SAXON COSTUME, A.D. 460-A.D. 1066.
The main sources from which we obtain our knowledge of Saxon Costume are the illuminated MSS. remaining to us. The earliest MS. we have was written A.D. 720, about 200 years after the Saxon Conquest. Of this long period we have no reliable record.
We know, however, that on their first appearance in Britain, they were not so advanced in civilisation as the inhabitants, who had gained a considerable advantage, in this respect, from the Roman occupation. The only reliable source from which information can be gained of this period is in the tumuli or graves. In these have been found weapons and many personal ornaments of a rich character.
Saxon Male Costume.
A kind of shirt, reaching to the knee, worn next to the skin, was the universal, and, in the case of the humblest, the only garment, and it was always made of linen. Over this was worn a tunica, which was generally short, but, in the case of persons of high rank, it was worn longer. It fitted closely around the neck, and was cut open in front, being also often open at the sides from the hips to the hem. Sleeves were worn to this garment, and for many years were worn rucked upon the fore-arm in a very peculiar manner, probably so that the sleeves could be drawn down over the hands in cold weather. The hem was often decorated with embroidered work.
A short cloak, or mantle, was generally worn over the tunica, fastened by a fibula or brooch upon the right shoulder or in the centre of the chest. In the case of a person of high degree, a larger cloak was also wrapped around the figure.
The head was generally uncovered, except in time of war. The hair was worn long, reaching down to the shoulders, parted carefully in the centre, and tucked behind the ears. When the head was covered, a cap of the Phrygian shape (Fig. 8) was worn. Persons of distinction, like the members of the Witan, wore a sugar-loaf shaped cap.
The beard was worn either round or long and flowing. In the latter case, it was divided in the centre like a fork, and was called the “bifid” beard.
The breeches were tight to the leg, and sometimes wide at the bottom, reaching to the middle of the thigh.
Stockings were worn, either long enough to join the breeches or short, reaching nearly to the knee. The rustic frequently wore no stockings.
Civilians often bound strips of coloured cloth, and soldiers strips of leather, around their stockings, forming what is called cross-gartering.
Their shoes were generally low, and had an opening up the instep.
Female Costume.
The female costume was also very simple, and consisted of a long, tight-sleeved garment, the gunna or gown, reaching to the feet, with a tunic over this, reaching to the knees. The tunica was girdled at the waist, and had wide sleeves extending to the elbow.
A wide mantle, a characteristic feature of the costume of both men and women, covered the upper part of the body, and a head-rail or hood consisting of a piece of material adjusted over the head, was always worn.
When making a journey, a large travelling cloak was also worn.
No illustration shows the complete arrangement of the hair, but, as the women of Continental nations at this period wore it in long plaits, we may conclude that the same fashion was followed here; but the hair was always covered. A kirtle was also probably worn, corresponding in form to the garment now known as a “princess petticoat.”
Military Costume.
There was but little difference between the civil and military costume of the men. In MSS., soldiers are often represented with no other weapon than a shield or spear, or an axe or a bow with arrows, and attired in ordinary costume. Occasionally, one is represented wearing a kind of cuirass formed of scales, made of overlapping slices of horn sewn upon coarse linen.
During the reigns of Edward the Confessor and Harold II., owing to the constant intercourse between the English and the Norman Courts, the English adopted many of the customs and much of the costume of the Normans, so that, among the upper and military classes, at any rate, when William of Normandy invaded England, the members of the two opposing armies were armed and attired in a very similar manner.
PLATE 10.
(Fig. 1): A Saxon rustic, wearing only a solitary garment, with a pointed cap which has a comb, and shoes. (Cott. MS., Claudius B. iv.) (Fig. 2): A Saxon lady, attired in (1) the gunna, (2) the tunica, (3) the mantle, (4) the head-rail. (Harl. MS., 2,908.) (Fig. 3): A Saxon, dressed in (1) the tunica, (2) the mantle, (3) breeches, with cross-gartered stockings, and shoes, and (4) a banded Phrygian cap. (After Mrs. Ashdown.) (Fig. 4): Saxon, showing the bifid beard and the arrangement of the hair. (Cott. MS., Claudius B. iv.) (Fig. 5): An English Freeman, wearing a tunica, with short stockings and shoes, and armed with sword, spear, helmet, and shield. (From a MS.) (Fig. 6): A Saxon soldier, wearing a tunica covered with a mantle, stockings, and shoes, with spurs. (Note the manner in which 31the mantle is fastened on the right shoulder.) He is armed with a spear, and has his head covered with a conical helmet. As is pointed out above, the military costume did not differ from the civil costume, except as regards the helmet and the arms. (Figs. 7 to 12): Saxon head-dresses. (Fig. 7): A form of the square helmet. (Fig. 8): A Phrygian-shaped cap of leather, bound with metal; the bifid beard is also shown again. (Fig. 9): Another form of the square helmet, with a kind of crest or comb. (Fig. 10): A pointed helmet of simple form. (Fig. 11): A pointed hat serrated along the back like a cock’s comb. (Fig. 12): The commonest form of helmet, a conical cap with a rim, probably of metal. (The other form of beard is shown in this figure.) (Figs. 13, 14 and 15): Saxon shoes, from MSS. (Figs. 16 and 17): Saxon crowns, from MSS.
