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ENGLISH VILLAGES

BY

P.H. DITCHFIELD M.A., F.S.A.

TO MY WIFE

PREFACE

Eleven years ago my little book on the antiquities of English villages was published. Its object was to interest our rustic neighbours in their surroundings, to record the social life of the people at various times—their feasts and fairs, sports and pastimes, faiths and superstitions—and to describe the scenes which once took place in the fields and lanes they know so well. A friendly reviewer remarked that the wonder was that a book of that kind had never been written before, and that that was the first attempt to give a popular and readable sketch of the history and associations of our villages. In the present work I have attempted to fill in the sketch with greater detail, and to write not only for the villagers themselves, but for all those who by education are able to take a more intelligent interest in the study of the past.

During the last decade many village histories have been written, and if this book should be of service to anyone who is compiling the chronicles of some rural world, or if it should induce some who have the necessary leisure and ability to undertake such works, it will not have been written in vain.

One of the most distressing features of modern village life is the continual decrease of the population. The rural exodus is an alarming and very real danger to the welfare of social England. The country is considered dull and life therein dreary both by squire and peasant alike. Hence the attractions of towns or the delights of travel empty our villages. The manor-house is closed and labourers are scarce. To increase the attractions of our villages, to arouse an interest in their past history and social life, is worth attempting; and perhaps this Story may be of some use in fostering local patriotism, and in reconciling those who spend their lives far from the busy hives of men to their lot, when they find how much interest lies immediately around them.

The study of archaeology has been pursued with much vigour during recent years, and increased knowledge has overthrown the many wild theories and conjectures which were gravely pronounced to be ascertained facts by the antiquaries of fifty years ago. Gildas, Geoffrey of Monmouth, or Richard of Cirencester are no longer accepted as safe and infallible guides. We know that there were such people as the Druids, but we no longer attribute to them the great stone circles nor imagine them sacrificing on “Druid’s altars,” as our forefathers called the dolmens. The history of Britain no longer begins with the advent of Julius Caesar, nor is his account of the Celtic tribes and their manners accepted as a full and complete statement of all that is known about them. The study of flint implements, of barrows and earthworks, has considerably thrown back our historical horizon and enabled us to understand the conditions of life in our island in the early days of a remote past before the dawn of history. The systematic excavation of Silchester, so ably conducted by the Society of Antiquaries, and of other Roman sites of towns and villas, enables us to realise more clearly the history of Britain under the rule of the Empire; and the study of the etymology of place-names has overthrown many of the absurd derivations which found a place in the old county histories, and are often repeated by the writers of modern guide books. Moreover patient labour amid old records, rolls, and charters, has vastly increased our knowledge of the history of manors; and the ancient parish registers and churchwardens’ account books have been made to yield their store of information for the benefit of industrious students and scholars. There has been much destruction and much construction; and this good work will doubtless continue, until at length English archaeology may be dignified with the title of an exact science. Destruction of another kind is much to be deplored, which has left its mark on many an English village. The so-called “restoration” of ancient parish churches, frequently conducted by men ignorant of the best traditions of English architecture, the obliteration of the old architectural features, the entire destruction of many interesting buildings, have wrought deplorable ruin in our villages, and severed the links with the past which now can never be repaired. The progress of antiquarian knowledge will I trust arrest the destroyer’s hand and prevent any further spoliation of our diminished inheritance. If this book should be found useful in stimulating an intelligent interest in architectural studies, and in protecting our ancient buildings from such acts of vandalism, its purpose will have been abundantly achieved.

I am indebted to many friends and acquaintances for much information which has been useful to me in writing this book; to Sir John Evans whose works are invaluable to all students of ancient stone and bronze implements; to Dr. Cox whose little book on How to Write the History of a Parish is a sure and certain guide to local historians; to Mr. St. John Hope and Mr. Fallow for much information contained in their valuable monograph on Old Church Plate; to the late Dr. Stevens, of Reading; to Mr. Shrubsole of the same town; to Mr. Gibbins, the author of The Industrial History of England, for the use of an illustration from his book; to Mr. Melville, Mr. P.J. Colson, and the Rev. W. Marshall for their photographic aid; and to many other authors who are only known to me by their valuable works. To all of these gentlemen I desire to express my thanks, and also to Mr. Mackintosh for his artistic sketch of a typical English village, which forms the frontispiece of my book.

P.H.D.

BARKHAM RECTORY
May, 1901

CONTENTS

I. [INTRODUCTION]
II. [PREHISTORIC REMAINS]
III. [TUMULI OR BARROWS]
IV. [PIT AND PILE DWELLINGS]
V. [CROMLECHS, CAMPS, AND EARTHWORKS]
VI. [ROMAN RELICS]
VII. [ANGLO-SAXON VILLAGES]
VIII. [SAXON RELICS]
IX. [ENGLISH ARCHITECTURE]
X. [NORMAN VILLAGES AND THE “DOMESDAY BOOK”]
XI. [NORMAN CASTLES]
XII. [MONASTERIES]
XIII. [THE MANOR-HOUSE]
XIV. [PARISH CHURCHES]
XV. [CHURCH PLATE]
XVI. [MONUMENTAL EFFIGIES AND BRASSES]
XVII. [THE PARISH CHEST]
XVIII. [STAINED GLASS, TILES, AND MURAL PAINTINGS]
XIX. [CHURCH BELLS]
XX. [THE MEDIAEVAL VILLAGE]
XXI. [VILLAGE SPORTS AND PASTIMES]
XXII. [THE VILLAGE INN]
XXIII. [VILLAGE SUPERSTITIONS AND FOLKLORE]

[APPENDIX]—BOOKS AND DOCUMENTS
RELATING TO PAROCHIAL HISTORY

[INDEX]

ILLUSTRATIONS

FULL-PAGE (photographs)

[Click on photographs to enlarge]

[An English Village street]
[Palaeolithic implements]
[Neolithic and bronze implements]
[Old market cross]
[Broughton Castle]
[Netley Abbey, south transept]
[Southcote Manor, showing moat and pigeon-house]
[Old Manor-house—Upton Court]
[Stone Tithe Barn, Bradford-on-Avon]
[Village church in the Vale]
[An ancient village]
[Anne Hathaway’s cottage]
[Old stocks and whipping-post]
[Village inn, with old Tithe Barn of Reading Abbey]
[Old cottages]

IN THE TEXT (drawings

[Barbed and leaf-shaped arrow-heads]
[Plan of a tumulus]
[Plan of tumulus called Wayland Smith’s Cave, Berkshire]
[Celtic cinerary urn]
[Articles found in pit dwellings]
[Iron spear-head found at Hedsor]
[Menhir]
[Rollright stones (from Camden’s Britannia, 1607)]
[Dolmen]
[Plan and section of Chun Castle]
[The White Horse at Uffington]
[Plan of Silchester]
[Capital of column]
[Roman force-pump]
[Tesselated pavement]
[Beating acorns for swine (from the Cotton MS., Nero, c. 4)]
[House of Saxon thane]
[Wheel plough (from the Bayeux tapestry)]
[Smithy (from the Cotton MS., B 4)]
[Saxon relics]
[Consecration of a Saxon church]
[Tower of Barnack Church, Northamptonshire]
[Doorway, Earl’s Barton Church]
[Tower window, Monkwearmouth Church]
[Sculptured head of doorway, Fordington Church, Dorset]
[Norman capitals]
[Norman ornamental mouldings]
[Croyland Abbey Church, Lincolnshire]
[Semi-Norman arch, Church of St. Cross]
[Early English piers and capitals]
[Dog-tooth ornament]
[Brownsover Chapel, Warwickshire]
[Ball-flower mouldings, Tewkesbury Abbey]
[Ogee arch]
[Decorated capitals, Hanwell and Chacombe]
[Decorated windows, Merton College Chapel; Sandiacre, Derbyshire]
[Decorated mouldings, Elton, Huntingdonshire; Austrey, Warwickshire]
[Perpendicular window, Merton College Chapel, Oxford]
[Tudor arch, vestry door, Adderbury Church, Oxon]
[Perpendicular parapet, St. Erasmus’ Chapel, Westminster Abbey]
[Perpendicular moulding, window, Christchurch, Oxford]
[Diagram of a manor]
[Ancient plan of Old Sarum]
[A Norman castle]
[Tournament]
[A monk transcribing]
[Ockwells manor-house]
[Richmond Palace]
[Doorway and staircase, Ufton Court]
[The porch, Ufton Court]
[Window of south wing, Ufton Court]
[Ancient pew-work, Tysoe Church, Warwickshire]
[Early English screen, Thurcaston, Leicestershire]
[Norman piscina, Romsey Church, Hants]
[Lowside window, Dallington Church, Northamptonshire]
[Reading-pew, seventeenth century, Langley Chapel, Salop.]
[Chalice and paten, Sandford, Oxfordshire]
[Pre-Reformation plate]
[Censer or thurible]
[Mural paintings (several)]
[Ancient sanctus bell found at Warwick]

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

Local histories—Ignorance and destruction—Advantages of the study of village antiquities—Description of an English village—The church— The manor-house—Prehistoric people—Later inhabitants—Saxons—Village inn—Village green—Legends.

To write a complete history of any village is one of the hardest literary labours which anyone can undertake. The soil is hard, and the crop after the expenditure of much toil is often very scanty. In many cases the records are few and difficult to discover, buried amidst the mass of papers at the Record Office, or entombed in some dusty corner of the Diocesan Registry. Days may be spent in searching for these treasures of knowledge with regard to the past history of a village without any adequate result; but sometimes fortune favours the industrious toiler, and he discovers a rich ore which rewards him for all his pains. Slowly his store of facts grows, and he is at last able to piece together the history of his little rural world, which time and the neglect of past generations had consigned to dusty oblivion.

In recent years several village histories have been written with varied success by both competent and incompetent scribes; but such books are few in number, and we still have to deplore the fact that so little is known about the hamlets in which we live. All writers seem to join in the same lament, and mourn over the ignorance that prevails in rural England with regard to the treasures of antiquity, history, and folklore, which are to be found almost everywhere. We may still echo the words of the learned author of Tom Brown’s Schooldays, the late Mr. Hughes, who said that the present generation know nothing of their own birthplaces, or of the lanes, woods, and fields through which they roam. Not one young man in twenty knows where to find the wood-sorrel, or the bee-orchis; still fewer can tell the country legends, the stories of the old gable-ended farmhouses, or the place where the last skirmish was fought in the Civil War, or where the parish butts stood. Nor is this ignorance confined to the unlearned rustics; it is shared by many educated people, who have travelled abroad and studied the history of Rome or Venice, Frankfort or Bruges, and yet pass by unheeded the rich stores of antiquarian lore, which they witness every day, and never think of examining closely and carefully. There are very few villages in England which have no objects of historical interest, no relics of the past which are worthy of preservation. “Restoration,” falsely so called, conducted by ignorant or perverse architects, has destroyed and removed many features of our parish churches; the devastating plough has well-nigh levelled many an ancient barrow; railroads have changed the character of rustic life and killed many an old custom and rural festival. Old legends and quaint stories of the countryside have given place to talks about politics and newspaper gossip. But still much remains if we learn to examine things for ourselves, and endeavour to gather up the relics of the past and save them from the destructive hand of Time.

A great service may thus be rendered not only to the cause of history, but also to the villagers of rural England, by those who have time, leisure, and learning, sufficient to gain some knowledge of bygone times. It adds greatly to the interest of their lives to know something of the place where they live; and it has been well said that every man’s concern with his native place has something more in it than the amount of rates and taxes that he has to pay. He may not be able to write a history of his parish, but he can gather up the curious gossip of the neighbourhood, the traditions and stories which have been handed down from former generations. And if anyone is at the pains to acquire some knowledge of local history, and will impart what he knows to his poorer neighbours, he will add greatly to their interest in life. Life is a burden, labour mere drudgery, when a man has nothing in which he can interest himself. When we remember the long hours which an agricultural labourer spends alone, without a creature to speak to, except his horses or the birds, we can imagine how dull his life must be, if his mind be not occupied. But here, on his own ground, he may find an endless supply of food for thought, which will afford him much greater pleasure and satisfaction than thinking and talking about his neighbours’ faults, reflecting upon his wrongs, or imitating the example of one of his class who, when asked by the squire what he was thinking so deeply about, replied, “Mostly naught.” To remove the pall of ignorance that darkens the rustic mind, to quicken his understanding and awaken his interest, are certainly desirable objects; although his ignorance is very often shared by his betters, who frequently hazard very strange theories and manifest many curious ideas with regard to village antiquities.

We will walk together through the main roads of the village, and observe some of its many points of interest. Indeed, it is no small thing to live in such a “city of memories” as every village is, when at every turn and corner we meet with something that reminds us of the past, and recalls the pleasing associations of old village life. To those who have lived amid the din and turmoil of a large town, where everybody is in a hurry, and there is nothing but noise, confusion, and bustle, the delicious calm and quietude of an old English village, undisturbed by the world’s rude noise, is most grateful. But to live in memory of what has gone before, of the lives and customs of our forefathers, of the strange events that have happened on the very ground upon which we are standing, all this will make us love our village homes and delight in them exceedingly. In most of our large towns the old features are fast disappearing; historical houses have been pulled down to make room for buildings more adapted to present needs, and everything is being modernised; but in the country everything remains the same, and it is not so difficult to let one’s thoughts wander into the past, and picture to one’s self the old features of village life in bygone times.

Most of our villages have the usual common features, and it is not difficult to describe a typical example, though the details vary very much, and the histories of no two villages are identical. We see arising above the trees the church, the centre of the old village life, both religious, secular, and social. It stands upon a site which has been consecrated to the service of God for many centuries. There is possibly in or near the churchyard a tumulus, or burial mound, which shows that the spot was set apart for some religious observances even before Christianity reached our shores. Here the early Saxon missionary planted his cross and preached in the open air to the gathered villagers. Here a Saxon thane built a rude timber church which was supplanted by an early Norman structure of stone with round arches and curiously carved ornamentation. This building has been added to at various times, and now shows, writ in stone, its strange and varied history. The old time-worn registers, kept in the parish chest in the vestry, breathe the atmosphere of bygone times, and tell the stories and romances of the “rude forefathers of the hamlet.” The tombs and monuments of knights and ancient heroes tell many a tale of valour and old-world prowess, of families that have entirely died out, of others that still happily remain amongst us, and record the names and virtues of many an illustrious house. The windows, brasses, bells, and inscriptions, have all some interesting story to relate, which we hope presently to examine more minutely.

Nestling amid the trees we see the manor-house, standing probably on the site of a much older edifice; and this building carries our thoughts back to the Saxon and early Norman times, when the lord of the manor had vassals and serfs under him, held his manorial court, and reigned as a king in his own small domain. The history of the old English manor is a very important one, concerning which much has been written, many questions disputed, and some points still remain to be decided.

Then we notice an old farmhouse which has doubtless seen better days, for there are the remains of an ancient moat around it, as if some family of importance once lived there, and wished to guard themselves and their possessions from troublesome visitors. This moat tells of the times of war and lawlessness, of wild and fierce animals roaming the countryside; and if the walls of the old house could speak how many stories could they tell of the strange customs of our ancestors, of bread riots, of civil wars, and disturbances which once destroyed the tranquillity of our peaceful villages!

