The Early and Middle Ages of England

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Bell and Daldy, 1861 - 472 pages

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Page 61 - The object of the races who broke up the Roman empire was not to settle in a desert, but to live at ease as an aristocracy of soldiers, deriving rent from a peaceful population of tenants.
Page 345 - ... 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 170 - When .^Elfgar, the earl of Anglia, was outlawed by the witan, he replaced himself in his government by the aid of Danish mercenaries; they were days when every man did what was right in his own eyes; the central authority was only respected when the sympathies or the interests of some powerful earl supported it.
Page 105 - 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." His request was granted, and a freeman held up his hair for the fatal stroke ; but as the axe descended, Sigurd swayed himself forward, and the blow fell upon his captor's hands. The rough...
Page 60 - ... remarkable; and the desperate courage with which the Britons bore up, at least in Wessex and Northumbria, against repeated defeats, is evidence of the high qualities of the race. They obtained their reward in the liberal terms which were granted them by the conqueror. For the common belief, that the Keltic population of Britain was exterminated or driven into Wales and Brittany by the Saxons, has absolutely no foundation in history.
Page 26 - Roman bricks and mortar have furnished inexhaustible materials for Saxon towns, Norman castles, and even for English farmhouses. The great number of the Roman villas whose remains can still be traced is a proof that the lords of the soil were in easy circumstances ; while the fact that the structures were commonly of wood, raised upon a brick or stone foundation, is an argument against large fortunes.
Page 196 - Out of the surplus the king maintained his court, entertained strangers, paid his judicial commissioners, and contributed to public works. The church, the army, the fleet, the police, the poor-rates, the walls, bridges, and highways of the country, were all local expenses, defrayed by tithes, by personal service, or by contributions among the guilds.
Page 206 - ... were fewer, less was done in the winter months, and saint-days and Sundays were mercifully interspersed in the seasons of fair weather. Games of every sort were the lawful amusements of idle hours and of festivals; we have lost infinitely more from the Saxon book of sports than we have added to it. It is melancholy to know that in the eighth century a...
Page 289 - Asselin Fitz-Arthur stepped forth and forbade the burial to proceed : " The land where ye stand was once covered by my father's house, which this man for whom ye pray, while he was yet Duke of Normandy, took forcibly from my father, and, denying him all right, built this church there. I therefore challenge and publicly claim back this land, and forbid, in God's behalf, that the body of the spoiler be covered with my turf or buried in my inheritance.
Page 317 - It was evening before they left the shore, and there was no moon ;la few of the more prudent quitted the ship, but there remained nearly three hundred — a dangerous freight for a small vessel. However, fifty rowers flushed with wine made good way in the waters ; but the helmsman was less fit for his work, and the vessel struck suddenly on a sunk rock, the Raz de Catteville.

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