Transcriber’s Note:

The illustrations have been moved to fall between paragraphs. Full page illustrations were counted in the pagination, but, given these adjustments, are unnumbered here. On several occasions, the order of the illustrations is reversed, to better follow the text. The page numbers in the table of illustrations serve as links to the correct locations.

The footnotes, which were marked using the typical symbols (e.g., asterisks), have been numbered consecutively for uniqueness, and placed following the end of the text. They are linked for ease of reference and navigation. On several occasions (44.8, 48.10, 59.13, 229.59), a single footnote is referenced multiple times in the text. The reverse navigation to the page will position the reader at the first of them.

Minor errors, attributable to the printer, have been corrected. Please see the transcriber’s [note] at the end of this text for details regarding the handling of any textual issues encountered during its preparation.

THE STORY OF THE

EAST RIDING OF YORKSHIRE

A COMPANION VOLUME.

304 Pages, Crown 8vo, with 56 Illustrations.

Cloth Boards, 1/8 net.

YORK

IN ENGLISH HISTORY

BY

J. L. BROCKBANK, M.A.,

AND

W. M. HOLMES.

A typical Press Opinion.—"We have nothing but praise for this charming book. It has well been said that ‘to master thoroughly the story of the city of York is to know practically the whole of English history,’ and the authors of this new history have demonstrated the truth of this opinion. No pains have been spared by the publishers to give the letterpress a perfect setting; binding, paper, illustrations, and general finish are alike admirable."

London: A. Brown & Sons, Ltd., 5 Farringdon Av., E.C.

And at Hull and York.

The Pride of the East Riding.
Beverley Minster from the South-East.

THE STORY OF
THE EAST RIDING OF
YORKSHIRE

BY

HORACE B. BROWNE, M.A.

WITH ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY

ILLUSTRATIONS

LONDON

A. BROWN & SONS, Ltd., 5 Farringdon Avenue, E.C.

And at HULL and YORK

1912

PRINTED AT BROWNS’ SAVILE PRESS,

SAVILE STREET AND GEORGE STREET, HULL.

TO THE

BOYS AND GIRLS

OF THE EAST RIDING OF YORKSHIRE,

IN THE HOPE THAT THE STORY OF THE LIVES OF THEIR

FOREFATHERS MAY INSPIRE THEM TO HELP IN

ROLLING ONWARDS THE WHEELS OF

PROGRESS THAT HAVE BEEN IN

MOTION EVER SINCE THE

FIRST LIVING BEING

CAME INTO

EXISTENCE.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author wishes herein to acknowledge his indebtedness:—

(1) To the published works of local historians, and to the publications of local learned societies, into all of which he has delved, and from many of which he has ‘lifted’ such local records as it served his purpose to use.

(2) To Mr. John Bickersteth, of the East Riding County Council, for valuable help in the chapter on How the East Riding Governs Itself, and in the general planning of the book; to Mr. John Suddaby, for much information that is embodied in Chapters XXIV.-XXVII.; to the Wardens of the Hull Trinity House, and Mr. E. J. Heseltine for extracts from the records of the Trinity House; to Mr. J. H. Hirst, Hull City Architect, for the draft of the illustration on p. 167; and to Mr. W. G. B. Page, for revising the proofs of The East Riding Roll of Honour.

(3) To Col. Mark Sykes, M.P., Canon Grimston of Stillingfleet, Alderman John Brown, Dr. J. Wright Mason, Mrs. Watson, of Hedon, Mr. W. Morfitt of Atwick, the Curator of the Hull Museums, and others, for permission to take photographs of objects in their possession.

(4) To the Editor of the Transactions of the East Riding Antiquarian Society, the Hull Scientific Club, and the Hull Museum Publications, for the loan of several blocks; to Professor Collingwood and the Editor of the ‘Yorkshire Archæological Journal’ for the loan of blocks for the illustrations on pp. 55, 63, 64; to Mr. T. A. J. Waddington of York, and the Editor of the ‘Port of Hull Annual’ for that of the blocks used on pp. 236 and 248; and to the Head-Masters and Head Mistresses of the East Riding Schools for that of the blocks used in Chapter XXX.

(5) To his friend, Mr. E. Haworth Earle, and to his colleagues, Mr. C. Bazell and Mr. J. V. Pugh, for reading the proofs of the entire book and correcting many errors that would otherwise have escaped detection.

(6) To his friend and old pupil, Mr. C. W. Mason, for the great amount of time and care which he has bestowed upon the taking of special photographs.

(7) To the Publishers of the book, who have placed in his hands every possible facility for enriching its pages with whatever illustrations they thought would prove of interest, and who have thereby produced a book which it is hoped will reach the high-water mark of excellence in artistic production.

Hymers College, Hull,

1912.

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

THE STORY OF

THE EAST RIDING OF

YORKSHIRE.

I.
WHAT THE EAST RIDING IS.

That an English county which is nearly as large as the ancient kingdom of Wales should become divided into separate portions for the purposes of local government is only what one would expect. But it is not obvious why the number of these portions should be three, and there is even an air of mystery about the name given to them. ‘North Riding,’ ‘West Riding,’ ‘East Riding’—what is this word ‘Riding’?

For the answer to this question we must go back many centuries, to the time of the hardy Norsemen who, as we shall see, settled in such large numbers in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. It was common among the Norsemen of old to divide lands into three portions for the purposes of government, and their name for each portion was thrithjungr.[^[1]]

This mysterious word means in our tongue ‘a third part,’ and from it arose the English word Thriding as companion to feorthing, another word which we use to-day in a very slightly altered form. But the difficulty of pronouncing distinctly and easily the combination ‘North Thriding’ is evident, and the troublesome word suffered the same fate as commonly then befell the troublesome man—it got, quite naturally, beheaded.

The Three Ridings of Yorkshire.

A glance at the small map on this page will show how the county of Yorkshire is divided. By no means are the three Ridings equal in area, the East Riding being far the smallest. In order of size they stand as follows:—

The map shows another point of contrast between the three Ridings. Whereas the West and North Ridings have numerous ranges of hills and correspondingly numerous water-channels, the East Riding is, with the exception of its northern extremity, an eastward extension of the ‘Vale of York’ and very nearly as flat as the proverbial pancake. Its only rivers are the Hull and the Derwent, and the latter for more than half its course forms the boundary of the Riding.

An uninteresting part of the county it looks to be, does it not? But, nevertheless, it has an interesting history behind it, and men and women have been born and bred in it—men and women who have helped to make our country what it is to-day. Who they have been, how they have lived, and what they have done in the ages before we ourselves were born, it is the purpose of the following pages to show.

II.
HOW THE EAST RIDING WAS MADE.

Stand on the very highest point of the white limestone cliffs that stretch northwards from Flamborough Head, and realise that you are standing on what was once the bed of the sea.

Strange though this be, it is nevertheless true. Countless ages ago what now towers up 450 feet above sea-level had over it the ceaseless rolling of the waters of the ocean, and during countless ages it was slowly formed out of the shells and teeth and bones of the creatures that lived in these waters.

Men who know tell us that the layer of chalk at the bottom of the ocean to-day is composed principally of the remains of creatures so minute as to be visible only by the aid of a microscope, and that this layer grows in thickness at the rate of not more than one-tenth of an inch per year. They tell us also that the layer of chalk which extends under our county is not less than 1200 feet in thickness, and thus a simple calculation will help us to form some idea of the extent of time necessary for its formation. But however long this time actually was, it came to an end with a tremendous upheaval of a portion of the ocean bed, and the formation of a new area of ‘dry land.’

