A statute of Charlemagne alludes to _bons barils_ (_bonos barridos_). These barrels were made by skilled coopers (Fig. 9), who gave all their care to form of staves, hooped either with wood or iron, the casks destined to hold the produce of the vintage. According to an old custom, still in vogue in the south of France, the inside of the wine-skin used to be painted with tar, in order to give a flavour to the wine; to us this would perhaps be nauseous, but at that time it was held in high favour. In alluding to wine-skins, or sewn skins coated with pitch, we may remark that they date from the earliest historic times. They are still employed in countries where wine is carried on pack-animals, and they were much used for journeys. If a traveller was going into a country where he expected to find nothing to drink, he would fasten a wine-skin on the crupper of his horse’s saddle, or, at least, would sling a small leather wine-skin across his shoulder. Etymologists even maintain that from the name of these light wine-skins, _outres légères_, was derived the old French word _bouteille_; that, first having been designated _bouchiaux_, and _boutiaux_, they finally were named _bouties_ and _boutilles_. When, in the thirteenth century, the Bishop of Amiens was setting out for the wars, the tanners of his episcopal town were bound to supply him with two leathern _bouchiaux_--one holding a hogshead, the other twenty-four _setiers_. [Illustration: Fig. 9.--A Cooper’s Workshop, drawn and engraved, in the Sixteenth Century, by J. Amman.] Some archæologists maintain that, when there had been a very abundant vintage, the wine was stored in brick-built cisterns, such as are still made in Normandy for cider; or that they were cut out of the solid rock, as we see them sometimes in the south of France; but it is more probable that these ancient cisterns, which are perhaps of an earlier date than the Middle Ages, were more especially intended for the process of fermentation--that is to say, for making wine, and not for storing it; which, indeed, under such unfavourable circumstances, would have been next to impossible. What light did our ancestors use? History tells us that at first they used lamps with stands, and hanging lamps, in imitation of the Romans; which, however, must not lead us to the conclusion that, even in the remotest times of our annals, the use of fat and wax for such purposes was absolutely unknown. This fact is the less doubtful because, from the time when trade corporations were formed, we find the makers of candles and wax-chandlers [Illustration: Figs. 10 and 11.--Hanging Lamps of the Ninth Century, from Miniatures in the Bible of Charles the Bald (Bibl. Imp. de Paris).]