We shall endeavour to discover the earliest inhabitants of our villages who left their traces behind in the curious stone and bronze weapons of war or domestic implements, and who lived in far remote periods before the dawn of history. The barrows, or tumuli, which contain their dead bodies tell us much about them; and also the caves and lake dwellings help us to form some very accurate notions of the conditions of life in those distant days. We shall see that the Britons or Celts were far from being the naked woad-dyed savages described by Caesar, whose account has so long been deemed sufficient by the historians of our childhood. We shall call to mind the many waves of invaders which rolled over our country—the Celts, the Romans, Saxons, Danes, and Normans—all of whom have left some traces behind them, and added sundry chapters to the story of our villages.

The fields too proclaim their story, and tell us of the Saxon folk who were our first farmers, and made clearings in the forests, and tilled the same soil we work to-day. They tell us too of the old monks who knew so much about agriculture; and occasionally the plough turns up a rusty sword or cannon ball, which reveals the story of battles and civil wars which we trust have passed away from our land for ever. The very names of the fields are not without signification, and tell us of animals which are now extinct, of the manners of our forefathers, of the old methods of farming, and the common lands which have passed away.

The old village inn, with its curiously painted signboard, has its own story to tell, of the old coaching days, and of the great people who used to travel along the main roads, and were sometimes snowed up in a drift just below “The Magpie,” which had always good accommodation for travellers, and stabling for fifty horses. All was activity in the stable yard when the coach came in; the villagers crowded round the inn doors to see the great folks from London who were regaling themselves with well-cooked English joints; and if they stayed all night, could find comfortable beds with lavender-scented sheets, and every attention. But the railroads and iron steeds have changed all that; until yesterday the roads were deserted, and the glory of the old inns departed. Bicyclists now speed along in the track of the old coaches; but they are not quite so picturesque, and the bicycle bell is less musical than the cheerful posthorn.

On the summit of a neighbouring hill we see a curious formation which is probably an earthwork, constructed many centuries ago by the early dwellers in this district for the purpose of defence in dangerous times, when the approach of a neighbouring tribe, or the advance of a company of free-booting invaders, threatened them with death or the destruction of their flocks and herds. These earthworks we shall examine more closely. An ivy-covered ruin near the church shows the remains of a monastic cell or monastery; and in the distance perhaps we can see the outlines of an old Norman keep or castle; all of these relate to the story of our villages, and afford us subjects for investigation and research.

Then there is the village green where so many generations of the villagers have disported themselves, danced the old country dances (now alas! forgotten), and reared the merry May-pole, and crowned their queen. Here they held their rural sports, and fought their bouts of quarter-staff and cudgel-play, grinned through horse-collars, and played pipe and tabor at many a rustic feast, when life was young and England merry. We shall try to picture to ourselves these happy scenes of innocent diversion which cheered the hearts of our forefathers in bygone times.

[ENLARGE]

AN ENGLISH VILLAGE STREET

We will try to collect the curious legends and stories which were told to us by our grandsires, and are almost forgotten by the present generation. These we should treasure up, lest they should be for ever lost. Local tradition has often led the way to important discoveries.

In this brief circuit of an ordinary English village we have found many objects which are calculated to excite our imagination and to stimulate inquiry. A closer examination will well repay our study, and reward the labour of the investigator. It is satisfactory to know that all possible discoveries as to the antiquities of our villages have not yet been made. We have still much to learn, and the earth has not yet disclosed all its treasures. Roman villas still remain buried; the sepulchres of many a Saxon chieftain or early nomad Celt are still unexplored; the pile dwellings and cave domiciles of the early inhabitants of our country have still to be discovered; and piles of records and historical documents have still to be sought out, arranged, and examined. So there is much work to be done by the antiquary for many a long year; and every little discovery, and the results of every patient research, assist in accumulating that store of knowledge which is gradually being compiled by the hard labour of our English historians and antiquaries.

CHAPTER II

PREHISTORIC REMAINS

Pytheas of Marseilles—Discovery of flint implements—Geological changes—Palaeolithic man—Eslithic—Palaeolithic implements— Drift men—Cave men—Neolithic man and his weapons—Dolichocephalic— Celtic or Brachycephalic race—The Iron Age.

It was customary some years ago to begin the history of any country with the statement, “Of the early inhabitants nothing is known with any certainty,” and to commence the history of England with the landing of Julius Caesar B.C. 55. If this book had been written forty or fifty years ago it might have been stated that our first knowledge of Britain dates from 330 B.C. when Pytheas of Marseilles visited it, and described his impressions. He says that the climate was foggy, a characteristic which it has not altogether lost, that the people cultivated the ground and used beer and mead as beverages. Our villagers still follow the example of their ancestors in their use of one at least of these drinks.

Of the history of all the ages prior to the advent of this Pytheas all written record is silent. Hence we have to play the part of scientific detectives, examine the footprints of the early man who inhabited our island, hunt for odds and ends which he has left behind, to rake over his kitchen middens, pick up his old tools, and even open his burial mound.

About fifty years ago the attention of the scientific world was drawn to the flint implements which were scattered over the surface of our fields and in our gravel pits and mountain caves; and inquiring minds began to speculate as to their origin. The collections made at Amiens and Abbeville and other places began to convince men of the existence of an unknown and unimagined race, and it gradually dawned on us that on our moors and downs were the tombs of a race of men who fashioned their weapons of war and implements of peace out of flint. These discoveries have pushed back our knowledge of man to an antiquity formerly never dreamed of, and enlarged considerably our historical horizon. So we will endeavour to discover what kind of men they were, who roamed our fields and woods before any historical records were written, and mark the very considerable traces of their occupation which they have left behind.

The condition of life and the character and climate of the country were very different in early times from what they are in the present day; and in endeavouring to discover the kind of people who dwelt here in prehistoric times, we must hear what the geologists have to tell us about the physical aspect of Britain in that period. There was a time when this country was connected with the Continent of Europe, and the English Channel and North Sea were mere valleys with rivers running through them fed by many streams. Where the North Sea now rolls there was the great valley of the Rhine; and as there were no ocean-waves to cross, animals and primitive man wandered northwards and westwards from the Continent, and made their abode here. It is curious to note that the migratory birds when returning to France and Italy, and thence to the sunny regions of Algiers and other parts of Northern Africa, always cross the seas where in remote ages there was dry land. They always traverse the same route; and it appears that the recollection of the places where their ancestors crossed has been preserved by them through all the centuries that have elapsed since “the silver streak” was formed that severs England from her neighbours.

In the times of which we are speaking the land was much higher than it is now. Snowdon was 600 feet greater, and the climate was much colder and more rigorous. Glaciers like those in Switzerland were in all the higher valleys, and the marks of the action of the ice are still plainly seen on the rocky cliffs that border many a ravine. Moreover we find in the valleys many detached rocks, immense boulders, the nature of which is quite different from the character of the stone in the neighbourhood. These were carried down by the glaciers from higher elevations, and deposited, when the ice melted, in the lower valleys. Hence in this glacial period the condition of the country was very different from what it is now.

Then a remarkable change took place. The land began to sink, and its elevation so much decreased that the central part of the country became a huge lake, and the peak of Snowdon was an island surrounded by the sea which washed with its waves the lofty shoulder of the mountain. This is the reason why shells and shingle are found in high elevations. The Ice Age passed away and the climate became warmer. The Gulf Stream found its way to our shores, and the country was covered by a warm ocean having islands raising their heads above the surface. Sharks swam around, whose teeth we find now buried in beds of clay. The land continued to rise, and attracted by the sunshine and the more genial clime animals from the Continent wandered northwards, and with them came man. Caves, now high amongst the hills, but then on a level with the rivers, were his first abode, and contain many relics of his occupancy, together with the bones of extinct animals. The land appears to have risen, and the climate became colder. The sea worked its relentless way through the chalk hills on the south and gradually met the waves of the North Sea which flowed over the old Rhine valley. It widened also the narrow strait that severed the country from Ireland, and the outline and contour of the island began more nearly to resemble that with which we are now familiar.

A vast period of time was necessary to accomplish all these immense changes; and it is impossible to speculate with any degree of certainty how long that period was, which transformed the icebound surface of our island to a land of verdure and wild forests. We must leave such conjectures and the more detailed accounts of the glacial and post-glacial periods to the geologists, as our present concern is limited to the study of the habits and condition of the men who roamed our fields and forests in prehistoric times. Although no page of history gives us any information concerning them, we can find out from the relics of arms and implements which the earth has preserved for us, what manner of men lived in the old cave dwellings, or constructed their rude huts, and lie buried beneath the vast barrows.

The earliest race of men who inhabited our island was called the Palaeolithic race, from the fact that they used the most ancient form of stone implements. Traces of a still earlier race are said to have been discovered a few years ago on the chalk plateau of the North Down, near Sevenoaks. The flints have some slight hollows in them, as if caused by scraping, and denote that the users must have been of a very low condition of intelligence—able to use a tool but scarcely able to make one. This race has been called the Eolithic; but some antiquaries have thrown doubts upon their existence, and the discovery of these flints is too recent to allow us to speak of them with any degree of certainty.

[ENLARGE]

PALAEOLITHIC IMPLEMENTS

The traces of Palaeolithic man are very numerous, and he evidently exercised great skill in bringing his implements to a symmetrical shape by chipping. The use of metals for cutting purposes was entirely unknown; and stone, wood, and bone were the only materials of which these primitive beings availed themselves for the making of weapons or domestic implements. Palaeolithic man lived here during that distant period when this country was united with the Continent, and when the huge mammoth roamed in the wild forests, and powerful and fierce animals struggled for existence in the hills and vales of a cold and inclement country. His weapons and tools were of the rudest description, and made of chipped flint. Many of these have been found in the valley gravels, which had probably been dropped from canoes into the lakes or rivers, or washed down by floods from stations on the shore. Eighty or ninety feet above the present level of the Thames in the higher gravels are these relics found; and they are so abundant that the early inhabitants who used them must have been fairly numerous. Their shape is usually oval, and often pointed into a rude resemblance of the shape of a spear-head. Some flint-flakes are of the knifelike character; others resemble awls, or borers, with sharp points evidently for making holes in skins for the purpose of constructing a garment. Hammer-stones for crushing bones, tools with well-wrought flat edges, scrapers, and other implements, were the stock-in-trade of the earliest inhabitant of our country, and are distinguishable from those used by Neolithic man by their larger and rougher work. The maker of the old stone tools never polished his implements; nor did he fashion any of those finely wrought arrowheads and javelin points, upon which his successor prided himself. The latter discovered that the flints which were dug up were more easily fashioned into various shapes; whereas Palaeolithic man picked up the flints that lay about on the surface of the ground, and chipped them into the form of his rude tools. However, the elder man was acquainted with the use of fire, which he probably obtained by striking flints on blocks of iron pyrites. Wandering about the country in families and tribes, he contrived to exist by hunting the numerous animals that inhabited the primeval forests, and has left us his weapons and tools to tell us what kind of man he was. His implements are found in the drift gravels by the riversides; and from this cause his race are known as drift men, in order to distinguish them from the cave men, who seem to have belonged to a little later period.

The first dwellings of man were the caves on the hillsides, before he found out the art of building pile huts. In Palaeolithic times these caves were inhabited by a rude race of feral nomads who lived by the chase, and fashioned the rude tools which we have already described. They were, however, superior to the drift men, and had some notion of art. The principal caves in the British islands containing the relics of the cave folk are the following: Perthichoaren, Denbighshire, wherein were found the remains of Platycnemic man—so named from his having sharp shin-bones; Cefn, St. Asaph; Uphill, Somerset; King’s Scar and the Victoria Cave, Settle; Robin Hood’s Cave and Pinhole Cave, Derbyshire; Black Rock, Caldy Island, Coygan Caves, Pembrokeshire; King Arthur’s Cave, Monmouth; Durdham Downs, Bristol; and sundry others, near Oban, in the valleys of the Trent, Dove, and Nore, and of the Irish Blackwater, and in Caithness.

In these abodes the bones of both men and animals have been found; but these do not all belong to the same period, as the Neolithic people, and those of the Bronze and Iron Ages, followed the occupation of the earlier race. The remains of the different races, however, lie at various depths, those of the earlier race naturally lying the lowest. An examination of the Victoria Cave, Settle, clearly shows this. Outside the entrance there was found a layer of charcoal and burnt bones, and the burnt stones of fireplaces, pottery, coins of the Emperors Trajan and Constantine, and ornaments in bone, ivory, bronze and enamel. The animal remains were those of the bos longifrons (Celtic ox), pig, horse, roe, stag, fowl (wild), and grouse. This layer was evidently composed of the relics of a Romano-British people. Below this were found chipped flints, an adze of melaphyre, and a layer of boulders, sand, and clay, brought down by the ice from the higher valley.

Inside the cave in the upper cave earth were found the bones of fox, badger, brown bear, grizzly bear, reindeer, red deer, horse, pig, and goat, and some bones evidently hacked by man. In the lower cave earth there were the remains of the hyena, fox, brown and grizzly bears, elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, urus, bison, and red deer, the hacked bones of a goat, and a small leg-bone of a man.

Some idea of the time which has elapsed since primitive man inhabited this rude dwelling may be formed from these excavations. Two feet below the surface lay the Romano-British layer, and we know therefore that about 1,600 years was required for the earth to accumulate to that depth. The Neolithic layer was six feet below this; hence 4,800 years would be necessary to form this depth of earth. So we may conclude that at least 6,400 years ago Neolithic man used the cave. A long time previous to this lived the creatures of the lower cave earth, the bison, elephant, and the hyena with the solitary human bone, which belonged to the sharp-shinned race (Platycnemic) of beings, the earliest dwellers in our country.

It is doubtful whether Palaeolithic man has left any descendants. The Esquimaux appear to somewhat resemble them. Professor Boyd Dawkins, in his remarkable book, Cave Hunting, traces this relationship in the character of implements, methods of obtaining food and cooking it, modes of preparing skins for clothing, and particularly in the remarkable skill of depicting figures on bone which both races display. In carving figures on bone and teeth early man in Britain was certainly more skilful than his successor; but he was a very inferior type of the human race, yet his intelligence and mode of life have been deemed not lower than those of the Australian aborigines.

The animals which roamed through the country in this Pleistocene period were the elk and reindeer, which link us on to the older and colder period when Arctic conditions prevailed; the Irish deer, a creature of great size whose head weighed about eighty pounds; bison, elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, lion, wolf, otter, bear, horse, red deer, roe, urus or gigantic ox, the short-horned ox (bos longifrons), boar, badger and many others which survive to the present day, and have therefore a very long line of ancestors.

The successor of the old stone implement maker was Neolithic man, to whom we have already had occasion to refer. Some lengthy period of geological change separates him from his predecessor of the Old Stone Age. Specimens of his handiwork show that he was a much more civilised person than his predecessor, and presented a much higher type of humanity. He had a peculiarly shaped head, the back part of the skull being strangely prolonged; and from this feature he is called dolichocephalic. He was small in stature, about 5 feet 6 inches in height, having a dark complexion, and his descendants are the Iberian or Basque races in the Western Pyrenees and may still be traced in parts of Ireland and Wales. The long barrows or mounds, the length of which is greater than the breadth, contain his remains, and we find traces of his existence in all the western countries of Europe.