All the coast line of the East Riding, however, does not consist of chalk cliffs. North of Bempton and Speeton lie cliffs of sandstone and clay, which have yielded the fossil remains of living beings that once inhabited the water and the shore. Such are the belemnites and ammonites—the ‘thunderbolts’ and ‘St. Hilda’s snakes’ we may have heard them called—and the Ichthyosaurus, whose skeleton was recently discovered embedded in the clay cliffs at Speeton and may now be seen in the Hull Museum. Not a very handsome gentleman in the flesh he must have been, unless appearances are deceptive.

One of the First Inhabitants of the East Riding.
Actual length about twelve feet.

Again, walk southwards from Flamborough Head, and the chalk cliffs are found to get less and less in height until they disappear altogether, and their place is taken by cliffs of clay. Then these disappear, and are succeeded by the long, flat bank of sand and shingle which is known as Spurn Point; and if we round this point and follow the river bank, we find it nothing but mud and clay until we get past the mouth of the river Hull. At Hessle the chalk cliffs break out once more, and we know, from investigations, that the bed of chalk comes to the surface completely westwards of a line drawn from Flamborough to this point.

Draw on a map of the East Riding a line from Sewerby, through Driffield and Beverley, to Hessle, and you are drawing the line of the old sea-beach when the upheaval previously mentioned had taken place. This was the shore of a land inhabited by races of animals now found living only in tropical regions. The elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus and hyena ranged the land for food, and bones of these creatures have been found in considerable numbers in the caves that exist at Kirkdale in the North Riding.

Then came a great change. The climate of Northern Europe became colder and colder till there prevailed what scientists call the ‘Great Ice Age.’ This was the time of formation of huge glaciers which spread from the mountains of Scandinavia, Scotland, and north-west England southwards and eastwards into the sea, until they met and made its whole area a slowly moving mass of ice. With the ice were carried sand, gravel, clay, boulders torn from projecting rocks, and bones of Arctic animals, such as the walrus, the reindeer, and the Irish elk; and as the ice gradually melted, all these were deposited at the base of the line of chalk cliffs, or even on the summit of the cliffs where these were low. From the gravel pits at Burstwick excavations of ballast for the embankments of the North Eastern Railway brought to light animal bones in such quantities that many tons were sold to chemical manure manufacturers, and it is probable that many tons still remain undiscovered.

A walrus tusk from Kelsey Hill and the tooth of a mammoth from the cliffs at Atwick.[^[2]]

In this way was formed the ‘great mass of gravel, clay, and sand ... east of the Yorkshire Wolds’ which we know as the Plain of Holderness. Here is what one of our foremost local geologists has to say of its beginnings:—

‘Let us imagine the probable appearance of East Yorkshire on the final melting of the ice. Huge fans or sheets of gravel occur at Bridlington and other places as a result of the floods. Rounded hillocks of gravel and clay stand out in all directions; the hollows in between are filled with water, forming miniature lakes or meres. Of animal or plant life there is little or none. The climate gradually becomes milder; at first Arctic plants and animals exist in small numbers. Later, the margins of the meres become clothed in vegetation; peat is eventually formed, and huge trees of Oak and Fir thrive. The Red Deer, Beaver, Short-horned Ox, Otter, and Wild Horse, haunt the woods, and finally primitive man makes his appearance.’

Skull and Antlers of a Red Deer found in the Hornsea
Peat-bed.

III.
MEN OF THE STONE AGE.

What sort of man was it who first inhabited Holderness and how did he live? Artists in his day were few and far between, and the few who did exist in Europe gave pleasure to themselves and to their companions by drawing portraits of reindeer and horses on pieces of bone. To draw portraits of their fellows was probably the last thing they would think of doing. Reindeer and horses are graceful creatures, but the artists’ fellows were anything but graceful.

As far as we know, the first inhabitants of Holderness were a race of short, dark-haired men, who depended for their food and clothing on the animals of the forest and the mere, who pursued their prey and fought one another with weapons of stone, and who lived in dwellings built on piles driven into the bed of a lake in exactly the same way as the New Guinea islanders live to-day.

Something definite about their dwelling-places we know; for what is appropriately called a lake-dwelling was discovered thirty years ago at Ulrome. This was a structure made of tree trunks laid side by side and held together by piles driven into the bed of what was then a large mere.

Bone Implements and Weapons from Barrows on the Wolds.

On this rough sort of platform, which measured 90 feet by 60 feet, dwelling-places had been constructed, and a ‘popular watering-place’ it must have been; for there was evidence that it had been built in the first place by a race of people whose tools were of flint and bone, and that this race had been ousted many years later by another more advanced race who had weapons and tools of bronze. That the dwellers here were mighty hunters and mighty eaters was proved by enormous accumulations of animal bones under and around the platform. That they were also cannibals is likely from the presence of human bones among this refuse.

So much for the ‘lake-dwellers’ of Ulrome. Up on the Wolds there were men living a somewhat different life. These hunted and ate the same kinds of creatures, and they used the same kinds of weapons, but their dwellings were dug out of the soil—shallow circular or elliptical pits each covered over with a conical roof of branches and turf, supported on a central post; or deeper troughs covered over with sods and scrub laid on slabs of chalk, so that the roof was level with the surrounding earth and indistinguishable from it.

Of the former kind of pit-dwelling an example has been discovered in the hollow known as Garton Slack, the pit measuring rather less than 9 feet by 6 feet in length and breadth, and 5 feet in depth; while one of the latter kind has come to light under Kemp Howe, a few miles north of Driffield.[^[3]] The underground chamber here measured 25 feet by 4½ feet, had a depth of 6 feet at its deeper end, and was approached by a sloping passage 11 feet in length, the entrance to which would doubtless be hidden with scrub. The roof had been supported on six upright posts, and for twelve feet along one side of the chamber ran a stone ledge—this last being evidently a luxury.

It is probable that these two kinds of dwellings may have been respectively the summer and winter houses of the same people. For the Roman historian Tacitus says of the ancient tribes on the other side of the North Sea:—

Besides their ordinary habitations, they have a number of subterranean caves, dug by their own labour and carefully covered over with soil, in winter their retreat from cold and the repository for their corn. In these recesses they not only find a shelter from the rigour of the seasons, but in times of foreign invasions their effects are safely concealed.

Of the men who lived on the Yorkshire Wolds we know a great deal; for it was their custom to raise over the burial places of their chiefs circular mounds of earth, some still very large, others now only a foot or two high. The relative size of a burial mound, which we speak of either by the Latin name tumulus or by the English names barrow and howe, marks the importance of the chieftain whose body or ashes once lay under it.

These tumuli, or barrows, are very plentifully strewn over the Yorkshire Wolds, and for more than fifty years the late Mr. J. R. Mortimer, of Driffield, devoted all his leisure time to their excavation. The results of his labours are to be seen in his private museum—the Mortimer Museum—and details of his ‘finds’ are recorded in his large book on the Burial Mounds of East Yorkshire, some of the illustrations in which are here reproduced.

A general idea of how a barrow has been constructed, and of what it may contain, can be gained from the illustration on the next page.

