There is no appearance of chimneys; and the doorway is one of the gables, and reaches more than half-way to the top. The Saxons made bricks, but they were thin, and were called wall-tiles. The oldest kitchens in this country are said to have been built by the Romans. They were mostly octagonal, and had several fire-places, but no chimneys; there was no wood in the building; and a stone conical roof, with a turret at top, let out the steam and smoke; but some of the kitchens had a vent below the eaves, to let out the steam. In the first stage of the art of baking, however, the use of ovens was unknown, and the cake, when properly kneaded, was toasted, either upon a warm hearth or upon a gridiron. Such was the bread of the AngloSaxons; and an excellent proof of their baking it after this fashion is to be found in the well-known anecdote of King Alfred in the neatherd's hut; so that the Roman ovens, like their baths, must have fallen, after their departure from this country, first into disuse, and afterwards into ruins. The next public bakers were the monks, since bake-houses were found as appendages to monasteries; and the host, or consecrated bread, was baked by the monks with great ceremony. In olden times tenants were compelled to bake at their lord's oven, as they were also obliged to grind corn at his mill. Although the monks were early bakers, they do not appear to have fared much more sumptuously than the people, as far as bread was concerned; for the Anglo-Saxon monks of the Abbey of St. Edmund, in the eighth century, ate barley bread, because the income of the establishment would not admit of their feeding twice or thrice a day on wheaten. But to return to their domiciles. We find, first, that the floor served for a bed, and the mantle of the sleeper for a blanket; though in winter, no doubt, they had recourse to the additional warmth of shaggy skins. Wooden bowls and platters, and the celebrated baskets of osier-work, would contain their provisions and other necessaries; and, in addition to these, they had, as already mentioned, articles of coarse pottery, consisting of bowls, cups, and jars. Moreover, these houses consisted of but one large circular room, or hall, with a fire in the middle, round which the whole family, visitants, men, women, and children, slept on the floor, in one continued bed of straw and rushes. According to Cæsar, ten or twelve families used to live under one roof; which excited unfavourable suspicions in the minds of strangers accustomed to a more decent manner of living, and gave rise to the impression of the general prevalence of promiscuous polygamy, an idea which-judging from the storm of indignation that the conduct of Cartismandua, Queen of the Brigantes, raised, and from the sympathy extended to Boadicea and her daughters, and the undoubted influence for good that the Saxon women exercised over their husbands and sons-was, probably, without any real foundation. Indeed, the British ladies not only excelled in fairness, and in the whiteness and softness of their persons, but were held in general respectassuming, as well as men, the prophetic office, and dictating for the emergency of the future. Occasionally they held the sovereignty of states, and commanded armies on the field of battle; and this is the reason that some of the sepulchres, when opened, display an assortment like the commodities of Ulysses, when he went to discover Achilles-viz., implements of housewifery, trinkets, and warlike weapons. We do not know what particular ceremonies were used at the interment of the dead, but, from the contents of the graves, we find that, like other rude nations, they buried with the body whatever they accounted most valuable. The prodigious labour with which the old British barrows (or burying-places) were constructed by soil, in many cases brought from a great distance-and the care and ingenuity displayed in their forms, excite the wonder of modern ages. The most elegant of all these barrows are those known as the Druidical barrows, which appear to have been generally occupied by females, from the fact of their containing trinkets of a finer and more feminine character, and bones of a smaller size than those of the others. All ceremonies in the first stages of society are necessarily few and simple; and little more seems to have been customary, in contracting marriages among the early Britons, than the mutual affection of the individuals, and a few presents expressive of that affection, delivered to each other in the presence of their friends, at the marriage feast, to which all relations of both parties who were within the third degree of kindred were invited by the bridegroom, at his own house, on the day when the bride was conducted thither by her friends. When nobles or chiefs married, they made presents at this feast to their friends; but at the nuptials of the poorer classes, the friends of the couple made them small presents, according to their ability or generosity. On the morning after the marriage, the husband made his wife a present of considerable value, according to his circumstances, and this gift became her peculiar property, and was entirely at her own disposal. The wives of the ancient Britons, especially of their warriors, had not only the management of their domestic concerns, but the care and direction of the whole affairs of the family without doors--the husbands being constantly employed either in war or hunting, and, even when not so engaged, were too lazy or too proud to labour. As the women among the ancient Britons were generally of robust and healthy constitutions, and led simple, innocent, and rural lives, they brought forth their children with little pain or danger, and often without any assistance or interruption to their business. When a birth was attended with any difficulty, they put certain girdles, made for that purpose, round the women, which they imagined gave immediate and effectual relief. These girdles, which were believed