He had made many discoveries which were unknown to his Old Stone predecessor. Instead of always hunting for his food, like an animal, he found out that the earth would give him corn with which he could make bread, if only he took the trouble to cultivate it. Instead of always slaying animals, he found that some were quite ready to be his servants, and give him milk and wool and food. He brought with him to our shores cows and sheep and goats, horses and dogs. Moreover he made pottery, moulding the clay with his hand, and baking it in a fire. He had not discovered the advantages of a kiln. He could spin thread, and weave stuffs, though he usually wore garments of skins.

His dwellings were no longer the caves and forests, for he made for himself rude pit huts, and surrounded himself, his tribe, and cattle with a circular camp. Traces of his agricultural operations may still be found in the “terraces,” or strips of ground on hillsides, which preserve the marks of our early Neolithic farmers.

Their implements are far superior to those of the Old Stone men, and are found on the surface of our fields, or on hillsides, where they tended their flocks, or dug their rude pit shelters. Their weapons and tools are highly polished, and have evidently been ground on a grindstone. They are adapted for an endless variety of uses, and are most skilfully and beautifully fashioned. There are finely wrought arrowheads, of three shapes—barbed, tanged and barbed, and leaf-shaped; axes, scrapers for cleansing and preparing skins for clothing, hammer stones, wedges, drills, borers, knives, and many other tools. In the Reading Museum may be seen a heavy quartzite axe and chipped flint hatchet, which were found with some charred timber on an island in the Thames, and were evidently used for scooping out the interior of a boat from a tree with the aid of fire. So this New Stone man knew how to make boats as well as a vast number of other things of which we shall presently speak more particularly. His descendants linger on in South Wales and Ireland, and are short in stature, dark in complexion, and narrow-skulled, like their forefathers a few thousand years ago.

[ENLARGE]

NEOLITHIC AND BRONZE IMPLEMENTS

Another wave of invaders swept over our land, and overcame the long-headed Neolithic race. These were the Celtic people, taller and stronger than their predecessors, and distinguished by their fair hair and rounded skulls. From the shape of their heads they are called Brachycephalic, and are believed to have belonged to the original Aryan race, whose birthplace was Southern Asia. At some remote period this wave of invaders poured over Europe and Asia, and has left traces behind it in the languages of all Indo-European nations.

Their weapons were made of bronze, although they still used polished stone implements also. We find chisels, daggers, rings, buttons, and spear-heads, all made of bronze, an alloy of copper and tin, and fashioned by the skilled hands of these early Celtic folk. As they became more civilised, being of an inventive mind, they discovered the use of iron and found it a more convenient metal for fashioning axes to cut down trees.

When Caesar came to Britain he found that the inhabitants knew the use of iron, even the less civilised early Celtic settlers driven northwards and westwards by the Belgae, had iron weapons, and the wild Caledonians in the time of Severus, although they were naked, woad-dyed savages, wore iron collars and girdles and were armed with metal weapons.

Such are some of the relics of antiquity which the soil of our native land retains, as a memorial of the primitive people who first trod upon it. Concerning their lives and records history is silent, until the Conqueror tells us something of our Celtic forefathers. From the scanty remains of prehistoric races, their weapons and tools, we can gather something of the earliest inhabitants of our island, and try to realise their habits and mode of life.

CHAPTER III

TUMULI OR BARROWS

Barrows near churchyards—Their universality—Contents—Food in barrows—Curious burial customs—Belief in future life—Long and round barrows—Interior of barrow—Position of bodies—Cremation— Burial urns—Articles of dress and ornament—Artistic workmanship— Pottery—Remains of agriculture—Organised condition of society among prehistoric people.

Throughout the country we find many artificial mounds which are called tumuli or barrows, or in the neighbourhood of Wales, “tumps.” These are the ancient burial-places of the early inhabitants of our island, the word “barrow” being derived from the Anglo-Saxon beorh, a hill or grave-mound. It is not unusual to see a barrow in the centre, or near, an old churchyard, as at Taplow, Bucks. The church was built, of course, much later than the erection of the mound; but doubtless the early preachers of the gospel took advantage of the reverence which was paid to these ancient tombs, proclaimed there the story of the cross, and on the spots so consecrated churches were ultimately built.

These mounds have much to tell us of the early inhabitants. To cover the dead with a mound of earth was a custom common to all nations. All over Europe, in Northern Asia, India, and in the new world of America, we find burial-mounds. The pyramids of Egypt are only glorified mounds; and our islands can boast of an endless variety, sometimes consisting of cairns, or heaps of stones, sometimes of huge hills of earth, 130 feet in height, as at Silbury, Wilts, and covering five acres; while others are only small heaps of soil a few feet high.

The contents of the tumuli differ also. Sometimes the bodies were burnt and the ashes preserved in rude urns; sometimes they were not cremated. Sometimes they were buried in stone cists, or in the hollowed trunk of trees; sometimes without any covering save that of the earth. In nearly all cases we find numerous articles buried with the dead, such as personal ornaments, weapons, pottery, and food.

The presence of food in the tumuli testifies to the natural instinct implanted by the Creator in the human heart with regard to a future existence. The idea that the soul of the departed is about to take a long journey is constant and deeply rooted; the rainbow and the milky way have often been supposed to be the paths trod by the departed, who require sustenance for so long a journey. The Aztecs laid a water-bottle beside the bodies to be used on the way to Mictlan, the land of the dead. Bow and arrows, a pair of mocassins with a spare piece of deerskin to patch them if they wear out, and sinews of deer to sew on the patches with, together with a kettle and provisions, are still placed in the graves by the North American Indians. The Laplanders lay beside the corpse flint, steel, and tinder, to supply light for the dark journey. A coin was placed in the mouth of the dead by the Greeks to pay Charon, the ferryman of the Styx, and for a similar purpose in the hand of a deceased Irishman. The Greenlanders bury with a child a dog, for they say a dog will find his way anywhere. In the grave of the Viking warrior were buried his horn and armour in order that he might enter the halls of Valhalla fully equipped.

These and many other examples might be quoted showing the universality of the belief in a future life, a belief that was evidently shared with other nations by the primeval races who inhabited our islands in prehistoric times.

The presence of food and drinking vessels in the tumuli clearly shows this, and also the store of weapons and implements, adzes, hammers, scrapers, and other tools which the barrows have preserved through so many ages.

These barrows are not confined to one period or one race, as their shape denotes. Some are long, measuring 200 to 400 feet in length by 60 or 80 feet wide; others are circular. The former were made by the long-headed (dolichocephalic) race of whom we have already spoken; the latter by the round-headed (brachycephalic), conquerors of their feebler long-skulled forerunners. When we consider the poor tools used by these primitive peoples, we may wonder at the amount of labour they must have expended on the construction of these giant mounds. Picks made of deer’s horns and pointed staves enabled them to loosen the earth which was then collected in baskets and thrown on the rising heap. Countless toilers and many years must have been needed to produce such wonderful memorials of their industry.

With better tools we will proceed to dig into these mounds and discover what they contain. First we notice an encircling trench and mound surrounding the barrow, the purpose of which is supposed to have been to keep the dead person in the tomb, and prevent it from injuring the living. After much digging in the centre of the barrow we find a single stone chamber, entered by a passage underneath the higher and wider end of the mound. Sometimes the chamber is divided into three parts, the centre one being covered by a dome, formed by the overlapping of the stones in the upper parts of the walls. The passage leading to the centre chamber is also built with large stones erected with much care and skill. The contents of these long barrows are not so interesting, or numerous, as those contained in the round barrows. The skeletons are usually found in irregular positions, and few weapons or ornaments accompany the buried bones. Derbyshire possesses many barrows; wherever in a place-name the suffix low occurs, derived from the Anglo-Saxon hlow, signifying a small hill or mound, a barrow is generally to be found. The long barrow is usually about 200 feet in length, 40 feet wide, and 8 to 12 feet high. They run east and west, frequently north-east by south-west, the principal interment being usually at the eastern and higher end. The bodies are often found in a cist or box made of large stones, and several were buried in one mound, generally on the south and east sides, so that they might lie in the sun. This practice may have been connected with sun-worship; and the same idea prevailed in modern times, when the south side of the churchyard was considered the favoured portion, and criminals and suicides were relegated to the colder north side.

The position of the bodies varied, but usually they were buried in a crouching position, with knees bent and head drawn towards the knees. This was probably the natural position which a man would assume when he slept without a luxurious bed to lie upon, and with little to cover him, in order to keep himself as warm as possible. Hence when he sank into his last long sleep, his mourning relatives would place him in the same posture. In the Channel Islands bodies were often placed in a kneeling position.

The custom of burning the body seems to have been adopted later by the same long-headed race who used the long barrows, and prevailed more in the north of England, in Yorkshire, Derbyshire, and Scotland, than in the south. The cremation was sometimes not very thoroughly performed. The bodies were placed together, wood being piled about them, and over the heap the mound was raised. Then the fire was lighted, which naturally only partly consumed the bodies. We find also, mingled with bones of men and women, the bones of animals, which were probably the remains of funeral feasts.

As we have said the round-headed race introduced the circular barrow, and cremation was their usual, though not exclusive, practice. These people were much stronger and bigger men than their predecessors, their powerful jaws and projecting chins showing much more power of will than the softer narrow-faced dolichocephalic race. However, in the round barrows we also find the bodies of the latter, and we gather that they were not exterminated or driven out by their conquerors, but mingled with them, intermarried, until at length the type of the long-skulled race prevailed, and the Celt of later times possessed the features of the race he had formerly subdued. At least such seems to be the teaching of the barrows.

The Celt became acquainted with the use of bronze, and his tomb was enriched with a store of the relics of the life and art of the workmanship of the time. As cremation was the usual practice, it was no longer necessary to have a chamber which the dead might inhabit; the size of the sleeping-place of the dead was reduced, and a cist was constructed for the receptacle of the urn in which the remains were placed. The mound also was reduced in size and looked much less imposing than the huge barrows of the Stone Age; but its contents were much more important.

The ashes we find frequently contained in a rude urn of black pottery with some ornamentation. Then we discover pins made of bones, which were evidently used to fasten the dress. The people therefore were evidently not naked, woad-dyed savages; moreover we find bits of woollen fabric and charred cloth, and in Denmark people belonging to this same early race were buried in a cap, shirt, leggings, and boots, a fairly complete wardrobe. They also loved to adorn themselves, and had buttons of jet, and stone and bone ornaments. Besides flint implements we find adzes and hatchets and chisels, axe-hammers constructed with a hole in them for the insertion of a handle, grain rubbers, wheat stones, and hammer stones. The mounds also disclose a great variety of flint implements, hatchets, scrapers, both round and long, knife-daggers, knives, saws, drills, fabricators or flaking tools, sling stones, hammer stones, polishers, arrow-points, either leaf-shaped, triangular, or barbed, and heads of darts and javelins. A very curious object is sometimes found, a stone wrist guard, for the purpose of protecting the wrist from the bow string.

These barrows and their contents bear evidences to the artistic workmanship of the prehistoric dwellers in our villages. Their tombs show that these people did not confine themselves to the fabrication of objects of utility, but that they loved to adorn themselves with personal ornaments, which required much art and skill in the manufacture. Necklaces of beads pleased their fancy, and these they made of jet, or shells, the teeth of deer, and the vertebrae of fish. Moreover they loved ear-rings, which were sometimes made of the teeth of pigs. Objects of gold, bronze, glass, ivory, amber, clay, and bone were also used as ornaments.

If we examine the pottery in the barrows we find that a vessel of earthenware was usually placed at the back of the head of the body when it was not cremated. There were also cinerary urns, cups, usually called incense cups, which were certainly not used for incense, whatever may have been their purpose, food and drinking vessels. This pottery was not sun-dried, but burnt in a fire, though not made in a kiln, and the form of the vessels shows that the makers were ignorant of the use of a potter’s wheel. The ornamentation consisted of a series of straight lines made by a sharp-pointed instrument and by impressions of the finger nails or string, often revealing much skill and artistic workmanship.

From a study of the barrows we may learn much about the early inhabitants of our island, who lived and worked and died on the same spots where we now are spending our days. We can see them hunting in the wild woodlands, rearing cows and sheep and goats, and cultivating their crops of corn. We can still trace on the hillsides some curious terraces fashioned by them for the growing of their grain, and discover querns, or hand millstones, and stones for bruising the corn. The bones of young oxen a few days old, discovered in the mounds, show that they knew the use of milk, and how to get a good supply. A rude spindle-whorl shows that they knew how to weave stuffs for their clothing, and the numerous buttons, fasteners, and belts prove that the clothes were fitted to the wearer, and not mere shapeless sacks.

The barrows also bear evidence to the existence of some organised condition of society. In the early savage state of human existence the family is the only community; but as man progressed towards civilisation, he learnt how to combine with his fellows for mutual defence and support. We gather from our examination of the tombs of these early races that they had attained to this degree of progress. There were chiefs of tribes and families who were buried with more honour than that bestowed upon the humbler folk. Many families were buried in one mound, showing that the tribal state had been reached, while the many humbler graves denote the condition of servitude and dependence in which a large number of the race lived. All this, and much more, may be learnt from a careful study of the tombs of these prehistoric people.

CHAPTER IV

PIT AND PILE DWELLINGS

Pit dwelling earliest form of house-building—Discoveries at Bright-hampton, Worlebury—British oppida—Hurstbourne—Contents of pit dwelling—Pot-boilers—Condition of civilisation—Pile dwellings— Switzerland—Glastonbury—Hedsor—Crannogs—Modern use of pile dwellings—Description of a lake dwelling—Contents—Bronze Age— Recent discoveries at Glastonbury.

We have examined in our last chapter the abodes of the dead; we will now investigate the abodes of the living which the earth has preserved for us for so many centuries. The age of the cave dwellers had long passed; and the prehistoric folk, having attained to some degree of civilisation, began to devise for themselves some secure retreats from inclement rains and cold winds. Perhaps the burrowing rabbit gave them an idea for providing some dwelling-place. At any rate the earliest and simplest notion for constructing a habitation was that of digging holes in the ground and roofing them over with a light thatch. Hence we have the pit dwellings of our rude forefathers.

Many examples of pit dwellings have been found by industrious explorers. Some labourers when digging gravel at Brighthampton, near Oxford, came across several such excavations. They were simply pits dug in the earth, large enough to hold one or two persons, and from the sides of these pits a certain quantity of earth had been removed so as to form a seat. At the bottom of these a few rude flint arrow-heads were found. In the remarkable British oppidum at Worlebury, near Weston-super-Mare, several circular, well-like pits may be seen, fairly preserved in shape owing to the rocky nature of the ground in which they have been excavated. One in particular is very perfect, and about two feet from the bottom is a seat formed of the rock extending all round the pit.

