THE SPEECHLESS PAST
"Till dim imagination just possesses
The half created shadow."
Shelley.
INTERESTING as are the glimpses of that pre-historic race, which in the dim ages of long ago roamed over the most accessible parts of the land, now known as the British Isles, it is unnecessary to do more than sum up slightly the vague scraps, that form all the knowledge we possess of this remote period.
Through the mysterious dawn of our country's history, early man moves fitfully to and fro, and it is difficult even dimly to discern his shadow. It is only by piecing together the scattered fragments of existing remains, and comparing them with the possessions of uncivilised mankind in other parts of the world, that we get a picture—half-imaginary, if you like—of the social condition of primitive man in this land, which was then a part of the European Continent. He has many names. He is called Palaeolithic Man, that is. Old Stone Man, or the Cave Man. He was short of stature and heavy of limb. He made his home in a cave where such existed, which afforded him shelter from the rain and a refuge from the wild beasts that shared the country with him. It has been suggested that he must have been a good sportsman, or these very beasts would have exterminated him altogether. His weapons were limited to stone, ivory from the tusks of the mammoth, and bone from the bison and reindeer, whose flesh formed his food. The pre-historic hunt was rather to procure the means of existence than for the pleasure of killing. With his ponderous stone implement, early man slew his beast; with a flint knife, or by means of hot pebbles, he cut up the flesh; he cooked it over his fire, kindled by the friction of sticks, in a vessel of wood or skin. There was no waste, for he scraped the skin inside with a sharpened flint, made a bone needle, and threading it with a reindeer sinew, he stitched for himself a garment for the cold weather. Stringing together the teeth of the animal on sinews, he made necklaces and other barbaric ornaments.
With the inherent instincts of an artist, he scratched a picture of his friend the mammoth on his tusk, and the reindeer on his antler, the discovery of which has shed some dim light on these early days. With no definite thought of a hereafter, he was probably indifferent to the fate of his dead. There is a scarcity of human bones belonging to this age, from which it has been inferred that either he had resort to cremation or that he presented the dead bodies of his kinsfolk to the hyenas who prowled about his cave in search of prey.
An immensity of time passed away. Structural changes passed over the land. The valleys uniting these islands with Europe became submerged. The wild North Sea swept over the dry land, across which the "grisly bear and the sabre-toothed tiger had walked after the primitive Briton," and the British Islands were completely surrounded by water.
Across the stormy seas, in primitive log canoes, came another people to possess the land. Neolithic Man, that is, the New Stone Man, or, indeed, the Iberian, was at once more civilised and interesting than his predecessor. He brought over with him the animals which are domesticated in England to-day—the dog, the sheep, the cow, and the pig. Instead of the woolly rhinoceros and the curly-tusked mammoth, we find forest and marsh alive with wild boars, reindeer, wolves, and wild cats.
The New Stone Man was far more accomplished than the Old Stone Man. His weapons, though still exclusively of stone, were far more highly finished implements wherewith to kill, the fine polish and thin cutting edge denoting superior skill and intelligence. With these he began to clear the thick forest, and in the clearing to make for himself a dwelling, which was a sort of artificial cave. He dug a pit to a depth of some ten feet below the surface, and covered it with a roof of interlaced sticks plastered together by clay. He entered it by a sort of tunnel sloping down to the floor, which also answered the purpose of chimney.
Near his dwelling he sowed wheat or flax, to be utilised for the rough weaving of those early days. For in these ancient habitations of Neolithic Man have been found stone spinning-whorls, chalk weights to stretch the warp, and long combs to push the woof; two bits of their dresses have been preserved near their lake dwellings though the garments woven have long since perished.
A picture of the social condition of the New Stone Man has been drawn by an able historian. He bids us, in imagination, make our way through a track in the dense virgin forest to one of the rough clearings. There we may find a cluster of these pit houses, recognisable by the thin smoke issuing from the entrance. Around are small plots of ripening wheat, troops of horned sheep and short-horned oxen, and possibly a few fierce dogs, acting as guardians of the primitive homestead against the attacks of bears, wolves or foxes.
