A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages

It is evidently the intention in this picture to represent the walls of the rooms as being formed, in the lower part, of masonry, with timber walls above, and all the windows are in the timber walls. If we make allowance for want of perspective and proportion in the drawing, it is probable that only a small portion of the elevation was masonry, and that the wooden walls (parietes) were raised above it, as is very commonly the case in old timber-houses still existing. The greater portion of the Saxon houses were certainly of timber; in Alfric’s colloquy, it is the carpenter, or worker in wood (se treo-wyrhta), who builds houses; and the very word to express the operation of building, timbrian, getimbrian, signified literally to construct of timber. We observe in the above representation of a house, that none of the buildings have more than a ground-floor, and this seems to have been a characteristic of the houses of all classes. The Saxon word flór is generally used in the early writers to represent the Latin pavimentum. Thus the “variegated floor” (on fágre flór) of the hall mentioned in Beowulf (l. 1454) was a paved floor, perhaps a tessellated pavement; as the road spoken of in an earlier part of the poem (stræt wæs stán-fáh, the street was stone-variegated, l. 644) describes a paved Roman road. The term upper-floor occurs once or twice, but only I think in translating from foreign Latin writers. The only instance that occurs to my memory of an upper-floor in an Anglo-Saxon house, is the story of Dunstan’s council at Calne in 978, when, according to the Saxon Chronicle, the witan, or council, fell from an upper-floor (of ane úp-floran), while Dunstan himself avoided their fate by supporting himself on a beam (uppon anum beame). The buildings in the above picture are all roofed with tiles of different forms, evidently copied from the older Roman roof-tiles. Perhaps the flatness of these roofs is only to be considered as a proof of the draughtsman’s ignorance of perspective. One of Alfric’s homilies applies the epithet steep to a roof—on tham sticelan hrofe. The hall is not unfrequently described as lofty.

The collective house had various names in Anglo-Saxon. It was called hús, a house, a general term for all residences great or small; it was called heal, or hall, because that was the most important part of the building—we still call gentlemen’s seats halls; it was called ham, as being the residence or home of its possessor; and it was called tún, in regard of its inclosure.

The Anglo-Saxons chose for their country-houses a position which commanded a prospect around, because such sites afforded protection at the same time that they enabled the possessor to overlook his own landed possessions. The Ramsey Chronicle, describing the beautiful situation of the mansion at “Schitlingdonia” (Shitlington), in Bedfordshire, tells us that the surrounding country lay spread out like a panorama from the door of the hall—ubi ab ostio aulæ tota fere villa et late patens ager arabilis oculis subjacet intuentis.

CHAPTER II.
IN-DOOR LIFE AMONG THE ANGLO-SAXONS.—THE HALL AND ITS HOSPITALITY.—THE SAXON MEAL.—PROVISIONS AND COOKERY.—AFTER-DINNER OCCUPATIONS.—DRUNKEN BRAWLS.

The introductory observations in the preceding chapter will be sufficient to show that the mode of life, the vessels and utensils, and even the residences of the Anglo-Saxons, were a mixture of those they derived from their own forefathers with those which they borrowed from the Romans, whom they found established in Britain. It is interesting to us to know that we have retained the ordinary forms of pitchers and basins, and, to a certain degree, of drinking vessels, which existed so many centuries ago among our ancestors before they established themselves in this island. The beautiful forms which had been brought from the classic south were not able to supersede national habit. Our modern houses derive more of their form and arrangement from those of our Saxon forefathers than from any other source. We have seen that the original Saxon arrangement of a house was preserved by that people to the last; but it does not follow that they did not sometimes adopt the Roman houses they found standing, although they seem never to have imitated them. I believe Bulwer’s description of the Saxonised Roman house inhabited by Hilda, to be founded in truth. Roman villas, when uncovered at the present day, are sometimes found to have undergone alterations which can only be explained by supposing that they were made when later possessors adapted them to Saxon manners. Such alterations appear to me to be visible in the villa at Hadstock, in Essex, opened by the late lord Braybrooke; in one place the outer wall seems to have been broken through to make a new entrance, and a road of tiles, which was supposed to have been the bottom of a water course, was more probably the paved pathway made by the Saxon possessor. Houses in those times were seldom of long duration; we learn from the domestic anecdotes given in saints’ legends and other writings, that they were very frequently burnt by accidental fires; thus the main part of the house, the timber-work, was destroyed; and as ground was then not valuable, and there was no want of space, it was much easier to build a new house in another spot, and leave the old foundations till they were buried in rubbish and earth, than to clear them away in order to rebuild on the same site. Earth soon accumulated under such circumstances; and this accounts for our finding, even in towns, so much of the remains of the houses of an early period undisturbed at a considerable depth under the present surface of the ground.

