Sayfadaki görseller
PDF
ePub

Civilization of Roman Britain.

23

dary of their dominion in this island. Such facts accord but little with the idea of a supremacy carelessly assumed and as carelessly thrown away. If there were, indeed, men writing history on the shores of the Bosphorus some centuries later who knew little or nothing of Britain, the more to their shame. Tacitus had given large space to the affairs of our country in his immortal writings, however small may be their attraction to historians among ourselves.

It was the manner of the Romans to put special honour upon agriculture. The veterans who founded colonies became the cultivators of the lands which fell to them. In this manner the Britons were instructed and stimulated in such labours.* The forest was cleared, the morass was drained, so that in the fourth century the corn produced in Britain was conveyed in large quantities to the other provinces of the empire, especially to Gaul and Germany. Even the grape was grown so as to be made to yield an agreeable wine.‡ On the whole, there is good reason to believe that the agriculture of Britain was in a more prosperous state under the Romans, than at any period in our history during the next thousand years after their departure. The Romans not only tilled our soil, they went beneath it-they were assiduous in working our mines. In fact, the settlement of the Romans in Britain introduced all the useful arts in the utmost maturity that had then been given to them. The fraternities or corporations of weavers, of dyers, and of other crafts which were protected and patronized by the State in other provinces, now made their appearance in this country. This Sir Francis has shown very clearly (English Commonwealth, I., c. x. pp. 331-335). Rome itself produced few articles of utility, and few even of ornament, which were not also produced in Britain. We learn from Tacitus that before the close of the first century, the Britons had become so skilled in these new employments as to excel their neighbours the Gauls. Agricola held forth the baits of pleasure, encouraging them as well by public assistance 'as by warm exhortations to build temples, courts of justice, and commodious dwelling-houses. He bestowed praise on such 'as cheerfully obeyed; the slow and uncomplying were branded 'with reproach; and thus a spirit of emulation diffused itself, operating like a sense of duty. To establish a plan of education, and to give the sons of the leading chiefs a tincture of letters, was part of his policy. By way of encouragement he 'praised their talents, and already saw them, by the force of their

[ocr errors]

* Scriptores Rei Rusticœ a Gesnero, tom. i.

+ Ammianus Marcellinus, lib. xviii. c. 2. Zozimus, Hist., lib. iii.
Script. Hist. August. 942. Tacitus, Vita Agric. xii.

'native genius, rising superior to the attainments of the Gauls. 'The consequence was, that they who had always disdained the 'Roman language began to cultivate its beauties.' (Vita Agric., xxii.) Two centuries more of such influences must have diffused such tastes and such employments still more widely. Roman roads, which covered the land very much as our own great lines of railway now cover it; Roman villas, which were adorned with every luxury that art could furnish; and Roman cities, of which more than sixty are mentioned by name, all serve to show the kind of educating power by which the mind of the Britons was influenced for more than three hundred years. Shut out from seeking proficiency in the military art, or in political science, they were encouraged, for obvious reasons, to occupy themselves in productive employments, and were the more at liberty to do

so.

The measure of civilization thus realized they carried with them, along with their Christianity, into the fastnesses of Wales, when compelled to retreat before the Saxons. Yes-and subsequently, the monuments of that civilization which survived in Saxon Britain, ministered, after a while, perceptibly to the improvement of the conquerors who were to give name, and root, and power to modern England. Tribes which have once learnt the useful arts do not soon unlearn them. The Welsh, who often sided with the Danes, did not side with the Normans. The latter, accordingly, have no good word for them. Lanfranc speaks of them, when writing to William, as those filthy Welsh,' and congratulates the Conqueror on the fact that England might be said to be free of them. But the men who spoke thus of the Welsh were wont to speak in little better terms of the Saxon. In neither direction should their testimony be taken without much deduction. The Welsh ecclesiastics were possessed of learning, and the people were possessed of many high moral and religious qualities, which the Normans were not disposed to appreciate; nor were the Saxons the mere consumers of ale and swine's flesh which the same authorities have affirmed, and which some later historians have been too ready to believe.

The Anglo-Saxons, unhappily, were nearly always at war, either among themselves, or in resisting invasion. But even in these circumstances the industrious habits of the people are conspicuous. The names of our old implements of husbandry are nearly all of Saxon origin. They bestowed much care on the rearing of cattle and swine. The wide pasture and forest lands at their disposal were favourable to such pursuits. The goat gave them milk and fleece. The skins of their herds gave them leather for shoes, breeches, and gloves-the latter being generally worn even by the humblest. Wool was an article of expor

Civilization of Anglo-Saxon Britain.

25

tation, and was returned by the artisans of the Netherlands and of the Rhenish provinces in the form of woollen cloth. Honey was much valued, and the bee-master was a person almost as well known as the swineherd. Great care was taken in the breeding of horses, and laws were enacted to secure attention to that object. Hence the readiness with which the Danish invaders mounted their cavalry. We do not find that corn was ever imported into Saxon Britain. Nor does there appear to have been so much suffering from dearth as in most countries in those times. The rent of lands was generally paid in produce-rarely in money. Large tracts of land were reclaimed by draining and by embankments, especially in the eastern counties. The citizens of London who strolled beyond the gates over Smithfield and Holborn on the summer holiday, did so amidst meadows and vineyards.* Every monastery had its vineyard. Gloucestershire was especially famous for its grapes. The wine so produced had its place on the king's table. Salt mines, especially in Cheshire and Sussex, were a source of much profit; but the metallic mines were not worked as in the time of the Romans.† The houses, furniture, utensils, arms, and personal ornaments used by the Anglo-Saxons suppose considerable industry and skill in the way of handicraft. Most of these products were from the hands of natives, though foreign artists, introduced by ecclesiastics and kings, had contributed to qualify them for the practice of such 'mysteries.' Cathedrals and royal residences came by degrees to be built of stone; but the houses even of great men continued to be reared, for the most part, to the time of the Conquest, of perishable material. The Anglo-Saxons, and especially the females, so far excelled in the working of embroidery, presenting rich displays of colours and gold, that productions of this nature became known in all the capitals of Europe under the name of English work.' So early as the eighth century we find an English merchant, named Bolto, resident at Marseilles, the same merchant being the father of a bishop.§ Such men, we have reason to believe, were known in all the great marts of the Continent. Thus we find Charlemagne writing to Offa, King of Mercia, saying that the French merchants were complaining that certain woollen cloths exported from England were not of the accustomed size.|| Stamford is mentioned as a place where a

