The continental usages were, in many places, similar to our own; but, as before intimated, they will be but slightly noticed. Charles the Fifth, of France, for instance, in 1377, held the feast of Christmas, or Noël as it was called, at Cambray, “et là, fist ses sérimonies impériaulx, selon l’usage,” referring evidently to old customs; he also presented gold, incense, and myrrh, in three gilt cups. Not many years afterwards, the duke of Burgundy gave New Year’s Gifts of greater value than any one, and especially to all the nobles and knights of his household, to the value of 15,000 golden florins; but there was probably as much policy in this, as any real regard for the sacred festival. Richard the Second was young when he came to the throne, extravagant, fond of luxury and magnificence, and the vagaries of fashion in dress were then, and for a long time after, unequalled; his dress, was “all jewels, from jasey to his diamond boots.” It is to be expected, therefore, that his Christmasses were kept in splendour, regardless of expense; and this appears to have been the case even to the close of his short and unfortunate reign; as, in 1399, there was a royal Christmas at Westminster, with justings and running at the tilt throughout, and from twenty-six to twenty-eight oxen, with three hundred sheep, and fowls without number, were consumed every day. In the previous Christmas, at Lichfield where the Pope’s nuncio and several foreign gentlemen were present, there were spent two hundred tuns of wine, and two thousand oxen, with their appurtenances. It is to be assumed that the pudding was in proportion to the beef; so these, in point of feasting, must have been royal Christmasses indeed. In the midst of all this grandeur, there was a want of cleanliness and comfort in the rush-strewn floors and imperfectly furnished rooms and tables, that would have been very evident to a modern guest; and the manners at table, even in good society, would rather shock our present fastidious habits. Chaucer, not long previously, in describing the prioresse, who appears to have been a well-bred and educated person for the time, proves the usual slovenliness of the domestic habits, by showing what she avoided— “At mete was she wel ytaughte withalle; She lette no morsel from hire lippes falle, Ne wette hire fingres in hire sauce depe. Wel coude she carie a morsel, and wel kepe, Thatte no drope ne felle upon hire brest. In curtesie was sette ful moche hire lest. Hire over lippe wiped she so clene, That in hire cuppe was no ferthing sene, Of grese, whan she dronken hadde hire draught.” or, according to the Roman de la Rose, from whence Chaucer took this account,— “Et si doit si sagement boyre, Que sur soy n’en espande goutte.”