THREE MEN IN BED
Harl. MS., 603.
He points out, however, apart from his theory, the very important fact that London was in many respects a free commercial city, making laws for itself and claiming privileges and concessions which imply claims to the exercise of independent jurisdiction, notably in the law made by the Bishop and Reeves of London for the citizens in the year 900. Such powers the City certainly possessed and used at that and earlier times; they were, however, powers not laid down by law, but assumed as the occasion demanded, and neither disputed nor allowed by the King. Later on, the citizens pretended to have possessed their privileges from the first foundation of their City, which they carried back as far as the foundation of Rome.
V. The Manners and Customs of the People
MOTHER AND CHILD
Cædmon’sMetrical Paraphrase (10th cent.), Bodleian Library.
As regards the poor of London, the laws relating to them were most strict and clear. Everybody had to give to the Church the tenth part of his possessions and incomings: the tithe, according to a law of Ethelred, was to be divided into three equal parts, of which one was to go to the maintenance of the church fabric—the altars, the service of the church, and the offices belonging thereto; the second part was to go to the priests; and the third part to “God’s poor and needy.” Archbishop Egbert issued a canon to the same effect. King Edgar enjoined the same division. And not only did tithes carry with them this provision for the poor, but the faithful were also exhorted to other almsgiving. For instance, if a man fasts, let him give to the poor what he has saved by his abstinence; and if by reason of any infirmity he is unable to fast, let him give to the poor instead. Every church, every monastery, had its guest-house or poor-house, where the poor were received and fed. Archbishop Wilfred, in 832, fed daily, on his different manors, twenty-six poor men: to each he gave yearly twenty-six pence for clothing; and on his anniversary he gave twelve poor men each a loaf of bread and a cheese, and one penny. This practice was continued after his death by endowments. In the same way there were endowments for the poor at Canterbury, Ely, and elsewhere. We must, therefore, remember that round every parish church in the City of London there were gathered daily, for their share of the tenth part, “God’s poor and needy”—the aged, the infirm, the afflicted—belonging to that parish.
Augustin Rischgitz.
DRAWING WATER
Nero MS., C. iv. (10th cent.).
The daily life of the King in his palace or on his journeys is not difficult to make out. That of the people, the priest, the merchant, the craftsman, is impossible to discover—only a few general customs can be noted. To begin with, the Anglo-Saxon was a mighty drinker: in drinking he was only surpassed by the Dane; bishops were even accused of going drunk to church; all classes drank to excess. They had drinking bouts which lasted for days: during this orgy they illustrated their Christian profession by praising the saints and singing hymns between their cups, instead of singing the old war songs; the young king, Harthacnut, as we know, drank himself to death. But the feasting and the hard drinking seldom fell to the lot of the ordinary craftsman. We may believe that this honest man drank as much as he could get and as often as he could afford, but ale and mead then, as now, cost money. How the craftsman worked, for what wage, for how long, how he was housed, how he was fed, we may ask in vain.