These ancient pit dwellings are usually surrounded by an earthen rampart. Caesar says that “the Britons called that a town where they used to assemble for the sake of avoiding an incursion of enemies, when they had fortified the entangled woods with a rampart and ditch.” The remains of many of these oppida may still be seen in almost all parts of the country; and in most of these hollows are plainly distinguishable, which doubtless were pit dwellings; but owing to the sides having fallen in, they have now the appearance of natural hollows in the earth.

At Hurstbourne, Hants, nine of these early habitations were discovered by the late Dr. Stevens, some of which were rudely pitched with flint stones, and had passages leading into the pit. A few flints irregularly placed together with wood ashes showed the position of the hearths, where cooking operations had been carried on. The sloping entrance-passages are peculiar and almost unique in England, though several have been met with in France. A rude ladder was the usual mode of entrance into these underground dwellings. Fragments of hand-made British pottery and the commoner kinds of Romano-British ware were found, and portions of mealing stones and also a saddle-quern, or grain-crusher, which instruments for hand-mealing must have been in common use among the pit dwellers. The grain was probably prepared by parching it before crushing; the hollow understone prevented the grain from escaping; and the muller was so shaped as to render it easily grasped, while it was pushed backwards and forwards by the hands. Similar stones are used at the present time by the African natives, as travellers testify.

One of the pits at Hurstbourne was evidently a cooking-hole, where the pit dwellers prepared their feasts, and bones of the Celtic ox (bos longifrons), pig, red deer, goat, dog, and hare or rabbit were found near it. One of the bones had evidently been bitten by teeth. The pit dwellers also practised some domestic industries, as Dr. Stevens found a needle, an awl or bodkin, and fragments of pointed bone, probably used for sewing skins together. A rude spindle-whorl shows that they knew something of weaving, and two bored stones were evidently buttons or dress-fasteners. A large supply of flint implements, scrapers, and arrow-heads, proves that the dwellings were inhabited by the Neolithic people before the Britons came to occupy them. I must not omit to notice the heating stones, or “pot-boilers.” These were heated in the fire, and then placed among the meat intended to be cooked, in a hole in the ground which served the purpose of a cooking pot. I have found many such stones in Berkshire, notably from the neighbourhood of Wallingford and Long Wittenham. The writer of the Early History of Mankind states that the Assineboins, or stone-boilers, dig a hole in the ground, take a piece of raw hide, and press it down to the sides of the hole, and fill it with water; this is called a “paunch-kettle”; then they make a number of stones red-hot in a fire close by, the meat is put into the water, and the hot stones dropped in until it is cooked. The South Sea Islanders have similar primitive methods of cooking. The Highlanders used to prepare the feasts of their clans in much the same way; and the modern gipsies adopt a not very dissimilar mode of cooking their stolen fowls and hedgehogs.

We can now people these cheerless primitive pit dwellings with their ancient inhabitants, and understand something of their manners of life and customs. Their rude abodes had probably cone-shaped roofs made of rafters lashed together at the centre, protected by an outside coat of peat, sods of turf, or rushes. The spindle-whorl is evidence that they could spin thread; the mealing stones show that they knew how to cultivate corn; and the bones of the animals found in their dwellings testify to the fact that they were not in the wild state of primitive hunters, but possessed herds of cows and goats and other domestic animals.

Who were these people? Mr. Boyd Dawkins is of opinion that the early pit dwellers belonged to the Neolithic folk of whom I have already told you, as the flint implements testify. But these dwellings were evidently occupied by a later people. The querns and spindle-whorl probably belonged to the Celts, or Britons, before the advent of the Roman legions; and that these people were the inhabitants of the Hampshire pit dwellings is proved by the presence of a British gold coin which is recognised by numismatists as an imitation of the Greek stater of Philip II. of Macedon. According to Sir John Evans, the native British coinage was in existence as early as 150 years before Christ. Hence to this period we may assign the date of the existence of these Celtic primitive habitations.

Pit dwellings were not the only kind of habitations which the early inhabitants of our country used, and some of our villages possess constructions of remarkable interest, which recent industrious digging has disclosed. These are none other than lake dwellings, similar to those first discovered in Switzerland about fifty years ago. Few of our villages can boast of such relics of antiquity. Near Glastonbury, in 1892, in a dried-up ancient mere a lake village was discovered, which I will describe presently; and recently at Hedsor in Buckinghamshire a pile dwelling has been found which some learned antiquaries are now examining. In Ireland and Scotland there are found the remains of fortified dwellings called Crannogs in some of the lakes, as in Dowalton Loch, Wigtownshire, and Cloonfinlough in Connaught, but these belong to later times and were used in the Middle Ages.

In primitive times, when tribe warred with tribe, and every man’s hand was against his fellow-man, and when wild and savage beasts roamed o’er moor and woodland, security was the one thing most desired by the early inhabitants of Europe. Hence they conceived the brilliant notion of constructing dwellings built on piles in the midst of lakes or rivers, where they might live in peace and safety, and secure themselves from the sudden attack of their enemies, or the ravages of beasts of prey. Switzerland is famous for its numerous clusters, or villages, of ancient lake dwellings, which were of considerable size. At Morges, on the Lake of Geneva, the settlement of huts extends 1,200 feet long by 150 in breadth; and that at Sutz on the Lake of Bienne covers six acres, and is connected with the shore by a gangway 100 feet long and 40 feet wide. Nor is the use of these habitations entirely abandoned at the present time. Venezuela, which means “little Venice,” derives its name from the Indian village composed of pile dwellings on the shores of the Gulf of Maracaibo, as its original explorer Alonzo de Ojeda in 1499 chose to compare the sea-protected huts with the queen city of the Adriatic; and in many parts of South America, in the estuaries of the Orinoco and Amazon, such dwellings are still found, also among the Dyaks of Borneo, in the Caroline Islands, and on the Gold Coast of Africa. Herodotus describes similar dwellings on the Lake Prasias, existing in the fifth century B.C., and Lord Avebury states that now the Roumelian fishermen on the same lake “inhabit wooden cottages built over the water as in the time of Herodotus.”

These habitations of primitive man were built on piles driven into the bed of the lake or river. These piles were stems, or trunks of trees, sharpened with stone or bronze tools. A rude platform was erected on these piles, and on this a wooden hut constructed with walls of wattle and daub, and thatched with reeds or rushes. A bridge built on piles connected the lake village with the shore whither the dwellers used to go to cultivate their wheat, barley, and flax, and feed their kine and sheep and goats. They made canoes out of hollow trunks of trees. One of these canoes which have been discovered is 43 feet in length and over 4 feet wide. The beams supporting the platform, on which the huts were erected, were fastened by wooden pins. Much ingenuity was exercised in the making of these dwellings. Sometimes they found that the mud of the lake was too soft to hold the piles; so they fashioned a framework of trunks of trees, which they let down to the bottom of the lake, and fastened the upright piles to it. Sometimes the rocky bed of the lake prevented the piles from being driven into it; so they heaped stones around the piles, and thus made them secure. The lake dwellers were very sociable, and had only one common platform for all the huts, which were clustered together. As all the actual dwellings have been destroyed by time’s rude action, it is impossible to describe them accurately; but their usual size was about 20 feet by 12 feet. The floor was of clay, and in the centre of the building there was a hearth made of slabs of stone.

The people who inhabited these structures belonged either to the later Stone Age, or the Bronze Age, as we learn from the relics which their huts disclose. In the earlier ones are found celts, flint flakes, arrow-heads, harpoons of stag’s horn with barbs, awls, needles, chisels, and fish-hooks made of bone, and sometimes wooden combs, and skates made out of the leg-bone of a horse. Besides the remains of the usual domestic animals we find bones of the beaver, bear, elk, and bison.

When the use of bronze was discovered the people still lived on in their lake dwellings. Fire often played havoc with the wooden wattle walls; hence we frequently find a succession of platforms. The first dwelling having been destroyed by flames, a second one was subsequently constructed; and this having shared the same fate, another platform with improved huts was raised upon the ruins of its predecessors. The relics of each habitation show that, as time went on, the pit dwellers advanced in civilisation, and increased the comforts and conveniences of life.

Some of the dwellings of these early peoples belong to the Bronze Age, as do those of the Auvernier settlement in the Lake of Neuchatel; and these huts are rich in the relics of their former inhabitants. At Marin on the same lake the lake dwellers were evidently workers in iron; and the relics, which contain large spear-heads, shields, horse furniture, fibulas, and other ornaments, together with Roman coins, prove that they belonged to the period of which history tells us.

I have described at length these Swiss lake dwellings, although they do not belong to the antiquities of our villages in England, because much the same kind of habitations existed in our country, though few have as yet been unearthed. Possibly under the peaty soil of some ancient river-bed, or old mere, long ago drained, you may be fortunate enough to meet with the remains of similar structures here in England. At Glastonbury a few years ago a lake village was discovered, which has created no small stir in the antiquarian world, and merits a brief description. Nothing was known of its existence previously; and this is an instance of the delightful surprises which explorers have in store for them, when they ransack the buried treasure-house of the earth, and reveal the relics which have been so long stored there.

All that met the eyes of the diggers was a series of circular low mounds, about sixty in number, extending over an area of three acres. Imagine the delight of the gentlemen when they discovered that each of these mounds contained the remains of a lake dwelling which was constructed more than two thousand years ago.

First they found above the soft peat, the remains of a lake long dried up, a platform formed of timber and brushwood, somewhat similar to the structures which we have seen in the Swiss lakes. Rows of small piles support this platform, and on it a floor of clay, or rather several floors. The clay is composed of several horizontal layers with intervening thin layers of decayed wood and charcoal, each layer representing a distinct floor of a dwelling. In the centre of each mound are the remains of rude hearths. The dwellings, of which no walls remain, were evidently built of timber, the crevices between the wood being filled with wattle and daub. In one of the mounds were found several small crucibles which show that the inhabitants knew how to work in metals. Querns, whetstones, spindle whorls, fibulae, and finger-rings of bronze, a horse’s bit, a small saw, numerous implements of horn and bone, combs, needles, a jet ring and amber bead, all tell the tale of the degree of civilisation attained by these early folk. They worked in metals, made pottery and cloth, tilled and farmed the adjoining lands, and probably belonged to the late Celtic race before the advent of the Romans. These lake dwellers used a canoe in order to reach the mainland, and this primitive boat has been discovered. It is evidently cut out of the stem of an oak, is flat-bottomed, and its dimensions are 17 feet long, 2 feet wide, and 1 foot deep. The prow is pointed, and has a hole, through which doubtless a rope was passed, in order to fasten it to the little harbour of the lake village.

It will be gathered that these people, whether dwelling in their pit or lake villages, showed so much capacity, industry, and social organisation, that even in the Neolithic Age they were far removed from a savage state, and a low condition of culture and civilisation. They showed great ingenuity in the making of their tools, their vessels of pottery, their ornaments, and clothing. They were not naked, woad-dyed savages. They could spin and weave, grow corn, and make bread, and had brought into subjection for their use domestic animals, horses and cattle, sheep and goats, and swine. They lived in security and comfort, and were industrious and intelligent; and it is interesting to record, from the relics which the earth has preserved of their civilisation, the kind of life which they must have lived in the ages which existed before the dawn of history.

CHAPTER V

CROMLECHS, CAMPS, AND EARTHWORKS

Stone monuments—Traditions relating to them—Menhirs or hoar-stones— Alignements—Cromlechs—Stonehenge—Avebury—Rollright stones—Origin of stone circles—Dolmens—Earthworks—Chun Castle—Whittenham clumps— Uffington—Tribal boundaries—Roman rig—Grims-dike—Legends—Celtic words.

Among the antiquities which some of our English villages possess, none are more curious and remarkable than the grand megalithic monuments of the ancient races which peopled our island. Marvellous memorials are these of their skill and labour. How did they contrive to erect such mighty monuments? How did they move such huge masses of stone? How did they raise with the very slender appliances at their disposal such gigantic stones? For what purpose did they erect them? The solution of these and many such-like problems we can only guess, and no one has as yet been bold enough to answer all the interesting questions which these rude stone monuments raise.

Superstition has attempted to account for their existence. Just as the flint arrow-heads are supposed by the vulgar to be darts shot by fairies or witches which cause sickness and death in cattle and men, and are worn as amulets to ward off disease; just as the stone axes of early man are regarded as thunder bolts, and when boiled are esteemed as a sure cure for rheumatism, or a useful cattle medicine—so these stones are said to be the work of the devil. A friend tells me that in his childhood his nurse used to frighten him by saying that the devil lurked in a dolmen which stands near his father’s house in Oxfordshire; and many weird traditions cluster round these old monuments.

In addition to the subterranean sepulchral chambers and cairns which we have already examined, there are four classes of megalithic structures. The first consists of single stones, called in Wales, Cornwall, and Brittany, menhirs, a name derived from the Celtic word maen or men signifying a stone, and hir meaning tall. In England they are known as “hoar-stones,” hoar meaning a boundary, inasmuch as they are frequently used in later times to mark the boundary of an estate, parish, or manor. There is one at Enstone, Oxfordshire, and at Wardington, Warwickshire. Possibly they were intended to mark the graves of deceased chieftains.

The second class consists of lines of stones, which the French call alignements. Frequently they occur in groups of lines from two to fourteen in number, Carnac, in Brittany, possesses the best specimen in Europe of this curious arrangement of giant stones.

The third class of megalithic monuments is the circular arrangement, such as we find at Avebury and Stonehenge. These are now usually called cromlechs, in accordance with the term used by French antiquaries, though formerly this name was applied in England to the dolmens, or chambered structures, of which we shall speak presently. According to the notions of the old curator of Stonehenge the mighty stones stood before the Deluge, and he used to point out (to his own satisfaction) signs of the action of water upon the stones, even showing the direction in which the Flood “came rushing in.” The Welsh bards say that they were erected by King Merlin, the successor of Vortigern; and Nennius states that they were erected in memory of four hundred nobles, who were treacherously slain by Hengist, when the savage Saxons came. There is no need to describe these grand circles of huge stones which all antiquaries have visited.

The cromlech at Avebury covers a larger area than that of Stonehenge, the circle being about 1,300 feet in diameter. There is a fine circle at Rollright, in Oxfordshire, which is the third largest in England. The diameter of the circle is about 107 feet, and the stones numbered originally about sixty. Near the circle stand the Five Whispering Knights, five large stones leaning together, probably the remains of a dolmen, and a large solitary stone, or menhir. Popular tradition has woven a strange legend about these curious relics of bygone ages. A mighty chieftain once ruled over the surrounding country; but he was ambitious, and wished to extend his sway, and become King of England. So he mustered his army, and the oracle proclaimed that if he could once see Long Compton, he would obtain his desire. Having proceeded as far as Rollright, he was repeating the words of the oracle—

“If Long Compton I can see,
King of England I shall be”—

when Mother Shipton, who had doubtless ridden on her broomstick from her Norfolk home, appeared and pronounced the fatal spell—

“Move no more; stand fast, stone;
King of England thou shall none.”