Howe Hill, Duggleby, is one of the larger barrows, built on a sloping hillside, and having at its base a diameter of 125 feet and at its flattened top one of 47 feet.

Section of Howe Hill, Duggleby.

From the diagram we see that the bodies first interred have been placed at the bottom of a cavity dug out of the solid chalk. This hole not proving large enough for the numbers to be buried, an extension has been begun, but not finished. Time was evidently pressing, for some bodies have been buried above the surface of the ground. They have been placed in different positions, but the legs of all have been bent at the knees and all are enclosed in a low mound of clay. Above this lie the remains of numerous other bodies, which have been burnt before burial; and over them comes a twelve-inch layer of a blue clay which is impervious to water. Then a large mound of soil and pieces of chalk has been raised over all, the mound being originally much higher than it is to-day.

Such has been the building of Howe Hill. But it must not be thought that all barrows contain the remains of a large number of bodies. Most contain one only, and the body has either been buried as it was when life left it or been burnt and the calcined bones gathered up in an earthenware vessel, or pinned in a skin garment. The eight full-grown skeletons discovered under Howe Hill are those of men, and we may suppose that they represent a chieftain and his relatives killed in the onslaught by a hostile clan. The cremated bodies, forty of which were discovered in the digging of a trench through the barrow, would be those of his dependants, who died fighting in defence of their lord and master.

But the barrow contains evidence of the lives of the people of the time as well as of their deaths. Scattered through the soil under the band of blue clay were found many broken bones of the ox, roebuck, red deer, fox, goat, and pig, the remains of the burial feast; and among these were human bones which had quite evidently been broken and cooked. It is horrible to think of the people of our East Riding as having once been cannibals, but the evidence to that effect is indisputable.

Here and there were also found portions of the weapons with which the defenders of the settlement had fought—the hammer head shown on page [9], made from the shed antler of a red deer, and the broken javelin head of flint shown on page [15]. In this barrow was also found the wonderfully made flint knife represented below—an implement fashioned out of a piece of flint with no other tools than such as are mentioned below, and yet fashioned so delicately that its greatest thickness is only one-sixteenth of an inch.

Polished Flint Knife found in Duggleby
Howe (1/1).

A clever workman he must have been who made this wonderful knife. But such beautifully wrought implements are very rare. Only one similar knife—found in a barrow at Aldro—was known to its discoverer, and he had himself superintended the excavation of no fewer than two hundred and eighty-eight barrows.

The weapons and tools which have been buried with their owners are more commonly of the rougher types figured on the opposite page. They include knives, chisels, spear heads, saws, and arrow heads, all made from flints by the processes of chipping and flaking, with hammer heads, picks, needles and daggers of bone.

Compare the figures A and B given on page 9 with the illustration of the antlers of a red deer on page 7, and see how cleverly the hammer head and the pick have been fashioned. Equally clever has been the adaptation of a bone in the making of the very primitive dagger figured at D on the same page. But in this case it has been not the antler of a red deer that has been brought into use, but the thigh-bone of a man.

Flint Implement and Weapons.
A. Chisel from Aldro (1/1). B. Barbed arrow head from
Grimston (1/1) C. Javelin head from Duggleby Howe (1/1).

So far we have spoken of weapons and implements of bone and of flint. Others were then in use made of whinstone and greenstone, such as the axe heads figured overleaf. Notice the different arrangement of the cutting edge in these two implements, and notice also that in the first one the hole intended for the insertion of a wooden handle has, for some reason or other, not been finished. Perhaps the maker was killed before he had time to finish it, or perhaps he grew tired of his work and threw it away. At any rate this unfinished adze head was found loose on the surface of the ground, and not buried under a howe as was the other.

Unfinished Stone Adze Head
picked up on Acklam Wold (1/1).

Whinstone Axe Head from
a Barrow on Calais
Wold (2/3).

Weapons and implements of stone! May we not justly call their makers Men of the Stone Age? They lived before man knew how to dig metals from the earth, and how, having obtained them, to melt and mould them to his wish.

But besides these weapons which have lain buried with their owners for some thousands of years, there are yielded up by the barrows earthenware vessels of different sizes and shapes. Some, like that shown below, are wide-mouthed and have a thick rim; others are narrower, and their rim is not thickened. Then others have an overhanging rim; and others, again, are small, only an inch or two in height, and have from two to six holes perforated in their sides. All are marked with simple patterns, made by pressing the pointed end of a stick or the thumb-nail into the moist clay, or by pressing round it a twisted thong of hide. There has been no glazing and no attempt to make use of artificial colour.

Food Vessel from a Barrow on Acklam Wold (1/2).

Each of these vessels has had its particular use. The first-named vessels, which are by far the most common, are always found to be stained with some decomposed matter on the inside of the bottom, and their use has undoubtedly been as food vessels. So also we may consider the second group to be drinking vessels. The food and drink which these two contained when they were buried have been intended for their owners in the new life to come, when food and drink would be again required. The vessels of the third kind are always found to contain remains of a body which has been cremated before burial—hence their name cinerary urns—and the last-named and smallest, which are found with them, have probably been used to hold the precious spark of fire which lit the funeral pyre.

The Rudston Monolith

Let us leave these howes and barrows and examine another example of the work of the Men of the Stone Age. Close to the wall of the village church at Rudston stands a huge upright stone, or monolith. Twenty-five feet is its height above the ground, and sixteen feet its girth, while it is said to be embedded in the ground as deep as it is high above the surface. Its weight is estimated as not far short of forty tons. What is it doing in a village churchyard, and who put it there? When and how was it placed where it now stands?

The earliest kind of Axe used in East Yorkshire.

It is impossible to give any definite answers to these questions. A century ago, however, the village people answered them all very easily. The Devil, they said, objected to the building of the church, and flung this stone to destroy it before its completion. But his aim was not so accurate as it was intended to be, and the missile missed its mark. Asked for a proof of their wonderful story, they would point to the stone itself. There it was for everyone to see. What further proof could be needed?[^[4]] Whether we believe this legend or not, two things are certain. First, that the stone is as old as the barrows in the surrounding wolds; secondly, that there is no rock of the same nature nearer to it than Filey Brig and the Brimham Rocks. Was it brought down by the great ice sheet and then erected by the men of the Stone Age to serve some purpose in their heathen rites, or did they bring it up from Filey or down from the hills of the North Riding on wooden rollers? Perhaps it is not more difficult to conceive of their doing this than of their raising such a huge barrow as that which stands unopened at the foot of Garrowby Hill—a mound 250 feet in diameter at its base and 50 feet in height.

IV.
MEN OF THE BRONZE AGE.

The Ancient Britons.

With the coming of Julius Caesar to Britain in the middle of the first century before the birth of Christ, we reach the time in the history of our country when definite facts about its people begin to be recorded.

Thus we know from Caesar’s own writings that the Britons lived in houses like those of the Gauls, that they had great numbers of cattle, that they used copper coins, that many of the inland tribes did not grow corn but lived on milk and flesh and went clothed in skins, that in war time they dyed their bodies with a blue stain to give them a more terrible aspect, and that they wore long hair on their heads and their upper lips.

So also, with regard to their religion, Caesar tells us that their priests were called Druids; that if any crime had been committed, or if there were any dispute about an inheritance or a boundary, it was the Druids who gave judgment; that they had vast stores of learning, all of which was committed to memory and none committed to writing; and that their chief doctrine was that the soul of man did not perish, but passed after death into another body, so that no man should fear death.

