woven with gold wire beaten flat, like narrow tape, preserved in the Chapter Library of Durham. It was worked by Saxon ladies, and given to St. Cuthbert's tomb by Athelstan in 934.

In architecture Asser speaks of royal halls and vills of stone; but nothing remains which can be assigned to Alfred himself. He repaired the walls of London, but where are they now? He built St. Paul's, but that building was destroyed by fire. It was probably Alfred who changed the position of the London gates, and ran new streets across the old and ruined sites; but where are the gates, and who would recognize the Cheapside of to-day with the Chepe of a thousand years ago? Of Saxon churches there are a few scattered about the country; but, again, not one which we can ascribe to Alfred. There is the ancient Church of St. Lawrence, Bradford-onAvon, which may be as early as the ninth century. There is Deerhurst, near Tewkesbury, built in 1053, two hundred years after Alfred. At Wing near Aylesbury, at Colchester, at Cambridge, at Limpsfield, at Earl's Barton, at Oxford, there are parts still standing of the old Saxon churches. should say that the little church at Bradford-onAvon may be taken as a good specimen of the Saxon parish church. It is cruciform, it is lighted by smali and narrow windows, which were not glazed, there was no pavement, the arch connecting nave and chancel is a narrow doorway, the ornamentation is rude. It is a stone church, which proves that it was built by some wealthy person, perhaps by Aldhelm himself, when he founded the nunnery at Bradford-this would bring us to the beginning of the seventh century. It is a very small church; but then the village or parish for

I

which it was built was also very small. Probably the church was quite large enough for the congregation.

Another typical Saxon church may be that of Greenstead, also a very small church, originally. The nave is built of trunks of trees cut straight through the middle, the round part left outside. In the restoration of the parish churches we may be quite sure that the first object was the possession of a church, its decoration and material being quite a secondary consideration. Alfred, therefore, was a great architect and builder. It is the temptation of kings to build. Which would one prefer to be, the king of whom nothing but the name remains attached to his huge pyramid, or the king whose pyramid has vanished, while his name, and his history, and his achievements are deathless? Alfred's pyramid has vanished.

Alfred was a musician. Every educated youth was a musician, and could play, while some could sing. According to tradition Alfred could sing. as well as play.

We may picture for ourselves the royal hall in which the Saxon poems were sung or recited. It is a long hall-say 200 feet by 40 feet-with a high roof and curved gables. There is a door at each end, with a porch enlarged at one end so as to form pantry, buttery, kitchen, and larder. Below these offices is the cellar. Wright reproduces a picture representing the cellar, with servants who draw the ale or mead, and carry it up the ladder which serves for a stair. The hall consists of a spacious nave, in which a double row of pillars supports the high roof, having a narrow aisle. on either side. Down the middle of the floor runs

the stone hearth, on which blaze the fires of wood. At the upper end is a cross-bench, where the king or the chief sits. With him are his wife, who fills the cups, and the thanes. On each side of the long hearth runs a line of tables with benches and stools, where sit the chief's "hearthsharers." At the lower end is a table with cups. Between the rows of pillars and the walls are sleeping-places for the ladies and the women. Tapestry and hangings separated this space from the hall; and in the hall the gleeman sat, harp in hand, singing or chanting, while his fingers ran up and down the strings of the harp, the alliterative poems of the time. When one hears the impromptu singing of the Welsh while the harp plays one of the familiar Welsh tunes, the singer always in harmony with the air, it is the ancient gleeman who sings to the accompaniment of the ancient harp.

Or the gleeman played, as the man with the drum and the Pandean pipes now plays, while the juggler tossed the balls and caught the knives,tricks as old as balls and knives themselves; or the tumblers and posturers threw themselves into strange contortions, and the dancing-girl danced upon her head. The dancing-girl of the East was not introduced until five hundred years later, when she came over from Syria with Richard, Earl of Cornwall. Perhaps there were still maintained the old games of strength, while the gleeman played. The Danish game of bone-throwing was never a pastime of the English. Or they asked riddles in verse, the answers of which everybody knew; yet they were asked over and over again, for the folk were still a simple folk, pleased with a repetition of the old jingle, and with their

own cleverness in guessing again what everybody knew already.

They sang the wild songs of Beowulf, "Cæd. mon's Poems of the Creation," the "Traveller's Song," the "Lament of Deor," Amywulf's "Elme," and his "Vision of the Holy Rood," and all the poetry of the early Saxon period; they told fables; they delivered moral axioms; they taught all kinds of knowledge by question and answer, not catechizing the people, but singing to them; they related legends and lives of the saints; they quoted pithy sayings and proverbs, as, for example, the following:

"Virtue is a great spell against demons. The reins of the tongue are fastened in the heart. Eyes are of no use to the blindly minded. Happy he who learns by the whipping got by another. Keep your new friend and your wine until they are old. Enslave your mind to no malignant luxuries. The much talker strips his mind of its real merits. If you would be great, be moderate."

There were materials in plenty for the winter evenings, when the cups went round freely and more than freely among those seasoned heads, and round the fires lay the people listening to the gleeman, carried out of themselves by the music and the song.

The coins of a period may also be used in estimating the art of the time. There is no difficulty in examining them, for a great many coins of Alfred are extant, and may be studied in the museums. It is to be observed that the coinage, then and long after, was entrusted to functionaries called moneyers, who had license and power to strike coins at certain towns only. This practice was continued by the Norman kings. The story

of the terrible punishment inflicted on his moneyers by Henry I. for issuing debased coins is an illustration of the practice and the dangers; for who could prevent the production of debased money when the "moneyer" made his profit out of the issue, and there was no place of assay? It is not stated anywhere to my knowledge how the mints were supplied with silver; when the existing coinage was all called in it was so much worn and clipped as to be worth little, while it was too frequently made of base metal, and worth nothing.

There was more than one reason for setting up the mints in various places. The mint was, to

begin with, a sign of authority; where Alfred's money was made, there Alfred's authority prevailed. Again, the difficulties of internal communication were so great-in the winter it was well-nigh impossible to convey any kind of goods, merchandise, wares, or stores, from one place to another that it was necessary to set up a mint in every important centre. When the coinage had become scarce, debased, or clipped in one district-these things were always happening with the coinage-it was desirable to replace it by another impression as speedily as possible.