A short history of social life in England. Margaret Bertha Synge
in rows, over which low mounds were raised, as is the custom to-day. Here they have been found—these tall, big-boned ancestors of ours—lying on their backs, sometimes in wooden coffins, more often in the bare earth, all in full dress: the men with sword and spear, women with ornaments and jewels. Still we find the idea that material possessions will be available in a future life: that warriors would need their carving knives and drinking-horns in Walhalla, while those who were doomed to the cold shades of Hel might find compensation in past earthly splendour. It is unnecessary to add that the advent of Christianity ended this custom.
Such then, very briefly, were the manners and customs of our forefathers who made their homes in England during the fifth and sixth centuries. They were blue-eyed, fair-haired giants, sturdy pagans, fierce warriors, fearless lovers of sea and storm, reckless of life for life's sake, ever ready to suffer and if need be to die for one of the Blood. Brave, valorous, energetic, cheerful, if devoid of mercy and pity, they have bequeathed that force of character and "grit" to their successors—qualities which have carried England's sons successfully through unequal contest and inconceivable hardship, enabling them to ride fearlessly through surf and storm, and with dogged perseverance to build up new homes in distant lands, carving out the destiny of the British Empire, even as their forefathers carved out the destiny of England.
From the shores of the North Sea came our ideas of freedom, our right of free meeting, of free speech, free thought, free work. It is with respect akin to reverence that we look back across the stretch of over a thousand years to see in the Meeting of the Wise Men the germ of our Parliament to-day. On the other hand, it is not without anguish that we realise how completely to-day we have lost sight of that principle grasped so firmly by the Angles and Saxons in their military organisation, a principle which made home defence not only the duty, but the privilege of every free-born man.
They have given us our language, they have given us our literature, they have bequeathed to us that invaluable legacy, not only of family life but of colonial instinct, in which lies the germ of that larger Imperialism which Englishmen of to-day are called to share with their kindred beyond the seas.
"Truly ye come of The Blood; slower to bless than to ban;
Little used to lie down at the bidding of any man.
Flesh of the flesh that I bred, bone of the bone that I bare;
Stark as your sons shall be—stern as your fathers were."
CHAPTER IV
Circa 597—1066
OUR GREAT INHERITANCE
"Post Tenebras Lux."
MIGHTY and momentous were the changes that now swept over the lives of our forefathers, still torn with those tribal controversies which are inevitable in any great settlement of people in a new-found land. But great as was the revolution which changed the tribal chief into the national king and developed the germ of feudalism by turning the freeman into a serf, yet still greater and more far-reaching was that moral revolution which was effected by the triumph of Christianity over the fierce worshippers of Woden. This is no place to retell the charming story of the little band of Benedictine monks who so successfully organised that Christianity in England which had already taken root among the Celts. The strenuous opposition with which the Saxons greeted the new faith is comprehensible, when we consider their point of view. Not only was it the religion of their foes, the Celts, but it taught men to forgive injuries, which seemed to the stout pagan warriors a religion only fit for cowards, while a faith that held the highest life to be that of the cloistered monk was impossible to one whose only hope of eternity lay in a glorious death by battle.
But the time was ripening for a fuller conception of the responsibilities of life, when the mere gratification of passion and greed as well as the very material future offered by the Northern mythology was becoming totally inadequate.
The dawning change is so beautifully illustrated by the world-worn parable uttered by an old pagan chieftain in the North of England that we venture to repeat it, for the speaker voiced the feelings of his brethren when he exclaimed: "O King, often in winter when men are sitting at meat in your hall and the warm fire is lighted on your hearth, while the rain storm beats without, a sparrow flieth in at the door, tarries for a moment in the light and heat of the fire, and then goeth out by another door into the wintry darkness whence it came. So tarries for a moment the life of man in this world; what has gone before and what will come after, none can say. If this new teaching can tell us aught of this, let us follow it"
The answer of Paulinus, the Roman teacher, must have been reassuring, for the pagan chieftain sprang on his horse, rode straight to the temple of his gods, and hurled a spear through the idols worshipped by his ancestors.
Slowly and painfully, through toil and tribulation, the persistent teachers made their way through the length and breadth of the land, followed closely in thought and prayer by Pope Gregory in distant Rome, till Christianity finally triumphed over heathendom. The liberal way in which the changes were effected is evident to-day. Thus, the heathen festival hitherto dedicated to Eostra, the goddess of the spring, became the Christian festival of the Resurrection, while the great Yuletide feast held in the winter solstice became our Christmas Day.
Little thick-walled churches, touching in their extreme simplicity, arose from out the townships scattered through the land. For the first time Pater Noster and Creed, Te Deum and Magnificat were sung by English lips from English hearts, while the now familiar church bell called all alike to prayer across marshy meadow and lonely moor.
Accustomed to music and singing, our ancestors seem to have joined somewhat too eagerly in the solemn Latin chanting of the priests, for we find a law ordering those who sang out of time or tune to be turned out of church. Possibly the uniformity secured in Church music by the introduction of Gregorian chants in the eighth century affected the Anglo-Saxon enthusiast. A difference of opinion also took place between priest and people owing to the determination of the latter to bring dogs, hawks, and pigs to church with them.
Not only in church, but by moor and river, on the hillside and in the valley, the new faith was diligently preached to the men of England. While the new Walhalla was depicted in glowing terms as a place where there would be "peace without sorrow, light without darkness and joys without end," the alternative was relentlessly painted for those who fell short in obeying the Divine call. "Gold and silver cannot save us from those grim and cruel torments," cried the preacher of a thousand years ago to a congregation of Englishmen, "from those flames that will never be extinguished, from those serpents that never die. There they are whetting their bloody teeth to wound and tear our bodies without mercy; there, beaten and bound, the afflicted soul will hang over hot flames, till thrown into the blackest place below."
Ecclesiastical organisation immediately followed the establishment of the Church in England, and a new social order arose. Bishops, priests, clergy, monks, forming a distinct class, required new legislation. By various stages the old township passed into the parish, with the church as the centre of village life, as it practically is in country districts to-day.
But the change that came over the individual was yet more startling. The new faith demanded a radical change of life. It forced on the Englishman not only new laws, new manners, new customs, but an altogether new conception of life and duty. There was no respite. The change must begin with babyhood and last to the grave. No infanticide was permitted, but the rites of baptism were ordained to be accomplished within thirty days of birth. Godparents appear for the first time in England, with more elaborate duties than they are called on to perform to-day. A more systematic naming of children now came into existence, their names for the most part denoting some personal characteristic. Thus we have Arnold (eagle strength), Alfred (noble peace), Godwine (friend of God), while among girls there is Edith (happy gift), Ellen (the excellent), and so forth. Of surnames there were none as yet, though to avoid confusion we hear of Ethelred the Unready, Edmund Ironside,