to facilitate the birth of heroes, are reckoned in the poems of Ossian among the treasures of kings. Such girdles were kept with care until very lately, and not improbably our readers may have seen them among the old families in the highlands of Scotland. They are impressed with mystical figures; and the ceremony of binding them about the women's waists was accompanied with words and gestures which showed the custom to have been derived originally from the Druids. It was the practice of all Celtic nations to plunge their new-born infants into some lake or river, even in the winter season, with a view to try the firmness of their constitution and to harden their bodies; and every mother in Britain, not excepting even those of the highest rank, nursed all her own children, without having the least idea that it was possible for any other woman to perform that maternal office. If we may believe Solinus, the ancient Britons had also a custom of putting the first morsel of food into their son's mouth on the point of the father's sword, with the prayer that the child might prove a brave warrior, and die on the field of battle. That it would be beneath the dignity of heroes to roast roast, bake bread, and mix mead (cunningly invented by some ancient observer of the subtle chemistry of nature), is no more than might be expected; and though we are not certain for how many generations in this country men and women have existed willing and ready to serve as "hired servants," we do know that, for a lengthened period before hiring became the fashion, all manual labour was performed by slaves taken in battle, who were placed at the plough and at the spit, and performed, whether willingly or not we have no means of ascertaining, all the mind of their masters. For very many years these serfs or slaves, whatever might have been the amount or the nature of their service, never lived in the same huts as their masters; and when we remember that the first Saxon church was only constructed with watlings, or hurdles interwoven with osiers or other pliable wood, we see at once that the cost of a separate domicile for the serfs would be so small, and the conveniences arising from such arrangements so great, that we are not surprised to learn that the Bondarii, the Cottarii, as well as the Villiens, lived upon their lord's land in their own hovels, waiting his wishes, and ready to perform any service he might require. The former were bound to provide poultry, eggs, and other similar articles for their master's table, while the Cottarii, who were instructed at the expense of their lord in such handicraft as is indispensable in the country, pursued their several operations for his sole benefit. These serfs or bondmen generally married amongst themselves, and the number of servi is registered in Doomsday Book at 26,000, in addition to which it enumerates about 184,000 Villarii, Bondarii, and Cottarii. The progress of Christianity after the Conquest contributed much to alleviate, not only the sufferings of these unhappy serfs, but also to diminish their numbers, as their manumissions were greatly promoted by the clergy, without whose assistance, indeed, we do not see how they ever could have been freed, since a cruel law declared, “Na bondman may buy or purches his libertie with his awin proper gudes or geir, because all the cautel and gudes of all bondmen are understand to be in the power and dominion of the maister, swa that without consent of his maister, he may not redeme himself out of bondage with his awin proper denires or money.” By a law of Wihtroed, it was also declared that a man who gave meat to his servants on fast days was liable to be punished in the pillory; and if the servant ate of it of his own accord, he was either fined or bound to "suffer in his hide." It was no unusual thing in those days for servants to be branded, as cattle are now, with the initials of their owner, and nearly all wore a collar round their necks as a badge of servitude. The very absurd and pernicious idea entertained by the Caledonians and ancient Britons, that any employment except that of arms was undignified and beneath the attention of free men, contributed in a great measure to prevent these unhappy men from bettering their forlorn condition. Not only did their traditions declare that the "labourers" lived despised and died unlamented, but also affirmed that the souls of such, after death, hovered in the lower regions among fens and marshes, and never mounted the winds, nor mingled with the souls of warriors in their airy halls-nay, not only were the workers despised and rejected, but the fruits of their industry were seized as lawful prey; no wonder, therefore, that labour languished, and that the most necessary and useful arts were neglected. Even in the reign of William I., "the cottager that holdeth a cottage, or a croft or a roode land, shall do manual worke with one man every wecke in the yere for one day; and from the 1st of August shall also do all manner of other worke as the nativie do; also he shall not marry his daughter without lycence, nor make his son a priest !" For a lengthened period, the only labour required by the lord of the manor subsisted in connexion with handicraft and agricultural pursuits; women, as servants, therefore, had no share in domestic work, from the very fact that domestic life could scarcely then be said to exist. Shepherds attended Saxon flocks, milked the ewes, made the cheese. Even the chamber of rest, which, in "kings' palaces," contained only a bed, with thick boards, a thin covering, and stiff, hard pillows, was prepared by men ("beer-servants," as they were called); nor had women penetrated into the kitchen even at the time of the Conquest, as may be seen from the accompanying engraving, copied from the Bayeux tapestry. Tradition also tells the not improbable tale of an opulent Saxon dame, living at this period, who bequeathed her cook to one of her friends. We wonder what Soyer would have said to such a proceeding. Our ancestors used to rise at five, break their fast at nine,* making supper their principal meal, upon which occasions the guests sat in a circle on the ground, with a little hay or grass, or the skin of some animal, under them. A low table or stool was set before each person, with the portion of meat allotted to him upon it. If any one found a difficulty in separating any part of his meat with his hands and teeth, he made use of a large knife that lay in a particular place (lacqueys were not) for the benefit of the whole company. The host and hostess, together with their children, stood behind the guests, ready to assist them to drink or anything else they might require; and when at length (see engraving) servants were introduced to wait at table, we see in their lowly attitudes the reverence with which they beheld their master and his friends. It is to be noticed that the cooks are here offering the meat on the spits upon which it has been cooked. The chief visitors were placed in the middle, and the next in rank on the right and left. And by the time of Canute, the ceremonies and forms of the festal board had assumed such consequence, that a person sitting out of his proper place was to be pelted from it by bones, at the discretion of the company, without the privilege of taking offence. Square tables and long benches now began to be customary, and the mistress of the house sat, as at present, at the head of the table, upon a raised platform under a canopy, and distributed the provisions to the guests, whence came the modern title of lady—i. e., læf-dien, or the server of bread. The tables were covered with fine cloths, some very costly; a cup of horn, silver, silver-gilt, or gold, was presented to each person; other vessels were of wood, inlaid with gold; the benches and seats were carved like animals, and covered with embroidery. The drinking customs of the Danes, and the practice of sitting and pledging each other in strong drink, produced so much quarrelling, that several Saxon and Norman laws were enacted against these customs; and it will be remembered that the singular practice of dividing bowls and tankards into stages by pegs commenced at this period. These tankards usually held two quarts, so that there *To rise at five, to dine at nine, was a gill of ale-i. e., half a pint-Winchester measure, between each pin. The first person that drank was to empty the tankard to the first peg or pin, the second to the next pin, and so on. Peg-tankards, made of maple-wood, have been found in Derbyshire, and one is to be seen in the Ashmolean Museum. A finer specimen, of undoubted Anglo-Saxon work, formerly belonging to the Abbey of Glastonbury, is now in the possession of Lord Arundell of Wardour. It holds two quarts, and formerly had eight pegs inside, dividing the liquor into half-pints. On the lid is carved the Crucifixion, with the Virgin and St. John, one on each side of the Cross; and round the cup are carved the twelve Apostles. Ale is mentioned in the laws of Tua, King of Wessex, who ascended the throne about the year 689. It was the favourite liquor of the Anglo-Saxons and Danes-it is constantly mentioned as one of the constituents of their feasts-and so attentive were the Saxons to its quality, that, in their time, it was the custom in the city of Chester, that any person who brewed bad ale should either be placed in a ducking-chair, or, in lieu of that punishment, should forfeit four shillings. in For several centuries, knowledge was confined to the clergy, and children gained orally what little instruction there was to be imparted; many psalms, and some books, were learned by heart; while so minute are the accounts of education of this period, that figs, grapes, nuts, almonds, apples, pears, and money are stated to have been the school rewards. Needlework, from the earliest time, has always formed an important branch in the education of women; and the work of the Anglo-Saxon ladies was soon celebrated, both in England and abroad; indeed, we are told that, a long, long time ago, women were prohibited from marrying till they had spun a regular set of bed-furniture; and ladies of rank nowise considered it derogatory to embroider the hangings of the State-bed ; fact, the leisure hours of Saxon women (even including those of the highest rank) were chiefly spent in spinning, with this exception, that they occasionally ground corn, in hand-mills, after the custom of Eastern countries. Neither was it considered any dishonour for the lady of the house to be much among her maidens (chiefly, we presume, because they were literally they of her own household-not strangers within the gates), helping and working, in common with them, at the distaff, the loom, and the needle. The various kinds of work then practised would astonish the most industrious modern female; and many curious books of patterns were produced. It is supposed that such books were generally cut to pieces, and used by women to work upon, or transfer to their silk or cloth. The dwellings of the higher classes appear to have been completely and, for the age, splendidly furnished; and the walls hung with silk, richly embroidered with gold or colours-all the work of our Saxon ancestresses. Ingulphus mentions some hangings ornamented with golden birds in needlework, and a veil or curtain, upon which was represented, in embroidery, the "Destruction of Troy." While another historian tells how a certain Saxon lady, proud of the exploits of her husband, worked, in the same fashion, the gallant actions of her spouse. The daughters of Edward the Elder were taught to occupy themselves in this manner; and Alfred, in his will, terms the female part of his family the spindle side; and the word spinster, applied in the present day to unmarried females, had its origin in an age when the distaff really occupied a large portion of their time. The names of many of the Anglo-Saxon women are very gentle and expressive, |