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Havana loca download, Dl concepts shoes, 10abvus psref, Ankhe to kholo swami Misery imdb trivia, Update windows 10 home to pro, Sasanki ciastka cena. E.T. Joy, ‘Some Aspects Of The London Furniture Industry In The. Eighteenth Century’, unpublished M.A. thesis, University of London. , pp. In most of our large towns the old features are fast disappearing; historical houses An examination of the Victoria Cave, Settle, clearly shows this.
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[Windows 10 1703 download iso italys largest victorian
The beams supporting the platform, on which the huts were erected, were fastened by wooden pins. Much ingenuity was exercised in the making of these dwellings. Sometimes they found that the mud of the lake was too soft to hold the piles; so they fashioned a framework of trunks of trees, which they let down to the bottom of the lake, and fastened the upright piles to it.
Sometimes the rocky bed of the lake prevented the piles from being driven into it; so they heaped stones around the piles, and thus made them secure. The lake dwellers were very sociable, and had only one common platform for all the huts, which were clustered together.
The floor was of clay, and in the centre of the building there was a hearth made of slabs of stone. The people who inhabited these structures belonged either to the later Stone Age, or the Bronze Age, as we learn from the relics which their huts disclose. Besides the remains of the usual domestic animals we find bones of the beaver, bear, elk, and bison. When the use of bronze was discovered the people still lived on in their lake dwellings.
Fire often played havoc with the wooden wattle walls; hence we frequently find a succession of platforms. The first dwelling having been destroyed by flames, a second one was subsequently constructed; and this having shared the same fate, another platform with improved huts was raised upon the ruins of its predecessors.
The relics of each habitation show that, as time went on, the pit dwellers advanced in civilisation, and increased the comforts and conveniences of life. Some of the dwellings of these early peoples belong to the Bronze Age, as do those of the Auvernier settlement in the Lake of Neuchatel; and these huts are rich in the relics of their former inhabitants.
At Marin on the same lake the lake dwellers were evidently workers in iron; and the relics, which contain large spear-heads, shields, horse furniture, fibulas, and other ornaments, together with Roman coins, prove that they belonged to the period of which history tells us. I have described at length these Swiss lake dwellings, although they do not belong to the antiquities of our villages in England, because much the same kind of habitations existed in our country, though few have as yet been unearthed.
Possibly under the peaty soil of some ancient river-bed, or old mere, long ago drained, you may be fortunate enough to meet with the remains of similar structures here in England. At Glastonbury a few years ago a lake village was discovered, which has created no small stir in the antiquarian world, and merits a brief description.
Nothing was known of its existence previously; and this is an instance of the delightful surprises which explorers have in store for them, when they ransack the buried treasure-house of the earth, and reveal the relics which have been so long stored there. All that met the eyes of the diggers was a series of circular low mounds, about sixty in number, extending over an area of three acres. Imagine the delight of the gentlemen when they discovered that each of these mounds contained the remains of a lake dwelling which was constructed more than two thousand years ago.
First they found above the soft peat, the remains of a lake long dried up, a platform formed of timber and brushwood, somewhat similar to the structures which we have seen in the Swiss lakes. Rows of small piles support this platform, and on it a floor of clay, or rather several floors. The clay is composed of several horizontal layers with intervening thin layers of decayed wood and charcoal, each layer representing a distinct floor of a dwelling.
In the centre of each mound are the remains of rude hearths. The dwellings, of which no walls remain, were evidently built of timber, the crevices between the wood being filled with wattle and daub. In one of the mounds were found several small crucibles which show that the inhabitants knew how to work in metals. They worked in metals, made pottery and cloth, tilled and farmed the adjoining lands, and probably belonged to the late Celtic race before the advent of the Romans.
These lake dwellers used a canoe in order to reach the mainland, and this primitive boat has been discovered. It is evidently cut out of the stem of an oak, is flat-bottomed, and its dimensions are 17 feet long, 2 feet wide, and 1 foot deep.
The prow is pointed, and has a hole, through which doubtless a rope was passed, in order to fasten it to the little harbour of the lake village. It will be gathered that these people, whether dwelling in their pit or lake villages, showed so much capacity, industry, and social organisation, that even in the Neolithic Age they were far removed from a savage state, and a low condition of culture and civilisation.
