natural surface of the ground passed over was hard rock, the two lowest
layers, or _strata_, were dispensed with; but where no safe natural
foundation existed, the labour was increased by the driving of piles
into the soft ground to afford this.
Over hill and down dale were constructed these wonderful roads. No
obstacle save an impenetrable marsh or an unbridgeable river baulked the
Roman engineer; and the outward distinguishing mark between the Roman
road constructed sixteen centuries ago and its modern successor is often
the fact that whereas the latter goes round a hill, and thus makes
things easy for the traveller, the former climbs in a straight line
right over the summit.
What engineering skill the Romans must have possessed to build their
roads! Straight from one military station to another miles distant over
the hills did they succeed in driving their road. How did they judge its
direction so accurately? We know not. And what immense labour was needed
for the construction of their roads! Think of the cohorts of Roman
soldiers engaged in building them, and of the slave-gangs of Britons
toiling under the lash of the task-master as they quarried the materials
for the use of the soldiers working many miles away. So hard was the
work of the Roman soldiers in Britain, we read, that they ‘wished for
death to relieve them from their insupportable toil.’
But human life stood for little in those days. What Roman engineer cared
whether thousands of lives were spent in the making of his road? His one
concern was to build it in such a way that for centuries to come the
Roman legions should be able to march, and the Imperial Post to ride,
along its hundreds of miles at the greatest possible speed. One hundred
and sixty-five English miles were covered by Caesarius, a Roman
magistrate, in the space of one day on a journey from Antioch to
Constantinople, the whole distance of 665 miles taking less than six
days. There is little wonder that Rome had become ‘Mistress of the
World.’
* * * * *
Let us now see what the Roman road-makers did in East Yorkshire.
Stretching north from Londinium ran the military highway known in later
times as ERMIN STREET. At Lindum Colonia this branched in two
directions, both branches meeting eventually at Eboracum. Skirting the
impassable marshes around the meeting-places of the Yorkshire rivers and
the Trent, one branch reached Eboracum by bridges or fords across the
Trent, the Don, the Aire, and the Wharfe, where now stand Littleborough,
Doncaster, Castleford, and Tadcaster. The crossing-places were protected
by military stations which have since grown into these towns.
But directly north from Lincoln the second branch reached the Humber at
Winteringham, whence the river was crossed by ferry to Brough, where
also was a military station, named Petuaria. From Brough to York the
road passed through South Cave, South Newbald, Houghton Woods, Thorpe le
Street, Barmby Moor and Stamford Bridge. Along this second branch would
travel the Roman Emperors and Generals, the Imperial Post, and the
slave-carried litters and chairs of the Roman aristocracy; round by the
former would march the foreign troops drafted to Eboracum to replace the
wastage in the Sixth Legion, and the British levies on their way to
fight and die in other parts of the Roman world.
At South Newbald this Roman road branched to the right, passing by
Londesborough, Warter, Millington and Acklam, to a camp at Old Malton.
From Stamford Bridge eastward ran another road by Garrowby, Fimber,
Cottam and Kilham to a Roman station on the cliffs at Sewerby. Higher up
on the Wolds ran an alternative route by Fridaythorpe, Sledmere, Octon
and Rudston. These two roads are to-day known as the Low Street and the
High Street.
Smaller roads ran from Stamford Bridge to Old Malton, and from the
latter to Fimber and possibly farther south in the direction of
Beverley. Round the coast from Bridlington there was probably a
road—long since washed away—to a military station on the headland which
then existed about a mile to the east of the present Kilnsea.
In North Lincolnshire Ermin Street is a typical Roman military road, and
for the greater part of its course it is to-day the ‘king’s highway.’
But its northerly portion has, since the establishing of the Ferry at
New Holland, been disused, and is now but a green lane, whose very
surface is lost to view as we approach the Humber.
When we enter the territory of the Brigantes the road is not so
distinguishable, and its course is in some parts uncertain. But even
then the name of ‘Street’ given by the successors of the Romans to the
Roman paved way—the way made of _strata_—survives; and on the map of the
East Riding we shall find Garrowby Street, Humber Street, Wharram le
Street, and Thorpe le Street, each name being significant of a Roman
road. In some instances the road itself has been uncovered, as in the
building of Drewton Bridge 60 years ago, and in building operations at
Londesborough Park, where it was found to be 24 feet wide, and to show
plainly the marks of wheeled carriages.
