← catalogue

Women of England

by Bartlett Burleigh James · English · Gutenberg #32299 · 732,603 chars · public domain (US)

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Women of England
    
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: Women of England

Author: Bartlett Burleigh James


        
Release date: May 8, 2010 [eBook #32299]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/32299

Credits: Produced by Thierry Alberto, William Flis, Rénald Lévesque
        and the Online Distributed Proofreaders Europe at
        http://dp.rastko.net.


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WOMEN OF ENGLAND ***




Produced by Thierry Alberto, William Flis, Rénald Lévesque
and the Online Distributed Proofreaders Europe at
http://dp.rastko.net.





  Transcriber's Note: The Table of Contents
  was added by the Transcriber.



WOMAN

IN ALL AGES AND IN ALL COUNTRIES




WOMEN OF ENGLAND

BY

BARTLETT BURLEIGH JAMES, PH.D.

OF WESTERN MARYLAND COLLEGE


THE RITTENHOUSE PRESS

PHILADELPHIA


Copyrighted at Washington and entered at Stationers' Hall, London,

1907--1908

and Printed by arrangement with George Barrie's Sons.


PRINTED IN U.S.A.




CONTENTS

                PREFACE

     Chapter I. The Women of Prehistoric Britain

    Chapter II. The Women of Ancient Britain

   Chapter III. The Women of the Anglo-Saxons

    Chapter IV. The Women of the Anglo-Normans

     Chapter V. The Women of the Middle Ages

    Chapter VI. The Women of the Manors

   Chapter VII. The Women of the Monasteries

  Chapter VIII. The Women of the Industrial Classes

    Chapter IX. The Women of the Transition Period

     Chapter X. The Women of the Tudor Period

    Chapter XI. Women of the Commonwealth Period

   Chapter XII. The Women of the Restoration Period

  Chapter XIII. The Women of the Eighteenth Century

   Chapter XIV. The Women of the Nineteenth Century

    Chapter XV. The Women of Scotland and Ireland




PREFACE


It is no slight task to follow out the windings of a single thread
in the infinite weave of society and by loosing it from the general
mesh to show how dependent is the pattern of life and custom upon its
presence. Such a task was presented in the endeavor to trace along
from remotest times to the present day the influence of woman upon
the life and character, the efforts and ideals, of that race which
has come to be known as English, although this name may not properly
be used until time has spun into the vista of the past peoples as
vigorous, if not influential, as the one that stands, the inheritor
of their virility, at the apex of modern civilization, whose women,
clasping hands throughout the British Empire, form a splendid chain
of hope for womankind in all the world.

Whether or not continuity and sequence, relation and effect, have been
maintained in the retraversing of the footsteps of woman in all ages
of the history of those isles where femininity has flowered in the
most gracious blossoms, it remains for the reader to say. Certain
it is that unaffected pleasure has been afforded the writer in his
attempt to draw aside the curtain that the muse of history jealously
employs to shut from view the inner sanctuary in which she preserves
those vital relics, the destruction of which by some inconceivable
iconoclast would bring death to the world for lack of materials for
reflection and inspiration. In treating of the prehistoric periods,
although the brush necessarily has been laid broadly upon the canvas,
fancy has been kept in the leash of fact, and imagination given no
more play than its legitimate function. Still, the results of inquiry
into the status of woman at this far remote period furnish a fulcrum
upon which to rest the lever of investigation, in order to lift
into view the strata of undoubted history of the periods immediately
subsequent.

As fast as the widening of social interest afforded the materials for
use, the writer sought to employ them, until, like a mountain rivulet,
ever widening until it reaches the plain, he found himself embarrassed
by the wealth of fact that told the marvellous story of the most
notable emancipation in the history of mankind,--the complete
separation of English woman from the trammels, inherent and
environmental, imposed upon the sex. If the successive chapters
disclose the philosophical relations of woman in society, it will be
because the reader has not failed to grasp the fact that in any such
theme as the one treated mere continuity of subject matter would
constitute a chronicle and not a history; and that the writer, while
seeking not to make obtrusive the connective tissue, has nevertheless
given ample scope for the reflective mind to see that which has ever
been present to his own.

As to the actual materials employed in constructing the book, it is
sufficient to say that no important writer upon any period of the
history of the British Isles or their people has been overlooked, and
that the passing over of the political and constitutional phases in
order to select the purely social has been an endeavor much furthered
by the writers to whom reference is made in the body of the work, and
many others who could not be mentioned without burdening the text.
Each fibre of the thread of interest has been taken hold of at the
point of its appearance, and then not lost sight of until the end.
So that if one is interested in the subject of costume, he may find
a full and accurate description of dress from the time when tattooing
was deemed largely sufficient up to the period of the present, when
the variety of feminine attire baffles description. But more serious
subjects, such as woman's rights, from the recognition of primal
rights in her person to the setting forth of the modern programme
under that description, are consecutively treated through the
chapters.

A debt of gratitude cannot be discharged, but some recognition may be
made of the author's sense of the service rendered him in the writing
of this work by Dr. John Martin Vincent, associate professor of
history in Johns Hopkins University, whose courses in the social
history of England furnished the first incentive to range in that
field and a guide through the labyrinth of manners and customs of
the English people. Thanks are due to Mr. J.A. Burgan, whose close
and careful reading of the proof is not the least factor in the
presentation of the book free, as the writer believes, of the errors
that only eternal vigilance may exclude.

BARTLETT BURLEIGH JAMES.




CHAPTER I

THE WOMEN OF PREHISTORIC BRITAIN


It is to the unpremeditated contributions of savage and barbarous
conditions of existence that we must look for those primal elements of
social order which became fundamental in English life and character.
Insomuch as those contributions are intimately connected with woman's
life and work, they must be sought out and set in order if we are to
trace the development of the status of the women of Britain. In doing
this, the confines of history proper must be disregarded and the
inquiry commenced at the earliest period at which the student of
the geology of Britain has been able to discover evidences of human
occupancy of the country. If a consecutive account of the history
of woman in Britain were intended, we should be content to begin the
story with the woman of the Neolithic or Polished Stone Age, for to
such remote times may be traced the stream of life and institutions
in England; but, as we shall aim not solely at consecutiveness,
but at completeness as well in our record of woman's life in the
British Isles, it will be necessary to go back even further into the
geologic ages, when Britain was still a part of the mainland and
its inhabitants the same roving savage tribes that wandered over all
central Europe.

From those barren ages of the Pleistocene era, which were cut off
from the Neolithic by great stretches of time that cannot be certainly
calculated, and during which there was a lapse in the human occupancy
of the country, little of value can be derived. Their chief worth for
our purpose is the picture which they present of the initial stage of
human organization, the study they afford of woman in her relations
to a thoroughly savage stage of society, an era of hunting--that of
the Paleolithic or Rough Stone Age, when there was fixity neither of
residence nor of relations, and when man's contest with savage nature
about him was dependent in its issues upon the slight advantage
furnished him by the rude weapons that he fashioned from flint flakes.
During the Polished Stone era, when inhabitants are next met with in
Britain, the social organization presented is that of the pastoral
stage, which marks a great advance over the hunting.

In all the progressions of uncivilized life, woman is but a part of
the phenomena of her times, but in the history of English civilization
she appears as one of its most active forces. These, then, are the two
correlated views of woman in the history of English life that will
be constantly held in mind during our whole study,--woman as a social
fact, and woman as a social factor; showing her as a product, as
affected by the customs, laws, or manners of a given time, and again
as an influencing factor in the institutions or the manners of those
times. Had her life been as circumscribed as that of the women of
a cultured people, English civilization would not owe to woman the
recognition which is her due as a creative force in the arts, in
science, in literature, in religion, and in all the ever-widening
circle of human interests. An understanding and estimate of her
influence in these more conspicuous relations will depend upon a
proper appreciation of the English home as the principal source of
the English woman's dignity and power. Much that has entered into
the ideals of the English race can be fully accounted for only in the
light of home ideals. By such considerations, then, as have been thus
far set forth, we shall be guided in our endeavor to tell the story of
woman's life in the ages of Britain's history.

The people of the earliest part of the Pleistocene age had no real
home life, nor was there any social organization excepting that into
which men were forced by the necessity for mutual aid in the struggle
with the forces of savage nature. This element of self-protection was
the only factor that entered into the organized life of those earliest
inhabitants of Britain,--the people of the river-drift and the caves.
In this combat between savage man and savage beast were produced the
first instruments pointing to civilization,--weapons for defence and
offence.

The life of woman among the men of the river-drift was of the most
debased order. The only employment of the men was hunting the gigantic
savage beasts that ranged through the forests. While the males were in
pursuit of the rhinoceros, the lion, the hippopotamus, and the great
antlered deer that were a part of the fauna of the whole of that
section of the continent of Europe of which Britain in those remote
times formed a part, the females roamed through the densely wooded
forests whose only clearings were those made by the ravages of fire.
Clad in the skins of beasts but little lower in the scale of being
than themselves, and with their naked offspring about them, they
wandered about in search of berries or, with no better aids than
sharpened sticks, dug up the roots which they dried and stored for
the days when the results of the chase fell short of the needs of the
people. On the home-coming of the hunters to the place where, in their
nomadic wanderings, they had erected temporary shelters, the women
prepared the miserable meal. By skilfully rubbing together pieces
of hard wood, a fire was soon obtained; if fortune had attended the
chase, the hastily skinned animals were cut up with flint flakes,
and the meat was thrown upon the stones placed in the fire for that
purpose. There were no niceties of taste to be considered, so the
half-cooked and badly smoked flesh was snatched from the fire and
eaten with no more decorum than might be found in the meals of the
cave-hyena that, under the shadows of night, skulked through the
underbrush and noisily devoured the remnants of the hunters' feast.

On the day following the hunt, the women undertook the arduous work
of curing the skins of the slain animals. In the initial stage of the
process they used stone scrapers, sharp of edge and probably set in
bone handles. Hundreds of these implements have been found. The women
acquired great dexterity in this, one of their customary employments;
and while the men lounged about, resting from the fatigue of the
hunt, or occupied themselves with painting their bodies with ochre, or
tracing, with a splinter of stone, rude devices on pieces of polished
reindeer antler, the work of the women went industriously on.

Men of such undisciplined natures as those of the people of the
river-drift could not exist together harmoniously; very little,
indeed, was necessary to embroil them in bitter strife. Their women
were a frequent cause of bloody encounters, a circumstance which was
due to the fact that there was no permanence in the relations of the
sexes; such rights--seldom individual--to the women as were vested
in the men were always those acquired by brute force, and held good
only so long as the fancy or strength of the men permitted. In such
a promiscuous society there was nothing to suggest the home of
civilization. To men, women simply represented their chief possession
and were held by them in common, like other forms of property.

Such an age was almost as barren of material utilities as of moral
conceptions; so that one looks in vain for evidence of the knowledge
of such arts as are commonly associated with the life of women in
savage societies. Basket work, weaving, and spinning were occupations
of which, it is thought, the women of those times knew nothing.
Pottery was unknown; gourds served for drinking cups and for the
holding of liquids, and were used also for cooking. Among the
memorials of woman of these remote times appears no trace of the
charms and fetiches which usually accompany the performance of
domestic duties among primitive races. Nothing lower in the scale of
human existence could be imagined than the lives of these women of
the river-drift, to whom nature made no appeal save that of fear of
its furious moods, to whom sex meant not the possibilities of pure
wifehood and motherhood, but servitude to the demands of passion.
When children were not vigorous, or when for any reason their nurture
became irksome, they were ruthlessly slain, even by the mothers
themselves; and every woman knew that the lot of abandonment was
reserved for her when she could no longer fulfil the hard conditions
of her existence.

In some respects, the life of the women of the cave-dwellers of the
later Pleistocene period was of a higher order than that which we have
just described--not that there was any essential difference in the
social grade of the two peoples, but that the cave-dwellers had
learned to make better implements of the chase and to fashion more
effectively all their weapons and tools. The greater security to
life afforded by these improvements and the greater assurance of
subsistence led to more settled living, and thereby afforded an
opportunity to develop a social organization that should have for its
basis something of greater permanence than a temporary need. While it
would be hazardous, then, to assume too much in the way of improvement
in the life of the women of the cave-dwellers over that of the women
of the river-drift, yet it should be borne in mind that in states
of society such as those represented by these remote inhabitants of
Britain, even a slight advance in the scale of living marks an epoch
of progress.

The cave-dwellers succeeded the people of the river-drift as
inhabitants of Britain, and the combined occupancy of the country by
these peoples covered a vast stretch of time. It is very probable
that their periods overlapped, and that the later people were in part
contemporary with the former. Though the people of the river-drift
and the dwellers in caves may have avoided intermixture, as have the
Esquimaux and the American Indians, yet there is nothing absolutely
to preclude the idea that such race distinction was observed during
great periods of time. So that all we have to say of the women of the
cave-dwellers may be equally applied to the women of the later times
of the river-drift.

The cave-dwellers, like their predecessors, were hunters. For their
dwellings they chose the caves from which they had driven out the bear
and the lion. These rude homes the women hung about with the skins of
the horse or the wolf, and spread on the floor for couches the hides
of these or of other beasts that had fallen by the arrows of the
hunters or had been ensnared in their pitfalls. Here the tribe
remained until the scarcity of game or the assault of enemies impelled
it to migrate. Where there were no caves, huts were constructed. These
were framed with the branches and trunks of trees and covered with
skins and hides.

The woman of the cave-dwellers was a sturdy specimen of her sex, and
the long and arduous migrations in which the burden of the work fell
upon her shoulders were probably borne with little sense of hardship.
We can imagine a tribe, travelling afoot, for as yet neither the horse
nor any other animal had been domesticated: the men with their long
fish spears across their backs, their stone arrows hanging at their
sides, and their bows in hand, always alert for the wild beasts with
which they waged a relentless warfare; the women laden with all the
paraphernalia of their simple existence, many with a babe slung at the
back, and their naked, uncouth progeny following or gambolling about
them. The strange personal appearance of both men and women would
add to the oddity of the scene in modern eyes, for their bodies were
painted in grotesque patterns, and, if the rigors of the season made
any covering necessary, a simple skin, laced about them with reindeer
sinews, sufficed for clothing. On coming to a fresh hunting region,
near to some body of water or flowing stream, where the game would
naturally come to slake their thirst,--perhaps upon the grassy plains
that still extended over what is now the English Channel and formed a
part of the original land connection with the continent,--they paused
for another term of settled residence. Again the caves were resorted
to, or rudely thatched huts were erected. If the wild beasts pressed
the wanderers too hard, they sometimes had recourse to huts erected
upon rough stone heaps in the midst of an oozy swamp.

While the men gave themselves wholly to hunting, the women went about
their domestic pursuits. To them was assigned the making of such
scanty clothing as was imperatively required in the cold season; for
though the crude carvings of the time invariably represent the hunters
as naked, it cannot be concluded from such evidence that clothing was
not worn at all. The extremely serviceable reindeer sinews served the
women for thread, and a thin reindeer prong, pierced through at the
thick end, made a satisfactory needle. The skins were simply sewed
together at the edges, without shaping, but with apertures through
which to pass the head and arms. The women devised many ornaments;
these consisted of amulets and necklaces made of bone, ivory, and
shells, which, shaped and polished, they painstakingly punctured and
fastened together in long strings for the decoration of their necks
and arms. Apparently, it was not customary to wear foot covering of
any kind, as the feet of such skeletons of this period as have been
found are so symmetrical as to preclude the probability of constraint
during growth. The men may have worn some form of foot covering
when engaged in such exposed work as spearing the seal in the winter
season; but the women, who remained in shelter during the severities
of the winter, did not avail themselves of any such protection. The
fact that gloves were worn by men seems to be established by some of
the rude etchings of the period, for in them such articles appear to
be discernible.

The sanitary condition of the homes of these hunting tribes was of the
worst description; the offal and refuse were thrown at the very doors
of the cave, there to decay and poison the air. The caves themselves
were smoke-begrimed and foul, for house cleaning had not yet entered
into the economy of woman. While, by reason of their simple, open-air
life, they were a vigorous race, the ills to which the cave-dwellers
fell a prey, the injuries they suffered in warfare or from the attacks
of wild beasts, or the diseases contracted through unsanitary living,
must have been sources of great dread to them, as they were without
any medical knowledge of which we have trace. When the women,
particularly, became too sick to perform their allotted tasks, they
were carried out to die or to become the victims of savage beasts; but
this was only one of the inevitable phases of an existence that was
replete with tragedies.

From the evidence afforded by the great abundance of arrow heads and
spear points surviving from this period, there is no doubt that the
cave men were much given to warfare. Aside from the natural pugnacity
and ferocity of savage races, which lead them to fight upon very
little provocation, there was with the cave-dwellers another source
of constant hostility. As has been stated with reference to the
river-drift people, the women were not permanently attached to the
men. It is just as true that they were not permanently attached to
their tribes, for when, through disease or the ravages of wild beasts,
the women of any horde became greatly diminished in number, their
ranks were recruited by forays upon other tribes. These attacks for
the purpose of stealing the women of their enemies were especially
provocative of fierce conflicts, as the depletion of its stock of
women often seriously crippled a tribe and sometimes even threatened
its extinction. Such forcible transfers of ownership must have added
greatly to the hardness of the woman's lot, for by such means many
mothers were permanently separated from their offspring.

