Concerning the position of women in Mediæval London. The ladies of the Palace and the Castle certainly managed to obtain as much pleasure out of life as their modern descendants. The young maidens, who were, in a way, apprentices of the _grande dame_, learned how a household was to be managed; they sat at the spinning-wheel; they carded wool; they heckled flax; they embroidered very beautifully. As for amusements, they had plenty, for they danced, they sang, and danced as they sang; they played games, of which they possessed and knew an immense number; they listened to the reading of romances and to minstrels; they either heard music or they played music; they went to mass every morning; they told stories and asked riddles; they played chess and draughts; they rode; they went hunting; they went hawking; and they kept pets—larks, magpies, falcons, jays, parrots, squirrels, cats. In the spring and summer they passed a great deal of time in the garden—the literature of the period is full of the garden. The ladies in the garden danced; they looked on at dancing; they played the mandoline and sang songs; the young knights sat with them and played and sang with them; they plucked the fruit; they played with their pets; they picked the flowers and made garlands—for themselves and the young gallants. The wife and daughters of a merchant had a garden, which they used in exactly the same way as the ladies of the Castle. A summer-house and a fountain were necessary accompaniments to every garden. “Amiddes the garden so moche delectable There was an herber fayre and quadrante, To paradyse right well comparable, Set all about with floures fragraunt: And in the myddle there was resplendyshaunte A dulcet spring and marvaylous fountaine Of golde and asure made all certaine.” The great ladies had their bevy of maids in attendance, who sat at the spinning-wheel and embroidered. They made all kinds of fine things for themselves; they had their hawks and hounds; they practised music; they understood how to distil certain things. In the City, the merchant’s wife had her servants who made things, but not so much as in the country because there were shops where one could buy. Many of them, however, were skilled in the properties of herbs; they understood midwifery—it is remarkable that in the whole of Riley’s _Memorials_ the midwife is never mentioned. Was every married woman, then, a practitioner among her friends? Or were there _sages femmes_? The amusements of the better sort in the City were, one imagines, principally the gossip and daily chat among friends, particularly after the morning mass. The women dined with their husbands in the Companies’ Halls; they held banquets in their own halls; they had dancers and mummers to amuse them; they had their children to bring up; and they paid great attention to their dress.