Bronze Celt or Axe Head found at Swine.

From these accounts we see that there had been great progress made since the times described in the last chapter. This was due to the migration westwards of a new race of people—the Kelts—who had gained a knowledge of the use of metal, and who, consequently, had weapons and implements made of bronze instead of stone. Their greater knowledge gave them greater power, and the extinction of the men of the Stone Age was only a question of time. For not often was the bronze-weaponed warrior slain by a weapon of stone.

But the account written by Julius Caesar refers to the inhabitants of the southern parts of our island. ‘Many of the inland tribes do not grow corn, but live on milk and flesh and go clothed in skins.’ This passage may be taken as true of the tribes living north of the Humber, known—so later Roman writers tell us—as the Brigantes, the wildest and most savage of the tribes inhabiting Britain.

Let us see what Mr. Mortimer’s discoveries have to tell us of these Brigantes. The most interesting discovery, perhaps, was that made in a barrow on Calais Wold, the highest point of the Yorkshire Wolds, 807 feet above sea-level. Here, on the mound being removed, a double row of stake-holes was exposed in the surface of the ground. These were from 3 to 15 inches in diameter, and were arranged in circles having diameters of 21½ and 28 feet. Outside these were four other stake-holes, and beyond these again a circular trench 100 feet in diameter, 3 feet 9 inches deep, 9 feet across at the top, and 1 foot across at the bottom. Within the double circle of stake-holes was a cavity cut in the chalk and containing a skeleton lying on its side, with its knees bent.

The plan on the opposite page shows the arrangement exactly, and the drawing which accompanies it gives Mr. Mortimer’s clever conjecture of the meaning of the stake-holes. The space enclosed between the inner and outer walls would be used, Mr. Mortimer thought, as a storage place for food, skins, and weapons. It would also serve to keep the inside living-room warm in winter.

Ideal Restoration of the Site of Burial.

Plan of a Barrow on Calais Wold, showing the Encircling Trench and Stake-holes.

‘We will bury our chieftain in his home, which no one after him shall have power to defile.’ So, probably, thought those who buried him. But, if so, time has played them false; for men of a race undreamt of and speaking a tongue of which he would understand hardly one word, have ruthlessly laid bare his burial place, and have carted away his bones to be measured with tape and pencil, and his skull to have its brain cavity estimated with grains of millet seed. What an insult added to injury!

A mighty chieftain he had doubtless been, and it must be his favourite weapon that lies buried with him, so placed that he should be buried as he slept—grasping its handle firmly in his right hand. One wonders how many of his enemies’ skulls that weapon of his had beaten in before its master ceased to use it. Perhaps it had been wielded against the Roman legions brought north of the Humber by Ostorius Scapula in A.D. 50. Who knows? If you would see the head of the weapon you must go to the museum at Driffield; its likeness you will find on page 16.

The Brigantes buried their dead chiefs just as the earlier tribes had done, and the photograph on page 25 shows very clearly the curious way in which the legs were doubled and the head bent back. This skeleton was obtained from a barrow in Garton Slack, and here is what its discoverer says of the pains taken to obtain it:—

‘Being desirous of possessing this skeleton in its entirety, we obtained a quantity of stiff, mortar-like material, scraped from the adjoining high road, with which we covered the remains, in order to keep all the bones in position. We then passed three broad pieces of sheet iron under it without displacing any of the bones. The remains were then lifted on a prepared board, and conveyed to Fimber. After being carefully cleaned, the skeleton was mounted in a glass case, and now, with its relics, and part of the ground on which it was found, forms a highly interesting relic in the museum at Driffield.’

The skeleton is that of a woman, and with it, you will notice, are two objects. There is no need to say what has been the use of the bone ornament lying behind the head, but the use of the flint implement placed before the jaw is not so obvious. This is one of a class of implements known to us as scrapers—roughly chipped pieces of flint used by the women of a household in scraping the insides of animal skins when preparing them for human wear, and in scraping the roots that went into the ‘stock-pot’ with the flesh of the animals that provided also garments and beds for the household.

How a British Chieftain’s Wife was buried in Garton Slack.

In neither of these two barrows was there any sign of a bronze implement. Weapons and implements of bronze are rare among those found in the barrows of East Yorkshire, and the few discovered are dagger or knife heads and prickers. The Brigantes were far behind the Britons of the south in their knowledge of the use of metal; and at the time when the latter were making use of bronze, the wild and savage tribes of the north were content still to make use of greenstone and flint.

Personal ornaments, too, are rare, and were found accompanying only fifty-seven out of eight hundred and ninety-three burials that Mr. Mortimer excavated. They include dress-fastenings, such as rings and links of jet, and buttons of amber, jet and bone. With only one British interment was gold found, and of silver ornaments none were discovered at all.

A British War Chariot.

Especially interesting to a Yorkshireman are the discoveries of what are called ‘chariot burials.’ The Britons were renowned for their war-chariots, of which the chieftain Caswallon is recorded to have had 4000 when he fought against Julius Caesar. To the Briton himself his chariot was known as an essa, a word which his Roman conquerors latinised as essedum. An essedum was drawn by two horses, and driven by a charioteer who was very expert at running out along the pole between the horses. The essedarii, or charioteers, were held in high esteem among the tribal armies, and when they happened to be captured by the Roman soldiers were great favourites among the spectators of the gladiatorial shows.

On the death of a British chieftain who was a renowned chariot warrior, it was the custom for him to be buried in his chariot together with his horses and their trappings; and the East Riding has given more evidence of this custom than any other part of our country of equal area. The ‘Yorkshireman’ even then, it seems, loved a horse.

Remains of British chariot burials have been discovered at Hesselskew and Arras, near Market Weighton; at Beverley Westwood; at Danes’ Graves; and, most recently, at Hunmanby. In all these instances there have been interred two horses standing in their harness, and in the barrow opened at Danes’ Graves in 1897 there were two human skeletons, proving that in this case the charioteer, as well as his chieftain, was buried.

Of course in all these interments the remains of the chariots themselves have been small, little existing but fragments of the bronze naves and iron rims of the wheels, and of the bridle bits of the horses. But these have been sufficient to show that the diameter of the wheels varied from 2 feet 8 inches to 2 feet 11 inches, and that the horses themselves were of a much smaller breed than those of to-day.

With three, at least, of these chariot burials, were also found remains of an iron mirror, a thing not found elsewhere. We are accustomed in these days of motor-cars to make use of mirrors for a knowledge of what is happening on the road behind the driver, and these remains point to a similar practice among the charioteers of the Brigantes. Really we are not, perhaps, so far advanced in the twentieth century as we thought we were.

Further evidence of the Brigantes in the East Riding is to be seen in the wonderful series of entrenchments that are so noticeable in the Wold districts. Dikes, double dikes, and treble dikes once covered the whole of the Wolds, says Mr. Mortimer; in fact, in the area of 75 square miles which he explored there are 80 miles of earthworks existing to-day. These consist sometimes of one ditch and one rampart only, but commonly of three ditches and four ramparts; and in one case, in the neighbourhood of Huggate, the entrenchment consists of a series of six parallel ditches and seven ramparts.