Outside we can imagine the short, swarthy inhabitants slightly dressed in wool or in skins, with necklaces and pendants of stone, bone or home-made pottery. Some are cutting wood with well-sharpened stone axes fixed in wooden handles, some sawing it with saws of carefully notched pieces of flint; some are fashioning wooden bows for arrows tipped with pointed flint heads, while some are scraping skins for clothing or carving harpoons out of bone. Some—presumably the women of the party—are spinning thread and weaving it with rudely-constructed looms. It was a simple pastoral (existence, with few needs and fewer possessions; the horizon of life was distinctly limited. To minister to the material needs of his nature was the main object of Neolithic Man's existence. His mind was as the mind of an untaught child, till, as the ages rolled onward, something told him that eating and drinking were not the chief ends for which he was created.
He could see silent hills, and the green valleys watered by stream and marsh: he knew the daily movements of sun, moon, and stars: he could hear the rush of many waters, the roar of the wind-tossed sea, the rumble of thunder across the heavens, the fluttering of leaves, the carrolling of birds, and the chirping of insects as day passed into night. After a lengthened period of simple wonder and amazement, questions presented themselves to his untutored mind, and a yearning to learn the cause of these things took possession of him. Nature was great, mighty, beautiful, but she was never still. There was movement everywhere; therefore, he argued, there must be spirits dwelling in everything—spirits to move the leaves and roll the thunder across the sky, to urge the rivers into motion, and hurry the sun and moon by turns through day and night.
These vague ponderings made him relinquish the old habit of his predecessors of casting dead bodies to the hyenas. The spirits that dwelt in the trees and rivers dwelt also in man. When the body died, the spirit that had moved it departed elsewhere, possibly into some animal or other body, till in time it reached the dwelling-place of all the spirits.
Hence arose the Neolithic system of burial. When the men, women, and children of the homestead died, they were buried in little walled rooms made of stone, over which were erected mounds, known to-day as "barrows." The skeletons found in these primitive graves are often found in a sitting posture. A woman has been found with her baby in her arms in one of these, while in another a man and woman, presumably husband and wife, sat opposite to one another, their foreheads touching and their hands clasped. Food vessels and drinking-cups were buried with the dead for their use hereafter, and it is probable that slaves and animals were slain, in order that their spirits might accompany that of the dead man on his last mysterious journey. Time passed, and with time came change.
In the general movement westward of the Aryan tribes from Central Asia came the fair-haired Celt, first to trade and then to stay. It seems strange that the forest-clad island, with its damp, chilly climate and gloomy skies, should have proved such an irresistible attraction to the strangers from Gaul, but so it was. Forthwith he set himself to conquer the existing New Stone Man in order to possess the land.
His triumph was due to the fact that he brought with him a superior, bronze weapon for killing his enemies, for which even the polished and well-sharpened stone implement of the New Stone Man was no match.
So the tall, fair, grey-eyed Celt prevailed over he short, dark, swarthy Iberian, and the New Stone Age gave way to what is known as the Bronze Age in the British Isles.
A new stage in civilisation was now reached. For it is obvious that the treasures of the earth were closed to those whose only weapons were of stone. It was only when the hard, sharp-edged metal tool was placed in his hands that man could hew his way to the mineral wealth and open up new possibilities of civilisation. The new-comers had made considerable progress already before ever they reached these shores. Amongst other accomplishments, they could plough, they could shear sheep and weave woollen garments, they reckoned their time by months, determined by various phases of the moon, and they spoke a distinct language, which exists to-day in remote parts of our island home.
They soon opened up trade with Phœnicians and Greeks from the south of France, and the first record of commerce, about the fourth century B.C., marks an interesting development in the social condition of our early ancestors. The Greek mathematician who conducted one of the earliest of these expeditions from Marseilles most probably introduced the first coined money to these islands. And one may suppose that the little ships that so bravely made their way across the unknown and then desolate waters of the English Channel returned to their moorings with tin from the Cornish mines, superseded later by iron ore from the British hills.
Attracted probably by this commerce—certainly not by climate—tribe after tribe of Celtic origin made its way to the British Islands, the land of "cloud and rain," until scattered traces alone remained of the old Iberian, and under the name of the ancient Briton, the men of the Bronze Age had it all their own way.
On the very threshold now of authenticated history, imagination fades before fact, shadows stand forth in the light of day, and pictures of the social conditions of the dwellers in this land, the ancient Britons, become more real and more interesting.