They showed great ingenuity in the making of their tools, their vessels of pottery, their ornaments, and clothing. They were not naked, woad-dyed savages. They could spin and weave, grow corn, and make bread, and had brought into subjection for their use domestic animals, horses and cattle, sheep and goats, and swine. They lived in security and comfort, and were industrious and intelligent; and it is interesting to record, from the relics which the earth has preserved of their civilisation, the kind of life which they must have lived in the ages which existed before the dawn of history.
Among the antiquities which some of our English villages possess, none are more curious and remarkable than the grand megalithic monuments of the ancient races which peopled our island.
Marvellous memorials are these of their skill and labour. How did they contrive to erect such mighty monuments?
How did they move such huge masses of stone? How did they raise with the very slender appliances at their disposal such gigantic stones? For what purpose did they erect them? The solution of these and many such-like problems we can only guess, and no one has as yet been bold enough to answer all the interesting questions which these rude stone monuments raise. Superstition has attempted to account for their existence. Just as the flint arrow-heads are supposed by the vulgar to be darts shot by fairies or witches which cause sickness and death in cattle and men, and are worn as amulets to ward off disease; just as the stone axes of early man are regarded as thunder bolts, and when boiled are esteemed as a sure cure for rheumatism, or a useful cattle medicine—so these stones are said to be the work of the devil.
In addition to the subterranean sepulchral chambers and cairns which we have already examined, there are four classes of megalithic structures. The first consists of single stones, called in Wales, Cornwall, and Brittany, menhirs , a name derived from the Celtic word maen or men signifying a stone, and hir meaning tall.
There is one at Enstone, Oxfordshire, and at Wardington, Warwickshire. Possibly they were intended to mark the graves of deceased chieftains. The second class consists of lines of stones, which the French call alignements.
Frequently they occur in groups of lines from two to fourteen in number, Carnac, in Brittany, possesses the best specimen in Europe of this curious arrangement of giant stones. The third class of megalithic monuments is the circular arrangement, such as we find at Avebury and Stonehenge. These are now usually called cromlechs, in accordance with the term used by French antiquaries, though formerly this name was applied in England to the dolmens, or chambered structures, of which we shall speak presently.
There is no need to describe these grand circles of huge stones which all antiquaries have visited. The cromlech at Avebury covers a larger area than that of Stonehenge, the circle being about 1, feet in diameter.
There is a fine circle at Rollright, in Oxfordshire, which is the third largest in England. The diameter of the circle is about feet, and the stones numbered originally about sixty. Near the circle stand the Five Whispering Knights, five large stones leaning together, probably the remains of a dolmen, and a large solitary stone, or menhir.
Popular tradition has woven a strange legend about these curious relics of bygone ages. A mighty chieftain once ruled over the surrounding country; but he was ambitious, and wished to extend his sway, and become King of England. So he mustered his army, and the oracle proclaimed that if he could once see Long Compton, he would obtain his desire.
Having proceeded as far as Rollright, he was repeating the words of the oracle—. Immediately the king and his army were changed into stone, as if the head of Medusa had gazed upon them.
The solitary stone, still called the King Stone, is the ambitious monarch; the circle is his army; and the Five Whispering Knights are five of his chieftains, who were hatching a plot against him when the magic spell was uttered. The farmers around Rollright say that if the stones are removed from the spot, they will never rest, but make mischief till they are restored. Some sacrilegious persons transported a cromlech bodily from the Channel Islands, and set it up at Park Place, Henley-on-Thames.
Such an act of antiquarian barbarism happily has few imitators. For what purpose were these massive stones erected at the cost of such infinite labour?
Tradition and popular belief associate them with the Druids. Some years ago all mysterious antiquarian problems were solved by reference to the Druids. But these priests of ancient days are now out of fashion, and it is certainly not very safe to attribute the founding of the great stone circles to their agency.
The Druidical worship paid its homage to the powers of Nature, to the nymphs and genii of the woods and streams, whereas the great stone circles were evidently constructed by sun-worshippers. There is no doubt among antiquaries that they are connected with the burial of the dead.