By far the most remarkable of these ancient entrenchments is the so-called ‘Danes’ Dyke,’ which, 2½ miles in length, cut off the rocky promontory of Flamborough Head, and converted it into an impregnable fortress 5 square miles in area. In making it, advantage was taken of a natural ravine—a relic of the Ice Age—which ran down to the south; but in its northern portion, where the ground was naturally level, a huge ditch roughly 60 feet wide and 20 feet deep was dug, the soil from this being thrown up to form a dyke or rampart on its eastern face.

At Skipsea Brough, near Hornsea, may be seen other British earthworks, consisting of a central mound 70 feet high, having a flat top one acre in extent, and covering altogether an area of 5 acres, together with a series of entrenchments forming the segment of a circle. The outer rampart is half a mile in length. Other much smaller earthworks exist at the ‘Castle Hill,’ Sutton, and the ‘Giant’s Hill,’ Swine.

V.
MEN OF THE IRON AGE.

The Romans in East Yorkshire.

In the last chapter we saw that the later Britons had some knowledge of iron, as well as of copper and tin. But with the Romans the use of iron was much more extensive, and hence they may be called Men of the Iron Age.

The first Roman general to enter the territory of the Brigantes was Ostorius Scapula, who came north in A.D. 50. Twenty-eight years later came Julius Agricola, who penetrated as far north as the rivers Forth and Clyde. By Agricola the ancient British camp Caer Eburac—the camp on the Ebura, or, by its modern name, the Ure—was made into a Roman walled city under the latinised name Eburacum.

From this time Eburācum,[^[5]] or Eborācum as later Roman writers spelt its name, became the proud capital of Britain—altera Roma, a second Rome in importance. Here died the great Roman Emperor Severus in A.D. 211, and here was born the still greater Emperor Constantine, under whose reign Christianity was established in the Roman Empire.

Statue of a Roman
Soldier in the York
Museum.

For nearly three and a half centuries the Roman armies ruled the land of the Brigantes, during which time great alterations were taking place in the lives of its people. Northwards came troop after troop of German and Italian soldiers to subdue and enslave the people of the land north of the Humber, and to wage incessant war against Rome’s enemies still farther north. And southwards marched troop after troop of the men of the Brigantes, on their way to Gaul and Italy and Spain, there to serve as Roman soldiers. In A.D. 117 came to Eboracum the famous Sixth Legion—Legio Sixta, surnamed Victrix, the ‘All Conquering’—and Eboracum was its headquarters thenceforth till A.D. 406, when it was withdrawn to help in defending Rome against the enemies mustering on her threshold.

For the constant movement of troops the Roman invaders needed roads, and the military highways which they constructed across Britain remain foremost among the evidences of their occupation of the country. The fact that their roads have existed for so many centuries—centuries of hard use but of constant neglect—is due to the great care bestowed upon their construction.

When a Roman road was made, the first thing done was to mark out its course by the digging of two parallel ditches. This course was from 15 to 21 feet wide, and on it as the gremium, or foundation ground, was placed a layer of large stones 5 inches deep. This, known as the statumen, was followed by a fifteen-inch layer of broken stones cemented with lime. The rudus thus formed was succeeded by the nucleus, a similar layer 10½ inches thick and constructed of small fragments of brick and pottery. Last came the pavimentum, made of large irregularly-shaped blocks of very hard stone fitted together and cemented with lime so as to form a perfectly even surface. The pavimentum was 5 inches thick, thus making a solid road raised about 3 feet above the level of the surrounding land.

Section of a Roman Military Highway.

Such was the usual method of construction of a Roman highway. Where the natural surface of the ground passed over was hard rock, the two lowest layers, or strata, were dispensed with; but where no safe natural foundation existed, the labour was increased by the driving of piles into the soft ground to afford this.

Over hill and down dale were constructed these wonderful roads. No obstacle save an impenetrable marsh or an unbridgeable river baulked the Roman engineer; and the outward distinguishing mark between the Roman road constructed sixteen centuries ago and its modern successor is often the fact that whereas the latter goes round a hill, and thus makes things easy for the traveller, the former climbs in a straight line right over the summit.

What engineering skill the Romans must have possessed to build their roads! Straight from one military station to another miles distant over the hills did they succeed in driving their road. How did they judge its direction so accurately? We know not. And what immense labour was needed for the construction of their roads! Think of the cohorts of Roman soldiers engaged in building them, and of the slave-gangs of Britons toiling under the lash of the task-master as they quarried the materials for the use of the soldiers working many miles away. So hard was the work of the Roman soldiers in Britain, we read, that they ‘wished for death to relieve them from their insupportable toil.’

But human life stood for little in those days. What Roman engineer cared whether thousands of lives were spent in the making of his road? His one concern was to build it in such a way that for centuries to come the Roman legions should be able to march, and the Imperial Post to ride, along its hundreds of miles at the greatest possible speed. One hundred and sixty-five English miles were covered by Caesarius, a Roman magistrate, in the space of one day on a journey from Antioch to Constantinople, the whole distance of 665 miles taking less than six days. There is little wonder that Rome had become ‘Mistress of the World.’

Let us now see what the Roman road-makers did in East Yorkshire. Stretching north from Londinium ran the military highway known in later times as Ermin Street. At Lindum Colonia this branched in two directions, both branches meeting eventually at Eboracum. Skirting the impassable marshes around the meeting-places of the Yorkshire rivers and the Trent, one branch reached Eboracum by bridges or fords across the Trent, the Don, the Aire, and the Wharfe, where now stand Littleborough, Doncaster, Castleford, and Tadcaster. The crossing-places were protected by military stations which have since grown into these towns.

But directly north from Lincoln the second branch reached the Humber at Winteringham, whence the river was crossed by ferry to Brough, where also was a military station, named Petuaria. From Brough to York the road passed through South Cave, South Newbald, Houghton Woods, Thorpe le Street, Barmby Moor and Stamford Bridge. Along this second branch would travel the Roman Emperors and Generals, the Imperial Post, and the slave-carried litters and chairs of the Roman aristocracy; round by the former would march the foreign troops drafted to Eboracum to replace the wastage in the Sixth Legion, and the British levies on their way to fight and die in other parts of the Roman world.

At South Newbald this Roman road branched to the right, passing by Londesborough, Warter, Millington and Acklam, to a camp at Old Malton. From Stamford Bridge eastward ran another road by Garrowby, Fimber, Cottam and Kilham to a Roman station on the cliffs at Sewerby. Higher up on the Wolds ran an alternative route by Fridaythorpe, Sledmere, Octon and Rudston. These two roads are to-day known as the Low Street and the High Street.

Smaller roads ran from Stamford Bridge to Old Malton, and from the latter to Fimber and possibly farther south in the direction of Beverley. Round the coast from Bridlington there was probably a road—long since washed away—to a military station on the headland which then existed about a mile to the east of the present Kilnsea.

In North Lincolnshire Ermin Street is a typical Roman military road, and for the greater part of its course it is to-day the ‘king’s highway.’ But its northerly portion has, since the establishing of the Ferry at New Holland, been disused, and is now but a green lane, whose very surface is lost to view as we approach the Humber.

When we enter the territory of the Brigantes the road is not so distinguishable, and its course is in some parts uncertain. But even then the name of ‘Street’ given by the successors of the Romans to the Roman paved way—the way made of strata—survives; and on the map of the East Riding we shall find Garrowby Street, Humber Street, Wharram le Street, and Thorpe le Street, each name being significant of a Roman road. In some instances the road itself has been uncovered, as in the building of Drewton Bridge 60 years ago, and in building operations at Londesborough Park, where it was found to be 24 feet wide, and to show plainly the marks of wheeled carriages.