As it was in tribes and clans they came over, so it was in tribes and clans they lived. Groups of huts and villages arose, testifying to the new-born ideas of defence, not only from wild beasts, but from human foes.
The sites of these villages were often chosen in open lakes or marshes, in the centre of which an island was improvised. The same idea, in later days, prompted men to construct moats round their castles, only in the one case the water was round the island, while in the other the island was constructed in the water.
The site of the new home being chosen, a raft of tree trunks was formed, on the top of which were laid layers of earth and stones, until the whole mass sank and grounded on the bed of the lake. Then upright oak piles were driven close together as park palings round the edge of the sunken island, and inside the palings were built clusters of wooden huts, roofed with wicker-work smeared over with clay, or, in technical language, "wattle and daub."
Each hut had a door three feet high, which must have caused the ancient Briton to stoop badly, for he was a taller man than his predecessor, being some five feet nine in height. In the centre of each hut was a stone hearth for a fire, over which the family presumably cooked their food by day, and round which they probably slept by night in the cold weather.
Their food was compounded of corn and wild fruits, the flesh of wild and domestic animals, hazel and beech nuts. They stood in no need of sauces or relishes—their seasonings were supplied by a healthy and vigorous constitution, fresh, sweet smelling air, and exemption from the over-anxiety of to-day. For drinks they had milk, cider and mead—a mixture of wheat and honey—the ancestor of our modern beer. "This drink," remarks the sailor mathematician from Greece, "produced pain in the head and injury to the nerves," which remark needs no comment to-day.
It is sometimes easier to picture a primitive people by trying to realise what they had not got, rather than by what they had.
Let us then imagine a life with no smoking, no wine, no tea, no coffee, no butter, no sugar, no potatoes, no eggs, no fowls—food stuffs apt to be popularly considered as essential to life. Nevertheless, the ancient Briton was a man of fine build and strong physique, ever ready to do and dare. True, he was short-lived in comparison with modern man, as he died about the age of fifty-five, but he was longer-lived than his predecessors, who had died for the most part at forty-five: so presumably the conditions of life were already improving.
The ancient Briton wore his hair long and shaggy, the women arranging theirs in shocks or pyramids held together by metal hairpins twenty inches long.
Though the skins of animals may still have clothed a number of the primitive inhabitants of these islands, yet the majority probably dressed in cloaks of wool or garments of linen. Woollen caps, woollen shawls with fringe at the end, and woollen gaiters have been found in graves belonging to this period, suggestive, it has been pointed out, of Dr. Jaeger's modern manufacture. Remains of leather, representing some sort of primitive boots, have likewise been found, together with other interesting relics of the period. Their occupations were more varied than those of their predecessors. They made a rough sort of badly burnt pottery, decorating it skilfully with various patterns, composed for the most part of dots and straight lines arranged in geometrical crosses, network, or zigzag. Their skill in carpentering, too, is somewhat surprising, and their wheels, ladders, doors, buckets, and bowls are ornamented with cut patterns of great exactitude.
Their preparations for inter-tribal warfare were still distinctly barbaric; the hilts of their huge, pointless swords were adorned with the teeth of animals; on the axles of their chariot wheels were attached scythes to mow down their enemies.
They faced death fearlessly, and, with the characteristics of their descendants, never knew when they were beaten. Perhaps this courage in the presence of danger was due to the fact that to these warriors of old death was merely the passing of the spirit that had prompted life into another body. And the deification of ancestors arose in addition to the deification of Nature. Honour to the dead was intensified, and to this period possibly belong the mysterious and hardly yet explained monuments of Stonehenge and Avebury. Whether these colossal memorials were temples for tombs of great men, surrounded as they are by three hundred barrows in the neighbourhood, they are marvellous in the skill of their workmanship, and they testify to a past which is still pitifully speechless and yet, with all its barbaric attributes, contains the embryonic characteristics of our modern existence to-day.
Circa B.C. 55—A.D. 410
A GREAT CIVILISATION
"And left their usages, their arts and laws
To disappear by a slow gradual death,
To dwindle and to perish one by one,
Starved in these narrow bounds: but not the soul
Of Liberty."
Wordsworth.
