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 Another Random Document on
Scribd Without Any Related Topics
 A BURIAL
Cædmon’s Metrical Paraphrase (10th cent.), Bodleian Library.

In the year 731, the year of his death, Bede wrote: “Such being
the peaceable and calm disposition of the time, many of the
Northumbrians, as well of the nobility as of private persons, laying
down their weapons, do rather incline to dedicate themselves and
their children to the tonsure and monastic vows than to study
martial discipline. What will be the end thereof the next age will
show.”
The next age did show very remarkably what happens to a
country which puts its boys into monasteries. In the next age the
people continued still to flock into the monasteries; they not only
deserted their duties and their homes, they also deserted their
country; they flocked in crowds on pilgrimage to Rome as to a very
holy place; noble and ignoble, laity and clergy, men and women, not
only went on pilgrimage, but went to Rome in order to die there.
Those who could neither take the monastic vows nor die at Rome
put on the monastic garb before they died.
Anglo-Saxon London, during the eighth century, thus became
profoundly religious, and although the history of the time is full of
violence, it is also full of exhortations to the better life. The Bishops
constantly ordered the reading of the Gospels. Every priest,
especially, was to study the Holy Book out of which to preach and
teach. The modern spirit of an Anglo-Saxon sermon is most
remarkable, and this in spite of the superstitions in which the time
was plunged. The churches, for instance, were crammed with relics;
perhaps the people regarded them as we regard collections in a
museum. Here were kept pieces of the sacred manger, of the true
Cross, of the burning bush, of St. Peter’s beard, of Mary Magdalene’s
finger. There were also the popular beliefs about witchcraft. The
priests inveighed against witches—“that the dead should rise
through devil-skill or witchcraft is very abominable to our Saviour;
they who exercise such crafts are God’s enemies and truly belong to
the deceitful Devil.” The priests were also zealous in forbidding and
in stamping out all heathen survivals, such as fountain worship,
incantations of the dead, omens, magic, man worship, the
abominations practised in various sorts of witchcraft, worship of elms
and other trees, of stones, and other “phantoms.” Long after
Christianity had covered the land, the people practised their old
incantations for the cure of disease, for good luck in enterprise,
against poisons, disease, and battle. They had a thousand omens
and prognostics; days were lucky or unlucky; days were good or bad
for this or that kind of business—it is within living men’s recollection
that Almanacks were published for ourselves giving the lucky and
the unlucky days—those beliefs are hardest to destroy which are
superstitious and irrational and absurd. Are we not living still in a
mass of superstitious belief? It is sufficient to record that the Saxons
were as superstitious as our grandfathers—even as superstitious as
ourselves.
 It is interesting to note the simple and beautiful piety of Bede and
other Anglo-Saxon writers, and to mark the extraordinary credulity
with which they relate marvels and miracles. Every doctrine had to
be made intelligible, and explained and enforced by a special
miracle. Take, for instance, the doctrine of the efficacy of masses for
the dead. Who could continue in doubt upon the subject after such
testimony as the following? Who can argue against a miracle?
In the year 679—only a few years before the history was written—
a battle was fought near the river Trent between Egfrith, King of the
Northumbrians, and Ethelred, King of the Mercians. There was left
for dead on the field of battle one Imma, a youth belonging to the
king. This young man presently recovered, and binding up his wound
tried to escape unseen from the field. Being captured, however, he
was taken to one of Ethelred’s earls. Being afraid of owning himself
for what he was, he said he was a peasant who had brought
provisions for the army. The earl ordered him to be cared for and
properly entertained as a prisoner. Now he had a brother called
Tunna, a priest, and the Abbot of a monastery. This priest heard that
Imma was dead, and went to search for his body on the field of
battle. He presently found one so like that of his brother that,
carrying it to the monastery, he buried it and said masses for the
soul. Now when Imma had recovered of his wounds, the earl
ordered him to be bound so that he should not escape. Lo! as fast
as the bonds were laid upon him they were loosened. The earl
suspected witchcraft; he was assured by Imma that he knew no
spells. Being pressed, however, he confessed who and what he was,
viz. no peasant, but a soldier belonging to King Egfrith. Then the
earl carried him to London and there sold him as a slave to a certain
Frisian, who bound him with new fetters. But at the third hour of the
morning they all fell off; and so every morning; wherefore the
Frisian, not knowing what to do with this miraculous slave, allowed
him to return on promise of sending his ransom. Now when Imma
conversed with his brother, he discovered that the loosening of his
bonds had been miraculously effected in answer to the masses said
for his soul.
 SAXON CHURCH AT GREENSTEAD