PLATE 11.
(Fig. 1): A Saxon monarch represented as seated on a throne, wearing a square crown, and holding a sceptre in his right hand. He is attired in a richly embroidered tunica and a mantle of ample proportions, gathered up with a brooch on the left shoulder. His stockings are cross-gartered and ornamented at the knees and in the lozenges formed by the gartering. (Cott. MS., Tiberius Cvi.) (Fig. 2): A fiddler, wearing the tunica, long stockings and shoes. (MS., Tib. Cvi.) (Fig. 3): A gleeman or juggler, attired similarly to the fiddler. (From the same MS.) (Fig. 4): A husbandman, engaged in digging. (From MS., after Strutt.) (Fig. 5): A blacksmith, working at the anvil. (From MS., after Strutt.) (Fig. 6): A Saxon king, with a bifid beard, on the seat of judgment, crowned and attired in a tunica, covered with a short mantle, which is fastened in the centre of the chest by a brooch of rectangular form. (Fig. 7): A Saxon noble, with long hair and a bifid beard, holding a sword of characteristic Saxon form. He is wearing an ornamented tunica reaching to the ankles, and over it a voluminous mantle. His head is covered with a conical helmet. The rucking of the sleeve on the fore-arm is plainly shown. (Figs. 6 and 7 from a MS., after Strutt.) (Fig. 8): A Saxon horn-blower, attired similarly to the fiddler and gleeman (Figs. 2 and 3), from the same MS. (Fig. 9): A carpenter at work with an axe. (From a MS., after Strutt.) (Note.—In Figs. 2, 3, 4, 5, 8 and 9, all the heads are bare.) (Figs. 10 to 14): Saxon personal ornaments, buckle, rings, etc., found in tumuli.
[ANGLO-SAXON ARCHITECTURE.]
Buildings erected from about 500 A.D. to 1050 A.D. are called Anglo-Saxon, or simply Saxon, in their style.
The Romans built in stone and brick, but the English, when they conquered Britain, razed the Roman buildings to the ground, and built their own structures of wood.
It is interesting to note that the Saxon word for “build” was “getimbrian,” to construct of wood.
From the middle of the 5th century, for nearly 700 years, until the time when the Norman Castle arose, well-nigh every building of architectural merit was in some way or other connected with the Church.
The English were essentially workers in wood, and profoundly ignorant of masonry. The churches that sprang up all over England after the conversion of the country to Christianity were, no doubt, of wood, and even in the 9th and 10th centuries we hear of “the worm-eaten walls of cathedrals.”
They were decorated internally with paintings in various bright colours, and the ornamentation was of metal work, bronze or the precious metals.
Before the end of the 7th century, stone churches were built at York, Ripon and Hexham, the latter being largely built of materials from the Roman Wall, which passes within a short distance of the place, and Roman inscribed slabs have been used in forming the roof of the crypt.
Bede tells us that Benedict crossed the sea to Gaul, and carried back with him masons to build churches of stone, “after the manner of the Romans that he loved,” at Monkwearmouth and Jarrow, about 680 A.D. Each of these churches contains portions which are, without doubt, from their rude construction, parts of the original fabrics of Benedict. Anglo-Saxon stone churches were small, rectangular or cruciform in shape, and without aisles.
A lofty tower, without buttresses, stands at the west end, or at the intersection of the nave and transepts. The walls were usually of rubble or small stones, of very irregular shape, covered with “rough cast” or plaster. The kind of masonry termed “herring-bone” is often used, and Roman bricks, taken from the ruins of earlier buildings, seem to have been freely used.
It is probable that the sides of the towers terminated in acutely pointed gables, from which the roof is carried up, as at Sompting Church, in Sussex.
The towers were without staircases, the different storeys being reached by means of ladders.
The old church at Bradford, in Wiltshire, is one of the most perfect specimens of the Anglo-Saxon class. It is probably the small, original church of the Abbey, built by Adhelm, in the 8th century (A.D. 705).
It is constructed of Bath stone, and it is considered, on account of the fineness of the building, that there may have been a certain amount of later restoration.
In the 9th century, many churches were destroyed by the Danes, and Canute rebuilt many churches which his father and his followers had destroyed. But, for a period before the year 1000 A.D., the building of churches stopped on account of the expected millenium. After that date, when the hopes and fears of the people had proved groundless, the building of churches commenced again with renewed vigour.
PLATE 12.
(Fig. 1): The Anglo-Saxon tower of Earl’s Barton Church, Northants. At the angles, there are “quoins,” or corner-stones, formed of long stones set upright, alternately with others laid horizontally, and technically known as “long and short work.” The surface of the walls is also divided up by “pilaster strips,” which are an imitation in stone of wooden construction, and are evidently intended to bind together the rude masonry of the walls. It is “the design of a carpenter executed by a mason.” The parapet is comparatively recent in construction. (Fig. 2): Tower arch of Anglo-Saxon character at Barnack, Northants. Barnack was one of the places where the old church was burnt by the Danes, in their raid through that part of the country, and rebuilt by order of Canute after the settlement of the Danes. The impost mouldings (b) appear to have been suggested by a pile of boards overlapping. (Fig. 3): An enlargement of the belfry window (a, Fig. 1). Double windows are usually round-headed or triangular-headed. The lights or single windows are not separated by a stone moulding, but by a kind of shaft or “baluster,” set in the middle of the wall, and supporting the impost. (Fig. 4): Belfry window in the tower of Deerhurst Church (1050 A.D.). The windows are triangular-headed, the head being formed of two straight stones placed obliquely, and meeting at a point. (Fig. 5): A window at Caversfield, Bucks, with small opening and very wide “splay.” This window is splayed, or widened out, both outside and inside, the window itself being set in the middle of the wall, so that the wicker-work or oiled parchment, that did duty as a glass, was protected from the weather. (Fig. 6): Section of Anglo-Saxon wall, which consisted of two rows of fairly regular stones, the intervening space being filled with irregularly shaped stones, embedded in mortar, the latter comprising nearly half the substance of the wall. The layer of stones in the interior of the building was generally plastered over. (Fig. 7): An Anglo-Saxon triangular-headed doorway. (Figs. 8, 9 and 10): Different forms of Anglo-Saxon balusters.
[SAXON CUSTOMS.]
At meal-times the company sat down in the hall, the master, mistress, and honoured guests taking their places at a “high” table placed on a dais at the upper end of the apartment. Dinner was generally served either at noon or at about 3 o’clock in the afternoon.
The walls were decorated with coloured and embroidered curtains, for English ladies and their maidens were famed for their skill with the needle in embroidery and decorative needlework. The tables consisted of boards laid upon trestles, which could be easily removed when, the meal being over, the ladies retired to the bower and the men settled down to drinking.
Sometimes the tables were bare, at other times covered with a table-cloth. Some MSS. show a circular table arranged for the meal. On the table appear the round cakes which served the Saxons as bread, also dishes containing meat, fish, and other food. A few spoons and razor-shaped knives, and drinking vessels of varying sizes and shapes, were also placed upon the table.
While the meal was in progress, wandering minstrels played on their instruments and sang; jugglers and conjurers delighted their patrons with feats of balancing and sleight-of-hand; while others danced and postured, or exhibited the feats of dancing bears and other animals that they led about.
PLATE 13.
(Fig. 1): A dinner party standing at a long table. (After Strutt.) MS., Claud. B. v. (Fig. 2): A dinner party seated around a circular table with embroidered curtains behind them, and serving men waiting upon them. (After Strutt.) Cott. MS. Tiberius Cvi. (Fig. 3): A Saxon bed. (After Strutt.) MS., Claud. B. iv. An apartment called the bower or bur was used chiefly by the women and children for sleeping and dwelling in. Sometimes there were recesses in the wall, covered by curtains, and in these the beds were placed. The bed furniture consisted of bolster, pillows, coverlets, and sheets, and, as far as can be gathered from the MSS., the sheets were wrapped about the naked body. (Fig. 4): A dancing girl with musicians. (After Strutt.) Cott. MS., Cleopatra C. viii. In MSS., women are represented almost invariably with the head covered by a hood or head-veil even when they have retired to rest (Fig. 3), and we may assume that it was considered disgraceful for a woman to appear in public with the head bare. When women are represented with the head uncovered they are people whose calling was considered more more or less of a questionable character, as dancers, strolling players, etc. (Fig. 5): A labourer threshing corn with a flail. (From a MS. after Strutt.)
[SAXON FARMING.]
Both these figures are taken from an Old English calendar of the eleventh century (after Strutt). Cott. MS., Julius A. vi.
This calendar is arranged as in a modern almanack, with a page to each month and a line to each day. At the foot of each page there is a drawing, typical of the work carried on during that month.
PLATE 14.
(Fig. 1): January. This month was called by the English, when heathen, “Wolf-monath,” because the wolves were most troublesome at this period of the year. When the English became Christians it was called “Aefter-Yule,” i.e., After-Christmas. Here there is a ploughing scene. Four oxen yoked together in couples are drawing a plough of a very solid-looking type. (In those days horses were not employed in farm work.) A farm-hand, bare-headed, bare-footed, and wearing only a single garment, is goading the oxen with a sharp-pointed ox-goad, similar to a long spear in appearance. A man in superior attire is guiding the plough, while another is scattering seed as the plough passes. A good representation of the plough of that period is shown here. (Fig. 2): August. This month was called by the English “Arn-moneth” or “Barn-moneth,” i.e., “harvest-month.” This drawing gives a representation of a farm wagon of good construction, and of the costumes of the workers, who appear to be of at least two grades—some bare-footed, wearing a single garment, while others have better-cut garments, and wear shoes and stockings in addition. At the head of a party is a man with a spear in his right hand, blowing a horn, who may be either superintending the work or may be the “advance guard” of a hunting party entering the field. The implements, sickles, and forks appear to be very similar to those in use at the present time.
[SAXON ANTIQUITIES.]
PLATE 15.
(Fig. 1): A long Saxon drinking glass, ornamented with raised and decorated ribbons of glass. The bottom is rounded, so that when filled with liquid it had to be emptied at one draught. (British Museum.) (Fig. 2): Another form of Saxon drinking vessel. (British Museum.) (Fig. 3): Old English bronze vessel found in a barrow at Taplow, in Bucks, in 1883, now in the British Museum. (Fig. 4): A silver spoon (Anglo-Saxon) found at Sevington, in Wiltshire, in 1834. (British Museum.) (Fig. 5): Great Seal of Edward the Confessor. The King is represented crowned and seated upon the throne, bearing the sceptre in his right hand and the orb in his left. Edward here calls himself “By the Grace of God, King of the English,” using the Greek and not the Latin term. (Figs. 6 and 7): A silver penny of Alfred the Great, minted at London—(6) the obverse bearing Alfred’s portrait and name; (7) the reverse with the word “Londini” (as a monogram). (Figs. 8 and 9): A silver penny of Edgar the Peaceful—(8) the obverse; (9) the reverse. (Figs. 10, 11, and 12): Three views of King Alfred’s jewel. This was found near the site of Athelney Abbey, Somersetshire, in 1693. Fig. 10, the obverse, is faced with an oval plate of crystal, having under it 39-40 a miniature of a man, in enamelled mosaic (probably St. Neot, Alfred’s special protector), holding in each hand a fleur-de-lys. Fig. 11, the reverse, is a detached plate of gold bearing a fleur-de-lys ornament. Fig. 12, the edge, on which is inscribed “Aelfred Mec Heht Gewyrcan” (Alfred bid me be wrought). The stalk end bears a grotesque figure, apparently the head of a sea monster. It may have been the head of a stylus or pen, or have served as a standard in battle. (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.) (Fig. 13): An ornamented fibula or brooch at Goldsborough, Yorkshire. (British Museum.) (Fig. 14): An Anglo-Saxon comb—St. Cuthbert’s comb, at Durham Cathedral.
[DANISH VESSELS, Etc.]
PLATE 16.
(Fig. 1): A Norseman’s boat found in a peat bog at Nydam, in South Jutland, in 1863. It is clincher-built of oak, is large, open and pointed at both ends, and is designed only for rowing, as there is no trace of a mast and no arrangement for stepping one. It is 78 ft. between the high points at the stem and the stern, and 10 ft. 9 in. broad amidships. It was rowed with fourteen pairs of oars, which are like those still used in the North, and are 11 ft. 2 in. long. The rudder is narrow, and was fastened to one side of the boat near the stern end. During the latter part of the heathen times, boats were drawn up on land for the winter or when they were not wanted for some time. This boat has holes at the ends for the ropes by which it was hauled up on land. (Montelius’ “Civilization of Sweden.”) (Fig. 2): A Danish vessel reconstructed from a representation of a Danish ship from the MS. of Caedmon Bodl. Junius ii., c. A.D. 1000. It is steered, like the one in Fig. 1, by a rudder fastened near the stern of the ship on the side still called the starboard or steer-board. (Fig. 3): Noah’s Ark. Another drawing from the same MS. The Ark is represented in the form of a Danish ship, showing the dragon’s head at the bows and the stern. It is interesting, also, as it illustrates the fact that when the old illuminators wanted to represent any circumstance—Biblical or classical—pictorially, they made use of the material they saw around them, copying the buildings, the ships, the persons, and the costumes of their own time, so that MSS. form very reliable contemporary evidence of these things. (Fig. 4): A Danish sword found in the River Withalm, very similar in general design and construction to the Saxon sword illustrated on Plate 9. (Fig. 5): A Jutish or Danish shield, made of wood with a bronze rim and a boss or umbo of bronze in the centre, of the period before A.D. 450, found in Jutland.