flanders, in what is now called Belgium, and at Arras in northern France. Indeed, the Arras tapestry came into so common use that Shakespeare says "behind the arras," when he means behind the tapestry. Some tapestry was simple, but that which was made for kings and princes and cathedrals was often most elaborate. It pictured scenes from the Bible or from the lives of saints or from hunting and hawking or from some of the romances which were such a delight to the people of the Middle Ages.

Early in the morning the watchman of the castle sounded his horn from the battlements of the keep to say that the sun had risen and all was well. The day was short, for people in general did not sit up very long after the five o'clock supper. The dinner hour was from nine to eleven in the forenoon. In the hall were held the mighty feasts in which the noble appetites of the day so rejoiced. What would a modern caterer say to a bill of fare that began boldly with venison, a quarter of bear, and the shoulder of a wild boar, and worked its way valiantly onward through a course of roasted peacocks and swans, a second of poultry, and a third of waterfowl and small game to venison and pheasant pasties and pigeon pie? By the time that this was reached, the feast was fairly under way, and the guests were well prepared for such trifles as shad, salmon, mullet, and eel-pie, the last a special favorite. After this came pastry of all sorts and sweetmeats, then cloves, ginger, and other spices. These made people ravenously thirsty, and they were quite ready for the big cups of wine mixed with honey or spice that now appeared. The young pages of the castle attended upon the guests, but the heavier waiting was done by stalwart serving men.

A feast like this was only a simple repast compared with that served in 1403 at the marriage of Henry IV. There were only six courses, but a course included an amazing collection of eatables. The second course, for instance, comprised venison served with frumenty, a dish made of milk, sugar, and wheat; jelly; sucking pigs; rabbits; bitterns; stuffed hens; partridges; leach, that is, a mixture of cream, sugar, almonds, and isinglass; and boiled meat of some sort. The course ended, as did every course, with what was called a "sotelte," or subtlety. This was somewhat like what is known to-day as a "float," only on a very small scale. One that was served at this feast was an image of a pelican sitting on her nest with her young ones, and beside it Saint holding a book in her hand and disputing with the doctors. Another much more elaborate was made for the coronation of Henry VI. In this, the Child Jesus sits on his mother's knees. Saint George and Saint Denis kneel one on either side. King Henry bears in his hand a petition for the favor of the "Blessyd Lady, Cristes moder dere." These subtleties were made of sugar or pastry and added much to the interest of the feast. In general, however, the glory of a banquet consisted not in nicety of cooking and elegance of serving, but rather in providing unlimited quantities and countless varieties of food. The peacock and the swan were looked upon as the most luxurious dishes of the age. The peacock was carefully skinned, then roasted; but before he was brought to the table, his skin was fastened around him with skewers. An old recipe for serving the swan is as follows:—

Make a stiff bed of paste about the thickness of your thumb and color it green. Comb it out, and it will look like a meadow of green grass. Take your swan and gild him over with gold then have a kind of loose, flying cloak of a vermilion color within and painted with arms without; then set the swan upon this bed, cover some part of him with the cloak, stick about him small banners upon little sticks, the banners painted with the arms most agreeable to the people seated at the table.

As time passed, less meat and more vegetables were used. The bread was of various sorts. In England the best and finest was marked with the figure of Christ and was called "Our Lord's bread." There were at least two grades of bread below this, not counting the "wastel bread," a very coarse brown bread. Wine was much in evidence, but the everyday drinks were different varieties of ale or mead.

The dishes used at table varied as greatly as they do in the homes of to-day. The cups or goblets were handsome when the expense could be afforded. They were made of gold or silver and beautifully ornamented with precious stones. Often a feast was lighted by men ranged along the walls of the room, bearing flaming torches; and the jewels must have gleamed and flashed in the ever-changing glare. People ate from trenchers, or rude plates. At first, thick slices of stale bread were used; then trenchers were made of wood and were kept measurably clean by being scoured with ashes. People of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries were well content to eat two at a trencher. The phrase, "a valiant trencher man," was the literal description of a man with a good appetite—and appetites were good in those days. Even in the sixteenth century, Anne Boleyn, wife of Henry VIII, regretted that she could eat for breakfast only half a pound of bacon and drink only half a tankard of ale. She ascribed her loss of appetite to the late hours that she was keeping, "being scarcely in bed before ten," she lamented.

The serving dishes were made of wood, pewter, silver, or gold, according to the wealth of the master of the castle. Knives and spoons and fingers were used as weapons of table warfare. Forks were in use in Italy, but it was well into the seventeenth century or even later before they became at all common in the other countries of Europe. For a long while they were looked upon in monasteries as a foolish and sinful luxury. An Englishman who traveled in Italy in the early part of the seventeenth century was pleased with the custom, "seeing that all men's fingers are not alike clean," as he said pathetically, and he brought home one of these new implements for his own use; whereupon one, a merry friend of his, persisted in calling him the "furcifer," or fork-bearer. For folk who were not "fork-bearers," water and towels were passed around several times during a feast. The table linen was clean and plentiful; but the floor was covered with rushes, with bones and other refuse, and perhaps had not been swept for twenty years. A feast in a nobleman's castle was a grotesque medley of splendor and filth.