WITH the invasion of Julius Cæsar and the occupation of England by the Romans a hundred years later, a very highly developed civilisation was brought to our shores. And though we no longer regard the dwellers in this land at that period as half-naked savages, painted blue and madly hurling immense stones at the orderly Roman legions as they endeavoured to step on to British soil, yet there is no doubt the newcomers were very far in advance of the inhabitants of the island they sought to conquer. Arrayed in short tunics of cloth or linen, with bare heads and legs, armed with broadswords and lances, standing in war-chariots drawn by well-trained ponies accustomed to the roughest country, each tribe under its own chief—these ancient Britons gallantly defended their land against the foreign foe. But very different were the organised legions against which they had to fight Each Roman soldier was armed with a well-tempered blade of steel, each head was protected by a lofty-crested helmet, while mail breastplates, greaves, and shields embossed with plates of iron, completed the equipment. Commanded by men chosen for their military skill, it is small wonder that they conquered the British tribes, even as those very British tribes—the Celts—had triumphed over the Iberians of old by means of a superior metal weapon.
The Britons fought with true courage, and for the first time in this land's social history we get glimpses of individual heroes rejoicing in elaborate names, few of which are less than four syllables. Stronger than his fellow's, Cassivelaunus, King of the Catuvelauni, keeps a large tract of country* free from the Roman, while his descendant Cunobelinus—the Cymbeline of Shakspere—defends his stronghold of Camalodunum, on the site of our modern Colchester, as some maintain. The defence of the old country was carried on by his son Caractacus, the stirring account of whose defeat and subsequent appearance in Rome are well known. Women, too, sprang up to defend the land against Roman invaders, and amongst them we get a mention of one of the first-named Queens in old British history. A glimpse of her conduct illumines for a moment these barbaric times.
Boadicea, the widowed Queen of Prasutagus, King of the Iceni tribe, inhabiting Norfolk, burned with indignation at the insults offered to herself and her daughters by the Roman governors. Her own fierce courage inspired her people, and she proudly led the tribes, over which she still held sway, against Colchester, the headquarters of the Romans in the east. Her ranks were soon swollen by other discontented Britons, until she found herself at the head of something like 80,000 native warriors. A vivid picture of the Queen before the battle has been handed down by a Roman historian, as, standing up in her war-chariot, where sat her weeping daughters, her bare arms raised on high, her long, yellow hair floating over her shoulders, from which hung a tunic of many colours, her golden necklace and bracelets glistening in the sun, she resolutely addressed her faithful troops:
"Not as a Queen, the descendant of noble ancestors, possessed of great riches and wealth, but as one of the community, I lead you to avenge the loss of our liberty. The Roman army now opposed to us will never stand the shouts and clamour of so many thousands, much less their shock and fury. To-day, we conquer or we die. This is the last resource for me—a woman. Let the men live—if they please—as slaves."
The angry hosts made their way to Colchester, which was, as yet, unwalled, burst in and slaughtered the Romans with savage fury, and hastened on to further destruction. It was not until the Roman Governor himself advanced against the British Queen that the massacre was stopped, and at the last it is said that some 80,000 Britons lay dead on the battlefield, including women and children.
The tragic end of Boadicea, by suicide, throws a lurid light on her strength of character. Impulsive and fearless, with a passionate love of liberty, we learn that in those days of small opportunities there were women of this type in early Britain, a type which survived the Roman assimilation as well as the Teutonic invasions that swept over the country in later days.
The conquest more or less complete, the Romans found it easy to introduce into the newly acquired country all that had made life comfortable in their far-off Italian homes.
Their first great work was to convert the old British tracks into broad military highways, thus enabling their soldiers to march easily from one end of the island to another, as well as simplifying commercial intercourse. These roads were carried over the rivers by an extensive system of bridges built of timber on stone piers. Distances were made known by means of milestones, which were stone pillars on which were engraved the distance in numbers, the places between which the road extended, the name of the constructor, and the Roman Emperor in whose reign the stone was erected. At regular intervals of a day's journey were posting stations, where refreshments were obtainable. Indeed, the County Councillor of to-day might well make a study of the very complete system of road communication inaugurated by the Roman of old. The roads were the property of the State, which had entire control and supplied funds for their construction and maintenance. Each main line of road was under an inspector-in-chief, who held an important office, one filled by many a Roman princeling of repute. Nevertheless we get glimpses of fraudulent contractors and negligent magistrates prosecuted for the bad condition of the roads, which were finally so well constructed that many of them remained in England till the sixteenth century.