The weight of probability and of evidence seems to leave little room
for doubt that the early inhabitants of Britain were cannibals. While
there was no scarcity of game as a rule, it is quite likely that these
savage peoples, as those of the same grade of culture in all times,
when experiencing the delirium of a victory over their enemies, put
to death by cruel tortures the unhappy captives that fell into their
hands, and then, to complete their triumph, roasted and ate the flesh
of the slain. Aside from the deductive probability of the case,
human bones dating back to this period have been found along with the
remains of weapons and in association with the ashes of camp fires;
and in such cases the bones have invariably been broken, in order to
extract from them their marrow. The story of the battle, the tortures,
and the feast is eloquently suggested by the silent memorials that
have been preserved through the lapse of ages. As we picture the
far-off scene of human savagery, the figure of woman flits through the
lights and shadows of the horrid orgy: for she it was who prepared the
gruesome repast; it was in defence of her, perhaps, that the fierce
battle was fought; some of her own near of kin, it may be, she has
been forced to prepare for the unnatural appetites of her enemies.
Possibilities! but read in the light of the times, they become
probabilities, and probabilities furnish much of the data of history.

The tragedy of woman's life is again brought before us with startling
vividness when we look upon the skull of a woman of this remote race,
as it lies in a cave, with a little stone hatchet beside it, where
it was ruthlessly cast after the commission of a bloody crime; for in
that skull is a jagged hole into which fits the blade of the hatchet.
The scene, sketched from a remote past, might have been an occurrence
of yesterday, so close to us is it brought by the silent witnesses;
these and similar relics disclose the sad lot of woman in that savage
society.

There are fuller evidences of the state of domestic resources among
the women of the cave-dwellers than with those of the river-drift. The
remains show, too, a greater variety and adaptation; for while there
is no clear proof of the existence of pottery, yet the cave people
appear not to have lacked substitutes for it. Vessels for boiling
meats were probably fashioned of small stones cemented together, and
they had, also, vessels of hollowed wood. The skulls of animals served
well for drinking purposes, besides which receptacles for holding
liquids were made from the skins of beasts. Water was heated by
placing hot stones in a vessel containing it, by which means the fluid
could be raised to any desired temperature. Long flint flakes set
in handles answered for knives; when rounded at the edge, the same
material made serviceable scrapers. Spoons were constructed from
pieces of reindeer antlers, hollowed at the thick end, or if they were
intended to be used to scoop out the marrow from bones, the tapered
end was hollowed. For their food, the cave-dwellers, though they
possessed no domesticated animals, had a wide choice of large and
small game, birds, fish, reptiles, and grubs; to these they added
edible roots and berries.

This almost indispensable domestic handicraft was not, however, the
limit of their achievement in designing. We have seen that woman's
thought and some of her activities were applied to the production of
merely decorative objects. She had already acquired an appreciative
taste for the auxiliary attractions of personal adornment. The art
of designing certainly found a place in the occupations of these
cave-dwellers, and the most familiar animated objects would be their
necessary choice. Hence, we may readily conceive that, in the moments
of respite from the chase, the rude artist of this age would make
of the cave passages a canvas for his work and thereon delineate
the animals whose importance to his existence rendered them the most
interesting objects. Nor, for this reason, would his subject fail of
appreciative criticism and of educational value.

It is impossible to state the nature or the extent of the social
organization among these people, but that there must have been
something of the sort there can be no doubt. It seems equally
plausible that there could have been no recognition of law in the
lives of these passionate savages, excepting as the will of some more
than ordinarily forceful warrior was for the time so recognized.
An association of this kind admitted of the sloughing of the groups
whenever a difference of inclination or of interest suggested such a
course. Promiscuity undoubtedly remained the characteristic form of
the relation of the sexes, the conditions of life admitting of no more
enduring relations.

The culture of the peoples of the river-drift and of the caves
signified little in British civilization, as these shadowy tribes
passed completely out of view. For a period of time that could be
expressed only in the term of vague geological computation, the
country remained devoid of inhabitants. Meantime, changes were wrought
in Britain's physical features. The land became insular, although the
subsidence that gave rise to the English Channel was not yet complete.
In an indirect way, the earliest peoples may be said to have passed
on the elements of their culture; for, while there was a lapse in the
continuity of social development, the Neolithic races that are next
met with in Britain became the inheritors of the culture of the ruder
hunter stages of society represented by the river-drift and cave
peoples.

The social grade of the Neolithic races was a great advance over that
of the peoples last considered. Instead of bands of nomadic wanderers,
we find a pastoral people whose migrations were doubtless periodical
and made only in search of new pastures. Hunting did not form an
important part of their lives, for their food was supplied by the
flesh of domesticated animals and the cereals that they raised for
their own needs and, in the winter season, for those of their stock.

Although caves continued to be used to some extent for dwellings,
they were not characteristic of the civilization of the times. Man had
become a home builder. The evolution from the cave dwellings is seen
in the style of houses that were first constructed. They consisted of
pits dug to a depth of seven to ten feet, and about seven feet wide at
the base. These pits were roofed over with a sort of thatch, filled in
with imperfectly burnt clay. They were built singly and in groups, and
were sometimes connected by a system of underground passages. Access
was had to these dwellings by a slanting, shaftlike entrance. A pit
village was usually stockaded to protect it against the assaults of
foes. Outside it were the arable lands and the common pasture lands
for the sheep and goats; enclosing these, the forest stretched out in
all directions.

Looking down from one of the surrounding hilltops upon such a village,
it would have presented to the eye of the observer the appearance of
a number of round hillocks but little higher than the ground level.
Thin lines of smoke, slowly ascending, would mark the places where the
common meals were in course of preparation. As the traveller descended
the hillside, his approach would be challenged by gaunt, savage sheep
dogs, from whose attacks he would need to defend himself. As he passed
out into the clearing, he would be confronted by the men, some of them
tilling the soil, others acting as shepherds or swineherds. Perhaps a
field of golden wheat would lend its beauty to the scene, Approaching
the dwellings, the women would be seen at their several employments;
some busy cutting up the meat and swinging it over the fires to roast,
or boiling it in pots with herbs and roots to make a savory stew,
others mixing dough and spreading it upon flat stones over hot embers
to bake. Sitting about on the rocks or squatting upon skins spread
upon the ground, other women would be found busily making pottery,
modelling the clay with their hands, and scratching upon it lines,
circles, and pyramids in various combinations, or fashioning designs
by pressing reindeer sinews into the substance. Still others would be
discovered busily spinning and weaving flax and wool into fabrics for
the clothing that marked one of the advances of the Neolithic people.
In the distance would be heard the dull strokes of the stone axes with
which, in the depth of the wood, the men felled the tall timber.

For the industries presented in this picture of a Neolithic village,
there were suitable implements. For all domestic purposes, the art of
pottery making had solved the question of satisfactory vessels. These
were generally in two colors, either brown or black. The potter's
wheel had not yet been invented, so that the vessels lacked the grace
and uniformity of later work of the sort. Wheat was ground by means of
a mortar and pestle. Knives for various uses, saws, and scrapers were
all made of highly polished and very keen-edged flint flakes. The
great superiority of their stone implements over those of earlier
races has given a name to the people, but the culture of the Polished
Stone Age reveals, as its most salient fact, not this, but rather
the domestication of animals and the tilling of the soil. It is
significant to note that these most characteristic features of the
Polished Stone Age denote the advance of society in the arts of
peaceful living. War was prevalent enough, but human development
had discovered another line of advancement, and, by reason of
the increased incentives to peaceful living, war was not usually
undertaken simply for the pleasure of fighting. Protection of flocks
and herds, of cleared fields and settled homes, became the chief
occasion of the wars waged by the Neolithic people.

In such a society as we have described, there is a community of
interest that tends to give stability to the ties of relationship. The
fairly settled state of life was undoubtedly accompanied by a social
organization of some sort that could properly deal with the matters
of individual rights. The family had become evolved from the horde;
promiscuity had doubtless given place to polygamy, or, under the
exceptional conditions of a greater number of men than of women, to
polyandry. Neither of these forms of marriage carried with it the idea
of fixity and of family responsibility.

A feature of the Neolithic age was its commerce. By a system of
intertribal traffic, the simple commodities of the widely dispersed
peoples of Europe became distributed among the various tribes. By this
means, many articles not of domestic manufacture were added to the
comfort of the people of Britain. Thus, the women were enabled to
adorn themselves with jade beads that must have come from the region
of the Mediterranean Sea, and even with gold ornaments from as distant
points. These instances, however, were exceptional, and are to be
accounted for in the same manner that we account for the most unlikely
things in the possession of the tribes of Central Africa--by gradual
hand-to-hand passage.

There was probably an absence of religious ideas among the
predecessors of the Polished Stone races; but among the remains of the
latter are ample proofs of the prevalence among them of such notions.
Caves that once had served them as residences were later used for
places of burial, the bodies being piled up with earth until the
cavities were completely filled. Accompanying human remains have
been found urns, supposedly for burning incense, personal ornaments,
implements, and weapons, placed there for the use of the dead. If the
people possessed religious conceptions that led them to believe in an
after life, there is no room for doubt that religion had a place in
the economy of their living. The women of this time, then, could look
forward to something better than abandonment to starvation after they
became enfeebled by age or sickness, and they may not have lacked
religious associations in their everyday life to give to it deeper
meaning and interest.

From the foregoing sketch of her life, it is very clear that the
condition of Neolithic woman, the range of her ideas, and the elements
of her comfort, were much in advance of those of the woman of the
Paleolithic period. The contributions to her existence were indeed
elements of civilization, and formed the basis for all that the life
of the sex has come to be. In the realm of institutions, the home was
beginning to have a place and a meaning in the life of the people.
Religion, also, had come to widen the horizon of life. Very crude, but
real, elements of social progress were all these.

The succeeding age--the Bronze--has been credited with working as
great a revolution in life and giving it as great an impetus as did
the invention of gunpowder in the Middle Ages. It is certainly a fact
that the invention of this beautiful alloy was looked upon by the
ancients who lived close to its age as of incalculable importance
in its influence upon civilization--a judgment that is confirmed by
anyone who studies its abundant remains. Manufactures and commerce
were important interests of the times: smelting furnaces and
the smith's shop turned out beautiful specimens of wares of all
sort--shields, spears, arrow tips, cups of graceful pattern, vessels
for all purposes, ornaments, and the trimmings for the large boats
made necessary by a wide commerce, were all manufactured beyond the
needs of domestic consumption. The stimulated inventiveness of the
people added many new articles of comfort to their lives.

The development of bronze was not original with the people of Britain,
but was introduced through an invasion of bronze-using people. For
this reason, the change made in the life of the people was radical,
instead of being, as on the continent, a gradual process. The struggle
that ensued between the bronze users and the stone users was a contest
between an advanced civilization and one of a lower order; and its
issue was predetermined. The newcomers became the controlling element
in the country. The tendency of the new order of things was toward
individualism. Personal ownership brought with it social grades, so
that it is impossible to make statements with regard to the bronze
people that apply equally to all the race.

But we are concerned with the conditions of the times only as the
setting in which we are to study the life of woman. In the Bronze
Age, there was introduced into her life nothing to be compared to the
contributions made thereto in the preceding age. While her horizon
was greatly broadened, and while she benefited by the improvements
in living,--better facilities, comforts, and even luxuries,--yet the
advance was along established lines. We may surely believe that closer
intercourse with outside peoples brought a corresponding quickening
of thought and an appreciation of the merits of grades of life higher
than her own. There was no marked change in the style of dwellings
of the people of the Bronze Age from those of the Neolithic period;
but their furnishings were better, and, instead of the skins of wild
animals, those of domestic animals and, perhaps, woven and brightly
dyed fabrics now served for couches, and were hung about the walls as
a protection against dampness. The utensils of the home were varied
and ornamental, the conventional patterns having given place to other,
though still simple, designs. In the homes of the wealthy, knives and
spoons and the finer grades of vessels were of bronze.

The dress of the women had now become something more than mere
protection for the body. The skins of animals might still suffice
for the clothing of the poor, but the rich man's attire consisted of
well-bleached linens, and, doubtless, woollen fabrics as well. The
garments made of these materials were probably dyed in rich colors, as
the principles of dyeing were well understood. We can picture, then,
a woman of the higher grade, dressed in a tunic, with a mantle of
contrasting color, her hair done up in an elaborate coiffure and set
off by a cap of goat or sheep skin. Projecting from under this would
appear bronze hairpins, perhaps twenty inches in length, of ornamental
design; indeed, her coiffure was such an elaborate affair that it is
quite likely that she slept with it in a head rest, similar to those
which we know were used by the lake-dwellers of Switzerland and are
still used in Japan. Pendent from her neck hung strings of beads and
ornaments made of bone, polished stone, bronze, and even glass and
gold. Her arms were weighted with bracelets, and her legs were adorned
with anklets.

Spinning, weaving, the milking of the goats, the making of curd
and cheese, the modelling of pottery, the preparation of the meals,
assisting with the outdoor work, and the care of her children, made up
the round of woman's life in those days. But there was another element
that had come to be a serious one in her existence, and that was
religion. Although the form of the prevailing religious belief is
lost, yet we have evidence that it was elaborate enough to call for
special places for its observance. Indeed, none of the remains of the
Bronze Age are more instructive, or present food for more fruitful
speculation as to the manner of life or the scope of mentality during
that era, than the curious tumuli that show how closely associated
in the common consciousness were religion and death; for these mounds
were probably places both of worship and burial. These ideas still
remain in such close connection that the vicinity of a church, and
indeed the edifice itself, seems especially appropriate for the
interment of the dead or for the depositing of crematory urns. Such
religion as existed must have had its reflex influence upon woman's
life and have entered into its duties; it may be that, as with the
later Druids, she assisted in the public offices of worship.




CHAPTER II

THE WOMEN OF ANCIENT BRITAIN


For our survey of the women of the different and, to a considerable
degree, distinct peoples of Britain, prior to their being brought
under the influence of Roman culture, it will be convenient to take
our stand at the beginning of the period of real history, which for
Britain may be conveniently placed at the first century before Christ.
A survey of woman at that time would, in the nature of the case,
partake somewhat of the character of a composite picture. Still, it
would include all important particulars, even though these might
not, in all cases, be accurately assigned in point of time, or even
precisely as to race. So gradual were the changes that were wrought in
woman's existence during the revolution that followed the introduction
of iron into the arts of Britain's life, that it will not be difficult
to speak with approximate accuracy.

The data for our picture of the status and occupations of the women at
the time under consideration will need to be drawn from archæological
remains of different dates and of widely different races, as well as
from the confused and often conflicting or even incredible accounts of
early voyagers, to which may be added the vague allusions of legendary
lore.

In considering the details of the life of woman during the period
under consideration, the most salient fact is not the influx and
partial merging of different peoples resulting from the intercourse
that had been opened up between the Britons and the nations of the
continent; nor is it the impulse to civilization brought about by the
use of iron in the manufacture of a multitude of articles of general
convenience. Such influences and agencies were potent in society,
working the transformation that found its expression, among other
ways, in the lifting of woman to the plane of civilization that was
introduced by the Romans; but, undoubtedly, the greatest contributing
factor to the life of the age, and so the most important one in fixing
the status of woman, was the trade relations that were developed
with Britain by the peoples of the South and the remote East: the
Assyrians, the Egyptians, the Etruscans, the Greeks, and, later, the
Romans. To the Phoenicians, that nation of traders, must be given the
credit of the introduction into Britain of the higher products of many
of those peoples whose civilizations were of an advanced type. It
was the fleets of this enterprising people that brought into Britain
quantities of finely wrought implements of various sorts: useful
articles that greatly increased the comfort of life, as well as those
of ornament and of dress. Among such imports were the jade beads and
ornaments which the British women held in especial esteem; beads of
glass, delicately marked and colored; ornaments of gold, sometimes
inlaid with enamel in pleasing designs and colors; fine fabrics of
different sorts; rings, brooches, necklaces, armlets, leg bands, and
wares of many kinds. Such things not only added to the comfort and
the sense of luxury of the women, but, as object lessons of art and
elegance, they were in the highest degree educative. They stimulated
woman's imagination and piqued her interest in regard to the women of
those far distant lands, with whom such articles were in ordinary use.
We hear of travellers' tales, carried back by the early voyagers to
Britain, which, by their incredible coloring, awakened the wonder of
the Greeks; but probably as much amazement and interest were aroused
among the Britons by the marvellous tales, told by the Phoenicians and
other traders, concerning the nations among which were manufactured
the articles brought by them to barter for the metals, furs, woods,
and other products of Britain. In this way, a distorted knowledge
of the outside world and of the accomplishments of highly civilized
peoples came to be widely diffused among the more advanced of the rude
inhabitants of Britain. The arrival of a ship in port was an event of
absorbing interest; soon the women of the coast settlements would be
seen busily traversing the narrow, winding paths by which the houses
of a village were connected, to gossip with their neighbors about
the latest bit of wonderful narrative picked up from the oddly garbed
foreign sailors concerning the mighty nations of the remote parts of
the earth, or to display some purchase--a piece of cloth of fine web
or of bright colors, a chased fibula, a string of beads, or articles
of like nature. It would be difficult to exaggerate the effect upon
the mentality and the life interest of the simple-minded yet keenly
inquiring British women of the commerce which, at first occasional,
gradually became regular and expanding, and by which Britain was
brought out of its insular separateness into the broad current of the
world's progress.

The population of Britain was large--as the Romans found when they
came into the country. The people were collected into villages and
towns which were ruled by chieftains who were frequently at war with
one another. During such strife their women were hidden in caves or
pits covered with brush; this was a necessary protective measure for
the loss of its women was the severest blow a people could suffer.
This division of the tribes into little warring factions was the cause
of the country falling readily a prey to the Romans.