At many places in the East Riding have been discovered evidences of Roman commerce and domestic life. Bronze and silver coins buried in vases or boxes have been unearthed at Cowlam, Warter, Nunburnholme, Skerne, Wetwang, and Brough. At the first-named place more than 10,000 coins had been buried in a large black vase, the finds at Warter and Nunburnholme numbered about half that at Cowlam, and the Copper Hall Farm at Skerne owes its name to a similar find.

So also Roman coins have been unearthed at Hornsea, Aldborough, Withernsea and Hollym, on the line of a coast road from Bridlington to Kilnsea, though the road itself has long since been washed away.

ROMAN ROADS AROUND THE HUMBER

Of particular interest, as pointing to the fact that the road leading southward to Brough was an export trade route, is a ‘pig’ of lead weighing 9 stone 9 lbs. discovered twenty years ago in a field adjoining the road at South Cave. This bears in raised letters an inscription, which, written in uncontracted form as

CAII IVLII PROTI BRITANNICUM LVTVDAE EX

ARGENTO

would mean in our tongue [The lead] of Caius Julius Protus, British [lead] from Lutuda, [prepared] from silver.

Roman Pig of Lead found at South Cave.]

The lead mines of Derby were famous in Roman times, and much lead was exported from Britain to Italy; so we may easily suppose that this particular pig was lost in transit to the place of shipment.

As evidences of domestic life we have hypocausts, or underground heating-chambers for the supply of hot air and hot water to the rooms of Roman villas. These must once have been numerous—for no wealthy Roman could do without his warm bath—but so far only a few have been discovered. Again, we have examples of the Roman writing-implements, styli by name, two of which, found at Brough, are illustrated below.

Roman ‘Pens’ found at Brough.

When a Roman wished to write, his implements were very simple—a tablet of wax and a stylus. With the pointed end of the latter he scratched his letters on the surface of the wax; and if he made mistakes he had only to smooth them out by using the other end, which was flattened for the purpose. The Roman schoolboy probably found the stylus a very convenient instrument.

Relics of Roman Feasts found at Easington.

Humbler evidences of domestic life have been discovered in the ‘kitchen middens,’ or refuse heaps, which the incursions of the sea have exposed at Easington and Kilnsea. From these have been obtained numberless oyster shells and fragments of pottery, the relics of dining-room feasts and kitchen breakages. The former are very interesting, because they show the method by which the Roman cook overcame the natural reluctance of the creatures within them to ‘come out of their shells.’

How very curiously such discoveries of ancient relics may be made is seen in the recent case of an inhabitant of South Ferriby. A half-witted man, by name Thomas Smith, but known locally by the more familiar name ‘Coin Tommy,’ made it his practice for several years to walk along the shore of the river just after the periods of high tide, and to pick up all metal objects which he happened to see. Whether horse-shoe or brace-button did not matter to ‘Coin Tommy.’ Into his pocket went everything of metal which he found; and on his reaching home after each of these expeditions, his ‘finds’ were transferred to a stock of tin canisters, and packed away on the shelves of his cupboard never again to be looked at by their finder.

Now it was known by Coin Tommy’s associates that his finds were not all horse-shoes and brace-buttons. But few of his friends expected that after his death would-be purchasers of these finds from distant parts of the country would vie with one another for their possession. Yet so it happened; for Coin Tommy’s miscellaneous collection included no fewer than 3000 Roman coins of gold, silver and bronze, and bronze brooches, finger-rings, bracelets, tweezers, spoons, earpicks and styli innumerable.

The explanation of the occurrence of all these objects along this portion of the south bank of the Humber is that there had been at this spot a Roman cemetery, and that changes in the currents of the Humber have caused each high tide during the last few years to wash away some portion of the bank, and thus bring to light treasures buried sixteen centuries ago. And though South Ferriby is not in East Yorkshire, Coin Tommy’s finds may fitly be mentioned in the story of the East Riding; for it is probable that many of the owners of the bracelets and brooches and finger rings had lived at Petuaria, on the Yorkshire side of the river.

Very interesting are the fibulae, or brooches, here discovered. Some have engraved upon them the name of their maker, AVCISSA, and one, having blue enamel let into the bronze surface, is constructed in the form of a fish.

A ‘Safety Pin’ Sixteen Hundred Years Old.

This may be taken as evidence of its wearer’s being a Christian, for in early days the fish was an emblem of Christianity. In other cases the brooch is made of a single piece of bronze wire, twisted to form a spiral spring, and having one of its ends flattened out and bent over to form a catch for the pin—an illustration of the oft-quoted saying ‘There is nothing new under the sun’; for here is an exact model of the safety-pin invented, or rather re-invented, in the nineteenth century.

Design of the Pavement of a Roman Villa discovered at Harpham.

To come back to the East Riding, our last mention of relics of Roman times shall be that of the mosaic pavement which was discovered in a ploughed field at Harpham in 1904. This pavement formed the floor of the atrium, or square hall of a Roman villa, and was in use probably about the year A.D. 300. It is constructed of small tessarae, or cubes, of red sandstone and chalk, with a few others of dark blue clay, red clay, and yellow limestone in the centre-piece of the design, and makes an ingenious piece of work in the form of a maze.

This Roman pavement has been removed to Hull and reconstructed in the Hull museum. On it when found lay the flat sandstone slabs which had once formed the roof over it. Many iron nails with large flat heads were also found, and in one instance the nail remained fast in position through a hole in one of the slabs.

VI.
OUR ANCESTORS.

From the time when Roman soldiers first penetrated into the territory of the Brigantes, the land which we name Holderness was troubled by the piratical attacks of a people from the other side of the North Sea; and in the early years of the second century the low-lying marshes of this district were inhabited by a tribe whom the Romans called Parisii. In our language they would be called Frisians.

These early Frisian settlers have left us evidence of the places they chose for settlement in the village names Arram, Newsom, Hollym, and Ulrome. Their settlements would probably be peaceful, for the lands taken would be unoccupied pieces of ground rising just above the level of the surrounding marsh.

But as time went on, the eastern and southern shores of Britain were assailed by numerous other bands of plunderers and would-be settlers; and in the later Roman times we find that, beside the army stationed at York under the command of the Duke of Britain to repel the Picts and Scots of the north, there was an army under the Count of the Saxon Shore whose duty it was to defend against invaders the coast from the Wash to the shores of Sussex.

Under Roman rule Britain as a whole prospered exceedingly. Agriculture and commerce were extended, so that we find the lead-merchants of Derby exporting lead to Italy, the chalk-merchants of Tadcaster exporting chalk, and the corn-merchants of the Rhine provinces importing corn from Britain in large quantities.

But beside the export of lead and chalk and corn, another export of trade was going on—the export of the warlike youth of the country, who went to furnish with men the Roman armies in Spain and Gaul and Germany. Those left at home were forbidden by law to carry arms; so there is small wonder that when the Roman legions were withdrawn from Britain Roman towns were sacked and burnt, and Roman civilisation blotted out by hostile invaders. ‘Tragedies can still be guessed at from heaps of ashes and from skeletons of men, women and children found ... in crouching attitudes in hypocausts and other places of concealment; and the human bones frequently discovered at the bottoms of wells ... enable us to see the ruthless savage removing the traces of a murderous raid.’

