Furst set forth mustard and brawne of boore, the wild swine, Suche pottage as the cooke hath made of herbis, spice, and wine, Beef, mutton, stewed feysaund, swan with the chawdyn[40] Capoun, pigge, venisoun bake, leche lombard,[41] fritter, viant fine, And then a soteltie.[42] Maydon Marie that holy Virgin And Gabrielle greeting her with an ave. This is followed by two other courses rather lighter in character, though still including venison, peacocks, quails, &c., and then comes dessert: After this delicatis mo, Blanderelle or pepins with caraway in confite, Wayfurs to eat, hypocras[43] to drink with delite. The service in the wealthy mediæval manor was as elaborate as the cooking, at all events in the later period. The Bishop of Lincoln finds it necessary to warn the Countess of Lincoln not to permit slovenliness among her retainers. She is not to allow "old tabards, and soiled herigauts, and imitation short-hose." But even this widow lady is served with considerable pomp. "Command that your panter[44] with the bread and your butler[45] with the cup, come before you to the table foot by foot before grace and that three valets be assigned by the marshal each day to serve the high table and the two tables at the side with drink. And at each course call the servers to go to the kitchen, and they themselves to go always before your seneschal as far as you until the dishes be set before you, and see that all servants with meats go orderly and without noise to one part and another of the hall to those who shall be assigned to divide the meats, so that nothing be placed or served disorderly."[46] In the "Boke of Nurture," which refers of course to a much later period, the service is even more elaborate, and we gather indeed that the dinner was a social function at which all classes of the community met together. Even the poorest were not forgotten, as there was a special officer whose business it was to distribute alms of broken meats to the beggars waiting at the door. The rules of precedence were most elaborate, and the serving seems on special occasions to have risen almost to the rank of a solemn ritual. In addition, dinner was accompanied by music and sometimes enlivened at intervals by pageants and shows. Domestic service in these great households was very different from what it is to-day. There was, in the first place, no fixed line drawn as there is now between the menial and the non-menial classes of the community. The higher servants were often people of nearly the same social rank as those whom they served. Sir William de Mortimer was the head-steward of Bishop Swinfield, Sir Gilbert Brydges the steward of Gloucester Abbey.[47] Young men who entered the service of a lord might one day be called on to carve or serve wine, and the next day might sit at meat in the same room.[48]