Women of England. Bartlett Burleigh James
on arriving, with his companions, in England, after a great deal of trepidation for their personal safety, they presented themselves at the court of the King of Kent Ethelbert received them in the open air, with a great show of pomp, and gave them his promise to interpose no hindrance to their missionary endeavors among his people. To Bertha must be ascribed the credit for the complaisance of her husband and the opening that was made to restore the Christian faith, which had perished with the Britons.
Edith, the gentle queen of Edward the Confessor, was noted alike for her skill with the needle and her conversance with literature. Ingulf's History, though perhaps not authentic, gives us a delightful picture of the simplicity of her Anglo-Saxon court. "I often met her," says this writer—meaning Edith—"as I came from school, and then she questioned me about my studies and my verses; and willingly passing from grammar to logic, she would catch me in the subtleties of argument. She always gave me two or three pieces of money, which were counted to me by her hand-maiden, and then sent me to the royal larder to refresh myself."
Ethelwyn, another royal lady, and a friend of Archbishop Dunstan, was accustomed to decorate the ecclesiastical vestments, and the art needlework of herself and her companions became celebrated. On account of his well-known skill in drawing and designing, Dunstan was frequently called into the ladies' bower to give his views in such matters. While they worked, he sometimes regaled them with music from his harp.
These pleasing views of the character and the employments of the royal ladies in Anglo-Saxon times, seen in their simple pursuits, are more agreeable than the stories of those who were engaged in court intrigues, to relate which would necessitate a history of the political movements of the day. We shall later have ample opportunity to see woman as an influence in affairs of thrones and dynasties. For the present, it will suffice to regard royal woman in the way in which she is prominently presented to us in Anglo-Saxon annals—as the lady of refined domesticity.
Chapter IV
The Women of the Anglo-Normans
A picture of the social life of England during the Norman period is a picture of manners and customs in a state of flux. But amid all the instability of the times, when political institutions, laws, customs, and language were inchoate, the tendencies were so marked that it is quite possible to watch the emergence of a solidified people. The two great social factors to be considered are the baronial castles and the women of those castles. The castle was the characteristic feature of the Anglo-Norman period; its conspicuousness increased as time went on, until, in the reign of Stephen, there were no less than eleven hundred of these units of divided sovereignty scattered over the country.
During the period of national unsettlement which followed upon the Conquest, these frowning castles arose; they owed their existence to the lack of adequate laws for the safeguarding of life and of property, and to the absence of the machinery of government for the enforcement of law. But, principally, they represented the mutual jealousies of the Norman barons, to whom had been apportioned the lands of the Saxons—jealousies which found a common attraction in an aversion to the centralizing of power in the hands of any monarch who had ambitions to be more than a superior overlord.
This social insecurity was intensified during the reign of William by the danger of attack from the implacable Saxon bands of warriors who had retired into the swamps and from those fastnesses conducted a fierce guerrilla warfare upon the Normans. So full of danger was the period, that the closing of the castle for the evening was always an occasion for serious prayer and commitment of the inmates to Divine protection, as there was no knowing but that before morning a besieging force might appear before the gates and institute all the horrors of attack and beleaguerment.
The elevation of woman to the plane of companionship with her husband was largely due to the peculiar conditions of the feudal state of society, of which the frowning castle that crowned the many hilltops was the sinister characteristic. Exposed as she was to the same dangers, and sharing the responsibilities of her husband, there was no room for a distinction of status to be drawn between them. By reason of environment, wifely equality with her husband was not a matter of theoretical but simply of practical settlement. It was needful that the wife should be a woman of courage and of resources. But while the matter of sex did not constitute a badge of inferiority in the home relations, the peculiar perils to which the women were exposed constituted an appeal to manhood that evoked a chivalrous response; and when life became less hard and there was better opportunity for the expression of the tenderer sentiments, this especial regard for woman rose to the height of an exalted devotion.
It would not be right to assume, however, that the greater prominence and influence of woman outside of her home was a sudden emergence from former conditions. In so unsettled an era it became, however, a more general, more pronounced feature. We may find an earlier indication of the interest of the great lady in the affairs of her lord and in the welfare of his dependants, as well as of the advance of chivalrous sentiments, in the story of Lady Godiva. It was in 1040 that Leofric, Earl of Mercia, was besought by his wife, who was remarkable for her beauty and piety, to relieve his tenantry of Coventry of a heavy toll. Probably little inclined to grant her request, he imposed what he may have thought impossible terms, when he consented to her plea on condition that she would ride naked through the town. To his amazement, doubtless, the Lady Godiva accepted the condition; and Leofric faithfully carried out his agreement. The lady, veiled only by her lovely hair, rode through the streets; and to the honor of the good people of Coventry, it is said that they kept within doors and would not look upon their benefactress to embarrass her. One person only is said to have peeped from behind the curtain of his window, and the story runs that he was struck blind, or, according to another version, had his eyes put out by the wrathful people. This curious person was the "Peeping Tom of Coventry," whose name has become proverbial.
Society develops in strata, so that the elevation of the women of the castles did not enable the women of the hovels to profit by conditions out of the range of their lives. The lower classes, or villains, which included the grades of society styled, in the Anglo-Saxon period, the freemen and the serfs, were the social antitheses of the society of the castles. The women of the lower class benefited not at all by the new dignity that was acquired by the women of the castles during the feudal régime; in fact, they suffered the imposition of new burdens and the exactions of a feudal practice which took the form of tribute, based on the persistent idea of the vassalage of their sex. The great middle class, which was to play such an important part in the social and industrial history of England, had not emerged as a separate section of the people of the country. But what the lady of the Norman castle obtained for her class through one phase of feudalism, the woman of the guild aided in securing by another in the centuries which marked the rule of the Angevin kings; and in both Norman and Angevin times the influence of the Church was constantly on the side of the womanhood of the country, and was probably a more potent force than any other, for the exaltation of woman was the one policy which proceeded on fixed principles.
The castles too often degenerated into centres of rapine and pillage; perpetual feuds led to constant forays, and no traveller could be assured that he would not be set upon by one of these robber barons and his band of retainers—little better than remorseless banditti. But there were castles of a better sort, nor were all knights recreant to their vows. In assuming the obligations of his order, the newly vested knight swore to defend the Church against attack by the perfidious; venerate the priesthood; repel the injustices of the poor; keep the country quiet; shed his blood, and if necessary lose his life, for his brethren. Nothing was said in the oath about devotion to women, nor was such a thing at first contemplated as a part of the knight's office. His office was a military one, and sentiment did not enter into it. The chivalrous feature grew out of the circumstances of the times—the unprotected situation of woman, the fact that the knight who enlisted in the service of a baron, and the baron as well, often had to leave the women of