Immediately the king and his army were changed into stone, as if the head of Medusa had gazed upon them. The solitary stone, still called the King Stone, is the ambitious monarch; the circle is his army; and the Five Whispering Knights are five of his chieftains, who were hatching a plot against him when the magic spell was uttered. The farmers around Rollright say that if the stones are removed from the spot, they will never rest, but make mischief till they are restored. Stanton Drew, in Somersetshire, has a cromlech, and there are several in Scotland, the Channel Islands, and Brittany. Some sacrilegious persons transported a cromlech bodily from the Channel Islands, and set it up at Park Place, Henley-on-Thames. Such an act of antiquarian barbarism happily has few imitators.

For what purpose were these massive stones erected at the cost of such infinite labour? Tradition and popular belief associate them with the Druids. Some years ago all mysterious antiquarian problems were solved by reference to the Druids. But these priests of ancient days are now out of fashion, and it is certainly not very safe to attribute the founding of the great stone circles to their agency. The Druidical worship paid its homage to the powers of Nature, to the nymphs and genii of the woods and streams, whereas the great stone circles were evidently constructed by sun-worshippers. There is no doubt among antiquaries that they are connected with the burial of the dead. Small barrows have been found in the centre of them. Dr. Anderson is of opinion that the stone circles were developed out of the hedge, or setting of stone, which frequently surrounds the base of a barrow, and was intended to keep the ghost in, and prevent it from injuring the living. By degrees the wall was increased in size while the barrow or cairn decreased; until at last a small mound of earth, or heap of stones, only marked the place of burial, and the huge circle of stones surrounded it. Stonehenge, with its well-wrought stones and gigantic trilitha, is much later than the circles of Avebury and Rollright, and was doubtless constructed by the people who used iron, about two hundred years before our era. The earlier circles have been assigned to a period eight or ten centuries before Christ.

Many conjectures have been made as to how the huge capstones of the circle at Stonehenge were placed on the erect stones. Sir Henry Dryden thought that when the upright stones were set on end, earth or small stones were piled around them until a large inclined plane was formed, on which “skids” or sliding-pieces were placed. Then the caps were placed on rollers, and hauled up by gangs of men. Probably in some such way these wonderful monuments were formed.

The last class of rude stone monuments is composed of dolmens, or chambered tombs, so named from the Welsh word dol, a table, and maen or men, a stone. They are in fact stone tables. Antiquaries of former days, and the unlearned folk of to-day, call them “Druids’ altars,” and say that sacrifices were offered upon them. The typical form is a structure of four or more large upright stones, supporting a large flat stone, as a roof. Sometimes they are covered with earth or stones, sometimes entirely uncovered. Some antiquaries maintain that they were always uncovered, as we see them now; others assert that they have been stripped by the action of wind and rain, and snow, frost, and thaw, until all the earth placed around them has been removed. Possibly fashions changed then as now; and it may console some of us that there was no uniformity of ritual even in prehistoric Britain. Dolmens contain no bronze or iron implements, or carvings of the same, and evidently belong to the time of the Neolithic folk.

Among prehistoric remains none are more striking than the great camps and earthworks, which hold commanding positions on our hills and downs, and have survived during the countless years which have elapsed since their construction. Caesar’s camps abound throughout England; it is needless to say that they had nothing to do with Caesar, but were made long years before the Conqueror ever set foot on British land. These early camps are usually circular in shape, or follow the natural curve of the hill on which they stand. Roman camps are nearly always square or rectangular. They consist of a high vallum, or rampart of earth, surrounded by a deep ditch, and on the counterscarp, or outside edge of the ditch, there is often another bank or rampart. The entrance to these strongholds was often ingeniously contrived, in order that an enemy endeavouring to attack the fortress might be effectually resisted.

Chun Castle, in Cornwall, is an interesting specimen of ancient Celtic fortress. It consists of two circular walls separated by a terrace. The walls are built of rough masses of granite, some 5 or 6 feet long. The outer wall is protected by a ditch. Part of the wall is still about 10 feet high. Great skill and military knowledge are displayed in the plan of the entrance, which is 6 feet wide in the narrowest part, and 16 in the widest, where the walls diverge and are rounded off on either side. The space within the fortress is about 175 feet in diameter. The Herefordshire Beacon on the Malvern Hills is a fine example of a triple-ramparted Celtic camp.

In Berkshire we have the well-known Whittenham Clumps, the Sinodun of the Celts, on the summit of which there is a famous camp, with a triple line of entrenchment, the mound and ditch being complete. The circumference of the fortress is over a mile. Berkshire and Oxfordshire are very rich in these camps and earthworks, which guard the course of the old British road called the Iknield Way. Hill-forts crown the tops of the hills; and the camps of Blewberry, Scutchamore Knob (a corruption of Cwichelm’s law), Letcombe, Uffington, and Liddington, command the ancient trackway and bid defiance to approaching foes.

The object of these camps was to provide places of refuge, whither the tribe could retire when threatened by the advent of its enemy. The Celts were a pastoral people; and their flocks grazed on the downs and hillsides. When their scouts brought news of the approach of a hostile force, some signal would be given by the blowing of a horn, and the people would at once flee to their fortress driving their cattle before them, and awaiting there the advent of their foes.

At Uffington there is a remarkable relic of British times called the Blowing Stone, or King Alfred’s Bugle-horn, which was doubtless used by the Celtic tribes for signalling purposes; and when its deep low note was heard on the hillside the tribe would rush to the protecting shelter of Uffington Castle. There, armed with missiles, they were ready to hurl them at the invading hosts, and protect their lives and cattle until all danger was past. Those who are skilled at the art can still make the Blowing Stone sound. The name, King Alfred’s Bugle-horn, is a misnomer, and arose from the association of the White Horse Hill with the battle which Alfred fought against the Danes at Aescendune, which may, or may not, have taken place near the old British camp at Uffington. There are several White Horses cut out in the turf on the hillsides in Wiltshire, besides the famous Berkshire one at Uffington, celebrated by Mr. Thomas Hughes in his Scouring of the White Horse. We have also some turf-cut crosses at White-leaf and Bledlow, in Buckinghamshire. The origin of these turf monuments is still a matter of controversy. It is possible that they may be Saxon, and may be the records of Alfred’s victories; but antiquaries are inclined to assign them to an earlier date, and connect them with the builders of cromlechs and dolmens. It is certainly improbable that, when he was busily engaged fighting the Danes, Alfred and his men would have found time to construct this huge White Horse.

In addition to the earthen mounds and deep ditch, which usually formed the fortifications of these ancient strongholds, there were wicker-work stockades, or palisading, arranged on the top of the vallum. Such defences have been found at Uffington; and during the present year on the ancient fortifications of the old Calleva Atrebatum, afterwards the Roman Silchester, a friend of the writer has found the remains of similar wattle-work stockades. Evidently tribal wars and jealousies were not unknown in Celtic times, and the people knew how to protect themselves from their foes.

Another important class of earthen ramparts are the long lines of fortifications, which extend for miles across the country, and must have entailed vast labour in their construction. These ramparts were doubtless tribal boundaries, or fortifications used by one tribe against another. There is the Roman rig, which, as Mrs. Armitage tells us in her Key to English Antiquities, coasts the face of the hills all the way from Sheffield to Mexborough, a distance of eleven miles. A Grims-dike (or Grims-bank, as it is popularly called) runs across the southern extremity of Oxfordshire from Henley to Mongewell, ten miles in length; and near it, and parallel to it, there is a Medlers-bank, another earthen rampart, exceeding it in length by nearly a third. Near Salisbury there is also a Grims-dike, and in Cambridgeshire and Cheshire. Danes’ Dike, near Flamborough Head, Wans-dike, and Brokerley Dike are other famous lines of fortifications.

There are twenty-two Grims-dikes in England. The name was probably derived from Grim, the Saxon devil, or evil spirit; and was bestowed upon these mysterious monuments of an ancient race which the Saxons found in various parts of their conquered country. Unable to account for the existence of these vast mounds and fortresses, they attributed them to satanic agency.

There is much work still to be done in exploring these relics of the prehistoric races; and if there should be any such in your own neighbourhood, some careful digging might produce valuable results. Perhaps something which you may find may throw light upon some disputed or unexplained question, which has perplexed the minds of antiquaries for some time. I do not imagine that the following legend will deter you from your search. It is gravely stated that years ago an avaricious person dug into a tumulus for some treasure which it was supposed to contain. At length after much labour he came to an immense chest, but the lid was no sooner uncovered than it lifted itself up a little and out sprang an enormous black cat, which seated itself upon the chest, and glowed with eyes of passion upon the intruder. Nothing daunted, the man proceeded to try to move the chest, but without avail; so he fixed a strong chain to it and attached a powerful team of horses. But when the horses began to pull, the chain broke in a hundred places, and the chest of treasure disappeared for ever.

Some rustics assert that if you run nine times round a tumulus, and then put your ear against it, you will hear the fairies dancing and singing in the interior. Indeed it is a common superstition that good fairies lived in these old mounds, and a story is told of a ploughman who unfortunately broke his ploughshare. However he left it at the foot of a tumulus, and the next day, to his surprise, he found it perfectly whole. Evidently the good fairies had mended it during the night. But these bright little beings, who used to be much respected by our ancestors, have quite deserted our shores. They found that English people did not believe in them; so they left us in disgust, and have never been heard of since.

If you have no other Celtic remains in your neighbourhood, at least you have the enduring possession of the words which they have bequeathed to us, such as coat, basket, crook, cart, kiln, pitcher, comb, ridge, and many others, which have all been handed down to us from our British ancestors. Their language also lives in Wales and Brittany, in parts of Ireland and Scotland, and in the Isle of Man, where dwell the modern representatives of that ancient race, which was once so powerful, and has left its trace in most of the countries of Europe.

CHAPTER VI

ROMAN RELICS

Roman remains numerous—Chedworth villa—Roads—Names derived from roads—Itinerary of Antoninus—British roads—Watling Street—Iknield Street—Ryknield Street—Ermyn Street—Akeman Street—Saltways— Milestones—Silchester—Its walls—Calleva—Its gardens and villas— Hypocausts—Pavements—Description of old city—Forum—Temple—Baths— Amphitheatre—Church—Roman villa.

“The world’s a scene of change,” sings Poet Cowley; but in spite of all the changes that have transformed our England, the coming and going of conquerors and invaders, the lapse of centuries, the ceaseless working of the ploughshare on our fields and downs, traces of the old Roman life in Britain have remained indelible. Our English villages are rich in the relics of the old Romans; and each year adds to our knowledge of the life they lived in the land of their adoption, and reveals the treasures which the earth has tenderly preserved for so many years.

If your village lies near the track of some Roman road, many pleasing surprises may be in store for you. Oftentimes labourers unexpectedly meet with the buried walls and beautiful tesselated pavements of an ancient Roman dwelling-place. A few years ago at Chedworth, near Cirencester, a ferret was lost, and had to be dug out of the rabbit burrow. In doing this some Roman tesserae were dug up; and when further excavations were made a noble Roman villa with numerous rooms, artistic pavements, hypocausts, baths, carvings, and many beautiful relics of Roman art were brought to light. Possibly you may be equally successful in your own village and neighbourhood.

If you have the good fortune to live near a Roman station, you will have the pleasing excitement of discovering Roman coins and other treasures, when you watch your labourers draining the land or digging wells. Everyone knows that the names of many of the Roman stations are distinguished by the termination Chester, caster, or caer, derived from the Latin castra, a camp; and whenever we are in the neighbourhood of such places, imagination pictures to us the well-drilled Roman legionaries who used to astonish the natives with their strange language and customs; and we know that there are coins and pottery, tesserae and Roman ornaments galore, stored up beneath our feet, awaiting the search of the persevering digger. Few are the records relating to Roman Britain contained in the pages of the historians, as compared with the evidences of roads and houses, gates and walls and towns, which the earth has preserved for us.

Near your village perhaps a Roman road runs. The Romans were famous for their wonderful roads, which extended from camp to camp, from city to city, all over the country. These roads remain, and are evidences of the great engineering skill which their makers possessed. They liked their roads well drained, and raised high above the marshes; they liked them to go straight ahead, like their victorious legions, and never swerve to right or left for any obstacle. They cut through the hills, and filled up the valleys; and there were plenty of idle Britons about, who could be forced to do the work. They called their roads strata or streets; and all names of places containing the word street, such as Streatley, or Stretford, denote that they were situated on one of these Roman roads.

You may see these roads wending their way straight as a die, over hill and dale, staying not for marsh or swamp. Along the ridge of hills they go, as does the High Street on the Westmoreland hills, where a few inches below the grass you can find the stony way; or on the moors between Redmire and Stanedge, in Yorkshire, the large paving stones, of which the road was made, in many parts still remain. In central places, as at Blackrod, in Lancashire, the roads extend like spokes from the centre of a wheel, although nearly eighteen hundred years have elapsed since their construction. The name of Devizes, Wilts, is a corruption of the Latin word divisae, which marks the spot where the old Roman road from London to Bath was divided by the boundary line between the Roman and the Celtic districts.

In order to acquire a knowledge of the great roads of the Romans we must study the Itinerary of Antoninus, written by an officer of the imperial Court about 150 A.D. This valuable road-book tells us the names of the towns and stations, the distances, halting-places, and other particulars. Ptolemy’s Geographia also affords help in understanding the details of the Itinerary, and many of the roads have been very satisfactorily traced. The Romans made use of the ancient British ways, whenever they found them suitable for their purpose. The British roads resembled the trackways on Salisbury Plain, wide grass rides, neither raised nor paved, and not always straight, but winding along the sides of the hills which lie in their course. There were seven chief British ways: Watling Street, which was the great north road, starting from Richborough on the coast of Kent, passing through Canterbury and Rochester it crossed the Thames near London, and went on through Verulam, Dunstable, and Towcester, Wellington, and Wroxeter, and thence into Wales to Tommen-y-Mawr, where it divided into two branches. One ran by Beth Gellert to Caernarvon and Holy Head, and the other through the mountains to the Manai banks and thence to Chester, Northwich, Manchester, Ilkley, until it finally ended in Scotland.

The second great British road was the way of the Iceni, or Iknield Street, proceeding from Great Yarmouth, running through Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire, Bucks, and Oxon, to Old Sarum, and finishing its course at Land’s End. We have in Berkshire a branch of this road called the Ridgeway.

The Ryknield Street beginning at the mouth of the Tyne ran through Chester-le-Street, followed the course of the Watling Street to Catterick, thence through Birmingham, Tewkesbury, and Gloucester, to Caermarthen and St. David’s.

The Ermyn Street led from the coast of Sussex to the south-east part of Scotland.

The Akeman Street ran between the Iknield and Ryknield Streets, and led from what the Saxons called East Anglia, through Bedford, Newport Pagnel, and Buckingham to Alcester and Cirencester, across the Severn, and ending at St. David’s.

The Upper Saltway was the communication between the sea-coast of Lincolnshire and the salt mines at Droitwich; and the Lower Saltway led from Droitwich, then, as now, a great centre of the salt trade, to the sea-coast of Hampshire. Traces of another great road to the north are found, which seems to have run through the western parts of England extending from Devon to Scotland.

