They wove thin stuffs for summer wear, and felted heavy druggets for winter; the latter were said to be prepared with vinegar, and "were so tough that they would turn the stroke of a sword." Some of their clothes are described as "woven of gaudy colors and making a show." They were versed in the art of using alternate colors in the warp and woof so as to bring out the pattern of stripes and squares. Diodorus says of some of their patterns that the cloth was covered with an infinite number of little squares and lines, "as if it had been sprinkled with flowers," or was striped with cross bars, giving a checkered effect. The colors most in vogue were red and crimson; "such honest colors," says the Roman writer, "as a person had no cause to blame, nor the world a reason to cry out upon." Such were the fabrics with which the more civilized of the British women arrayed themselves, and the workmanship of which speaks volumes for their makers' industry and skill. The women were inordinately fond of ornaments, and had a plentiful supply from which to select. Their attire was not complete unless it included necklaces, bracelets, strings of bright beads,—made of glass or a substance resembling Egyptian porcelain,—and that which was regarded as the crowning ornament of every woman of wealth—a torque of gold, or else a collar of the same metal. A ring was at first worn on the middle finger, but later it alone was left bare, all the other fingers being loaded with rings.
Among the more primitive of the peoples of Britain, skins continued to be worn, if, as among the Picts, clothing were not dispensed with altogether. The women of these fierce tribes were too proud of the intricate devices in brilliant colors with which their bodies were tattooed to hide them in any way. These, so Professor Elton is inclined to think, were the people who introduced bronzeinto Britain. They made continual and fierce attacks on their Celtic neighbors and carried off their women into captivity. And it was because of these attacks that the Anglo-Saxons were invited into Britain to champion the cause of the people, after the departure of the Romans had left the Britons to their own resources.
A period of peculiar interest and uncertainty was that of the Roman occupancy of the country, with its veneer of civilization and the introduction of Christianity, all of which was apparently swept aside by the conquering hordes of Teutons who came into Briton and laid the foundations for the English nation. It was a time of great changes in the standards of life and tastes, as well as of the morals of the British women. With the Romans came their inevitable arts of conciliation after conquest. Then followed the period of generous grants of public works—the baths, the theatres, the arena; then the Roman villa superseded the huts of the inhabitants. All was created under the ægis of the great mistress of the nations, and included strong fortifications. Civilization was advanced, but manliness was degraded. Effeminacy reduced the sturdy morals of the Briton to the plane of those of their conquerors. The abominable usage of the women finds expression in the bitter cry that the poet ascribes to the noble British queen, Boadicea: "Me they seized and they tortured, me they lashed and humiliated, me the sport of ribald veterans, mine of ruffian violators."
It is not a part of our work to even sketch the course of the Roman invasion in its path of blood and fire across the face of Britain, or the stubborn and sturdy opposition of the natives, the subjugation and the revolt of tribes—notably the Icenii, who cost the Romans seventy thousand slain and the destruction of three cities, but whose final conquest broke the backbone of opposition to the Romanarms. All this is political history, and cannot concern us excepting in the immense effect it had upon the women of the land. It was they who bore the brunt of suffering, degradation, and, too frequently, slavery and deportation—customary incidents of the fierce spirit of the Roman conquests. But in spite of the miseries their coming entailed upon the people, the Roman rule had an admirable effect upon the country in promoting peace, in establishing regard for law, and in stimulating commerce. After they had become accustomed to the Roman method of legal procedure in the settlement of differences, the Britons were no longer ready to fly at one another's throat on the least provocation. The breaking up of their tribal distinctions led to a greater consolidation of the people and removed a cause of strife. But as the descendants of the defenders of Britain's liberties grew up amid Roman conditions of life that had permeated the whole population as far as the northern highlands, where the people proved invincible to the Roman arms, the habit of dependence upon the Roman legions for protection enervated the people to such an extent that they could interpose but faint resistance to the next invaders of the country—the conquering Angles, Jutes, and Saxons.
It is amid conditions of Roman conquest and control that we are now to consider more in detail the status of the British woman. Scattered along the borders of the woods, between the pasture lands and the hunting lands, could be found the homesteads of the Britons, before the rise of the Roman city. Each of these edifices was large enough to hold the entire family in its single room. They were built, generally, of hewn logs, set in a row on end and covered with rushes or turf. The family fire burned in the middle of the room, and, circling it, sat the members of the household at their meals. The same raised seat of rushesserved them at night for a couch. Under the prevailing tribal custom, three families, or rather three generations of the same family, from grandfather to grandson, occupied each dwelling. After the third generation the family was broken up, though all the members of it retained the memory of their common descent. It is not clear whether or not a strictly monogamous household was the type of family life. Certainly it is probable that such was not the case among the backward races of the interior. As to the advanced sections of the population, against the statement of contemporary observers that it was the practice of the British women to have a plurality of husbands, there is only the argument of improbability to be urged. The custom of several families living under the one roof and in the same room may have led the Romans into an erroneous conclusion.