When we consider that the writers of the time had in view different
elements of the population, it is less difficult to harmonize their
conflicting statements. While there are contrary statements made as
to the agriculture of the Romans, it seems to be a satisfactory
reconciliation of these statements to regard the less progressive
northern tribes as purely pastoral and the inhabitants of the other
parts of the island as agriculturalists as well as herdsmen. After the
Romans became established, wheat came to be one of the chief articles
of export. The producers harvested this grain by cutting off the heads
and storing them in pits under the ground. These pits were protected
against frost. Each day the farmers took out the wheat longest stored,
and ground it into meal. The process of removing the grain from the
cob was, according to what we know of it, similar to the method still
in use down to the seventeenth century in some parts of Britain. This
consisted of twirling in the fire several heads of wheat, which the
woman performing the operation held in her left hand, while with a
stick held in her right hand she beat off the loosened grain at the
very instant that the chaff was consumed. The grain was then usually
ground in a hand mill, although there is reason to believe that water
mills also were used to some extent. The meal was then mixed, and
baked over the fire in little loaves, or flat cakes. The whole process
occupied but a couple of hours.

The houses of the people, to which the women were confined the greater
part of the winter, were mean little structures. They were circular in
shape, and were made of wattles or wood, and sometimes of stone. These
wigwam-like structures were roofed with straw, and had as their sole
external decoration the trophies of the chase and the battlefield. A
chief's house was triumphantly adorned with the skulls of his enemies,
nailed up against the eaves of the porch, among the horns and bones
of beasts. Sometimes the heads of foes slain in battle were embalmed,
and furnished gruesome ornamentation for the interior of the house.
But notwithstanding these testimonials of a savage nature, there were
evidences of comfort that had in them the indication of an approach to
civilization. The houses were connected by narrow, tortuous paths, and
were usually surrounded by a stockade as a protection against assault.

The dress of the women differed according to the wealth and the
civilization of the various sections of the population. The tribes
of the east and southeast, who were principally Celts, were the more
civilized, while the Caledonians of the north--the Picts, or painted
men, as they were commonly called--were far less advanced. The women
of the Celts were of great personal attractiveness. They possessed
a wealth of magnificent hair, were fair-complexioned and of splendid
physique. To these graces of person they added fierce tempers; we are
told that when the husband of one of them engaged in an altercation
with a stranger, his wife would join strenuously in the controversy,
and with her powerful "snow-white" arms, and her feet as well, deliver
blows "with the force of a catapult." These vigorous British women
were vain of their appearance and gay in their dress. Their costume
consisted of a sleeved blouse, which was ordinarily confined at the
waist; this garment partly covered trousers, worn long and clasped
at the ankles. A plaid of bright colors was fastened at the shoulders
with a brooch. They wore nothing on their heads, but displayed their
hair fastened in a graceful knot at the neck.

They wove thin stuffs for summer wear, and felted heavy druggets for
winter; the latter were said to be prepared with vinegar, and "were
so tough that they would turn the stroke of a sword." Some of their
clothes are described as "woven of gaudy colors and making a show."
They were versed in the art of using alternate colors in the warp and
woof so as to bring out the pattern of stripes and squares. Diodorus
says of some of their patterns that the cloth was covered with an
infinite number of little squares and lines, "as if it had been
sprinkled with flowers," or was striped with cross bars, giving a
checkered effect. The colors most in vogue were red and crimson; "such
honest colors," says the Roman writer, "as a person had no cause to
blame, nor the world a reason to cry out upon." Such were the fabrics
with which the more civilized of the British women arrayed themselves,
and the workmanship of which speaks volumes for their makers'
industry and skill. The women were inordinately fond of ornaments,
and had a plentiful supply from which to select. Their attire was
not complete unless it included necklaces, bracelets, strings of
bright beads,--made of glass or a substance resembling Egyptian
porcelain,--and that which was regarded as the crowning ornament of
every woman of wealth--a torque of gold, or else a collar of the same
metal. A ring was at first worn on the middle finger, but later it
alone was left bare, all the other fingers being loaded with rings.

Among the more primitive of the peoples of Britain, skins continued
to be worn, if, as among the Picts, clothing were not dispensed with
altogether. The women of these fierce tribes were too proud of the
intricate devices in brilliant colors with which their bodies were
tattooed to hide them in any way. These, so Professor Elton is
inclined to think, were the people who introduced bronze into Britain.
They made continual and fierce attacks on their Celtic neighbors and
carried off their women into captivity. And it was because of these
attacks that the Anglo-Saxons were invited into Britain to champion
the cause of the people, after the departure of the Romans had left
the Britons to their own resources.

A period of peculiar interest and uncertainty was that of the Roman
occupancy of the country, with its veneer of civilization and the
introduction of Christianity, all of which was apparently swept aside
by the conquering hordes of Teutons who came into Briton and laid the
foundations for the English nation. It was a time of great changes
in the standards of life and tastes, as well as of the morals of
the British women. With the Romans came their inevitable arts of
conciliation after conquest. Then followed the period of generous
grants of public works--the baths, the theatres, the arena; then the
Roman villa superseded the huts of the inhabitants. All was created
under the ægis of the great mistress of the nations, and included
strong fortifications. Civilization was advanced, but manliness was
degraded. Effeminacy reduced the sturdy morals of the Briton to the
plane of those of their conquerors. The abominable usage of the women
finds expression in the bitter cry that the poet ascribes to the noble
British queen, Boadicea: "Me they seized and they tortured, me they
lashed and humiliated, me the sport of ribald veterans, mine of
ruffian violators."

It is not a part of our work to even sketch the course of the Roman
invasion in its path of blood and fire across the face of Britain, or
the stubborn and sturdy opposition of the natives, the subjugation and
the revolt of tribes--notably the Icenii, who cost the Romans seventy
thousand slain and the destruction of three cities, but whose final
conquest broke the backbone of opposition to the Roman arms. All this
is political history, and cannot concern us excepting in the immense
effect it had upon the women of the land. It was they who bore the
brunt of suffering, degradation, and, too frequently, slavery and
deportation--customary incidents of the fierce spirit of the Roman
conquests. But in spite of the miseries their coming entailed upon
the people, the Roman rule had an admirable effect upon the country
in promoting peace, in establishing regard for law, and in stimulating
commerce. After they had become accustomed to the Roman method of
legal procedure in the settlement of differences, the Britons were no
longer ready to fly at one another's throat on the least provocation.
The breaking up of their tribal distinctions led to a greater
consolidation of the people and removed a cause of strife. But as the
descendants of the defenders of Britain's liberties grew up amid Roman
conditions of life that had permeated the whole population as far
as the northern highlands, where the people proved invincible to
the Roman arms, the habit of dependence upon the Roman legions
for protection enervated the people to such an extent that they
could interpose but faint resistance to the next invaders of the
country--the conquering Angles, Jutes, and Saxons.

It is amid conditions of Roman conquest and control that we are now
to consider more in detail the status of the British woman. Scattered
along the borders of the woods, between the pasture lands and the
hunting lands, could be found the homesteads of the Britons, before
the rise of the Roman city. Each of these edifices was large enough to
hold the entire family in its single room. They were built, generally,
of hewn logs, set in a row on end and covered with rushes or turf. The
family fire burned in the middle of the room, and, circling it, sat
the members of the household at their meals. The same raised seat of
rushes served them at night for a couch. Under the prevailing tribal
custom, three families, or rather three generations of the same
family, from grandfather to grandson, occupied each dwelling. After
the third generation the family was broken up, though all the members
of it retained the memory of their common descent. It is not clear
whether or not a strictly monogamous household was the type of family
life. Certainly it is probable that such was not the case among the
backward races of the interior. As to the advanced sections of the
population, against the statement of contemporary observers that it
was the practice of the British women to have a plurality of husbands,
there is only the argument of improbability to be urged. The custom
of several families living under the one roof and in the same room may
have led the Romans into an erroneous conclusion.

Little is known as to the laws of the Britons in regard to the
regulation of family. In the matter of divorce, if the couple had
several children, the husband took the eldest and the youngest, and
the wife the middle ones, although the merits of such a peculiar
division do not appear. It would seem as if in the case of the
youngest child, at least, the mother was the proper custodian, or at
any rate the natural one. The pigs went to the man, and the sheep
to the woman; the wife took the milk vessels, and the man the
mead-brewing machinery. This was at variance with the later custom
of England, for well on through the Middle Ages, both as a family
employment and a public industry, brewing was accounted woman's
occupation. To the husband went also the table and ware. He took
the larger sieve, she the smaller; he the upper, and she the lower
millstone of the corn mill. The under bedding was his, and the upper
hers. He received the unground corn, she the meal. The ducks, the
geese, and the cats were her portion, while to his share fell the hens
and one mouser.

The slight estimation in which women were held as compared with the
value put upon men is indicated by the fact that a woman was legally
rated at half the worth of her brother and one-third that of her
husband. If a woman engaged in a quarrel, she was fined a specific
sum for each finger with which she fought and for each hair she pulled
from her adversary's head.

Among the customs in which women were concerned, those relating
to marriage show that the assumption of family responsibility was
regarded as a permanent relation, and their nature does not agree with
Cæsar's description of the loose ties of matrimony among the Britons.
It is entirely unlikely that the wives of the men were held by them
in common. As has been already stated, such group marriages, if they
existed, were localized among the rudest of the races of the country,
whose general civilization had not elevated them to the point of
appreciation of pure family life. Such, perhaps, were the small dark
races descended from the Neolithic tribes and held in little esteem by
the Celts. Among the Celts it was customary for the father of a bride
to make a present of his own arms to his son-in-law. As will be seen
later by a description of one of their dinners, the Celts preferred
feasting to all other occupations, and their festivities were
accompanied by the utmost conviviality. A wedding was an occasion for
the most extravagant feasting, all the relatives of the contracting
parties, to the third degree of kindred, assembling to eat and drink
to the happiness of the newly wedded pair. The ceremony took place at
the house of the bridegroom, and the bride was conducted thither by
her friends. If the parties were rich, the pair made presents to their
friends at the marriage festival; but if they were poor, the reverse
was the case, and presents were made to them by the guests. At the
conclusion of the feast, the bride and bridegroom were conducted to
their chamber by the whole company, with great merriment and amid
music and dancing. The next morning, before rising, it was the rule
for the husband to make his wife a present of considerable value,
according to his circumstances. This was regarded as the wife's
peculiar property.

The wives of the ancient Britons had not only the usual domestic
duties to perform, but much of the outside work as well. Being of
robust constitution, leading lives of simplicity and naturalness,
maternity interfered but little with the round of their duties. The
period was not wholly without its anxieties, however, as is shown by
the custom among British women of wearing a girdle that was supposed
to be conducive to the birth of heroes. The assumption of these
girdles was a ceremony accompanied with mystical rites, and was a part
of the Druidical ritual. The newborn babe was plunged into some lake
or river in order to harden it, and as a test of its constitution;
this was done even in the winter season. The early British mother
always nursed her children herself, nor would she have thought of
delegating this duty to another. The first morsel of food put into
a male infant's mouth was on the tip of the father's sword, that
the child might grow up to be a great warrior. As is frequently the
case with primitive peoples, the Britons did not give names to their
children until the latter had performed some feat or displayed some
characteristic which might suggest for them a suitable name. It
follows from this that all the names of the ancient Britons that have
been preserved to us are significant. The youth were not delicately
nurtured, and after passing through the perils of childhood, when the
care of a mother was imperative, it is probable that the mother had
little to do with the training of her boy. Accustomed almost from
infancy to the use of arms, as he grew older the boy added to his
training athletic ordeals and feats of daring. Among the games to
which he was accustomed was jumping through swords so placed that it
was extremely difficult to leap quickly through them without being
impaled. Youth was democratic, and, without any distinction, the
children of the noble and the lowly, equally sordid and ill clad,
played about on the floor or in the open field.

The Britons were noted for the warmth of their family affection. The
mother was sure of the dutiful regard of her children and did not lack
affectionate consideration from her husband. The aged were treated
with a reverence in striking contrast to the heartlessness with which
in earlier times the old were deserted to die or were put to death--a
custom not unusual among primitive peoples. It is pleasant to think of
the British matron inculcating into the minds of her children respect
for age and the claims of relationship.

The law of hospitality was sacred to the ancient Briton. When a
stranger sought entertainment at the home of one of them, no questions
were asked as to his identity or his business, until after the meal.
Indeed, it was frequently the case that such arrivals were made the
excuse for a great feast, to which a number of friends were invited.
The women soon had the preparation under way, and in due time the
meat was roasting at the spit and the pot swinging on the crane over
a roaring fire. While the mothers were employed in these occupations
and in making bread, their daughters poured the fresh milk into
the pitchers and filled the metal beakers and earthen jugs with
home-brewed beer and mead. While the men exchanged stories of their
hunting exploits and deeds of valor in battle, the women carried on
a constant buzz of suppressed speculation and remark concerning the
guests. When the meal was ready, the women set it before the men upon
fresh grass or rushes. The bread was served in wicker baskets. The
guests and their hosts seated themselves upon a carpet of rushes, or
upon dog or wolf skins placed near the open fireplace. While the
men voraciously seized the steaming joints and carved from them long
slices of meat, which they ate "after the fashion of lions," the women
plied them with the beakers of foaming beverage, and the bards sang,
to the music of harps, the boastful exploits of some local chieftain.
It was a strange thing if the feast and conviviality did not end in
a fight over some question of precedence or disputed statement. When
such a combat did occur, it was usually a contest to the death. Nor
were the fierce-tempered women passive during such encounters, but, as
we have seen, were ready to aid the men of their family with frenzied
attack. Such a feast as we have described presented a weird and
picturesque sight under the flaming light of the torches made of
rushes soaked in tallow.

One of the favorite domestic employments of the British women, though
one which we may imagine fell largely to the lot of the younger women
and the girls, was the making of the wickerware for which the ancient
Britons were famous. Baskets, platters, the bodies of chariots, the
frames of boats, and even the framework of the houses, were made of
this light and serviceable material. Withes peeled and woven by the
supple fingers of the young British women into fancy baskets found
a ready market at Rome, and commanded high prices, being generally
esteemed as a rare work of ingenious art. During the hours required to
weave an article of this sort, the women would fall into a responsive
song, picked up perhaps from some passing minstrel.

Weaving, spinning, dyeing the fabrics thus made; the milking of the
cattle, the grinding of the meal; the making of the garments for the
family; the manufacture of pottery, to which may be added a share of
the outdoor work, were some of the matters which made the life of the
British woman far from an idle one. And yet, with it all, the young
women found leisure to tarry at the spring for the exchange of
laughing remarks, as they dropped something into its clear depth--as
an offering to the divinity who they fully believed resided therein
and who held in keeping their future and their fortunes--before they
drew from it the water for the bleaching of the linen that they had
already spread out in the sun.

The religion of the Britons, before the introduction of Christianity,
was an elaborate system of superstitions and of nature worship. It
was in the hands of a priestly order--the Druids. A mother was glad
to resign her boy to the training of this mystical brotherhood, if
he showed sufficient talent to warrant his reception therein. It is
not necessary to describe particularly the system. It was made up of
three orders, the Druids proper, the Bards, and the Ovates. Over the
whole order was an Archdruid, who was elected for life. An order of
Druidesses, also, is supposed to have existed. When Suetonius Paulinus
landed at Anglesey in pursuit of the Druids (A.D. 56), women with hair
streaming down their backs, dressed in black robes and with flaring
torches in their hands, rushed up and down the heights, invoking
curses on the invaders of their sacred precincts, greatly to the
terror of the superstitious Roman soldiery.

At some of their sacred rites the women appeared naked, with their
skin dyed a dark hue with vegetable stain. It was the custom of
the Druids, who had the oversight of public morals, to offer, as
sacrifices to the gods, thieves, murderers, and other criminals, whom
they condemned to be burned alive. Wickerwork receptacles, sometimes
made in the form of images, were filled with the miserable wretches,
and were then placed upon the pyre and consumed. The prophetic women,
standing by, made divinations from the sinews, the flowing blood, or
the quivering flesh of the victims. The defeat of the Druids and the
felling of their sacred groves by the Romans gave the death blow
to the system, which under the influence of Christianity completely
disappeared.

The diffusion of Roman civilization colored the beliefs of the British
women. The destruction of the native shrines whither they used to
resort to make a propitiatory offering or to draw divinations for
direction in some matter of personal or domestic concern, and the
establishment of the fanes of Rome, which abounded throughout the
country to the limits of the Roman conquest, converted the local
deities into Roman divinities. Under new names, the old gods of the
woods and streams continued to receive the homage of the Romanized
British matrons and maidens.

But with the introduction of Christianity and its extension even into
parts of the country where the sword of Rome had failed to penetrate,
there was a more radical change wrought in the life of women. They
have always instinctively recognized the fact that the Christian
religion is their champion, and in its consolation the women of the
Britons found much to alleviate their common distress and to elevate
their status. In the trying hours that came with the inroads of the
fierce and barbarous Teutons, when they were carried off by the savage
Picts to a base servitude, and when, after the reassertion of the
Christian religion among the English, the coming of the Danes next
brought a fresh abasement for their sex, the Christian faith was the
sustaining and the reconstructive force of the lives of the women of
the country. With the advance of Christianity passed the customs of
pagan burial. The dead were no longer cremated, nor were they buried
in the tumuli with the objects of their customary association interred
with them to be of service in the spirit world.

One of the most apparent results of the Roman conquest, in its
relation to the domestic life of the people, was the supersedence
of the rude British dwellings by the Roman villa. This open style
of house, suited to the sunny skies of Italy, had to undergo
modifications to adapt it to the more rigorous clime of Britain. About
an open court, which was either paved or planted in flower beds, the
rooms were arranged, all of them opening inwardly, and some of them
having an entrance to the outside as well. These connected rooms were
usually one story high, with perhaps an additional story in the rear.
The windows were iron-barred. The front of the villa was adorned with
stucco and gaudily painted. In the homes of the wealthy, the inner
court became an elaborately pillared banquet hall, with tessellated
work in fine marble and with the pavement figured in symbolical
devices. In it were placed the family shrines and statuary. Or else
it was fitted up with the baths which were such a feature of Roman
life. In later times, the walls blossomed out into decorations of
mythological subjects: the foam-born Aphrodite, Bacchus and his
panther steeds, Orpheus holding his dumb audience enthralled by his
melody, Narcissus at the fountain, or the loves of Cupid and Psyche.