Petuaria, Praetorium, Derventio—all were sacked and burnt by the hosts of Engle who sailed up the Humber and the Derwent, or landed at Bridlington Bay. Roman houses were generally one-storied buildings roofed with tiles or thatch, and the destruction of a town by fire would be complete. It was also, in most cases, lasting; for the destroyers were men who cared not for a life passed within walls and fortifications. ‘They liked better to hear the lark sing than the mouse squeak.’ So the Roman cities, towns and camps ‘remained in ruins, to be haunted by the owl and the fox.’

But an exception was made by the invaders in the case of the greatest of the Roman cities. Eboracum, Londinium and Lindum Colonia became the chief centres of life for the tribes that captured them; and thus the Eboracum of the Romans became the Eoferwic[^[6]] of the Angles—a dwelling-place in the haunts of the wild boar. Smaller towns were blotted out; and their sites are known to us only by the finding of the family store of coins, or the personal treasures once placed for safety in a little recess in the wall or buried in a vase under the floor—to be overwhelmed with debris, and to remain undiscovered for many centuries.

The hostile tribes who invaded Britain during the fifth and sixth centuries in such numbers as to conquer the whole country from the Isle of Wight to the Firth of Forth, except the mountainous districts of the west, were known as the Engle, the Seaxe and the Iute.[^[7]] Angles, Saxons and Jutes these are to us. The Iute landed on the shores of, and established colonies in, Kent and the Isle of Wight, the former of which developed into a kingdom; the Seaxe established three kingdoms distinguished from one another in name by the adjectives South, East, and West; and separate bands of Engle formed the kingdoms of East Anglia, Mercia, and Northumbria.

It is with the last-named of these ‘Seven Kingdoms’ that we are most particularly concerned. The huge kingdom of Northumbria stretched northwards from the Humber to the Forth, and was at different times either ruled by one king or divided into two separate kingdoms—Deira, from the Humber to the Tees, and Bernicia, from the Tees to the Forth.

How complete was the conquest of Britain by these invading tribes is seen in the account written by Bede, the eighth century monk of Jarrow:—

They burned and harried and slew from the sea on the east to the sea on the west, and no one was able to withstand them.... Many of the miserable survivors were captured in waste places and stabbed in heaps. Some because of hunger gave themselves into the hands of their enemies, to be their slaves for ever in return for food and clothing; some departed sorrowfully over the sea; some remained fearfully in their native land, and with heavy hearts lived a life of want in the forests and waste places and on the high cliffs.

The completeness of the conquest may be seen also in the fact that the language of the Britons was replaced by that of the invaders. The Angles, Saxons and Jutes spoke a language entirely different from the Keltic language of the Britons; but except in the Highlands of Scotland, in Wales, and in the Isle of Man—the parts to which the invaders did not penetrate—the language spoken to-day is English and the name of the country itself is Engla-land, the land of the Engle.

Very definite evidence of the places chosen by the Angles for settlement can be found on the map of the East Riding. Where the head of the household decided to ‘pitch his tent’ a piece of land was enclosed with a tūn,[^[8]] or hedge, and the dwelling erected within it became his new hām,[^[8]] or home. Such was the origin of our numerous towns and villages whose names now end in the syllables ton and ham. In many cases the name of the family is enshrined in the name of the settlement. Thus the Locings—the sons of Loc—the Essings, the Brantings, the Eoferings, and the Hemings gave their names respectively to Lockington, Easington, Brantingham, Everingham, and Hemingbrough.

Besides the endings ton and ham, others which tell of Anglian settlements are worth and bald (a dwelling), cote or coate (a mud cottage), stead (a place), brough or borough (a fortified place), wick (a village), wold (woodland), field (a place where trees have been felled), ley (an open place in a wood), mere (a lake), fleet (the mouth of a river) and ford. Examples of all these can be found on a map of the East Riding.

In their burial customs the Angles were little different from the peoples whom they dispossessed. Like them they often cremated the bodies of their dead, afterwards collecting the charred bones and burying them in earthen vessels, accompanied with the weapons or personal treasures which were to be used again in the life to come. A man was buried with his spear and shield, or with the long one-edged knife whose name—seax—gave rise to the tribal name of the Saxons; a woman with her knife, shears, bronze box containing thread and needles, and beads of glass and amber; a child with his toys, such as the tiny tweezers, knife and shears found with a child’s bones in a burial vase at Sancton.

Iron Knife and Bronze Spoon from an Anglian Cemetery
near Garton Gate House (1/2).

Not always, however, did the Angles cremate the bodies of their dead. More often they buried them near the surface of a British burial mound. From one of the mounds at Driffield, known as ‘Cheesecake Hill,’ was taken a necklace consisting of 219 beads, of which 141 were of amber, two of glass, three of carefully cut crystal, and five of cowrie shells.

Child’s Toys found in a Burial Vase at Sancton.

Not very far from Garton Gatehouse, and near the memorial to Sir Tatton Sykes some three miles farther north, were accidentally discovered two Anglian cemeteries, one of which contained more than sixty bodies of men, women and children. Here all but a few had been buried not with their limbs bent, as was the custom among the Britons, but with their limbs stretched out at full length; and all but one had been buried with their heads to the west. Probably these were Christian burials.

‘Finds’ in an Anglian Cemetery near Garton
Gate House.
A. Bronze ring (1/1). B. Silver brooch (1/1). C. Bone comb (1/2).

From this Anglian cemetery at Garton were obtained many implements and personal ornaments—iron knives and bronze spoons, bronze ankle-rings and buckles, necklaces of glass, amber and amethyst, silver ear-rings, a gold button set with a precious stone, and, luxury of luxuries, a bone comb. What a great advance is thus shown to have taken place in the centuries between the British burial at Garrowby and the Anglian burials at Garton! With the former were weapons of flint and bone; with the latter, implements of bronze and iron, and personal ornaments of silver, gold, and precious stones.

VII.
HOW THE MEN OF THE NORTH BECAME
CHRISTIANS.

During later Roman times the worship of God had been introduced into Britain, and the discovery of the Roman bronze brooch figured on page 38 shows that Christianity had reached the shores of the Humber.

But the invaders who were to give a new name to the country and to become our ancestors were heathens, and chief among their gods was Woden. We of the twentieth century still preserve, the names of Wōden, Tīw, the god of war, and Frīg, the wife of Wōden, in our ‘Wednesday,’ ‘Tuesday,’ and ‘Friday’—the Wodenesdaeg, Tiwesdaeg, and Frigedaeg[^[9]] of our Anglo-Saxon ancestors.

In the passage from Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People which was partly translated in the last chapter, we are given an insight into the way in which the heathen Angles and Saxons despoiled the worshipping-places of the Christian Britons:—

Everywhere priests were slain and murdered by the side of the altars. Bishops together with their people were slain without mercy by fire and sword, and there was none to give the rites of burial to those who were so cruelly murdered.

Thus Britain became again a country entirely pagan, and it was not until the closing years of the sixth century that Christian missionaries from Rome once more set foot in it.