It is interesting to note that the country roads were under the control of the rural authorities, maintained by assessments, and that the city streets had to be repaired by the inhabitants, each householder being responsible for the portion immediately opposite his own house.
On or near the great main roads which freely intersected the island were the famous walled towns of the Romans. Boadicea had taught them a lesson at Colchester, and henceforth every city of repute was strongly walled, however advantageous its natural position. These walls were tremendously strong, for amid their many accomplishments the Romans were excellent masons. With tiles and bricks and well-cut stone bound together with durable mortar, they built, not for a day, but for eternity, and many of their weather-beaten walls have already stood the storm and stress of 1400 years. The towns were approached by gateways with rounded arches, inside which the streets were determined by the form of the Roman camp or of a British town. They had their public buildings like a miniature Rome: each had its temple, its theatre, its court of justice, and its public baths. With regard to the latter it may be instructive to remark that when the Roman civilisation was swept away in the fifth century, it took Englishmen 1400 years to re-learn the lesson that it is necessary to provide public baths for the inhabitants of our large cities. This, initiated in 1846, is but partially fulfilled now.
The construction of the Roman villa is too well known to need repetition here. How badly these foreigners from the sunny South felt the damp and cold of our island home is revealed by the elaborate warming apparatus in their houses as well as in their bath-rooms. The floors of their largest sitting-rooms were supported on rows of short thick pillars. This space was filled with heat issuing from a furnace without, which also fed the flue pipes introduced into the walls. Thus the houses were well warmed, though no fireplace or heating arrangement was visible, and it is interesting to note that, for warming the last and newest Sanatorium in England, this system has been adopted. The floors were elaborately pieced together in mosaic. The foundation was composed of concrete, made of pounded lime and bricks, sometimes nearly a foot thick. The mosaic patterns were composed of cubes of various colours in stone, terra-cotta or glass. Thus the floors were fire-proof, durable, beautiful, and easy to clean.
Not only was there a feeling for warmth and cleanliness among the Romans and Romanised British, but sanitary arrangements were carefully made. There was a regular water supply: large leaden mains were laid under the paving of the streets, branching off to the houses. These led to cisterns, from which descending supply pipes were laid on to various parts of the house, as in our systems of to-day. Neatly finished watercocks and draw-taps facilitated the supply, while the turncocks in the mains had movable key handles which rivalled those in modern use.
And the people who lived in these well-equipped houses: what of them? Their dress was at once simple and serviceable. They rejoiced in the yellow cloth toga of Roman fame, a semicircular garment with folds ample enough to cover the head in bad weather. Though worn in its natural colour for the most part, various officials had the toga bleached, while in times of mourning it was dyed black. Later the toga gave way to the tunic, women wearing theirs long and adorned with fringe. But the only part of Roman dress that has descended to us entire is the leathern shoe or sandal. This was often of superb workmanship, rich in ornament, and proportionately costly to buy. The soles were cut for right and left feet, as they are to-day.
Some maintain that, unlike the Britons, the Romans ate little beef or mutton. As a medicine, roast beef or beef tea was used, but not as food. Poultry, originally brought from Rome, fish and game, pork and venison, were the food of the wealthy, while the more common food consisted of vegetables flavoured with lard or bacon.
The following record of a Roman supper party is illuminating. The first course consisted of sea-hedgehogs, raw oysters, and asparagus; then came a fat fowl, more oysters and shell-fish with dates, roebuck, and wild boar. The third course was made up of wild boar's head, ducks, a compôte of river birds, hare, and cakes resembling our modern Yorkshire pudding.
Here is a Roman receipt called "Pig with Stuffing":—
"Clean out interior of pig and fill with the following stuffing. Pound an ounce of pepper, honey, and wine, make it hot; break a dry biscuit into bits and mix. Stir with a twig of green laurel and boil until the whole is thickened. Fill the pig with this; skin, stop up with paper, and put it into the oven to bake."
Receipts for boar and pig are numerous, for pork was a passion with the Romans. They would feed their pigs on figs and cook them with fifty different savours, for the Roman "cook was a poet."