* * * * *
At many places in the East Riding have been discovered evidences of
Roman commerce and domestic life. Bronze and silver coins buried in
vases or boxes have been unearthed at Cowlam, Warter, Nunburnholme,
Skerne, Wetwang, and Brough. At the first-named place more than 10,000
coins had been buried in a large black vase, the finds at Warter and
Nunburnholme numbered about half that at Cowlam, and the Copper Hall
Farm at Skerne owes its name to a similar find.
So also Roman coins have been unearthed at Hornsea, Aldborough,
Withernsea and Hollym, on the line of a coast road from Bridlington to
Kilnsea, though the road itself has long since been washed away.
[Illustration: ROMAN ROADS AROUND THE HUMBER]
Of particular interest, as pointing to the fact that the road leading
southward to Brough was an export trade route, is a ‘pig’ of lead
weighing 9 stone 9 lbs. discovered twenty years ago in a field adjoining
the road at South Cave. This bears in raised letters an inscription,
which, written in uncontracted form as
CAII IVLII PROTI BRITANNICUM LVTVDAE EX
ARGENTO
would mean in our tongue [The lead] of Caius Julius Protus, British
[lead] from Lutuda, [prepared] from silver.
[Illustration: ROMAN PIG OF LEAD FOUND AT SOUTH CAVE.]]
The lead mines of Derby were famous in Roman times, and much lead was
exported from Britain to Italy; so we may easily suppose that this
particular pig was lost in transit to the place of shipment.
As evidences of domestic life we have _hypocausts_, or underground
heating-chambers for the supply of hot air and hot water to the rooms of
Roman villas. These must once have been numerous—for no wealthy Roman
could do without his warm bath—but so far only a few have been
discovered. Again, we have examples of the Roman writing-implements,
_styli_ by name, two of which, found at Brough, are illustrated below.
[Illustration: ROMAN ‘PENS’ FOUND AT BROUGH.]
When a Roman wished to write, his implements were very simple—a tablet
of wax and a _stylus_. With the pointed end of the latter he scratched
his letters on the surface of the wax; and if he made mistakes he had
only to smooth them out by using the other end, which was flattened for
the purpose. The Roman schoolboy probably found the stylus a very
convenient instrument.
[Illustration: RELICS OF ROMAN FEASTS FOUND AT EASINGTON.]
Humbler evidences of domestic life have been discovered in the ‘kitchen
middens,’ or refuse heaps, which the incursions of the sea have exposed
at Easington and Kilnsea. From these have been obtained numberless
oyster shells and fragments of pottery, the relics of dining-room feasts
and kitchen breakages. The former are very interesting, because they
show the method by which the Roman cook overcame the natural reluctance
of the creatures within them to ‘come out of their shells.’
* * * * *
How very curiously such discoveries of ancient relics may be made is
seen in the recent case of an inhabitant of South Ferriby. A half-witted
man, by name Thomas Smith, but known locally by the more familiar name
‘Coin Tommy,’ made it his practice for several years to walk along the
shore of the river just after the periods of high tide, and to pick up
all metal objects which he happened to see. Whether horse-shoe or
brace-button did not matter to ‘Coin Tommy.’ Into his pocket went
everything of metal which he found; and on his reaching home after each
of these expeditions, his ‘finds’ were transferred to a stock of tin
canisters, and packed away on the shelves of his cupboard never again to
be looked at by their finder.
Now it was known by Coin Tommy’s associates that his finds were not all
horse-shoes and brace-buttons. But few of his friends expected that
after his death would-be purchasers of these finds from distant parts of
the country would vie with one another for their possession. Yet so it
happened; for Coin Tommy’s miscellaneous collection included no fewer
than 3000 Roman coins of gold, silver and bronze, and bronze brooches,
finger-rings, bracelets, tweezers, spoons, earpicks and styli
innumerable.
The explanation of the occurrence of all these objects along this
portion of the south bank of the Humber is that there had been at this
spot a Roman cemetery, and that changes in the currents of the Humber
have caused each high tide during the last few years to wash away some
portion of the bank, and thus bring to light treasures buried sixteen
centuries ago. And though South Ferriby is not in East Yorkshire, Coin
Tommy’s finds may fitly be mentioned in the story of the East Riding;
for it is probable that many of the owners of the bracelets and brooches
and finger rings had lived at Petuaria, on the Yorkshire side of the
river.
Very interesting are the _fibulae_, or brooches, here discovered. Some
have engraved upon them the name of their maker, AVCISSA, and one,
having blue enamel let into the bronze surface, is constructed in the
form of a fish.