It has already been observed that the most important part of the Saxon house was the hall. It was the place where the household (hired) collected round their lord and protector, and where the visitor or stranger was first received,—the scene of hospitality. The householder there held open-house, for the hall was the public apartment, the doors of which were never shut against those who, whether known or unknown, appeared worthy of entrance. The reader of Saxon history will remember the beautiful comparison made by one of king Edwin’s chieftains in the discussion on the reception to be given to the missionary Paulinus. “The present life of man, O king, seems to me, in comparison of that time which is unknown to us, like to the swift flight of a sparrow through the hall where you sit at your meal in winter, with your chiefs and attendants, warmed by a fire made in the middle of the hall, whilst storms of rain or snow prevail without; the sparrow, flying in at one door and immediately out at another, whilst he is visible is safe from the wintry storm, but after this short space of fair weather, he immediately vanishes out of your sight, into the dark winter from which he had emerged.” Dining in private was always considered disgraceful, and is mentioned as a blot in a man’s character.

Internally, the walls of the hall were covered with hangings or tapestry, which were called in Anglo-Saxon wah-hrægel, or wah-rift, wall-clothing. These appear sometimes to have been mere plain cloths, but at other times they were richly ornamented, and not unfrequently embroidered with historical subjects. So early as the seventh century, Aldhelm speaks of the hangings or curtains being dyed with purple and other colours, and ornamented with images, and he adds that “if finished of one colour uniform they would not seem beautiful to the eye.” Among the Saxon wills printed by Hickes, we find several bequests of heall wah-riftas, or wall-tapestries for the hall; and it appears that, in some cases, tapestries of a richer and more precious character than those in common use were reserved to be hung up only on extraordinary festivals. There were hooks, or pegs, on the wall, upon which various objects were hung for convenience. In an anecdote told in the contemporary life of Dunstan, he is made to hang his harp against the wall of the room. Arms and armour, more especially, were hung against the wall of the hall. The author of the “Life of Hereward” describes the Saxon insurgents who had taken possession of Ely, as suspending their arms in this manner; and in one of the riddles in the Exeter Book, a war-vest is introduced speaking of itself thus:—

hwilum hongige, Sometimes I hang, hyrstum frœtwed, with ornaments adorned, wlitig on wage, splendid on the wall, þær weras drinceð, where men drink, freolic fyrd-sceorp. a goodly war-vest. —Exeter Book, p. 395.

We have no allusion in Anglo-Saxon writers to chimneys, or fireplaces, in our modern acceptation of the term. When necessary, the fire seems to have been made on the floor, in the place most convenient. We find instances in the early saints’ legends where the hall was burnt by incautiously lighting the fire too near the wall. Hence it seems to have been usually placed in the middle, and there can be little doubt that there was an opening, or, as it was called in later times, a louver, in the roof above, for the escape of the smoke. The historian Bede describes a Northumbrian king, in the middle of the seventh century, as having, on his return from hunting, entered the hall with his attendants, and all standing round the fire to warm themselves. A somewhat similar scene, but in more humble life, is represented in the accompanying cut, taken from a manuscript calendar of the beginning of the eleventh century (MS. Cotton. Julius, A. iv.). The material for feeding the fire is wood, which the man to the left is bringing from a heap, while his companion is administering to the fire with a pair of Saxon tongs (tangan). The vocabularies give tange, tongs, and bylig, bellows; and they speak of col, coal (explained by the Latin carbo), and synder, a cinder (scorium). As all these are Saxon words, and not derived from the Latin, we may suppose that they represent things known to the Anglo-Saxon race from an early period; and as charcoal does not produce scorium, or cinder, it is perhaps not going too far to suppose that the Anglo-Saxons were acquainted with the use of mineral coal. We know nothing of any other fire utensils, except that the Anglo-Saxons used a fyr-scofl, or fire-shovel. The place in which the fire was made was the heorth, or hearth.

