Chapter IV

OUT OF DOOR AMUSEMENTS OF THE ANGLO-SAXONS.--HUNTING AND
HAWKING.--HORSES AND CARRIAGES.--TRAVELLING.--MONEY-DEALINGS.

The progress of society from its first formation to the full development of civilization, has been compared not inaptly to the life of man. In the childhood and youth of society, when the population was not numerous, and a servile class performed the chief part of the labour necessary for administering to the wants or luxuries of life, people had a far greater proportion of time on their hands to fill up with amusements than at a later period, and many that are now considered frivolous, or are only indulged in at rare intervals of relaxation, then formed the principal occupations of men’s lives. We have glanced at the in-door amusements of the Anglo-Saxons in a previous chapter; but their out-door recreations, although we have little information respecting them, were certainly much more numerous. The multitude of followers who, in Saxon times, attended on each lord or rich man as their military chief, or as their domestic supporter, had generally no serious occupation during the greater part of the day; and this abundance of unemployed time was not confined to one class of society, for the artisan had to work less to gain his subsistence, and both citizen and peasant were excused from work altogether during the numerous holidays of the year.

That the Anglo-Saxons were universally fond of play (_plega_) is proved by the frequent use of the word in a metaphorical sense. They even applied it to fighting and battle, which, in the language of the poets, were _plega-gares_ (play of darts), _æsc-plega_ (play of shields), and _hand-plega_ (play of hands).[14] In the glossaries, _plegere_ (a player), and _plega-man_ (a playman), are used to represent the Roman _gladiator_; and _plega-hús_ (a playhouse), and _plega-stow_ (a play-place), express a theatre, or more probably an amphitheatre. Recent discoveries have shown that there was a theatre of considerable dimensions in the Roman town of Verulamium (near St. Alban’s); and old writers tell us there was one at the Silurian Isca (Caerleon), though these buildings were doubtless of rare occurrence; but every Roman town of any importance in the island had its amphitheatre outside the walls for gladiatorial and other exhibitions. The result of modern researches seems to prove that most of the Roman towns continued to exist after the Saxon settlement of the island, and we can have no doubt that the amphitheatres, at least for awhile, continued to be devoted to their original purposes, although the performances were modified in character. Some of them (like that at Richborough, in Kent, lately examined), were certainly surrounded by walls, while others probably were merely cut in the ground, and surrounded by a low embankment formed of the material thrown out. The first of these, the Saxons would naturally call a play-house, while the other would receive the no less appropriate appellation of a play-stow, or place for playing. Among the illustrations of the Anglo-Saxon manuscript of the Psalms (MS. Harl., No. 603), to which we have so often had occasion to refer, there is a very curious picture, evidently intended to represent an amphitheatre outside a town. It is copied in our cut No. 41. The rude Anglo-Saxon draughtsman has evidently intended to represent an embankment, occupied by the spectators, around the spot where the performances take place. The spectator to the left is expressing his approbation by clapping with his hands. The performances themselves are singular: we have a party of minstrels, one of them playing on the Roman double pipes, so often represented in Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, while another is dancing to him, and the third is performing with a tame bear, which is at the moment of the representation simulating sleep. Games of this kind with animals, succeeded no doubt among the Saxons to the Roman gladiatorial fights, but few have imagined that the popular English exhibition of the dancing bear dated from so remote a period. The manuscripts show that the double pipe was in use among the Anglo-Saxons; with a little modification, and a bag or bellows to supply the place of the human lungs, this instrument was transformed into a bagpipe.

Not the least curious part of this picture is the town in the background, with its entrance gateway, and public buildings. The Anglo-Saxon draughtsmen were imperfectly acquainted with perspective, and paid little attention to proportion in their representations of towns and houses, a circumstance which is fully illustrated in this picture. As the artist was unable from this circumstance to represent the buildings and streets of a town in their relative position, he put in a house to represent a multitude of houses, and here he has similarly given one building within the walls to represent all the public buildings of the town. An exactly similar characteristic will be observed in our cut No. 42, taken from the same manuscript, where one temple represents the town. Here again we have a party of citizens outside the walls, amusing themselves as well as they can; some, for want of other employment, are laying themselves down listlessly on the ground.