[Illustration: A ‘SAFETY PIN’ SIXTEEN HUNDRED YEARS OLD.]
This may be taken as evidence of its wearer’s being a Christian, for in
early days the fish was an emblem of Christianity. In other cases the
brooch is made of a single piece of bronze wire, twisted to form a
spiral spring, and having one of its ends flattened out and bent over to
form a catch for the pin—an illustration of the oft-quoted saying ‘There
is nothing new under the sun’; for here is an exact model of the
safety-pin invented, or rather re-invented, in the nineteenth century.
[Illustration: DESIGN OF THE PAVEMENT OF A ROMAN VILLA DISCOVERED AT
HARPHAM.]
To come back to the East Riding, our last mention of relics of Roman
times shall be that of the mosaic pavement which was discovered in a
ploughed field at Harpham in 1904. This pavement formed the floor of the
_atrium_, or square hall of a Roman villa, and was in use probably about
the year A.D. 300. It is constructed of small _tessarae_, or cubes, of
red sandstone and chalk, with a few others of dark blue clay, red clay,
and yellow limestone in the centre-piece of the design, and makes an
ingenious piece of work in the form of a maze.
This Roman pavement has been removed to Hull and reconstructed in the
Hull museum. On it when found lay the flat sandstone slabs which had
once formed the roof over it. Many iron nails with large flat heads were
also found, and in one instance the nail remained fast in position
through a hole in one of the slabs.
VI.
OUR ANCESTORS.
From the time when Roman soldiers first penetrated into the territory of
the Brigantes, the land which we name Holderness was troubled by the
piratical attacks of a people from the other side of the North Sea; and
in the early years of the second century the low-lying marshes of this
district were inhabited by a tribe whom the Romans called PARISII. In
our language they would be called FRISIANS.
These early Frisian settlers have left us evidence of the places they
chose for settlement in the village names Arram, Newsom, Hollym, and
Ulrome. Their settlements would probably be peaceful, for the lands
taken would be unoccupied pieces of ground rising just above the level
of the surrounding marsh.
But as time went on, the eastern and southern shores of Britain were
assailed by numerous other bands of plunderers and would-be settlers;
and in the later Roman times we find that, beside the army stationed at
York under the command of the _Duke of Britain_ to repel the Picts and
Scots of the north, there was an army under the _Count of the Saxon
Shore_ whose duty it was to defend against invaders the coast from the
Wash to the shores of Sussex.
* * * * *
Under Roman rule Britain as a whole prospered exceedingly. Agriculture
and commerce were extended, so that we find the lead-merchants of Derby
exporting lead to Italy, the chalk-merchants of Tadcaster exporting
chalk, and the corn-merchants of the Rhine provinces importing corn from
Britain in large quantities.
But beside the export of lead and chalk and corn, another export of
trade was going on—the export of the warlike youth of the country, who
went to furnish with men the Roman armies in Spain and Gaul and Germany.
Those left at home were forbidden by law to carry arms; so there is
small wonder that when the Roman legions were withdrawn from Britain
Roman towns were sacked and burnt, and Roman civilisation blotted out by
hostile invaders. ‘Tragedies can still be guessed at from heaps of ashes
and from skeletons of men, women and children found ... in crouching
attitudes in hypocausts and other places of concealment; and the human
bones frequently discovered at the bottoms of wells ... enable us to see
the ruthless savage removing the traces of a murderous raid.’
Petuaria, Praetorium, Derventio—all were sacked and burnt by the hosts
of ENGLE who sailed up the Humber and the Derwent, or landed at
Bridlington Bay. Roman houses were generally one-storied buildings
roofed with tiles or thatch, and the destruction of a town by fire would
be complete. It was also, in most cases, lasting; for the destroyers
were men who cared not for a life passed within walls and
fortifications. ‘They liked better to hear the lark sing than the mouse
squeak.’ So the Roman cities, towns and camps ‘remained in ruins, to be
haunted by the owl and the fox.’
But an exception was made by the invaders in the case of the greatest of
the Roman cities. Eboracum, Londinium and Lindum Colonia became the
chief centres of life for the tribes that captured them; and thus the
EBORACUM of the Romans became the EOFERWIC[6] of the Angles—a
dwelling-place in the haunts of the wild boar. Smaller towns were
blotted out; and their sites are known to us only by the finding of the
family store of coins, or the personal treasures once placed for safety
in a little recess in the wall or buried in a vase under the floor—to be
overwhelmed with debris, and to remain undiscovered for many centuries.