The furniture of the hall appears to have been very simple, for it consisted chiefly of benches. These had carpets and cushions; the former are often mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon wills. The Anglo-Saxon poems speak of the hall as being “adorned with treasures,” from which we are perhaps justified in believing that it was customary to display there in some manner or other the richer and more ornamental of the household vessels. Perhaps one end of the hall was raised higher than the rest for the lord of the household, like the dais of later times, as Anglo-Saxon writers speak of the heah-setl, or high seat. The table can hardly be considered as furniture, in the ordinary sense of the word: it was literally, according to its Anglo-Saxon name bord, a board that was brought out for the occasion, and placed upon tressels, and taken away as soon as the meal was ended. Among the inedited Latin ænigmata, or riddles, of the Anglo-Saxon writer Tahtwin, who flourished at the beginning of the eighth century, is one on a table, which is curious enough to be given here, from the manuscript in the British Museum (MS. Reg. 12, C. xxiii.). The table, speaking in its own person, says that it is in the habit of feeding people with all sorts of viands; that while so doing it is a quadruped, and is adorned with handsome clothing; that afterwards it is robbed of all it possesses, and when it has been thus robbed it loses its legs:—

DE MENSA.

In the illuminated manuscripts, wherever dinner scenes are represented, the table is always covered with what is evidently intended for a handsome table-cloth, the myse-hrægel or bord-clath. The grand preparation for dinner was laying the board; and it is from this original character of the table that we derive our ordinary expression of receiving any one “to board and lodging.”

The hall was peculiarly the place for eating—and for drinking. The Anglo-Saxons had three meals in the day,—the breaking of their fast (breakfast), at the third hour of the day, which answered to nine o’clock in the morning, according to our reckoning; the ge-reordung (repast), or nón-mete (noon-meat) or dinner, which is stated to have been held at the canonical hour of noon, or three o’clock in the afternoon; and the æfen-gereord (evening repast), æfen-gyfl (evening food), æfen-mete (evening meat), æfen-thenung (evening refreshment), or supper, the hour of which is uncertain. It is probable, from many circumstances, that the latter was a meal not originally in use among our Saxon forefathers: perhaps their only meal at an earlier period was the dinner, which was always their principal repast; and we may, perhaps, consider noon as midday, and not as meaning the canonical hour.

As I have observed before, the table, from the royal hall down to the most humble of those who could afford it, was not refused to strangers. When they came to the hall-door, the guests were required to leave their arms in the care of a porter or attendant, and then, whether known or not, they took their place at the tables. One of the laws of king Cnut directs, that if, in the meantime, any one took the weapon thus deposited, and did hurt with it, the owner should be compelled to clear himself of suspicion of being cognisant of the use to be made of his arms when he laid them down. History affords us several remarkable instances of the facility of approach even to the tables of kings during the Saxon period. It was this circumstance that led to the murder of king Edmund in 946. On St. Augustin’s day, the king was dining at his manor of Pucklechurch, in Gloucestershire; a bandit named Leofa, whom the king had banished for his crimes, and who had returned without leave from exile, had the effrontery to place himself at the royal table, by the side of one of the principal nobles of the court; the king alone recognised him, rose from his seat to expel him from the hall, and received his death-wound in the struggle. In the eleventh century, when Hereward went in disguise as a spy to the court of a Cornish chieftain, he entered the hall while they were feasting, took his place among the guests, and was but slightly questioned as to who he was and whence he came.

In the early illuminated manuscripts, dinner scenes are by no means uncommon. The cut, No. 14 (taken from Alfric’s version of Genesis, MS. Cotton. Claudius, B. iv., fol. 36, v^o), represents Abraham’s feast on the birth of his child. The guests are sitting at an ordinary long hall table, ladies and gentlemen being mixed together without any apparent special arrangement. This manuscript is probably of the beginning of the eleventh century. The cut, No. 15, represents another dinner scene, from a manuscript probably of the tenth century (Tiberius, C. vi., fol. 5, v^o), and presents several peculiarities. The party here is a very small one, and they sit at a round table. The attendants seem to be serving them, in a very remarkable manner, with roast meats, which they bring to table on the spits (spitu) as they were roasted. Another festive scene is represented in the cut, No. 16, taken from a manuscript of the Psychomachia of the poet Prudentius (MS. Cotton. Cleopatra, C. viii., fol. 15, r^o). The table is again a round one, at which Luxury and her companions are seated at supper (seo Galnes æt hyre æfen-ge-reordum sitt).