Small barrows have been found in the centre of them. Anderson is of opinion that the stone circles were developed out of the hedge, or setting of stone, which frequently surrounds the base of a barrow, and was intended to keep the ghost in, and prevent it from injuring the living.
By degrees the wall was increased in size while the barrow or cairn decreased; until at last a small mound of earth, or heap of stones, only marked the place of burial, and the huge circle of stones surrounded it. Stonehenge, with its well-wrought stones and gigantic trilitha, is much later than the circles of Avebury and Rollright, and was doubtless constructed by the people who used iron, about two hundred years before our era.
The earlier circles have been assigned to a period eight or ten centuries before Christ. Many conjectures have been made as to how the huge capstones of the circle at Stonehenge were placed on the erect stones. Then the caps were placed on rollers, and hauled up by gangs of men.
Probably in some such way these wonderful monuments were formed. The last class of rude stone monuments is composed of dolmens, or chambered tombs, so named from the Welsh word dol , a table, and maen or men , a stone. They are in fact stone tables. The typical form is a structure of four or more large upright stones, supporting a large flat stone, as a roof.
Sometimes they are covered with earth or stones, sometimes entirely uncovered. Some antiquaries maintain that they were always uncovered, as we see them now; others assert that they have been stripped by the action of wind and rain, and snow, frost, and thaw, until all the earth placed around them has been removed.
Possibly fashions changed then as now; and it may console some of us that there was no uniformity of ritual even in prehistoric Britain. Dolmens contain no bronze or iron implements, or carvings of the same, and evidently belong to the time of the Neolithic folk. Among prehistoric remains none are more striking than the great camps and earthworks, which hold commanding positions on our hills and downs, and have survived during the countless years which have elapsed since their construction.
These early camps are usually circular in shape, or follow the natural curve of the hill on which they stand. Roman camps are nearly always square or rectangular.
They consist of a high vallum, or rampart of earth, surrounded by a deep ditch, and on the counterscarp , or outside edge of the ditch, there is often another bank or rampart. The entrance to these strongholds was often ingeniously contrived, in order that an enemy endeavouring to attack the fortress might be effectually resisted. Chun Castle, in Cornwall, is an interesting specimen of ancient Celtic fortress. It consists of two circular walls separated by a terrace.
The walls are built of rough masses of granite, some 5 or 6 feet long. The outer wall is protected by a ditch. Part of the wall is still about 10 feet high. Great skill and military knowledge are displayed in the plan of the entrance, which is 6 feet wide in the narrowest part, and 16 in the widest, where the walls diverge and are rounded off on either side.
The space within the fortress is about feet in diameter. In Berkshire we have the well-known Whittenham Clumps, the Sinodun of the Celts, on the summit of which there is a famous camp, with a triple line of entrenchment, the mound and ditch being complete. The circumference of the fortress is over a mile. Berkshire and Oxfordshire are very rich in these camps and earthworks, which guard the course of the old British road called the Iknield Way. The object of these camps was to provide places of refuge, whither the tribe could retire when threatened by the advent of its enemy.
The Celts were a pastoral people; and their flocks grazed on the downs and hillsides. When their scouts brought news of the approach of a hostile force, some signal would be given by the blowing of a horn, and the people would at once flee to their fortress driving their cattle before them, and awaiting there the advent of their foes.
There, armed with missiles, they were ready to hurl them at the invading hosts, and protect their lives and cattle until all danger was past.
Those who are skilled at the art can still make the Blowing Stone sound. There are several White Horses cut out in the turf on the hillsides in Wiltshire, besides the famous Berkshire one at Uffington, celebrated by Mr. Thomas Hughes in his Scouring of the White Horse. We have also some turf-cut crosses at White-leaf and Bledlow, in Buckinghamshire. The origin of these turf monuments is still a matter of controversy.
It is certainly improbable that, when he was busily engaged fighting the Danes, Alfred and his men would have found time to construct this huge White Horse. In addition to the earthen mounds and deep ditch, which usually formed the fortifications of these ancient strongholds, there were wicker-work stockades, or palisading, arranged on the top of the vallum.
Such defences have been found at Uffington; and during the present year on the ancient fortifications of the old Calleva Atrebatum, afterwards the Roman Silchester, a friend of the writer has found the remains of similar wattle-work stockades. Evidently tribal wars and jealousies were not unknown in Celtic times, and the people knew how to protect themselves from their foes. Another important class of earthen ramparts are the long lines of fortifications, which extend for miles across the country, and must have entailed vast labour in their construction.
These ramparts were doubtless tribal boundaries, or fortifications used by one tribe against another. There is the Roman rig, which, as Mrs. Armitage tells us in her Key to English Antiquities , coasts the face of the hills all the way from Sheffield to Mexborough, a distance of eleven miles. A Grims-dike or Grims-bank, as it is popularly called runs across the southern extremity of Oxfordshire from Henley to Mongewell, ten miles in length; and near it, and parallel to it, there is a Medlers-bank, another earthen rampart, exceeding it in length by nearly a third.
Near Salisbury there is also a Grims-dike, and in Cambridgeshire and Cheshire. There are twenty-two Grims-dikes in England. The name was probably derived from Grim, the Saxon devil, or evil spirit; and was bestowed upon these mysterious monuments of an ancient race which the Saxons found in various parts of their conquered country. Unable to account for the existence of these vast mounds and fortresses, they attributed them to satanic agency. There is much work still to be done in exploring these relics of the prehistoric races; and if there should be any such in your own neighbourhood, some careful digging might produce valuable results.
Perhaps something which you may find may throw light upon some disputed or unexplained question, which has perplexed the minds of antiquaries for some time. I do not imagine that the following legend will deter you from your search. It is gravely stated that years ago an avaricious person dug into a tumulus for some treasure which it was supposed to contain.
At length after much labour he came to an immense chest, but the lid was no sooner uncovered than it lifted itself up a little and out sprang an enormous black cat, which seated itself upon the chest, and glowed with eyes of passion upon the intruder. Nothing daunted, the man proceeded to try to move the chest, but without avail; so he fixed a strong chain to it and attached a powerful team of horses. But when the horses began to pull, the chain broke in a hundred places, and the chest of treasure disappeared for ever.
Some rustics assert that if you run nine times round a tumulus, and then put your ear against it, you will hear the fairies dancing and singing in the interior. Indeed it is a common superstition that good fairies lived in these old mounds, and a story is told of a ploughman who unfortunately broke his ploughshare.
However he left it at the foot of a tumulus, and the next day, to his surprise, he found it perfectly whole. Evidently the good fairies had mended it during the night. But these bright little beings, who used to be much respected by our ancestors, have quite deserted our shores.
They found that English people did not believe in them; so they left us in disgust, and have never been heard of since. If you have no other Celtic remains in your neighbourhood, at least you have the enduring possession of the words which they have bequeathed to us, such as coat, basket, crook, cart, kiln, pitcher, comb, ridge , and many others, which have all been handed down to us from our British ancestors.
Their language also lives in Wales and Brittany, in parts of Ireland and Scotland, and in the Isle of Man, where dwell the modern representatives of that ancient race, which was once so powerful, and has left its trace in most of the countries of Europe. Our English villages are rich in the relics of the old Romans; and each year adds to our knowledge of the life they lived in the land of their adoption, and reveals the treasures which the earth has tenderly preserved for so many years.
If your village lies near the track of some Roman road, many pleasing surprises may be in store for you. Oftentimes labourers unexpectedly meet with the buried walls and beautiful tesselated pavements of an ancient Roman dwelling-place. A few years ago at Chedworth, near Cirencester, a ferret was lost, and had to be dug out of the rabbit burrow.
In doing this some Roman tesserae were dug up; and when further excavations were made a noble Roman villa with numerous rooms, artistic pavements, hypocausts, baths, carvings, and many beautiful relics of Roman art were brought to light.
Possibly you may be equally successful in your own village and neighbourhood. If you have the good fortune to live near a Roman station, you will have the pleasing excitement of discovering Roman coins and other treasures, when you watch your labourers draining the land or digging wells.
Everyone knows that the names of many of the Roman stations are distinguished by the termination Chester, caster , or caer , derived from the Latin castra , a camp; and whenever we are in the neighbourhood of such places, imagination pictures to us the well-drilled Roman legionaries who used to astonish the natives with their strange language and customs; and we know that there are coins and pottery, tesserae and Roman ornaments galore, stored up beneath our feet, awaiting the search of the persevering digger.
