CHAPTER I.PRELIMINARY.
ANCIENT HISTORY AND BRITISH WOMEN.
ANCIENT HISTORY AND BRITISH WOMEN.
ANCIENT HISTORY AND BRITISH WOMEN.
“Let us look at the beginnings of things, for they help us to understand the ends.”
Thoughearly British traditions may survive in later Literature, we cannot accept them for critical purposes. The century of the birth of Christ is the earliest date of our authentic history. The words of the Romans, strangers and enemies, are unexceptionable witnesses. Nothing impressed the Romans more than the equality of the sexes among the Northern nations; the man’s reverence for womanhood, the woman’s sympathy with manhood, and the high code of morality that was the natural outcome of this well-balanced society.
Plutarch (“de Virtut Mul.”) says, “Concerning the virtues of women, I am not of the same mind with Thucydides. For he would prove that she is the best woman concerning whom there is least discourse made by people abroad, either to her praise or dispraise; judging that as the person, so the very name of a good woman ought to be retired and not to gad abroad.... And seeing that many worthy things, both public and private, have been done by women, it is not amiss to give a brief historical account of those that are public in the first place.” Among the examples he cites, there is that of the continental Celts, kindred to the British. Some of these wandered north-west, and some due south. “There arose a very grievous and irreconcilable contention among the Celts before they passed over the Alps to inhabit that tract of Italy which now they inhabit, which proceeded to a civil war. The women, placing themselves between the armies, took up the controversies, argued them so accurately, and determined them so impartially that an admirable friendly correspondence and general amity ensued, both civil and domestic. Hence the Celts made it their practice to take women into consultation about peace or war, and to use them as mediates in any controversies that arose between them and their allies. In the league, therefore, made with Hannibal, the writing runs thus—If the Celts take occasion of quarrelling with the Carthaginians, the governors and generals of the Carthaginians in Spain shall decide the dispute; but if the Carthaginians accuse the Celts, theCeltic women shall decide the controversy.” The Romans were much struck by the similar position of women among the Britons, Belgic and Celtic alike. Elton, on the authority of Ammianus Marcellinus, says of the women, “that their approximation to the men in stature was the best evidence that the nation had advanced out of barbarism.” Cæsar tells us (“Eng.” 117) that the British women were made use of in Court, in Council, and in Camp, and that no distinction of sex was made in places of command or government. Selden, in his chapter on “Women” in the “Janus Anglorum,” reminds us, that “Boadicea so successfully commanded the British armies as to beat and conquer the Roman Viceroy, and no doubt that noble lady was a deliberative member of the Council where the resolution was taken to fight, and that she should command the forces.” Tacitus (“Vita Agric.,” c. xv.) says, “Under the leadership of Boadicea, a woman of kingly descent (for they admit of no distinction of sex in their royal successions), they all rose to arms. Had not Paulinus, on hearing of this outbreak, rendered prompt succour, Britain would have been lost.” He owns elsewhere that had the Britons but been able to unite among themselves, the Romans could not have conquered them; and he more than once notes the bravery of the women in stimulating the warriors.
More fully in his “Annals” (B. xiv.), Tacitus describes how Suetonius Paulinus attacked Mona (Anglesea) the stronghold of the Druids; and how the women priestessesdashed about clothed in black, like furies, with dishevelled hair, and with torches in their hands, encouraging and threatening the soldiers, and when all was lost, perishing bravely among the flames kindled by the conqueror. This is told, not in the tones with which one belauds compatriot heroines, but in those of an enemy, to whom these women added new terrors and increased troubles. Meanwhile, in the East, the Roman statue of Victory had fallen from its place in the temple of Claudius at Camalodunum; evil signs and omens weakened the hearts of the Roman soldiers, and frantic Priestesses encouraged the hopes of the British force thereby. Boadicea, having succeeded in uniting some of the neighbouring tribes, had driven Catus over the sea, had subdued Petelius Cerialus, had destroyed the Colonia at Camalodunum, had sacked Verulam, and marched on London, building an intrenched camp near what we now call Islington. Suetonius Paulinus, fresh from the slaughter of the sacred Druid host, advanced to meet her. Tacitus describes the position of the armies, and reports her speech. Not being “unaccustomed to address the public,” she called her army to witness “that it was usual for the Britons to war under the conduct of women, but on that occasion she entered the field, not as one descended from ancestors so illustrious to recover her kingdom and her treasure, but as one of the humblest among them, to take vengeance for liberty extinguished, her own body lacerated with stripes, and the chastity of her daughters defiled.... They would see that in thatbattle they must conquer or perish. Such was the fixed resolve of a woman; the men might live if they pleased and be the slaves of the Romans.” “Neither was Suetonius silent at so perilous a juncture, for though he confided in the bravery of his men, yet he mingled exhortations with entreaties. ‘In that great host were to be seen more women than efficient men. Unwarlike, unarmed, they would give way the instant they felt the sword and valour of those victorious troops, etc.’” Then follows the account of the battle. “The soldiers spared not even the lives of the women, nay the very beasts, pierced with darts, seemed to swell the heaps of the slain. The glory gained that day was signal indeed, and equal to the victories of ancient times, for there are authors who record that of the Britons were slain almost 80,000, of our men about 400, with not many more wounded.”