The national sentiments and customs of the Anglo-Saxons would, however, lead to the selection of other places for the scenes of their games, and thus the Roman amphitheatres became neglected. Each village had its arena--its play-place--where persons of all ages and sexes assembled on their holidays to be players or lookers on; and this appears to have been usually chosen near a fountain, or some object hallowed by the popular creed, for customs of this kind were generally associated with religious feelings which tended to consecrate and protect them. These holiday games, which appear to have been very common among our Saxon forefathers, were the originals of our village wakes. Wandering minstrels, like those represented in our cut No. 41, repaired to them to exhibit their skill, and were always welcome. The young men exerted themselves in running, or leaping, or wrestling. These games attracted merchants, and gradually became the centres of extensive fairs. Such was the case with one of the most celebrated in England during the middle ages, that of Barnwell, near Cambridge. It was a large open place, between the town and the banks of the river, well suited for such festivities as those of which we are speaking. A spring in the middle of this plain, we are told in the early chartulary of Barnwell Abbey, was called Beornawyl (the well of the youths), because every year, on the eve of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, the boys and youths of the neighbourhood assembled there, and, “after the manners of the English, practised wrestling and other boyish games, and mutually applauded one another with songs and musical instruments; whence, on account of the multitude of boys and girls who gathered together there, it grew a custom for a crowd of sellers and buyers to assemble there on the same day for the purpose of commerce.”[15] This is a curious and a rather rare allusion to an Anglo-Saxon wake.

One of the great recreations of the Anglo-Saxons was hunting, for which the immense forests, which then covered a great portion of this island, gave a wide scope. The most austere and pious, as well as the most warlike, of the Anglo-Saxon monarchs, were passionately attached to the pleasures of the chase. According to the writer who has assumed the name of Asser, the great Alfred was so attached to this amusement, that he condescended to teach his “falconers, hawkers, and dog-keepers” himself. His grandson, king Ethelstan, as we learn from William of Malmesbury, exacted from the Welsh princes, among other articles of tribute, “as many dogs as he might choose, which, from their sagacious scent, could discover the retreats and hiding-places of wild beasts; and birds trained to make prey of others in the air.” The same writer tells us of the sainted Edward the Confessor, that “there was one earthly enjoyment in which he chiefly delighted, which was, hunting with fleet hounds, whose opening in the woods he used with pleasure to encourage; and again, with the pouncing of birds, whose nature it is to prey on their kindred species. In these exercises, after hearing divine service in the morning, he employed himself whole days.” It is evident from the ecclesiastical laws, that it was difficult to restrain even the clergy from this diversion. One of the ecclesiastical canons passed in the reign of king Edgar, enjoins “that no priest be a hunter, or fowler, or player at tables, but let him play on his books, as becometh his calling.” When the king hunted, it appears that men were employed to beat up the game, while others were placed at different avenues of the forest to hinder the deer from taking a direction contrary to the wishes of the hunter. Several provisions relating to the employment of men in this way, occur in the Domesday survey. A contemporary writer of the Life of Dunstan gives the following description of the hunting of king Edmund the Elder, at Ceoddri (Chedder). “When they reached the forest,” he says, “they took various directions along the woody avenues, and the varied noise of the horns, and the barking of the dogs, aroused many stags. From these, the king with his pack of hounds chose one for his own hunting, and pursued it long, through devious ways with great agility on his horse, with the hounds following. In the vicinity of Ceoddri were several steep and lofty precipices hanging over deep declivities. To one of these the stag came in his flight, and dashed headlong to his destruction down the immense depth, all the dogs following and perishing with him.” The king with difficulty held in his horse.

