The Times: 600-900
A community was usually an extended family. It's members lived in
villages in which a stone church was the most prominent
building. They lived in one-room huts with walls and roofs made
of wood, mud, and straw. Hangings covered the cracks in the
walls to keep the wind out. Smoke from a fire in the middle of
the room filtered out of cracks in the roof. Grain was ground at
home by rotating by hand one stone disk on another stone disk.
Some villages had a mill powered by the flow of water or by
horses.
Farmland surrounded the villages and was farmed by the community
as a whole under the direction of a lord. There was silver,
copper, iron, tin, gold, and various types of stones from remote
lead mines and quarries in the nation. Silver pennies replaced
the smaller scaetts. Freemen paid "scot and lot" according to
their means.
Everyone in the village went to church on Sunday and brought
gifts such as grain to the priest. Later, contributions in the
form of money became customary, and then expected. They were
called "tithes" and were spent for church repair, the clergy,
and poor and needy laborers. The parish of the priest was
coextensive with the holding of one landlord and was his
chaplain. The priest and other men who helped him, lived in the
church building. Some churches had lead roofs and iron hinges,
latches, and locks on their doors. The land underneath had been
given to the church by former Kings and persons who wanted the
church to say prayers to help their souls go from purgatory to
heaven and who also selected the first priest. The priest
conducted Christianized Easter ceremonies in the spring and
Christmas (Christ's mass) ceremonies in winter in place of the
pagan Yuletide festivities. Incense took the place of pagan
burnt offerings, holy water of haunted wells and streams, and
Christian incantations of sorcerer's spells.
The church baptized babies and officiated at marriage ceremonies.
It also said prayers for the dying, gave them funerals, and
buried them. There were burial service fees, candle dues, and
plough alms. A piece of stone with the dead person's name marked
his grave. It was thought that putting the name on the grave
would assist identification of that person for being taken to
heaven. The church heard the last wish or will of the person
dying concerning who he wanted to have his property.
Every man carried a horn slung on his shoulder as he went about
his work so that he could at once send out a warning to his
fellow villagers or call them in chasing a thief or other
offender. The forests were full of outlaws, so strangers who did
not blow a horn to announce themselves were presumed to be
fugitive offenders who could be shot on sight. An eorl could call
upon the ceorl farmers for about forty days to fight off an
invading group.
The houses of the wealthy had ornamented silk hangings on the
walls. Brightly colored drapery, often purple, and fly-nets
surrounded their beds, which were covered with the fur of
animals. They slept in bed-clothes on pillows stuffed with
straw. Tables plated with silver and gems held silver
candlesticks, gold and silver goblets and cups, and lamps of
gold, silver, or glass. They used silver mirrors and silver
writing pens. There were covered seats, benches, and footstools
with the head and feet of animals at their extremities. They ate
from a table covered with a cloth. Servants brought in food on
spits, from which they ate. Food was boiled, broiled, or baked.
The wealthy ate wheat bread and others ate barley bread. Ale
made from barley was passed around in a cup. Mead made from
honey was also drunk.
Men wore long-sleeved wool and linen garments reaching almost to
the knee, around which they wore a belt tied in a knot. Men
often wore a gold ring on the fourth finger of the right hand.
Leather shoes were fastened with leather thongs around the
ankle. Their hair was parted in the middle and combed down each
side in waving ringlets. The beard was parted in the middle of
the chin, so that it ended in two points. The clergy did not
wear beards. Well-to-do women wore brightly colored robes with
waist bands, headbands, necklaces, gem bracelets, and rings.
Their long hair was in ringlets and they put rouge on their
cheeks. They were often doing needlework. Silk was affordable
only by the wealthy.
Most families kept a pig and pork was the primary meat. There
were also sheep, goats, cows, deer, rabbits, and fowl. Fowl was
obtained by fowlers who trapped them. The inland waters yielded
eels, salmon, and trout. In the fall, meat was salted to
preserve it for winter meals. There were orchards growing figs,
nuts, grapes, almonds, pears, and apples. Also produced were
beans, lentils, onions, eggs, cheese, and butter. Pepper and
cinnamon were imported.
Fishing from the sea developed in the 1000s A.D., and yielded
herrings, sturgeon, porpoise, oysters, crabs, and other fish.
Whale skins were used to make ropes.
It was usual to wash one's feet in a hot tub after traveling and
drying them with a rough wool cloth. Traveling a far distance
was unsafe as there were robbers on the roads. Traveling
strangers were distrusted. There were superstitions about the
content of dreams, the events of the moon, and the flights and
voices of birds were often seen as signs or omens of future
events. Herbal mixtures were drunk for sickness and maladies.
