THE FOOD OF THE PEOPLE. 175 Bede's time the English are described as "ignorant and helpless of the art of making it." The food of the people consisted largely of flesh, and of flesh probably the greater part came from swine. Swine are frequently mentioned in great numbers, as forming part of a man's wealth. Thus a nobleman is mentioned as bequeathing two thousand swine to his daughter. This animal would be particularly useful on account of the fitness of its flesh for salting. It must be remembered that for a considerable part of the year fresh meat was unknown. In this we may trace one of the chief causes of disease among the early English. Fish was largely in use. Most of the freshwater kinds with which we are now familiar occur; but eels have the same predominance among them as swine among land animals. Four thousand eels are mentioned as having been given by the monks of Ramsay to the monks of Peterborough. It is probably that freshwater fish was used then, as indeed it continued to be used for long afterwards, in much greater quantity than at present. Sea fish was comparatively rare, the appliances for catching them being ineffective. Thus we hear that Wilfred taught the rude people of Sussex to catch fish out of the sea, a thing which they had never thought of doing. We hear, however, of salmon, herrings, and of the common varieties of shell-fish. Porpoises too, a very rare sight in these days, are mentioned. Wheat and barley were grown; but the use of the former was much less common than it is now. We are told of the monks of a certain monastery that they ate barley bread because their income did not permit them as many meals as they needed of the wheaten article. Among the other articles of diet we find milk, butter, cheese, and honey. To these, as poultry was kept, we may add eggs. The diet of the richer class was probably largely supplemented by game of various kinds, the flesh of the deer being the most important. Flying game could not be obtained so easily when it had to be shot with the arrow or brought down with the sling. The most nutritious of English game birds, the pheasant, was not introduced; on the other hand, the huge bustard, now extinct in the British islands, was probably common. Strawberries and Many kinds of fruit were in use. raspberries are indigenous to England, but probably were not then improved by cultivation. Apples and pears were grown in orchards, as also were figs, at least in parts of England where the climate favoured them. The hazel-nut is of native growth. The walnut (as its name "foreign nut" indicates) came from abroad, and indeed was probably introduced by the Romans, to whom we also owe the cherry. Wine was also largely produced, but, as we can easily believe, not of a first-rate quality. The Norman followers of William the Conqueror provided themselves, we are told, with a large quantity of wine, not venturing to encounter the native English growth. The common drinks of the people were ale and mead, the latter being made of honey. We hear also The fig grows luxuriantly in Sussex. HUNTING, HAWKS, AND HARPERS. 177 of cider, made from the juice of apples; and once or twice of morat, made from mulberries. They sat at table, the women eating with the men. Spoons and knives were used. Forks are the invention of a much later age (not earlier than the sixteenth century). The chief sport was hunting, of which the English were fond, but not with the passionate devotion that we find among their Norman conquerors. Deer were frequently caught in nets, and sometimes brought down with arrows, or hunted down by dogs. Boars were killed with spears. Hawks were used for the capture of larger birds, especially herons. Of indoor games we hear of none but a kind of draughts. The wealthy had harpers, gleemen, jesters, and tumblers, who amused them at their meals and during the long drinking bouts which commonly followed them. XVII. WESSEX AND EGBERT. WESSEX has often been mentioned in the chapters which have been devoted to describing the rise and fall of Northumbria and Mercia. To these notices there is little that we need or indeed that we are able to add. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is indeed principally a record of West Saxon doings, but it is meagre in the extreme except where it has been supplemented from Bede, and Bede, as a Northumbrian, makes little mention of Wessex. For the first fifty years after the deposition of Ceawlin in 592 the West Saxons were chiefly occupied in warfare with their British neighbours on the west. In 607 we hear of a battle with the South Saxons, which was apparently decisive of West Saxon superiority. Some thirty years after came the conversion of the royal house to Christianity, followed, probably, at no long interval by that of the people. In 672 we have the novel incident, novel indeed then, but not at all out of agreement with German ways of thinking,1 of a Tacitus speaks of the high honour in which the Germans held their women and of the royal power which they sometimes bestowed upon them. |