The gallows and the wheel were instruments of execution of such common use in the middle ages that they were continually before people’s eyes. Every town, every abbey, and almost every large manorial lord, had the right of hanging, and a gallows or tree with a man hanging upon it was so frequent an object in the country that it seems to have been almost a natural ornament of a landscape, and it is thus introduced by no means uncommonly in mediæval manuscripts. The two examples given in our cut No. 233 are taken from the illuminations in the manuscript of the romance of the “Chevalereux comte d’Artois,” in the manuscript from which this romance was printed by M. Barrois. [Illustration: _No. 233. Mediæval Ornaments of the Landscape._] CHAPTER XVI. OLD ENGLISH COOKERY.--HISTORY OF “GOURMANDISE.”--ENGLISH COOKERY OF THE FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH CENTURIES.--BILLS OF FARE.--GREAT FEASTS. I have spoken of the ceremonious forms of the service of the mediæval table, but we are just now arrived at the period when we begin to have full information on the composition of the culinary dishes in which our ancestors indulged, and it will perhaps be well to give a brief summary of that information as illustrative both of the period we have now been considering, and of that which follows. There is a part of the human frame, not very noble in itself, which, nevertheless, many people are said to worship, and which has even exercised at times a considerable influence over man’s destinies. Gastrolatry, indeed, is a worship which, at one time or other, has prevailed in different forms over all parts of the world--its history takes an extensive range, and is not altogether without interest. One of the first objects of search in a man who has just risen from savage life to civilization is rather naturally refinement in his food, and this desire more than keeps pace with the advance of general refinement, until cookery becomes one of the most important of social institutions. During all periods of which we read in history, great public acts, of whatever kind, even to the consecration of a church, have been accompanied with feasting; and the same rule holds good throughout all the different phases of our social relations. The materials for the history of eating are, indeed, abundant, and the field is extensive.