A short history of social life in England. Margaret Bertha Synge
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."
CHAPTER III
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