The dogs (_hundas_), used for the chase among the Anglo-Saxons, were valuable, and were bred with great care. Every noble or great landowner had his _hund-wealh_, or dog-keeper. The accompanying cut (No. 43), taken from the Harleian MS. No. 603, represents a dog-keeper, with his couple of hounds--they seem to have hunted in couples. The Anglo-Saxon name for a hunting-dog was _ren-hund_, a dog of chase, which is interpreted by greyhound; and this appears, from the cut, to have been the favourite dog of our Saxon forefathers. It appears by an allusion given above, that the Saxons obtained hunting dogs from Wales; yet the antiquary will be at once struck with the total dissimilarity of the dogs pictured in the Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, from the British dogs represented on the Romano-British pottery. The dogs were used to find the game, and follow it by the scent; the hunters killed it with spears, or with bows and arrows, or drove it into nets. In the Colloquy of Alfric, a hunter (_hunta_) of one of the royal forests gives a curious account of his profession. When asked how he practises his “craft,” he replies, “I braid nets, and set them in a convenient place, and set on my hounds, that they may pursue the beasts of chase, until they come unexpectedly to the nets, and so become intangled in them, and I slay them in the nets.” He is then asked if he cannot hunt without nets, to which he replies, “Yes, I pursue the wild animals with swift hounds.” He next enumerates the different kinds of game which the Saxon hunter usually hunted--“I take harts, and boars, and deer, and roes, and sometimes hares.” “Yesterday,” he continues, “I took two harts and a boar, ... the harts with nets, and I slew the boar with my weapon.” “How were you so hardy as to slay a boar?” “My hounds drove him to me, and I, there facing him, suddenly struck him down.” “You were very bold then.” “A hunter must not be timid, for various wild beasts dwell in the woods.” It would seem by this, that boar-hunting was not uncommon in the more extensive forests of this island; but Sharon Turner has made a singular mistake, in supposing, from a picture in the Anglo-Saxon calendar, that boar-hunting was the ordinary occupation of the month of September. The scene which he has thus mistaken--or at least, a portion of it--is given in our cut No. 44 (from the Cottonian MS. Claudius, C. viii.); it represents swineherds driving their swine into the forests to feed upon acorns, which one of the herdsmen is shaking from the trees with his hand. The herdsmen were necessarily armed to protect the herds under their charge from robbers.

The Anglo-Saxons, as we have seen, were no less attached to hawking than hunting. The same Colloquy already quoted contains the following dialogue relating to the fowler (_fugelere_). To the question, “How dost thou catch birds?” he replies, “I catch them in many ways; sometimes with nets, sometimes with snares, sometimes with bird-lime, sometimes with whistling, sometimes with a hawk, sometimes with a trap.” “Hast thou a hawk?” “I have.” “Canst thou tame them?” “Yes, I can; of what use would they be to me unless I could tame them?” “Give me a hawk.” “I will give one willingly in exchange for a swift hound. What kind of hawk will you have, the greater or the lesser?”... “How feedest thou thy hawks?” “They feed themselves and me in winter, and in spring I let them fly to the wood, and I catch young ones in autumn and tame them.” A party of hawkers is represented in our cut No. 45, taken from the manuscript last quoted, where it illustrates the month of October. The rude attempt at depicting a landscape is intended to represent a river running from the distant hills into a lake, and the hawkers are hunting cranes and other water-fowl. Presents of hawks and falcons are not unfrequently mentioned in Anglo-Saxon writers; and in a will, an Anglo-Saxon leaves to his natural lord “two hawks and all his stag-hounds.”

