arts. Thus Dunstan, besides being competent to draw and paint the patterns for a lady's robe, was also a smith, and worked on all the metals. Among other labours of his industry, he made two great bells for the church at Abingdon. His friend Ethelwold, the bishop, made two other bells for the same place, of a smaller size; and a wheel full of small bells, much gilt, to be turned round for its music, on feast-days. He also displayed much art in the fabrication of a large silver table of curious workmanship. Stigand, the bishop of Winchester, made two images and a crucifix, and gilt and placed them in the cathedral of his diocese." One of our kings made a monk, who was a skilful goldsmith, an abbot. It was even exacted by law that the clergy should pursue these occupations; for Edgar says, "We command that every priest, to increase knowledge, diligently learn some handicraft." It was at this period that it began to be felt that skill could add value to the material on which it operated; and as the increasing wealth of society enabled some to pay for its additional cost, a taste for ornament as well as massy value now emerged. The art of glass-making was unknown in England in the seventh century, when Benedict, the abbot of Weremouth, procured men from France, who not only glazed the windows of his church and monastery, but taught the Anglo-Saxons the art of making glass for windows, lamps, drinking-vessels, and for other uses. Our progress in the art was slow; for we find the disciple of Bede thus addressing a bishop of France on this subject in the next century: "If there be any man in your district who can make glass vessels well, when time permits, condescend to send him to me; or if there is any one out of your diocese, in the power of others, I beg your fraternity will persuade him to come to us, for we are ignorant and helpless in this art: and if it should happen that any of the glass-makers should, by your diligence and with the divine pleasure, be suffered to come to us, be assured that if I am alive I will receive him with kind courtesy." The fortunate connection which Christianity established between the clergy of Europe, favoured the advancement of all the mechanical arts. We read perpetually of presents of the produc tions of human labour and skill passing from the more civilized countries to those more rude. We read of a church having a patine made with Greek workmanship; and also of a bishop in England who was a Greek by birth." They had the arts of weaving, embroidering, and dyeing. Aldhelm intimates these: "We do not negligently despise the woollen stamina of threads worked by the woof and the shuttles, even though the purple robe and silken pomp of emperors shine." Again, "The shuttles, not filled with purple only but with various colours, are moved here and there among the thick spreading of the threads, and by the embroidering art they adorn all the woven work with various groups of images." Edward the Elder had his daughters taught to exercise their needle and their distaff. Indeed, the Anglo-Saxon ladies were so much accustomed to spinning, that just as we in legal phrase, and by a reference to former habits now obsolete, term unmarried ladies spinsters, so Alfred in his will, with true application, called the female part of his family the spindle side. The Norman historian remarks of our ancient countrywomen, that they excelled with the needle, and in gold embroidery.d Aldhelm's robe is described to have been made of a most delicate thread of a purple ground, and that within black circles the figures of peacocks were worked among them of ample size. Bede alludes to their jewellers and goldsmiths: "A rich and skilful goldworker, wishing to do some admirable work, collects, wherever he can, remarkable and precious stones to be placed among the gold and silver, as well to show his skill, as for the beauty of his work. Those precious stones are chiefly of a ruddy or aerial colour." From the custom of the kings making presents of rich garments, vases, bracelets, and rings to their witenagemot courtiers, and of great lords doing the same to their knights, the trades for making these must have had much employment. The gemots often met three times a year. The lords frequently held their imitative courts. One of their trades seems to have been the tavern, or the public house for a priest is forbidden to drink "at the wine tuns." An alehouse and aleshop are also mentioned in the laws.h The external commerce of these ancient times was confined, because their imperfect civilization, and the poverty of the great body of their population, prevented an extensive demand for foreign commodities. But the habit of visiting different parts for the purpose of traffic had already begun. Ohther's voyage proves, that men went to the North, both for the purposes of traffic and of discovery: he says, they pursued whales for their teeth, and made ropes of their hides. We read of merchants from Ireland landing at Cambridge with cloths, and exposing Ibid. Aldhelm de Laud. Virg. 298, 305. He also mentions the fucorum muneribus. c Malmsb. lib. ii. c. v. p. 47. 3 Gale, x. Script. 351. Wilk. Leg. 157. A penalty was inflicted if a man was killed in an eala-huse, ibid. p. 117. A priest was forbidden to be in a cala-scop, ibid. p. 100. See Alfred's account of this voyage in the first volume of this work. their merchandise to sale. London, even in the seventh century, is mentioned as a port which ships frequented; and we find merchants' ships sailing to Rome. The trading vessels sometimes joined together, and went out armed for their mutual protection ; but we may suppose, that while piracy lasted navigation was unfrequent. 