Little is known as to the laws of the Britons in regard to the regulation of family. In the matter of divorce, if the couple had several children, the husband took the eldest and the youngest, and the wife the middle ones, although the merits of such a peculiar division do not appear. It would seem as if in the case of the youngest child, at least, the mother was the proper custodian, or at any rate the natural one. The pigs went to the man, and the sheep to the woman; the wife took the milk vessels, and the man the mead-brewing machinery. This was at variance with the later custom of England, for well on through the Middle Ages, both as a family employment and a public industry, brewing was accounted woman's occupation. To the husband went also the table and ware. He took the larger sieve, she the smaller; he the upper, and she the lower millstone of the corn mill. The under bedding was his, and the upper hers. He received the unground corn, she the meal. The ducks, the geese,and the cats were her portion, while to his share fell the hens and one mouser.
The slight estimation in which women were held as compared with the value put upon men is indicated by the fact that a woman was legally rated at half the worth of her brother and one-third that of her husband. If a woman engaged in a quarrel, she was fined a specific sum for each finger with which she fought and for each hair she pulled from her adversary's head.
Among the customs in which women were concerned, those relating to marriage show that the assumption of family responsibility was regarded as a permanent relation, and their nature does not agree with Cæsar's description of the loose ties of matrimony among the Britons. It is entirely unlikely that the wives of the men were held by them in common. As has been already stated, such group marriages, if they existed, were localized among the rudest of the races of the country, whose general civilization had not elevated them to the point of appreciation of pure family life. Such, perhaps, were the small dark races descended from the Neolithic tribes and held in little esteem by the Celts. Among the Celts it was customary for the father of a bride to make a present of his own arms to his son-in-law. As will be seen later by a description of one of their dinners, the Celts preferred feasting to all other occupations, and their festivities were accompanied by the utmost conviviality. A wedding was an occasion for the most extravagant feasting, all the relatives of the contracting parties, to the third degree of kindred, assembling to eat and drink to the happiness of the newly wedded pair. The ceremony took place at the house of the bridegroom, and the bride was conducted thither by her friends. If the parties were rich, the pair made presents to their friends at the marriage festival; but if theywere poor, the reverse was the case, and presents were made to them by the guests. At the conclusion of the feast, the bride and bridegroom were conducted to their chamber by the whole company, with great merriment and amid music and dancing. The next morning, before rising, it was the rule for the husband to make his wife a present of considerable value, according to his circumstances. This was regarded as the wife's peculiar property.
The wives of the ancient Britons had not only the usual domestic duties to perform, but much of the outside work as well. Being of robust constitution, leading lives of simplicity and naturalness, maternity interfered but little with the round of their duties. The period was not wholly without its anxieties, however, as is shown by the custom among British women of wearing a girdle that was supposed to be conducive to the birth of heroes. The assumption of these girdles was a ceremony accompanied with mystical rites, and was a part of the Druidical ritual. The newborn babe was plunged into some lake or river in order to harden it, and as a test of its constitution; this was done even in the winter season. The early British mother always nursed her children herself, nor would she have thought of delegating this duty to another. The first morsel of food put into a male infant's mouth was on the tip of the father's sword, that the child might grow up to be a great warrior. As is frequently the case with primitive peoples, the Britons did not give names to their children until the latter had performed some feat or displayed some characteristic which might suggest for them a suitable name. It follows from this that all the names of the ancient Britons that have been preserved to us are significant. The youth were not delicately nurtured, and after passing through the perils of childhood, when the care of a motherwas imperative, it is probable that the mother had little to do with the training of her boy. Accustomed almost from infancy to the use of arms, as he grew older the boy added to his training athletic ordeals and feats of daring. Among the games to which he was accustomed was jumping through swords so placed that it was extremely difficult to leap quickly through them without being impaled. Youth was democratic, and, without any distinction, the children of the noble and the lowly, equally sordid and ill clad, played about on the floor or in the open field.
The Britons were noted for the warmth of their family affection. The mother was sure of the dutiful regard of her children and did not lack affectionate consideration from her husband. The aged were treated with a reverence in striking contrast to the heartlessness with which in earlier times the old were deserted to die or were put to death—a custom not unusual among primitive peoples. It is pleasant to think of the British matron inculcating into the minds of her children respect for age and the claims of relationship.
