[5] There is one of these knives in the Cambridge Museum, which has been there rather singularly labelled “a Roman razor!” Mr. Roach Smith always suspected that these knives were late Saxon, and their similarity in form to those given in the manuscripts shows that he was correct.
[6] Post prandium ad pocula, quibus Angli nimis sunt assueti.—Chron. J. Wallingford, in Gale, p. 542.
[7] “Duos ciphos argenteos ... ad serviendum fratribus in refectorio, quatenus, dum in eis potus edentibus fratribus ministratur, memoria mei eorum cordibus arctius inculcetur.”—Hist. Ramesiensis, in Gale, p. 406.
[8] We shall return to this subject in a subsequent chapter.
[9] Regem adhuc tesserarum vel scaccarum ludo longioris tædia noctis relevantem invenit.
[10] Mater, si juxta focum infantem suum posuerit, et homo aquam in caldarium miserit, et ebullita aqua infans superfusus mortuus fuerit; pro negligentia mater pœniteat, et ille homo securus sit.
[11] This, I suppose, is the meaning of the canon of Alfric ([No. 9]), which allows a layman to marry, with a dispensation, a second time, “if his wife desert him” (gyf his wíf ætfylð) but the priest was not allowed to give his blessing to the marriage, because it was a case in which the church enjoined a penance, the performance of which it would be his duty to require. But the meaning of the Anglo-Saxon ecclesiastical laws on this subject is rather obscure.
[12] This fact of family priesthood may perhaps explain a circumstance in the early history of Northumbria, which has much puzzled some antiquaries; I mean the story, given by Bede, of the conversion of king Edwin, and of the part acted on that occasion by the Northumbrian priest Coifi. The place where the priesthood was held, and where the temple stood, was called Godmundingaham, a name which it has preserved, slightly modified, to the present day. This name has been the victim of the most absurd attempts at derivation, which are not worth repeating here, because every one who knows the Anglo-Saxon language, and anything of Anglo-Saxon antiquities, is aware that it can only have one meaning—the home, or head residence, of the Godmundings, or descendants of Godmund. Perhaps the priesthood was at this time in the family of the Godmundings, and Coifi may have been then the head of the family.
[13] Habebant etiam ex consuetudine patriæ unoquoque die comam pectere, sabbatis balneare, sæpe etiam vestituram mutare, et formam corporis multis talibus frivolis adjuvare.—Hist. Eliensis ap. Gale, p. 547.
[14] It is curious that the modern English words play (plega), and game (gamen), are both derived from the Anglo-Saxon, which perhaps shows that they represent sentiments we have derived from our Saxon forefathers.