In the towns, under ordinary circumstances, there was a style of living that was almost luxurious. The Normans were skilful architects, and not only their minsters and monasteries, but their houses too, were fit for such proud inhabitants, and rich with hangings and comfortable furnishings. The women were more famous than ever for needlework, some of it most skilful in design, and the great tapestries are yet in existence that were hung, partly for warmth's sake, about the stone walls of the castles. [Pg170] Sometimes the noble ladies who sat at home while their lords went out to the wars, worked great pictures on these tapestries of various events of family history, and these family records of battles and gallant bravery by land and sea are most interesting now for their costume and color, beside their corroboration of historical traditions.
We have drifted away, in this chapter, from William the Conqueror himself, but I believe that we know more about the Normandy which he was to govern, and can better understand his ambitions, his difficulties, and his successes. A country of priests and soldiers, of beautiful women and gallant men; a social atmosphere already alive with light, gayety, and brightness, but swayed with pride and superstition, with worldliness and austerity; loyal to Rome, greedy for new territory, the feudal lords imperious masters of complaining yet valiant serfs; racked everywhere by civil feuds and petty wars and instinctive jealousies of French and foreign blood—this was Normandy. The Englishmen come and go and learn good manners and the customs of chivalry, England herself is growing rich and stupid, for Harthacnut had introduced a damaging custom of eating four great meals a day, and his subjects had followed the fashion, though that king himself had died of it and of his other habit of drinking all night long with merry companions. [Pg171]
IX.
ACROSS THE CHANNEL.
"——————One decree
Spake laws to them, and said that, by the soul
Only, the nations should be great and free." —Wordsworth.
[TOC], [INDX] It is time to take a closer look at England and at the shameful degradations of Æthelred's time. The inroads of the Danes read like the early history of Normandy, and we must take a step backward in the condition of civilization when we cross to the other side of the Channel. There had been great changes since Ælfred's wise and prosperous reign, or even since the time of Æthelred's predecessor, Eadgar, who was rowed in his royal-barge at Chester by eight of his vassal kings—Kenneth of Scots, Malcolm of Cumberland, Maccus of the Isles, and five Welsh monarchs. The lord of Britain was gracious enough to do the steering for so noble a company of oarsmen, and it was considered the proudest day that ever had shone upon an English king.
We must remind ourselves of the successive waves of humanity which had overspread England in past ages, leaving traces of each like less evident geologic [Pg172] strata. From the stone and bronze age people, through the Celts with their Pictish and Scottish remnant, through the Roman invasion, and the Saxon, more powerful and enduring than any from our point of view, we may trace a kinship to our Normans across the water. But the English descendants of Celts, Danes, Angles, Saxons, and Jutes needed to feel a new influence and refreshing of their better instincts by way of Normandy.
Perhaps each one of the later rulers of Britain thought he had fallen upon as hard and stormy times and had as much responsibility as anybody who ever wielded a sceptre, but in the reign of the second Æthelred, there are much greater dramas being played, and we feel, directly we get a hint of it, as children do who have been loitering among petty side-shows on their way to a great play. Here come the Danes again, the kings of Denmark and the whole population of Norway one would think, to read the records, and this time they attack England with such force and determination that within less than forty years a Danish king is master of Britain.
If Æthelred had been a better man this might never have happened, but among all the Saxon kings he seems to have been the worst—thoroughly bad, weak, cowardly, and cruel. He was sure to do things he had better have left alone, and to neglect his plain duty. Other kings had fallen on as hard, perplexing times as he, but they had been strong enough to keep some sort of control of themselves at any rate. Dunstan the archbishop warned the [Pg173] people, when Æthelred was crowned, that they had no idea of the trouble that was coming, and through the whole reign things went from bad to worse. Dreadful things happened which we can hardly blame the silly king for—like a plague among cattle, and the burning of London in 982; and a few years afterward there was a terrible invasion of the Norwegians, and we have seen that aid and comfort were ready for them over in Bayeux and the pirate cities of Normandy.