The law of hospitality was sacred to the ancient Briton. When a stranger sought entertainment at the home of one of them, no questions were asked as to his identity or his business, until after the meal. Indeed, it was frequently the case that such arrivals were made the excuse for a great feast, to which a number of friends were invited. The women soon had the preparation under way, and in due time the meat was roasting at the spit and the pot swinging on the crane over a roaring fire. While the mothers were employed in these occupations and in making bread, their daughters poured the fresh milk into the pitchers and filled the metal beakers and earthen jugs with home-brewed beer and mead. While the men exchanged stories of their hunting exploits and deeds of valorin battle, the women carried on a constant buzz of suppressed speculation and remark concerning the guests. When the meal was ready, the women set it before the men upon fresh grass or rushes. The bread was served in wicker baskets. The guests and their hosts seated themselves upon a carpet of rushes, or upon dog or wolf skins placed near the open fireplace. While the men voraciously seized the steaming joints and carved from them long slices of meat, which they ate "after the fashion of lions," the women plied them with the beakers of foaming beverage, and the bards sang, to the music of harps, the boastful exploits of some local chieftain. It was a strange thing if the feast and conviviality did not end in a fight over some question of precedence or disputed statement. When such a combat did occur, it was usually a contest to the death. Nor were the fierce-tempered women passive during such encounters, but, as we have seen, were ready to aid the men of their family with frenzied attack. Such a feast as we have described presented a weird and picturesque sight under the flaming light of the torches made of rushes soaked in tallow.
One of the favorite domestic employments of the British women, though one which we may imagine fell largely to the lot of the younger women and the girls, was the making of the wickerware for which the ancient Britons were famous. Baskets, platters, the bodies of chariots, the frames of boats, and even the framework of the houses, were made of this light and serviceable material. Withes peeled and woven by the supple fingers of the young British women into fancy baskets found a ready market at Rome, and commanded high prices, being generally esteemed as a rare work of ingenious art. During the hours required to weave an article of this sort, the womenwould fall into a responsive song, picked up perhaps from some passing minstrel.
Weaving, spinning, dyeing the fabrics thus made; the milking of the cattle, the grinding of the meal; the making of the garments for the family; the manufacture of pottery, to which may be added a share of the outdoor work, were some of the matters which made the life of the British woman far from an idle one. And yet, with it all, the young women found leisure to tarry at the spring for the exchange of laughing remarks, as they dropped something into its clear depth—as an offering to the divinity who they fully believed resided therein and who held in keeping their future and their fortunes—before they drew from it the water for the bleaching of the linen that they had already spread out in the sun.
The religion of the Britons, before the introduction of Christianity, was an elaborate system of superstitions and of nature worship. It was in the hands of a priestly order—the Druids. A mother was glad to resign her boy to the training of this mystical brotherhood, if he showed sufficient talent to warrant his reception therein. It is not necessary to describe particularly the system. It was made up of three orders, the Druids proper, the Bards, and the Ovates. Over the whole order was an Archdruid, who was elected for life. An order of Druidesses, also, is supposed to have existed. When Suetonius Paulinus landed at Anglesey in pursuit of the Druids (A.D. 56), women with hair streaming down their backs, dressed in black robes and with flaring torches in their hands, rushed up and down the heights, invoking curses on the invaders of their sacred precincts, greatly to the terror of the superstitious Roman soldiery.
At some of their sacred rites the women appeared naked, with their skin dyed a dark hue with vegetable stain. Itwas the custom of the Druids, who had the oversight of public morals, to offer, as sacrifices to the gods, thieves, murderers, and other criminals, whom they condemned to be burned alive. Wickerwork receptacles, sometimes made in the form of images, were filled with the miserable wretches, and were then placed upon the pyre and consumed. The prophetic women, standing by, made divinations from the sinews, the flowing blood, or the quivering flesh of the victims. The defeat of the Druids and the felling of their sacred groves by the Romans gave the death blow to the system, which under the influence of Christianity completely disappeared.
The diffusion of Roman civilization colored the beliefs of the British women. The destruction of the native shrines whither they used to resort to make a propitiatory offering or to draw divinations for direction in some matter of personal or domestic concern, and the establishment of the fanes of Rome, which abounded throughout the country to the limits of the Roman conquest, converted the local deities into Roman divinities. Under new names, the old gods of the woods and streams continued to receive the homage of the Romanized British matrons and maidens.
But with the introduction of Christianity and its extension even into parts of the country where the sword of Rome had failed to penetrate, there was a more radical change wrought in the life of women. They have always instinctively recognized the fact that the Christian religion is their champion, and in its consolation the women of the Britons found much to alleviate their common distress and to elevate their status. In the trying hours that came with the inroads of the fierce and barbarous Teutons, when they were carried off by the savage Picts to a base servitude, and when, after the reassertion of the Christian religion among the English, the coming of the Danes nextbrought a fresh abasement for their sex, the Christian faith was the sustaining and the reconstructive force of the lives of the women of the country. With the advance of Christianity passed the customs of pagan burial. The dead were no longer cremated, nor were they buried in the tumuli with the objects of their customary association interred with them to be of service in the spirit world.