Footnote 6:
Pronounced almost as _Yóv-er-wik_.
* * * * *
The hostile tribes who invaded Britain during the fifth and sixth
centuries in such numbers as to conquer the whole country from the Isle
of Wight to the Firth of Forth, except the mountainous districts of the
west, were known as the _Engle_, the _Seaxe_ and the _Iute_.[7] Angles,
Saxons and Jutes these are to us. The IUTE landed on the shores of, and
established colonies in, Kent and the Isle of Wight, the former of which
developed into a kingdom; the SEAXE established three kingdoms
distinguished from one another in name by the adjectives South, East,
and West; and separate bands of ENGLE formed the kingdoms of East
Anglia, Mercia, and Northumbria.
Footnote 7:
_Eń-gla_, _Sék-sa_, and _Yóo-ta_, in pronunciation.
It is with the last-named of these ‘Seven Kingdoms’ that we are most
particularly concerned. The huge kingdom of Northumbria stretched
northwards from the Humber to the Forth, and was at different times
either ruled by one king or divided into two separate kingdoms—Deira,
from the Humber to the Tees, and Bernicia, from the Tees to the Forth.
How complete was the conquest of Britain by these invading tribes is
seen in the account written by Bede, the eighth century monk of Jarrow:—
They burned and harried and slew from the sea on the east to the sea
on the west, and no one was able to withstand them.... Many of the
miserable survivors were captured in waste places and stabbed in
heaps. Some because of hunger gave themselves into the hands of
their enemies, to be their slaves for ever in return for food and
clothing; some departed sorrowfully over the sea; some remained
fearfully in their native land, and with heavy hearts lived a life
of want in the forests and waste places and on the high cliffs.
The completeness of the conquest may be seen also in the fact that the
language of the Britons was replaced by that of the invaders. The
Angles, Saxons and Jutes spoke a language entirely different from the
Keltic language of the Britons; but except in the Highlands of Scotland,
in Wales, and in the Isle of Man—the parts to which the invaders did not
penetrate—the language spoken to-day is ENGLISH and the name of the
country itself is ENGLA-LAND, the land of the _Engle_.
* * * * *
Very definite evidence of the places chosen by the Angles for settlement
can be found on the map of the East Riding. Where the head of the
household decided to ‘pitch his tent’ a piece of land was enclosed with
a _tūn_,[8] or hedge, and the dwelling erected within it became his new
_hām_,[8] or home. Such was the origin of our numerous towns and
villages whose names now end in the syllables _ton_ and _ham_. In many
cases the name of the family is enshrined in the name of the settlement.
Thus the Locings—the sons of Loc—the Essings, the Brantings, the
Eoferings, and the Hemings gave their names respectively to Lockington,
Easington, Brantingham, Everingham, and Hemingbrough.
Footnote 8:
Pronounced, respectively, _toon_ and _hahm_.
Besides the endings _ton_ and _ham_, others which tell of Anglian
settlements are _worth_ and _bald_ (a dwelling), _cote_ or _coate_ (a
mud cottage), _stead_ (a place), _brough_ or _borough_ (a fortified
place), _wick_ (a village), _wold_ (woodland), _field_ (a place where
trees have been felled), _ley_ (an open place in a wood), _mere_ (a
lake), _fleet_ (the mouth of a river) and _ford_. Examples of all these
can be found on a map of the East Riding.
* * * * *
In their burial customs the Angles were little different from the
peoples whom they dispossessed. Like them they often cremated the bodies
of their dead, afterwards collecting the charred bones and burying them
in earthen vessels, accompanied with the weapons or personal treasures
which were to be used again in the life to come. A man was buried with
his spear and shield, or with the long one-edged knife whose
name—_seax_—gave rise to the tribal name of the Saxons; a woman with her
knife, shears, bronze box containing thread and needles, and beads of
glass and amber; a child with his toys, such as the tiny tweezers, knife
and shears found with a child’s bones in a burial vase at Sancton.
[Illustration:
IRON KNIFE AND BRONZE SPOON FROM AN ANGLIAN CEMETERY
NEAR GARTON GATE HOUSE (1/2).
]
Not always, however, did the Angles cremate the bodies of their dead.
More often they buried them near the surface of a British burial mound.