The Saxon youths were proud of their skill in horsemanship. Bede relates an anecdote of the youthful days of Herebald, abbot of Tynemouth, when he attended upon bishop John of Beverley, from Herebald’s own words--“It happened one day,” the latter said, “that as we were travelling with him (the bishop), we came into a plain and open road, well adapted for galloping our horses. The young men that were with him, and particularly those of the laity, began to entreat the bishop to give them leave to gallop, and make trial of the goodness of their horses.... When they had several times galloped backwards and forwards, the bishop and I looking on, my wanton humour prevailed, and I could no longer refrain; but, though he forbade me, I struck in among them, and began to ride at full speed.” Horses were used chiefly by the upper classes of society in travelling. Two of a party of Saxon travellers are represented in our cut No. 46 (from MS. Cotton. Claudius, B. iv.). The lady, it will be observed, rides sideways, as in modern times, and the illuminated manuscripts of different periods furnish us with examples enough to show that such was always the practice; yet an old writer has ascribed the introduction of side-saddles into this country to Anne of Bohemia, the queen of Richard II., and the statement has been repeated by writers on costume, who too often blindly compile from one another without examining carefully the original sources of information.[16] The next cut, No. 47 (taken from MS. Harl. No. 603), represents a horseman with his arms, the spear, and the round shield, with its boss, which reminds us of those frequently found in the early Anglo-Saxon graves. The horse furniture is tolerably well defined in these figures. The forms of the spur (_spura_) and the stirrup (called in Anglo-Saxon _stirap_ and _hlypa_) are very peculiar. Most of the furniture of the horse was then, as now, of leather, and was made by the shoemaker (_se sceowyrhta_), who seems to have been the general manufacturer of articles in this material. Alfric’s Colloquy enumerates among the articles made by the shoemaker, bridle-thongs (_bridel-thwancgas_), harnesses (_gerœda_), spur-leathers (_spur-lethera_), and halters (_hælfra_). The form of the saddle is shown in the representation of a horse without a rider, given, from the manuscript last quoted, in our cut No. 48.

In the Anglo-Saxon church histories, we meet with frequent instances of persons, who were unable to walk from sickness or other cause, being carried in carts or cars, but in most cases these seem to have been nothing but the common agricultural carts adapted temporarily to this usage. A horse-litter is on one occasion used for the same purpose. It is certain, however, that the Anglo-Saxons had chariots for travelling. The usual names of all vehicles of this kind were _wægn_ or _wæn_ (from which, our _waggon_) and _crat_ or _cræt_ (which appears to be the origin of the English word _cart_). These two terms appear to have been used synonymously, for the words of the 18th Psalm, _hi in curribus_, are translated in one Anglo-Saxon version by _on wænum_, and in another by _in crætum_. The Anglo-Saxon manuscripts give us various representations of vehicles for travelling. The one represented in the cut No. 49 is taken from the Anglo-Saxon manuscript of Prudentius. It seems to have been a barbaric “improvement” upon the Roman _biga_, and is not much unlike our modern market-carts. The whip used by the lady who is driving so furiously, is of the same form as that used by the horsewoman in our cut No. 46. The artist has not shown the _wægne-thixl_, or shaft. A four-wheeled carriage, of rather a singular construction, is found often repeated, with some variations, in the illuminations of the manuscript of Alfric’s translation of the Pentateuch. One of them is given in our cut No. 50. It is quite evident that a good deal of the minor detail of construction has been omitted by the draughtsman. Anglo-Saxon glosses give the word _rad_ to represent the Latin _quadriga_. From the same source we learn that the compound word _wæn-fær_, waggon-going, was used to express journeying in chariots.

Riding in chariots must have been rare among the Anglo-Saxons. Horses were only used by the better classes of society; and we learn from Bede and other writers that pious ecclesiastics, such as bishops Aidan, Ceadda, and Cuthbert, thought it more consistent with the humility of their sacred character to journey on foot. The pedestrian carried either a spear or a staff; the rider had almost always a spear. It is noted of Cuthbert, in Bede’s life of that saint, that one day when he came to Mailros (Melrose), and would enter the church to pray, having leaped from his horse, he “gave the latter and his travelling spear to the care of a servant, for he had not yet resigned the dress and habits of a layman.” The weapon was, no doubt, necessary for personal safety. There is a very curious clause in the Anglo-Saxon laws of king Alfred, relating to an accident arising from the carrying the spear, which we can hardly understand, although to require a special law it must have been of frequent occurrence; this law provides that “if a man have a spear over his shoulder, and _any man stake himself upon it_,” the carrier of the spear incurred severe punishment, “if the point be three fingers higher than the hindmost part of the shaft.” He was not considered blameable if he held the spear quite horizontally.