One of the most apparent results of the Roman conquest, in its relation to the domestic life of the people, was the supersedence of the rude British dwellings by the Roman villa. This open style of house, suited to the sunny skies of Italy, had to undergo modifications to adapt it to the more rigorous clime of Britain. About an open court, which was either paved or planted in flower beds, the rooms were arranged, all of them opening inwardly, and some of them having an entrance to the outside as well. These connected rooms were usually one story high, with perhaps an additional story in the rear. The windows were iron-barred. The front of the villa was adorned with stucco and gaudily painted. In the homes of the wealthy, the inner court became an elaborately pillared banquet hall, with tessellated work in fine marble and with the pavement figured in symbolical devices. In it were placed the family shrines and statuary. Or else it was fitted up with the baths which were such a feature of Roman life. In later times, the walls blossomed out into decorations of mythological subjects: the foam-born Aphrodite, Bacchus and his panther steeds, Orpheus holding his dumb audience enthralled by his melody, Narcissus at the fountain, or the loves of Cupid and Psyche.
The heating arrangements of these houses were ample and convenient, and the edifices themselves were frequently added to by succeeding generations. In the country districts, the houses were provided with largestorerooms, plentifully supplied with provisions, and were garrisoned against the attack of enemies. The best of these Roman-British houses were imposing structures of vast dimensions. The women, when surrounded by the luxuries of Roman life, gave themselves over to pleasure and frequented the theatres and the public baths, and entertained in lavish style. They generally adopted the graceful Roman dress, and thus cleared themselves of the charge of loudness, extravagance, and meanness of attire that the earlier Roman writers brought against them. After the introduction of Christianity, when Roman civilization had become completely domesticated, it was no unusual thing for a Roman to have a British wife, or for British matrons to be found on the streets of Rome itself. The morals of the people were not proof against the contamination of Roman standards. The women, who were brought into closest touch with the Roman populace, imbibed their views and followed their example. Yet among the people who lived the simpler life of the country districts, and to whom Christianity most forcibly appealed, the standards of their race were largely maintained. The manner of life of the women of the wild northern tribes was, as we have seen, unaffected by the Roman occupancy of the country. Finding themselves unable to conquer these fierce people, the Romans, for their own security, had stretched across the country a great wall to facilitate defence; but they had soon to protect their coasts from other warlike races, who, first in piratical bands and then as migrating nations, brought terror and annihilation to the native Britons.
To attempt a portrayal of the miseries entailed upon the women of the Britons by the forays of the barbarians, which followed the withdrawal of the Romans from the country, would be to rehearse the distresses which were but usual to warfare at that period of the world's history. We can pass over the savagery of human passions, inflamed by the heat of strife, and come to the more congenial and, indeed, the only important task of considering the life of woman, not under the exceptional conditions of war, but in the normal state of existence. Even during the Roman occupancy of the country, the British women had experienced the terrors of the barbarians. In spite of the massive wall, the lines of forts, and the system of trenches, by which that military people had sought to arrest the inroads of the Picts and Scots, those unconquered tribes of the north often swept with resistless force far into the peaceful provinces, bringing desolation into many homes and carrying off the women, to dispose of them in the slave markets of the continent.
More terrible still had been the descent upon the British coasts of the piratical Saxon rovers, whose frequent incursions had given to those tracts that were open to their attacks the significant appellation of the "Saxon shore." In spite of the measures of the Romans against thesemarauding bands from over the seas, they were a source of continual terror, especially to the women of the coast settlements, to whom their name was a synonym of all those distresses which forcible capture and enslavement imply.
When the Roman forces withdrew, a danger that had been occasional and limited to localities now became a menace to the whole people. The invasions of the Picts and Scots became so frequent, and their ravages so dreadful, that the Britons, who for generations had been dependent upon the arms of the Romans for protection, felt unable to cope alone with the situation that faced them. In their extremity they hit upon the expedient of pitting barbarian against barbarian, hoping thus to gain peace from the northern terror, and at the same time to rid themselves of the menace of the pirates. To this end the astute sea rovers were engaged to discipline the northern hordes. But when these "men without a country" had fulfilled their obligation, they preferred to remain in the fertile and attractive island rather than return to their own vast forest stretches and there seek to combat the pressure that had set in motion the Germanic peoples.
In this way began, in the fifth century, the conquest of Britain by the Angles, the Jutes, and the Saxons: a conquest as inevitable as it was beneficial; a conquest so stern as practically to sweep from existence a whole people, excepting the women, who were spared to become the slaves of the conquerors, and such of the men as were needed to fill servile positions. The conquest of a Christian nation by a pagan one must have resulting justification of the highest order, if it is not to be stamped as one of the greatest calamities of history, and such justification is amply afforded by the splendid history of the English people. In the light of the achievements forhumanity that are presented by the record of the Anglo-Saxon peoples, we need not take up the lament of a Gildas over the woes of the Britons.
The impact of the virile peoples of northern Europe against the serried ranks of soldiery that circled the lines of the great world empire was the irresistible impulse of civilization to preserve and to further the march of the race toward the goal that mankind in all its wholesome periods has felt to be its unalterable destiny. The conquest of Britain was a part of this great world movement. Its striking difference as compared with the method and the results of the barbarian conquests on the continent lay in the fact that the new nationalities that there arose in the path of the invaders were Latin, while the England of Anglo-Saxon creation was essentially Teutonic. Hardly a vestige of the Roman occupancy of the country remains in language, in literature, in law, in custom, or in race.
