In his more private hours of relaxation, the Norman knight amused himself with games of skill or hazard. Among these, the game of chess became now very popular, and many of the rudely carved chessmen of the twelfth century have been found in our island, chiefly in the north, where they appear to have been manufactured. They are usually made of the tusk of the walrus, the native ivory of Western Europe, which was known popularly as whale’s bone. The whalebone of the middle ages is always described as white, and it was a common object of comparison among the early English poets, who, when they would describe the delicate complexion of a lady, usually said that she was “white as whale’s bone.” These, as well as dice, which were now in common use, were also made of horn and bone, and the manufacture of such articles seems to have been a very extensive one. Even in the little town of Kirkcudbright, on the Scottish border, there was, in the middle of the twelfth century, a maker of combs, draughtsmen, chessmen, dice, spigots, and other such articles, of bone and horn, and stag’s horn appears to have been a favourite material.[21]
In the Chanson de Roland, Charlemagne and his knights are represented, after the capture of Cordova from the Saracens, as sitting in a shady garden, some of them playing at tables, and others at chess.
_Sur palies blancs siedent cil cevalers,_ _ As tables juent pur els esbaneier,_ _ E as eschecs li plus saive e li veill_ _ E escremissent cil bacheler leger._
Chess, as the higher game, is here described as the amusement of the chiefs, the old, and the wise; the knights play at tables, or draughts; but the young bachelors are admitted to neither of these games, they amuse themselves with bodily exercises--sham fights.
[Illustration: _No. 72. A Norman Lantern._]
Although such games were not unusually played by day, they were more especially the amusements which employed the long evenings of winter, and candles appear at this time to have been more generally used than at a former period. They still continued to be fixed on candlesticks, and not in them, and spikes appear sometimes to have been attached to tables or other articles of furniture, to hold them. Thus, in one of the pretended miracles told by Reginald of Durham, a sacristan, occupied in committing the sacred vestments to the safety of a cupboard, fixed his candle on a stick or spike of wood on one side (_candelam ... in assere collaterali confixit_), and forgetting to take away the candle, locked the cupboard door, and only discovered his negligence when he found the whole cupboard in flames. Another ecclesiastic, reading in bed, fixed his candle on the top of one of the sides (_spondilia_) of his bed. Another individual bought two small candles (_candelas modicas_) for an _obolus_, but the value of the coin thus named is not very exactly known. The candle appears to have been usually placed at night in or on the chimney, or fire-place, with which the chamber was now furnished. In Fierabras (p. 93), a thief, having obtained admission in the night to the chamber of the princess Floripas, takes a candle from the chimney, and lights it at the fire, from which we are led to suppose that it was usual to keep the fire alight all night.