Women of England

by Bartlett Burleigh James

The era of the Danish invasion was a time of almost unbridled license. Female character could not withstand the tide of immorality that came in with the new wave of heathen invaders. The women whom the Vikings brought with them were captives of the lowest grade, ravished from their homes for the pleasure of their captors on their long sea voyage. On their arrival they were made slaves of the camp, following the army wearily in its marches from place to place. This miserable degradation was forced upon many pure English women by the brutal lords of the sea. When the invaders settled down to live at peace with the English, and, by amalgamation, to be absorbed into the larger race, it was centuries before the country recovered from the blight of immorality that had fallen upon it; but, with its rare powers of recuperation, Anglo-Saxon virtue reasserted its principles and caused its conquerors to subscribe to them.

Before considering the dress, the amusements, and the employments of the women, a description of the Anglo-Saxon house will serve to illustrate much of the common life of the women. This was not evolved from that of the Briton; it marks a departure in the architecture of the country. Neither the rude houses of the poorer of the Britons nor the villa of the Roman provincial appealed to the forest nomads, who were accustomed to light, tentlike structures that could be readily taken down and erected elsewhere as their changing habitat directed.

The Anglo-Saxon town of the earliest period was only a cluster of wooden houses—a family centre constantly added to by the increase and dividing of the household, until the settlement assumed something of the proportions of a town. Stone was not in favor with the Teutons for their dwellings. They saw in it the relic of the demigods of a remote past; stone masonry seemed supernatural, and they called it "the giants' ancient work." The house of the Teutons was probably a development of the ancient burrow; as Heyn expresses the process of its evolution: "Little by little rose the roof of turf, and the cavern under the house served at last only for winter and the abode of the women." The summer house of wattles, twigs and branches, bound together by cords, and with a thatched roof, a rough door, and no windows, seemed to serve these unsettled people, whose surroundings abounded with the materials for substantial edifices.

The architecture of the Germans developed rapidly. Soon there was a substantial hall, or main house, which was the place of gathering and feasting and the sleeping place of the men. The women slept, and we may say dwelt, in the bower. Necessary outbuildings were supplied in abundance. The floor of the hall was of hard earth or of clay, perhaps particolored, and forming patterns of rude mosaic. It was no uncommon thing for the rough warrior to ride into the hall, and to stable there his beloved steed, as will be seen from the following extract from an English ballad of a later date, which is given us by Professor Child:

"Kyng Estmere he stabled his steede

Soe fayre att the hall-bord;

The froth that came from his brydle bitte

Light in Kyng Bremor's beard."

Rows of benches were commonly placed outside of the hall; the exterior walls and the roof were painted in striking colors. Huge antlers fringed the gables; the windows, lacking glass, were placed high up in the wall, and a hole in the roof sufficed for the escape of smoke.

Such was the early English hall, as it appears to us in the ballads and stories of the times. The magnificent lace and embroidered hangings with which were draped the interior walls of the habitations of the nobility served the double purpose of decoration and protection from the cold draughts that came in through the numerous crevices. Even the royal palace of Alfred was so draughty that the candles in the rooms had to be protected by lanterns. Benches and seats with fine coverings added comfort and elegance to the hall. In front of these were placed stools, with richly embroidered coverings, for the feet of the great ladies. The tables in these Anglo-Saxon homes were often of great beauty and costliness. In the reign of King Edgar, Earl Aethelwold possessed a table of silver that was worth three hundred pounds sterling. Many sorts of candelabra, some of them of exquisite pattern and workmanship, made of the precious metals and set with jewels, were used to impart to these old halls the dim light that in our fancy of the times becomes a feature of the romance of the knightly homes of older England.