The independence of the English people of Roman influence, and British as well, leads us to connect the customs, habits, and, in a word, the status and the civilization of their women, not with the antecedent line of British life, but with the tribes of the German forests. Some influence was exerted by the British women upon the life of the Anglo-Saxons, but it was not sufficient to become an influential factor in the crystallization of the new nation. Some of the surviving customs, manners, and superstitions of the English women are of undoubted British origin, and remain as a part of the folklore of the English race as we know it. There is no question that the life of the common people was tinctured by superstitious beliefs and magic, which even Christianity had failed completely to eradicate from the faith of the British women. And this is true, too, with matters of custom and, perhaps, of dress.
The status of the female sex among the Anglo-Saxons is well set forth by Sharon Turner in hisHistory of the Anglo-Saxons. He says: "It is a well-known fact that the female sex were much more highly valued and more respectfully treated by the barbarous Gothic nations than by the more polished states of the East. Among the Anglo-Saxons they occupied the same important and independent rank in society which they now enjoy."
They were allowed to possess, to inherit, and to transmit landed property; they shared in all social festivities; they were present at the Witenagemot; they were permitted to sue and could be sued in the courts of justice; and their persons, their safety, their liberty, and their property were protected by express laws.
The dignity and the chastity of the women of the Germanic tribes made a profound impression on the minds of the Roman writers who had an opportunity for observing them, and evoked from them the warmest tributes. They remarked that the Germans were the only barbarians content with one wife. Here, then, we find that of which we have not been assured in our prior study of the women of Britain—genuine monogamous marriages.
Tacitus says: "A strict regard for the sanctity of the matrimonial state characterizes the Germans and deserves our highest applause. Among the females, virtue runs no hazard of being offended or destroyed by the outward objects presented to the senses, or of being corrupted by such social gayeties as might lead the mind astray. Severe punishments were ordered in case of infringement of this great bond of society. Vice is not made the subject of wit or mirth, nor can the fashion of the age be pleaded in excuse for being corrupt or for endeavoring to corrupt others. Good customs and manners avail more among these barbarians than good laws among a more refined people."Among the Teutons, whom Tacitus thus praises to the discredit of his own people, there was no room for any question of the elemental rights of woman, for among them woman was more than loved, she was reverenced.
As Sharon Turner observes, women were admitted into the councils of the men; and the high position accorded them is further shown by their prominence in the more intellectual priestly class. The proportion of women to men must have been ten to one. Their preponderance in this influential order assured them of the preservation of the regard in which their sex was held. Its best security, however, lay in that instinctive feeling of the equality of the sexes which is fundamental in the character of the Anglo-Saxon and the Germanic family as a whole.
We must not suppose that because the women of the Anglo-Saxons had certain rights and were accorded a certain superstitious reverence, as specially gifted in divination, they were therefore the objects of chivalrous devotion and were surrounded by æsthetic associations. The age was a rude one, and the race was made up of uncouth barbarians. The female grace of chastity was not the result of high ideals, or of wise deductions from the sacredness of the family relation in its bearing upon society; it did not even have its basis in conspicuous moral motives; but it was a natural characteristic of a people who had lived under severe conditions which necessitated a constant struggle for supremacy and relegated all weaknesses of the flesh to a place of secondary importance. Had this attribute sprung from any of those considerations which at a later time gave rise to chivalry, there would be found in the poetry of the time the evidences of a tender regard for woman; her praise would have been sung in poems of love; but there is a dearth of love songs in the verses of this period. Love of a kind there was, but it was toomatter-of-fact and practical in its nature to effloresce into sentimentality.
As marriage is the basal principle of the true family, it will be proper to begin a consideration of the domestic relations of the women of the Anglo-Saxons by glancing at the circumstances, the significance, and the ceremonies of their marriages. When the Anglo-Saxons had settled in England, the primitive and barbarous custom of forcibly carrying off a bride had probably been superseded by the later form of obtaining a bride by purchase. While the woman seems to have had no choice in the selection of a husband, it is unreasonable to suppose that she did not hold and express opinions; nor would it be venturesome to assert that, despite her legal limitations, her voice in the matter of her marriage was often a decisive one. When the question was beset with especial difficulties, to what better umpire could a considerate parent refer the matter than to the bride herself?
One of the laws regulating the disposition of marriageable maidens was: "If one buys a maiden, let her be bought with the price, if it is a fair bargain; but if there is deceit, let him take her home again and get back the price he paid." This was a sort of marriage with warranty. But the law of Cnut took a more liberal view of the rights of the girl; it says: "Neither woman nor maid shall be forced to marry one who is disliked by her, nor shall she be sold for money, unless (the bridegroom) gives something of his own free will." By this law the woman was given the decision of her destiny, and the purchase price became a free gift. If a woman married below her rank, she was confronted by the alternatives of losing her freedom or giving up her husband. As the husband bought his wife, so he might sell her and their children, though this was rarely done. We need not, however, condemn too harshlythis absolute right that was vested in the head of a family in the disposition of its members, as it was but a relic of a usage common to all patriarchal societies, and which passed away with the clearer view of the sovereignty of self and the claims of society.