The ravages of the Danes in the eighth and ninth centuries

destroyed most of the monasteries. For, at first, being heathens,
they rejoiced in the destruction and pillage of holy houses and
churches, which were rich, full of precious things in gold and silver,
embroidery, pearls and gems, silks and fine stuffs. Wearmouth, they
destroyed, also Jarrow, Tynemouth, Coldingham, Crowland,
Peterborough. When the destroyers retired, those of the monks who
had escaped murder timidly came back. Crowland Abbey, for
instance, found itself reduced to the Abbot and two monks.
When Alfred had restored peace, he tried to renew some of the
monasteries, but failed; no one would become a monk. With
nunneries he succeeded better, founding one at Shaftesbury and one
at Winchester. Glastonbury, in the time of Dunstan, was served by
Irish priests. In the precinct of Paul’s Minster there was a college—
St. Martin’s-le-Grand was a college; but there was in London at this
time neither monastery nor nunnery. Why?
It may be explained on the ground that at the time when the
great zeal for monasteries moved the hearts of the people there was
comparative peace in the land, and it was sought to build a religious
house far away from what were thought to be the disturbing
influences of a town. For instance, St. Erkenwald, Bishop of London,
founded two houses, but placed neither in London; one of these he
built at Barking down the river, the other at Chertsey up the river.
Other instances occur. Romsey, Crowland, Medehamsted
(Peterborough), Lindisfarne, Iona, Ely, Glastonbury, not to speak of
many later foundations, were placed in quiet retreats far from the
busy world. Westminster, it is true, was built on an island once
populous and lying on the highway of trade; but the earlier
foundation was destroyed by the Danes, and Edward’s House arose
long after the highway had been turned aside and most of the trade
diverted. Still, Westminster was never remote from the haunts of
men, and it may be observed that when the foundation of new
houses began they were erected in and around London itself, with
no thought of seclusion. Again, when the Danish troubles came upon
the land and the monasteries were sacked, for many years the
monastic life became impossible; the old desire for it entirely
vanished, and long years passed before it awakened again. When it
did, monastic houses were founded within the walls of London, or
close beneath the protection of the walls, as at St. Mary Overies and
Bermondsey and Aldgate. The Danish pillage was not forgotten.
Another explanation of the absence of monastic houses in Saxon
London may be the fact, which one is apt to overlook, that every
Minster was provided with a college, or a monastic house where the
priests—not monks—lived the common life, though not yet the
celibate life; where they had a school and where they brought up
boys for the Church. In Domesday Book there are no lands owned
by religious houses in London except by the Church of St. Paul’s,
which had lands in Essex and elsewhere; by certain individual
canons, the Bishop of London, who had lands in Middlesex, Hertford,
and Essex; and by the Church of St. Martin’s, the Abbey of
Westminster, and the Abbey of Barking.
 ST. DUNSTAN
Claud MS., A. iii.

