HOW THE PEOPLE LIVED
In this and the next chapters I propose to attempt a sketch of the
way in which the tribes of the Goths lived, whether in the Empire of
Charlemagne or in our own island. And because the island story must
be of the greater interest to us, seeing that it is our own, I shall
try to describe the mode of life of the people there, and will ask
you to accept that description as giving the type or pattern of the
life on the Continent also.
The feudal system did not develop in England precisely as it
developed on the Continent of Europe.
This is a statement which may surprise you, for you will no doubt
know that the feudal system did exist in England at a rather later
date and that the principal part of England's story for many a year
was made up of fights between the feudal barons themselves and of
combinations of the barons against the king. But this feudalism was
brought into England by the Norman kings, after William I.'s conquest
in 1066, and again there was a fresh importation of feudal practices
under those French kings of the House of Anjou--thence called
Angevins--who reigned both over England and over a large slice of
France.
But it did not spring up in England like a growth from the soil, as
it did in Charlemagne's empire. It had not the same roots in
England. The Anglo-Saxon had not quite the same customs of the
_comitatus_, {92} the body-guard devoted to the king or chief, as the
Franks had, nor was England as familiar as France with the Roman
customs of the _patrocinium_--the relation of patron and client--and
the _precarium_--the tenure of land granted in answer to a
prayer--out of which the relations between the feudal lord and his
vassal so easily grew. Moreover, you will remember that the
Anglo-Saxon possession of our England did not include the whole of
the island. There were still Britons along the western fringe and
there were Picts north of the Forth. And even the land that the
Anglo-Saxon did hold was not one kingdom, but divided into three main
divisions, to say nothing of some lesser divisions. There were the
kingdoms of Northumbria, Mercia, and Wessex, to name them in their
order from north to south.
At one time we hear of the "Heptarchy," or seven kingdoms, but the
number really might be stated equally well as more or less than
seven, according as this or the other collection of tribes were
reckoned as independent.
Therefore the kingdoms were small, so that the kings, if they had any
strong rule at all, could make their ruling strength felt all over
their kingdoms. We have seen that one of the reasons why the feudal
system came into being on the Continent was that the king was not
able, in disturbed times, to make good his authority far from his own
headquarters. That failure to make good was less likely to occur to
the ruler of the small kingdoms into which England was divided.
[Sidenote: The English lose their freedom]
But what did happen in England was that the free man, the man who
owned his own piece of land as a freehold, gradually became less
free. In the system of tribal government which the Gothic tribes
brought westward with them, it had been the custom for the free men
of the tribe (the ceorls, or churls) to come {93} together at certain
times and pass laws and try cases that arose under the laws. They
were called together by the king and by the chief men (the eorls, or
earls) and they voted on any subject that came before the assembly.
And still, in England, the freemen had the right to come up to the
assemblies and vote. But, though the kingdoms were not very large,
they were larger, no doubt, than the territories held by the tribes
in their Eastern homes. It was a long way for the voters to come to
the assemblies. They had their business, as towns began to grow, to
occupy them. Perhaps their agriculture, their mill, or their cattle
needed their attention. At all events, however it happened, they
ceased to go to the assemblies, and the result, of course, was that
the king and the earls got more and more of the law-making and of the
decision of cases into their own hands, and the ordinary freeman,
though still in name free, and still with his right to vote, came to
have less and less power and had to obey the decisions of the king
and his council of earls more and more. They had no arrangement by
which they might make their wishes known at the assembly by means of
a representative appointed by themselves, as our voters now are able
to make their wishes known by appointing their Member of Parliament
and sending him to Westminster to speak for them. In theory all the
old English voters were members of their parliament, so to call it.
They could all go to it and speak and vote. But, owing to the
difficulties of going, and the distance, the result was that they did
not go at all, and so had no one to represent their views in the
government under which they were supposed to be free, and in which
they were all supposed to have an equal share in governing. They
continued, however, to have the power to vote in their more local
assemblies, in the "hundred court," which was something like an
enlarged parish council {94} of a few villages, and in the "shire
court," or council of the shire, formed by the union of many
villages. How these courts were formed, you shall read in the next
chapter. It seems to be rather doubtful whether the people availed
themselves much of these powers. They probably became more and more
content to leave the business of government to the chief men.
These three kingdoms of Northumbria, Mercia, and Wessex were
constantly striving together for the mastery. Our unfortunate land
can have known very little peace until Egbert, who ruled all England
from 827 to 836, did succeed in bringing the kingdoms under his sole
authority. The rulers of the Franks do not seem to have made any
attempt to extend their wide empire so as to include our islands.