The heating arrangements of these houses were ample and convenient,
and the edifices themselves were frequently added to by succeeding
generations. In the country districts, the houses were provided
with large storerooms, plentifully supplied with provisions, and
were garrisoned against the attack of enemies. The best of these
Roman-British houses were imposing structures of vast dimensions. The
women, when surrounded by the luxuries of Roman life, gave themselves
over to pleasure and frequented the theatres and the public baths,
and entertained in lavish style. They generally adopted the graceful
Roman dress, and thus cleared themselves of the charge of loudness,
extravagance, and meanness of attire that the earlier Roman writers
brought against them. After the introduction of Christianity, when
Roman civilization had become completely domesticated, it was no
unusual thing for a Roman to have a British wife, or for British
matrons to be found on the streets of Rome itself. The morals of the
people were not proof against the contamination of Roman standards.
The women, who were brought into closest touch with the Roman
populace, imbibed their views and followed their example. Yet among
the people who lived the simpler life of the country districts, and
to whom Christianity most forcibly appealed, the standards of 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 characteristic of a people who had
lived under severe conditions which necessitated a constant struggle
for supremacy and relegated all weaknesses of the flesh to a place
of secondary importance. Had this attribute sprung from any of those
considerations which at a later time gave rise to chivalry, there
would be found in the poetry of the time the evidences of a tender
regard for woman; her praise would have been sung in poems of love;
but there is a dearth of love songs in the verses of this period. Love
of a kind there was, but it was too matter-of-fact and practical in
its nature to effloresce into sentimentality.

As marriage is the basal principle of the true family, it will be
proper to begin a consideration of the domestic relations of the
women of the Anglo-Saxons by glancing at the circumstances, the
significance, and the ceremonies of their marriages. When the
Anglo-Saxons had settled in England, the primitive and barbarous
custom of forcibly carrying off a bride had probably been superseded
by the later form of obtaining a bride by purchase. While the woman
seems to have had no choice in the selection of a husband, it is
unreasonable to suppose that she did not hold and express opinions;
nor would it be venturesome to assert that, despite her legal
limitations, her voice in the matter of her marriage was often a
decisive one. When the question was beset with especial difficulties,
to what better umpire could a considerate parent refer the matter than
to the bride herself?

One of the laws regulating the disposition of marriageable maidens
was: "If one buys a maiden, let her be bought with the price, if it
is a fair bargain; but if there is deceit, let him take her home again
and get back the price he paid." This was a sort of marriage with
warranty. But the law of Cnut took a more liberal view of the rights
of the girl; it says: "Neither woman nor maid shall be forced to marry
one who is disliked by her, nor shall she be sold for money, unless
(the bridegroom) gives something of his own free will." By this law
the woman was given the decision of her destiny, and the purchase
price became a free gift. If a woman married below her rank, she was
confronted by the alternatives of losing her freedom or giving up
her husband. As the husband bought his wife, so he might sell her and
their children, though this was rarely done. We need not, however,
condemn too harshly this absolute right that was vested in the head of
a family in the disposition of its members, as it was but a relic of a
usage common to all patriarchal societies, and which passed away with
the clearer view of the sovereignty of self and the claims of society.

Before the marriage proper took place, there were held the ceremonies
of espousal. These consisted of fixing the terms of the union, and
entering upon agreements to be carried into effect after the ceremony.
In later times, the first essential was the free consent of the
persons to be espoused. This was a step toward the right of the female
in the selection of a husband. Early espousals were customarily, but
not invariably, dependent upon the consent of both parties. In some
instances, the parents espoused their children when but seven years of
age. On arriving at ten years of age, either of the parties could in
theory terminate the engagement at will; but if they did so between
the ages of ten and twelve, the parents of the one breaking the
contract were liable to damages. Beyond twelve years, the child as
well as its parents suffered the penalty.

After the parties to the espousal, in the presence of witnessing
members of their respective families, had declared their free consent
to the contract that was to bind them, the bridegroom promised to
treat his betrothed well, "according to God's law and the custom
of society." This declaration of a good purpose was ratified by his
giving a "wed," or security, that he would creditably fulfil his
intentions as expressed. The parents or guardians of the girl received
these assurances in her behalf. The foster-lien was the next important
matter. This was at first paid at the time of the espousal, until
some fathers with attractive daughters found it to be a profitable
investment to have them repeatedly espoused for the sake of the
foster-lien, but without any idea of consummating the espousal. This
practice made these precontracts decidedly unpopular and led to their
being modified by ecclesiastical law that provided for the payment of
the foster-lien after marriage, in case it had been properly secured
at the time of betrothal. When these preliminaries were arranged to
the satisfaction of all concerned, the ceremony itself took place.
This consisted of "handfasting" and the exchange of something, even
if only a kiss, to bind the bargain. Frequently this sentimental
interchange was accompanied on the part of the groom elect by the gift
of an ox, a saddled horse, or other object of value.

This formal engagement was really a part of the marriage and was
regarded as beginning the wedded life. The Church, however, favored
an interval between the espousal and the marriage. The ceremony of
betrothment usually took place in a church. If the man refused or
neglected to complete the espousal within two years, he forfeited the
amount of the foster-lien; if the woman were derelict in this respect,
she was required to repay the foster-lien fourfold--later changed
to twofold. It will be seen by this that "engagements" among the
Anglo-Saxons presumed serious intentions, and that, in a breach of
faith, the woman was held more rigidly to account than the man, whose
fickleness was visited only by forfeiture of the security he had
advanced. The woman was further required to return all the presents
that she had received from her "intended."

The marriage ceremony was much like that of the espousal. The man
and woman avowed publicly their acceptance of each other as wife and
husband. The bridegroom was required to confirm with his pledge
all that he had promised at the espousal, and his friends became
responsible for his due performance. Though by the customs of their
times the young people were deprived of experiencing the delights and
uncertainties of courtship, the girls were not to be denied the joys
of a wedding; and when the circumstances of the groom permitted, the
occasion was marked with gayety, music, feasting, and festivities of
all sorts. The morning after the wedding, the husband, before they
arose, presented to his wife the _morgen gift_. This was a valuable
consideration, and corresponded to the modern marriage settlement.
The terms of the settlement were arranged before the marriage, but
the gift was not actually presented until the marriage had been
consummated.

The rude conduct which accompanies a wedding in rough communities
at the present day, as well as the more innocent but embarrassing
pranks to which any newly wedded couple may be subjected, find their
counterpart in the uncouth conduct and witticisms that were at one
time a part of the experiences of an Anglo-Saxon bride and groom. As
the bride, accompanied by her friends, was conducted to her future
home, where her husband, according to custom, awaited her, the
procession was sometimes saluted by facetious youths with volleys
of filth and refuse of any sort, the especial target of their
maliciousness being the frightened and insulted bride herself. If
the young rowdies could succeed in spoiling her costume, they were
especially satisfied with themselves. Aside from the indignity offered
her, the loss of her costume was always a serious matter to the bride,
as in that time of scanty wardrobes it represented a large part of her
_trousseau_.

The bridegroom, if such indignities were offered to his spouse,
invariably sallied forth with his friends to administer condign
punishment to the "jokers"; and as all freemen in those days carried
arms, bloodshed, bruises, and broken bones resulted. Later, the law
took cognizance of the outrage and suppressed it. But such unpleasant
experiences were not permitted to spoil the marriage festivities;
the bride received the felicitations of her friends and displayed
her gifts--the latter being in evidence at all weddings, because the
making of gifts on the part of relatives was not a thing of choice,
but of compulsion.

Among the convivial Anglo-Saxons the marriage would have been
considered a very tame affair without the accompanying excesses of
unrestrained feasting, drinking, and mirth. The clergyman who had
pronounced the benediction at the nuptials came to the feast with a
company of his clerical friends. The wedding feast lasted for at least
three days, and was a time of gluttony and rioting. On the first day,
the festivities were opened by the clergy rising and singing a psalm
or other religious song. The wandering gleemen, who were always
present at these feasts, then took up the singing; and as they
proceeded, to the clamorous approval of the drunken company, they
became less and less mindful of the proprieties of sentiment and of
action. The bride and groom were not obliged to remain to the end of
the revelry, but might avail themselves of an opportunity to slip out
from the hall. When the company was surfeited with festivities, the
more sober of them formed a procession, with the clergy in the lead,
and with musical attendance conducted the bride and groom to the
nuptial couch. The bed was formally blessed by the priest, the
marriage cup was drunk by the bride and the groom, and then the couple
were left by their friends, who returned to the hall and renewed their
feasting. Even Alfred the Great, good and wise as he was, could not
escape the customs of his times, and was compelled to indulge in such
excesses at his wedding that he never quite recovered from an attack
of illness he suffered in consequence.

Having noticed the rudeness to which the bride was subjected, it is
gratifying to mention a more pleasant bit of waggery that was much
in vogue, and that corresponds more nearly to the wedding pranks of
to-day. One of the symbolic features of the wedding was the touching
by the bridegroom of the forehead of the bride with one of his shoes.
This signified that her father's right in her had passed to her
husband. But when the couple were conducted to their nuptial couch by
the bridal company, it was quite likely, if the bride had a reputation
for shrewishness, that the shoe, which after the ceremony had been
placed on the husband's side of the bed, would be found on the bride's
side--a hint that the general conviction was that the headship of the
family would be found to be vested in the wife. We can see from this
that the custom of throwing an old shoe after a bride to give her
"good luck" really signifies the wish that she may dominate the new
establishment.

The marriage of a girl was signalized by her being thereafter allowed
to bind her hair in folds about her head. Up to that time she wore
her hair loose. This custom, which in earlier days signified a wife's
subjection, came now to denote the high dignity to which she had been
raised; her hair thus arranged was a crown of honor, and every girl
looked eagerly forward to the time when she might wear a _volute_, as
this style of hairdressing was called.

The very practical Anglo-Saxon marriage bargains do not partake much
of the flavor of romance. We find other evidences of the mercenary
motives that pervaded the marriage customs of the time. The idea of
marriage as the purchase of a wife, who in that relation became
the property of her husband, is further indicated by the fact that
unfaithfulness might be condoned by a money payment, the _were_. An
old law says: "If a freeman cohabit with the wife of a freeman, he
must pay the _were_, and obtain another woman with his own money and
lead her to the other." Indeed, the chastity of women was regulated by
a set price, according to their station. If the woman in the case
were of the rank of an earl's wife, the culprit paid a fine of sixty
shillings, and paid to the husband five shillings; if the woman were
unfree or below age, he suffered imprisonment or mutilation. These
citations from the laws of the time are not made to show regulations
of morals, but to illustrate the fact that in the case of free women
offences could be satisfied by a money payment, just as the husband
in the first instance acquired his rights over his wife by such a
payment.

Having considered with some detail the general regard in which women
were held and the customs of marriage, it is now in place to say
something about the methods of dissolving the matrimonial tie. It must
be borne in mind that the period we are describing was one of rapid
development. After the introduction of Christianity the uncouth
barbarians rapidly became civilized, and new laws were constantly
being made to define the rights of individuals in all relations. Thus,
as marriage customs and incidents underwent modification, so did the
circumstances of divorce. At first the husband could, at will, return
his wife to her parents; his power of repudiation was practically
unlimited. But such a condition could not long be brooked, as the
practice was a serious affront to the lady's family. We read in the
romance of Brut that Gwendoline and her friends not only levied war
on King Locrine for repudiating her under the bewitchments of the
beautiful Estrild, but put both the king and his new bride to death.
When Coenwalch grievously insulted Penda, the king of the Mercians, by
putting aside his wife, Penda's sister, that monarch at once declared
war on the West Saxon king. Such grave disorders were incited by this
unjust right of the husband that, largely through the influence of the
clergy, limitations were put upon the practice. Naturally, the first
step was to require cause for the repudiation of a wife. The causes
advanced were usually frivolous or insufficient; but when the bishops
taught that "if a man repudiated his wife, he was not to marry another
in her lifetime, if he wished to be a very good Christian," the custom
became less prevalent, especially as the second wife was punished by
excommunication. The right of repudiation for cause was exercised by
wives as well as husbands. The case of Etheldrythe, the daughter of
Anna, the famous King of East Anglia, as cited by Thrupp, will serve
to illustrate the prevailing conditions of the wedded state. "This
young lady had the misfortune to be very weak and very rich. She
was consequently sought for as a wife, by princes who cared nothing
for her person, and as a nun, by churchmen who cared as little for
her soul. She endeavored to please all parties. She took a vow of
virginity with permission to marry, and married with permission to
observe her vow. Her first husband, Tondebert, Earl of Girvii, who
probably obtained possession of her land, did not trouble himself
about her or her personal property; and on his death, she retired
to Ely. She subsequently married Egfried, a son of the King of
Northumbria, a boy of about thirteen, whose friends desired her
estate. He, also, for some time willingly respected her vow, but
afterward attempted to compel her to do her duty as a wife. She
refused compliance with his wishes, and, having succeeded in escaping
from his kingdom, again took up her residence in a monastery. There,
in defiance of her marriage vow, she emulated the strictest chastity
of the cloister while in the bonds of marriage. The clergy applauded
her conduct, and, no doubt, obtained possession of her estates. The
king took a second wife; and all parties appear to have been satisfied
with what was, in truth, a very discreditable transaction."

After the decline of the right of repudiation, marriage could be
annulled by mutual consent, and the parties were probably permitted
to marry again. Legal divorces were granted for adultery, and what
the clergy called spiritual adultery, which consisted of marriage to
a godfather or a godmother or anyone who was of spiritual kindred, as
such imagined relatives were called. To these causes for divorce were
added idolatry, heresy, schism, heinous crimes, leprosy, and insanity.
If either husband or wife were carried off into slavery, or otherwise
became unfree, or were made a prisoner of war, the other had a right
to remarry after a certain time.

To insure a decent interval between marriages, the law stipulated that
if a widow entered again into wedlock within a year after the death of
her former husband, she should sacrifice the _morgen gift_ and all the
property she had derived from him.

At first, the childless wife had no interest in her husband's
property; at his death, the duty of caring for her reverted to her
own family. If she had children, she was entitled to one-half of his
estate, but this was in the nature of a provision for the children.
But as society improved, the rights of widows came to be recognized.
Women had from the earliest times been permitted to hold and bequeath
property in their own right; the failure to recognize the widow's
interest in her deceased husband's estate arose from her being
regarded as having left her own family circle and identified herself
with that of her husband for his life only; therefore, at his death
she renewed her connection with her own family, who assumed the care
of her. In the case of her children, they, being of his flesh and
blood, had a natural interest in their father's property, while the
wife's relations with her husband were simply contractual. A more just
view prevailed in the time of Cnut, as is shown by one of his laws,
which provided that the widow not only had a right to her settled
property, but, whether she had children or not, was entitled to
one-third of whatever had been acquired jointly by her and her husband
during their married life, "excepting his clothes and his bed." This
law did not abrogate the provision already stated, that the widow
forfeited everything in case she married within a year.

About the time of Cnut's laws giving wider rights to wives in the
matter of property, there was passed a law that recognized the wife's
right to exclusive control of her personal effects. Wardrobes had
become much more extensive, and the law took the view that a woman had
a right to a chest or closet of her own, wherein to keep her clothing,
her jewelry and ornaments, and all the little articles dear to
feminine fancy and personal to their possessor. To this private
receptacle her husband could not have access without her leave. This
curious law, making a real advance in woman's legal status, arose out
of the predatory tendencies of the age.

When a child was born in an Anglo-Saxon household in the earliest
days, the first thought was not, what shall it be named, but, shall it
be put to death? In those rude times, the custom of exposure applied
to the young and to the very old. Life was a continual hardship, and
food was often extremely difficult to procure. Care for the feeble
implies a solicitude for life that was foreign to the experiences
of the men of that day. The weak and the sickly were regarded as
superfluous members of society. If the infant were deformed, or not
wanted for any reason, it was either killed outright, exposed, or sold
into slavery. We like to believe that when the Anglo-Saxons settled
in Britain and found themselves under more comfortable conditions
of living than those to which they had been accustomed in the
inhospitable clime whence they came, with its constant threat of
famine, they discarded this dreadful practice; but customs die slowly,
and, as the parent had absolute rights in the person of his child,
sentiment against the practice required time to become general. The
rugged Teuton, teeming with an overflowing vitality, had not adopted
the modern method of birth restriction as a solution of the problem
of sustenance. There was no Malthus in the forests of Germany to
discourse on the economic effect of an overplus of population and to
awaken inquiry as to the best way to limit the human family within
the bounds of possible sustenance. It was a condition and not a theory
that faced the Teuton, and he met the situation in the only way known
to him. As the problem passed away, the practice went also, though
isolated cases of exposure of infants continued down to the tenth
century.

In the form of exposing children of clouded birth, the practice of
infanticide grew with the lowering of morals; but in the case of
legitimate offspring the custom declined. The Church imposed heavy
penalties on those found guilty of the practice. Fortunately for the
infants so treated, there was a prevailing superstition that to adopt
one of these foundlings brought good luck. The great prevalence of the
crime at some periods is shown by the rewards offered by the different
monarchs to those who would adopt foundlings. All rights in the child
passed to the one who adopted it. The general willingness to adopt
such children led to many abuses. Mothers thus relieved themselves
of the duty of caring for their offspring, while those to whom the
children were committed often looked upon them as so many units of
labor, and made life very hard for them. Homicide was frequently one
of the effects of the baleful practice, and generally occurred under
conditions that made it difficult to fix the guilt.