The churches of London, with the houses, were at first built of

wood. You may see a Saxon church, such as those which were
dotted all over the City area, still standing at Greenstead, near
Chipping Ongar, in Essex (see p. 211). When the houses began to be
built of stone, the churches followed suit; you may see a stone
Saxon church at Bradford-on-Avon, near Bath. The churches were
quite small at first, and continued to be small for many centuries.
They were by degrees provided with glass, with richly decorated
altars, with chapels and with organs: in the last respect being better
off than their successors in the eighteenth century, when many City
churches had no organ. Bede describes an organ as a “kind of tower
made with various pipes, from which, by the blowing of bellows, a
most copious sound is issued; and that a becoming modulation may
accompany this, it is furnished with certain wooden tongues from
the interior part, which the master’s fingers skilfully repressing,
produce a grand and almost a sweet melody.”
And Dunstan, who was a great artificer in metals as well as a
great painter, constructed for himself an organ of brass pipes.
It is interesting to gather, from the dedications of the City
churches, those which certainly date from Saxon times. Thus there
are five dedicated to Allhallows, of which four are certainly ancient;
of the churches dedicated to Apostles, there are two of St. Andrew,
three of St. Bartholomew, one of St. James, one of St. Paul, three of
St. Peter, one of St. Stephen, four of St. Mary, one of Mary
Magdalene; of later saints, St. Martin, St. Bridget, St. Benedict, St.
Anne, St. Clement, St. Giles are represented, while Saxon or Danish
saints are found in St. Ethelburga, St. Swithin, St. Botolph, St. Olave,
St. Magnus, St. Vedast, and St. Dunstan. None of the Norman saints
seem to have crossed the water. None, certainly, supplanted the
Saxon saints, while not one British saint remained in Saxon England,
which shows how different was the Norman Conquest from the
Saxon occupation.
THE LAST DAY
Nero MS. C iv.
 If ecclesiastical law means anything, then the London citizen must
have spent most of his time in doing penance. Besides the common
crimes of violence, perjury, theft, and so forth, the Church advanced
the doctrine that there were eight capital crimes, namely, pride,
vainglory, envy, anger, despondency, avarice, greed, and luxury. For
greed a man had to fast and do penance for three years. For
despondency, he had to fast on bread and water till he became once
more exhilarated.
The chief weapon of the Church at a time when the executive is
weak is penance. For the Anglo-Saxon his priest was armed with a
code of penances so long and so heavy that one cannot believe that
it was ever enforced. Can we, for instance, believe that free men
would consent to live on the coarsest food and do penance for three
years as a punishment for eating with too great enjoyment? We are
told that if a man killed any one in public battle he was to fast forty
nights. Then King Alfred must have been doing penance all the days
of his life—which is absurd. Again, can one believe that sinners
consented to wear iron chains round the body, to lie naked at the
feet of the person offended, to go about with a rope round their
necks, to abstain from water, hot or cold? Can we believe that any
one, especially any rich or noble person, would sell his estate, give
one-third to the poor, one-third to the clergy, and keep no more than
one-third for himself and his family?
Penance, however, could be commuted by payments in money.
This shows, not the greed and avarice of the Church, but the
weakness of the Church. Another way of getting through penance
was by paying people to perform the penance for the sinner. Thus, a
man who was ordered a thirty-six days’ fast could engage twelve
men to fast for three days each. Or if he was ordered a year’s fast,
he would arrange for 120 men to fast, in the same way, for three
days each. As I said above, it is the weakness of the Church that
one perceives. The Bishops denounced crime; they showed the
people how grievous a sin was this or that, by imposing heavy
penance; then because only a few would consent to perform such
penances, they were obliged to be content with evasions and
vicarious performance. As the Church grew stronger, penance
became more reasonable.
There was a church in nearly every street, and a parish to every
church. Some of the churches were built as an act of penance. We
are sometimes tempted to believe that the power of the Church
must have been an intolerable tyranny; yet the violence of the time
called for the exercise of arbitrary authority, and, at the very worst,
it was better to be in the hands of the Church than in those of the
King.
IV. The Temporal Government
In the administration of the City, the Bishop and the Portreeve
were the two principal officers; the former represented more than
the ecclesiastical life, because the Church governed the life of every
man at every step in his pilgrimage from the cradle to the grave. The
Portreeve was the king’s officer: he looked after customs, dues, tolls,
etc. The port is neither “Porta,” the gate; nor “Portus,” the harbour;
it is “Portus,” the enclosed space: “Portus est conclusus locus quo
importantur merces et inde exportantur” (Thorpe, 1. 158). The
Portreeve was the civil magistrate, as the Bishop was the
ecclesiastical. Other officers were the “Tungerefa,” or Tunreeve,
whose business it was to inquire into the payment of custom dues.
The “Caccepol” (Catchpole), or Beadle, was perhaps a collector. And
there were the Jurats or Jurors, called sometimes testes credibiles,
who acted as witnesses in every case of bargain or sale. The laws of
Edgar said: “Let every one of them on his first election as a witness
take an oath that neither for profit, nor for fear, nor for favour, will
he ever deny that which he did witness, nor affirm aught but what
he did see and hear. And let there be two or three such sworn men
as witnesses to every bargain.” The “Wic-reeve” is also mentioned,
but this is probably only another name for Town-reeve. He is
mentioned in an edict issued by two Kentish kings, Hlothhere and
Edric (673-685). “If any Kentish man buy a chattel in Lundewic, let
him have two or three witnesses or a king’s wic-reeve.” Wright takes
this officer to have been one appointed by the Kings of Kent to look
after their interests in a town belonging to the Kings of Essex. Why
should it not mean simply the reeve of the port, i.e. the reeve of the
Kings of Essex? “If it be afterwards claimed of the man in Kent, let
him then vouch the man who sold it him, or the wic at the king’s
hall.” Criminals were tried in open court by their fellows. They might
be acquitted by the oaths of those who had known them long. If
they were found guilty, the punishments were cruel: they were
deprived of hands, feet, tongue, eyes; women were hurled from
cliffs into the river, or burned; floggings were inflicted. Ordeals were
practised—that of the “corsned,” or consecrated barley-bread, which
only the innocent could swallow;—this ordeal was supposed to have
killed Earl Godwin; that of cold water, that of hot water, that of hot
iron. Not, however, the ordeal by battle. Of all other ordeals the
event was uncertain: in that by battle one or the other had to die.
The citizen of the tenth century had the greatest possible objection
to such an ordeal. Later on, under Norman rule, he protested
continually against this liability, until the King conceded his freedom
from it.

ANGLO-SAXON MODES OF PUNISHMENT

Claud MS., B. iv.