Such were the old British roads which existed when the Romans came. The conquerors made use of these ways, wherever they found them useful, trenching them, paving them, and making them fit for military purposes. They constructed many new ones which would require a volume for their full elucidation. Many of them are still in use, wonderful records of the engineering skill of their makers, and oftentimes beneath the surface of some grassy ride a few inches below the turf you may find the hard concreted road laid down by the Romans nearly eighteen hundred years ago. Roman milestones we sometimes find. There is one near Silchester, commonly called the Imp Stone, probably from the first three letters of the Latin word Imperator, carved upon it. Curious legends often cluster round these relics of ancient times. Just as the superstitious Saxons, when they saw the great Roman roads, made by a people who had long vanished from the land, often attributed these great works to evil spirits, and called parts of these well-made streets the Devil’s Highway, so they invented a strange legend to account for the Imp Stone, and said that some giant had thrown it from the city, and left on it the marks of his finger and thumb.

Our English villages contain many examples of Roman buildings. Where now rustics pursue their calling, and sow their crops and reap their harvests, formerly stood the beautiful houses of the Roman nobles, or the flourishing towns of Roman citizens. Upon the sites of most of these old-world places new towns have been constructed; hence it is difficult often to trace the foundations of Roman cities in the midst of the masses of modern bricks and mortar. Hence we fly to the villages; and sometimes, as at Silchester, near a little English village, we find the remains of a large, important, and flourishing town, where the earth has kept safely for us during many centuries the treasures and memories of a bygone age.

Every student of Roman Britain must visit Silchester, and examine the collections preserved in the Reading Museum, which have been amassed by the antiquaries who have for several years been excavating the ruins. The city contained a forum, or marketplace, having on one side a basilica, or municipal hall, in which prisoners were tried, business transactions executed, and the general affairs of the city carried on. On the other side of the square were the shops, where the butchers, bakers, or fishmongers plied their trade. You can find plenty of oyster shells, the contents of which furnished many a feast to the Romans who lived there seventeen hundred years ago. The objects which have been found tell us how the dwellers in the old city employed themselves, and how skilful they were in craftsmanship. Amongst other things we find axes, chisels, files for setting saws, hammers, a large plane, and other carpenters’ tools; an anvil, a pair of tongs, and blacksmiths’ implements; shoemakers’ anvils, very similar to those used in our day, a large gridiron, a standing lamp, safety-pins, such as ladies use now, and many other useful and necessary objects.

In order to protect the city it was surrounded by high walls, which seem to defy all the attacks of time. They are nine feet in thickness, and are still in many places twenty feet high. Outside the wall a wide ditch added to the strength of the fortifications. Watch-towers were placed at intervals along the walls; and on the north, south, east, and west sides were strongly fortified gates, with guard chambers on each side, and arched entrances through which the Roman chariots were driven.

These walls inclose a space of irregular shape, and were built on the site of old British fortifications. Silchester was originally a British stronghold, and was called by them Calleva. The Celtic tribe which inhabited the northern parts of Hampshire was the Atrebates, who after a great many fights were subdued by the Romans about 78 A.D. Then within the rude fortifications of Calleva arose the city of Silchester, with its fine houses, temples, and baths, its strong walls, and gates, and streets, the great centre of civilisation, and the chief city of that part of the country.

It is often possible to detect the course of Roman streets where now the golden corn is growing. On the surface of the roads where the ground is thin, the corn is scanty. Observation of this kind a few years ago led to the discovery of a Romano-British village at Long Whittenham, in Berks. In Silchester it is quite easy to trace the course of the streets by the thinness of the corn, as Leland observed as long ago as 1536. One is inclined to wonder where all the earth comes from, which buries old buildings and hides them so carefully; but any student of natural history, who has read Darwin’s book on Worms, will cease to be astonished. It is chiefly through the action of these useful creatures that soil accumulates so greatly on the sites of ancient buildings.

Within the walls of Silchester were gardens and villas replete with all the contrivances of Roman luxury. The houses were built on three sides of a square court. A cloister ran round the court, supported by pillars. The open space was used as a garden. At the back of the house were the kitchens and apartments for the slaves and domestics. The Romans adapted their dwellings to the climate in which they lived. In the sunny south, at Pompeii, the houses were more open, and would be little suited to our more rigorous climate. They knew how to make themselves comfortable, built rooms well protected from the weather, and heated with hypocausts. These were furnaces made beneath the house, which generated hot air; and this was admitted into the rooms by earthenware flue-tiles. The dwellers had both summer and winter apartments; and when the cold weather arrived the hypocaust furnaces were lighted, and the family adjourned to their winter quarters.

The floors were made of tesserae, or small cubes of different materials and various colours, which were arranged in beautiful patterns. Some of these pavements were of most elegant and elaborate designs, having figures in them representing the seasons, or some mythological characters.

The walls were painted with decorations of very beautiful designs, representing the cornfields, just as the Roman artists in Italy loved to depict the vine in their mural paintings. The mortar used by the Romans is very hard and tenacious, and their bricks were small and thin, varying from 8 inches square to 18 inches by 12, and were about 2 inches in thickness. Frequently we find the impression of an animal’s foot on these bricks and tiles, formed when they were in a soft state before they were baked, and one tile recently found had the impression of a Roman baby’s foot. Roman bricks have often been used by subsequent builders, and are found built up in the masonry of much later periods.

It is quite possible to build up in imagination the old Roman city, and to depict before our mind’s eye the scenes that once took place where now the rustics toil and till the ground. We enter the forum, the great centre of the city, the common resort and lounging-place of the citizens, who met together to discuss the latest news from Rome, to transact their business, and exchange gossip. On the west side stood the noble basilica, or hall of justice—a splendid building, its entrance being adorned with fine Corinthian columns; and slabs of polished Purbeck marble, and even of green and white marble from the Pyrenees, covered the walls. It was a long rectangular hall, 233 feet in length by 58 feet in width, and at each side was a semicircular apse, which was called the Tribune. Here the magistrate sat to administer justice, or an orator stood to address the citizens. In the centre of the western wall was another apse, where the curia met for the government of the city. Two rows of columns ran down the hall, dividing it into a nave with two aisles, like many of our churches. Indeed the form of the construction of our churches was taken from these Roman basilica. Several chambers stood on the west of the hall, one of which was another fine hall, probably used as a corn exchange. The height of this noble edifice, the roof of which was probably hidden by a coffered ceiling, must have been about fifty-seven feet.

Passing along the main street towards the south gate we come to the foundations of a nearly circular temple. Two square-shaped buildings stood on the east of the city, which were probably temples for some Gaulish form of religion, as similar sacred buildings have been discovered in France. A quadrangle of buildings near the south gate, having various chambers, contained the public baths, whither the Romans daily resorted for gossip and discussion as well as for bathing. There is an ingenious arrangement for using the waste water for the purpose of flushing the drains and sewers. Nor were they ignorant of the invention of a force-pump, as the accompanying illustration on the next page shows.

The amphitheatre stands outside the gate, whither the citizens flocked to see gladiatorial displays or contests between wild beasts. With the exception of one at Dorchester, it is the largest in Britain. It is made of lofty banks of earth, which surround the arena, and must have been an imposing structure in the days of its glory, with its tiers of seats rising above the level arena. It is difficult to imagine this grass-covered slope occupied by a gay crowd of Romans and wondering Britons, all eagerly witnessing some fierce fight of man with man, or beast with beast, and enthusiastically revelling in the sanguinary sport. The modern rustics, who have no knowledge of what was the original purpose of “the Mount,” as they name the amphitheatre, still call the arena “the lions’ den.”

Silchester was a very busy place. There were dye works there, as the excavations show; hence there must have been some weaving, and therefore a large resident population. Throngs of travellers used to pass through it, and carts and baggage animals bore through its streets the merchandise from London, which passed to the cities and villas so plentifully scattered in western Britain.

By far the most important of the discoveries made in Roman Britain is the little church which stood just outside the forum. It is very similar in form to the early churches in Italy and other parts of the Roman Empire, and is of the basilican type. The orientation is different from that used after the reign of Constantine, the altar being at the west end. The churches of S. Peter and S. Paul at Rome had the same arrangement; and the priest evidently stood behind the altar facing the congregation and looking towards the east at the time of the celebration of the Holy Communion. There is an apse at the west end, and the building is divided by two rows of columns into a nave and two aisles. The nave had probably an ambon, or reading-desk, and was mainly used by the clergy, the aisles being for the use of the men and women separately. A vestry stood at the western end of the north aisle. Across the eastern end was the narthex, or porch, where the catechumens stood and watched the service through the three open doors. Outside the narthex was the atrium, an open court, having in the centre the remains of the labrum, or laver, where the people washed their hands and faces before entering the church. We are reminded of a sermon by S. Chrysostom, who upbraided his congregation, asking them what was the use of their washing their hands if they did not at the same time cleanse their hearts by repentance. This interesting memorial of early Christianity was probably erected soon after the Emperor Constantine’s Edict of Toleration issued in 313 A.D.

But not only at Silchester and at other places, once the great centres of the Roman population, do we find Roman remains. In addition to the stations, camps, and towns, there were the villas of the rich Roman citizens or Gaulish merchants on the sunny slopes of many a hillside. Although hundreds of the remains of these noble houses have been discovered, there are still many to be explored.

The villa consisted of the house of the proprietor, which occupied the centre of the little colony, together with the smaller houses of the servants and slaves, stables, cowsheds, mills, and granaries, and all the other usual outbuildings connected with a large estate. The main house was built around a central court, like an Oxford college; and resembled in architectural style the buildings which the excavations at Pompeii have disclosed. A corridor ran round the court supported by pillars, from which the rooms opened. In a well-defended town like Silchester the houses were usually built on three sides of the court; but the country villas, which had occasionally to be fortified against the attacks of wandering bands of outlaws and wild Britons, and the inroads of savage beasts, were usually built on all the four sides of the square court. They were usually of one story, although the existence of a force-pump in Silchester shows that water was laid on upstairs in one house at least. As the wells were less than thirty feet deep, a force-pump would not be needed to lift the water to the earth-level. Hence in some houses there must have been some upper chambers, a conclusion that is supported by the thickness of the foundations, which are far more substantial than would be required for houses of one story. The rooms were very numerous, often as many as sixty or seventy, and very bright they must have looked decorated with beautiful marbles and stuccoes of gorgeous hues, and magnificent pavements, statues and shrines, baths and fountains, and the many other objects of Roman luxury and comfort. The floors were made of opus signinum, such as the Italians use at the present day, a material composed of cement in which are embedded fragments of stone or brick, the whole being rubbed down to a smooth surface, or paved with mosaic composed of tesserae. In whatever land the Roman dwelt, there he made his beautiful tesselated pavement, rich with graceful designs and ever-enduring colours, representing the stories of the gods, the poetry of nature, and the legends of the heroes of his beloved native land. Here we see Perseus freeing Andromeda, Medusa’s locks, Bacchus and his band of revellers, Orpheus with his lyre, by which he is attracting a monkey, a fox, a peacock, and other animals, Apollo singing to his lyre, Venus being loved by Mars, Neptune with his trident, attended by hosts of seamen. The seasons form an accustomed group, “Winter” being represented, as at Brading, by a female figure, closely wrapped, holding a lifeless bough and a dead bird. Satyrs and fauns, flowers, Graces and wood-nymphs, horns of plenty, gladiators fighting, one with a trident, the other with a net—all these and countless other fanciful representations look at us from these old Roman pavements. The Roman villa at Brading is an excellent type of such a dwelling, with its magnificent suites of rooms, colonnades, halls, and splendid mosaic pavements. As at Silchester, we see there fine examples of hypocausts. The floor of the room, called a suspensura, is supported by fifty-four small pillars made of tiles. Another good example of a similar floor exists at Cirencester, and many more at Silchester.

Here is a description of a Roman gentleman’s house, as drawn by the writer of The History of Oxfordshire:—

“His villa lay sheltered from wild winds partly by the rising brow of the hill, and partly by belts of trees; it was turned towards the south, and caught the full sun. In the spring the breath of his violet beds would be as soft and sweet as in Oxfordshire woods to-day; in the summer his quadrangle would be gay with calthae, and his colonnade festooned with roses and helichryse. If we are to believe in the triclinium aestivum of Hakewill, it says much for the warmth of those far-away summers that he was driven to build a summer dining-room with a north aspect, and without heating flues. And when the long nights fell, and winter cold set in, the slaves heaped higher the charcoal fires in the praefurnium; the master sat in rooms far better warmed than Oxford country houses now, or sunned himself at midday in the sheltered quadrangle, taking his exercise in the warm side of the colonnade among his gay stuccoes and fluted columns. Could we for a moment raise the veil, we should probably find that the country life of 400 A.D. in Oxfordshire was not so very dissimilar to that of to-day, ... and that the well-to-do Roman of rustic Middle England was ... a useful, peaceful, and a happy person.”

CHAPTER VII

ANGLO-SAXON VILLAGES

Departure of Romans—Coming of Saxons—Bede—Saxon names of places— Saxon village—Common-field system—Eorl and ceorl—Thanes, geburs, and cottiers—Description of village life—Thane’s house—Socmen—Ploughman’s lament—Village tradesmen—Parish council—Hundreds—Shires.

The scene changes. The Roman legions have left our shores, and are trying to prop the tottering state of the falling empire. The groans of the Britons have fallen on listless or distracted ears, and no one has come to their succour. The rule of the all-swaying Roman power has passed away, and the Saxon hordes have poured over the hills and vales of rural Britain, and made it the Angles’ land—our England.

The coming of the Saxons was a very gradual movement. They did not attack our shores in large armies on one or two occasions; they came in clans or families. The head of the clan built a ship, and taking with him his family and relations, founded a settlement in wild Britain, or wherever the winds happened to carry them. They were very fierce and relentless in war, and committed terrible ravages on the helpless Britons, sparing neither men, women, nor children, burning buildings, destroying and conquering wherever they went.

Bede tells the story of doings of the ruthless Saxons:—

“The barbarous conquerors ... plundered all the neighbouring cities and country, spread the conflagration from the eastern to the western sea without any opposition, and covered almost every part of the devoted island. Public as well as private structures were overturned; the priests were everywhere slain before the altars; the prelates and the people, without any respect of persons, were destroyed with fire and sword; nor was there any to bury those who had been thus cruelly slaughtered. Some of the miserable remainder, being taken in the mountains, were butchered in heaps. Others, spent with hunger, came forth and submitted themselves to the enemy for food, being destined to undergo perpetual servitude, if they were not killed even upon the spot. Some, with sorrowful hearts, fled beyond the seas; others, continuing in their own country, led a miserable life among the woods, rocks, and mountains, with scarcely enough food to support life, and expecting every moment to be their last.”

Many antiquaries believe that the extirpation of the Britons was not so complete as Bede asserts, and that a large number of them remained in England in a condition of servitude. At any rate, the almost entire extinction of the language, except as regards the names of a few rivers and mountains, and of a few household words, seems to point to a fairly complete expulsion of the Britons rather than to a mingling of them with the conquering race.

