at least in part. In those times,
too, there were large fireplaces in almost every room, for fuel was
still plentiful in the Campagna and in the near mountains; and where the
houses were practically open to the air all day, fires were an absolute
necessity. Even in ancient times it is recorded that the Roman Senate,
amidst the derisive jests of the plebeians, once had to adjourn on
account of the extreme cold. People rose early in the Middle Age, dined
at noon, slept in the afternoon when the weather was warm, and supped,
as a rule, at 'one hour of the night,' that is to say an hour after 'Ave
Maria,' which was rung half an hour after sunset, and was the end of the
day of twenty-four hours. Noon was taken from the sun, but did not fall
at a regular hour of the clock, and never fell at twelve. In winter, for
instance, if the Ave Maria bell rang at half-past five of our modern
time, the noon of the following day fell at 'half-past eighteen o'clock'
by the mediaeval clocks. In summer, it might fall as early as three
quarters past fifteen; and this manner of reckoning time was common in
Rome thirty-five years ago, and is not wholly unpractised in some parts
of Italy still.

It was always an Italian habit, and a very healthy one, to get out of
doors immediately on rising, and to put off making anything like a
careful toilet till a much later hour. Breakfast, as we understand it,
is an unknown meal in Italy, even now. Most people drink a cup of black
coffee, standing; many eat a morsel of bread or biscuit with it and get
out of doors as soon as they can; but the greediness of an Anglo-Saxon
breakfast disgusts all Latins alike, and two set meals daily are thought
to be enough for anyone, as indeed they are. The hard-working Italian
hill peasant will sometimes toast himself a piece of corn bread before
going to work, and eat it with a few drops of olive oil; and in the
absence of tea or coffee, the people of the Middle Age often drank a
mouthful of wine on rising to 'move the blood,' as they said. But that
was all.

Every mediaeval palace had its chapel, which was sometimes an adjacent
church communicating with the house, and in many families it is even now
the custom to hear the short low Mass at a very early hour. But
probably nothing can give an adequate idea of the idleness of the Middle
Age, when the day was once begun. Before the Renascence, there was no
such thing as study, and there were hardly any pastimes except gam