The Anglo-Saxon laws are simply amazing as regards the

punishments ordered for those offenders who were of servile rank.
Their savage cruelty shows that the masters were afraid of the
slaves. If a slave woman stole anything she might be whipped
unmercifully, thrown into prison, and kept there; thrown over a
 precipice, drowned, or even burned to
death. In the last case she was to be
burned by eighty other women slaves,
every one of whom was to contribute a log
towards the fire. If a man slave committed
a similar offence he might be stoned to
death by eighty other slaves, and if one of
those eighty missed his mark three times
he was to be flogged. Since, however,
THE FLOGGING OF A SLAVE slaves cost money, and were valuable
Harl. MS., 603. property, it is not probable that they were
often destroyed for slight offences. On the
other hand, they were cruelly flogged. A small drawing in a
contemporary MS. shows the flogging of a slave. He is stripped
naked; his left foot is confined by a circle; two men are flogging him
with thorny handles. The cruelty of the punishment, thus brought
home to one, seems atrocious. But flogging was not the worst or the
most cruel punishment. Every kind of mutilation was practised in
ways almost unspeakable. Mutilation, indeed, was continued as a
punishment long after the Conquest. We shall see, for instance how
Henry I. punished the “moneyers” who had debased the coin by
striking off their right hands and depriving them of their manhood.
Eyelids were cut off, noses, lips, ears, hands, feet; the victims of this
barbarity were to be seen on every road in every town. Those who
were not slaves, but freemen, were, as a rule, treated with far more
clemency. First, for the man not taken red-handed, there was the
ordeal to which he might appeal. There was next the
“compurgation,” in which the accused had to find a sufficient number
of reputable persons to swear that he was not capable of the
offence charged. Or again, many offences could be cleared by
penance, and since penance included fasting, which is impossible for
the weak and the old, the repetition of prayers and singing of Psalms
was allowed as a substitute; and since these do no good except to
the penitent, compulsory almsgiving was further allowed as a
substitute. So that, although the Church attempted to make of the
last mode of punishment a real and substantial fine in proportion to
the means of the sinner, the natural, certain, and inevitable result
followed: that all crimes could be atoned for by those who could pay
the fines, and that in the Christian Church there was one law for the
rich and another for the poor. Also, as naturally followed in course of
time, it became customary to classify most crimes by a kind of tariff.
Those of violence, greed, and lust, which were common in an age of
violence, were priced at so much apiece. Those, however, of murder
of kin, arson, treason, witchcraft, were held “bootless,” i.e. not to be
atoned for by any fine. Then a very curious institution existed, called
the Frank pledge. Every man in the country belonged to a tithing or
company of ten; every company of ten belonged to a company of a
hundred; every crime had to be paid for by the tithing, or the
hundred; thus it happened in this way it was made the interest of
every one that the tithing or the hundred should be kept free from
crime.
The punishment of women by drowning was practised in very
early times by the ancient Germans and Anglo-Saxons. It was
continued down to the middle of the fifteenth century, when it was
finally, but not formally, abolished. But women were drowned on the
Continent in the eighteenth century. The London places of execution
were the Thames, and the pools of St. Giles, Smithfield, St. Thomas
Watering, and Tyburn. Sometimes the criminal was sewn up in a
sack with a snake, a dog, an ape—if one could be procured—and a
cock.
The right of taking a part in the government of his country was
always held and claimed by the Anglo-Saxon freeman. Thus in
London, all causes were tried, and all regulations for the ordering of
the City were made, by the citizens themselves in open court. The
Hustings, a Danish Court, was held once a week, on Monday. The
Folkmote was held on occasion, and not at stated times. The men
were called together by the bell of St. Paul’s, to Paul’s Cross; there,
in a tumultuous assemblage, everything was discussed, not without
blows and even slaying or wounding, for every man carried his knife.
It was difficult to persuade the citizens to meet without arms,
because to carry no arms was the outward mark of the slave; even
the clergy carried arms. Only while performing penance the freeman
must lay aside his sword; and that, no doubt, was a greater penalty
than the fast. Another distinguishing mark of the freeman was his
long hair: the slaves had their hair cut close; the most shameful
punishment that could be inflicted on a free woman was to cut off
her hair.
Wright is of opinion that the existence of London was continuous,
and that it was never taken or sacked by the Saxons. We have seen
the evidence for the desertion of the City. He adduces the example
of Exeter, where English and Welsh continued to live on equal terms;
he acknowledges that this could only have been done by virtue of an
original composition with the English conquerors.

THREE MEN IN BED

Harl. MS., 603.

He points out, however, apart from his theory, the very important
fact that London was in many respects a free commercial city,
making laws for itself and claiming privileges and concessions which
imply claims to the exercise of independent jurisdiction, notably in
the law made by the Bishop and Reeves of London for the citizens in
the year 900. Such powers the City certainly possessed and used at
that and earlier times; they were, however, powers not laid down by
law, but assumed as the occasion demanded, and neither disputed
nor allowed by the King. Later on, the citizens pretended to have
possessed their privileges from the first foundation of their City,
which they carried back as far as the foundation of Rome.
V. The Manners and Customs of the People

MOTHER AND CHILD

Cædmon’sMetrical Paraphrase (10th cent.), Bodleian Library.