66 In the Saxon dialogues, the merchant (mancgere) is introduced: "I say that I am useful to the king, and to ealdormen, and to the rich, and to all people. I ascend my ship with my merchandise, and sail over the sea-like places, and sell my things, and buy dear things which are not produced in this land, and I bring them to you here with great danger over the sea; and sometimes I suffer shipwreck, with the loss of all my things, scarcely escaping myself." What do you bring to us? "Skins, silks, costly gems, and gold; various garments, pigment, wine, oil, ivory, and orichalcus, copper, and in, silver, glass, and such like." Will you "I will not, sell your things here as you bought them there?' because what would my labour benefit me? I will sell them here dearer than I bought them there, that I may get some profit, to feed me, my wife, and children."n 66 That public markets were established in various parts of England in this period, we learn from many documents. It is clear from Domesday-book that these markets paid a toll. In Bedfordshire, a toll de mercato is mentioned, which yielded seven pounds. The market at Taunton paid fifty shillings. A market was established at Peterborough, with the privilege that no other was to be allowed within certain limits in its vicinity.P We shall state concisely a few customs as to our commercial navigation. At Chester, if ships should come there, or depart from it, without the king's leave, the king and Comes were to have forty shillings for every man in the ship. If they came in violation of the king's peace, or against his prohibition, the ships, mariners, and their property, were forfeited to the king and Comes. With the royal permission they might sell quietly what they had brought, but they were to pay to the king and his Comes fourpence for every last. If the king's governor should order those having the skins of martens not to sell them before he had seen them, none were to disobey him, under a penalty of forty shillings. This port yielded forty-five pounds, and three timbres of marten-skins. In the same place false measure incurred a fine of four shillings; and for bad ale the offender paid as much, or else was placed on a dunghill. At Southwark, no one took any toll on the strand, or the water, ji 2 Gale, 482. P Ingulf, 46. * Dugd. Mon. 76. 'Bede, 294. • Domesday, in loc. but the king. At Arundel, a particular person is named who took the custom paid by foreigners. At Canterbury, a prepositus is stated to have taken the custom from foreign merchants, in certain lands there, which another ought to have received. At Lewes, it is mentioned, that whoever either bought or sold, gave the governor a piece of money. Particular laws were made by the Anglo-Saxon government to regulate the manner of buying and selling. These laws had two objects in view: to prevent or detect theft; and to secure the due payment of the tax or toll which became due on such occasions. When the produce of the labour and fertility of a country begins to exceed its consumption, and no calamity obstructs its natural progress, the amount of its surplus accumulations increases in every generation, till the whole community becomes furnished with permanent goods, and some individuals with peculiar abundance. The Anglo-Saxons had reached this state in the reign of Ethelred. A considerable quantity of bullion, coined and uncoined, had then become diffused in the nation, and they were enabled to pay those heavy taxations, which were so often imposed, with such impolitic weakness, to buy off the Danish invasions. These unwise payments vexed but did not exhaust the nation. It became wealthy again under the peaceful reign of the Confessor. Both the taste for luxuries, and the spirit of increased production, were then pervading the country, and the national affluence was visibly increasing when the Norman armament landed on its coasts. In the ninth and tenth centuries, the Northmen were very enterprising in their navigation. They discovered Iceland and Greenland, and a more distant country, which they called Vinland, and which has been considered, not unjustly, to have been some part of the North American continent." A remark may be added on their travelling and hospitality. It would seem that they travelled armed. We read of one journeying with his horse and spear; when he alighted, he gave his spear to his attendants." Their hospitality was kind: on the arrival of a stranger he was welcomed; they brought him water to wash his hands; they washed his feet, and for this purpose warm water was used; they * Several facts concerning the commerce of our ancestors have been occasionally mentioned in the preceding volume; as the intercourse between Offa and Charlemagne; Alfred's embassy to India; Æthelstan's connections with Europe; and Canute's letter, explaining the business which he had transacted with the Pope. "One of the voyages may be seen in Snorre, tom. i. p. 303, 308. Torfæus has discussed this subject in a book on Winland. Mallet has given an interesting chapter on the maritime discoveries of the Northmen, in his Northern Antiquities, vol. i. c. 11, p. 268, of the translation edited by Dr. Percy. ▾ Bede, p. 233. VOL. II, 22 wiped them with a cloth, and the host in one case cherished them in his bosom. We also read of warm wine administered to the new guest." Hospitality was, however, dangerous in some degree from its responsibility: if any one entertained a guest (cuman, literally a come-one) three nights in his own house, whether a trader, or any other person that had come over the boundary, and fed him with victuals, and the guest did any thing wrong, the host was to bring him to justice, or to answer for it. By another law, a guest, after two nights' residence, was reckoned part of the family, and the owner of it was to be answerable for his actions. If a shorn man travelled steorless, or vagrantly, hospitality might be given to him once, but he was to have leave of absence before he could be longer maintained.z Travelling was attended with some penal regulations: if a stranger in any part went out of the road, or through woods, it was a law that he should either shout aloud, or blow with a horn, on pain of being deemed a thief, and suffering as such. It was the habit of depredation that made every traveller an object of legal suspicion at this period. From the peril of the roads, want of communication, the poverty of the middling and lower classes, and the distance, violence, and rapacity of the barons and knights, travelling for the purposes of traffic was very rare, and became more so when the Northman invaders were in the island, and while their unsettled emigrants were continually moving over it. Hence few men left their towns or burghs but for pillage or revenge; and this occasioned that jealous mistrust of the law which operated so long to discourage even mercantile journeys. CHAPTER XII. Their Chivalry. THERE is no evidence that the refined and enthusiastic spirit of gallantry which accompanied chivalry in its perfect stage, prevailed among the Anglo-Saxons; but that chivalry, in a less polished form, and considered as a military investiture, conferred with religious ceremonies, by putting on the belt and sword, and |