THE SAXON VILLAGE
Though the Saxons loved fighting, they soon learned to love peace and
to rule their kingdoms well. They divided the spoil amongst themselves
and the chiefs rewarded their soldiers with lands. They built their
villages as near the streams as they could, so that they might get
water easily. They built them near the woods, if possible, so that they
could get timber to build their houses and fuel for the winter; but not
so near that an enemy could spring on them suddenly without a warning,
or the packs of hungry wolves come prowling round in the long, dark
nights. Any stranger who came in sight of the village must blow his
horn three times loudly, else the Saxons killed him, for they feared
anyone they did not know.
The soldiers who settled in the village were freemen, and they shared
in the harvest of the soil. Only half the land was ploughed for seed
and the other half was left fallow or idle for a year. In the ploughed
land, they planted wheat or rye one year and barley next time, after a
year's rest. Sometimes they divided the land and planted wheat in one
half in October and barley in the other in March. When the ploughing
was done, they were all very careful to throw up a little heap of earth
to make a ridge between the strips in each field, so that each freeman
might know his own strip in the wheat field and in the barley field
too. He made bread from the wheat or rye and a drink from the barley,
and if there were any to spare he would exchange it for some of the
things he wanted very much, honey perhaps, for everybody needed that
when there was no sugar.
Beyond the ploughed lands, there was a piece of common ground, where
all the freemen turned out their geese and cows and sheep and pigs,
though the pigs liked the woods better, for there they could find
acorns and hazel nuts.
There was a hayfield, too, and, when spring came, a fence was put all
round it and it was carefully divided into strips, so that everyone had
a share of the hay. The "hayward" was a busy man, for it was his duty
to keep the woods, corn and meadows. In haytime, he looked after the
mowers. In August, he was to be seen, rod in hand, in the cornfields,
watching early and late, so that no beasts strayed and trampled down
the corn.
When Lammastide came, all the freemen kept holiday for joy that harvest
time had come.
Now, there was sure to be one man who had more treasure than the
others, and oxen perhaps for the plough. It was very hard work trying
to plough the fields with less than eight, so the other freemen were
glad to borrow the oxen sometimes. But the chief, the rich man, made a
bargain, that those who borrowed his oxen should pay him by doing three
days' work a week for him in his fields, for they had no money. So, in
time, he became lord over them.
Then he made a mill where all the corn should be ground into flour and
every man who brought a sackful must pay so many handfuls of flour to
the miller for his trouble. Not every village had a mill, so it
sometimes happened that men travelled far to make a bargain with the
miller, for they found it slow work to grind their own corn between the
grindstones at home.
From an old writing[1] that we have still, we can find out many things
about the peasants, for they tell how they spend their time. The
ploughman says: "I work hard. I go out at daybreak driving the oxen to
the field and I yoke them to the plough. Be it never so stark winter I
dare not linger at home for awe of my lord, but having yoked my oxen
and fastened share and coulter, every day I must plough a full acre or
more. I have a boy driving the oxen with a goad-iron, who is hoarse
with cold and shouting. And I do more also. I have to fill the bins of
the oxen with hay, and water them and take out their litter. Mighty
hard work it is, for I am not free." The shepherd says: "In the first
morning I drive my sheep to their pasture and stand over them in heat
and in cold, with my dogs, lest the wolves swallow them up; and I lead
them back to their folds and milk them twice a day, and their folds I
move, and I make cheese and butter and I am true to my lord."
[1] Ælfric's _Dialogues_.
The oxherd says: "When the ploughman unyokes the oxen, I lead them to
pasture and all night I stand over them waking against thieves; and
then again in the early morning I betake them, well-filled and watered,
to the ploughman."
The King's hunter says: "I braid me nets and set them in fit places and
set my hounds to follow up the wild game, till they come unsuspecting
to the net and are caught therein, and I slay them in the net. With
swift hounds I hunt down wild game. I take harts and boars and bucks
and roes and sometimes wild hares. I give the King what I take because
I am his hunter. He clothes me well and feeds me and sometimes gives me
a horse or an arm-ring that I may pursue my craft merrily."
The fisherman says: "I go on board my boat and cast my net into the
river and cast my angle and baits and what they catch I take. I cast
the unclean fish away and take the clean for meat. The citizens buy my
fish. I cannot catch as many as I could sell, eels and pike, minnows
and trout and lampreys. Sometimes I fish in the sea, but seldom, for it
is a far row for me to the sea. I catch there herring and salmon,
porpoises and sturgeon and crabs, mussels, periwinkles, sea-cockles,
plaice and fluke and lobsters and many of the like. It is a perilous
thing to catch a whale. It is pleasanter for me to go to the river with
my boat than to go with many boats whale-hunting."
The fowler says: "In many ways I trick the birds--sometimes with nets,
with snares, with lime, with whistling, with a hawk, with traps. My
hawks feed themselves and me in winter, and in Lent I let them fly off
to the woods and I catch me young birds in harvest and tame them. But
many feed the tamed ones the summer over, that they have them ready
again."
The merchant says: "I go aboard my ships with my goods, and go over sea
and sell my things and buy precious things which are not produced in
this country and bring them hither to you, brocade and silk, precious
gems and gold, various raiment and dye-stuffs, wine and oil, ivory, and
brass and bronze, copper and tin, sulphur and glass and the like. And I
wish to sell them dearer here than I buy them there, that I may get
some profit wherewith I may feed myself and my wife and my sons."
While all the village people were busy at their work in the fields,
they must have peace and order in the land. Every week, the lord and
the freemen met together under the great oak tree to talk about
business. If they heard of any evil deed done near their village, the
lord rode out at the head of all the men who could ride or run, to find
the evil doer, and they searched for miles, shouting "Hi! Hi!" and if
they passed through any village, they summoned every freeman to follow
in the chase. When the thief was found, he was brought back to his own
village, and if he could not find any who would stand by him as "oath
helpers," then none would listen to his tale. They said that only the
great god could judge, so they prayed that Odin would send a sign.
Sometimes, they bound the prisoner hand and foot and threw him into the
village pond; if he floated they said, "He is not guilty." Sometimes,
they burned the prisoner with hot irons or made him thrust his hand
into boiling water; then the wounds were bound up; and if, after three
days, they were healed and there was no scar, they said, "He is not
guilty." But this did not happen often.
Sometimes, if the man had a bad character, they branded him on the
forehead with the sign of a wolf's head and took him to the forest,
where he had to live all the rest of his life, for no one would have an
outlaw in a village. If a man were afraid of being made an outlaw, he
must find a great lord and ask him to protect him. If the man promised
to work for a lord or gave him a present of fish or corn or honey every
year he could find a lord. If it should happen that he were caught by
the Hue and Cry, on that day the word of his lord in his favour was
worth more than the words of six freemen against him. So most people
worked for a lord.
As time went on, the King began to call the lords and freemen together
to ask them about a great war, or to make some new laws. They did not
like going very much, for travelling was troublesome and dangerous. So
the King usually asked only his cup-bearer and chamberlain and the
great men of his court for advice.