As regards the poor of London, the laws relating to them were

most strict and clear. Everybody had to give to the Church the tenth
part of his possessions and incomings: the tithe, according to a law
of Ethelred, was to be divided into three equal parts, of which one
was to go to the maintenance of the church fabric—the altars, the
service of the church, and the offices belonging thereto; the second
part was to go to the priests; and the third part to “God’s poor and
needy.” Archbishop Egbert issued a canon to the same effect. King
Edgar enjoined the same division. And not only did tithes carry with
them this provision for the poor, but the faithful were also exhorted
to other almsgiving. For instance, if a man fasts, let him give to the
poor what he has saved by his abstinence; and if by reason of any
infirmity he is unable to fast, let him give to the poor instead. Every
church, every monastery, had its guest-house or poor-house, where
the poor were received and fed. Archbishop Wilfred, in 832, fed
daily, on his different manors, twenty-six poor men: to each he gave
yearly twenty-six pence for clothing; and on his anniversary he gave
twelve poor men each a loaf of bread and a cheese, and one penny.
This practice was continued after his death by endowments. In the
same way there were endowments for the poor at Canterbury, Ely,
and elsewhere. We must, therefore, remember that round every
parish church in the City of London there were gathered daily, for
their share of the tenth part, “God’s poor and needy”—the aged, the
infirm, the afflicted—belonging to that parish.
 Augustin Rischgitz.
DRAWING WATER
Nero MS., C. iv. (10th cent.).

The daily life of the King in his palace or on his journeys is not
difficult to make out. That of the people, the priest, the merchant,
the craftsman, is impossible to discover—only a few general customs
can be noted. To begin with, the Anglo-Saxon was a mighty drinker:
in drinking he was only surpassed by the Dane; bishops were even
accused of going drunk to church; all classes drank to excess. They
had drinking bouts which lasted for days: during this orgy they
illustrated their Christian profession by praising the saints and
singing hymns between their cups, instead of singing the old war
songs; the young king, Harthacnut, as we know, drank himself to
death. But the feasting and the hard drinking seldom fell to the lot of
the ordinary craftsman. We may believe that this honest man drank
as much as he could get and as often as he could afford, but ale and
mead then, as now, cost money. How the craftsman worked, for
what wage, for how long, how he was housed, how he was fed, we
may ask in vain.
 ST. LUKE, FROM ST. CHAD’S GOSPEL BOOK, DATE ABOUT 700 A.D.

Like the Dane, the Anglo-Saxon was of an imaginative nature; he

not only believed in spirits and demons, but he made a great and
complete scheme of mythology into which we need not here inquire;
when he was converted to Christianity he surrendered himself to a
blind belief in the doctrines of the Church. Many noble and royal
persons in the revival of the eighth century showed, as we have
seen, the sincerity of their belief so far as to lay down their rank and
enter monasteries, or to go off barefooted on pilgrimage. With the
majority, their new religion was something added to the old. We are
not to suppose that this old mythology was known to the common
people, any more than the book of Ovid’sMetamorphoses was known
to the average Roman citizen. The Christian Church introduced its
teaching gradually, being content to pass over many pagan
practices. The Church said nothing while the people continued to
believe that the foul fiend entered into the body of a person newly
dead and walked about in that body all night. They believed in the
power of raising spirits, in magic and witchcraft; they wore amulets
and charms for protection; they believed in “stacung,” i.e. “sticking,”
a method of killing an enemy by which the slayer simply stuck a
thorn or a pin into his enemy and prayed that the part wounded
might mortify and so cause death. It was an easy method, but one
that offered the obvious objection that you cannot stick a pin into
any part of a man without causing him pain; nor can you pray at the
same time without his hearing the prayer. Therefore one must
believe that the would-be murderer ran great risk himself of being
murdered. There were, however, instances in which persons were
believed to have caused death by this method. In the tenth century,
for instance, we get a glimpse of wild justice. We see a man running
madly through the streets; he reaches the nearest gate; he flies
across the moor, where none pursue him; he is heard of no more.
The crowd which ran after him turned back. They made for a house
—not a hovel—a substantial house, where he had lived with his aged
mother; they beat down the door; they rushed in; they came out
shouting that they had found the accursed thing; they dragged out
the old woman shrieking for mercy. “Witch! sorceress! She has
bewitched Ælsie by sticking and by prayer. He is sick unto death. She
must die.” They hauled her along the streets; they reached the
bridge; they hurled the poor creature, now covered with blood and
shrieking no longer, into the river. She floated for a second; she
sank; again she rose to the surface; then she was seen no more,
and the crowd returned. The King for his part confiscated the lands
of the sorceress and her son.
Loftie gives the following passage concerning this event. It is from
a document in the Society of Antiquaries. Note by the way that it
proves the existence of the bridge in 960 or thereabouts:—
 “Here is made known in this writing, that bishop Æthelwold and
Wulfstan Uccea exchanged lands, with the witness of King Ædgar
and his ‘witan.’ The bishop gave to Wulfstan the land at Washington,
and Wulfstan gave him the land at Jaceslea and at Aylesworth. Then
the bishop gave the land at Jaceslea to Thorney, and that at
Aylesworth to Peterborough; and a widow and her son had
previously forfeited the land at Aylesworth, because they had driven
an iron pin into Ælsie, Wulfstan’s father, and that was detected: and
they drew the deadly thing forth from her chamber. They then took
the woman and drowned her at London Bridge; and her son
escaped, and became outlaw; and the land went into the hands of
the king; and the king then gave it to Ælsie, and Wulfstan Uccea his
son gave it again to Bishop Æthelwold, as it is here above said.”
The method of “sticking” was continued, but with modifications.
The operator no longer stuck a thorn into his enemy. He made a
waxen image of him and stuck pins into the image, with a prayer
that the man might feel the agony of the wound; he placed it before
the fire, and prayed that as the waxen image melted away, so his
enemy might waste away and die. The superstition lingered long;
perhaps it still has followers and believers. In the fifteenth century
the greatest lady in the land was compelled to do penance and was
committed to a life-long prison for practising this superstitious rite.
 ANGLO-SAXON HUSBANDMAN AND HIS WIFE
Royal MS. 2, B. vii.