The traveller always wore a covering for his head, which, though of various shapes, none of which resembled our modern hat, was characterised by the general term of _hæt_. He seems to have been further protected against the inclemency of the weather by a cloak or mantle (_mentel_). One would be led to suppose that this outer garment was more varied in form and material than any other part of the dress, from the great number of names which we find applied to it, such as _basing_, _hæcce_, _hæcela_, or _hacela_, _pæll_, _pylca_, _scyccels_, _wæfels_, &c. The writings which remain throw no light upon the provisions made by travellers against rain; for the dictionary-makers who give _scúr-scead_ (shower-shade) as signifying an umbrella, are certainly mistaken.[17] Yet that umbrellas were known to the Anglo-Saxons is proved beyond a doubt by a figure in the Harleian manuscript, No. 603, which is given in our cut No. 51. A servant or attendant is holding an umbrella over the head of a man who appears to be covered at the same time with the cloak or mantle.

Travelling to any distance must have been rendered more uncomfortable, especially when passing through wild districts where there were no inns. The word _inn_ is itself Saxon, and signified a lodging, but it appears to have been more usually applied to houses of this kind in towns. A tavern was also called a _gest-hus_ or _gest-bur_, a house or chamber for guests, and _cumena-hus_, a house of comers. Guest-houses, like caravanserais in the East, appear to have been established in different parts of Saxon England, near the high roads, for the reception of travellers. A traveller in Bede arrives at a _hospitium_ in the north of England, which was kept by a _paterfamilias_ (or father of a family) and his household. In the Northumbrian gloss on the Psalms, printed by the Surtees Society, the Latin words of Psalm liv., _in hospitiis eorum_, are rendered by _in gest-husum heara_. This shows that Bede’s _hospitium_ was really a guest-house: these guest-houses were kept up in various parts of England until Norman times; and Walter Mapes, in his treatise de Nugis Curialium, has preserved a story relating to one of William the Conqueror’s Saxon opponents, Edric the Wild, which tells how, returning from hunting in the forest of Dean, and accompanied only with a page, he came to a large house, “like the drinking houses of which the English have one in every parish, called in English gild-houses,” perhaps an error for guest-houses (_quales Anglici in singulis singulas habebant diocesibus bibitorias, ghildhus Anglice dictas_). It seems not improbable, also, that the ruins of Roman villas and small stations, which stood by the sides of roads, were often roughly repaired or modified, so as to furnish a temporary shelter for travellers who carried provisions, &c., with them, and could therefore lodge themselves without depending upon the assistance of others. A shelter of this kind--from its consisting of bare walls, a mere shelter against the inclemency of the storm--might be termed a _ceald-hereberga_ (cold harbour), and this would account for the great number of places in different parts of England, which bear this name, and which are almost always on Roman sites and near old roads. The explanation is supported by the circumstance that the name is found among the Teutonic nations on the continent--the German _Kalten-herberg_--borne by some inns at the present day.

The deficiency of such comforts for travellers in Anglo-Saxon times was compensated by the extensive practice of hospitality, a virtue which was effectually inculcated by the customs of the people as well as by the civil and ecclesiastical laws. When a stranger presented himself at a Saxon door, and asked for board and lodging, the man who refused them was looked upon with contempt by his countrymen. In the seventh century, as we learn from the Pœnitentiale of archbishop Theodore, the refusal to give lodging to a stranger (_quicunque hospitem non receperit in domum suam_) was considered worthy of ecclesiastical censure. And in the Ecclesiastical Institutes, drawn up at a later period, and printed in the collection of Anglo-Saxon laws, it is stated that “It is also very needful to every mass-priest, that he diligently exhort and teach his parishioners that they be hospitable, and not refuse their houses to any wayfaring man, but do for his comfort, for love of God, what they then will or can; ... but let those who, for love of God, receive every stranger, desire not any worldly reward.” Bede describes as the first act of “the custom of hospitality” (_mos hospitalitatis_) the washing of the stranger’s feet and hands; they then offered him refreshment, and he was allowed to remain two nights without being questioned, after which period the host became answerable for his character. The ecclesiastical laws limited the hospitality to be shown to a priest to one night, because if he remained longer it was a proof that he was neglecting his duties.

