After the Anglo-Saxon and Norman races became amalgamated, the lower classes were no better than their superiors. What the latter did in the hall, the former accomplished in the tavern, where the women are said to have spent much time idling and gossiping. The men, too, often wasted their whole substance in such haunts, drinking, and gambling with dice; and cases occurred in which one or other of the players gambled away his last garment, and was left in a state of complete nudity. The wealthy ecclesiastics lived in still greater luxury than the lay nobles and knights, for their revenues were protected by their sacred calling even in times of great commotion, and they never found it necessary to make a raid upon their neighbours’ cattle for a meal. Giraldus Cambrensis, or Gerald Barry, Archdeacon of Brecknock (1175-1200) describes a dinner with the Prior of Canterbury, where there were wines of various kinds, “piment, claret, mead, and others;” and at which, moreover, there was “licentious discourse.”[232] The same writer speaks of the Irish clergy, and after lauding their zealous preaching, fasting, and chastity, he concludes by saying that, “amongst so many thousands, you will not find one who, after all his rigorous observance of fasts and prayer, will not make up at night for the labours of the day, by drinking wine and other liquors beyond all bounds of decorum.”[233] The latter statement, indeed, seems incredible to the Catholic author who quotes it; but there need not be much hesitation in giving it credence, for it is completely confirmed by the other records of the period. These tell us that the monks ate and drank very intemperately, and that they selected the strongest wines; and one published bill of fare contains twenty-seven different dishes—fish, flesh, fowl, &c.—along with a variety of liquors.[234]