Charlemagne, however, took much interest in the course of affairs in
England, and at one time there was a project of marrying his son to a
daughter of the King of Mercia. The project was not accomplished;
and at a moment when Mercia was at her strongest, so that there did
seem a possibility of her overcoming the other divisions of the
country and uniting all under one rule, Charlemagne's influence was
exerted to restore the King of Northumbria to his throne. The fact
is that the Frankish policy towards England was, not to attempt its
conquest, but to thwart its own efforts towards unity, so as to keep
it divided, and by reason of its divisions, weak. But to the English
generally, Charlemagne showed much favour and they were well received
at his court. He had assumed the position of head, with the Pope, of
the Catholic Church, and that position in itself gave him a reason
and an excuse for interfering, as he did, with Church matters in
England.
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[Illustration: CANTERBURY.]
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I have said that the English were well received at the court of the
great Emperor. You may take that to mean that the English were by no
means, at this far-away date, shut up in their own island. They {96}
often went to and from the Continent and even to Rome; and Roman
emissaries, priests and bishops, were constantly coming to England.
To get a true picture in your minds of the country, both in England
and in other parts of Europe, it is almost necessary first to dismiss
from your minds the picture as you know it to-day. Whereas, now, you
see for the most part, as you travel by train or motor, cleared land,
open fields, and here and there woodland, you have to imagine a land
at that time universally covered by wood, with only here and there
clearances made by man. Along the tops of the downs, however,
exposed to the high winds, there would be very little growth of
trees. The woodland would be full of game and of wild creatures.
There would be deer, and wolves preying on the deer.
You must imagine a population extraordinarily less numerous than it
is now. Even in 1087, when Domesday Book, which contained a "census"
of all England, was made, the population is given at 1,500,000. For
the most part we may suppose the people living rather after the
manner in which the Gothic tribes lived in their own country--in
clearances, or what we might call villages, in the midst of the wild
wood and in the river valleys. But there would be some towns, larger
villages gradually growing, and these towns you would probably find
beginning to be surrounded by a protecting wall of raised earth and
palings with gates that were shut at nightfall. Generally the
houses, both in the villages and in the towns, would be of timber and
clay, built as I will shortly describe; but after a while the
churches and the great men's houses, and the fortified castles would
be of stone. There is what we call Saxon stonework still to be seen
both in England and in other parts of Europe.
Now through this green wood, which generally {97} covered our
England, there would be roads and tracks. All the travelling by land
would be on foot or on horseback. The use of wheels for vehicles was
known even to the Britons before the coming of the English, for they
had their war-chariots; but even where the Romans had made their fine
roads it is not likely that, after all the years since the Romans
left the island, these roads would not have fallen into such
disrepair that no wheeled thing could go along them far without
sticking in the mud.
[Sidenote: Modes of travel]
For another fact, that you have to realise about the country of that
day, is that it was not only far more wooded than it is now: it was
also far more marshy. The rivers ran more broadly, their banks were
wider. All the neighbourhood of Westminster, for instance, was a
swamp, and the Thames, because it was so wide, was far less deep and
it was fordable there. Men and horses could walk through it, perhaps
on some stones thrown into the bed, and certainly it must have been
far less deep and far more wide than it is now.
Because of this marshiness of the lower grounds, the roads by which
people travelled went as much as possible along the upper, the harder
and drier, ground, sometimes following a line near the top of the
downs. The tracks or byways from the woodland and valley villages
rose up out of the lowland as quickly as the ground would allow and
went up to join the older roads along the downs. But, in spite of
all that, you must realise that the rivers were really the great
means of communication. They were the chief roads and highways; and
the proof of that is that it is always low down, by a river, that all
the old towns and the big church establishments and buildings were
made. There are Canterbury, London, Winchester, Oxford, Paris, Rouen
and very many more that you will think of. Not a river of any size
that did not have a town springing up on its banks, and not a town of
any size springing up anywhere except on a river's bank.
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And the way in which the English and other Gothic people formed their
homes and lived their lives appears to have been very different from
the way of life of the older Celts. We have seen that the
Anglo-Saxons, when they came to England, established themselves in
the river valleys and in the woodland country; but there is evidence
that those earliest inhabitants of whom we know anything, the Celts,
who were here before the Romans, lived more on the upper lands, on
the Downs. This is shown by the relics which the plough and the
spade discover for us, on these upper levels, and also by those
extraordinary large stone rings of which the most famous is that at
Stonehenge, although it is certain that only a few hundred years ago
the stones at Avebury near Marlborough must have encircled a very
much larger area. Most of the Avebury stones have been broken up now
by the farmers to make roads and houses.