That Boadicea’s defeat was gloried in as being such a triumph to the Roman arms is in itself a witness to her prowess. The numbers of the slain did not likely represent warriors alone. The carriages with their wives and children lined the field. The Romans thought that the defeated Britonscould notfly past these. Theywould not. Husbands, wives, and babes were slain together, and reckoned together, perhaps the very beasts of burden among the heaps of the slain were reckoned too. Anything to increase the Roman “glory.”
There is no picture more touching in the history of our country! The forces of oppression and lust, the spirit of Nero himself, then Emperor, were ranged againstthis woman. With superhuman energy, as patriot, as mother, and asindividual, she struggled against these in defence of country, home, and honour. Andshe failed! Had circumstances been but slightly altered, had the brave Caractacus been but able to hold out a little longer, and take shelter with her, instead of trusting the rival Queen Cartismandua, how differently might our British history have read to-day.
Cartismandua was a Queen, too, in her own right, wedded freely to the neighbouring Prince Venutius, but nevertheless personally elected as the supreme ruler and leader of the united tribes of the Brigantes, making contracts and treaties for all. Caractacus, after his nine years’ struggle, had fled for shelter and for help to her in the year 50A.D.But as Elton says in his “Origin of English History,” “she was farseeing enough to see the hopelessness of contest with the Romans.” Already Romanised in heart and spirit, she betrayed her countryman, cast off her husband, forfeited her honour, and finally lost the crown of her inheritance.
The blameless Boadicea suffered for her sins twelve years later, in that sad year of 62A.D.That defeat rang the death-knell of the freedom of British womanhood, and of the spirit of British manhood. In such a crisis it isnotthe fittest who survive. They who lived to tread upon her grave were born of lower possibilities. Yet shehas lived, the typal woman of the British past.
I know that I may be expected to speak of the Empress Helena, claimed by Camalodunum (now Colchester) asthe only daughter of its Coel II., the wife of Constantius, the mother of Constantine, the Christian convert, the finder of the true cross. Good as she was, refined and cultivated too, she was, nevertheless, but a Romanised Briton, a Roman wife, a Roman mother, under Roman Law. And the Roman Law was a meaner foster-mother for feminine virtues than the free old British Law.
The withdrawal of the Roman troops for home affairs hastened a new crisis, in which the Britons, made limp by protection and an alien government, were unable to hold their own against invading tribes. No longer was the British wife the brave help-meet, the counsellor, the inspirer of the British man. Roman customs had completed what the Roman arms and the Roman laws had begun, and the spirit of British Womanhood had no reserve force in itself to spare. Then came an infusion of new blood into the land, fortunately not of Latin Race, but of a good northern stock, that reverenced woman still. Speaking of that stock in earlier times, Tacitus (“Germ.” c. viii.) says, “The women are the most revered witnesses of each man’s conduct, and his most liberal applauders. To their mothers and their wives they bring their wounds for relief, who do not dread to count or search out the gashes. The women also administer food and encouragement to those who are fighting.” “They even suppose somewhat of sanctity and prescience to be inherent in the female sex, and, therefore, neither despise their counsels nor disregard their responses. We have beheld, in the reign of Vespasian, Veleda, longreverenced by many as a deity. Aurima, moreover, and several others, were formerly held in similar veneration, but not with a similar flattery, nor as though they had been goddesses (c. xviii). Almost alone among barbarians they are content with one wife.... The wife does not bring a dower to the husband, but the husband to the wife.... Lest the woman should think herself to stand apart from aspirations after noble deeds, and from the perils of war, she is reminded by the ceremony which inaugurates marriage (in which she is handed a spear) that she is her husband’s partner in toil and danger, destined to suffer and to dare with him alike in peace and in war....” “She must live and die with the feeling that she is receiving what she must hand down to her children, neither tarnished, nor depreciated, what future daughters-in-law may receive, and may so pass on to her grandchildren” (c. xix). “Thus with their virtue protected, they live uncorrupted by the allurements of public shows or the stimulant of feastings. Clandestine correspondence is equally unknown to men and women. The young men marry late, and their vigour is unimpaired. Nor are the maidens hurried into marriage. Well-matched and vigorous they wed, and the offspring reproduce the strength of their parents” (Church’s Translation).