Guil. Pictav., 210. Laws of Ina, xliv. et seq., and of Ethelstan. Liber niger Scaccarii, lib. i. c. 7. Hist. Eliens, i. 52. Lappenberg, xi. 356 et seq.

Guil. Pictav., 207. Doomsday, i. 268. Ellis's Introduction, i. 132. Lappenberg, ii. 363, 364.

Muratori Antiq, v. 12. Guil. Pictav., 211.

§ Lappenberg, ii. 364.

Epist. Caroli ad Offam. Wilkins' Concilia, i. 159.

company of these cloth-weavers followed their calling. London was well known as the great meeting-place of foreign traders. French, Normans, Flemings, men of the Emperor'-that is, men from the rising Hanse towns of Germany-all might be seen in their foreign costumes, and heard in their foreign speech, as they exposed their commodities for sale along Billingsgate, or on the decks of their vessels in the Thames. Bristol, as a place of traffic, stood even then next to London, and all the chief seaports more or less resembled it.* Some of the Anglo-Saxon seamen engaged in the whale fishery, and extended their voyages to Iceland. Thus, by degrees, the sea-king gave himself to the service which was to transform him into the merchant-king. In this new form of the spirit of adventure we see the embryo of the power which has given people to half the continent of America, and has set up its sovereignty over the fairest portion of Africa and India.

The science and literature of the Anglo-Saxons were such as the decline of the empire could give them. Everything of this nature in their history began with their Christianity, and in both they had the same preceptors. Bede, and Alcuin, and Alfred, will admit of favourable comparison with the culture found elsewhere in their day. The verses of Beowulf and Cadmon scarcely deserve the name of poetry. The lyric ballad, in which the people took great delight, seems to have risen more nearly towards that level. Those compositions, as designed for the people, and not for scholars, were natural in style and substance. They seem to have come into prevalence in the later period of Anglo-Saxon history. They treated of love, and war, and the manners of the time, with the mixture of pathos, fire, or satirical humour common to the minstrel in his use of such themes. Many of the anecdotes, given with so much finish in Hume's History from Malmesbury and others, were transmitted in this form to the times of the Normans. The amours of King Edgar, the man so much in favour with St. Dunstan and his churchmen, did not escape the lash of this Troubadour literature. Some judgment may be formed of the skill which at times characterized these performances from the account given of Alfred, as finding his way to the tent of Guthrum the Dane, under the privileged guise of a minstrel. In that guise, too, Aulaf, the great Northman leader, is said to have gained access to the tent of Athelstan, when conducting his formidable army into Northumbria. is thus manifest that the most eminent and accomplished men were known in those times to be students in this art; and that + Ibid. ii. 364.

* Lappenberg, ii. 365.

Political Institutions of the Anglo-Saxons.

27

with princes and people the harper possessed a high and special place.

The grand check to progress of every kind in Anglo-Saxon Britain during the ninth and tenth centuries were the Danes. Every new descent of those invaders came as a new impediment and a new devastation. Of course, the converted Danes shared, after awhile, in the improvement ensured by Christianity. Odo, one of their number, became Archbishop of Canterbury. The mind of Canute came under Christian influence with great advantage to himself and his subjects. It is a fact, also, that. the countries occupied by the Danes included a larger proportion of freemen than those occupied by the Saxons. But in a kingdom whose entire population is supposed to have been under three millions, and with a large proportion of that number in a condition more or less servile, the number possessing the slightest knowledge of letters must have been small.

But the feature in the history of the Anglo-Saxons which brings out most of their characteristic qualities, is presented in their political institutions. Descending on the shores of Britain, the rover found a settled dwelling-place. The man who has lived by plunder puts his hand to honest labour. The culture of the soil is followed by the construction of the village and the town. The men who find their home in the new country, become concerned for the safety of their new-acquired property, and of their persons. The oath and pledge,' which had bound them as freebooters, now binds them as men given to honest ways, and seeking to be governed by law in place of the sword. Tithings, and hundreds, and shiremotes weave them all into a great social network, which covers the land. Every man enters into a security for the good conduct of the men nearest about him, and acts continually, from the nature of the case, as an officer of police, and as an officer whose natural motive to vigilance supersedes the necessity of pay. Such as were not responsible to the court of their hundred were responsible to the hall-court of their lord. Every man was bailed, in some form or other, to good behaviour. Every district had its local government, and every local government was kept in check by the fact, that an appeal might always be made from its injustice to a sense of justice beyond and above itself. For the tithings, the hundreds, the hall-motes, the shire-motes, the king's-court, the king himself -none of these were absolute. The last resort lay with the wisdom of the great council of the nation conjoined with the king. Such was the polity which, in new circumstances, grew out of those simple principles of government which had been common to the German race from the earliest time, and which were to be

« ÖncekiDevam »