During so turbulent a period, it is not to be supposed that much attention should be paid to the interior regulation of the King's House or Household; it was probably as much distracted as the rest of the Kingdom. The King being obliged to fly about from place to place, as the exigency of affairs required, there was little time to study _State_ and _Magnificence_ in his _Court_. In the former part of Stephen's Reign his Court was extremely magnificent, exceeding that of his Predecessors. He held his Court at Easter, in the first year of his Reign, at London, which was the most splendid, in every respect, that had yet been seen in England[112]. One may judge a little of the hospitality of the Court in those days, by the manner of living among the Nobility: for at this time, and many ages after, the great halls of the castles or principal manor-houses of the Nobility and Gentry were crowded with vast numbers of their vassals and tenants, who were daily fed at their cost. And in houses of inferior rank, upon occasions of feasting, the floor was strewed with flowers, and the jovial company drank wine out of gilded horns, and sang songs when they became inebriated with their liquor[113]. This custom of strewing the floor, in those days, was a part of the luxury of the times; and _Becket_, when he was Chancellor, in the next Reign, according to a contemporary Author[114], ordered his hall to be strewed every day, in the winter with fresh straw or hay, and in summer with rushes, or green leaves, fresh gathered; and this reason is given for it, that such Knights as the benches could not contain might sit on the floor without dirtying their fine cloaths. But even this rustic simplicity was mixed with great magnificence in gold and silver plate[115]. This custom of strewing the rooms extended to the apartments of the Kings themselves in those days; for in the time of Edward I. "Willielmus filius Willielmi de Aylesbury tenet tres virgatas terræ ... per serjeantiam inveniendi _stramen_ ad straminandam cameram Domini Regis in _Hyeme_ et in _Æstate Herbam_ ad juncandam[116] cameram suam[117]." It may be observed, further, that there is a relique of this custom still subsisting; for at Coronations the ground is strewed with flowers by a person who is upon the establishment, called the _Herb-strewer_, with an annual salary. [112] Quâ nunquam fuerat splendidior _in Angliâ_ multitudine, magnitudine, auro, argento, gemmis, Vestibus, omnimodâ dapsilitate. Henry of Huntingdon, Lib. viii. [113] Lord Lyttelton, from John of Salisbury. [114] Fitzstephen. [115] Idem. Vide Lord Lyttelton's Life of Henry II. vol. iii. p. 483. [116] _Juncare_ is properly, to strew with rushes. [117] Blount's Jocular Tenures.