Women of England. Bartlett Burleigh James
their race were largely maintained. The manner of life of the women of the wild northern tribes was, as we have seen, unaffected by the Roman occupancy of the country. Finding themselves unable to conquer these fierce people, the Romans, for their own security, had stretched across the country a great wall to facilitate defence; but they had soon to protect their coasts from other warlike races, who, first in piratical bands and then as migrating nations, brought terror and annihilation to the native Britons.
Chapter III
The Women of the Anglo-Saxons
To attempt a portrayal of the miseries entailed upon the women of the Britons by the forays of the barbarians, which followed the withdrawal of the Romans from the country, would be to rehearse the distresses which were but usual to warfare at that period of the world's history. We can pass over the savagery of human passions, inflamed by the heat of strife, and come to the more congenial and, indeed, the only important task of considering the life of woman, not under the exceptional conditions of war, but in the normal state of existence. Even during the Roman occupancy of the country, the British women had experienced the terrors of the barbarians. In spite of the massive wall, the lines of forts, and the system of trenches, by which that military people had sought to arrest the inroads of the Picts and Scots, those unconquered tribes of the north often swept with resistless force far into the peaceful provinces, bringing desolation into many homes and carrying off the women, to dispose of them in the slave markets of the continent.
More terrible still had been the descent upon the British coasts of the piratical Saxon rovers, whose frequent incursions had given to those tracts that were open to their attacks the significant appellation of the "Saxon shore." In spite of the measures of the Romans against these marauding bands from over the seas, they were a source of continual terror, especially to the women of the coast settlements, to whom their name was a synonym of all those distresses which forcible capture and enslavement imply.
When the Roman forces withdrew, a danger that had been occasional and limited to localities now became a menace to the whole people. The invasions of the Picts and Scots became so frequent, and their ravages so dreadful, that the Britons, who for generations had been dependent upon the arms of the Romans for protection, felt unable to cope alone with the situation that faced them. In their extremity they hit upon the expedient of pitting barbarian against barbarian, hoping thus to gain peace from the northern terror, and at the same time to rid themselves of the menace of the pirates. To this end the astute sea rovers were engaged to discipline the northern hordes. But when these "men without a country" had fulfilled their obligation, they preferred to remain in the fertile and attractive island rather than return to their own vast forest stretches and there seek to combat the pressure that had set in motion the Germanic peoples.
In this way began, in the fifth century, the conquest of Britain by the Angles, the Jutes, and the Saxons: a conquest as inevitable as it was beneficial; a conquest so stern as practically to sweep from existence a whole people, excepting the women, who were spared to become the slaves of the conquerors, and such of the men as were needed to fill servile positions. The conquest of a Christian nation by a pagan one must have resulting justification of the highest order, if it is not to be stamped as one of the greatest calamities of history, and such justification is amply afforded by the splendid history of the English people. In the light of the achievements for humanity that are presented by the record of the Anglo-Saxon peoples, we need not take up the lament of a Gildas over the woes of the Britons.
The impact of the virile peoples of northern Europe against the serried ranks of soldiery that circled the lines of the great world empire was the irresistible impulse of civilization to preserve and to further the march of the race toward the goal that mankind in all its wholesome periods has felt to be its unalterable destiny. The conquest of Britain was a part of this great world movement. Its striking difference as compared with the method and the results of the barbarian conquests on the continent lay in the fact that the new nationalities that there arose in the path of the invaders were Latin, while the England of Anglo-Saxon creation was essentially Teutonic. Hardly a vestige of the Roman occupancy of the country remains in language, in literature, in law, in custom, or in race.
The independence of the English people of Roman influence, and British as well, leads us to connect the customs, habits, and, in a word, the status and the civilization of their women, not with the antecedent line of British life, but with the tribes of the German forests. Some influence was exerted by the British women upon the life of the Anglo-Saxons, but it was not sufficient to become an influential factor in the crystallization of the new nation. Some of the surviving customs, manners, and superstitions of the English women are of undoubted British origin, and remain as a part of the folklore of the English race as we know it. There is no question that the life of the common people was tinctured by superstitious beliefs and magic, which even Christianity had failed completely to eradicate from the faith of the British women. And this is true, too, with matters of custom and, perhaps, of dress.
The status of the female sex among the Anglo-Saxons is well set forth by Sharon Turner in his History of the Anglo-Saxons. He says: "It is a well-known fact that the female sex were much more highly valued and more respectfully treated by the barbarous Gothic nations than by the more polished states of the East. Among the Anglo-Saxons they occupied the same important and independent rank in society which they now enjoy."
They were allowed to possess, to inherit, and to transmit landed property; they shared in all social festivities; they were present at the Witenagemot; they were permitted to sue and could be sued in the courts of justice; and their persons, their safety, their liberty, and their property were protected by express laws.
The dignity and the chastity of the women of the Germanic tribes made a profound impression on the minds of the Roman writers who had an opportunity for observing them, and evoked from them the warmest tributes. They remarked that the Germans were the only barbarians content with one wife. Here, then, we find that of which we have not been assured in our prior study of the women of Britain—genuine monogamous marriages.
Tacitus says: "A strict regard for the sanctity of the matrimonial state characterizes the Germans and deserves our highest applause. Among the females, virtue runs no hazard of being offended or destroyed by the outward objects presented to the senses, or of being corrupted by such social gayeties as might lead the mind astray. Severe punishments were ordered in case of infringement of this great bond of society. Vice is not made the subject of wit or mirth, nor can the fashion of the age be pleaded in excuse for being corrupt or for endeavoring to corrupt others. Good customs and manners avail more among these barbarians than good laws among a more refined people." Among the Teutons, whom Tacitus thus praises to the discredit of his own people, there was no room for any question of the elemental rights of woman, for among them woman was more than loved, she was reverenced.
As Sharon Turner observes, women were admitted into the councils of the men; and the high position accorded them is further shown by their prominence in the more intellectual priestly class. The proportion of women to men must have been ten to one. Their preponderance in this influential order assured them of the preservation of the regard in which their sex was held. Its best security, however, lay in that instinctive feeling of the equality of the sexes which is fundamental in the character of the Anglo-Saxon and the Germanic family as a whole.
We must not suppose that because the women of the Anglo-Saxons had certain rights and were accorded a certain superstitious reverence, as specially gifted in divination, they were therefore the objects of chivalrous devotion and were surrounded by æsthetic associations. The age was a rude one, and the race was made up of uncouth barbarians. The female grace of chastity was not the result of high ideals, or of wise deductions from the sacredness of the family relation in its bearing upon society; it did not even have its basis in conspicuous moral motives; but it was a natural