5. The missionaries were all priests or monks; and some of them lived together in great houses called monasteries, which they built upon lands given them by the kings and nobles, on which they also raised corn, and fed sheep and cattle.
6. They had brought from Rome the knowledge of many useful arts, which they taught to the people, who thus learned to be smiths and carpenters, and to make a variety of things out of metal, wood and leather, which the Saxons did not know how to make before.
7. Then the priests could read and write, which was more than the nobles, or even the kings could do; and they used to write books, and ornament the pages with beautiful borders, and miniature paintings; and the books, thus adorned, are called illuminated manuscripts.
8. Still the Saxons, or English, as I shall henceforth call them, were very rough and ignorant as compared with the Romans.
9. Their churches and houses, and even the palaces of the kings, were rude wooden buildings, and the cottages of the poor people were no better than the huts of the ancient Britons.
10. The common people were almost all employed in cultivating the land, and lived in villages on the different estates to which they belonged; for the Saxon landlords were not only the owners of the land, but of the people also; who were not at liberty, as they are now, to go where they pleased; neither could they buy land for themselves, nor have any property but what their lords chose. I will tell you how it was.
11. The Saxon lords had divided all the land amongst themselves, and had brought from their own countries thousands of ceorls, or poor people, dependent on them, to be their labourers.
12. Each family of ceorls was allowed to have a cottage, with a few acres of land, and to let their cattle or sheep graze on the commons, for which, instead of paying rent, they worked a certain number of days in each year for their lord, and, besides, gave him a stated portion of those things their little farms produced; so that whenever they killed a pig, they carried some of it to the great house; and the same with their fowls, eggs, honey, milk and butter; and thus the chief’s family was well supplied with provisions by his tenants, some of whom took care of his sheep and herds, cultivated his fields, and got in his harvests.
13. Then there were always some among them who had learned useful trades, and thus they did all the kinds of work their masters wanted.