In the peaceful latter part of the 600s, Theodore, who had been a
monk in Rome, was appointed Archbishop and visited all the
island speaking about the right rule of life and ordaining
bishops to oversee the priests. There was a bishop for each of
the kingdoms. The bishops came to have the same wergeld as an
eorldorman: 1200 s., which was the price of about 500 oxen. A
priest had the wergeld as a landholding farmer [thegn], or 300s.
The bishops spoke Latin, but the priests of the local parishes
spoke English. Theodore was the first archbishop whom all the
English church obeyed. He taught sacred and secular literature,
the books of holy writ, ecclesiastical poetry, astronomy,
arithmetic, and sacred music. The learned ecclesiastical life
flourished in monasteries. Theodore discouraged slavery by
denying Christian burial to the kidnapper and forbidding the
sale of children over the age of seven. Hilda, a noble's
daughter, became the first nun in Northumbria and abbess of one
of its monasteries. There she taught justice, piety, chastity,
peace, and charity. Several monks taught there later became
bishops. Kings and princes often asked her advice.
There were several kingdoms. Kings were selected from the royal
family by their worthiness. A King had not only a wergeld to be
paid to his family if he were killed, but a "cynebot" that would
be paid to his kingdom. A King's household would have a
chamberlain, marshall to oversee the horses and military
equipment, a steward, and a cupbearer. A queen could possess,
manage, and dispose of lands in her name. Great men wore
gold-embroidered clothes, gilt buckles and brooches, and drank
from drinking horns mounted in silver-gilt or in gold. Their
wives had beads, pins, needles, tweezers of bronze, and
work-boxes of bronze, some highly ornamented.
Danish Vikings made several invasions in the 800s for which a
danegeld tax on land was assessed on everyone every ten to
twenty years. It was stored in a strong box under the King's
bed. King Alfred the Great unified the country to defeat them.
He established fortifications called "burhs", usually on hill
tops or other strategic locations on the borders to control the
main road and river routes into Wessex. The burhs were the first
towns. They were typically walled enclosures with towers and
several wooden thatched huts and a couple of churches inside.
Earthen oil lamps were in use. The land area protected by each
burh became known as a "shire". The country was inhabited by
Anglo-Saxons and was called "Angle-land", which later became
"England".
Alfred gathered together fighting men who were at his disposal,
which included eorldormen's hearthband (men each of whom had
chosen to swear to fight to the death for their eorldorman, and
some of whom were of high rank), shire thegns (local landholding
farmers, who were required to bring fighting equipment such as
swords, helmets, chainmail, and horses), and ordinary freemen,
i.e. ceorls (who carried food, dug fortifications, and sometimes
fought). Some great lords organized men under them, whom they
provisioned. These vassals took a personal oath to their lord
"on condition that he keep me as I am willing to deserve, and
fulfill all that was agreed on when I became his man, and chose
his will as mine." Alfred had a small navy of longships with 60
oars to fight the Viking longships.
Alfred divided his army into two parts so that one-half of the
men were fighting while the other half was at home sowing and
harvesting for those fighting. Thus, any small-scale independent
farming was supplanted by the open-field system, cultivation of
common land, and a more manor-oriented and stratified society
with the King and important families more powerful and the
peasants more curtailed. Many free coerls of the older days
became bonded. The village community became a manor. But the
lord does not have the power to encroach upon the rights of
common that exist within the community.
In 886, a treaty between Alfred and the Vikings divided the
country along the war front and made the wergeld of every free
farmer, whether English or Viking, 200s. Men of higher rank were
given a wergeld of 4 1/2 marks of pure gold. A mark was probably
a Viking denomination and a mark of gold was equal to nine marks
of silver in later times and probably in this time.
King Alfred gave land with jurisdictional powers within its
boundaries such as the following: "This is the bequest which
King Alfred make unequivocally to Shaftesbury, to the praise of
God and St. Mary and all the saints of God, for the benefit of my
soul, namely a hundred hides [a hide was probably the amount of
land which could support a family for a year or as much land as
could be tilled annually by a single plow] as they stand with
their produce and their men, and my daughter AEthelgifu to the
convent along with the inheritance, since she took the veil on
account of bad health; and the jurisdiction to the convent, which
I myself possessed, namely obstruction and attacks on a man's
house and breach of protection. And the estates which I have
granted to the foundation are 40 hides at Donhead and Compton,
20 hides at Handley and Gussage 10 hides at Tarrant, 15 hides at
Iwerve and 15 hides at Fontmell.