Taverns of an ordinary description, where there was probably no accommodation for travellers, seem to have been common enough under the Anglo-Saxons and it must be confessed that there seems to be too much reason for believing that people spent a great deal of their leisure time in them; even the clergy appear to have been tempted to frequent them. In the Ecclesiastical Institutes, quoted above, mass-priests are forbidden to eat or drink at ale-houses (_æt ceap-ealothelum_). And it is stated in the same curious record that, “It is a very bad custom that many men practise, both on Sundays and also other mass-days; that is, that straightways at early morn they desire to hear mass, and immediately after the mass, from early morn the whole day over, in drunkenness and feasting they minister to their belly, not to God.”

Merchant travellers seem, in general, to have congregated together in parties or small caravans, both for companionship and as a measure of mutual defence against robbers. In such cases they probably carried tents with them, and formed little encampments at night, like the pedlars and itinerant dealers in later times. Men who travelled alone were exposed to other dangers besides that of robbery; for a solitary wanderer was always looked upon with suspicion, and he was in danger himself of being taken for a thief. He was compelled, therefore, by his own interest and by the law of the land, to show that he had no wish to avoid observation; one of the earlier Anglo-Saxon codes of laws, that of king Wihtræd, directed that “if a man come from afar, or a stranger go out of the high way, and he then neither shout nor blow a horn, he is to be accounted a thief, either to be slain, or to be redeemed.”

So prevalent, indeed, was theft and unfair dealing among our Anglo-Saxon forefathers, and so much litigation and unjust persecution arose from disputed claims to property which had been, or was pretended to have been, purchased, that it was made illegal to buy or sell without witnesses. It would be easy to multiply examples of robbery and plunder from Anglo-Saxon writers; but I will only state that, according to the Ely history, some merchants from Ireland, having come to Cambridge in the time of king Edgar, to offer their wares for sale, perhaps at the annual festivities of the Beorna-wyl, mentioned above, a _priest_ of the place was guilty of stealing a part of their merchandise. We know but little of the trades and forms of commercial dealings of the Anglo-Saxons; but we may take our leave of the period of which we have been hitherto treating, with a few figures relating to money matters, from the Anglo-Saxon manuscript of the Psalms (MS. Harl. No. 603). The cut No. 52 represents, apparently, a man in the market, or at the gates of a city, taking toll for merchandise. The scales are for weighing, not the merchandise, but the money. The word _pund_, or pound, implies that the money was reckoned by weight; and the word _mancus_, another term for a certain sum of money, is also considered to have been a weight. Anglo-Saxon writings frequently speak of money as given by weight. Our cut No. 53 is a representation of the merchant, or the toll-taker, seated before his account book, with his scales hanging to the desk. In the first of these cuts, a man holds the bag or purse, in which the money received for toll or merchandise is deposited. The cut No. 54 represents the receiver pouring the money out of his bag into the _cyst_, or chest, in which it is to be locked up and kept in his treasury. It is hardly necessary to say that there were no banking-houses among the Anglo-Saxons. The chest, or coffer, in which people kept their money and other valuables, appears to have formed part of the furniture of the chamber, as being the most private apartment; and it may be remarked that a rich man’s wealth usually consisted much more in jewels and valuable plate than in money.

We cannot but remark how little change the manners and the sentiments of our Saxon forefathers underwent during the long period that we are in any way acquainted with them. During the reign of Edward the Confessor, Norman fashions were introduced at court, but their influence on the nation at large appears to have been very trifling. Even after the Norman conquest the English manners and fashions retained their hold on the people, and at later periods they continually re-appear to assert their natural rights among the descendants of the Anglo-Saxons.