The London house, either in Saxon or Norman time, presented no kind of
resemblance to the Roman villa. It had no cloisters, no hypocaust, no
suite or sequence of rooms. This unlikeness is another proof, if any
were wanting, that the continuity of tenure had been wholly broken. If
the Saxons went into London, as has been suggested, peaceably, and left
the people to carry on their old life and their trade in their own way,
the Roman and British architecture--no new thing, but a style grown up
in course of years and found fitted to the climate--would certainly have
remained. That, however, was not the case. The Englishman developed his
house from the patriarchal idea.
First, there was the common hall; in this the household lived, fed,
transacted business, and made their cheer in the evenings. It was built
of timber, and to keep out the cold draughts it was afterwards lined
with tapestry. At first they used simple cloths, which in great houses
were embroidered and painted; _perches_ of various kinds were affixed to
the walls, whereon the weapons, the musical instruments, the cloaks,
etc., were hung up. The lord and lady sat on a high seat; not, I am
inclined to think, on a dais at the end of the hall, which would have
been cold for them, but on a great chair near the fire, which was
burning in the middle of the hall. This fashion long continued. I have
myself seen a college hall warmed by a fire in a brazier burning under
the lantern of the hall. The furniture consisted of benches; the table
was laid on trestles, spread with a white cloth, and removed after
dinner; the hall was open to all who came, on condition that the guest
should leave his weapons at the door.
The floor was covered with reeds, which made a clean, soft, and warm
carpet, on which the company could, if they pleased, lie round the fire.
They had carpets or rugs also, but reeds were commonly used. The
traveler who chances to find himself at the ancient and most interesting
town of Kingston-on-Hull, which very few English people, and still fewer
Americans, have the curiosity to explore, should visit the Trinity
House. There, among many interesting things, he will find a hall where
reeds are still spread, but no longer so thickly as to form a complete
carpet. I believe this to be the last survival of the reed carpet.
The times of meals were: the breakfast at about nine; the "noon-meat,"
or dinner, at twelve; and the "even-meat," or supper, probably at a
movable time, depending on the length of the day. When lighting was
costly and candles were scarce, the hours of sleep would be naturally
longer in winter than in the summer.
In their manner of living the Saxons were fond of vegetables, especially
of the leek, onion, and garlic. Beans they also had (these were
introduced probably at the time when they commenced intercourse with the
outer world), pease, radishes, turnips, parsley, mint, sage, cress, rue,
and other herbs. They had nearly all our modern fruits, though many show
by their names, which are Latin or Norman, a later introduction. They
made use of butter, honey, and cheese. They drank ale and mead. The
latter is still made, but in small quantities, in Somerset and Hereford
shires. The Normans brought over the custom of drinking wine.
In the earliest times the whole family slept in the common hall. The
first improvement was the erection of the solar, or upper chamber. This
was above the hall, or a portion of it, or over the kitchen and buttery
attached to the hall. The arrangement may be still observed in many of
the old colleges of Oxford or Cambridge. The solar was first the
sleeping-room of the lord and lady; though afterward it served not only
this purpose, but also for an ante-chamber to the dormitory of the
daughters and the maid-servants. The men of the household still slept in
the hall below. Later on, bed recesses were contrived in the wall, as
one may find in Northumberland at the present day. The bed was commonly,
but not for the ladies of the house, merely a big bag stuffed with
straw. A sheet wrapped round the body formed the only night-dress. But
there were also pillows, blankets, and coverlets. The early English bed
was quite as luxurious as any that followed after, until the invention
of the spring mattress gave a new and hitherto unhoped-for joy to the
hours of night.
The second step in advance was the ladies' bower, a room or suite of
rooms set apart for the ladies of the house and their women. For the
first time, as soon as this room was added, the women could follow their
own vocations of embroidery, spinning, and needlework of all kinds,
apart from the rough and noisy talk of the men.
The main features, therefore, of every great house, whether in town or
country, from the seventh to the twelfth century, were the hall, the
solar built over the kitchen and buttery, and the ladies' bower.