Before the marriage proper took place, there were held the ceremonies of espousal. These consisted of fixing the terms of the union, and entering upon agreements to be carried into effect after the ceremony. In later times, the first essential was the free consent of the persons to be espoused. This was a step toward the right of the female in the selection of a husband. Early espousals were customarily, but not invariably, dependent upon the consent of both parties. In some instances, the parents espoused their children when but seven years of age. On arriving at ten years of age, either of the parties could in theory terminate the engagement at will; but if they did so between the ages of ten and twelve, the parents of the one breaking the contract were liable to damages. Beyond twelve years, the child as well as its parents suffered the penalty.
After the parties to the espousal, in the presence of witnessing members of their respective families, had declared their free consent to the contract that was to bind them, the bridegroom promised to treat his betrothed well, "according to God's law and the custom of society." This declaration of a good purpose was ratified by his giving a "wed," or security, that he would creditably fulfil his intentions as expressed. The parents or guardians of the girl received these assurances in her behalf. The foster-lien was the next important matter. This was at first paid at the time of the espousal, until some fathers with attractive daughters found it to be a profitable investment to have them repeatedly espoused for the sake ofthe foster-lien, but without any idea of consummating the espousal. This practice made these precontracts decidedly unpopular and led to their being modified by ecclesiastical law that provided for the payment of the foster-lien after marriage, in case it had been properly secured at the time of betrothal. When these preliminaries were arranged to the satisfaction of all concerned, the ceremony itself took place. This consisted of "handfasting" and the exchange of something, even if only a kiss, to bind the bargain. Frequently this sentimental interchange was accompanied on the part of the groom elect by the gift of an ox, a saddled horse, or other object of value.
This formal engagement was really a part of the marriage and was regarded as beginning the wedded life. The Church, however, favored an interval between the espousal and the marriage. The ceremony of betrothment usually took place in a church. If the man refused or neglected to complete the espousal within two years, he forfeited the amount of the foster-lien; if the woman were derelict in this respect, she was required to repay the foster-lien fourfold—later changed to twofold. It will be seen by this that "engagements" among the Anglo-Saxons presumed serious intentions, and that, in a breach of faith, the woman was held more rigidly to account than the man, whose fickleness was visited only by forfeiture of the security he had advanced. The woman was further required to return all the presents that she had received from her "intended."
The marriage ceremony was much like that of the espousal. The man and woman avowed publicly their acceptance of each other as wife and husband. The bridegroom was required to confirm with his pledge all that he had promised at the espousal, and his friends became responsible for his due performance. Though bythe customs of their times the young people were deprived of experiencing the delights and uncertainties of courtship, the girls were not to be denied the joys of a wedding; and when the circumstances of the groom permitted, the occasion was marked with gayety, music, feasting, and festivities of all sorts. The morning after the wedding, the husband, before they arose, presented to his wife themorgen gift. This was a valuable consideration, and corresponded to the modern marriage settlement. The terms of the settlement were arranged before the marriage, but the gift was not actually presented until the marriage had been consummated.
The rude conduct which accompanies a wedding in rough communities at the present day, as well as the more innocent but embarrassing pranks to which any newly wedded couple may be subjected, find their counterpart in the uncouth conduct and witticisms that were at one time a part of the experiences of an Anglo-Saxon bride and groom. As the bride, accompanied by her friends, was conducted to her future home, where her husband, according to custom, awaited her, the procession was sometimes saluted by facetious youths with volleys of filth and refuse of any sort, the especial target of their maliciousness being the frightened and insulted bride herself. If the young rowdies could succeed in spoiling her costume, they were especially satisfied with themselves. Aside from the indignity offered her, the loss of her costume was always a serious matter to the bride, as in that time of scanty wardrobes it represented a large part of hertrousseau.
The bridegroom, if such indignities were offered to his spouse, invariably sallied forth with his friends to administer condign punishment to the "jokers"; and as all freemen in those days carried arms, bloodshed, bruises, and broken bones resulted. Later, the law took cognizanceof the outrage and suppressed it. But such unpleasant experiences were not permitted to spoil the marriage festivities; the bride received the felicitations of her friends and displayed her gifts—the latter being in evidence at all weddings, because the making of gifts on the part of relatives was not a thing of choice, but of compulsion.