What remains have we in our English villages of our Saxon forefathers, the makers of England? In the first place we notice that many of the names of our villages retain the memory of their founders. When the family, or group of families, formed their settlements, they avoided the buildings and walled towns, relics of Roman civilisation, made clearings for themselves in the primeval forests, and established themselves in village communities. In the names of places the suffix ing, meaning sons of, denotes that the village was first occupied by the clan of some chief, whose name is compounded with this syllable ing. Thus the Uffingas, the children of Offa, formed a settlement at Uffinggaston, or Uffington; the Redingas, or sons of Rede, settled at Reading; the Billings at Billinge and Billingham; the Wokings or Hocings, sons of Hoc, at Woking and Wokingham. The Billings and Wokings first settled at Billinge and Woking; and then like bees they swarmed, and started another hive of industry at Billingham and Wokingham.

These family settlements, revealed to us by the patronymic ing, are very numerous. At Ardington, in Berkshire, the Ardings, the royal race of the Vandals, settled; the Frankish Walsings at Wolsingham; the Halsings at Helsington; the Brentings at Brentingley; the Danish Scyldings at Skelding; the Thurings at Thorington; and many other examples might be quoted.

Many Saxon names of places end in field, which denotes a forest clearing, or feld, made by the axes of the settlers in the primeval woods, where the trees were felled. These villages were rudely fortified, or inclosed by a hedge, wall, or palisade, denoted by the suffix ton, derived from the Anglo-Saxon tynan, to hedge; and all names ending with this syllable point to the existence of a Saxon settlement hedged in and protected from all intruders. Thus we have Barton, Preston, Bolton, and many others. The terminations yard, stoke, or stockaded place, as in Basingstoke, worth (Anglo-Saxon weorthig), as in Kenilworth, Tamworth, Walworth, have much the same meaning.

Perhaps the most common of all the terminations of names denoting the presence of Anglo-Saxon settlers is the suffix ham. When the a is pronounced short the syllable denotes an inclosure, like stoke or ton; but when the a is long, it means home, and expresses the reverence with which the Anglo-Saxon regarded his own dwelling. England is the land of homes, and the natural affection with which we Englishmen regard our homes is to a great extent peculiar to our race. The Frenchman, the Spaniard, the Italian, do not have the same respect for home. Our Saxon forefathers were a very home-loving people, and it is from them doubtless that we inherit our love for our homes.

We find, then, the Saxon holding the lands. The clan formed settlements; sections of each clan formed branch settlements; and several members of each section cut their way through the thick forests, felled the trees, built homesteads, where they tilled the land and reared their cattle.

In early Saxon times the settlement consisted of a number of families holding a district, and the land was regularly divided into three portions. There was the village itself, in which the people lived in houses built of wood or rude stonework. Around the village were a few small inclosures, or grass yards, for rearing calves and baiting farm stock; this was the common farmstead. Around this was the arable land, where the villagers grew their corn and other vegetables; and around this lay the common meadows, or pasture land, held by the whole community, so that each family could turn their cattle into it, subject to the regulations of an officer elected by the people, whose duty it was to see that no one trespassed on the rights of his neighbour, or turned too many cattle into the common pasture.

Around the whole colony lay the woods and uncultivated land, which was left in its natural wild state, where the people cut their timber and fuel, and pastured their pigs in the glades of the forest. The cultivated land was divided into three large fields, in which the rotation of crops was strictly enforced, each field lying fallow once in three years. To each freeman was assigned his own family lot, which was cultivated by the members of his household. But he was obliged to sow the same crop as his neighbour, and compelled by law to allow his lot to lie fallow with the rest every third year. The remains of this common-field system are still evident in many parts of the country, the fields being termed “lot meadows,” or “Lammas lands.” Our commons, too, many of which remain in spite of numerous inclosures, are evidences of the communal life of our village forefathers.

How long the Saxon villages remained free democratic institutions, we do not know. Gradually a change came over them, and we find the manorial system in vogue. Manors existed in England long before the Normans came, although “manor” is a Norman word; and in the time of Canute the system was in full force. The existence of a manor implies a lord of the manor, who exercised authority over all the villagers, owned the home farm, and had certain rights over the rest of the land. How all this came about, we scarcely know. Owing to the Danish invasions, when the rude barbarous warriors carried fire and sword into many a peaceful town and village, the villagers found themselves at the mercy of these savage hordes. Probably they sought the protection of some thane, or eorl, with his band of warriors, who could save their lands from pillage. In return for their services they acknowledged him as the lord of their village, and gave him rent, which was paid either in the produce of these fields or by the work of their hands. Thus the lords of the manor became the masters of the villagers, although they too were governed by law, and were obliged to respect the rights of their tenants and servants.

Saxon society was divided into two main divisions, the eorl and the ceorl, the men of noble birth, and those of ignoble origin. The chief man in the village was the manorial lord, a thane, who had his demesne land, and his gafol land, or geneat land, which was land held in villeinage, and cultivated by geneats, or persons holding by service. These villein tenants were in two classes, the geburs, or villeins proper, who held the yardlands, and the cottiers, who had smaller holdings. Beneath these two classes there were the theows, or slaves, made up partly of the conquered Britons, partly of captives taken in war, and partly of freemen who had been condemned to this penalty for their crimes, or had incurred it by poverty.

There were degrees of rank among Saxon gentlemen, as among those of to-day. The thanes were divided into three classes: (i.) those of royal rank (thani regis), who served the king in Court or in the management of State affairs; (ii.) thani mediocres, who held the title by inheritance, and corresponded to the lords of the manor in the later times; (iii.) thani minores, or inferior thanes, to which rank ceorls or merchants could attain by the acquisition of sufficient landed property.

We can picture to ourselves the ordinary village life which existed in Saxon times. The thane’s house stood in the centre of the village, not a very lordly structure, and very unlike the stately Norman castles which were erected in later times. It was commonly built of wood, which the neighbouring forests supplied in plenty, and had stone or mud foundations. The house consisted of an irregular group of low buildings, almost all of one story. In the centre of the group was the hall, with doors opening into the court. On one side stood the kitchen; on the other the chapel when the thane became a Christian and required the services of the Church for himself and his household. Numerous other rooms with lean-to roofs were joined on to the hall, and a tower for purposes of defence in case of an attack. Stables and barns were scattered about outside the house, and with the cattle and horses lived the grooms and herdsmen, while villeins and cottiers dwelt in the humble, low, shedlike buildings, which clustered round the Saxon thane’s dwelling-place. An illustration of such a house appears in an ancient illumination preserved in the Harleian MSS., No. 603. The lord and lady of the house are represented as engaged in almsgiving; the lady is thus earning her true title, that of “loaf-giver,” from which her name “lady” is derived.

The interior of the hall was the common living-room for both men and women, who slept on the reed-strewn floor, the ladies’ sleeping-place being separated from the men’s by the arras. The walls were hung with tapestry, woven by the skilled fingers of the ladies of the household. A peat or log fire burned in the centre of the hall, and the smoke hid the ceiling and finally found its way out through a hole in the roof. Arms and armour hung on the walls, and the seats consisted of benches called “mead-settles,” arranged along the sides of the hall, where the Saxon chiefs sat drinking their favourite beverage, mead, or sweetened beer, out of the horns presented to them by the waiting damsels. When the hour for dinner approached, rude tables were laid on trestles, and forthwith groaned beneath the weight of joints of meat and fat capons which the Saxon loved dearly. The door of the hall was usually open, and thither came the bards and gleemen, who used to delight the company with their songs and stories of the gallant deeds of their ancestors, the weird legends of their gods Woden and Thor, their Viking lays and Norse sagas, and the acrobats and dancers astonished them with their strange postures.

Next to the thane ranked the geburs, who held land granted to them by the thane for their own use, sometimes as much as one hundred and twenty acres, and were required to work for the lord on the home farm two or three days a week, or pay rent for their holdings. This payment consisted of the produce of the land. They were also obliged to provide one or more oxen for the manorial plough team, which consisted of eight oxen.

There was also a strong independent body of men called socmen, who were none other than our English yeomen. They were free tenants, who have by their independence stamped with peculiar features both our constitution and our national character. Their good name remains; English yeomen have done good service to their country, and let us hope that they will long continue to exist amongst us, in spite of the changed condition of English agriculture and the prolonged depression in farming affairs, which has tried them severely.

Besides the geburs and socmen there were the cottiers, who had small allotments of about five acres, kept no oxen, and were required to work for the thane some days in each week. Below them were the theows, serfs, or slaves, who could be bought and sold in the market, and were compelled to work on the lord’s farm.

Listen to the sad lament of one of this class, recorded in a dialogue of AElfric of the tenth century:—

“What sayest thou, ploughman? How dost thou do thy work?”

“Oh, my lord, hard do I work. I go out at daybreak, driving the oxen to field, and I yoke them to the plough. Nor is it ever so hard winter that I dare loiter at home, for fear of my lord, but the oxen yoked, and the ploughshare and the coulter fastened to the plough, every day must I plough a full acre, or more.”

“Hast thou any comrade?”

“I have a boy driving the oxen with an iron goad, who also is hoarse with cold and shouting.”

“What more dost thou in the day?”

“Verily then I do more. I must fill the bin of the oxen with hay, and water them, and carry out the dung. Ha! Ha! hard work it is, hard work it is! because I am not free.”

Evidently the ploughman’s want of freedom was his great hardship; his work in ploughing, feeding, and watering his cattle, and in cleansing their stable, was not harder than that of an ordinary carter in the present day; but servitude galled his spirit, and made the work intolerable. Let us hope that his lord was a kind-hearted man, and gave him some cattle for his own, as well as some land to cultivate, and then he would not feel the work so hard, or the winter so cold.

Frequently men were thus released from slavery; sometimes also freemen sold themselves into slavery under the pressure of extreme want. A man so reduced was required to lay aside his sword and lance, the symbols of the free, and to take up the bill and the goad, the implements of slavery, to fall on his knees and place his head, in token of submission, under the hands of his master.

Each trade was represented in the village community. There were the faber, or smith, and the carpenter, who repaired the ironwork and woodwork of the ploughs and other agricultural implements, and in return for their work had small holdings among the tenants free from ordinary services. There was the punder, or pound-man, who looked after the repair of the fences and impounded stray cattle; the cementarius, or stonemason; the custos apium, or bee-keeper, an important person, as much honey was needed to make the sweetened ale, or mead, which the villagers and their chiefs loved to imbibe; and the steward, or prepositus, who acted on behalf of the lord, looked after the interests of the tenants, and took care that they rendered their legal services. The surnames Smith, Baker, Butcher, Carter, and many others, preserve the remembrance of the various trades which were carried on in every village, and of the complete self-dependence of the community.

We have inherited many customs and institutions from our Saxon forefathers, which connect our own age with theirs. In recent years we have established parish councils in our villages. Formerly the pet theory of politicians was centralisation; everything had to be done at one centre, at one central office, and London became the head and centre of all government. But recently politicians thought that they had discovered a new plan for carrying on the internal affairs of the country, and the idea was to leave each district to manage its own affairs. This is only a return to the original Saxon plan. In every village there was a moot-hill, or sacred tree, where the freemen met to make their own laws and arrange their agricultural affairs. Here disputes were settled, plough lands and meadow lands shared in due lot among the villagers, and everything arranged according to the custom of the village.

Our county maps show that the shires are divided into hundreds. This we have inherited from our Saxon forefathers. In order to protect themselves from their neighbours, the Saxon colonists arranged themselves in hundreds of warriors. This little army was composed of picked champions, the representatives of a hundred families; men who were ready in case of war to uphold the honour of their house, and to fight for their hearths and homes. These hundred families recognised a bond of union with each other and a common inheritance, and ranged themselves under one name for general purposes, whether for defence, administration of justice, or other objects.

On a fixed day, three times a year, in some place where they were accustomed to assemble—under a particular tree,[[1]] or near some river-bank—these hundred champions used to meet their chieftain, and gather around him when he dismounted from his horse. He then placed his spear in the ground, and each warrior touched it with his own spear in token of their compact, and pledged himself to mutual support. At this assembly criminals were tried, disputes settled, bargains of sale concluded; and in later times many of these transactions were inserted in the chartularies of abbeys or the registers of bishops, which thus became a kind of register too sacred to be falsified. A large number of the hundreds bear the name of some chieftain who once used to call together his band of bearded, light-haired warriors and administer rude justice beneath a broad oak’s shade.[[2]] Others are named after some particular spot, some tree, or ford, or stone, or tumulus, where the hundred court met.

Our counties or shires were not formed, as is popularly supposed, by King Alfred or other royal person by the dividing up of the country into portions, but were the areas occupied by the original Saxon tribes or kingdoms. Most of our counties retain to this day the boundaries which were originally formed by the early Saxon settlers. Some of our counties were old Saxon kingdoms—such as Sussex, Essex, Middlesex—the kingdoms of the South, East, and Middle Saxons. Surrey is the Sothe-reye, or south realm; Kent is the land of the Cantii, a Belgic tribe; Devon is the land of the Damnonii, a Celtic tribe; Cornwall, or Corn-wales, is the land of the Welsh of the Horn; Worcestershire is the shire of the Huiccii; Cumberland is the land of the Cymry; Northumberland is the land north of the Humber, and therefore, as its name implies, used to extend over all the North of England. Evidently the southern tribes and kingdoms by conquest reduced the size of this large county and confined it to its present smaller dimensions. In several cases the name of the county is derived from that of its chief town, e.g. Oxfordshire, Warwickshire; these were districts which were conquered by some powerful earl or chieftain, who held his court in the town, and called his newly acquired property after its name.

We have seen the picture of an ordinary English village in early Saxon times, the villeins and slaves working in the fields and driving their oxen, and the thane dressed in his linen tunic and short cloak, his hose bandaged to the knee with strips of cloth, superintending the farming operations. We have seen the freemen and thanes taking an active part in public life, attending the courts of the hundred and shire, as well as the folk moot or parish council of those times, and the slave mourning over his lack of freedom. But many other relics of Saxon times remain, and these will require another chapter for their examination.

[1] Until the eighteenth century there stood a pollard oak in the parish of Shelford, Berks, where the hundred court used to be held.

[2] Other theories with regard to the origin of the hundred have been suggested. Some writers maintain that the hundred was a district whence the hundred warriors were derived, or a group of townships. But the Bishop of Oxford in his Constitutional History states: “It is very probable that the colonists of Britain arranged themselves in hundreds of warriors; it is not probable that the country was carved into equal districts. The only conclusion that seems reasonable is that under the name of geographical hundreds we have the variously sized pagi, or districts, in which the hundred warriors settled, the boundaries of these being determined by other causes.”

CHAPTER VIII

SAXON RELICS

Peculiarities of Saxon barrows—Their contents—Weapons—Articles of personal adornment—Cremation—Saxon Cemeteries—Jutes—Saxons— Angles—Religion of Saxons—British Church in Wales—Conversion of Saxons—Saxon crosses—Whalley—St. Wilfrid—Ruthwell cross— Bewcastle cross—Eyam cross—Ilkley cross—Hexham cross—Cross at St. Andrew’s, Bishop Auckland—Cheeping crosses—Pilgrim crosses.