[Sidenote: Lines of travel]
The great stone circles had to do with the religion of which the
Druids were the priests, and you should note that this Avebury, near
Marlborough, is a very central spot, in England. It is on high
ground, and we know that many tracks or roadways led from it as a
centre, going out like spokes of a wheel. Also you may notice that
many of the rivers radiate out from that central high ground and find
their way thence in different directions to the sea. Probably that
part of the country was looked on as particularly sacred because it
was so central.
Now for people coming to England from the Continent of Europe, the
easiest way to come, because it was the shortest sea-passage, would
be across the Channel at, or near, Dover. Thence, if they wanted to
get into the heart of England, they would be prevented from going
northward by the Thames. They could not cross the Thames on foot or
on horse till they came to London, where the Romans made their {99}
Watling Street, as it was called, across the river and thence up to
Chester.
But as a matter of fact they were more likely to wish to go westward
than northward, because it was in the west of England that those
things of value lay for which, in the old days, people did come from
the Continent to England--that is the lead and tin that were in the
mines. These lay in the west of England and in Ireland. In Ireland,
in the Wicklow mountains, some gold was found. So, then, going
westward, these people came to the meeting of the roads at or about
Avebury and the Salisbury Plain country.
On those high downs and on that thin soil there would be few and
small trees. The woodland would be all below, say rising not much
more than 500 feet above sea-level. Therefore this high country gave
the best and easiest land for the living of a people who were in the
pastoral stage; that is, had flocks and herds. It was, and it still
is, good sheep land. And it did not need clearing.
The Anglo-Saxons came with somewhat different habits. They had been
used to living in the woodlands and the river valleys, rather than on
open downs; and therefore it was to the lower lands that they
naturally resorted. They established themselves in villages there,
as they had been established in their homes across the Channel.
I would remind you again that I am trying to tell you the story of
how these people came and settled in England, and how the kind of
life that they lived has developed into the kind of life that we lead
now, not only because it is our very own English story, and therefore
of the closest interest to us, but also because it is in much the
same way that the Gothic tribes settled and developed over most of
the Frankish Empire and also where the Visigoths lived, in Spain,
both while they were the actual rulers of Spain and {100} also in the
times of the Moorish conquest of that country. So that it is the
story of a great part of the world, and of the part most important
for the world's progress, that we may see being enacted on a small
scale in our own island.
[Sidenote: Saxon houses]
In the river valleys, then, these incoming Saxons would establish
themselves on some firm and not too marshy bit of land. There they
would build the houses of their villages. And the houses, at first,
were built in this manner: they would either leave four tree stems,
as they cleared the woodland, or else would drive four poles into the
ground, to form the corners of the projected house, which we will
call [Illustration: ABCD]. Then they would bring together and fasten
together, at their tops, the trunks or poles A and B and the poles C
and D, so that they came like this [Illustration: house shape]. Thus
they got the shape of the house. You may note that this is somewhat
the shape of that Gothic arch, which became so important in later
building. The house, at first, was divided into two rooms, at most,
in one of which the men lived and in the other the women. The
builders threw a roofing pole across, from the top of one of the
arches--that is to say, from the point at which the poles A and B
were fastened together, to the top of the other arch, where C and D
were fastened together. This made the "roof tree." Then they put
struts, or strengthening pieces of wood, across from one pole to the
other, about at the height where the poles began to bend most sharply
so as to come together. The usual distance from each of the poles,
as between A and B, and also between C and D, where they entered the
ground, was 16 feet. Thus they had the frame of the house
constructed.
Then they would apply slighter rods of timber to the sides, in the
kind of weaving way in which you {101} must have seen those hurdles
made which are used very generally in England for penning sheep. It
is what is called wattle work--the rods going in and out, under and
over each other. Then they would plaster up the crevices with clay,
"daubing" it, as it is called, so that the whole work is called
"wattle and daub." That is how their houses were made, or somehow
like that. I will not affirm that it was just in the order that I
have mentioned that each of the processes was performed, but it is
tolerably sure that it was somewhat thus that those Saxons and most
of the German tribes made their houses.
[Illustration: AN ANGLO-SAXON MANSION.]
As a rule the houses were thatched, but sometimes tiled with roofing
tiles, after the fashion of the villas that the Romans had built.
The floor might also be tiled.
In the houses of the wealthier people the walls were often hung with
tapestry, woven and worked by the Anglo-Saxon ladies, who were
skilful in spinning and in needlework. These tapestries were hung
from hooks, {102} tenter-hooks, from which we have our proverb of
"being on tenter-hooks." They served to exclude the draught, as well
as for adornment, for probably the "wattle and daub" was not always
wind proof.
