, and holiness, and that all men should by them live to the
glory of God, and at all times and for all meats give thanks unto Him,
of which meats none can defile Christian men or make them unclean at any
time, to whom all meats be lawful and pure, so that they be not used in
disobedience or vice; yet forasmuch as divers of the King's subjects
turning their knowledge therein to satisfy their sensuality, when they
should thereby increase in virtue, have in late time more than in times
past, broken and contemned such abstinence which hath been used in the
Realm upon the Fridays _and Saturdays_, the Embering days, and other
days commonly called Vigils, and in the time commonly called Lent and
other accustomed times: the King's Majesty, considering that due and
godly abstinence is a means to virtue, and to subdue men's bodies to
their soul and spirit, and considering also especially that Fishers, and
men using the trade of living by fishing in the sea, may thereby the
rather be set on work, and that by eating of fish much flesh shall be
saved and increased, and also for divers other considerations and
commodities of this realm, doth ordain 'that all statutes and
constitutions regarding fasting be repealed, but that all persons
neglecting to observe the ordinary fast days--Fridays, _Saturdays_,
Ember days, and Lent--be subject to a fine of ten shillings and ten
days' imprisonment for the first offence.'"

This measure, so inconsistent with the spirit of the age and so
contradictory in its terms, was re-enacted at various dates during the
reigns of Elizabeth and James I. It is perhaps the last "word" as
regards the Lady Fast, but the legislature by no means suspended its
vigilance in enforcing abstinence at the proper season. Discussion of
post-Reformation fasting, however, or fasting in general, forms no part
of our present undertaking.

ECCLESIASTICAL

CHAPTER IV

CHILDREN OF THE CHAPEL

The fact may not have escaped notice that Domina Alicia Seynt Johan de
Baggenet "took the vow of widowhood in the chapel of the Lord of
Amberley." Possession of a private chapel was, as it still is, a mark of
social distinction. "It was once the constitution of the English," runs
a law of King Athelstan, "that the people and their legal condition went
according to their merits; and then were the councillors of the nation
honoured each one according to his quality, the earl and the ceorl, the
thane and the underthane. If a ceorl