Philtres and love potions were greatly in request; the people

practised astrology and divination. Their medicine was much mixed
with superstition: thus they knew the medicinal properties of certain
plants, but in using them certain prayers had to be said or sung;
they practised bleeding, but not when the moon was crescent and
the tide was rising; the use of relics was prescribed for every
possible disease.
It is a great pity that we have neither an Anglo-Saxon house nor
any detailed description of one left. There are, it is true, some
drawings of houses in the MSS. of the period, but the buildings are
presented conventionally; they are indicated for those who would
recognise them without too great an adherence to truth. Take that
on p. 225. There is, it will be perceived, a central hall. On one side is
the chapel—part of the wall is taken out so as to show the lamp
burning before the altar; beside the chapel is a small room, perhaps
the chaplain’s chamber; on the other side are two chambers: one
belongs to the men-at-arms, the other to the maids; the court is full
of beggars, to whom the lord and the lady are serving food, while
the maids are bringing out clothes for two adults who are standing
at the door in a state of Nature. There is a round building at the
back—the walls of the house are of masonry up to a certain height,
when timber begins; there is but one floor. The hall was hung with
cloths or tapestry; it was furnished with benches and with movable
tables on trestles.
In the Saxon household the special occupation of the women was
the construction of clothing. They carded the wool; they beat the
flax; they sat at the spinning-wheel or at the weaver’s loom; they
made the clothes; they washed the clothes; they embroidered and
adorned the clothes; the female side in a genealogy was called the
spindle side. Kings’ daughters, notably the grand-daughters of King
Alfred, distinguished themselves by their work with the spinning-
wheel and the needle. The Norman admired the wonderful work of
the Saxon ladies; the finest embroideries shown in France were
known as English work. Thomas Wright (Womankind in Western
Europe, p. 60) gives very complete testimony on this point:—
“The Anglo-Saxon ladies of rank were especially skilful in
embroidery, and that from a very early period. English girls are
spoken of in the life of St. Augustine as employed in skilfully
ornamenting the ensigns of the priesthood and of royalty with gold,
and pearls, and precious stones. St. Etheldreda, the first Abbess of
Ely, a lady of royal rank, presented to St. Cuthbert a stole and
maniple which she had thus embroidered with gold and gems with
her own hands. At a later period, Algiva or Emma, the queen of King
Cnut, worked with her own hands a stuff bordered in its whole
extent with goldwork, and ornamented in places with gold and
precious stones arranged in pictures, executed with such skill and
richness that its equal might be sought through all England in vain.
Dunstan is said to have designed patterns for the ladies in this
artistic work. The early historian of Ely tells a story of an Anglo-
Saxon lady who, having retired to lead a religious life in that
monastic establishment, the nuns assigned to her a place near the
Abbey, where she might occupy herself more privately with young
damsels in embroidery and weaving, in which they excelled. We
trace in early records the mention of women who appear to have
exercised these arts as a profession. We find, for instance, in the
Domesday Book, a damsel named Alwid holding lands at Ashley in
Buckinghamshire, which had been given to her by Earl Godwin for
teaching his daughter orfrey or embroidery in gold, and a woman
named Leviet or Leviede is mentioned in Dorsetshire as employed in
making orfrey for the king and queen.”
It is also remarked by Wright that the names given to women
indicate a high respect for womanhood: such as the names of
Eadburga—the citadel of happiness; Ethelburga—the citadel of
nobility; Edith (Eadgythe)—the gift of happiness; Elfgiva-the gift of
the fairies; Elfthrida—the strength of the fairies, or the spiritual
strength; Godiva (Godgifa)—the gift of God.

FEEDING THE HUNGRY

Harl. MS., 603.

There are, so far as I know, no traditions of any nunnery in

London before the Conquest. The name Mincing Lane, which is
certainly Mincheon Lane or Nuns’ Lane, points probably to property
belonging to a nunnery. Perhaps there was a nunnery within the City
before the occupation by the Danes. If so, it perished and was
forgotten. Just as men were required to fight and not to lead
monastic lives, so women were required to become mothers of
fighting men, and not to enter a cloister. I think there may have
been a nunnery, because London did not escape the wave of
religious revival, and also because one was necessary for the
education of girls. At nunnery schools the girls were educated with
far greater care than our own girls till the last twenty years or so.
They learned Latin, rhetoric, logic, and, according to Wright, “what
we call popular science.” They also learned embroidery. “From the
statements of the Anglo-Saxon writers, we are led to believe that the
Anglo-Saxon nuns had no objection to finery themselves, and they
are accused of wearing white and violet chemises, tunics, and veils
of delicate tissue, richly embroidered with silver and gold, and
scarlet shoes.” (Wright, p. 86.)

