Old England: A Pictorial Museum (page 41/50)

1315.—Weston Church.

An English village church, with an unusually short tower. Probably the building shown here dates from the fourteenth and fifteenth cenuries; it was extensively restored in the 1890s, some fifty or more years after this engraving was published, and looks a little different today. Or maybe I have not found the right place. Outside the church, in the [...] [more...] [$]

1372.—Caxton. With Paper Marks.

“The famous mercer, William Caxton (Fig. 1372), came back to England with those few,and simple, and rude implements which had cost him so much wealth, labour, time, and anxiety to obtain; and then, from the precincts of Westminster Abbey, speedily issued the art of printing. And certainly it is an extraordinary fact, that the power that wass to destroy [...] [more...] [$]

1373.—Wood-cut of a Knight. (From Caxton’s ‘Game of the Chess’)

A fifteenth-century woodcut of a knight riding a horse; he bears the Fleurs-de-Lys, the French badge. This is from an early printed book, made for a book printed at Westminster Abbey by William Caxton. [more...] [$]

1375.—Shooting at Butts

A “butt” is an old name for a target used for longbow archery practice; the place where people practice to fire arrows is called an archery butts. The targets were usually placed on mounds of earth. [more...] [$]

1376.—St. Albans Hawking Party

Falconry in the 15th century, with St. Albans Abbey in the background. [more...] [$]

1377.—Whitsun Morris-Dance.

Whitsunday, or Whitsun, is the seventh Sunday after Easter, and is a time for a holiday. The Morris-dance was originally a Moorish dance. These days it involves men with white socks (always a bad start) and bells on their wrists and ankles, and lots of beer. There are also Morris dances on May Day. [more...] [$]

Stratford Church.

Interior, seen from the door. [more...] [$]

1378.—Bowling Ball. (From a MS. in the Douce Collection.)

[After the end of the Wars of the Roses, in the fifteenth century] the green sward that had been trampled by unaccustomed feet is re-levelled for the bowls (Fig. 1378) (p. 384) [more...] [$]