The earth has preserved a vast store of relics of the Saxons, and for these we must search in the barrows which contain their dead. There are certain peculiarities which characterise these memorials of the race. The larger tumuli, whether belonging to Celt or Roman, usually stand alone, or in groups of not more than two or three, and were the monuments of distinguished people; whereas the Saxon barrows form a regular cemetery, each group being the common burying-place of the people in the district. Another characteristic is the large number of articles which they contain. Moreover it was the practice of the other races to lay the body on the ground, and build up the chamber and mound above it. The Saxons on the other hand laid the body in a deep grave before they began to construct the barrow.

The body was usually stretched out on its back, but is sometimes found in a sitting position, as in graves recently discovered on Lord Wantage’s estate, Berks. Coffins of hollowed trunks of trees were occasionally used, but these were not common. If the dead man was a warrior, his weapons were buried with him, and we find the head and spike of his spear, heads of javelins, a long iron broad-sword, a long knife, occasionally an axe, and over his breast the iron boss of his shield, the wooden part of which has of course decayed away.

The articles of personal adornment are very numerous. Fibulae, or brooches, and buckles, made of bronze, are very beautifully ornamented. Gold fibulae of circular form are found in the Kentish barrows, frequently ornamented with real or fictitious gems. Rings, bracelets, necklaces of beads, pendants for the neck and ears, are very common. The beads are of glass, or amber, or variegated clay. Hairpins with which the Saxon ladies bound up their tresses, chatelaines with tweezers for removing superfluous hairs, toothpicks, scissors, and small knives, are very frequent, and combs made of bone.

When cremation was used the ashes were deposited in an urn made of rude earthenware without the help of a lathe. Drinking-vessels of glass of fine and delicate workmanship, pointed or rounded at the bottom, are common. From the construction of these cups it is evident that the Saxon allowed no “heel-taps.” Bronze bowls, dishes, and basins are found in Saxon barrows, and occasionally buckets.

A pair of dice was found in a grave at Kingston Down, which indicates a favourite pastime of the Saxons. The presence of a large number of Roman coins shows that they used Roman money long after the legions had left our shores. Sceattas, or Saxon silver coins, are also frequently discovered.

Many Saxon cemeteries have been discovered in various parts of England, but a vast number have never been examined; and the careful inspection of the contents of barrows must throw much light upon Saxon settlements in England. Bede tells us that there were three different branches of this race. The Jutes settled in Kent and the Isle of Wight. The Saxons settled in Essex, the country of the East Saxons, Sussex, that of the South Saxons, and Wessex, of the West Saxons. The Angles settled in East Anglia. Now an examination of barrows shows that the Angles practised cremation and urn burial, which was not so common amongst the Jutes and Saxons, and the fibulae found in the tombs of these tribes differ considerably in shape and size. The contents of these graves throw much light on the history of the people, their customs and habits. The action of the plough has often obliterated the traces of ancient barrows. It is advisable that the position of all such mounds should be carefully noted and recorded, and where possible excavations made which may help in settling many vexed questions, and enable us to understand more fully the condition of the pagan Saxon, ere the light of Christianity had dawned upon him.

Our names for the days of the week tell us of the gods of our Saxon forefathers, whom they worshipped in their pagan and unregenerate state. Sun-day, Moon-day, Tuisco’s-day, Woden’s-day, Thor’s-day, Frya’s-day, Saeter’s-day, link us on to the times when these “whelps from the kennels of barbarism,” as the Britons loved to call their conquerors, swept away the old British Church, and established their heathen rites and customs. Their religion resembled that of their Scandinavian neighbours. Each village had its sacred spot, some clearing in the forest, a tree, or well, whither the people resorted to pray to their gods, and practise superstitious rites and customs which lingered long after the introduction of Christianity, and even still survive. They had also a few temples whither the freemen came three times a year.

Driven out of England the ancient British Church found a refuge in the wilds of Wales and Cornwall, where it lived on and flourished vigorously, allied to the Churches of Ireland and Scotland, sending out missionaries to the Continent of Europe, having schools and colleges, monasteries, and numerous churches. Llancarvan, in Glamorganshire, was a celebrated seat of learning; and all places named Bangor, such as Bangor-Iscaed, St. Asaph, and many others, possessed schools and colleges. The village names of numerous places in Wales and Cornwall record the labours of many earnest, saintly men, who brought Christianity to the savage folk in these wild regions. There are nearly five hundred names of these holy men in Wales alone, whose memory is retained by this simple record; and Cornwall is dotted over with churches dedicated to men and women whose names are strange, and of whom we know nothing. History tells us of some of these early saints and martyrs, of St. Alban, the first British martyr, who was slain 303 A.D. during the Diocletian persecution in the city which bears his name; of St. David, a Welsh prince, who followed the active life of John the Baptist, and preached like him. The memory of early saints is enshrined in the names, St. Ives, St. Neots, St. Bees, and in St. Edmund’s Bury, named after St. Edmund, who was taken prisoner by Ingvar the Viking, and having been bound to a tree, was scourged, and served as a target for the arrows of the Danes, being afterwards beheaded. All these record the bravery and zeal of the holy men of old who loved their God, and for His sake feared not to die.

Nothing need be said of the conversion of the English. That is a story which has been often told. The scene is again changed. The temples of Woden and Thor at Canterbury and Godmundingham and elsewhere, with their heathen altars and shrines and idols, have been changed into Christian churches, and other houses of God have been raised in the various kingdoms; while Paulinus, Berinus, Aidan, Winfrid, and other preachers, travelled through the country, exhorting the people to accept the Christian faith.

Memorials of these early Christian missionaries remain in many a village churchyard. Often there stands near the village church an old stone cross, its steps worn away by the rains and frosts of thirteen centuries; its head has doubtless gone, broken off by the force of the gales, or by the wild rage of human passion and Puritanical iconoclastic zeal; but it preserves the memory of the first conversion of the Saxon villagers to Christianity, and was erected to mark the spot where the people assembled to hear the new preacher, and to consecrate it for this purpose.

In the life of St. Willibald we read that it was the custom of the Saxon nation, on the estates of some of their nobles or great men, to erect, not a church, but the sign of the Holy Cross, dedicated to God, beautifully and honourably adorned, and exalted on high for the common use of daily prayer. It is recorded also that St. Kentigern used to erect a cross in any place where he had converted the people, and where he had been staying for some time. Very probably the Saxon preacher would make use of the old open-air meeting-place, where the pagan villagers used to worship Woden; and thus the spots still used for public worship are in many cases the same which used to echo with the songs of Thor and the prayers of pagan Saxons.

These crosses were the rallying-points for Christian congregations before churches arose, and the bells in their turrets summoned the people to the service of God. In Somersetshire alone there are two hundred relics of the piety of our forefathers; and the North of England and Scotland are especially rich in crosses. No two are ever quite similar. Some are of simple design or character; but many have such beautiful carving and scrollwork that we are astonished at the skill of the workmen who, with very simple and rude tools, could produce such wonderful specimens of art.

The pagan Saxons worshipped stone pillars; so in order to wean them from their ignorant superstition, the Christian missionaries, such as St. Wilfrid, erected these stone crosses, and carved upon them the figures of the Saviour and His Apostles, displaying before the eyes of their hearers the story of the cross written in stone.

The North of England has very many examples of the zeal of these early preachers of the faith, and probably most of them were fashioned by the monks and followers of St. Wilfrid, who was Archbishop of York at the beginning of the eighth century.

When he travelled about his diocese a large body of monks and workmen attended him; and amongst these were the cutters in stone who made the crosses and erected them on the spots which Wilfrid consecrated to the worship of God.

The Whalley cross is earlier than the time of Wilfrid. It is one of the crosses of Paulinus, who was one of the priests sent by Pope Gregory to help Augustine in the work of converting the Saxons, and who became Archbishop of York. Under the shadow of this very cross Paulinus, who came to England in 601 A.D., preached nearly thirteen hundred years ago. Indeed an old monkish writer wished to represent that Augustine himself came to Whalley and erected the cross, which he calls “St. Augustine’s Cross”; but there is little doubt that Paulinus was the founder. In Puritan times this and other relics of early faith suffered badly, and was removed with two others from the churchyard, and used as a gatepost; but the spoiler repented, and restored it once more to its old resting-place.

But how did the founders learn to make such beautiful patterns and designs? St. Wilfrid had travelled much; he had been to Rome and seen the wonderful examples of Roman skill in the great city. The Romans had left behind them in England their beautiful pavements, rich in designs, with splendid borders of fine workmanship. These, doubtless, the monks copied on parchment in the writing-rooms of their monasteries, and gave their drawings to the monks in the stone-shed, who reproduced them in stone. The only tool they had to produce all this fine and delicate work was the pick, and this increases our wonder at the marvels they were able to accomplish.

There is a famous cross at Ruthwell, in Dumfriesshire, which for a short time formed part of the kingdom of Northumbria. Scenes from early Christian history are portrayed, and these are surrounded by bands with sentences in Latin describing them. The lowest panel is too defaced for us to determine the subjects; on the second we see the flight into Egypt; on the third figures of Paul, the first hermit, and Anthony, the first monk, are carved; on the fourth is a representation of our Lord treading under foot the heads of swine; and on the highest there is the figure of John the Baptist with the Lamb. On the opposite side are the Annunciation, the Salutation, and other scenes of gospel history. On the side of the cross is some beautiful scrollwork, which shows a wonderful development of skill and art.

In addition to the Latin sentences there are five stanzas of an Anglo-Saxon poem of singular beauty. It is the story of the crucifixion told in touching words by the cross itself, which narrates its own sad tale from the time when it was a growing tree by the woodside, until at length, after the body of the Lord had been taken down—

“The warriors left me there,
Standing defiled with blood.”

On the head of the cross are inscribed the words, “Caedmon made me.” This Caedmon was the holy monk, on whom the gift of writing verses was bestowed by Heaven, who in the year 680 A.D. began to pour forth his songs in praise of Almighty God, and told in Anglo-Saxon poetry the story of the creation and the life of our Lord. The Bewcastle cross is somewhat similar to that at Ruthwell. We see again the figure of our Lord standing on the heads of swine, but the lower figure is represented with a hawk, the sign of nobility, and is probably that of a person to whom the cross is a memorial. The ornamentation on this cross is very perfect and beautifully executed. The very beautiful cross at Eyam, in Derbyshire, differs both in style and workmanship from almost any other. The shaft has evidently been broken. In the panels of the head of the cross are figures of angels.

Sometimes we find some very strange beasts carved on the old crosses. On the cross at Ilkley we observe some of these curious animals with their long tails interlacing. Sometimes the tail is wound round the creature’s body, and the idea of the artist was to represent the animal reduced to a state of powerlessness. One forepaw is held up in sign of submission. Above is a figure of our Lord triumphing over the powers of evil, and these animals represent probably man’s lower nature owning the supremacy of the King of Heaven. On the other side of the cross are figures of the four evangelists. The upper half of the figures alone appears dressed in flowing garments; each is carrying a book; circles of glory surround their heads, which are the symbols of the evangelists. St. Matthew has a man’s head; St. Mark a leopard’s; St. Luke’s a calf’s; and St. John an eagle’s head.

The crosses at Hexham, where Archbishop Wilfrid founded a monastery, are very ancient. We are able to tell the date of these stones, for they were placed at the head and feet of the grave of Bishop Acca, who was a follower of St. Wilfrid, and accompanied him on his missionary journeys. Acca succeeded Wilfrid as Bishop of Hexham, and according to the old chronicler Bede, “being a most active man and great in the sight of God and man, he much adorned and added to his church.” Acca died in 738 A.D., and as the monastery of Hexham was soon destroyed, these crosses must have been erected eleven hundred and sixty-three years ago.

The cross at St. Andrew’s, Bishop Auckland, is of much later date, and the workmanship is not nearly so fine and delicate as in the earlier crosses. The Saxons had deteriorated as a race just before the Normans came, and although the cross still appears on the flat stone, the design on the shaft of the cross merely represents a hunting scene; and a Saxon bowman is shown shooting at some animals. The religious conceptions of an earlier and purer time have disappeared. The moustache of the sportsman also shows that the stone belonged to a period very near the Norman Conquest, when that fashion of wearing the hair was in vogue.

England is remarkable for these specimens of ancient art. On the Continent there are very few of these elaborately carved crosses; but it is noteworthy that wherever the English or Irish missionaries went, they erected these memorials of their faith. In Switzerland, where they founded some monasteries, there are some very similar to those in England.

There are several other kinds of crosses besides those in churchyards. There are market crosses, called “cheeping” crosses after the Anglo-Saxon cheap, to buy, from which Cheapside, in London, Chippenham and Chipping Norton derive their names. Some crosses are “pilgrim” crosses, and were erected along the roads leading to shrines where pilgrimages were wont to be made, such as the shrine of St. Thomas a Becket at Canterbury, Glastonbury, Our Lady of Walsingham. Sometimes they were erected at the places where the corpse rested on its way to burial, as the Eleanor crosses at Waltham and Charing, in order that people might pray for the soul of the deceased. Monks also erected crosses to mark the boundaries of the property of their monastery.

[ENLARGE]

OLD MARKET CROSS

Time has dealt hardly with the old crosses of England. Many of them were destroyed by the Puritans, who by the Parliamentary decree of 1643, ordered that all altars and tables of stones, all crucifixes, images and pictures of God and the saints, with all superstitious inscriptions, should be obliterated and destroyed. In London, St. Paul’s Cross, Charing Cross, and that in Cheapside, were levelled with the ground, and throughout the country many a beautiful work of art which had existed hundreds of years shared the same fate. Place-names sometimes preserve their memory, such as Gerard’s Cross, in Buckinghamshire, Crosby, Crossens, Cross Inn, Croston; these and many others record the existence in ancient times of a cross, and probably beneath its shade the first preachers of the gospel stood, when they turned the hearts of our heathen ancestors, and taught them the holy lessons of the Cross.

CHAPTER IX

ENGLISH ARCHITECTURE

Saxon monasteries—Parish churches—Benedict Biscop—Aldhelm—St. Andrew’s, Hexham—Brixworth Church—Saxon architecture—Norman architecture—Characteristics of the style—Transition Norman— Early English style—Decorated style—Perpendicular style.

The early Saxon clergy lived in monasteries, where they had a church and a school for the education of the sons of thanes. Monastic houses, centres of piety and evangelistic zeal, sprang up, the abodes of religion, civilisation, peace, and learning. They were the schools of culture, sacred and profane, of industry and agriculture; the monks were the architects, the painters, the sculptors, the goldsmiths of their time. They formed the first libraries; they taught the young; they educated women in convents, and by degrees dispersed the shades of ignorance, idolatry, and barbarism, and reformed England.

To record the number of these monastic houses which were erected in the seventh and eighth centuries would require much space; and as our chief concern is with the vestiges that remain in our English villages, and as most of these Saxon monasteries were plundered and destroyed by the Danes, or rebuilt on a grander scale by the Normans, we will not now enumerate them.

After the country had been evangelised by the itinerant monks and preachers, the next process was to establish a church in every village, and to provide a pastor to minister therein. Archbishop Theodore encouraged the thanes to build and endow churches on their estates, and introduced to this country the parochial system, by means of which all villages could have the services of a resident pastor.