History of England During the Early and Middle Ages, Volume 1Bell & Daldy, 1867 |
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A. S. Chron A. S. Laws Alfred Alfred's Anglia Anglo-Saxon Anselm archbishop army Athelstane barons battle Becket Bede bishop Britain British Britons brother Cæsar Canute Canute's castle century character charters chief Christian Chronicle Church civil clergy conquerors conquest court crown Danes Danish death district Domesday Domesday Book doubt Dunstan Eadric Streona ealdorman earl Edward enemy England English Epist estates Ethelred Ethelweard fact faith father favour feudal Gaul Geoffrey of Monmouth Giraldus Cambrensis Godwin Guenever Harold Henry Henry's Hist homage honour island Keltic Kent king king's kingdom knight land Lanfranc legend London lord Malmesbury married Mercia monastery monks murder native Nennius NEO-DRUIDISM nobles Norman Normandy Norsemen Northumbria pagan peace perhaps Picts pope priest prince probably province race reign Roman Rome royal Saxon seems soldiers story Thames tion towns tribes Vortigern Wales Welsh Wessex William witan
Popular passages
Page 586 - Homage," says the Treatise of Tenures, "is the most honourable service, and most humble service of reverence, that a frank tenant may do to his lord : for when the tenant shall make homage to his lord, he shall be ungirt and his head uncovered, and his lord shall sit and the tenant shall kneel before him on both his knees, and hold his hands jointly together between the hands of his lord, and shall say thus...
Page 479 - ... robbers. The bishops and learned men cursed them continually, but the effect thereof was nothing to them; for they were all accursed, and forsworn, and abandoned. To till the ground was to plough the sea: the earth bare no corn, for the land was all laid waste by such deeds; and they said openly, that Christ slept, and his saints.
Page 155 - Haupt-stueck. laughed in death. When Sigurd, the pirate, who had seen his comrades butchered, was asked what he thought of their fate, he answered, "I fear not death, since I have fulfilled the greatest duty of life; but I pray thee not to let my hair be touched by a slave, or stained with blood.
Page 424 - Never day dawned," says his chronicler, " but he rose a worse man than he had lain down; never sun set but he lay down a worse man than he had risen." Yet his hand prospered in all that it found to do; the sea and the wind seemed to obey him; an old Greek might have seen the approaches of Nemesis in fortune so unvaried as to be ominous. His court were as lawless as their master, and plundered the houses in which they were quartered, or insulted the honour of women.
Page 78 - I have suffered hunger for the Son of the Virgin. I have been fostered in the land of the Deity, I have been teacher to all intelligences, I am able to instruct the whole universe. I shall be until the day of doom on the face of the earth ; And it is not known whether my body is flesh or fish. Then I was for nine months In the womb of the hag Ceridwen ; I was originally little Gwion, And at length I am Taliesin.
Page 588 - Homage and fealty being the relations of service, the vassal's condition was determined by the nature of his tenure. Every tenure implied some service, either fixed, and then more or less honourable, or arbitrary, and so a mark of servitude. The church taking precedence of the state, tenure in frankalmoigne — that is, by the services of religion — came first.
Page 586 - I become your man from this day forward of life and limb and of earthly worship, and unto you shall be true and faithful, and bear to you faith for the tenements (MN) that I claim to hold of you, saving the faith that I owe unto our sovereign lord the king;' and then the lord so sitting shall kiss him.
Page 249 - He has shown in his maps the territorial identity of many ancient Saxon Tithings with modern English Parishes and Townships. He says, "Ten families constituted a tithing, the self-governing unit of the state, which is now represented among us by the parish, and ten tithings were a hundred, whose court administered justice among the little communities themselves."* Pearson has shown that the Hundreds of Devonshire contain on the average...
Page 441 - Henry the emperor (husband of Maud) dies, May 22. A council held at London, in which the marriage of priests is condemned. AD 1126. .'Henry returns to England in September, bringing with him his new queen and his daughter Maud, and many Norman prisoners, " whom he ordered to be kept in strong bonds.