Their fancy bread contained oysters, and was sold at about three shillings a peck loaf. Nor must it be forgotten that the Romans introduced into this country cherries, peaches, pears, mulberries, figs, damsons, medlars, quinces, walnuts, and vines. They likewise brought over the first fallow deer, pheasants, geese, fowls, and rabbits, while there were no limes, planes, sycamores, or sweet chestnuts before the Roman occupation.
They established extensive pottery works in various parts of the island; specially famous were those which stretched some twenty miles along the banks of the river Medway, where at least 2,000 men were employed. They must have astonished the ancient Britons by the beauty and ingenuity of their work in this as in many other branches of industry, and one can imagine their surprise at the Roman looking glass of polished metal, tooth combs, padlocks, thimbles, baby's bottles, glass jugs, &c.
These civilised peoples taught the ancient Briton to write letters on tablets covered with wax with pointed bronze pens. The letter finished, the tablet was closed, tied with thread, and sealed. It was then despatched by hand to the person to whom it was addressed. Having read the message, he rubbed it out, wrote the answer on the same tablet, and returned it.
But, with all their advanced civilisation, the amusements of the Romans were horribly cruel. One of their great delights was to set fierce animals to tear one another to pieces—not only bears and bulls, but elephants, tigers, giraffes, and even serpents. Three or four hundred bears might be killed in a single day. Criminals would be thrown to maddened bulls—"butcher'd to make a Roman holiday"; possibly in Britain also.
As in the case of the Stone Man and the Celt, we look into the tombs of the dead to learn the manners and customs of the living. The Romans dealt with their dead either by cremation or burial in wooden, clay, or lead coffins placed in stone sarcophagi The Christian ideal was dawning slowly, and the old superstition was still deeply rooted in the minds of the people that articles of various kinds buried in the tombs would add to the comfort of the departed spirits. The dead were clothed in full dress with their jewels and personal ornaments, while in their mouth was placed a coin for the payment of Charon, the ferryman of the nether regions. Often wine and food were placed on or near the coffin, and the idea of action in the future life is manifested by
"To the gods of the shades.
To Succia Petronia, who lived
three years, four months, nine days
Valerius Peroniulus and Tuictia Sabina,
to their dearest daughter, made this."
Or again:
"To the gods of the shades.
To Simplicia Florentina
a most innocent thing
who lived ten months
her father of the sixth legion, the Victorious,
made this."
The traces of Christianity are of the scantiest description.
Nevertheless, to the Romans we owe the organisation of Christianity in our country, for they never forgot the distant province they had governed for over three hundred years, and when the time was ripe, they sent their little band of Benedictine monks to teach their brethren beyond the seas that Gospel that they themselves had learnt to love.
At last Rome called her legions home to defend their own country from the barbarians already knocking at her gates. And the Romans hurried from their island home in England to obey the call of duty. They left their splendid roads and bridges, their walled cities, luxurious villas and spacious baths, their extensive mines and manufactures, their temples and Christian churches, and the little lonely graves of their dead.
Yet something of despair seized the Romanised Britons as the last shiploads of Roman invaders waved farewell. They had grown to depend entirely on their conquerors for municipal government and defence along the Saxon shore, and three centuries of official protection had sapped away the very strength of their manhood and the vigour of their independence.
True, the wealth of the island had grown rapidly during the Roman occupation, which had secured three centuries of unbroken peace: her mineral resources had been explored; commerce had increased everywhere, owing to improved communication; agriculture had been developed until, after supplying her own needs, England could export corn in considerable quantities to other lands; and cities had sprung up connected by an elaborate network of roads. But all these developments were necessarily costly, and the land was crushed by a heavy system of taxation.
At the same time, though doubtless Britain was a more comfortable place to live in than of yore, the old tribal patriotism had vanished under the despotism of the Roman government. The Britons were not called on to defend their land; thus there was no national organisation, no cause to call forth the sacrifice of life, so potent a factor in the vigour of a nation.
Hence a certain dependence and effeminacy characterised the people, and no sturdy patriots of the Caractacus and Boadicea type are forthcoming at this period of the nation's social history.
Most of the advanced Roman civilisation was swept away wherever the barbaric Saxon secured a footing, but much remains to this day.
