interior arrangements and furnishings
of the castle. But within these rooms, devoid of many of the ordinary
comforts of modern life and altogether lacking in its luxuries,
assembled women who prided themselves on their noble estate and
extraction; here, too, were held many assemblies of state; kings in
their progresses through their kingdom tarried for entertainment,
bringing with them magnificent retinues. Feasts and social functions
called forth all the highbred graces of the fair hostess and made the
castle a scene of merriment and of joyous conviviality. Here, too,
were held orgies of drunkenness and of depravity; intrigues smouldered
within these walls, to break out into an open flame of rebellion;
while dramas of noble self-abnegation and plightings of faithful love
were enacted there as well. Amid all these scenes moved the lady of
the castle.

A few of the typical views of castle life in which the women figured
conspicuously will serve to give a more particular setting to
the general idea of their status and employments. While men gave
themselves up to feats of arms, the women had the task of hospitably
entertaining the guests who frequented the castles; in the interim of
these festivities and the exacting care of a host of servants, they
applied themselves assiduously to needlework, and in no other way
does the woman of the times appear in so pleasant a light as when
thus engaged. Her facility in lace and embroidery work is not attested
alone by contemporary writers, but has come down to us in its finest
expression. The famous Bayeux tapestry, possibly the most ingenious
specimen of needlework that the world has known, calls up the most
interesting of the castle scenes as related to woman. It is the
expression of the artistic and historical sense of Matilda, the wife
of William I. In some such lady's bower as has been described, the
fair queen assembled the ladies of her court, and the Bayeux tapestry
was created amid the interchange of small talk, becoming more serious
as at times the figures of the pattern recalled some particular horror
of personal loss on the part of some of the ladies present, entailed
by the great battle whose glory was the central theme of their labors.
With womanly self-effacement, they had in mind only those whose deeds
were in this unique manner to be handed down to posterity, and had no
thought of the monument to womanly devotion that they were erecting
for the honor of the sex. Eve