It will be observed that in these pictures, the tables are tolerably well covered with vessels of different kinds, with the exception of plates. There are one or two dishes of different sizes in fig. 14, intended, no doubt, for holding bread and other articles; it was probably an utensil borrowed from the Romans, as the Saxon name disc was evidently taken from the Latin discus. It is not easy to identify the forms of vessels given in these pictures with the words which are found in the Anglo-Saxon language, in which the general term for a vessel is fæt, a vat; crocca, a pot or pitcher, no doubt of earthenware, is preserved in the modern English word crockery; and bolla, a bowl, orc, a basin, bledu and mele, each answering to the Latin patera, læfel and ceac, a pitcher or urn, hnæp, a cup (identical in name with the hanap of a later period), flaxe, a flask, are all pure Anglo-Saxon words. Many of the forms represented in the manuscripts are recognised at once as identical with those which are found in the earlier Anglo-Saxon graves. In the vocabularies, the Latin word amphora is translated by crocca, a crock; and lagena by æscen, which means a vessel made of ash wood, and was, in all probability, identical with the small wooden buckets so often found in the early Saxon graves. In a document preserved in Heming’s chartulary of Canterbury, mention is made of “an æscen, which is otherwise called a back-bucket” (æscen the is othre namon hrygilebuc gecleopad, Heming, p. 393), which strongly confirms the opinion I have adopted as to the purpose of the bucket found in the graves.

The food of the Anglo-Saxons appears to have been in general rather simple in character, although we hear now and then of great feasts, probably consisting more in the quantity of provisions than in any great variety or refinement in gastronomy. Bread formed the staple, which the Anglo-Saxons appear to have eaten in great quantities, with milk, and butter, and cheese. A domestic was termed a man’s hlaf-ætan, or loaf-eater. There is a curious passage in one of Alfric’s homilies, that on the life of St. Benedict, where, speaking of the use of oil in Italy, the Anglo-Saxon writer observes, “they eat oil in that country with their food as we do butter.” Vegetables (wyrtan) formed a considerable portion of the food of our forefathers at this period; beans (beana) are mentioned as articles of food, but I remember no mention of the eating of peas (pisan) in Anglo-Saxon writers. A variety of circumstances show that there was a great consumption of fish, as well as of poultry. Of flesh meat, bacon (spic) was the most abundant, for the extensive oak forests nourished innumerable droves of swine. Much of their other meat was salted, and the place in which the salt meat was kept was called, on account of the great preponderance of the bacon, a spic-hus, or bacon-house; in latter times, for the same reason, named the larder. The practice of eating so much salt meat explains why boiling seems to have been the prevailing mode of cooking it. In the manuscript of Alfric’s translation of Genesis, already mentioned, we have a figure of a boiling vessel (No. 17), which is placed over the fire on a tripod. This vessel was called a pan (panna—one Saxon writer mentions isen panna, an iron pan) or a kettle (cytel). It is very curious to observe how many of our trivial expressions at the present day are derived from very ancient customs; thus, for example, we speak of “a kettle of fish,” though what we now term a kettle would hardly serve for this branch of cookery. In another picture (No. 18) we have a similar boiling vessel, placed similarly on a tripod, while the cook is using a very singular utensil to stir the contents. Bede speaks of a goose being taken down from a wall to be boiled. It seems probable that in earlier times among the Anglo-Saxons, and perhaps at a later period, in the case of large feasts, the cooking was done out of doors. The only words in the Anglo-Saxon language for cook and kitchen, are cóc and cycene, taken from the Latin coquus and coquina, which seems to show that they only improved their rude manner of living in this respect after they had become acquainted with the Romans. Besides boiled meats, they certainly had roast, or broiled, which they called bræde, meat which had been spread or displayed to the fire. The vocabularies explain the Latin coctus by “boiled or baked” (gesoden, gebacen). They also fried meat, which was then called hyrstyng, and the vessel in which it was fried was called hyrsting-panne, a frying-pan. Broth, also (broth), was much in use.

In the curious colloquy of Alfric (a dialogue made to teach the Anglo-Saxon youth the Latin names for different articles), three professions are mentioned as requisite to furnish the table: first, the salter, who stored the store-rooms (cleafan) and cellars (hedderne), and without whom they could not have butter (butere)—they always used salt butter—or cheese (cyse); next, the baker, without whose handiwork, we are told, every table would seem empty; and lastly, the cook. The work of the latter appears not at this time to have been very elaborate. “If you expel me from your society,” he says, “you will be obliged to eat your vegetables green, and your flesh-meat raw, nor can you have any fat broth.” “We care not,” is the reply, “for we can ourselves cook our provisions, and spread them on the table.” Instead of grounding his defence on the difficulties of his profession, the cook represents that in this case, instead of having anybody to wait upon them, they would be obliged to be their own servants. It may be observed, as indicating the general prevalence of boiling food, that in the above account of the cook, the Latin word coquere is rendered by the Anglo-Saxon seothan, to boil.4 Our words cook and kitchen are the Anglo-Saxon cóc and cycene, and have no connection with the French cuisine.

We may form some idea of the proportions in the consumption of different kinds of provisions among our Saxon forefathers, by the quantities given on certain occasions to the monasteries. Thus, according to the Saxon Chronicle, the occupier of an estate belonging to the abbey of Medeshamstede (Peterborough) in 852, was to furnish yearly sixty loads of wood for firing, twelve of coal (græfa), six of fagots, two tuns of pure ale, two beasts fit for slaughter, six hundred loaves, and ten measures of Welsh ale.

It will be observed in the dinner scenes given above, that the guests are helping themselves with their hands. Forks were totally unknown to the Anglo-Saxons for the purpose of carrying the food to the mouth, and it does not appear that every one at table was furnished with a knife. In the cut, No. 19 (taken from MS. Harl. No. 603, fol. 12, r^o.), a party at table are eating without forks or knives. It will be observed here, as in the other pictures of this kind, that the Anglo-Saxon bread (hlaf) is in the form of round cakes, much like the Roman loaves in the pictures at Pompeii, and not unlike our cross-buns at Easter, which are no doubt derived from our Saxon forefathers. Another party at dinner without knives or forks is represented in the cut No. 20, taken from the same manuscript (fol. 51, v^o.). The tables here are without table-cloths. The use of the fingers in eating explains to us why it was considered necessary to wash the hands before and after the meal.

The knife (cnif), as represented in the Saxon illuminations, has a peculiar form, quite different from that of the earlier knife found in the graves, but resembling rather closely the form of the modern razor. Several of these Saxon knives have been found, and one of them, dug up in London, and now in the interesting museum collected by Mr. Roach Smith, is represented in the accompanying cut, No. 21.5 The blade, of steel (style), which is the only part preserved, has been inlaid with bronze.

When the repast was concluded, and the hands of the guests washed, the tables appear to have been withdrawn from the hall, and the party commenced drinking. From the earliest times, this was the occupation of the after part of the day, when no warlike expedition or pressing business hindered it. The lord and his chief guests sat at the high seat, while the others sat round on benches. An old chronicler, speaking of a Saxon dinner party, says, “after dinner they went to their cups, to which the English were very much accustomed.”6 This was the case even with the clergy, as we learn from many of the ecclesiastical laws. In the Ramsey History printed by Gale, we are told of a Saxon bishop who invited a Dane to his house in order to obtain some land from him, and to drive a better bargain, he determined to make him drunk. He therefore pressed him to stay to dinner, and “when they had all eaten enough, the tables were taken away, and they passed the rest of the day, till evening, drinking. He who held the office of cup-bearer, managed that the Dane’s turn at the cup came round oftener than the others, as the bishop had directed him.” We know by the story of Dunstan and king Eadwy, that it was considered a great mark of disrespect to the guests, even in a king, to leave the drinking early after dinner.

Our cut, No. 22, taken from the Anglo-Saxon calendar already mentioned (MS. Cotton. Julius, A. vi.), represents a party sitting at the heah-setl, the high seat, or dais, drinking after dinner. It is the lord of the household and his chief friends, as is shown by their attendant guard of honour. The cup-bearer, who is serving them, has a napkin in his hand. The seat is furnished with cushions, and the three persons seated on it appear to have large napkins or cloths spread over their knees. Similar cloths are evidently represented in our cut No. 16. Whether these are the setl-hrœgel, or seat-cloths, mentioned in some of the Anglo-Saxon wills, is uncertain.

