The floor was covered with reeds, which made a clean, soft, and warm carpet, on which the company could, if they pleased, lie round the fire.  They had carpets or rugs also, but reeds were commonly used.  The traveler who chances to find himself at the ancient and most interesting town of Kingston-on-Hull, which very few English people, and still fewer Americans, have the curiosity to explore, should visit the Trinity House.  There, among many interesting things, he will find a hall where reeds are still spread, but no longer so thickly as to form a complete carpet.  I believe this to be the last survival of the reed carpet.

The times of meals were:  the breakfast at about nine; the “noon-meat,” or dinner, at twelve; and the “even-meat,” or supper, probably at a movable time, depending on the length of the day.  When lighting was costly and candles were scarce, the hours of sleep would be naturally longer in winter than in the summer.

In their manner of living the Saxons were fond of vegetables, especially of the leek, onion, and garlic.  Beans they also had (these were introduced probably at the time when they commenced intercourse with the outer world), pease, radishes, turnips, parsley, mint, sage, cress, rue, and other herbs.  They had nearly all our modern fruits, though many show by their names, which are Latin or Norman, a later introduction.  They made use of butter, honey, and cheese.  They drank ale and mead.  The latter is still made, but in small quantities, in Somerset and Hereford shires.  The Normans brought over the custom of drinking wine.

In the earliest times the whole family slept in the common hall.  The first improvement was the erection of the solar, or upper chamber.  This was above the hall, or a portion of it, or over the kitchen and buttery attached to the hall.  The arrangement may be still observed in many of the old colleges of Oxford or Cambridge.  The solar was first the sleeping-room of the lord and lady; though afterward it served not only this purpose, but also for an ante-chamber to the dormitory of the daughters and the maid-servants.  The men of the household still slept in the hall below.  Later on, bed recesses were contrived in the wall, as one may find in Northumberland at the present day.  The bed was commonly, but not for the ladies of the house, merely a big bag stuffed with straw.  A sheet wrapped round the body formed the only night-dress.  But there were also pillows, blankets, and coverlets.  The early English bed was quite as luxurious as any that followed after, until the invention of the spring mattress gave a new and hitherto unhoped-for joy to the hours of night.

The second step in advance was the ladies’ bower, a room or suite of rooms set apart for the ladies of the house and their women.  For the first time, as soon as this room was added, the women could follow their own vocations of embroidery, spinning, and needlework of all kinds, apart from the rough and noisy talk of the men.