GOING TO THE CHASE

Royal MS. 2, B. vii.

The evening of the ordinary man was not wholly given up to

drinking. The musicians came in and played on harp and trumpet,
pipes, horn, and fiddle. The gleemen sang and recited; the tumbling-
girls played their tricks.
 THE HAWK STRIKES
Royal MS. 2, B. vii.

The Anglo-Saxon love of music and poetry gives us a higher

opinion of the people than we might form from all that we have
learned. Applying all his qualities, good or bad, to the Londoner, it
will be found that he has transmitted them to the generations
coming after him. For he was a lover of freedom, valiant in the field;
a lover of order and justice; impatient under ecclesiastical control,
yet full of religion; fond of music, poetry, singing and playing; given
to feasting and addicted to drunkenness. These attributes
distinguished the Londoner in the tenth century, and they are with
him still after a thousand years.
 FEASTING
Claud MS., B. iv. (11th cent.).

The sports and pastimes of the City were the same for London as
for the rest of the country. The citizens were passionately fond of
hunting and hawking; they baited animals, as the bull, the bear, and
the badger; they were fond of swimming, skating, and rowing, of
dancing, and of tomfoolery, jumping, tumbling, and playing practical
jokes. Of these amusements, hunting was by far the most popular
with all classes. We have seen that the Londoner had deep forests
on all sides of him, beyond the moor on the north of his wall,
beyond the Dover causeway on the south, beyond the Lea on the
east, beyond Watling Street on the west. The forests were full of
wild cattle, bears, elk, buffalo, wild boars, stags, wolves, foxes,
hares, and the lesser creatures; as for the wolves, they were a terror
to every village. Athelstan and Edgar organised immense hunts for
the destruction of the wolves; under the latter they were so greatly
reduced in number that he is generally said to have exterminated
them. As regards the hunting of the elk or the wild boar, it was a
point of honour to meet the creature face to face after it had been
roused from its lair by the dogs, and driven out maddened to turn
upon its assailant. In single combat the hunter met him spear and
knife in hand, and either killed or was killed. Sometimes nets were
employed; these were stretched from tree to tree. Dogs drew the
creatures into the nets, where they were slaughtered. Once Edward
the Confessor, a mighty hunter, discovered that his nets had been
laid upon the ground by a countryman. “By God and His Mother!”
cried the gentle saint, “I will serve you just such a turn if ever it
comes in my way.”
The country was famous for its breed of dogs. There were
bloodhounds strong enough to pull down bulls; wolfhounds which
could overtake a stag or a wolf or a bear; a kind of bulldogs
remarkable for their overhanging jowls; harriers, greyhounds, water
spaniels, sheep-dogs, watch-dogs, and many other kinds.
The Game Laws, which restricted the right of hunting, formerly
universal, were introduced by Cnut. Every man, however, was
permitted to hunt over his own land.
Akin to hunting was the sport of hawking. This was greatly
followed by ladies, for whom other kinds of hunting were too rough.
Hawks of good breed were extremely valuable. It was not only by
hawking that birds were caught. The Londoner employed nets, traps,
slings, and bird-lime. He had only to go down the river as far as
Barking or Greenwich to find innumerable swarms of birds to be
trapped and netted. Of his indoor pastimes one must not omit to
mention the making and answering of riddles, a game with pawns
—“taeflmen”—and dice, called “taefl,” and the game of chess. The
last of these was a fearful joy on account of the rage which seems
always to have seized the man who was defeated. Witness the
following anecdote:—
“Among the most enthusiastic of chess-players was Cnut the
Great, but he was by no means an agreeable antagonist. When he
lost a game, or saw that he was on the eve of doing so, he very
commonly took up the huge chess-board on which he played, and
broke it on the head of his opponent. He was on one occasion
playing with his brother-in-law, the Earl Ulf, when the earl, seeing
that he had a forced mate, and knowing the king’s weakness for
knocking out the brains of successful antagonists, quietly left the
table. Cnut, who guessed his motive, shouted after him: ‘Do you run
away, you coward?’ To which the other, who had lately rescued the
king in an unfortunate engagement with the Swedes, replied, ‘You
would have been glad to have run faster at the Helga, when I saved
you from the Swedes who were cudgelling you.’ Cnut endeavoured
to bear the retort patiently, but it was too irritating for his temper.
On the following morning he commanded one of his Thanes to go
and murder Ulf; and though, in anticipation of the king’s vengeance,
Ulf had taken sanctuary in the church of St. Lucius, the bloodthirsty
order was carried into effect.”
The education of the boy was conducted at monasteries. One
knows that there were schools in every monastery, and that every
minster had its school; and that probably the four oldest schools of
London—St. Paul’s, St. Martin’s, St. Anthony’s, and St. Mary-le-Bow,
were of Anglo-Saxon foundation. We know, further, that at these
schools the teaching was carried on by means of catechism, and that
the discipline was severe, but we do not know what children were
admitted to these schools, and whether the child of the craftsman
was received as well as the child of the Thane. Athletics were not
neglected—leaping, running, wrestling, and every kind of sport
which would make the body more active and the frame more
capable of endurance were encouraged. Until the time of Alfred very
few even of the highest rank could read or write. The monasteries
with their schools did a great deal to remove the reproach. The boys
rose before daybreak and joined the brethren in singing the Psalms
appointed for the early service. They assisted at first mass and at
the mass for the day; they dined at noon and slept after dinner; they
then repaired to their teacher for instruction.
 ANGLO-SAXON HOUSE
Harl. MS., 603.

