[2] See Parker’s “Introduction to Gothic Architecture” for illustrations of this work.

V. General Industry and Commerce

102.  Farms; Slave Trade.

The farming of this period, except on the Church lands, was of the rudest description.  Grain was ground by the women and slaves in stone hand mills.  Late, the mills were driven by wind or water power.  The pricipal commerce was in wool, lead, tin, and slaves.  A writer of that time says he used to see long trains of young men and women tied together, offered for sale, “for men were not ashamed,” he adds, “to sell their nearest relatives, and even their own children.”

VI.  Mode of Life, Manners, and Customs

103.  The Town.

The first Saxon settlements were quite generally on the line of the old Roman roads.  They were surrounded by a rampart of earth set with a thick hedge or with rows of sharp stakes.  Outside this was a deep ditch.  These places were called towns,[1] from “tun,” meaning a fence or hedge.  The chief fortified towns were called “burghs” or boroughs.  Later on, this class of towns generally had a corporate form of government, and eventually they sent representatives to Parliament (S213).

[1] One or more houses might constitute a town.  A single farmhouse is still so called in Scotland.

104.  The Hall.

The buildings in these towns were of wood.  Those of the lords or chief men were called “halls,” from the fact that they consisted mainly of a hall, or large room, used as a sitting, eating, and often as a sleeping room,—­a bundle of straw or some skins thrown on the floor serving for beds.  There were no chimneys, but a hole in the roof let out the smoke.  If the owner was rich, the walls would be decorated with bright-colored tapestry, and with suits of armor and shields hanging from pegs.

105.  Life in the Hall.

Here in the evening the master supped on a raised platform at one end of the “hall,” while his followers ate at a lower table.

The Saxons were hard drinkers as well as hard fighters.  After the meal, while horns of ale and mead were circulating, the minstrels, taking their harps, would sing songs of battle and ballads of wild adventure.

Outside the “hall” were the “bowers,” or chambers for the master and his family, and, perhaps, an upper chamber for a guest, called later by the Normans a sollar, or sunny room.

If a stranger approached a town, he was obliged to blow a horn; otherwise he might be slain as an outlaw.

Here in the midst of rude plenty the Saxons, or Early English, lived a life of sturdy independence.  They were rough, strong, outspoken, and fearless.  Theirs was not the nimble brain, for that was to come with another people (the Normans), though a people originally of the same race.  The mission of the Saxons was to lay the foundation; or, in other words, to furnish the muscle, grit, and endurance, without which the nimble brain is of little permanent value.