Do not all our months bear Latin names, July and August perpetuating the great Julius Cæsar and Augustus Cæsar? Do not our pennies bear the stamp of the Roman Britannia? Did not the Roman teach us to put on mourning for our dead? They discovered our oyster-beds, they constructed our roads, they bridged our rivers. To use the words of a modern historian: "Rome left few traces on our language, none on our early laws, little on our blood, but … wherever a civilised language is spoken, men think in the forms and speak the grammar, reason on the principles, and are judged and governed according to the standards of law and good government, which have descended to them from Imperial Rome." So that to-day we are all, "in the best sense of the word, children of the Roman Empire."
Circa 449—597
FROM THE SHORES OF THE NORTH SEA
"The sea is their school of war and the storm their friend."
FASCINATING is the story of the Saxon conquest, but perhaps even more fascinating is that of the Saxon settlement, with all its latent germs of our social life to-day.
Though for the moment the desertion of Britain by the Romans seemed an irretrievable calamity, yet, looking back across the ages of time, we cannot but note with gratitude the influx of those hardy tribes from the shores of the wild North Sea, who were destined to be the forefathers of a race which plays a part in the world to-day wholly disproportionate to the size of its home.
The Celt was losing the force of his manhood and the strength of his freedom under the somewhat effeminate influence of the luxury-loving Roman, while Jutes, Angles and Saxons on the further shores were developing that rough-and-ready civilisation which was shortly to sweep over our island home. They had come to their own from beyond the distant Caucasus. Westward they had already fought their way till stayed by the waves of the "Western Sea," and amid the waste of sand and heather, where no man dwelt, they made their homes.
A fierce, free, fearless folk were these ancestors of ours—broad-shouldered, large-limbed giants, with masses of long fair hair and confident grey-blue eyes—utterly reckless of life and limb, pitiless, merciless, and bloodthirsty. Worshippers of Woden, whose name we commemorate every Wednesday of our lives, they lived on a traditional creed which enacted "eye for eye and limb for limb." Each limb had its value. An eye or a leg was valued at fifty shillings, the loss of a thumb at twenty shillings, the jawbone and front tooth at six shillings, while the brutality of the age is illustrated in the unwritten code that condoned for three shillings the tearing off a thumb nail or the pulling of hair till the bone became visible!
This sum, however, was not payable to the injured man, but to his family. And it is this sense of the value of the family bond that was such a marked characteristic of our forefathers, and has laid the foundation of so much in our social life to-day.
"So long as The Blood endures,
I shall know that your good is mine; ye shall feel that my strength is yours."
Each kinsman was kinsman in very deed and truth, bound to guard and protect his brother from wrong, to suffer for him and revenge him. There was no forgiveness in the old Saxon creed.
War was their very existence, plunder and slaughter the "very breath of their lives." Splendid sailors, the "blast of the wind and the roar of the storm was as music in their ears," and still we seem to hear their shouts of glee as they breasted the salt waves to greet the undefended shores of deserted Britain. True, a stubborn defence by unorganised bands of the Celtic inhabitants of the island took place, but they were held together by no bonds of unity, bound by no patriotism, moved by no enthusiasm. Consequently, with daring spirit and boundless brutality the new-comers wrested from them portion after portion of the fair country, until Britain became Engle-land and the Celts were driven westward. Neither were the English slow to appreciate the material advantages of their newly acquired territory. If they were fierce warriors, they were also skilful agriculturists, and the rich water meadows, the flourishing condition of sheep, goats and cattle, the golden cornfields producing more grain than the island could consume, appealed to them with irresistible force. More so indeed than did the thirty walled towns, the elaborately warmed villas, the theatres and amphitheatres of their predecessors—the Romans.
Avoiding the towns as much as possible, they made their new homes in family clusters, surrounded by earthworks for protection. Here within these little townships, as they were called, dwelt the farmer freemen with their slaves, and under their Chief of the Clan. As they had crossed the North Sea, and as they had fought side by side for the land, so now they made their homes, each family taking the name of some ancestor. Thus the family of the Wellings named their new home Wellington, the family of the Paddings, Paddington, of the Millings, Millington.
