Early London: Prehistoric, Roman, Saxon and Norman

by Walter Besant

The Anglo-Saxon love of music and poetry gives us a higher opinion of the people than we might form from all that we have learned. Applying all his qualities, good or bad, to the Londoner, it will be found that he has transmitted them to the generations coming after him. For he was a lover of freedom, valiant in the field; a lover of order and justice; impatient under ecclesiastical control, yet full of religion; fond of music, poetry, singing and playing; given to feasting and addicted to drunkenness. These attributes distinguished the Londoner in the tenth century, and they are with him still after a thousand years.

FEASTING
Claud MS., B. iv. (11th cent.).

The sports and pastimes of the City were the same for London as for the rest of the country. The citizens were passionately fond of hunting and hawking; they baited animals, as the bull, the bear, and the badger; they were fond of swimming, skating, and rowing, of dancing, and of tomfoolery, jumping, tumbling, and playing practical jokes. Of these amusements, hunting was by far the most popular with all classes. We have seen that the Londoner had deep forests on all sides of him, beyond the moor on the north of his wall, beyond the Dover causeway on the south, beyond the Lea on the east, beyond Watling Street on the west. The forests were full of wild cattle, bears, elk, buffalo, wild boars, stags, wolves, foxes, hares, and the lesser creatures; as for the wolves, they were a terror to every village. Athelstan and Edgar organised immense hunts for the destruction of the wolves; under the latter they were so greatly reduced in number that he is generally said to have exterminated them. As regards the hunting of the elk or the wild boar, it was a point of honour to meet the creature face to face after it had been roused from its lair by the dogs, and driven out maddened to turn upon its assailant. In single combat the hunter met him spear and knife in hand, and either killed or was killed. Sometimes nets were employed; these were stretched from tree to tree. Dogs drew the creatures into the nets, where they were slaughtered. Once Edward the Confessor, a mighty hunter, discovered that his nets had been laid upon the ground by a countryman. “By God and His Mother!” cried the gentle saint, “I will serve you just such a turn if ever it comes in my way.”

The country was famous for its breed of dogs. There were bloodhounds strong enough to pull down bulls; wolfhounds which could overtake a stag or a wolf or a bear; a kind of bulldogs remarkable for their overhanging jowls; harriers, greyhounds, water spaniels, sheep-dogs, watch-dogs, and many other kinds.

The Game Laws, which restricted the right of hunting, formerly universal, were introduced by Cnut. Every man, however, was permitted to hunt over his own land.

Akin to hunting was the sport of hawking. This was greatly followed by ladies, for whom other kinds of hunting were too rough. Hawks of good breed were extremely valuable. It was not only by hawking that birds were caught. The Londoner employed nets, traps, slings, and bird-lime. He had only to go down the river as far as Barking or Greenwich to find innumerable swarms of birds to be trapped and netted. Of his indoor pastimes one must not omit to mention the making and answering of riddles, a game with pawns—“taeflmen”—and dice, called “taefl,” and the game of chess. The last of these was a fearful joy on account of the rage which seems always to have seized the man who was defeated. Witness the following anecdote:—

“Among the most enthusiastic of chess-players was Cnut the Great, but he was by no means an agreeable antagonist. When he lost a game, or saw that he was on the eve of doing so, he very commonly took up the huge chess-board on which he played, and broke it on the head of his opponent. He was on one occasion playing with his brother-in-law, the Earl Ulf, when the earl, seeing that he had a forced mate, and knowing the king’s weakness for knocking out the brains of successful antagonists, quietly left the table. Cnut, who guessed his motive, shouted after him: ‘Do you run away, you coward?’ To which the other, who had lately rescued the king in an unfortunate engagement with the Swedes, replied, ‘You would have been glad to have run faster at the Helga, when I saved you from the Swedes who were cudgelling you.’ Cnut endeavoured to bear the retort patiently, but it was too irritating for his temper. On the following morning he commanded one of his Thanes to go and murder Ulf; and though, in anticipation of the king’s vengeance, Ulf had taken sanctuary in the church of St. Lucius, the bloodthirsty order was carried into effect.”

The education of the boy was conducted at monasteries. One knows that there were schools in every monastery, and that every minster had its school; and that probably the four oldest schools of London—St. Paul’s, St. Martin’s, St. Anthony’s, and St. Mary-le-Bow, were of Anglo-Saxon foundation. We know, further, that at these schools the teaching was carried on by means of catechism, and that the discipline was severe, but we do not know what children were admitted to these schools, and whether the child of the craftsman was received as well as the child of the Thane. Athletics were not neglected—leaping, running, wrestling, and every kind of sport which would make the body more active and the frame more capable of endurance were encouraged. Until the time of Alfred very few even of the highest rank could read or write. The monasteries with their schools did a great deal to remove the reproach. The boys rose before daybreak and joined the brethren in singing the Psalms appointed for the early service. They assisted at first mass and at the mass for the day; they dined at noon and slept after dinner; they then repaired to their teacher for instruction.