These racial peculiarities also marked the early Saxon invaders, though there were no foreign witnesses to note them with surprise. The native writers took them too much as a matter of course to consider them worthnoting. It is only indirectly that we can glean the state of affairs from public records. Samuel Heywood, in his “Ranks of the People among the Anglo-Saxons,” says (p. 2), “The word Cwen[1]originally signified a wife in general, but was by custom converted into a title for the wife of a king.... It was customary for Saxon monarchs to hold their courts with great solemnity three times a year. The Queen Consort, at these assemblies, wore her crown also, and was seated on a throne near the King. When an assembly of the nobles met at Winchester to adjust the complaints of the secular clergy against St. Dunstan, the King presided, having his Queen seated by his side (“Eadmer de Vita St. Dunstan,” 2 Aug. Sacra., 219)....”
1.“Cwen” originally meant a wife, but it also meant acompanionorpeer, hence in old French Histories we see it used instead of Count, as “Thibaut Cwens de Champagne.” In a roll in the Tower of London, Simon de Montfort is called “Quens of Leycester” (Selden’s “Titles of Honour”).
1.“Cwen” originally meant a wife, but it also meant acompanionorpeer, hence in old French Histories we see it used instead of Count, as “Thibaut Cwens de Champagne.” In a roll in the Tower of London, Simon de Montfort is called “Quens of Leycester” (Selden’s “Titles of Honour”).
1.“Cwen” originally meant a wife, but it also meant acompanionorpeer, hence in old French Histories we see it used instead of Count, as “Thibaut Cwens de Champagne.” In a roll in the Tower of London, Simon de Montfort is called “Quens of Leycester” (Selden’s “Titles of Honour”).
“The Queen Consort had her separate household and attendants....” “It is highly probable that in ancient as well as modern times the Queen Consort was considered asfeme solein all legal proceedings. Sir Edward Coke being called on to prove that this was the common law before the Conquest, produced a charter made by Ethelswurth, Queen of the Mercians, in the lifetime of her husband, giving away the lands in her own power, her husband being only an attesting witness. We find Queens Consort acting in all other respects asfemes solesin tenure, management, and alienation of real property.Emma, Ethelred’s Queen, gave a munificent grant to St. Swithins, Winchester. Alswythe, the Queen of King Alfred, began to erect a house for nuns at Winchester, finished by her son Edward. Queens attested their husband’s grants, and recorded their assents to acts done and engagements made. Queens Dowager were also present, and subscribed their names to Royal grants as being content with them.”
Though, of course, the Royal rank increased the woman’s power, the law and custom for Queens was but the reflex of the common law and custom of the time for all women. Selden says, “Ladies of birth and quality sat in the Saxon Witenagemot,” and Gurdon, in his “Antiquities of Parliament,” vol. i., p. 164, adds, “Wightred, the next Saxon legislator, summoned his Witas to the Witenagemot at Berghamstead, where his laws were made with the advice and consent of his Witas (which is ageneralterm for the nobility), for the laws were signed by the King, Werburg his Queen, the Bishops, Abbots, Abbesses, and therestof the Witas” (see“Sax. Chron.,” 48). In Spelman’s “Concilia Britannica,” p. 190, we find also that Wightred’s council at Beconceld (694) included women, for the Queen and Abbesses signed the decisions along with the King and the Abbots (p. 192). The charter to Eabba the Abbess is granted by Wightred and his Queen (p. 486).
The charter to Glastonbury is signed, after the name of the King, “Ego Eilfgiva ejusdem Regis Mater cum gaudio consensi” (p. 533). In the “Diploma Comiti,Regis Angliæ,” after the King’s name, “Ego Emma Regina signo crucis confirmo.”
The second charter of Edward the Confessor to St. Peter’s at Westminster contains not only the signature of the sainted King, but “Ego Editha Regina huic donationi Regiæ consentiens subscripsi” (p. 631). And at the council summoned to consider the Bull of Nicholas the Pope to Edward the Confessor, after the King, signs “Ego Edgida Regina omni alacritate mentis hoc corroboravi.” The different expressions used, show that the signatures were no mere accident, no vapid formality.
