follows: Boars, with heads entire, well cooked and very succulent,
48; fowls, 1900; partridges, mostly "put in paste," 500; swans, 41;
peacocks, 48; hares, 260; eggs, 24,000; 300 gallons of oysters; 300
rabbits, and more if possible; birds of various sorts, as many as
could be had; of whitings, "particularly good and heavy," and conger
eels the same; a hundred mullets, "fat and very heavy." For bread
the king paid £27 10s., at the price of four loaves to the penny.
When the king kept his Christmas at York in 1250, the royal treasury
must have been very full, for he ordered for the royal banquets 7000
fowls, 1750 partridges, besides immense numbers of boars, swans,
pheasants, &c. Of course the king had a very large retinue of
vassals and feudal lords to provide for; but the store seems
sufficiently vast to supply the wants of an army of faithful, but
hungry, subjects. Sometimes, when the king was short of money, there
was a considerable reduction in the amount of good things consumed
at Christmas.

Our ancestors were very careful to attend the services of the
church, which their loving hands had adorned with holly, bay,
rosemary, and laurel. They considered it a day of special
thanksgiving and rejoicing, as an old poet observed--

"At Christmas be merry and thankful with all,
And feast thy poor neighbours, the great and the small."

The solemn service of Holy Communion was celebrated on Christmas
Eve, in mediæval times--the only night in all the year when an
evening celebration was allowed. The halls of the knights and barons
of ancient days were thrown open to all comers, and open house was
kept for a fortnight. Rejoicing at Christmas time seems to have been