Among the convivial Anglo-Saxons the marriage would have been considered a very tame affair without the accompanying excesses of unrestrained feasting, drinking, and mirth. The clergyman who had pronounced the benediction at the nuptials came to the feast with a company of his clerical friends. The wedding feast lasted for at least three days, and was a time of gluttony and rioting. On the first day, the festivities were opened by the clergy rising and singing a psalm or other religious song. The wandering gleemen, who were always present at these feasts, then took up the singing; and as they proceeded, to the clamorous approval of the drunken company, they became less and less mindful of the proprieties of sentiment and of action. The bride and groom were not obliged to remain to the end of the revelry, but might avail themselves of an opportunity to slip out from the hall. When the company was surfeited with festivities, the more sober of them formed a procession, with the clergy in the lead, and with musical attendance conducted the bride and groom to the nuptial couch. The bed was formally blessed by the priest, the marriage cup was drunk by the bride and the groom, and then the couple were left by their friends, who returned to the hall and renewed their feasting. Even Alfred the Great, good and wise as he was, could not escape the customs of his times, and was compelled to indulge in such excesses at his wedding that he never quite recovered from an attack of illness he suffered in consequence.
Having noticed the rudeness to which the bride was subjected, it is gratifying to mention a more pleasant bit of waggery that was much in vogue, and that corresponds more nearly to the wedding pranks of to-day. One of the symbolic features of the wedding was the touching by the bridegroom of the forehead of the bride with one of his shoes. This signified that her father's right in her had passed to her husband. But when the couple were conducted to their nuptial couch by the bridal company, it was quite likely, if the bride had a reputation for shrewishness, that the shoe, which after the ceremony had been placed on the husband's side of the bed, would be found on the bride's side—a hint that the general conviction was that the headship of the family would be found to be vested in the wife. We can see from this that the custom of throwing an old shoe after a bride to give her "good luck" really signifies the wish that she may dominate the new establishment.
The marriage of a girl was signalized by her being thereafter allowed to bind her hair in folds about her head. Up to that time she wore her hair loose. This custom, which in earlier days signified a wife's subjection, came now to denote the high dignity to which she had been raised; her hair thus arranged was a crown of honor, and every girl looked eagerly forward to the time when she might wear avolute, as this style of hairdressing was called.
The very practical Anglo-Saxon marriage bargains do not partake much of the flavor of romance. We find other evidences of the mercenary motives that pervaded the marriage customs of the time. The idea of marriage as the purchase of a wife, who in that relation became the property of her husband, is further indicated by the fact that unfaithfulness might be condoned by a money payment, thewere. An old law says: "If a freeman cohabitwith the wife of a freeman, he must pay thewere, and obtain another woman with his own money and lead her to the other." Indeed, the chastity of women was regulated by a set price, according to their station. If the woman in the case were of the rank of an earl's wife, the culprit paid a fine of sixty shillings, and paid to the husband five shillings; if the woman were unfree or below age, he suffered imprisonment or mutilation. These citations from the laws of the time are not made to show regulations of morals, but to illustrate the fact that in the case of free women offences could be satisfied by a money payment, just as the husband in the first instance acquired his rights over his wife by such a payment.
Having considered with some detail the general regard in which women were held and the customs of marriage, it is now in place to say something about the methods of dissolving the matrimonial tie. It must be borne in mind that the period we are describing was one of rapid development. After the introduction of Christianity the uncouth barbarians rapidly became civilized, and new laws were constantly being made to define the rights of individuals in all relations. Thus, as marriage customs and incidents underwent modification, so did the circumstances of divorce. At first the husband could, at will, return his wife to her parents; his power of repudiation was practically unlimited. But such a condition could not long be brooked, as the practice was a serious affront to the lady's family. We read in the romance of Brut that Gwendoline and her friends not only levied war on King Locrine for repudiating her under the bewitchments of the beautiful Estrild, but put both the king and his new bride to death. When Coenwalch grievously insulted Penda, the king of the Mercians, by putting aside his wife, Penda's sister, that monarch at once declared war on the West Saxon king.Such grave disorders were incited by this unjust right of the husband that, largely through the influence of the clergy, limitations were put upon the practice. Naturally, the first step was to require cause for the repudiation of a wife. The causes advanced were usually frivolous or insufficient; but when the bishops taught that "if a man repudiated his wife, he was not to marry another in her lifetime, if he wished to be a very good Christian," the custom became less prevalent, especially as the second wife was punished by excommunication. The right of repudiation for cause was exercised by wives as well as husbands. The case of Etheldrythe, the daughter of Anna, the famous King of East Anglia, as cited by Thrupp, will serve to illustrate the prevailing conditions of the wedded state. "This young lady had the misfortune to be very weak and very rich. She was consequently sought for as a wife, by princes who cared nothing for her person, and as a nun, by churchmen who cared as little for her soul. She endeavored to please all parties. She took a vow of virginity with permission to marry, and married with permission to observe her vow. Her first husband, Tondebert, Earl of Girvii, who probably obtained possession of her land, did not trouble himself about her or her personal property; and on his death, she retired to Ely. She subsequently married Egfried, a son of the King of Northumbria, a boy of about thirteen, whose friends desired her estate. He, also, for some time willingly respected her vow, but afterward attempted to compel her to do her duty as a wife. She refused compliance with his wishes, and, having succeeded in escaping from his kingdom, again took up her residence in a monastery. There, in defiance of her marriage vow, she emulated the strictest chastity of the cloister while in the bonds of marriage. The clergy applauded her conduct, and, no doubt, obtained possessionof her estates. The king took a second wife; and all parties appear to have been satisfied with what was, in truth, a very discreditable transaction."