It is interesting to note, as Gummere points out, that the barbaric
custom of exposing infants "lies at the foundation of the most
exquisite myths--Lohengrin the swan-knight, Arthur the forest
foundling, and that mystic child who in the prelude of our national
epic, _Beowulf_, drifts in his boat, a child of destiny, to the shores
of a kingless land."

Grimm quotes from a Danish ballad, where a mother puts her babe in
a chest, lays with it consecrated salt and candles, and goes to the
waterside:

  "Thither she goes along the strand
  And pushes the chest so far from land,
  Casts the chest so far from shore:
  'To Christ the Mighty I give thee o'er;
  To the mighty Christ I surrender thee,
  For thou hast no longer a mother in me.'"

The custom of exposing illegitimate offspring shows a retrogression
from the standards of rugged chastity which were characteristic of
the earlier period of the Anglo-Saxon settlement in Britain. In those
times, as we have seen, the German women were models of virtue; the
slightest departure from morality was viewed with horror and visited
with severe punishment. If the one guilty of misconduct were married,
she was shorn of her hair, the greatest degradation to which she could
be subjected, and then driven naked from her husband's house, her
own relatives giving their countenance and aid to the husband in thus
banishing her. She was expelled from the village, and not allowed to
return. At a later date, such a woman, married or unmarried, was made
to strangle herself with her own hands; her refusal to do so availed
nothing, as the women of the neighborhood stripped off her garments
to the waist, and then with knives, whips, and stones hunted her from
village to village until death mercifully relieved her from further
torture.

In spite of such harsh penalties, the moral standard could not be
maintained at a high level. It is more than likely that its decline
was due in part to the women whom the Northmen brought with them.
When they touched the shores of Britain, it was often after piratical
voyages that had taken them to the coasts of France, Spain, Italy, and
even Africa. When this was the case, they were always accompanied by
large numbers of female slaves from these countries. Then, too, the
greater part of the British women were reduced to slavery by the
new masters of the country, and none of these were treated with the
consideration for their sex that was accorded the German women. The
repute of the women of the Anglo-Saxons remained unimpaired, excepting
as to particular classes and particular times; the women not of
Anglo-Saxon origin were, perforce, the chief offenders against
morality.

The era of the Danish invasion was a time of almost unbridled license.
Female character could not withstand the tide of immorality that came
in with the new wave of heathen invaders. The women whom the Vikings
brought with them were captives of the lowest grade, ravished from
their homes for the pleasure of their captors on their long sea
voyage. On their arrival they were made slaves of the camp, following
the army wearily in its marches from place to place. This miserable
degradation was forced upon many pure English women by the brutal
lords of the sea. When the invaders settled down to live at peace
with the English, and, by amalgamation, to be absorbed into the larger
race, it was centuries before the country recovered from the blight
of immorality that had fallen upon it; but, with its rare powers of
recuperation, Anglo-Saxon virtue reasserted its principles and caused
its conquerors to subscribe to them.

Before considering the dress, the amusements, and the employments
of the women, a description of the Anglo-Saxon house will serve to
illustrate much of the common life of the women. This was not evolved
from that of the Briton; it marks a departure in the architecture of
the country. Neither the rude houses of the poorer of the Britons nor
the villa of the Roman provincial appealed to the forest nomads, who
were accustomed to light, tentlike structures that could be readily
taken down and erected elsewhere as their changing habitat directed.

The Anglo-Saxon town of the earliest period was only a cluster of
wooden houses--a family centre constantly added to by the increase and
dividing of the household, until the settlement assumed something of
the proportions of a town. Stone was not in favor with the Teutons for
their dwellings. They saw in it the relic of the demigods of a remote
past; stone masonry seemed supernatural, and they called it "the
giants' ancient work." The house of the Teutons was probably a
development of the ancient burrow; as Heyn expresses the process
of its evolution: "Little by little rose the roof of turf, and the
cavern under the house served at last only for winter and the abode
of the women." The summer house of wattles, twigs and branches, bound
together by cords, and with a thatched roof, a rough door, and no
windows, seemed to serve these unsettled people, whose surroundings
abounded with the materials for substantial edifices.

The architecture of the Germans developed rapidly. Soon there was a
substantial hall, or main house, which was the place of gathering and
feasting and the sleeping place of the men. The women slept, and we
may say dwelt, in the bower. Necessary outbuildings were supplied in
abundance. The floor of the hall was of hard earth or of clay, perhaps
particolored, and forming patterns of rude mosaic. It was no uncommon
thing for the rough warrior to ride into the hall, and to stable there
his beloved steed, as will be seen from the following extract from an
English ballad of a later date, which is given us by Professor Child:

  "Kyng Estmere he stabled his steede
  Soe fayre att the hall-bord;
  The froth that came from his brydle bitte
  Light in Kyng Bremor's beard."

Rows of benches were commonly placed outside of the hall; the exterior
walls and the roof were painted in striking colors. Huge antlers
fringed the gables; the windows, lacking glass, were placed high up in
the wall, and a hole in the roof sufficed for the escape of smoke.

Such was the early English hall, as it appears to us in the ballads
and stories of the times. The magnificent lace and embroidered
hangings with which were draped the interior walls of the habitations
of the nobility served the double purpose of decoration and protection
from the cold draughts that came in through the numerous crevices.
Even the royal palace of Alfred was so draughty that the candles in
the rooms had to be protected by lanterns. Benches and seats with fine
coverings added comfort and elegance to the hall. In front of these
were placed stools, with richly embroidered coverings, for the feet
of the great ladies. The tables in these Anglo-Saxon homes were often
of great beauty and costliness. In the reign of King Edgar, Earl
Aethelwold possessed a table of silver that was worth three hundred
pounds sterling. Many sorts of candelabra, some of them of exquisite
pattern and workmanship, made of the precious metals and set with
jewels, were used to impart to these old halls the dim light that
in our fancy of the times becomes a feature of the romance of the
knightly homes of older England.

Warm baths were essential to the comfort of the Anglo-Saxon; to be
deprived of them and of a soft bed was one of the severe penances
imposed by the Church. The ladies' bower was perfumed with the scents
and spices of India and the East.

Though the houses still left much to be desired in the way of
architectural features as well as ordinary convenience, the
appointments and furnishings of a home of the later Anglo-Saxon period
showed a keen appreciation of creature comforts.

The law of hospitality opened all doors to the wayfaring freeman. When
he wound his horn in the forest as he approached the hall to protect
himself from being set upon as a marauder, he was welcomed to the warm
fire, the loaded table, and the guest bed, without question. In later
times, the traveller was permitted to remain to the third night. The
guest who came hungry, weary, and dusty to one of these hospitable
homes and received admittance might esteem himself fortunate, for the
women of the time were well versed in the art of wholesome cookery,
and had at hand a plentiful variety of foods. For their meats they
might select from the choice cuts of venison, beef, and lamb, besides
pork, chicken, goat, and hare. Birds and fish afforded greater
variety. Of the latter there were salmon, herring, sturgeons,
flounders, and eels; and of shellfish, crabs, lobsters, and oysters.
Horse flesh was in early use as a comestible, but later became
repugnant to taste, and was discountenanced by the Church in the
latter part of the eighth century.

To the meats was added a variety of warm breads, made of barley meal
and of flour. Eggs, butter, cheese, and curds, with many sorts of
vegetables, were to be found on the tables; while figs, nuts, almonds,
pears, and apples were probably served by the women to the company
as they sat in discourse about the fire, or, stretched at full length
upon the floor, became absorbed in games of chance. For the Germans
were such inveterate gamblers that money, goods, chattels, their
wives, and even their own liberty, were often risked by the casting of
dice.

The women were admitted to seats at the tables with the men, the girls
being engaged in serving the drinks, which were as freely used then
as now. Even after the company were surfeited with food and the tables
were removed, drinking was kept up until the evening.

The costumes of a people are of the greatest worth in revealing to the
student their grade of civilization and their ideals. There can be no
question but that taste in dress is one of the best gauges by which to
determine whether at a particular time the people were serious minded
or frivolous, moral or immoral, swayed by high aspirations or the prey
of indolence and sensuous gratifications. Just as truly can we arrive
at the characteristics of a race or a period by seeing the people
at their play. If we find them given to gladiatorial exhibitions, we
shall not err in concluding that they were a vigorous and war-like
people; if they are found at the bull fight, we may safely adjudge
them to be a brutalized and enervated race. The Anglo-Saxon can safely
be brought to this test. If the dress of the women is a criterion
of morals, then were these people of early England exemplary; if the
games in vogue denote the race characteristics, then were they rude,
but wholesome.

After the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity, there
were evidently some changes made in their garb, to indicate their
abjuration of heathenism; for in the Church council of 785 the
complaint was made that "you put on your garments in the manner of
the pagans, whom your fathers expelled from the world; an astonishing
thing, that you should imitate those whose life you always hated."
Change of style in dress was practically unknown among the ladies of
the Anglo-Saxon period of English history. The illuminations of the
old MSS., from which all that is definitely known on the subject is
derived, show that the dress of the women remained practically the
same during the entire period.

The costume of the women can be described with many details. There was
an undergarment, probably made of linen, extending to the feet; it had
sleeves that reached to the wrists and were there gathered tightly
in little plaits. There was an absence of needlework of any sort,
excepting a simple bit of embroidery upon the shoulder. The customary
color of the garment was white. Over this was worn the gown, which
was slightly longer than the undergarment, and reached quite to the
ground. It was bound about the waist by a girdle, by which it was
sometimes caught up and shortened. The sleeves are most frequently
pictured as extending to the wrist, and were worn full. Sometimes,
however, they reached to only the elbow, and in some cases were
wanting altogether. This garment was prettily ornamented with
embroidery, in simple bands of sprigs, diverging from a centre.
Another form of dress that is represented seems to have been an
out-of-doors or travelling costume. It differed from the other in
being of heavier material, possibly of fine woollen goods, and had
sleeves that extended to the knees. It is possible that this was a
winter dress, and the other a summer one.

A mantle was worn about the shoulders. This, likewise, was of a solid
color, usually contrasting with that of the gown. This garment appears
to have been round or oval in shape, with an aperture at one side,
so that when it was put on it hung much further down the back than
in front. The head was covered with a wimple, broad enough to reach
from the top of the forehead to the shoulders, where it was generally
wrapped about the neck in such a way that the ends fell on the bosom.
A less studied, but more tasteful, way to wear it was to have it hang
down on one side as far as the knee; the effect of the contrasting
colors of the wimple, the mantle, and the gown was gratifying to women
of taste. The shoes were black, and of simple style. They resembled
the house slippers worn by women to-day; but besides these low shoes,
which came only to the ankles, other shoes were worn, that reached
higher up the leg and appeared to have been laced much as shoes now
are. Stockings may or may not have been used.

It will be seen from this description of the costume of the
Anglo-Saxon woman that it was modest, complete, and in good taste.
She was, however, proud of her attire, and of the many ornaments that
were worn with it. The ornament in most general use was the fibula,
or brooch. This was of many styles: radiated, bird-shaped, cruciform,
square-shaped, annular, and circular. It was of gold, bronze, or iron,
and showed the greatest delicacy of workmanship. It was worn on the
breast, a little to one side, so as to fasten the mantle. When we
are reminded that the Anglo-Saxons were highly skilled in the art of
dyeing, and that they had perfected the art of gilding leather, we can
readily see that a lady of quality, when dressed in her blue, purple,
or crimson costume of state, her girdle clasped by a finely chased
brooch of gold, whose fellow gleamed in the folds of her mantle, might
have invited comparison, to advantage, with the most stylishly attired
woman of to-day. But when we add to her dress a mantle, not only of
rich colors, but embroidered in ornate design, with heavy threads
of pure gold; massive arm rings of the same precious metal, of
wonderfully beautiful pattern, and fastened about her round white
arm by delicate little chains; and numerous strings of gold, amber,
and glass beads, rich in pattern and cunningly chased, the picture
presented of the Anglo-Saxon woman is altogether pleasing. The
ornaments of the women were not considered as mere matters of
adornment. To the pagan woman, her beads served as a protection
against supernatural foes. When Christianity came in, the beads were
blessed by a pious man and continued to serve the same useful end.

The bronze combs found everywhere in the graves of the time show how
careful the women of the day were to keep in perfect order the long
locks of which they were so proud. From the graves have been recovered
chatelaines, of the fashion of those now in vogue, golden toothpicks,
ear spoons, and tweezers. These ornaments and toilet requisites were
in constant use in life; and in pagan times they were interred with
their owner, that they might still be hers in the other world.

The Anglo-Saxons understood the art of inlaying enamel, and their
colors were remarkably bright and enduring. But the most striking
evidence of proficiency in the jeweller's art was their _cloisonné_
ware. This art of the East was spread by the barbarian invasions
over the whole of Europe; De Baye, in his _Industrial Arts of the
Anglo-Saxons_, calls it "the first æsthetic expression of the Gothic
nations," and says that it was not borrowed, but was adapted from the
East. He describes it as follows: "This _cloisonné_ work, set with
precious stones in a kind of mosaic, and combined at times with
the most delicate filigree, is sufficiently characteristic to be
remarkable in every country where it has left traces." This beautiful
form of art penetrated Kent and the Isle of Wight, where for some
reason it became localized and assumed a particular character. Some of
the fibulæ that have been preserved to us, and are to be found in the
art collections of England, are remarkable specimens of this beautiful
craft.

The love of English women for outdoor sports can be traced to
Anglo-Saxon times, and much of the wholesome vigor of the race is
due to those early pastimes. However fond women may have been of fine
ornaments, then as now it was the privilege of the few to possess
them; but the national sports were enjoyed by all. Hunting, hawking,
boating, swimming, fishing, skating, were in great favor with the
people.

In the winter there were many long hours to be whiled away indoors,
and although spinning and weaving the fabrics for the family wear,
as well as their embroidery and lace work, took up much of the time,
the women still had ample leisure to engage with the members of their
households and, perhaps, the passing guests in the many simple games
that delighted them. Chess was in marked favor, and was played in much
the same manner as now. The exchange of witticisms and the guessing of
conundrums added much to the innocent mirth of a household intent on
making the long evenings pass as pleasantly as possible.

There were itinerant purveyors of amusement who were to be found at
every feast and at many family firesides. These were the wandering
minstrels, or gleemen. Although they were welcomed for the
entertainment they furnished, yet as a social class they were
certainly in slight repute. Their forms of entertainment were not
limited to music. They presented a programme that included the
performances of trained animals, tricks of jugglery, feats of magic,
and other exhibitions of skill and daring. Along with the gleemen went
the glee maidens, who were the dancing and acrobatic girls of the day.
Dancing itself was a very rudimentary performance, but the enthusiasm
of the audience was aroused by the acts of tumbling and contortion
that were introduced into it. Convinced that dancing alone could not
account for the bewitchment of Herod by the daughter of his brother
Philip's wife, the translators into the vernacular of that Biblical
circumstance say of Herodias that she "tumbled" before Herod; and the
illuminations in a prayerbook of the time show Herodias in the act of
tumbling, with the assistance of a female attendant.

Slight protection, either from law or custom, was afforded women
of the lower classes from gross insults. Any female was likely to
be stopped on the road and partially or altogether denuded of her
clothing, and then sent on her way with taunts and jeers. But, despite
the coarseness of the Anglo-Saxon times, sentiment finally made Itself
felt for the correction of such manners. The women were responsible
for the diffusion of notions of greater refinement.

While there was little deserving the name of education, and even
reading and writing were the accomplishments of but a small part of
the people, the monastic orders conserved some notion of scholarship.
Unfavorable as were the times to productive thought, scholars of no
mean ability nevertheless flourished, and among men and women alike
there was a desire for learning. To his female scholars the monk
Anghelm dedicated his works: _De Laude Virginitatis_. Certain Saxon
ladies of leisure occupied themselves with the study of Latin, which
they came to read and write with some ease. The literary antecedents
of the brilliant women of the sixteenth century are to be found in
that little group of studious women of the Anglo-Saxons, of whom
the Abbess Eadburga and her pupil Leobgitha, with both of whom Saint
Boniface corresponded in Latin, were the most notable.

The nuns were a class apart. The separation of the monks and the nuns
in the monastic establishments was gradually brought about by Church
regulations and the rules of the orders. By the end of the seventh
century the separate monasteries had effected the separation of the
men and the women, and in the eighth century the erection of double
monasteries was forbidden. Long before this time, however, the
more earnest of the ladies in superintendence of the monasteries
had prohibited the admission of men to the female side of the
establishments, excepting such men as the sainted Cuthbert and the
venerable Bede. These regulations were very strict and almost put an
end to the scandalous allegations about the religious establishments.
The charge that the priests resorted to the monasteries for mistresses
probably had no better foundation than the fact that many of the
priests continued to marry, in spite of the rule of celibacy. Whatever
truth there is in the assertion that kings obtained their mistresses
from the ranks of the nuns must be laid to the civil interference
and claims of jurisdiction over religious institutions. But while the
headship of convents was frequently offered to women of high rank and
low morals, whom it was convenient thus to get rid of, and in this way
certain institutions became debauched, the monastic system itself did
not become corrupt, and there were monasteries of notable purity and
great worth.

The story of Eadburga, the widow of Beorthric, King of Kent,
illustrates the hardships inflicted upon the monasteries, through the
assumption of royal personages to appoint their heads. Eadburga was
a notable beauty, and was renowned as well for her talents and her
ambition. She ruled her husband with a jealous tyranny, removing from
court by false accusation or by poisoning all who stood in her path.
The Earl Worr, a young man of great personal charm, was one of those
who exerted an influence over her husband. On some occasion of public
hospitality she proffered him a cup of poisoned liquor; the king, who
was present, claimed his right of precedence, and, after drinking from
the cup, passed it to the earl, who drained it. Both of them died,
leaving the guilty queen exposed to the wrath of the royal family.
Eadburga fled to the court of Charlemagne, where she was graciously
received, and after a time the king suggested to her that she lay
aside her widow's weeds and become his wife. She showed so little tact
as to say that she would prefer his son. Charlemagne, piqued by her
answer, said that had she expressed a preference for him, it had been
his purpose to give her in marriage to his son; as it was, she should
marry neither of them. She remained at the court until the king,
scandalized by her wicked life, placed her at the head of an excellent
monastery. In this responsible position, Eadburga behaved herself as
badly as ever; and as the result of an amour with a countryman of
low birth, she was expelled from the convent. This widow of a monarch
ended her career as a common beggar in the streets of Pavia.

A very different class from the nuns, but, like them, a distinct class
in the social life of Anglo-Saxon times, were the slaves. The least
amiable trait of the women of the times was their treatment of
servants. Although there were striking instances of kindly and
considerate regard for this class on the part of their mistresses, yet
the slight legal protection afforded them, and the rough, impetuous
natures of the masters, made the existence of the servile class
miserable. It was not unusual for slaves to be scourged to death;
and for comparatively slight offences they were loaded with gyves and
fetters and subjected to all kinds of tortures. On one occasion, the
maidservant of a bellmaker of Winchester was, for a slight offence,
fettered and hung up by the hands and feet all night. The next
morning, after being frightfully beaten, she was again put in fetters.
The following night, she contrived to free herself, and fled for
sanctuary to the tomb of Saint Swithin. This was not an exceptional
instance; it illustrates the severity that was customarily meted out
to serfs.

The queens and other ladies of rank among the Anglo-Saxons included
some who were ornaments to the sex in industry and intelligence as
well as charity. Their influence on politics for good or for evil
was often the result of their position as members of rival houses.
Christianity was often furthered by the alliance of a Christian
princess to a pagan king; Bertha, the daughter of a famous Frankish
king, was in this way instrumental in the introduction of Christianity
into England. Herself a Christian, she married Ethelbert, King of
Kent, on condition that she should be permitted to worship as a
Christian under the guidance of a Frankish bishop named Lindhard. The
condition was observed, and Bertha had her Frankish chaplain with
her at court. She seems not to have made any attempt to convert her
husband; and he never disturbed her in her religion. The pope was
probably informed of the auspiciousness of the outlook for the
introduction of Christianity into the Kentish kingdom, and, being
still under the influence of the impression made upon him by the
flaxen-haired Angles he had seen in the slave markets of Rome before
his elevation to the pontificate, he determined to make good the vow
he had then registered to send missionaries to the land of the boy
slaves. Augustine was selected for the mission, and 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 their households dependent for
protection upon the opportune courtesy of other knights and lords.
When the country had become more orderly and manners had softened,
with the increased security given to life and property and the better
means of obtaining justice, this chivalrous feature continued and
became prominent in the knightly character and office.

In the early times, when the life of the knight was of the roughest,
there were adventurous young women, caught by the excitement it
offered, who donned the habiliments of the knight and plunged into the
dangers of his career. The story is told of the quarrel of two Norman
ladies, Eliosa and Isabella, both of them high-strung, loquacious, and
beautiful, and both dominating their husbands by the forcefulness of
their natures. But while Eliosa was crafty and effected her ends by
scheming, Isabella was generous, courageous, sunny-tempered, merry,
and convivial. Each gathered about her a band of knights and made war
upon her adversary. Isabella led her knights in person, and, armed as
they were and as adept in the use of her weapons, she advanced in open
attack upon her foe. Such incidents, though not usual, were yet in
accord with the spirit of the time.

Every lady was trained in the use of arms for the needs of her own
protection when the occasion should arise. Sometimes the practice of
sword drill was carried on in the privacy of the lady's apartment.
Thus, it is related of the Lady Beatrix--who, by reason of her
expertness and her intrepidity in the actual use of arms, gained for
herself the sobriquet _La belle Cavalier_--that the first knowledge
that her brother had of her martial proclivities was when, through a
crevice in the wall, he happened to observe her throw off her robe,
and, taking his sword out of its scabbard, toss it up into the air
and, catching it with dexterity, go through all the drill of a knight
with spirit and precision; wheeling from right to left, advancing,
retreating, feinting, and parrying, until she at last disarmed her
imaginary foe. We read of the Knight of Kenilworth that he made a
round table of one hundred knights and ladies, to which came, for
exercise in arms, persons from different parts of the land.

In such setting is found the life of the woman of the day. But below
whatever of chivalry was to be found in this turbulent age, which
extended from the coming of William the Conqueror to the end of
the reign of Stephen, it was preëminently a rude, boisterous, and
uncultured era. The lack of uniformity of language was as much
opposed to the development of literature as was the general unsettled
condition of the times. Education, slight as it was, had suffered a
relapse, and it was not until the twelfth century that anything like
real literature was developed.

As the castle was the characteristic feature of the time, and within
its walls will be found much of the matters of interest relating
to the women of the day, a description of one of these domestic
fortresses will make clearer the customs of the times in so far as
they relate to the women of the higher classes.

The site selected for the ancient castle was always a hilltop or knoll
that lent itself to ready defence. The foot of the hill was enclosed
by a palisade and a moat; these circumvallations frequently rendered
successful assault impossible, and the only recourse open to the
attacking force was a protracted siege. As the stranger on peaceful
mission bent approached one of these massive structures, rearing its
frowning walls in silhouette against the blue of the sky, he could not
fail to be impressed with the majesty and grandeur of its walls and
turrets. He would notice the round-headed windows, with their lattice
of iron and the numerous slitlike openings which supplemented the
windows for the access of light and, as loopholes, played an important
part in the defence of the fortress. On coming to the gateway, flanked
on either side by bastions, pierced to admit of the flight of arrows,
the warden would open to him, and he would be conducted into a
courtyard, whose sides were made by the walls of the hall, the chapel,
the stable, and the offices. Within the courtyard, he would observe a
garden of herbs and edible roots, and also a fine display of flowers;
perhaps, too, a small enclosure in the nature of a cage, containing a
number of animals--the trained animal collection of the jongleurs, who
commonly attached themselves to the following of barons.

On passing into the hall, he would be at once struck by its absolute
meagreness; a few stools, some seats in the alcoves of the wall, a
few forms, some cushions and a sideboard, making its complement of
furniture. The abundance and beauty of the plate on the sideboard
might partially redeem in his eyes the barrenness of the place. The
minstrel's gallery in the rear of the hall would be suggestive of the
convivial uses of that portion of the castle. No elaborate draperies
would be seen; some strips of dyed canvas upon the walls alone served
to make up for the lack of plaster, and to afford some protection from
damp and the spiders whose webs could be seen in the ceiling corners.
On passing out again into the courtyard, he would observe the tokens
of domestic pursuits in the kitchen utensils and the dairy vessels
upon benches, and cloths hung upon poles above. Passing by the
subsidiary buildings, and ascending to the ladies' bower by the
outside staircase, he would find a few more evidences of comfort than
greeted him in the hall below. Instead of common canvas, the walls
would be draped with some embroidered materials, cushions would be
more plentiful, the touches of femininity would be observed in various
little elements of comfort and adornment; but, with all this, he would
find it dreary enough. Should he return, however, to this boudoir when
the ladies were gathered for their afternoon's sewing, the scene would
make up in animation what it lacked in attractiveness of surroundings.
On going into the bedchamber, a glance would reveal its contents.
Seats in the wall, a stool, a curiously shaped bed, candelabra, and
two projecting poles, the one for falcons and the other for clothes,
would complete the sum of its furniture. The bed furnishings would
consist of a drapery, pendent from an odd roof, rather than a canopy,
over the bed. The bed would look to him comfortable enough, with its
quilted feathers and pillow attached, and, over these, sheets of
silk or of linen, and over all a coverlet of haircloth, or of woollen
fabric, lined with skins. One compartmented bed fixture, with its
curious divisions, was thought to afford sufficient privacy for
honored guests of different sexes, who were all cared for in the same
chamber; if the number of the guests and of the household was large,
several bed fixtures or bedsteads might be observed. The servants
slept indiscriminately in the hall below.

Such was the simplicity of the interior arrangements and furnishings
of the castle. But within these rooms, devoid of many of the ordinary
comforts of modern life and altogether lacking in its luxuries,
assembled women who prided themselves on their noble estate and
extraction; here, too, were held many assemblies of state; kings in
their progresses through their kingdom tarried for entertainment,
bringing with them magnificent retinues. Feasts and social functions
called forth all the highbred graces of the fair hostess and made the
castle a scene of merriment and of joyous conviviality. Here, too,
were held orgies of drunkenness and of depravity; intrigues smouldered
within these walls, to break out into an open flame of rebellion;
while dramas of noble self-abnegation and plightings of faithful love
were enacted there as well. Amid all these scenes moved the lady of
the castle.

A few of the typical views of castle life in which the women figured
conspicuously will serve to give a more particular setting to
the general idea of their status and employments. While men gave
themselves up to feats of arms, the women had the task of hospitably
entertaining the guests who frequented the castles; in the interim of
these festivities and the exacting care of a host of servants, they
applied themselves assiduously to needlework, and in no other way
does the woman of the times appear in so pleasant a light as when
thus engaged. Her facility in lace and embroidery work is not attested
alone by contemporary writers, but has come down to us in its finest
expression. The famous Bayeux tapestry, possibly the most ingenious
specimen of needlework that the world has known, calls up the most
interesting of the castle scenes as related to woman. It is the
expression of the artistic and historical sense of Matilda, the wife
of William I. In some such lady's bower as has been described, the
fair queen assembled the ladies of her court, and the Bayeux tapestry
was created amid the interchange of small talk, becoming more serious
as at times the figures of the pattern recalled some particular horror
of personal loss on the part of some of the ladies present, entailed
by the great battle whose glory was the central theme of their labors.
With womanly self-effacement, they had in mind only those whose deeds
were in this unique manner to be handed down to posterity, and had no
thought of the monument to womanly devotion that they were erecting
for the honor of the sex. Every scene involved the perpetuation
of the memories and the valor of those who were dear to them; and
as the record passed into the embroidered pattern, it was dwelt
upon with words of glowing pride. In some such way took shape the
picture-history of the event that found its consummation in the battle
of Senlac. By its wealth and accuracy of detail, this monument of
woman's skill became a historical document of the first order for
the period to which it relates. But to the student of the English
woman its chief value must lie in its revelation of the depth of
the pride and devotion to husbands, brothers, and lovers that it
reveals--devotion to the living and the dead alike, which is the
secret of its reverent accuracy, excluding as it does vainglorious
exaggeration. It thus becomes a memorial of deeds of valor and of
defeat, of triumph and of death; a monument to the Norman, but,
unwittingly, a monument to the defeated Saxon as well.

We are reminded by this historic tapestry of the pathetic story
of Edith of the Swan's Neck. King Harold had been slain on the
battlefield by a Norman arrow which had pierced his brain. His mother
and the Abbot of Waltham had successfully pleaded with Harold's
victorious rival for permission to bury the king within the abbey. Two
Saxon monks, Osgod and Ailrick, were deputed by the Abbot of Waltham
to search for and bring to the abbey the body of their benefactor.
Failing to identify on the field of Senlac (Hastings) the bodies
denuded of armor and clothing, they applied to a woman whom Harold,
before he was king, had had for a companion, and begged her to assist
them in their search. She was called Edith, and surnamed la belle
an you de cygne. Edith consented to aid the two monks, and readily
discovered the body of him who had been her lover.

The queen who conceived and furthered the execution of the Bayeux
tapestry was representative of the best type of Norman womanhood. Her
devotion to her husband was proverbial, and his faithfulness to her
has never been questioned. Intrigues among persons who could not brook
the moral atmosphere of a court such as Matilda maintained were common
enough, and the envious breath of scandal even sought to shake the
confidence of her royal husband in her; but all such attempts were
unavailing. Matilda became in every sense the consort of William, and
thus marked a forward step for the womanhood of the country. Without
such recognition of the wife of William I., England would never have
had the brilliant and versatile Elizabeth or the wise and womanly
Victoria to number among the great examples of high worth which
make the list of England's notable women one of the chief glories
of her history. As the manners of the court affect the standard of
the nation, that the tone of the times was not lower in an age of
turbulence, when moral standards were debased, must be to some extent
accredited to the example of the queen.

When Matilda died, the country was still rent by fierce hatreds and
passionate outbursts; the unplacated Saxon had been little influenced
by her. It was reserved for another Matilda, the wife of Henry I., to
aid in healing the breach, and, by uniting the discordant elements,
put the country in a position for the development of those arts of
civilization which only can flourish in an atmosphere of peace. When
Matilda, then a _religieuse_, was adjudged by the Church authorities
not to have taken the veil, or to have assumed the vows that would
have severed her from the world and committed her to a life of
virginity, she reluctantly heeded the clamor of the Saxon element of
the people, and yielded to the importunities of Henry to become his
wife and the country's queen. So was secured to the land a queen
in whose veins ran Saxon blood and who had received an Anglo-Saxon
education. Through her influence, many salutary laws were enacted to
relieve the disabilities of the people. The wives and daughters of
the Saxons were secured from insult; the poor and honest trader was
assured equity in his business transactions, and other matters of
equal import owed their enactment to the kindly disposed queen. In
this manner were allayed animosities which had continued to smoulder
under a sense of repeated injustices, and with the growth of mutual
confidence there came about an identity of aspiration and effort
on the part of the two elements of the population. Intermarriage
facilitated this happy tendency, and the perseverance of the
Anglo-Saxon tongue, modified indeed by Norman admixture, did much
for its furtherance. Thus, the two peoples gradually fused into one
nation. That Matilda did much to secure this desirable end entitles
her to be regarded as the mother of reconciliation.

The Norman ladies of rank came under the influence of the queen, and
it was not uncommon to find them, like the Anglo-Saxon ladies, engaged
in the profitable concerns of the poultry yard and the dairy, instead
of giving themselves up to court intrigues. The two Matildas represent
the best element of the noble womanhood of the day; neither of them
was faultless, and the first was charged with an act of vindictiveness
toward a Saxon who spurned her love that ill comports with the
accepted estimate of her amiability and worth; but while not
impeccable, yet both reflected in their lives the signal qualities
which, when illustrated in times adverse to them, ennoble the sex.

Returning to the employments of the ladies of the castles, the most
typical of these as illustrating the manners of the times, next to the
industry of the bower, was the hospitality of the hall. The hostess
took her place beside her lord, by virtue of her recognized equality
of position, and directed the movements of the servants, who were kept
busily employed passing around the dishes--the meat being served upon
the spits, from which the guests might carve what they pleased. No
forks were used at the table, fingers answering every purpose. On very
great occasions the _pièce de résistance_ was a boar's head, which was
brought into the hall with a fanfare of trumpets, the guests greeting
its appearance with noisy demonstrations. Another delicacy, which a
hostess was always pleased to serve to persons of consequence, was
peacock. The presence of this bird was the signal for the nobility
to pledge themselves afresh to deeds of knightly valor. Cranes formed
another of the unusual dishes generally found at these state banquets.
As the dinner proceeded, the thirst of the company was assuaged
by copious draughts of ale or mead and of spiced wines. That such
festivities invariably developed scenes of hilarity and disorder was
in the nature of the case, and it was not a strange thing to see
the valorous knights, under the mellowing influence of too frequent
potations, indulge in such disgraceful acts as throwing bones about
the room and at one another, until these bone battles passed into more
serious fracases. The woman of refinement had reason to dread these
carnivals of gluttony and debauch; and when they became too offensive,
she sought the seclusion of her private apartments.

All the while the minstrels played their instruments and sang their
songs, often improvising from incidents in the careers of those
present, or taking for a theme some vaunting sentiment to which a
cup-valorous knight gave expression. No bounds of propriety were
observed in the theme or in its treatment by these paid entertainers.

As the dishes were brought in, amid the rude songs and coarse jests
of these jongleurs, another company, even more reprobate than they,
gathered about the hall door and sought to snatch the dishes out of
the hands of the servants. These were the _ribalds_ or _letchers_--a
set of degraded hangers-on at the castle, lost to all self-respect and
ready for any base deed that might be required of them. To them was
allotted the refuse of the feast.

A vivid picture of a wedding banquet of the times is afforded in
a scene from the earlier career of Hereward, the last of patriotic
leaders of the Saxons. The daughter of a Cornish chief had been
affianced to one of her countrymen, who was notoriously wicked and
tyrannical; but she herself had pledged her affections to an Irish
prince. Hereward, who was a guest in the country of Cornwall, became
an object of hatred to the Cornish bully, who picked a quarrel
with him and in the encounter was slain. This awakened a spirit of
vengeance among his fellows, and it was only through the assistance
of the young princess that Hereward was enabled to escape from the
prison where he had been confined and to flee the country. He carried
with him a tender message from the lady to her Irish suitor. In the
latter's absence she was again betrothed by her father, and sent a
messenger to notify her lover of the near approach of the wedding. He
sent forty messengers to her father to demand his daughter's hand by
virtue of a promise one time made to him. These were put in prison.
Hereward doubted the success of the lover's embassage; and having dyed
his skin and colored his hair, he made his way, with three companions,
to the young lady's home, arriving there the day of the nuptial feast.
The next day, when she was to be conducted to her husband's dwelling,
Hereward and his companions entered the hall, and, as strangers, came
under especial observation. He saw the eyes of the princess fixed
upon him as though she penetrated his disguise; and as if moved by the
recollections his presence awakened, she burst into tears.

As was the custom of the times, the bride, in her wedding costume,
assisted by her maidens, served the cup to the guests before she left
her father's home; and the harper, following, played before each
guest as he was served. Hereward had registered an oath not to receive
anything at the hands of a lady until it was proffered by the princess
herself. So, when the cup was offered to him by a maiden, he refused
it with abruptness, and declined to listen to the harper. His rude
conduct raised a tumult of excitement and indignation, whereupon the
princess herself approached him and offered the cup, which he received
with courtesy. The princess, entirely confirmed in her suspicions
as to his identity, threw a ring into his bosom, and, turning to the
company, craved indulgence for the stranger, who was not acquainted
with their customs. The minstrel remained sullen, whereupon Hereward
seized his harp and played with such exquisite skill as to awaken the
astonishment of the company. As he played and sang, his companions,
"after the manner of the Saxons," joined in at intervals; whereupon
the princess, to help him in his assumed character, presented him the
rich cloak which was the reward of the minstrel. Suspicions as to his
real character were not, however, entirely allayed; and these were
increased by his request to the father of the bride for the release of
the Irish messengers.

Finding that he had endangered his safety and the success of his plans
by his indiscretion, Hereward slipped away unobserved, and, with his
companions, lay in ambush the next day along the road by which he knew
the bride would be conducted by her father to her new home. As the
bridal procession passed, and with it the Irish prisoners, Hereward
rushed out upon the unsuspecting company; and while his companions
released the prisoners, he seized the lady and bore her away in true
knightly fashion. It may well be believed that the bride was soon
united in wedlock to the husband of her choice.

One other circumstance in the history of this man, whose life was a
series of bold undertakings, serves to illustrate the superstitions
of the times. When King William had besieged the island of Ely, which
was the headquarters of Hereward and his large following of Saxon
warriors, and had failed to subdue them, he gave heed to the counsel
of one of his courtiers, to have recourse to a celebrated witch
for aid in the destruction of his foes. Hereward, to spy upon his
adversary and discover his plans, disguised himself as a potter,
and stopped at the house of the old woman whose magic was to be used
against him; that night he followed her and another crone out into
the fields, where they engaged in their curious rites. From their
conversation he learned of the scheme against him, which was to have a
platform erected in the marshes surrounding the island; the hag was to
repeat thrice her charm, when he and his followers would be destroyed.
Accordingly, when the platform was erected and the besiegers drew as
near as they could, expectantly awaiting Hereward's destruction, he
and his companions, under the cover of the brush, crept close to the
platform and, taking advantage of the favorable direction of the wind,
set fire to the reeds. The witch, who was about to repeat her charm
for the third time, leaped from the platform in terror, and was
killed, while in the panic many of the soldiers lost their lives
by fire or by water. The scene here depicted bears a remarkable
similarity to the weird rites of the ancient British Druidesses, and
doubtless represents a continuance of the mysteries of that order,
which came down in forms of magic and witchcraft through many
centuries.

This glimpse of the witchcraft that was to become more prominent, or
at least with which we become more familiar at a later period, will
suffice to show that the plane of general intelligence was not yet
high. Education was limited to subjects that have no special interest
for us to-day. Such as it was, it was accessible to the lower classes
as well as to the upper. There were schools connected with the
churches and the monasteries. Apparently, there was no distinction
in the subjects pursued by the sexes, excepting in the case of the
nobility, whose sons were trained for the positions they were to
occupy. It would appear that some priests were so zealous for the
prosperity of their schools that they sought to entice scholars from
other schools to their own. A law to correct the practice provided
"that no priest receive another's scholar without leave of him whom he
had previously followed." Latin was in the list of the studies pursued
by the ladies, but few could read in the vernacular.

At that day there was the same tendency that is familiar to-day,--to
cast alleged feminine inconsistencies into the form of adages. One
of these proverbs is found in the instructions of a baron who was
counselling his son on his going out from the paternal roof: "If
you should know anything that you would wish to conceal," says this
generalizer from a personal experience, "tell it by no means to your
wife, if you have one; for if you let her know it, you will repent of
it the first time you displease her."

The amusements that were popular in the Anglo-Saxon days continued
during the Norman period, but hunting and hawking, by reason of the
stringent game laws, were sports practically limited to the upper
class. The lady kept her falcons and knew well how to set them on the
quarry, and with the men she could ride in the hunt to the baying of
the hounds. It is interesting to note that with women the usual method
of riding was on a side-saddle; seldom are they found seated otherwise
in the representations of riding scenes. Among all classes dancing
seems to have been in favor. The exercise was more graceful and
intricate than the dance of the Saxons. Among the young people of the
lower classes it was the chief amusement, and was attended by much
mirth and boisterousness. Games of chance were popular among both
sexes, and chess was a favorite pastime.

The art of the Anglo-Saxon gleemen and maidens under the Normans was
represented by two classes of public entertainers, the minstrels and
the jongleurs. The minstrels confined themselves for the most part to
music and poetry; while the jongleurs were the jugglers, tricksters,
and exhibitors of trained animals. But the distinction was not sharply
drawn, although in general the minstrels were considered to afford a
higher form of entertainment than did the jongleurs. Both sexes were
represented in these bands of itinerant amusement purveyors. Companies
of them were more or less permanently attached to the retinues of
the great barons, for the whiling away of the long evenings and the
entertainment of the guests. The sentiments of the songs and stories
of these people were full of suggestiveness and coarseness. The merry
and licentious lives of the disreputable traffickers in amusement
brought them under moral reprobation, even in that rude age. They drew
into their ranks many persons of depraved life, who, when the times
improved, contributed, by their abandon, to create sentiment against
all profligate strollers. Yet these minstrels represented the
beginnings of music and of vernacular literature after the conquest of
England.

In the matter of dress there was a marked departure from the
Anglo-Saxon costume, which varied little. Just as long as England
was not in touch with continental ideas and customs, the women of
the country wore the costumes of their ancestors. That dress is
cosmopolitan never entered into their conceptions, any more than it
does into those of any of the Eastern nations who in modern times have
been brought suddenly into the stream of European customs and manners.
But with the coming of the Normans, national conservatism yielded to
comparison with the fashions of other peoples, and fashion assumed
the sceptre that it has continued to wield over the English woman. The
changes in dress were at first slight, but by the end of the twelfth
century they had become sufficiently marked to be the target of
witticism and the subject of satire. The foibles of the women were
little regarded by the writers of the time. The dress of the men was
not passed over in like silence, however; it drew from the censors of
the day the severest strictures on account of its flaunting meagreness
and its improprieties in the eyes of its monkish critics. The same
condemnation was visited upon the practice of the men of dyeing their
hair or otherwise coloring it, wearing flowing locks, and painting
their faces. Such fashions were styled reprehensible and effeminate.
It would have been instructive to subsequent generations if these
censorious critics had not been so gallant toward women, and had
given to us the spicy descriptions of feminine attire that, in their
indignation, they have afforded us of that of the men. Had they but
realized that it was the sex whose sins of dress they passed over
so lightly, with charity or indifference, that was to follow the
inconsequential wake of fashion into the wildest vagaries of costume
and adornment, they would have let the men have their brief day, and
massed their strictures against those who were to elevate fashion
to an art and make of its following a devotion. As it is, for our
knowledge of the dress of the weaker sex we are dependent upon the
illuminations, whose brilliant coloring and faithfulness of detail
left little for the text to elucidate. That the new styles were not
received with approbation by the clerical artists is clear enough
from the caricatures and exaggerations of them that appear in their
drawings. The inordinate length of the sleeves, reaching as they did,
in a long, mandolin-shaped pocket, to the knees of the wearer, made
them surely hideous enough to draw out the indignation of those who
had artistic sensibilities to be shocked.

That the notion of fashionable dress as Satanic is very old is shown
by one of the representations of his infernal majesty, where he
is portrayed dressed in the height of feminine fashion. One of the
sleeves of his gown is short and full, while the other, in caricature
of the style of the day, is so long that it has to be tied in a knot
to get it out of the way. The gown, also, being of impossible length
and fulness, is disposed of by the simple expedient of knotting.

In the dress of Satan, as an exponent of the iniquity of feminine
attire, there also appears unmistakable evidence of a tight bodice
of stays, the lacing of which, after drawing his majesty's waist into
approved dimensions, hangs carelessly down to view and terminates in
a tag. As stays were not commonly worn, and as a writer at a little
later time is found vehemently inveighing against them, it is fair to
conclude that their presence on Satan is to indicate, in the eyes of
the better element of the day, the indelicacy and impropriety of
their use. Ridiculous and unsightly as were the long sleeves and other
novelties of dress, the particular displeasure with which they were
regarded by the element whose views the ecclesiastics reflected must
be attributed somewhat to their foreign origin. Although they were
introduced into the country by the Normans, the long sleeves, at
least, appear to have originated in Italy. Down to the twelfth
century, there was sufficient conservatism remaining to deprecate the
introduction of foreign novelties, just as in Elizabeth's days the
economists strongly protested against bringing into the country
"foreign gewgaws."

The girdle remained a part of the dress of the women, although it was
not so much in evidence as in the Anglo-Saxon time. It was probably
worn under the gown, and in some cases may have been dispensed
with. That queens and princesses, however, wore very fine girdles,
ornamented with pearls and precious stones, is abundantly attested by
the contemporary writers.

The mantle was the most changeful article of dress at this period.
Sometimes it was worn in the old way, being put on by passing the head
through an aperture made for that purpose; but more often it was worn
opening down the front and fastened at the throat by an embroidered
collar clasped by a brooch. Again, it was fastened in a similar
way at the throat, but covered only one side of the form, falling
coquettishly over the shoulder and hanging down the side. A
particularly pleasing effect was obtained by having it fasten at the
throat by a collar, whose rich, gold-embroidered border continued
down the front to the waist. Sometimes the garment was sleeveless, and
again it was worn with short sleeves, or sleeves long and full. For
winter wear, it covered the form entirely and terminated in a hood.
These mantles were often of the finest imported textiles, embroidered
in elegant figures and with richly wrought borders, and were lined
throughout with costly furs.

The kerchief, like the mantle, quite lost its conventional style in
the period we are describing, and was often omitted altogether. It
was usually worn over the head, and hanging down to the right breast,
while the end on the left side was gathered about the neck and thrown
over the right shoulder. Sometimes it was gathered in fulness upon
the head and bound there by a diadem, though otherwise worn as just
described. Toward the end of the twelfth century it became much
smaller, and was tied under the chin, looking very much like an
infant's cap. The women's shoes were very much the same as those
worn by the Anglo-Saxons. It is quite likely that the stockings were
close-fitting and short, as was the style among the men.

There were different ways of wearing the hair, but the most usual was
to have it parted in front and flowing loosely down the back, with a
lock on either side falling over the shoulders and upon the breast;
this was the style for young girls especially. Another fashion was
to have it fall down the back in two masses, where it was wrapped by
ribbons and so bound into tails. Young girls never wore a headdress of
any sort. On reaching maturity, it was usual for the women to enclose
their hair in a net, with a kerchief cap drawn tightly over it.

The ornaments in use need no particular description, because of
their similarity to those worn during the Anglo-Saxon period. Crowns
were, of course, the chief adornments of queens on state occasions;
circlets of gold, elegantly patterned, formed the diadems of the noble
ladies; and half-circlets of gold, connected behind, constituted
the distinctive headdress of women of wealth. Rings, armlets, and
necklaces, as well as the generally serviceable brooch, were in use.

Turning from the fashions of the wealthy to the condition of the poor,
what a difference appears! The age was one of sharp contrasts;
for while gayety reigned in the high circles of court and castle,
wretchedness was more usual in the hovels with their mud walls and
thatched roofs, to which nature may have added the gracious garniture
of herbs, mosses, and lichens. But it would be too much to assume that
the persons of humble estate were not happy in their own way. Lacking
the luxuries of the table and the fine attire of the ladies of the
castles, life still had for them many elements of pure joy. But while
the women of the lower ranks would have contrasted well in the matter
of morals with the women of the nobility, yet no more then than now
was virtue the exclusive possession of any class.

The monasteries were not only centres of culture, but were also the
great distributing centres of charity, the nuns being looked upon as
the especial friends of the poor. We hear little of complaint against
the character of these houses at this time, and it is clear that the
rules for their direction had become efficacious for the establishing
of a discipline sufficiently rigid, on the whole, to ensure exemplary
character. Many penances and mortifications were imposed on the nuns,
besides others which were voluntarily assumed. In a book of rules
published at this time appears the following, which seems to indicate
that even sunshine savored too much of worldliness for the occupants
of the religious houses: "My dear sisters, love your windows as little
as you may, and let them be small, and the parlor's the narrowest; let
the cloth in them be twofold, black cloth, the cross white within and
without." It may be, however, that it was not too much sunlight that
was to be avoided, but men, who sought to converse with the nuns
at their windows. This indeed appears to be the true meaning of the
recommendation, as is indicated by another enjoinment: "If any man
become so mad and unreasonable that he put forth his hand toward the
window cloth, shut the window quickly and leave him."

Besides the nuns, whose office dedicated them to acts of charity, many
of the noble ladies found pleasure in alleviating the afflictions of
the poor. In their care of the distressed they were incited to acts
of humility by the very high value that the Church placed upon the
performance of such deeds. Matilda, the good wife of Henry I., had the
training of the monastery in developing her benevolent instincts, and
set an example to the ladies of her court by establishing the leper
hospital of Saint Giles; there she herself washed the feet of lepers,
esteeming such lowly service as done unto Christ. In a hard and cruel
age, the gentler sentiments common to womanly nature, especially when
under the influence of Christian feeling, poured themselves out in a
wealth of affection upon those who were stricken and left helpless by
the hardness of the times.




CHAPTER V

THE WOMEN OF THE MIDDLE AGES


There was an almost total lack of central authority or of legal
restraint throughout the land during the long conflict between Stephen
and Matilda, wife of the Count of Anjou, whom the feudal party, in
violation of their vows to Henry I., refused to accept as queen; and
to the other terrors of war were added the depredations of a host
of mercenary soldiers brought over from the continent. To quote the
chronicler William of Newburgh: "In the olden days there was no king
in Israel, and everyone did that which was right in his own eyes;
but in England now it was worse; for there was a king, but impotent,
and every man did what was wrong in his own eyes." The Petersborough
continuation of the _English Chronicle_ gives as dark a picture of the
state of affairs: "They filled the land full of castles and filled the
castles full of devils. They took all those they deemed had any goods,
men and women, and tortured them with tortures unspeakable; many
thousands they slew with hunger--they robbed and burned all the
villages, so that thou mightest fare a day's journey nor ever find
a man dwelling in a village nor land tilled. Corn, flesh, and cheese
there was none in the land. The bishops were ever cursing them, but
they cared naught therefor, for they were all forcursed and forsworn
and forlorn.... Men said openly that Christ slept and His saints.
Such and more than we can say we suffered for our sins," Such grim
experiences of unlicensed feudalism did much for the social education
of the English people, and similar lawlessness was never repeated in
the history of the country. Out of the furnace through which England
passed, the English character emerged, purified of some of its
dross of Anglo-Saxon sluggishness and Norman arrogance, and finely
representative of the tempered elements of both peoples. A sense of
solidarity was awakened.

The feudal system found its expression in various forms of homage and
of fealty, upon which it was founded. It embraced, among many services
and liabilities, some that related to women. On the death of a tenant
leaving an heiress under fourteen years of age, the lord upon whose
lands the tenant had dwelt, and to whom he owed the military and other
services of his lower position, became the guardian in chivalry to
the maiden, and had charge of her person and her lands until she
was twenty-one--unless, on reaching the age of sixteen, she availed
herself of her right to "sue out her livery" by the payment of a
half-year's income of her estate. Moreover, he was entitled to dispose
of her in marriage to any person of rank equal to her own. In case the
young lady did not approve of the selection made for her, and rejected
her guardian's choice or married without his consent, she had to
forfeit to him a sum of money equal to what was called the value of
her marriage--a sum equal to what the lord might have expected to
receive if the marriage as planned by him had taken place. During her
wardship the lord had the right to her land, and might assign or sell
his guardianship over her. These rights which the lord held over
the person and possessions of his ward applied, in the later feudal
period, equally to male and female.

Such was the relationship of the ward to her lord, and the same system
of knight service which gave him these rights in orphaned minors gave
him, as well, the right to collect a fee upon the marriage of the
daughters of any of his tenants. Such a system, while it deprived the
young woman of absolute freedom in her selection of a husband, did
not of necessity work great hardship, as each fair young woman had her
knight dedicated to her by the solemn vows of chivalry, from whom her
troth, once given, was not apt to be easily wrested. Upon the merits
of the system itself we are not called upon to pass judgment; but
certainly chivalry, which was its finest product, was responsible
for the introduction into the English character of splendid ideals of
womanhood, which found expression in a deference amounting almost to
worship.

Yet the picture has a reverse side as well, and it is only by
considering both aspects of the age that its real meaning as regards
its effect upon the womanhood of the time becomes clear. This other
side of chivalry is well expressed by Freeman, than whom no one is
better qualified to speak. He says: "The chivalrous spirit is, above
all things, a class spirit. The good knight is bound to endless
fantastic courtesies towards men and still more towards women of a
certain rank; he may treat all below that rank with any degree of
scorn or cruelty.... Chivalry is short in its morals very much what
feudalism is in law: each substitutes purely personal obligations,
obligations devised in the interest of an exclusive class, for the
more homely duties of an honest man and a good citizen."

The extravagant reverence and regard paid to women of the higher
ranks of society did not have a firm basis in inherent moral principle
either in them or in their worshippers, so that it was an easy passage
from idealized woman to materialized woman. Life cannot long subsist
on the perfervid products of a social imagination. As a revulsion of
noble minds from coarseness and as a protest against tyranny and vice,
chivalry fulfilled a high mission; but, unfortunately, its exalted
admiration of woman fell to a physical appreciation of its subject.
Not her womanhood, but her graces of person came to evoke the
passionate devotion of the knight. An admiration fantastic and
romantic, expressing itself in all sorts of extravagance, a worship
of mere physical beauty--such was the nature of chivalry in its later
expression. Instead of an idol, woman became but a toy.

In no respect was this sentimentality better illustrated than in the
nature of the knightly devotion of the time. When not in the camp, the
life of the knight was an idle one, and was spent for the most part
in sentimental attendance upon ladies at court or castle. It was there
that his deeds of prowess won rewards rather more generously than
discreetly given by the lady to whom he had pledged his devotion;
so that, with all the circumstances of outward respect for women,
surpassing in ostentatious display that shown by any other age, it
is a painful fact that in no other age was there such license in the
association of the sexes. It is a striking comment upon the manners
of the times that "gallantry" should have come to signify both bravery
and illicit love. Chastity was not one of the ornaments of the age of
chivalry.

In curious contrast to the attitude of chivalry--a product of the
Church--toward women was that of the Church in its official character
and expression. The knight elevated woman to the plane of angels,
while the priest went to the other extreme. Saint Chrysostom's
definition of woman as "a necessary evil, a natural temptation, a
desirable calamity, a domestic peril, a deadly fascination, and a
painted ill," continued to be the orthodox view of the Church, Woman
was to be avoided as a temptation by all those who valued the security
of their souls; and yet it was the Church, more than any other social
force, which gave to woman the dignity and worth that she achieved.

The Church stood for order and even for progress; it summed up in
itself all the knowledge and the culture of the times. In the midst
of the turmoil and dangers of war and strife, it afforded to women the
one haven to which they might flee for security. But its protection
was bought at the price of authority over the lives and consciences
of its adherents. The lives of women were spent in a round of narrow
experience and of duty, and the feasts of the Church, with their
processions and ceremonials, furnished to them merely an agreeable
break in the monotony of their existence. This was especially true of
the lower classes. In an age when belief in supernatural appearances
and interferences formed part of the common credence of the masses,
the emotional sensibilities of the women were easily appealed to by
the priests. By taking advantage of this ignorance, the Church was
enabled to hold in absolute control the lives of the simple and
credulous women. Women did not hesitate to yield to the Church their
freedom of thought and of action, their minds and consciences alike
being at the disposal of their ecclesiastical directors; but when
the Church taught men to respect their wives, and raised its voice
and exerted its influence against the tyranny which placed women in
subjection to their male relatives, it was indeed befriending them in
a way that hastened the acquirement by them of the real equality which
they now enjoy with the other sex.

The relation of women and the Church was not without its anomalies.
This is shown curiously in the contrast between the Mariolatry of
the age and the attitude of the Church toward the sex of which Mary
was the exalted type The women were not esteemed fit to receive the
Eucharist with uncovered hands; they were forbidden to approach the
altar; their married state was yet, in theory at least considered a
condition of sin, for, even among the women of the laity, virginity
and celibacy were regarded as almost a state of especial sanctity.
But the Church was entirely consistent in its attitude toward women in
that it made no distinctions as to class or condition. Queen Philippa,
wife of Edward III., while on a visit to Durham Cathedral, after
having supped with the king, retired to rest in the priory. The
scandalized monks sought an interview with the king and made vigorous
protests, so that the queen was obliged to rise, and, clad only in her
night apparel, sought accommodations in the castle, beseeching Saint
Cuthbert's pardon for having polluted the holy confines with her
presence.

Ecclesiastical law operated disastrously against women in declaring
for a celibate priesthood. In Anglo-Saxon times the priests married;
but the Council of Winchester, in 1076, took a stand against the
marriage of the clergy, and forbade priests to take to themselves
wives, although it permitted the parish clergy who were already
married to continue in the marital state. In 1102, however, it was
declared that no married priest should celebrate mass, and in 1215
the Lateran Council definitely pronounced against marriage of priests.
Many of the clergy had by no means shown a docile spirit in relation
to this invasion of what they considered the domain of their personal
rights; when forced into submission, they evaded the ordinances by
taking concubines. Even in the fifteenth century, it was not uncommon
to find married priests. In the document entitled _Instructions for
Parish Priests_, those who were too weak to live uprightly in the
celibate state were counselled to take wives. Concubinage, as a
substitute for the interdicted marriage, continued to be practised
down to the sixteenth century, nor was this form of illicit living the
worst vice of the clergy. Debauchery spread throughout the country,
until in the sixteenth century it is said that as many as one hundred
thousand women fell under the seductions of the priests, for whose
particular pleasures houses of ill fame were kept. From the laity,
complaints became general that their wives and daughters were not safe
from the advances of the priests. In 1536 the clergy of the diocese of
Bangor sent to Cromwell the following remarkable plea against taking
away their women from them: "We ourselves shall be driven to seek our
living at all houses and taverns, for mansions upon the benefices and
vicarages we have none. And as for gentlemen and substantial honest
men, for fear of inconvenience, and knowing our frailty and accustomed
liberty, they will in no wise board us in their houses." All the
literature of the Middle Ages leads to but one conclusion--that the
clergy were the great corrupters of domestic virtue among the burgher
and agricultural classes. The morals of the lords and ladies of the
upper strata of the aristocratic class were of no higher grade; the
offenders, however, were seldom the priests, but the gallants of that
privileged circle. The lower rank of the aristocracy,--the knights and
lesser landholders,--which, with the decline of feudalism, came to be
more strongly defined as a separate class, appears to have preserved
the best moral tone of any of the classes of mediæval society.

A great deal of light is thrown upon the manners and thought of the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries by a body of literature which arose
during those centuries. The estimation in which the classes of society
were held is indicated by one of these _fabliaux_. A party of knights
passed through a pleasant and shady meadow, in the midst of exquisite
scenery; they were enchanted by the spot, and wished for meat and wine
that they might tarry there and dine on the grass. There followed them
a party of clerks, whose feelings were also aroused by the beauty
of the place; and, in accord with the frivolous character given them
throughout the _fabliaux_, they exclaimed: "Had we fair maidens here,
how pleasant a spot for play!" After they had passed on, there came a
party of villains, who, with their grosser ideas, thought not of the
beauty of the place at all, but proceeded to indulge themselves in
carnal pleasures and to use it for mean purposes.

These _fabliaux_ show us that Cupid disdained conventional restraint
then as now; for in them the marriage of persons in different classes
often furnishes a theme for the story--this, too, notwithstanding
the sharp caste distinctions which existed. Usually, the maiden is
possessed of more beauty than wealth and belongs to the poor-knight
class; she is wedded to a peasant or villain who has become wealthy.
The husband turns out to be a brute; the lady is crafty and cunning.
He beats and abuses her, according to the instincts of his boorish
nature; she, on the other hand, proves faithless as often as
opportunity presents. The writers never visit condemnation upon her,
for her husband is considered as undeserving of the possession of
such a prize. It is a curious commentary on the manner of the times
that upon the same manuscript, written by the same person, appear
_fabliaux_ of this sort and stories of holy women dying in defence of
their chastity. This contradiction runs throughout the literature of
the period--the praise of virtue and the narration of gross immorality
without an effort to condemn it. One of the most peculiar facts of the
age is the extreme to which was carried the adoration of the Virgin
and the strange things she is made to do and to countenance, in
the mythology of the Middle Ages--for so we must class most of the
mediæval stories of the saints and of the Virgin--to ardent and
imaginative temperaments the Virgin took the character of Venus,
and is frequently represented as the patroness of love. One of the
religious stories tells us that some young men, while playing ball in
front of a church, approached the porch of the edifice, upon which was
a beautiful statue of Our Lady. One of them laid down his ring, which
he had received from his lady-love. Then, to his amazement, he saw
the image, which was "fresh and new," fix its eyes upon the ring. He
became enamored of it, and, after due obeisance, he addressed Our Lady
thus:

            "I promise duly,
  That all my life I'll serve thee truly;
  For never saw I maiden fair
  Whose beauty could with thine compare,
  So courtly and so debonaire:
  And she who gave this ring to me,
  Though fair and sweet herself, than thee
  A hundred times less fair, I trow,
  Shall yield to thee her empire now.
  'Tis true I've loved her long and well,
  As many a fond caress can tell;
  But now, forgotten and neglected,
  Her meaner charms for thine rejected,
  I give her ring--a lasting token
  Of faith which never shall be broken,
  Nor shared with maid or wife shall be
  The love I proffer unto thee.'"

With this address, he placed the ring upon the finger of the image.
Our Lady appeared flattered by the conquest she had made, and bent the
finger on which the ring had been placed in order that it might not
be withdrawn. The lover was astounded by the miracle, and was advised
by his friends to retire from the world and to devote himself to the
adoration and service of the Blessed Virgin. Neglecting this advice,
he allowed love to resume its place and led to the altar the maiden
who had given him the ring. But Our Lady was not to be deprived of
her adorer, and when he laid himself upon the nuptial couch she
immediately threw him into a profound slumber, and when he awoke he
found her lying between him and his bride:

  "She showed him straight her finger, where
  Was still the ring he'd given her;
  And well became her hand that ring
  Upon her soft skin glittering.
  'Instead of love, thou'st shown,' said she,
  'But falseness and disloyalty.
  And ill hast kept thy faith to me.
  Behold the ring thou gavest, for token
  And pledge of love fore'er unbroken,
  And call'd me a hundred times more fair
  Than ever earthly maidens were.
  I have been ever true, but thou
  Hast taken a meaner leman now;
  Hast left for stinking nettle the rose,
  Sweet eglantine for flower more gross.'"

In the end, Our Lady forces him to leave his wife that he may dedicate
himself entirely to her service. In other _fabliaux_ and in the
chronicles, Mary is represented under the guise of the Lady Venus, who
often appears in these romances. In this adoration of the Virgin as a
maiden impelled by the same loves and hates as any mortal woman, it is
not difficult to see the spirit of chivalry in its sensual expression.
Surely, if every lady had her knight, the Blessed Virgin, also, must
have her devoted admirers; and by the height of her position and
greater worthiness as the Queen of Heaven, by so much should she rise
above any other woman in her right to command such adorers.

When we pass from the status of woman in the Middle Ages to her
occupations, the subject becomes narrowed, not only by the lesser
importance of the facts which merely illustrate rather than
demonstrate her position, but also because we shall exclude from our
general consideration the women of the manors, the nuns, and, in
their industrial capacities, the women of the guilds. These important
classes demand separate treatment.

After the middle of the twelfth century, it is easier to study the
domestic manners of the people. We can, for instance, obtain very
precise information as to the style of the dwellings in which they
lived. There was a general uniformity in the houses, however they
might vary in particulars. In the twelfth century, the hall continued
to be the main part of the dwelling. Adjoining it at one end was the
chamber, while at the other end might be found the stable. The whole
building stood in an enclosure consisting of a yard in front and a
garden in the rear, surrounded by a hedge and ditch. The house had
a door in the front, and within, one door led to the chamber, and
another to the stable. The chamber, also, frequently had a door
leading out to the garden. There were usually windows in the hall,
the stable and the chamber being lighted by openings in the partitions
between them and the hall, as well as by slits in the outer walls.
The windows themselves were commonly merely openings, which might be
closed by wooden shutters. There was usually one such window in the
chamber, besides those in the hall, so that it was better lighted than
the stable.

From the _fabliaux_ we can obtain very precise ideas of the
distribution of the rooms in the houses of the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries. Thus, in one of the _fabliaux_, an old woman of mean
condition of life is represented as visiting a burgher's wife, who,
from a feeling of vanity, takes her into the chamber to show her
the new bed, a very handsome affair. Afterward, when this lady takes
refuge with the old dame, the latter conducts her from the hall to
the chamber adjoining. The outer door of the chamber, by which egress
could be had from the house without going through the hall, often
figures in the stories as aiding the escape of the lovers of guilty
wives, on the unexpected entrance of the husbands into the hall. It
was in the chamber that fireplaces and chimneys were first introduced
into mediæval houses.

As the grouping of the rooms upon the ground floor made the house less
compact and more susceptible to successful attack, the custom arose of
having upper chambers. The upper room was called the solar, because it
received much light from the sun. At first it was but a small chamber,
approached from the outside. These outer stairs are often referred to
in the _fabliaux_, as in the _fabliau_ of D'Estourmi, where a burgher
and his wife deceive three monks of a neighboring abbey, who make love
to the lady; she conceals her husband in the upper chamber, to which
he goes by an outer staircase. The monks enter the hall, and the
husband sees from the upper room, through a lattice, all that happens.
In another _fabliau_, a lady uses the solar as a hiding place for her
husband, who has disguised himself as a gallant in order to test his
wife's faithfulness. She penetrates his disguise, and, after closing
the door of the solar upon him, sends a servant to give him a good
beating, as an importunate suitor whom she desires to cure of his
annoying passion. The husband, too mortified to reveal his identity
and disclose his doubts as to his wife, has no redress but to sustain
his assumed character and to escape down the outer stairs, pursued by
the servants. The chamber soon came to be the most important part of
the house, and frequently its name was given to the whole dwelling,
a house with a solar being called an upper-storied chamber. The more
considerable manors and castles differed from the ordinary houses only
in having a greater assemblage of rooms and more details than were
found in the smaller dwellings.

Toward the fourteenth century, the rooms of houses generally began
to be numerous, and the houses were often built around a court, the
additions being chiefly to the number of offices and chambers. Wood
continued to be the usual material for their construction. A new
apartment was added to the house--the parlor, so called because it was
the talking room. It was derived from the religious houses, in which
the parlor was the reception room. As furniture was scanty, the rooms
of the mediæval house were almost bare. Chairs were very few, and
seats in the masonry of the wall continued for centuries to be the
principal accommodation of the kind; benches for seats and places of
deposit of personal or household articles were usually made of a few
boards laid across trestles. In the thirteenth century, the beds in
the chamber came to be partitioned off by curtains, which showed an
advance in modesty, as it was customary to sleep wholly undressed.
Throughout the Middle Ages, the comforts of the houses were quite
primitive; even the houses themselves were generally without
architectural grace and frequently very unsubstantial. When watchmen
were appointed in the towns, they were provided with a "hook" with
which to pull down a house when on fire, if its proximity to others
threatened their destruction. As there was an absence of luxury in the
houses and their furnishings, much value was placed on plate, which
came to be a sign of wealth and social distinction. Dress, also,
aided in marking distinctions between the wealthy and those in less
fortunate circumstances, as did the luxuries found upon the tables of
the former.

This fact of the general character of the discomforts of living,
without regard to rank or condition, gave occasion for sumptuary
laws--"the toe of the peasant pressed closely on the heel of the lord,
and the gulf that parted them was the number of dishes upon their
table, the quality of the cloth they put on, and the kind of fur they
might wear to keep off the cold."

Glass began to be introduced into dwelling houses in the time of
Henry III., but was regarded as a great luxury. Pipes for carrying the
refuse water and slops from the houses to sewers or cesspools were one
of the great sanitary reforms of the reign of Edward I. The same able
monarch made the use of baths popular among his people. The floors of
the houses continued to be covered with an armful of hay, or a bundle
of birch boughs or of rushes, although during the fourteenth century
some of the wealthier farmers and persons of the trading classes and
the nobility had begun to use imported carpets and hangings. Table
linen and napkins were also coming into service. The use of forks was
confined to royalty.

When the fine ladies went abroad in their vehicles or were carried
in their chairs, they had to plow through streets deep with mire and
filth; so much so, that it was not unusual for coaches to stick fast
and depend upon the aid of some friendly teamster to extricate them.
The sanitation of the dwellings was little better than that of the
streets. The stench of the houses of the poor was so great that the
priests made it an excuse for failure to pay parochial visits to them.
The better class of houses were, of course, kept much cleaner.

The impression that food in the Middle Ages was coarse and not
elaborate is not borne out, as we have seen, by the facts; for, from
Anglo-Saxon times down, the people were very fond of the table, and in
the higher circles elaborate banquets stood as one of the most usual
resources of a hospitality which had to make up for its barrenness in
other ways by the bounties of elaborate feasts, so that we are quite
prepared for Alexander Neckam's list of kitchen requisites. This
ecclesiastic of the latter half of the twelfth century has left us a
list of the things to be found in a well-ordered kitchen. Besides
his list, we have the testimony of cookbooks of the time, which give
directions for making dishes that are both complicated and toothsome.
Indeed, the position of cook was one of importance, and upon him often
rested, in great houses, the honor of the establishment.

In this connection may be given some of the curious injunctions of the
Anglo-Saxon penitentials, which continued to be quoted throughout the
Middle Ages, becoming superstitious beliefs after they had lost their
ecclesiastical character and undergone the changes which, with the
lapse of time, develop folklore. One of the oddest prescribed that in
case a "mouse fall into liquor, let it be taken out, and sprinkle the
liquor with holy-water, and if it be alive, the liquor may be used,
but if it be dead, throw the liquor out and cleanse the vessel."
Another said: "He who uses anything a dog or mouse has eaten of, or a
weasel polluted, if he do it knowingly, let him sing a hundred psalms;
and if he knew it not, let him sing fifty psalms." These are but
samples of many superstitions with which the thought of the Middle
Ages was tinctured.

A considerable treatise might be written upon the superstitions of
the English women; it would contain astonishing disclosures as to
the effect of the unreal world of fairies, goblins, and the like
upon woman's development and status during the Middle Ages. She was
undoubtedly influenced in her daily life, in almost all her duties and
undertakings, by the terrors with which her superstitions filled her.
The legacy of a pagan system was slowly thrown off, and, with all
the credulity of the religion of the times, it is to t

Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/32299