ring of sir Perceval of Galles (Thornton Romances, p. 71) at all less remarkable in its properties, of which the rhymer says-- _Siche a vertue es in the stane,_ _In alle this werlde wote I nane_ _Siche stone in a rynge;_ _A mane that had it in were_ (war) _One his body for to bere,_ _There scholde no dyntys_ (blows) _hym dere_ (injure), _Ne to dethe brynge_. The consideration of the house and its parts and furniture, and of the outward forms of domestic life, leads us naturally to that of the constitution of the family. It was the chief pride of the aristocratic class to live very extravagantly, and to support a great household, with an immense number of personal attendants of different classes. In the first place the old system of fostering, which was kept up to a comparatively late period, added to the number of the lord’s or knight’s family. As might was literally right in the middle ages, each man of worth sought to strengthen himself by the alliances which were formed by finding powerful foster-fathers for his sons, and the personal attachment and fidelity between the chief of the family and his foster-child was often greater even than that between the father and his own son. In addition to the foster children, gentlemen sent their sons to take an honourable kind of service in the families of men of higher rank or greater wealth, where the manners and accomplishments of gentlemen were to be learnt in greater perfection than at home; and the younger sons of great families sought similar service with a view to their advancement in the world. These two classes were the young squires, who served at table, and performed a great number of what we should now call menial offices to the lord and ladies of the household, in all the amusements and recreations of which they took part, and at the same time were instructed in gentlemanly manners and exercises--it was a sort of apprenticeship introductory to knighthood. In the same manner the knightly families sent their daughters to serve under the ladies of the greater or lesser feudal chieftains, and they formed that class who, in the French romances and fabliaux, are called the _chambrières_, or chamber attendants, and in the English texts, simply the _maidens_, of the establishment. The ladies of rank prided themselves upon having a very great number of these _chambrières_, or maidens, for they were not only a means of ostentation, but they were profitable, inasmuch as besides attending on the personal wants of their mistresses, they were constantly employed in spinning, weaving, and the various processes of producing cloth, in millinery and dress-making, in embroidery, and in a great number of similar labours, which were not only required for furnishing the large number of persons who depended upon their lord for their liveries, &c., but which were sometimes sold to obtain money, which was always a scarce thing in the country.