Few are the records relating to Roman Britain contained in the pages of the historians, as compared with the evidences of roads and houses, gates and walls and towns, which the earth has preserved for us. Near your village perhaps a Roman road runs. The Romans were famous for their wonderful roads, which extended from camp to camp, from city to city, all over the country. These roads remain, and are evidences of the great engineering skill which their makers possessed.
They liked their roads well drained, and raised high above the marshes; they liked them to go straight ahead, like their victorious legions, and never swerve to right or left for any obstacle. They cut through the hills, and filled up the valleys; and there were plenty of idle Britons about, who could be forced to do the work. They called their roads strata or streets; and all names of places containing the word street , such as Streatley , or Stretford , denote that they were situated on one of these Roman roads.
You may see these roads wending their way straight as a die, over hill and dale, staying not for marsh or swamp. Along the ridge of hills they go, as does the High Street on the Westmoreland hills, where a few inches below the grass you can find the stony way; or on the moors between Redmire and Stanedge, in Yorkshire, the large paving stones, of which the road was made, in many parts still remain.
In central places, as at Blackrod, in Lancashire, the roads extend like spokes from the centre of a wheel, although nearly eighteen hundred years have elapsed since their construction. The name of Devizes, Wilts, is a corruption of the Latin word divisae , which marks the spot where the old Roman road from London to Bath was divided by the boundary line between the Roman and the Celtic districts. In order to acquire a knowledge of the great roads of the Romans we must study the Itinerary of Antoninus, written by an officer of the imperial Court about A.
This valuable road-book tells us the names of the towns and stations, the distances, halting-places, and other particulars. The Romans made use of the ancient British ways, whenever they found them suitable for their purpose.
The British roads resembled the trackways on Salisbury Plain, wide grass rides, neither raised nor paved, and not always straight, but winding along the sides of the hills which lie in their course. There were seven chief British ways: Watling Street, which was the great north road, starting from Richborough on the coast of Kent, passing through Canterbury and Rochester it crossed the Thames near London, and went on through Verulam, Dunstable, and Towcester, Wellington, and Wroxeter, and thence into Wales to Tommen-y-Mawr, where it divided into two branches.
We have in Berkshire a branch of this road called the Ridgeway. The Upper Saltway was the communication between the sea-coast of Lincolnshire and the salt mines at Droitwich; and the Lower Saltway led from Droitwich, then, as now, a great centre of the salt trade, to the sea-coast of Hampshire.
Traces of another great road to the north are found, which seems to have run through the western parts of England extending from Devon to Scotland. Such were the old British roads which existed when the Romans came.
The conquerors made use of these ways, wherever they found them useful, trenching them, paving them, and making them fit for military purposes. They constructed many new ones which would require a volume for their full elucidation. Many of them are still in use, wonderful records of the engineering skill of their makers, and oftentimes beneath the surface of some grassy ride a few inches below the turf you may find the hard concreted road laid down by the Romans nearly eighteen hundred years ago.
Roman milestones we sometimes find. There is one near Silchester, commonly called the Imp Stone, probably from the first three letters of the Latin word Imperator , carved upon it.
Curious legends often cluster round these relics of ancient times. Our English villages contain many examples of Roman buildings. Where now rustics pursue their calling, and sow their crops and reap their harvests, formerly stood the beautiful houses of the Roman nobles, or the flourishing towns of Roman citizens.
Upon the sites of most of these old-world places new towns have been constructed; hence it is difficult often to trace the foundations of Roman cities in the midst of the masses of modern bricks and mortar.
Hence we fly to the villages; and sometimes, as at Silchester, near a little English village, we find the remains of a large, important, and flourishing town, where the earth has kept safely for us during many centuries the treasures and memories of a bygone age. Every student of Roman Britain must visit Silchester, and examine the collections preserved in the Reading Museum, which have been amassed by the antiquaries who have for several years been excavating the ruins.
The city contained a forum, or marketplace, having on one side a basilica, or municipal hall, in which prisoners were tried, business transactions executed, and the general affairs of the city carried on. On the other side of the square were the shops, where the butchers, bakers, or fishmongers plied their trade.