There was also the garden. In all times the English have been fond of
gardens. Bacon thought it not beneath his dignity to order the
arrangement of a garden. Long before Bacon, a writer of the twelfth
century describes a garden as it should be. "It should be adorned on
this side with roses, lilies, and the marigold; on that side with
parsley, cost, fennel, southernwood, coriander, sage, savery, hyssop,
mint, vine, dettany, pellitory, lettuce, cresses, and the peony. Let
there be beds enriched with onions, leeks, garlic, melons, and
scallions. The garden is also enriched by the cucumber, the soporiferous
poppy, and the daffodil, and the acanthus. Nor let pot herbs be wanting,
as beet-root, sorrel, and mallow. It is useful also to the gardener to
have anise, mustard, and wormwood.... A noble garden will give you
medlars, quinces, the pear main, peaches, pears of St. Regle,
pomegranates, citrons, oranges, almonds, dates, and figs." The latter
fruits were perhaps attempted, but one doubts their arriving at
ripeness. Perhaps the writer sets down what he hoped would be some
day achieved.
The indoor amusements of the time were very much like our own. We have a
little music in the evening; so did our forefathers. We sometimes have a
little dancing; so did they, but the dancing was done for them. We go to
the theatres to see the mime; in their days the mime made his theatre in
the great man's hall. He played the fiddle and the harp; he sang songs,
he brought his daughter, who walked on her hands and executed
astonishing capers; the gleeman, minstrel, or jongleur was already as
disreputable as when we find him later on with his _ribauderie_. Again,
we play chess; so did our ancestors. We gamble with dice; so did they.
We feast and drink together; so did they. We pass the time in talk; so
did they. In a word, as Alphonse Karr put it, the more we change, the
more we remain the same.
Out-of-doors, as Fitz-Stephen shows, the young men skated, wrestled,
played ball, practiced archery, held water tournaments, baited bull and
bear, fought cocks, and rode races. They were also mustered sometimes
for service in the field, and went forth cheerfully, being specially
upheld by the reassuring consciousness that London was always on the
winning side.
The growth of the city government belongs to the history of London.
Suffice it here to say that the people in all times enjoyed a freedom
far above that possessed by any other city of Europe. The history of
municipal London is a history of continual struggle to maintain this
freedom against all attacks, and to extend it and to make it
impregnable. Already the people are proud, turbulent, and confident in
their own strength. They refuse to own any other lord but the king
himself; there is no Earl of London. They freely hold their free and
open meetings, their folk-motes,--in the open space outside the
northwest corner of St. Paul's Churchyard. That they lived roughly,
enduring cold, sleeping in small houses in narrow courts; that they
suffered much from the long darkness of winter; that they were always in
danger of fevers, agues, "putrid" throats, plagues, fires by night, and
civil wars; that they were ignorant of letters,--three schools only for
the whole of London,--all this may very well be understood. But these
things do not make men and women wretched. They were not always
suffering from preventable disease; they were not always hauling their
goods out of the flames; they were not always fighting. The first and
most simple elements of human happiness are three; to wit, that a man
should be in bodily health, that he should be free, that he should enjoy
the produce of his own labor. All these things the Londoner possessed
under the Norman kings nearly as much as in these days they can be
possessed. His city has always been one of the healthiest in the world;
whatever freedom could be attained he enjoyed; and in that rich trading
town all men who worked lived in plenty.
The households, the way of living, the occupations of the women, can be
clearly made out in every detail from the Anglo-Saxon literature. The
women in the country made the garments, carded the wool, sheared the
sheep, washed the things, beat the flax, ground the corn, sat at the
spinning-wheel, and prepared the food. In the towns they had no shearing
to do, but all the rest of their duty fell to their province. The
English women excelled in embroidery. "English" work meant the best kind
of work. They worked church vestments with gold and pearls and precious
stones. "Orfrey," or embroidery in gold, was a special art. Of course
they are accused by the ecclesiastics of an overweening desire to wear
finery; they certainly curled their hair, and, one is sorry to read,
they painted, and thereby spoiled their pretty cheeks. If the man was
the hlaf-ord [lord],--the owner or winner of the loaf,--the wife was the
hlaf-dig [lady], its distributor; the servants and the retainers were
hlaf-oetas, or eaters of it. When nunneries began to be founded, the
Saxon ladies in great numbers forsook the world for the cloister. And
here they began to learn Latin, and became able at least to carry on
correspondence--specimens of which still exist--in that language. Every
nunnery possessed a school for girls. They were taught to read and to
write their own language and Latin, perhaps also rhetoric and
embroidery. As the pious Sisters were fond of putting on violet
chemises, tunics, and vests of delicate tissue, embroidered with silver
and gold, and scarlet shoes, there was probably not much mortification
of the flesh in the nunneries of the later Saxon times.
This for the better class. We cannot suppose that the daughters of the
craftsmen became scholars of the nunnery. Theirs were the lower
walks--to spin the linen and to make the bread and carry on the
housework.