After the decline of the right of repudiation, marriage could be annulled by mutual consent, and the parties were probably permitted to marry again. Legal divorces were granted for adultery, and what the clergy called spiritual adultery, which consisted of marriage to a godfather or a godmother or anyone who was of spiritual kindred, as such imagined relatives were called. To these causes for divorce were added idolatry, heresy, schism, heinous crimes, leprosy, and insanity. If either husband or wife were carried off into slavery, or otherwise became unfree, or were made a prisoner of war, the other had a right to remarry after a certain time.
To insure a decent interval between marriages, the law stipulated that if a widow entered again into wedlock within a year after the death of her former husband, she should sacrifice themorgen giftand all the property she had derived from him.
At first, the childless wife had no interest in her husband's property; at his death, the duty of caring for her reverted to her own family. If she had children, she was entitled to one-half of his estate, but this was in the nature of a provision for the children. But as society improved, the rights of widows came to be recognized. Women had from the earliest times been permitted to hold and bequeath property in their own right; the failure to recognize the widow's interest in her deceased husband's estate arose from her being regarded as having left her own family circle and identified herself with that of her husband for his life only; therefore, at his death she renewed her connection with her own family, who assumed the care of her. In the case of her children, they, being of his flesh and blood,had a natural interest in their father's property, while the wife's relations with her husband were simply contractual. A more just view prevailed in the time of Cnut, as is shown by one of his laws, which provided that the widow not only had a right to her settled property, but, whether she had children or not, was entitled to one-third of whatever had been acquired jointly by her and her husband during their married life, "excepting his clothes and his bed." This law did not abrogate the provision already stated, that the widow forfeited everything in case she married within a year.
About the time of Cnut's laws giving wider rights to wives in the matter of property, there was passed a law that recognized the wife's right to exclusive control of her personal effects. Wardrobes had become much more extensive, and the law took the view that a woman had a right to a chest or closet of her own, wherein to keep her clothing, her jewelry and ornaments, and all the little articles dear to feminine fancy and personal to their possessor. To this private receptacle her husband could not have access without her leave. This curious law, making a real advance in woman's legal status, arose out of the predatory tendencies of the age.
When a child was born in an Anglo-Saxon household in the earliest days, the first thought was not, what shall it be named, but, shall it be put to death? In those rude times, the custom of exposure applied to the young and to the very old. Life was a continual hardship, and food was often extremely difficult to procure. Care for the feeble implies a solicitude for life that was foreign to the experiences of the men of that day. The weak and the sickly were regarded as superfluous members of society. If the infant were deformed, or not wanted for any reason, it was either killed outright, exposed, or sold into slavery.We like to believe that when the Anglo-Saxons settled in Britain and found themselves under more comfortable conditions of living than those to which they had been accustomed in the inhospitable clime whence they came, with its constant threat of famine, they discarded this dreadful practice; but customs die slowly, and, as the parent had absolute rights in the person of his child, sentiment against the practice required time to become general. The rugged Teuton, teeming with an overflowing vitality, had not adopted the modern method of birth restriction as a solution of the problem of sustenance. There was no Malthus in the forests of Germany to discourse on the economic effect of an overplus of population and to awaken inquiry as to the best way to limit the human family within the bounds of possible sustenance. It was a condition and not a theory that faced the Teuton, and he met the situation in the only way known to him. As the problem passed away, the practice went also, though isolated cases of exposure of infants continued down to the tenth century.
In the form of exposing children of clouded birth, the practice of infanticide grew with the lowering of morals; but in the case of legitimate offspring the custom declined. The Church imposed heavy penalties on those found guilty of the practice. Fortunately for the infants so treated, there was a prevailing superstition that to adopt one of these foundlings brought good luck. The great prevalence of the crime at some periods is shown by the rewards offered by the different monarchs to those who would adopt foundlings. All rights in the child passed to the one who adopted it. The general willingness to adopt such children led to many abuses. Mothers thus relieved themselves of the duty of caring for their offspring, while those to whom the children were committed often looked upon them as so many units of labor, and made life veryhard for them. Homicide was frequently one of the effects of the baleful practice, and generally occurred under conditions that made it difficult to fix the guilt.
It is interesting to note, as Gummere points out, that the barbaric custom of exposing infants "lies at the foundation of the most exquisite myths—Lohengrin the swan-knight, Arthur the forest foundling, and that mystic child who in the prelude of our national epic,Beowulf, drifts in his boat, a child of destiny, to the shores of a kingless land."
Grimm quotes from a Danish ballad, where a mother puts her babe in a chest, lays with it consecrated salt and candles, and goes to the waterside: