SAXON HOUSE.
The ordinary Saxon homes were of clay, held together by wooden frames; bricks being uncommon, and only used as ornaments: the houses were generally low and mean, or as we should call them, cottages. In a Saxon house of larger proportions, the upper rooms only are lighted by windows; there is no appearance of chimneys; the doorway is in one of the gables, and reaches more than half-way to the top of the house; and above it are some small square windows, which indicate an upper room or rooms. On one side is a low shed, or wing, apparently constructed with square stones, or large bricks, covered, like the house, with semicircular tiles, probably shingles, such as we to this day see on church-spires.
From the Mead-hall and the other Saxon houses of the period, we also get the type of the modern English mansion, with its enceinte and its lodge-gate, as distinguished from its hall-door. The early Saxon house was the whole inclosure, at the gate of which beggars assembled, for alms, and the porter received the alms of strangers. The whole mass inclosed within this wall constituted the burgh, or tun; and the hall, with its duru, or door, was the chief of its edifices. Around it were grouped the sleeping-chambers, or bowers, as they were designated till a late age, with the subordinate offices. Mr. Wright (in his able work on the Domestic Life of the Middle Ages) draws many of his inferences from the description of the Mead-hall, or beer-hall, of Hrothgar, and adds that he believes Bulwer's description of the Saxonized Roman house inhabited by Hilda, in The Last of the Barons, is substantially correct.
We learn from the romance of Beowulf, that "there was for the sons of the Geats (Beowulf and his followers altogether), a bench cleared in the beer-hall; there the bold spirit, free from quarrel, went to sit; the thane observed his office, he that in his hand bare the twisted ale-cup; he poured the bright sweet liquor; meanwhile the poet sang serene in Heorot (the name of Hrothgar's palace); there was joy of heroes." Although our conceptions of this scene are faint and vague, the antiquary is enabled to represent certain items as "the twisted ale-cup," a favourite fashion of our forefathers, many of whose ale-cups, as discovered in their barrows or graves, are incapable of standing upright, implying that their proprietors were thirsty souls.
The lamps of the Romans were certainly used by the Saxons, and were indispensable in the winter-time. Their beds were simply sacks filled out of the chest with fresh straw, and laid on benches as they were wanted; though the pictures indicate that there were some bedsteads of a more elaborate construction, and that others were placed in recesses and protected by curtains. These bed-rooms were public enough, for they were sitting-rooms as well, and we find Dunstan walking to the king's bedside "as he lay in his bed with the queen," and rating him as freely as if he had audience by appointment. The Saxon ladies were very opt to scourge their domestic servants for very slight offences, and the punishment of servile and other transgressors was in other respects barbarous. They were given much to bathing in the baths which the Romans had left them, and it may be that this resource had some influence in determining the national bias towards personal cleanliness, which is such a distinguishing characteristic of the English among northern nations. We may add that the Saxon knew how to build a gallows, how to bait a bear, drive a chariot, fly a hawk, cultivate roses and lilies, and that he certainly knew the use of an umbrella.
A convivial custom which originated in this rude age is too interesting to be omitted here. It is said by some writers that Vortigern married Rowena, the daughter of Hengist. She was very beautiful; and when introduced by her father at the royal banquet of the British king, she advanced gracefully and modestly towards him, bearing in her hand a golden goblet filled with wine. Young people, even of the highest rank, were accustomed to wait upon their elders, and those unto whom they wished to show respect; therefore, the appearance of Rowena as the cup-bearer of the feast was neither unbecoming nor unseemly. And when the lady came near unto Vortigern, she said in her own Saxon language—"Wæs heal plaford Conung;" which means, "Health to my Lord the King." Vortigern did not understand the salutation of Rowena, but the words were explained to him by an interpreter. "Drinc heal," "Drink thou health," was the accustomed answer, and the memory of the event was preserved in merry old England by the wassail cup—a vessel full of spiced wine or good ale, which was handed round from guest to guest, at the banquet and the festival. Well, therefore, might Rowena be recollected on high tides and holidays for the introduction of this concomitant of good cheer.
This story has, however, a pendant. At our great city feasts, to this day—especially at the Mansion House of the Lord Mayor—the Wassail or Loving Cup is passed round the table immediately after dinner, the Lord Mayor having drunk to his visitors a hearty welcome. The more formal practice is for the person who pledges with the loving cup to stand up and bow to his neighbour, who, also standing, removes the cover of the cup with his right hand, and holds it while the other drinks; a custom said to have originated in the precaution to keep the right, or dagger hand employed, that the person who drinks may be assured of no treachery, like that practised by Elfrida on the unsuspecting King Edward the Martyr at Corfe Castle, who was slain while drinking: this was why the cup possessed a cover.
The usages of domestic life, especially at dinner, are copiously illustrated in ancient manuscript illuminations. Mr. Wright quotes the Boke of Kervyng, which enjoins the carver to handle the meats with his thumb and two fingers only,—for the Middle Ages, with all their artistic ingenuity, had not attained to the invention of a fork. In none of the pictures have the guests any plates; they seem to have eaten with their hands and thrown the refuse on the table. We know also that they often threw the fragments on the floor, where they were eaten up by cats and dogs, which were admitted into the hall without restriction.[16] In the Boke of Curtesye it is blamed as a mark of bad breeding to play with the cats and dogs while seated at table. The drinking vessels of this period display fine workmanship and ingenious devices. The Anglo-Saxons were unquestionably huge drinkers, and ornamented their drinking vessels with all the skill in working the precious metals for which they were so famous. But the primitive drinking-cup was the simple horn of the bullock, which was retained as an appendage of the Anglo-Saxon dinner-table until after the Conquest. There were also other drinking vessels, suggested by that ornamentation with which the Anglo-Saxon artificers had enriched the simple cup of the Danes. Peg Tankards are of the Saxon period: one is to be seen in the Ashmolean Museum; but a finer specimen, of undoubted Anglo-Saxon work, formerly belonging to the Abbey of Glastonbury, is now in the possession of Lord Arundel, 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 John, one on each side; and round the cup are carved the twelve apostles.
Drinking-horns are represented on the Bayeux tapestry, and in the magnificent collection of antiquities in the British Museum there is a capacious specimen of one formed of the small tusk of an elephant, carved with rude figures of that animal, unicorns, lions, and crocodiles. It is mounted with silver; a small tube, ending in a silver cup, issues from the jaws of a pike, whose head and shoulders inclose the mouth of the vessel, on which the following legend is engraved:—