The witnesses of this are Edward my son and Archbishop AEthelred
and Bishop Ealhferth and Bishop AEthelhead and Earl Wulfhere and
Earl Eadwulf and Earl Cuthred and Abbot Tunberht and Milred my
thegn and AEthelwulf and Osric and Brihtulf and Cyma. If anyone
alters this, he shall have the curse of God and St. Mary and all
the saints of God forever to all eternity. Amen."
Sons usually succeeded their fathers on the same land as shown by
this lifetime lease: "Bishop Denewulf and the community at
Winchester lease to Alfred for his lifetime 40 hides of land at
Alresford, in accordance with the lease which Bishop Tunbriht
had granted to his parents and which had run out, on condition
that he renders every year at the autumnal equinox three pounds
as rent, and church dues, and the work connected with church
dues; and when the need arises, his men shall be ready both for
harvesting and hunting; and after his death the property shall
pass undisputed to St. Peter's.
These are the signatures of the councilors and of the members of
the community who gave their consent, namely ..."
Alfred wrote poems on the worthiness of wisdom and knowledge in
preference to material pleasures, pride, and fame, in dealing
with life's sorrow and strife. His observations on human nature
and his proverbs include:
1. As one sows, so will he mow.
2. Every man's doom [judgment] returns to his door.
3. He who will not learn while young, will repent of it when
old.
4. Weal [prosperity] without wisdom is worthless.
5. Though a man had 70 acres sown with red gold, and the gold
grew like grass, yet he is not a whit the worthier unless he
gain friends for himself.
6. Gold is but a stone unless a wise man has it.
7. It's hard to row against the sea-flood; so it is against
misfortune.
8. He who toils in his youth to win wealth, so that he may enjoy
ease in his old age, has well bestowed his toil.
9. Many a man loses his soul through silver.
10. Wealth may pass away, but wisdom will remain, and no man may
perish who has it for his comrade.
11. Don't choose a wife for her beauty nor for wealth, but study
her disposition.
12. Many an apple is bright without and bitter within.
13. Don't believe the man of many words.
14. With a few words a wise man can compass much.
15. Make friends at market, and at church, with poor and with
rich.
16. Though one man wielded all the world, and all the joy that
dwells therein, he could not therewith keep his life.
17. Don't chide with a fool.
18. A fool's bolt is soon shot.
19. If you have a child, teach it men's manners while it is
little. If you let him have his own will, he will cause you much
sorrow when he comes of age.
20. He who spares the rod and lets a young child rule, shall rue
it when the child grows old.
21. Either drinking or not drinking is, with wisdom, good.
22. Be not so mad as to tell your friend all your thoughts.
23. Relatives often quarrel together.
24. The barkless dog bites ill.
25. Be wise of word and wary of speech, then all shall love you.
26. We may outride, but not outwit, the old man.
27. If you and your friend fall out, then your enemy will know
what your friend knew before.
28. Don't choose a deceitful man as a friend, for he will do you
harm.
29. The false one will betray you when you least expect it.
30. Don't choose a scornful false friend, for he will steal your
goods and deny the theft.
31. Take to yourself a steadfast man who is wise in word and
deed; he will prove a true friend in need.
To restore education and religion, Alfred disseminated the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, the Venerable Bede's Ecclesiastical
History of the English Nation, the Providence of Boethius on the
goodness of God, and Pope Gregory's Pastoral Care, which he had
translated into English and was the fundamental book on the duty
of a bishop, and included his duty to teach laymen. Alfred's
advice to pastors was to live as they had been taught from
books and to teach this manner of life to others. To be avoided
was pride, the mind's deception of seeking glory in the name of
doing good works, and the corruption of high office. Bede was
England's first scholar, first theologian, and first historian.
He wrote poetry, theological books, and textbooks on grammar,
rhetoric [public speaking and debating], arithmetic, and
astronomy. He began the practice of dating years from the birth
of Christ.
A famous poem, the oral legend of Beowulf, a hero who led his men
into adventures and performed great feats and fought monsters
and dragons, was put into writing with a Christian theme. In it,
loyalty to one's lord is a paramount virtue. Also available in
writing was the story of King Arthur's twelve victorious battles
against the pagan Saxons, authored by Nennius.
There were professional story-tellers attached to great men.
Others wandered from court to court, receiving gifts for their
story-telling. Men usually told oral legends of their own feats
and those of their ancestors after supper.