And then there was a hole at the top of the roof to let out the smoke
of the fire, which would be lighted in the centre of the room, or
hall. The houses had no chimneys. Sometimes they had windows for
light, but these were only slits in the walls--not glazed.
They did know something of the use of glass, for they had glass
drinking-vessels, as well as vessels of wood and of silver. The
horns of the cattle were used for the same purpose. For the
furniture of their houses they had tables, generally of a round
shape. There are several quaint pictures, adorning old manuscripts,
showing them seated, or standing, at dinner. They had benches and
stools, but no movable seats, as it seems. The seat they called a
"sett"--a thing to "settle," or "sit" on. We still use the word
"settle" for a kind of sofa, and "stool" comes from the same
Anglo-Saxon word. We are learning now not only the story of the
beginning of our own ways of life, but also much of the story of our
own words and way of talking.
In the better houses the seat and table at which the heads of the
family sat were raised on a flooring a little above the level of the
rest, on what was called a dais. This would only be in the bigger
houses. The dinner and other meals were always served in the hall,
or larger room, which really was the one important part of the house.
The apartments for the women were sometimes adjoining the hall, under
the same roof, but sometimes "the lady's bower," as it was called,
was a small separate building. Bed places, like berths in a ship's
cabin, were often arranged for the men along the sides of the great
hall, screened off by a curtain. You will understand that the better
and larger a {103} house was, and the wealthier its owner, the more
it would have of these fittings and conveniences. Most of the houses
in the ordinary village we may suppose to have been almost altogether
without them.
[Illustration: AN ANGLO-SAXON DINNER-PARTY. (From Wright's _Homes of
Other Days_.)]
For their food at table, even in the best houses, they do not seem to
have had forks. They had knives, but how much they were used at
table we hardly know. Fingers were the chief instruments; and they
were careful to wash their hands before and after meals. Indeed
washing, both of the person and of their clothes, seems to have been
more carefully and more often done thus early than a little later in
the story. I am not giving you any account of their clothes, because
you will get an idea of them much more quickly and exactly from the
illustrations.
Often, in the large houses, they would have one or more minstrels
playing to them as they ate, for they were fond of music and of the
dance, and of various games. The Romans had left, in Britain, the
tradition {104} of their games and gladiators' exhibitions in the
amphitheatres, and these had not been forgotten. The Saxons may have
come into that tradition and adopted the games, or they may have
brought their own. They had games that were a kind of mimic warfare,
with bows and arrows and javelin or dart throwing, which no doubt
served to keep them in practice for the frequent wars which the kings
waged together and for which a contingent from each village was
required.
Their chief food seems to have been bread, with butter, cheese, and
milk. This shows how much they depended on their live-stock, even
though they seldom, as we may suppose, ate fresh meat. But they had
poultry and ate much fish, and had a few vegetables, such as beans,
besides the wild produce of the woods, like blackberries, mushrooms,
nuts, and so on. They brewed beer, and mixed it with honey to make
the favourite drink called "mead." A little wine came in from the
Continent; but only the rich men could afford that.
To give them light, we know that they had candles, made both of the
tallow, the fat of animals, and of wax, from the bees, and they also
used lamps, holding oil, with a wick from the spout, like the Roman
lamps.
As a rule, in the villages established in the woodland, where the
houses were not close together, on the sides of a road, or in a
circle, but were scattered among the cleared places, a mound of earth
with a hedge on top was thrown up round about it. It was called by
the Saxon word from which we have our word "wall"; but it hardly was
what we should call a wall. Perhaps it was partly to protect the
home garden, which lay within it, from strolling cattle and wild
creatures, and partly for defence against enemies. There is evidence
that the Anglo-Saxon ladies were fond of flowers and of their gardens.
Where the houses lay alongside a road, and {105} especially beside
what was called a "street" (which meant one of the paved Roman roads,
from stratum, meaning a paved surface), this surrounding wall or
mound would not be made.
[Sidenote: Walled houses]
As time passed they began to make improvements in their houses. The
first improvement seems to have been to build walls, up to about the
height of a man's head--timber walls only at first--making use of
trunks that had grown with a bend in them, as the corner posts, for
the arch. From that came the occasional use of stone for the walls,
where stone was easily to be found, or of brick, where there was clay
convenient for the baking; but for very many years wood was the usual
material for the building of all except the great houses, churches,
castles, and the like. Of course it was very inflammable, and you
know how, even as late down in our story as the date (1666) of the
great fire of London, the destruction was so complete because almost
all the houses were of wood.
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