Their houses varied with the wealth or rank of their owners; all were of wood, for the Angles and Saxons had only one word for "to build," and that was "getimbrian." The centre of the homestead lay in the long public hall, with its hearth-fire in the midst—the smoke escaping as best it might through holes in the roof. This was the common living-room, and not infrequently, when night fell and the fire flickered low, the common sleeping-room, where weary men threw themselves down to sleep on bundles of straw. The walls of the hall were hung with tapestry worked by the ladies, to keep out the draughts, which must have been piercing in winter, for the doors were never closed.
The hospitality of our forefathers was proverbial. Any stranger presenting himself at the door was cordially welcomed; water was brought to wash his feet and his hands, and he took his place at meat with the family. The food, though simple, was abundant. A board placed on trestles in the centre served as a table; it was covered with a linen cloth, while among the nobles bowls and dishes were of brass, silver, and gold, and drinking-cups were of horn and leather. On a raised platform at the head of the table sat the mistress of the house—the lady, or dispenser of bread—serving out the warm and freshly made loaves which formed one of the chief articles of diet in Anglo-Saxon times. Huge joints of meat were freely devoured, fingers taking the place of forks, while the bones were thrown about afterwards. For this reason finger bowls and tablecloths were introduced, a very necessary addition after a meal of this description. Butter, cheese, honey, and vegetables having been duly served, the board was cleared away, and the women of the household bore drinking horns of ale and mead to their lords and masters seated on benches round the walls. This was the main feature of the feast, and lasted late into the afternoon or evening. Hard drinkers were our Anglo-Saxon ancestors, and fastidious withal as to the quality of their drink. The brewers thereof were for the most part women, known as ale-wives, and punished for brewing bad ale.
While ale and mead were being consumed with fun and laughter, the wandering gleeman sang his song of heroic deeds performed by noble ancestors, or the harp was taken from the wall and handed round from hand to hand, for it was an accomplishment in those days that none could afford to neglect.
From this period, too, dates the wassail or loving cup, which is passed round to-day at large City feasts. When Hengist, the Saxon, brought his beautiful daughter Rowena to these shores she was introduced to the British King Vortigern at a royal banquet. Modestly advancing towards the King, according to the custom in her own country, she held out a golden cup of ale. "Waes hael hlaford Conny" ("Health to my lord"), she said in her own tongue. The words were interpreted to the British King, and the memory of the event has been preserved in England by the wassail cup at banquets and festivals. The sequel of the story is well known to readers of English history, and their marriage is one of our earliest romances.
Marriage in these early days was a simple business. Each woman had her value, and the man who selected her to be his wife had not only to pay her father a given sum of money, but he must produce a guarantor for his subsequent behaviour. Here we have the origin of the "best man" of to-day. Clasping hands in the presence of the family, at the house of either bride or bridegroom, constituted the marriage service of these pagan days. Nevertheless, we get many of the words in our Prayer-book to-day, copied, for the most part, from an old Anglo-Saxon marriage contract, couched in the language of a legal transfer of land:—
"I take thee, John, to be my wedded husband, to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer and poorer, in sickness and health, to be bonny and buxom, in bed and at board, till death do us part, and thereto plight I my troth."
With the introduction of Christianity later the words "If Holy Church do so ordain" were added.
The consumption of the home-made loaf (ancestor to the wedding-cake), made by the bride to denote proficiency in housekeeping, as well as the satin slipper institution, date from this period. The origin was practical. Upon marriage the authority of the father over his daughter was transferred to the husband, a fact which was notified by the bride's shoe being delivered to the bridegroom, who touched her on the head with it in token of his supremacy over her.
With regard to this supremacy, girls were required to wear their hair long and loose before marriage, flowing locks being typical of their youth and freedom. After marriage the hair was cut short, like that of a slave, to show that a position of servitude had been accepted. As the social position of women advanced they rebelled against this idea, and obtained leave to bind it in folds and plaits close to the head.
It is a well-known fact that our forefathers systematically beat their wives. "Three blows with a broomstick" were considered salutary at times to keep them in order!
Notwithstanding this apparent subordination, women among the Angles and Saxons were greatly valued and respected, being encouraged to take their place in public affairs with even more freedom than is theirs to-day. While woman was still the "spinster," spinning the thread and weaving the wool of every garment worn by the men of the family, yet she was allowed to possess and inherit her own lands,