Alfred had monasteries rebuilt with learned and moral men heading
them. He built a strong wall with four gates around London,
which he had conquered. He appointed one of his eorldormen to be
alderman [older man] to govern London and to be the shire's
earl. A later King built a palace in London, although Winchester
was still the royal capital town. When the King traveled, he and
his retinue would be fed by the local people at their expense.
Under the royalty were the nobles. An earl headed each shire. He
led the array of his shire to do battle if the shire was
attacked. He and the local bishop presided over shire meetings
and meetings of the people. Reeves were appointed by the King as
his representatives in the shires. The reeve took security from
every person for the maintenance of the public peace. He also
brought suspects to court, gave judgments according to the
doom-books, delivered offenders to punishment. By service to the
King, it was possible for a coerl to rise to become a thegn and
to be given land by the King. The King's thegns who got their
position by fighting for the King came to be known as knights.
Other thegns performed functions of magistrates. A thegn was
later identified as a person with five hides of land, a church,
a bell-house, a judicial at the burgh-gate, and an office or
station in the King's hall. Some thegns reached nobility status
with a wergeld of 1200 s. when a freeman's wergeld was 200s. They
also were given a higher legal status in the scale of
punishment, giving credible evidence, and participation in legal
proceedings. The sokemen were freemen who had inherited their
own land, chose their own lord, and attended their lord's court.
That is, their lord has soc jurisdiction over them. A smallholder
rented land of about 30 acres from a landlord, which he paid by
doing work on the lord's demesne [household] land, paying money
rent, or paying a food rent such as in eggs or chickens.
Smallholders made up about two-fifths of the population. A
cottager had one to five acres of land and depended on others for
his living. Among these were shepherds, ploughmen, swineherds,
and blacksmiths. They also participated in the agricultural
work, especially at harvest time.
It was possible for a thegn to acquire enough land to qualify him
for the witan [King's council of wise men, which included
archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls, chief landholders, and
officers of the King's household; and also chose the King's
successor on his death]. Women could be present at the
witenagemot [meeting of the witan, which met three times
annually] and shire-gemot [meeting of the shire]. They could sue
and be sued in the courts. They could independently inherit,
possess, and dispose of property. A wife's inheritance was her
own and under no control of her husband.
Marriage required the consent of the lady and her friends. The
man also had to arrange for the foster-lean, that is, money for
the support of expected children. He also declared the amount of
money or land he would give the lady for her consent, that is,
the morgengift, and what he would bequeath her in case of his
death. If she remarried within a year of his death, she had to
forfeit the morgengift.
Great men and monasteries had millers, smiths, carpenters,
architects, agriculturalists, fishermen, weavers, embroiderers,
dyers, and illuminators.
For entertainment, minstrels sang ballads about heroes or Bible
stories, harpers played, jesters joked, and tumblers threw and
caught balls and knives. There was gambling, dice games, and
chasing deer with hounds.
Fraternal guilds were established for mutual advantage and
protection. A guild imposed fines for any injury of one member
by another member. It assisted in paying any murder fine imposed
on a member. It avenged the murder of a member and abided by the
consequences. It buried its members and purchased masses for his
soul.
Merchantile guilds in sea-ports carried out commercial
speculations not possible by the capital of only one person.
There were some ale-houses.
The Law
Alfred issued a set of laws to cover the whole country.
The importance of telling the truth and keeping one's word are
expressed by this law: "1. At the first we teach that it is most
needful that every man warily keep his oath and his wed. If any
one be constrained to either of these wrongfully, either to
treason against his lord, or to any unlawful aid; then it is
juster to belie than to fulfil. But if he pledge himself to that
which is lawful to fulfil, and in that belie himself, let him
submissively deliver up his weapon and his goods to the keeping
of his friends, and be in prison forty days in a King's tun: let
him there suffer whatever the bishop may prescribe to him: ...".
The Ten Commandments were written down as this law:
"The Lord spake these words to Moses, and thus said: I am the
Lord thy God. I led thee out of the land of the Egyptians, and
of their bondage.
1. Love thou not other strange gods above me.
2. Utter thou not my name idly, for thou shalt not be guiltless
towards me if thou utter my name idly.
3. Remember that thou hallow the rest-day. Work for yourselves
six days, and on the seventh rest. For in six days, Christ
wrought the heavens and the earth, the seas, and all creatures
that are in them, and rested on the seventh day: and therefore
the Lord hallowed it.
4. Honour thy father and thy mother whom the Lord hath given
thee, that thou mayst be the longer living on earth.
