The hospitality of the time must have been unbounded. Stowe gives a curious instance, taken from the accounts of the Earl of Lancaster’s steward for the year 1313. The items, which included 369 pipes of red wine, amounted to 7,309_l._, which is more than 20,000_l._ of our money, and, making the due allowance for the relative prices of food, would represent something like 100,000_l._ sterling. The terrible fate of Edward II. almost forbids harsh criticism of his life. He was certainly fond of the pleasures of the table, and is said to have given way to intemperance. Had not the banqueting-room been oftener employed than the council-chamber, opportunities might not have occurred for the rebellion of favourites, for which the festal board was answerable. FOOTNOTES: [67] Briscoe: _Book of Nottinghamshire Anecdote_. [68] _Piers Plowman_, fol. xxxii. _b_. [69] _Discipline of Drink_, p. 181. For the overwhelming proof of his allegations, see Dunlop’s _Artificial and Compulsory Drinking Usage_. [70] Cf. Brady: _Clavis Calendaria_, vol. i. p. 320. [71] _De Reb. Alb._, p. 116. [72] Fleetwood, _Chronicon Preciosum_, p. 75. [73] The details of the recluse life will be found in Bishop Poore’s _Ancren Riewle_, or more readily in Fosbroke’s _Monachism_. See also Cutt’s _Scenes and Characters of the Middle Ages_; Tomline and Rokewood, _Monastic and Social Life_; and S. P. Bay, _Monastic Institutions_. [74] More information can be derived from the roll of ‘Household expenses of the Bishop of Hereford,’ 1289-1290. [75] See Ritson, _Metrical Romances_, vol. iii. [76] Fleetwood (_Chronicon Preciosum_, 1707) states that ‘by the rains in harvest the dearth was such that wheat came to 30_s._ and 40_s._ the quarter. And good ale was at the gallon (per _lagenam_, from whence our _flagon_) 2_d._, the better sort 3_d._, the best 4_d._ So that a proclamation was fain to be issued out that a lagena of ale should be sold at 1_d._, and that no wheat should be malted (_imbrasiatum_).’ CHAPTER VIII. PLANTAGENET PERIOD (_continued_).--EDWARD III. TO RICHARD III. For a picture of the social life of the remainder of the fourteenth century, we turn of necessity to one who was the ornament of two of the most brilliant courts in the annals of England, viz. those of Edward III. and his successor, Richard II. We are for ever indebted to him for exquisite pictures of genuine English life and character in its infinite phases. And it may be here noticed, as bearing upon our subject, that this _Geoffrey Chaucer_ was the son of a wine merchant; that by circumstance and ability he won for himself the patronage of Edward III.; that he was made controller of the customs of wine and wool in the port of London, and had a pitcher of wine daily from the royal table. Towards the close of the century he is supposed to have retired to pass the calm evening of his active life at Woodstock, where he is said to have composed his immortal _Canterbury Tales_.