No. 49. A Chariot.
In the Anglo-Saxon church histories, we meet with frequent instances of persons, who were unable to walk from sickness or other cause, being carried in carts or cars, but in most cases these seem to have been nothing but the common agricultural carts adapted temporarily to this usage. A horse-litter is on one occasion used for the same purpose. It is certain, however, that the Anglo-Saxons had chariots for travelling. The usual names of all vehicles of this kind were wægn or wæn (from which, our waggon) and crat or cræt (which appears to be the origin of the English word cart). These two terms appear to have been used synonymously, for the words of the 18th Psalm, hi in curribus, are translated in one Anglo-Saxon version by on wænum, and in another by in crætum. The Anglo-Saxon manuscripts give us various representations of vehicles for travelling. The one represented in the cut [No. 49] is taken from the Anglo-Saxon manuscript of Prudentius. It seems to have been a barbaric “improvement” upon the Roman biga, and is not much unlike our modern market-carts. The whip used by the lady who is driving so furiously, is of the same form as that used by the horsewoman in our cut No. 46. The artist has not shown the wægne-thixl, or shaft. A four-wheeled carriage, of rather a singular construction, is found often repeated, with some variations, in the illuminations of the manuscript of Alfric’s translation of the Pentateuch. One of them is given in our cut [No. 50]. It is quite evident that a good deal of the minor detail of construction has been omitted by the draughtsman. Anglo-Saxon glosses give the word rad to represent the Latin quadriga. From the same source we learn that the compound word wæn-fær, waggon-going, was used to express journeying in chariots.
No. 50. An Anglo-Saxon Carriage.
Riding in chariots must have been rare among the Anglo-Saxons. Horses were only used by the better classes of society; and we learn from Bede and other writers that pious ecclesiastics, such as bishops Aidan, Ceadda, and Cuthbert, thought it more consistent with the humility of their sacred character to journey on foot. The pedestrian carried either a spear or a staff; the rider had almost always a spear. It is noted of Cuthbert, in Bede’s life of that saint, that one day when he came to Mailros (Melrose), and would enter the church to pray, having leaped from his horse, he “gave the latter and his travelling spear to the care of a servant, for he had not yet resigned the dress and habits of a layman.” The weapon was, no doubt, necessary for personal safety. There is a very curious clause in the Anglo-Saxon laws of king Alfred, relating to an accident arising from the carrying the spear, which we can hardly understand, although to require a special law it must have been of frequent occurrence; this law provides that “if a man have a spear over his shoulder, and any man stake himself upon it,” the carrier of the spear incurred severe punishment, “if the point be three fingers higher than the hindmost part of the shaft.” He was not considered blameable if he held the spear quite horizontally.
The traveller always wore a covering for his head, which, though of various shapes, none of which resembled our modern hat, was characterised by the general term of hæt. He seems to have been further protected against the inclemency of the weather by a cloak or mantle (mentel). One would be led to suppose that this outer garment was more varied in form and material than any other part of the dress, from the great number of names which we find applied to it, such as basing, hæcce, hæcela, or hacela, pæll, pylca, scyccels, wæfels, &c. The writings which remain throw no light upon the provisions made by travellers against rain; for the dictionary-makers who give scúr-scead (shower-shade) as signifying an umbrella, are certainly mistaken.[17] Yet that umbrellas were known to the Anglo-Saxons is proved beyond a doubt by a figure in the Harleian manuscript, No. 603, which is given in our cut [No. 51]. A servant or attendant is holding an umbrella over the head of a man who appears to be covered at the same time with the cloak or mantle.
No. 51. An Anglo-Saxon Umbrella.
Travelling to any distance must have been rendered more uncomfortable, especially when passing through wild districts where there were no inns. The word inn is itself Saxon, and signified a lodging, but it appears to have been more usually applied to houses of this kind in towns. A tavern was also called a gest-hus or gest-bur, a house or chamber for guests, and cumena-hus, a house of comers. Guest-houses, like caravanserais in the East, appear to have been established in different parts of Saxon England, near the high roads, for the reception of travellers. A traveller in Bede arrives at a hospitium in the north of England, which was kept by a paterfamilias (or father of a family) and his household. In the Northumbrian gloss on the Psalms, printed by the Surtees Society, the Latin words of Psalm liv., in hospitiis eorum, are rendered by in gest-husum heara. This shows that Bede’s hospitium was really a guest-house: these guest-houses were kept up in various parts of England until Norman times; and Walter Mapes, in his treatise de Nugis Curialium, has preserved a story relating to one of William the Conqueror’s Saxon opponents, Edric the Wild, which tells how, returning from hunting in the forest of Dean, and accompanied only with a page, he came to a large house, “like the drinking houses of which the English have one in every parish, called in English gild-houses,” perhaps an error for guest-houses (quales Anglici in singulis singulas habebant diocesibus bibitorias, ghildhus Anglice dictas). It seems not improbable, also, that the ruins of Roman villas and small stations, which stood by the sides of roads, were often roughly repaired or modified, so as to furnish a temporary shelter for travellers who carried provisions, &c., with them, and could therefore lodge themselves without depending upon the assistance of others. A shelter of this kind—from its consisting of bare walls, a mere shelter against the inclemency of the storm—might be termed a ceald-hereberga (cold harbour), and this would account for the great number of places in different parts of England, which bear this name, and which are almost always on Roman sites and near old roads. The explanation is supported by the circumstance that the name is found among the Teutonic nations on the continent—the German Kalten-herberg—borne by some inns at the present day.
The deficiency of such comforts for travellers in Anglo-Saxon times was compensated by the extensive practice of hospitality, a virtue which was effectually inculcated by the customs of the people as well as by the civil and ecclesiastical laws. When a stranger presented himself at a Saxon door, and asked for board and lodging, the man who refused them was looked upon with contempt by his countrymen. In the seventh century, as we learn from the Pœnitentiale of archbishop Theodore, the refusal to give lodging to a stranger (quicunque hospitem non receperit in domum suam) was considered worthy of ecclesiastical censure. And in the Ecclesiastical Institutes, drawn up at a later period, and printed in the collection of Anglo-Saxon laws, it is stated that “It is also very needful to every mass-priest, that he diligently exhort and teach his parishioners that they be hospitable, and not refuse their houses to any wayfaring man, but do for his comfort, for love of God, what they then will or can; ... but let those who, for love of God, receive every stranger, desire not any worldly reward.” Bede describes as the first act of “the custom of hospitality” (mos hospitalitatis) the washing of the stranger’s feet and hands; they then offered him refreshment, and he was allowed to remain two nights without being questioned, after which period the host became answerable for his character. The ecclesiastical laws limited the hospitality to be shown to a priest to one night, because if he remained longer it was a proof that he was neglecting his duties.