In the better houses the seat and table at which the heads of the family sat were raised on a flooring a little above the level of the rest, on what was called a dais. This would only be in the bigger houses. The dinner and other meals were always served in the hall, or larger room, which really was the one important part of the house. The apartments for the women were sometimes adjoining the hall, under the same roof, but sometimes "the lady's bower," as it was called, was a small separate building. Bed places, like berths in a ship's cabin, were often arranged for the men along the sides of the great hall, screened off by a curtain. You will understand that the better and larger a house was, and the wealthier its owner, the more it would have of these fittings and conveniences. Most of the houses in the ordinary village we may suppose to have been almost altogether without them.
AN ANGLO-SAXON DINNER-PARTY.
(From Wright's Homes of Other Days.)
For their food at table, even in the best houses, they do not seem to have had forks. They had knives, but how much they were used at table we hardly know. Fingers were the chief instruments; and they were careful to wash their hands before and after meals. Indeed washing, both of the person and of their clothes, seems to have been more carefully and more often done thus early than a little later in the story. I am not giving you any account of their clothes, because you will get an idea of them much more quickly and exactly from the illustrations.
Often, in the large houses, they would have one or more minstrels playing to them as they ate, for they were fond of music and of the dance, and of various games. The Romans had left, in Britain, the tradition of their games and gladiators' exhibitions in the amphitheatres, and these had not been forgotten. The Saxons may have come into that tradition and adopted the games, or they may have brought their own. They had games that were a kind of mimic warfare, with bows and arrows and javelin or dart throwing, which no doubt served to keep them in practice for the frequent wars which the kings waged together and for which a contingent from each village was required.
Their chief food seems to have been bread, with butter, cheese, and milk. This shows how much they depended on their live-stock, even though they seldom, as we may suppose, ate fresh meat. But they had poultry and ate much fish, and had a few vegetables, such as beans, besides the wild produce of the woods, like blackberries, mushrooms, nuts, and so on. They brewed beer, and mixed it with honey to make the favourite drink called "mead." A little wine came in from the Continent; but only the rich men could afford that.
To give them light, we know that they had candles, made both of the tallow, the fat of animals, and of wax, from the bees, and they also used lamps, holding oil, with a wick from the spout, like the Roman lamps.
As a rule, in the villages established in the woodland, where the houses were not close together, on the sides of a road, or in a circle, but were scattered among the cleared places, a mound of earth with a hedge on top was thrown up round about it. It was called by the Saxon word from which we have our word "wall"; but it hardly was what we should call a wall. Perhaps it was partly to protect the home garden, which lay within it, from strolling cattle and wild creatures, and partly for defence against enemies. There is evidence that the Anglo-Saxon ladies were fond of flowers and of their gardens.
Where the houses lay alongside a road, and especially beside what was called a "street" (which meant one of the paved Roman roads, from stratum, meaning a paved surface), this surrounding wall or mound would not be made.