Food in London was always plentiful; it was very largely the same
as at present. The people killed and ate oxen, sheep, and swine;
they had game of all kinds; wild birds in myriads frequented the
marshes and the lowlands of Essex; the rivers were full of fish.
Barley-bread was eaten by children and the lower orders; they had
excellent orchard-land, and a plentiful supply of apples, pears, nuts,
grapes, mulberries, and figs. In the winter they had salted meat.
Their drink was ale, wine, mead, pigment, and morat. Pigment was a
liquor made of honey, wine, and spice. Morat was a drink made of
honey mixed with the juice of mulberries.
The Londoner’s house was luxurious, according to the luxury of
the time. The walls were adorned with hangings, mostly of silk
embroidered with figures in needlework. These hangings and
curtains were of gaudy colours, like the fashionable dresses. The
benches, seats, and footstools were richly carved. The tables were
sometimes decorated with silver and gold. The candlesticks were of
bone or of silver. The mirrors were of silver. The beds were provided
with rich and soft pillows and coverings, bearskins and goatskins
being used for blankets. There was great store of silver cups and
basins; the poorer sort used vessels of wood and horn. Glass began
to come into general use about the time of the Norman Conquest. At
least twelve different precious stones were known. Spices were also
known, but they were difficult to procure and highly prized. The
warm bath was used constantly, but not the cold bath, except as a
penance.
In every city, town, nay, every monastery and every village, it was
necessary that there should be artificers to make everything that
was wanted. The women did the weaving, sewing, dressmaking and
embroidery. We need not attempt to enumerate the trades of the
men. A list of them will be found in Mediæval London. (See vol. i.
App. ii.)
The population of London can only be guessed, but there are
certain facts which afford some kind of clue. Thus, when Alfred
entered the City there was practically no population, unless the
slaves of the Danes remained. The City filled up rapidly with the
increase of security and the development of trade. Foreign
merchants once more flocked to the Port; they settled in the City
and became Londoners. The defeat of Swegen and Olaf, and
afterwards of Cnut, clearly proves that the citizens were strong
enough to beat off a very large and powerful army. This fact is alone
sufficient to prove that the City contained a population enormous for
the period. In the twelfth century FitzStephen says that London
could furnish 60,000 fighting men—a manifest exaggeration. In
Domesday Book, prepared after the devastating wars of William, and
with the omission of some counties and many towns, we arrive at a
population of a million and a half. If we allow for London an eighth
part of the population of the whole country, we have 187,500. For
other reasons (see p. 190), I think that the population of London at
the beginning of the eleventh century was probably about 100,000.
There are many other things about the City of King Edward which
we should like to know. Among them are: the procedure at a
folkmote; the exact procedure in the trial of a person charged with
an offence; the real extent of the power exercised by the Church,
e.g. those penances so freely imposed, were they laid upon all
citizens or only upon certain persons more devout than the rest?
What kind of education was given to the boys and girls of the lower
classes? Again, one would like to know what was the position and
what the work of a slave in London. Outside London, Domesday
Book records 26,500 slaves in all; but in London itself nothing is
known about their number. Taking the population of London as one-
eighth that of the whole country, the number of slaves would be
about 3300. Since there is no trade which has ever been held in
contempt by the working classes of London, it is probable that there
was no trade specially set apart for the slaves.
 CHAPTER VII
THORNEY ISLAND

THE SITUATION OF WESTMINSTER

From Westminster, by Sir Walter Besant.

Let us turn to the sister city, as yet only Thorney, the Isle of
Bramble. We all know the legend of St. Peter’s Hallowing. The
legend became in later times an article of faith. The right of
Sanctuary at Westminster was made to rest upon the sanctity of a
place so blest as to have been consecrated by Peter: on the strength
of this sanctity Westminster claimed the tithe of the Thames
fishermen from Staines to Gravesend; and as late as 1382 a Thames
fisherman representing Edric had the right to sit at the same table as
the prior; he might demand of the cellarer ale and bread, and the
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