It will be observed that the greater part of the drinking-cups bear a resemblance in form to those of the more ancient period which we find in Anglo-Saxon graves, and of which some examples have been given in the preceding chapter. We cannot tell whether those seen in the pictures be intended for glass or other material; but it is certain that the Anglo-Saxons were ostentatious of drinking-cups and other vessels made of the precious metals. Sharon Turner, in his History of the Anglo-Saxons, has collected together a number of instances of such valuable vessels. In one will, three silver cups are bequeathed; in another, four cups, two of which were of the value of four pounds; in another, four silver cups, a cup with a fringed edge, a wooden cup variegated with gold, a wooden knobbed cup, and two very handsome drinking-cups (smicere scencing-cuppan). Other similar documents mention a golden cup, with a golden dish; a gold cup of immense weight; a dish adorned with gold, and another with Grecian workmanship (probably brought from Byzantium). A lady bequeathed a golden cup weighing four marks and a half. Mention of silver cups, silver basins, &c., is of frequent occurrence. In 833, a king gave his gilt cup, engraved outside with vine-dressers fighting dragons, which he called his cross-bowl, because it had a cross marked within it, and it had four angles projecting, also like a cross. These cups were given frequently as marks of affection and remembrance. The lady Ethelgiva presented to the abbey of Ramsey, among other things, “two silver cups, for the use of the brethren in the refectory, in order that, while drink is served in them to the brethren at their repast, my memory may be more firmly imprinted on their hearts.”7 It is a curious proof of the value of such vessels, that in the pictures of warlike expeditions, where two or three articles are heaped together as a kind of symbolical representation of the value of the spoils, vessels of the table and drinking-cups and drinking-horns are generally included. Our cut, No. 23, represents one of these groups (taken from the Cottonian Manuscript, Claudius, C. viii.); it contains a crown, a bracelet or ring, two drinking-horns, a jug, and two other vessels. The drinking-horn was in common use among the Anglo-Saxons. It is seen on the table or in the hands of the drinkers in more than one of our cuts. In the will of one Saxon lady, two buffalo-horns are mentioned; three horns worked with gold and silver are mentioned in one inventory; and we find four horns enumerated among the effects of a monastic house. The Mercian king Witlaf, with somewhat of the sentiment of the lady Ethelgiva, gave to the abbey of Croyland the horn of his table, “that the elder monks may drink from it on festivals, and in their benedictions remember sometimes the soul of the donor.”

The liquors drunk by the Saxons were chiefly ale and mead; the immense quantity of honey that was then produced in this country, as we learn from Domesday-book and other records, shows us how great must have been the consumption of the latter article. Welsh ale is especially spoken of. Wine was also in use, though it was an expensive article, and was in a great measure restricted to persons above the common rank. According to Alfric’s Colloquy, the merchant brought from foreign countries wine and oil; and when the scholar is asked why he does not drink wine, he says he is not rich enough to buy it, “and wine is not the drink of children or fools, but of elders and wise men.” There were, however, vineyards in England in the times of the Saxons, and wine was made from them; but they were probably rare, and chiefly attached to the monastic establishments. William of Malmesbury speaks of a vineyard attached to his monastery, which was first planted at the beginning of the eleventh century by a Greek monk who settled there, and who spent all his time in cultivating it.

In their drinking, the Anglo-Saxons had various festive ceremonies, one of which is made known to us by the popular story of the lady Rowena and the British king. When the ale or wine was first served, the drinkers pledged each other, with certain phrases of wishing health, not much unlike the mode in which we still take wine with each other at table, or as people of the less refined classes continue to drink the first glass to the health of the company; but among the Saxons the ceremony was accompanied with a kiss. In our cut, No. 14, the party appear to be pledging each other.

The Anglo-Saxon potations were accompanied with various kinds of amusements. One of these was telling stories, and recounting the exploits of themselves or of their friends. Another was singing their national poetry, to which the Saxons were much attached. In the less elevated class, where professed minstrels were not retained, each guest was minstrel in his turn. Cædmon, as his story is related by Bede, became a poet through the emulation thus excited. One of the ecclesiastical canons enacted under king Edgar enjoins “that no priest be a minstrel at the ale (ealu-scóp), nor in any wise act the gleeman (gliwige), with himself or with other men.” In the account of the murder of king Ethelbert in Herefordshire, by the treachery of Offa’s wicked queen (A.D. 792), we are told that the royal party, after dinner, “spent the whole day with music and dancing in great glee.” The cut, No. 24 (taken from the Harl. MS., No. 603), is a perfect illustration of this incident of Saxon story. The cup-bearer is serving the guest with wine from a vessel which is evidently a Saxon imitation of the Roman amphora; it is perhaps the Anglo-Saxon sester or sæster; a word, no doubt, taken from the Latin sextarius, and carrying with it, in general, the notion of a certain measure. In Saxon translations from the Latin, amphora is often rendered by sester. We have here a choice party of minstrels and gleemen. Two are occupied with the harp, which appears, from a comparison of Beowulf with the later writers, to have been the national instrument. It is not clear from the picture whether the two men are playing both on the same harp, or whether one is merely holding the instrument for the other. Another is perhaps intended to represent the Anglo-Saxon fithelere, playing on the fithele (the modern English words fiddler and fiddle); but his instrument appears rather to be the cittern, which was played with the fingers, not with the bow. Another representation of this performer, from the same manuscript, is given in the cut No. 25, where the instrument is better defined. The other two minstrels, in No. 24, are playing on the horn, or on the Saxon pip, or pipe. The two dancers are evidently a man and a woman, and another lady to the extreme right seems preparing to join in the same exercise. We know little of the Anglo-Saxon mode of dancing, but to judge by the words used to express this amusement, hoppan (to hop), saltian and stellan (to leap), and tumbian (to tumble), it must have been accompanied with violent movements. Our cut No. 26 (from the Cottonian MS., Cleopatra, C. viii. fol. 16, v^o), represents another party of minstrels, one of whom, a female, is dancing, while the other two are playing on a kind of cithara and on the Roman double flute. The Anglo-Saxon names for the different kinds of musicians most frequently spoken of were hearpere, the harper; bymere, the trumpeter; pipere, the player on the pipe or flute; fithelere, the fiddler; and horn-blawere, the horn-blower. The gligman, or gleeman, was the same who, at a later period, was called, in Latin, joculator, and, in French, a jougleur; and another performer, called truth, is interpreted as a stage player, but was probably some performer akin to the gleeman. The harp seems to have stood in the highest rank, or, at least, in the highest popularity, of musical instruments; it was termed poetically the gleó-beam, or the glee-wood.

Although it was considered a very fashionable accomplishment among the Anglo-Saxons to be a good singer of verses and a good player on the harp, yet the professed minstrel, who went about to every sort of joyous assemblage, from the festive hall to the village wake, was a person not esteemed respectable. He was beneath consideration in any other light than as affording amusement, and as such he was admitted everywhere, without examination. It was for this reason that Alfred, and subsequently Athelstan, found such easy access in this garb to the camps of their enemies; and it appears to have been a common disguise for such purposes. The group given in the last cut (No. 26) are intended to represent the persons characterised in the text (of Prudentius) by the Latin word ganeones (vagabonds, ribalds), which is there glossed by the Saxon term gleemen (ganeonum, gliwig-manna). Besides music and dancing, they seem to have performed a variety of tricks and jokes, to while away the tediousness of a Saxon afternoon, or excite the coarse mirth of the peasant. That such performers, resembling in many respects the Norman jougleur, were usually employed by Anglo-Saxons of wealth and rank, is evident from various allusions to them. Gaimar has preserved a curious Saxon story of the murder of king Edward by his stepmother (A.D. 978), in which the queen is represented as having in her service a dwarf minstrel, who is employed to draw the young king alone to her house. According to the Anglo-Norman relator of this story, the dwarf was skilled in various modes of dancing and tumbling, characterised by words of which we can hardly now point out the exact distinction, “and could play many other games.”

In a Saxon manuscript in the British Museum (MS. Cotton. Tiberius, C. vi.), among the minstrels attendant on king David (represented in our cut, No. 27), we see a gleeman, who is throwing up and catching knives and balls, a common performance of the later Norman jougleurs, as well as of our modern mountebanks. Some of the tricks and gestures of these performers were of the coarsest description, such as could be only tolerated in a rude state of society. An example will be found in a story told by William of Malmesbury of wandering minstrels, whom he had seen performing at a festival at that monastery when he was a child, and which we can hardly venture to give even under the veil of the original Latin. A poem in the Exeter manuscript describes the wandering character of the Saxon minstrels. He tells us:—

swa scriþende Thus roving gesceapum hweorfað with their lays go gleo-men gumena the gleemen of men geond grunda fela, over many lands, þearfe secgað, state their wants, þonc-word sprecaþ, utter words of thank, simle suð oþþe norð always south or north, sumne gemetað they find one gydda gleawne, knowing in songs, geofum unhneawne. who is liberal of gifts. —Exeter Book, p. 326.