To understand the events leading up to the arrival of these missionaries, we must bear in mind that among the Angles and the Saxons slavery was a common custom. Social ranks of life were very marked, and all men belonged to one of three distinct classes. He who could trace back his descent from the gods ranked as an eorl,[^[10]] or man of noble birth, and all others were divided into two classes—the free and the unfree. A free man, who had the privilege of owning land by virtue of his freedom, was known as a ceorl[^[10]]; but he who was, body and soul, the property of another was called a theow,[^[10]] or slave.

Slaves must have been very numerous in our country during Saxon days; for wars were constantly being waged between the different tribes, and prisoners of war naturally became the slaves of their captors. So also, a man who had fallen into debt and who could not release himself became the theow of the man to whom he owed money; and when he became a slave, his wife and children became slaves likewise, and could be sold by his master. Worst of all, a free man had the right to sell his own children into slavery until they reached the age of seven.

Now it so happened that this horrible custom of selling children as slaves was the direct cause of Christianity’s being re-introduced into our country. A regular export trade in English children was carried on, and about the year 580 there were one day standing exposed for sale in the market of Rome some boys of fair complexion and beautiful hair. Along the market chanced to pass a monk, who was struck with their light-coloured hair and blue eyes, so different from the dark hair and brown eyes of the South European peoples. On his asking the slave-dealer from what country they had been brought, he was told that they came from Britain, and that the people of that island had fair complexions. Unsatisfied with this information, he asked of what race they were, and was told that they were Angli.

‘Non Angli, sed Angeli,’ replied the monk. ‘For their look is angelical, and it is meet that they should become joint heirs with the angels in heaven.’

Then he sought further information concerning them.

‘What do you call the province from which the boys were brought hither?’

‘Deira,’ was the reply given him.

‘Deira!’ said the monk; ‘that is well said. De ira eruti—they shall be snatched from the wrath of God!’

Again he asked: ‘What is the name of their king?’

‘Their king is named Aelle.’

‘Alleluia!’ replied the monk, playing on the name of the king. ‘It is most fit that the love of God our Creator be sung in those parts.’

Fifteen years after this conversation took place in the market of Rome, the monk had become famous as Pope Gregory the First. Then, in fulfilment of the plans he had formed for rescuing the Angli from the wrath of God, he chose a monk named Augustine to make a journey to Britain with some companions. Augustine, with his small band, set out, but on reaching Gaul was so dismayed by the reports of the savage character of the people to whom he was bidden to go, that he turned back, and sought release from the task which had been imposed upon him. This Gregory refused, reminding him that ‘the more difficult the task, the greater is the reward.’

Augustine once more set out, and landed at Ebbsfleet, in the Isle of Thanet, in the Spring of the year 597. The king of Kent was then Aethelberht, who had married a Christian princess, the daughter of the king of the Franks. Thus the way had been made clear for the mission of Augustine, and Kent soon became a Christian kingdom.

King Aelle of Northumbria died in 588, and thirteen years later his son Edwin became king. Edwin had married the daughter of Aethelberht of Kent, Aethelburga by name, and with her there came to Eoferwic Paulinus, a monk.

For long this monk was unable to persuade Edwin to become a Christian; but in 626 there was called a meeting of the king’s Witan, or ‘wise men,’ each of whom was asked what he thought of the new doctrines then being preached by Paulinus.[^[11]] After Coifi,[^[12]] the king’s high priest, had expressed his opinion that the gods they worshipped had no power, one of the king’s counsellors broke in with these words:—

‘Thus it seems to me, O my king, that the life of man on earth, in comparison with the life unknown to us, is just as if you were sitting at table with your ealdormen and thegns in wintertide—when the fire was kindled and your hall made warm, while it rained and snowed outside—and there came a sparrow and quickly flew through the hall, coming in by one door and passing out by the other. During the time that he is passing through the hall he is safe from the winter’s storm, but it is only for the twinkling of an eye, and in the shortest space of time he passes from winter into winter.

‘So seems the life of man—it is ours for a little while, but what goes before it and what follows after we know not. Therefore if this teaching makes anything clearer and more certain, it is meet that we follow it.’

What an apt comparison—the life of a man is like the brief flight of a sparrow through a pleasant room! Many a time must those present when the words were spoken have seen a bewildered sparrow fly swiftly through the king’s hall, entering it to seek shelter from the storm without, and leaving it to seek safety from the smoke of the fire and the noise of men’s voices within. And what more suitable illustration of man’s ignorance of the hereafter could have been chosen? We can imagine its effect upon Coifi, who, on hearing the words of the king’s counsellor, exclaimed:—

‘I see clearly that what we have been worshipping is but naught. For the more earnestly I have sought the truth through our worship, the less I have found it. Therefore, O king, I now advise that we speedily destroy and burn with fire the altars which we hallowed without receiving any benefit.’

Thus were King Edwin of Deira and his Witan converted to the true religion, and the temple which contained the heathen altars destroyed. Coifi himself sought permission to be the first to cast down the idols it contained, and the king granted him weapons and a horse for the purpose. Riding to the temple, he first cast his spear against the altar, and then called to his companions that they should pull down the idols and burn them. ‘The place is yet pointed out,’ wrote Bede one hundred years later, ‘not far east from Eoferwic beyond the river Derwent, and is to-day called Godmundingaham, where the high priest, through the inspiration of the true God, cast down and destroyed the altars which he himself had previously hallowed.’

‘Not far east from York, beyond the river Derwent’—such was Bede’s description of the place of this memorable deed. Godmundingaham, he says, was its new name, and Goodmanham it is in our own day. Tradition says further that the present church, dedicated to All Saints, stands on the exact site of the heathen temple which Coifi, the heathen high priest, was the first to profane. But whether tradition speaks true we have no means of knowing.[knowing.]

Goodmanham Church.
(From an old Engraving).

The immediate results of the adoption of Christianity at Goodmanham were the building of a wooden church at York, and the baptism in it of King Edwin on Easter Day 627. This wooden church, dedicated to St. Peter, was shortly afterwards succeeded by a larger and loftier church of stone, which, in its turn, was destined to be succeeded by another yet larger and loftier—the Minster that we count to-day as one of the glories of Northern England.

Six years later King Edwin was slain in battle against Penda, the heathen king of Mercia, and Cadwallon, a British king, ‘more fierce and cruel than the heathen, for he was a barbarian.’ The head of Edwin was taken to York and buried in the stone church of St. Peter which he had begun to build; and Paulinus, the first Archbishop of York, fled by sea southwards to Kent with Edwin’s widowed queen and their two children. Then for the whole of an ‘unhappy and godless’ year Northumbria was wasted by Cadwallon.

At the end of the year Edwin’s nephew Oswald, with an army small but strengthened by belief in Christ, fought against Cadwallon. Now Oswald was ‘a man dear to God,’ and before the battle he caused to be made a hastily-constructed cross of wood, which was erected in a pit dug in front of his army. With his own hands he set up this cross and held it till his men had made it firm with heaped-up soil. Then did Oswald call to him all his men and gave them his command: ‘Let us all bend the knee and together ask the almighty, living, and true God to defend us with His mercy from this proud and cruel foe; for He knows that we are justly fighting for the safety of our people.’

This they all did; and in the fight which followed, Oswald gained a complete victory, and Cadwallon was slain. The place of Oswald’s victory was called ‘Heavenfield’; and, says Bede, ‘many people to-day take chips and shavings from the wood of that holy cross and put them in water, and sprinkle the water on sick men and beasts, or give them it to drink, and they are at once cured.’