5. Slay thou not.
6. Commit thou not adultery.
7. Steal thou not.
8. Say thou not false witness.
9. Covet thou not thy neighbour's goods unjustly.
10. Make thou not to thyself golden or silver gods."
If one deceives an unbetrothed woman and sleep with her, he must
pay for her and have her afterwards to wife. But if her father
not approve, he should pay money according to her dowry.
"If a man seize hold of the breast of a ceorlish woman, let him
make bot to her with 5 shillings. If he throw her down and do
not lie with her, let him make bot with 10 shillings. If he lie
with her, let him make bot with 60 shillings. If another man had
before lain with her, then let the bot be half that. ... If this
befall a woman more nobly born, let the bot increase according to
the wer."
"If any one, with libidinous intent, seize a nun either by her
raiment or by her breast without her leave, let the bot be
twofold, as we have before ordained concerning a laywoman."
"If a man commit a rape upon a ceorl's female slave, he must pay
bot to the ceorl of 5 shillings and a wite [fine to the King] of
60 shillings. If a male theow rape a female theow, let him make
bot with his testicles."
For the first dog bite, the owner pays 6 shillings, for the
second, 12 shillings, for the third, 30 shillings.
An ox which gores someone to death shall be stoned.
If one steals or slays another's ox, he must give two oxen for
it.
"If any one steals so that his wife and children don't know it,
he shall pay 60 shillings as wite. But if he steals with the
knowledge of all his household, they shall all go into slavery.
A boy of ten years may be privy to a theft."
"If one who takes a thief, or holds him for the person who took
him, lets the thief go, or conceals the theft, he shall pay for
the thief according to his wer. If he is an eorldormen, he shall
forfeit his shire, unless the King is willing to be merciful to
him."
Judicial Procedure
Cases were held at monthly meetings of the community [folk-moot].
The King or his representative in the community, called the
"reeve", conducted the trial by compurgation.
The one complaining, called the "plaintiff", and the one
defending, called the "defendant", each told their story and put
his hand on the Bible and swore "By God this oath is clean and
true". A slip or a stammer would mean he lost the case.
Otherwise, community members would stand up to swear on behalf of
the plaintiff or the defendant as to their reputation for
veracity. If these "compurgators" were too few, usually twelve
in number, or recited poorly, their party lost.
If this process was inconclusive, the defendant was told to go to
church and to take the sacrament only if he were innocent. If he
took the sacrament, he was tried by the process of "ordeal". In
the ordeal by cold water, he was bound hand and foot and then
thrown into water. If he floated, he was guilty. If he sank, he
was innocent. It was not necessary to drown to be deemed
innocent. In the ordeal by hot water, he had to pick up a stone
from inside a boiling cauldron. If his hand was healing in three
days, he was innocent. If it was festering, he was guilty. A
similar ordeal was that of hot iron, in which one had to carry in
his hands a hot iron for a certain distance. Although the results
of the ordeal were taken to indicate the will of God, the
official conducting the ordeal could adjust its parameters so
that a person with a guilty demeanor would be found guilty and a
person with an innocent demeanor found innocent. The ordeal seems
to favor the physically fit, because a person who was not fat
would tend to sink and a person who was in good health would
have prompt healing of burns. Presumably a person convicted of
murder, i.e. killing by stealth, or robbery [taking from a
person's robe, that is, his person or breaking into his home to
steal] would be hung and his possessions confiscated.
The issue of rights to herd pigs to feed in certain woodland was
heard in this lawsuit:
"In the year 825 which had passed since the birth of Christ, and
in the course of the second Indiction, and during the reign of
Beornwulf, King of Mercia, a council meeting was held in the
famous place called Clofesho, and there the said King Beornwulf
and his bishops and his earls and all the councilors of this
nation were assembled. Then there was a very noteworthy suit
about wood-pasture at Sinton, towards the west in Scirhylte. The
reeves in charge of the pigherds wished to extend the pasture
farther, and take in more of the wood than the ancient rights
permitted. Then the bishop and the advisors of the community said
that they would not admit liability for more than had been
appointed in AEthelbald's day, namely mast for 300 swine, and
that the bishop and the community should have two-thirds of the
wood and of the mast. They Archbishop Wulfred and all the
councilors determined that the bishop and the community might
declare on oath that it was so appointed in AEthelbald's time and
that they were not trying to obtain more, and the bishop
immediately gave security to Earl Eadwulf to furnish the oath
before all the councilors, and it was produced in 30 days at the
bishop's see at Worcester. At that time Hama was the reeve in
charge of the pigherds at Sinton, and he rode until he reached
Worcester, and watched and observed the oath, as Earl Eadwulf
bade him, but did not challenge it.
Here are the names and designations of those who were assembled
at the council meeting ..."