We are not to suppose that our Anglo-Saxon forefathers remained at table, merely drinking and listening. On the contrary, the performance of the minstrels appears to have been only introduced at intervals, between which the guests talked, joked, propounded and answered riddles, boasted of their own exploits, disparaged those of others, and, as the liquor took effect, became noisy and quarrelsome. The moral poems often allude to the quarrels and slaughters in which feasts ended. One of these poems, enumerating the various endowments of men, says:— sum bið wrœd tæfle; one is expert at dice; sum bið gewittig one is witty æt win-þege, at wine-bibbing, beor-hyrde god. a good beer-drinker. —Exeter Book, p. 297. A “Monitory Poem,” in the same collection, thus describes the manners of the guests in hall:— þonne monige beoð but many are mæþel-hergendra, lovers of social converse, wlonce wig-smiþas, haughty warriors, win-burgum in, in pleasant cities, sittaþ æt symble they sit at the feast, soð-gied wrecað, tales recount, wordum wrixlað, in words converse, witan fundiað strive to know hwylc æsc-stede who the battle place, inne in ræcede within the house, mid werum wunige; will with men abide; þonne win hweteð then wine wets beornes breost-sefan, the man’s breast-passions, breahtme stigeð suddenly rises cirm on corþre, clamour in the company, cwide-scral letaþ an outcry they send forth missenlice. various. —Exeter Book, p. 314. In a poem on the various fortunes of men, and the different ways in which they come by death, we are told:— sumum meces ecg from one the sword’s edge on meodu-bence, on the mead-bench, yrrum ealo-wosan, angry with ale, ealdor oþþringeð, life shall expel, were win-sadum. a wine-sated man. —Exeter Book, p. 330. And in the metrical legend of St. Juliana, the evil one boasts:— sume ic larum geteah, some I by wiles have drawn, te geflite fremede, to strife prepared, þæt hy færinga that they suddenly eald-afþoncan old grudges edniwedan, have renewed, beore druncne; drunken with beer; ic him byrlade I to them poured wreht of wege, discord from the cup, þæt hi in win-sale so that they in the social hall þurh sweord-gripe through gripe of sword sawle forletan the soul let forth of flæsc-homan. from the body. —Exeter Book, p. 271.

There were other amusements for the long evenings besides those which belonged especially to the hall, for every day was not a feast-day. The hall was then left to the household retainers and their occupations. But we must now leave this part of the domestic establishment. The ladies appear not to have remained at table long after dinner—it was somewhat as in modern times—they proceeded to their own special part of the house—the chamber—and thither it will be my duty to accompany them in the next chapter. I have described all the ordinary scenes that took place in the Anglo-Saxon hall.

CHAPTER III.
THE CHAMBER AND ITS FURNITURE.—BEDS AND BED-ROOMS.—INFANCY AND CHILDHOOD AMONG THE ANGLO-SAXONS.—CHARACTER AND MANNERS OF THE ANGLO-SAXON LADIES.—THEIR CRUELTY TO THEIR SERVANTS.—THEIR AMUSEMENTS.—THE GARDEN; LOVE OF THE ANGLO-SAXONS FOR FLOWERS.—ANGLO-SAXON PUNISHMENTS.—ALMSGIVING.

The bower or chamber, which, as before stated, was, in the original Saxon mansions, built separate from the hall, was a more private apartment than the latter, although it was still easy of access. In the houses of the rich and the noble there were, as may easily be supposed, several chambers, devoted to the different purposes of the household, and to the reception of visitors. It was in the chamber that the lord of the household transacted his private business, and gave his private audiences. We see by the story of king Edwy that it was considered a mark of effeminacy to retire from the company in the hall after dinner, to seek more quiet amusement in the chamber, where the men rejoined the ladies of the family; yet there are numerous instances which show that, except on festive occasions, this was a very common practice. In some cases, where the party was not an ostentatious or public one, the meal was served in a chamber rather than in the hall. According to the story of Osbert king of Northumberland and Beorn the buzecarl, as told by Gaimar, it was in a chamber that Beorn’s lady received the king, and caused the meal to be served to him which ended in consequences so fatal to the country. We have very little information relating to the domestic games and amusements of the Anglo-Saxons. They seem to have consisted, in a great measure, in music and in telling stories. They had games of hazard, but we are not acquainted with their character. Their chief game was named tæfel or tæfl, which has been explained by dice and by chess; one name of the article played with, tæfl-stan, a table-stone, would suit either interpretation; but another, tæfl-mon, a table-man, would seem to indicate a game resembling our chess.8 The writers immediately after the conquest speak of the Saxons as playing at chess, and pretend that they learnt the game from the Danes. Gaimar, who gives us an interesting story relating to the deceit practiced upon king Edgar (A.D. 973) by Ethelwold, when sent to visit the beautiful Elfthrida, daughter of Orgar of Devonshire, describes the young lady and her noble father as passing the day at chess.