It would appear from various accounts that it was not, unless perhaps at an early period, the custom in France to sit long after dinner at table drinking wine, as it certainly was in England, where, no doubt, the practice was derived from the Anglo-Saxons. Numerous allusions might be pointed out, which show how much our Anglo-Saxon forefathers were addicted to this practice of sitting in their halls and drinking during the latter part of their day; and it was then that they listened to the minstrel’s song, told stories of their own feats and adventures, and made proof of their powers in hard drinking. From some of these allusions, which we have quoted in an earlier chapter, it is equally clear, that these drinking-bouts often ended in sanguinary, and not unfrequently in fatal, brawls. Such scenes of discord in the hall occur also in the early French metrical romances, but they take place usually at the beginning of dinner, when the guests are taking their places, or during the meal. In “Parise la Duchesse,” a scene of this description occurs, in which the great feudal barons and knights fight with the provisions which had been served at the tables: “There,” says the poet, “you might see them throw cheeses, and quartern-loaves, and great pieces of flesh, and great steel knives”-- _Là veissiez jeter fromages et cartiers,_ _Et granz pieces de char, et granz cotiauz d’acier_ --Roman de Parise, p. 173. In “Garin le Loherain” (vol. ii. p. 17), at a feast at which the emperor and his empress were present, a fight commences between the two great baronial parties who were their guests, by a chief of one party striking one of the other party with a goblet; the cooks are brought out of the kitchen to take part in it, with their pestles, ladles, and pot-hooks, led by duke Begon, who had seized a spit, full of birds, as the weapon which came first to hand; and the contest is not appeased until many are killed and wounded.