From one of the mounds at Driffield, known as ‘Cheesecake Hill,’ was
taken a necklace consisting of 219 beads, of which 141 were of amber,
two of glass, three of carefully cut crystal, and five of cowrie shells.
[Illustration: CHILD’S TOYS FOUND IN A BURIAL VASE AT SANCTON.]
Not very far from Garton Gatehouse, and near the memorial to Sir Tatton
Sykes some three miles farther north, were accidentally discovered two
Anglian cemeteries, one of which contained more than sixty bodies of
men, women and children. Here all but a few had been buried not with
their limbs bent, as was the custom among the Britons, but with their
limbs stretched out at full length; and all but one had been buried with
their heads to the west. Probably these were Christian burials.
[Illustration:
‘FINDS’ IN AN ANGLIAN CEMETERY NEAR GARTON
GATE HOUSE.
A. Bronze ring (1/1). B. Silver brooch (1/1). C. Bone comb (1/2).
]
From this Anglian cemetery at Garton were obtained many implements and
personal ornaments—iron knives and bronze spoons, bronze ankle-rings and
buckles, necklaces of glass, amber and amethyst, silver ear-rings, a
gold button set with a precious stone, and, luxury of luxuries, a bone
comb. What a great advance is thus shown to have taken place in the
centuries between the British burial at Garrowby and the Anglian burials
at Garton! With the former were weapons of flint and bone; with the
latter, implements of bronze and iron, and personal ornaments of silver,
gold, and precious stones.
VII.
HOW THE MEN OF THE NORTH BECAME
CHRISTIANS.
During later Roman times the worship of God had been introduced into
Britain, and the discovery of the Roman bronze brooch figured on page 38
shows that Christianity had reached the shores of the Humber.
But the invaders who were to give a new name to the country and to
become our ancestors were heathens, and chief among their gods was
Woden. We of the twentieth century still preserve, the names of Wōden,
Tīw, the god of war, and Frīg, the wife of Wōden, in our ‘Wednesday,’
‘Tuesday,’ and ‘Friday’—the _Wodenesdaeg_, _Tiwesdaeg_, and
_Frigedaeg_[9] of our Anglo-Saxon ancestors.
Footnote 9:
Pronounced, respectively, _Wóh-den-ez-dag_, _Tée-wes-dag_, and
_Frée-ga-dag_.
In the passage from Bede’s _Ecclesiastical History of the English
People_ which was partly translated in the last chapter, we are given an
insight into the way in which the heathen Angles and Saxons despoiled
the worshipping-places of the Christian Britons:—
Everywhere priests were slain and murdered by the side of the
altars. Bishops together with their people were slain without mercy
by fire and sword, and there was none to give the rites of burial to
those who were so cruelly murdered.
Thus Britain became again a country entirely pagan, and it was not until
the closing years of the sixth century that Christian missionaries from
Rome once more set foot in it.
* * * * *
To understand the events leading up to the arrival of these
missionaries, we must bear in mind that among the Angles and the Saxons
slavery was a common custom. Social ranks of life were very marked, and
all men belonged to one of three distinct classes. He who could trace
back his descent from the gods ranked as an _eorl_,[10] or man of noble
birth, and all others were divided into two classes—the free and the
unfree. A free man, who had the privilege of owning land by virtue of
his freedom, was known as a _ceorl_[10]; but he who was, body and soul,
the property of another was called a _theow_,[10] or slave.
Footnote 10:
_É-orl_, _ké-orl_, and _thái-ow_ in pronunciation.
Slaves must have been very numerous in our country during Saxon days;
for wars were constantly being waged between the different tribes, and
prisoners of war naturally became the slaves of their captors. So also,
a man who had fallen into debt and who could not release himself became
the theow of the man to whom he owed money; and when he became a slave,
his wife and children became slaves likewise, and could be sold by his
master. Worst of all, a free man had the right to sell his own children
into slavery until they reached the age of seven.
Now it so happened that this horrible custom of selling children as
slaves was the direct cause of Christianity’s being re-introduced into
our country. A regular export trade in English children was carried on,
and about the year 580 there were one day standing exposed for sale in
the market of Rome some boys of fair complexion and beautiful hair.
Along the market chanced to pass a monk, who was struck with their
light-coloured hair and blue eyes, so different from the dark hair and
brown eyes of the South European peoples. On his asking the slave-dealer
from what country they had been brought, he was told that they came from
Britain, and that the people of that island had fair complexions.
Unsatisfied with this information, he asked of what race they were, and
was told that they were Angli.