In the council held to grant privileges to the Church “præsentibus etiam clarissimis Abbattissis, hoc est, Hermehilda, Truinberga and Ataba reverenda, ut subscriberent rogavi” (p. 198).
“King Edgar’s charter to the Abbey of Crowland (961) was signed with the consent of the nobles and abbesses, for many Abbesses were formerly summoned to Parliament” (Plowden’s “Jura Anglorum,” p. 384. Also William Camden’s “Antiquity of Parliament”).
“Ego Ælfrith Regina” signs the Charter that the King of Mercia grants to the Abbey of Worcester. “Ethelswith Regina” subscribes with Burghred, King of Mercia or Mercland, in the Register of Worcester.
Edward the Confessor’s charter to Agelwin is confirmed by his wife, “Ego Edgith Regina consentio.”
So in a charter of King Knut to St. Edmundesbury, his wife, Alfgwa, signs, “Ego Alfgifa Regina” (Selden’s “Titles of Honour”).
There had been amid the Saxons, Queens Regnant as well as Queens Consort. William of Malmesbury writes in admiration of Sexburga, the Queen Dowager of Cenwalch, King of the West Saxons, 672,A.D., “that there was not wanting to this woman a great spirit to discharge the duties of the kingdom. She levied new armies, kept the old ones to duty, governed her subjects with clemency, kept her enemies quiet with threats, in a word, did everything at that rate that there was no other difference between her and any King in management except her sex” (“Malmesb. Gest. Reg.,” b. i.). Ethelfleda, too, the daughter of the great Alfred, called the Lady of Mercia, ruled that kingdom after the death of her father and her husband for eight years, and completed the work that her great father had begun in finally defeating and subjugating the intruding Danes. Women landowners sat in the Shire Gemote, or held Motes of their own; women Burgesses were present at Folkmotes, or at Revemotes. In short, the privileges of women in the Saxon times were nearly equal to those they held in British times.
The Abbess Hilda presided over the monastery at Streneshalh, Whitby, where was a man’s wing, and a woman’s wing, the church coming between them. Among her disciples were educated many learned bishops. An ecclesiastical synod met at her abbey (664), at which she presided, that the calm of her presence and the influence of her control might soothe excitement on the vexed questions of the day, chiefly those regarding Easter. There were delegates from Rome, from the Scots, from the Angles, and theBritons (seelib. 3, c. xxv., and lib. 4, c. xxiii., xxiv.). Also Spelman’s “Concilia” (p. 145) describes “Synodis Pharensis rogatu Hildæ illic Abbatissæ celebratæ.” The earliest British writer still extant, Gildas of Alcluid (now Dumbarton), reports this fact without comment or surprise. Spelman preserves also (p. 205) “Epistola Johannis Pa. VII.,” to “Ethelredum Regem Merciorum.” “Episcopus suo more obnitentibus beatissima virgo Elfleda soror Alfridi, Abbattissa post Hildam de Streneshalh, terminum negotio fixit dicens Dimissus ambagibus testamentum fratris mei, cui præsens interfui, profero,” etc. Other women held similar positions in England, as well as St. Bridget of the Abbey of Kildare in Ireland.
The Norman invaders swept like a whirlwind over old institutions, yet some of the strongest stood firm. They were, after all, of the same Church, and Church and Cloister preserved the records of Saxon liberties, and the customs of Saxon times. The clerical and lay powers of many Abbesses were handed down unimpaired to their successors in Norman times. The conquest was not one of extermination but of superposition. The great mass of thepeopleremained Saxon in heart. The Normans were, too, of a kindred race, though they had come from a long sojourn in a land where language, thought, and custom had become Latinised, a land that already held the principles of the Salic Law. William promised to respect the laws of the country, but there is no appeal against a conqueror’s will, or a soldier’s sword.
The lands they wrested from the Saxons, the Normans held of the King by Feudal Tenure or by Military Service. Their laws, customs, and language dominated the Saxons, as did their swords. But only for a time. The struggles with France formed, through a common antagonism, a united nation of the varying races in the island. To complete the union, the nation went back to the language of the Saxons, and, when opportunity for freedom called, went back to their old laws as a basis of the new. That women suffered more than men did from the Norman invasion might only have been expected. But that they did not do so nearly to the extent that it is commonly supposed, can be proved by reference to competent authorities, by whom the limitations of their privileges are shown to proceed on definite and comprehensible lines.