You can find plenty of oyster shells, the contents of which furnished many a feast to the Romans who lived there seventeen hundred years ago. The objects which have been found tell us how the dwellers in the old city employed themselves, and how skilful they were in craftsmanship.
In order to protect the city it was surrounded by high walls, which seem to defy all the attacks of time. They are nine feet in thickness, and are still in many places twenty feet high. Outside the wall a wide ditch added to the strength of the fortifications. Watch-towers were placed at intervals along the walls; and on the north, south, east, and west sides were strongly fortified gates, with guard chambers on each side, and arched entrances through which the Roman chariots were driven.
These walls inclose a space of irregular shape, and were built on the site of old British fortifications. Silchester was originally a British stronghold, and was called by them Calleva. The Celtic tribe which inhabited the northern parts of Hampshire was the Atrebates, who after a great many fights were subdued by the Romans about 78 A. Then within the rude fortifications of Calleva arose the city of Silchester, with its fine houses, temples, and baths, its strong walls, and gates, and streets, the great centre of civilisation, and the chief city of that part of the country.
It is often possible to detect the course of Roman streets where now the golden corn is growing. On the surface of the roads where the ground is thin, the corn is scanty. Observation of this kind a few years ago led to the discovery of a Romano-British village at Long Whittenham, in Berks. In Silchester it is quite easy to trace the course of the streets by the thinness of the corn, as Leland observed as long ago as It is chiefly through the action of these useful creatures that soil accumulates so greatly on the sites of ancient buildings.
Within the walls of Silchester were gardens and villas replete with all the contrivances of Roman luxury. The houses were built on three sides of a square court. A cloister ran round the court, supported by pillars.
The open space was used as a garden. At the back of the house were the kitchens and apartments for the slaves and domestics. The Romans adapted their dwellings to the climate in which they lived.
In the sunny south, at Pompeii, the houses were more open, and would be little suited to our more rigorous climate. They knew how to make themselves comfortable, built rooms well protected from the weather, and heated with hypocausts. These were furnaces made beneath the house, which generated hot air; and this was admitted into the rooms by earthenware flue-tiles. The dwellers had both summer and winter apartments; and when the cold weather arrived the hypocaust furnaces were lighted, and the family adjourned to their winter quarters.
The floors were made of tesserae , or small cubes of different materials and various colours, which were arranged in beautiful patterns. Some of these pavements were of most elegant and elaborate designs, having figures in them representing the seasons, or some mythological characters. The walls were painted with decorations of very beautiful designs, representing the cornfields, just as the Roman artists in Italy loved to depict the vine in their mural paintings.
The mortar used by the Romans is very hard and tenacious, and their bricks were small and thin, varying from 8 inches square to 18 inches by 12, and were about 2 inches in thickness. Roman bricks have often been used by subsequent builders, and are found built up in the masonry of much later periods. We enter the forum, the great centre of the city, the common resort and lounging-place of the citizens, who met together to discuss the latest news from Rome, to transact their business, and exchange gossip.
On the west side stood the noble basilica, or hall of justice—a splendid building, its entrance being adorned with fine Corinthian columns; and slabs of polished Purbeck marble, and even of green and white marble from the Pyrenees, covered the walls.
It was a long rectangular hall, feet in length by 58 feet in width, and at each side was a semicircular apse, which was called the Tribune. Here the magistrate sat to administer justice, or an orator stood to address the citizens.
In the centre of the western wall was another apse, where the curia met for the government of the city. Two rows of columns ran down the hall, dividing it into a nave with two aisles, like many of our churches.
Indeed the form of the construction of our churches was taken from these Roman basilica. Several chambers stood on the west of the hall, one of which was another fine hall, probably used as a corn exchange.
The height of this noble edifice, the roof of which was probably hidden by a coffered ceiling, must have been about fifty-seven feet. Passing along the main street towards the south gate we come to the foundations of a nearly circular temple. Two square-shaped buildings stood on the east of the city, which were probably temples for some Gaulish form of religion, as similar sacred buildings have been discovered in France. A quadrangle of buildings near the south gate, having various chambers, contained the public baths, whither the Romans daily resorted for gossip and discussion as well as for bathing.
There is an ingenious arrangement for using the waste water for the purpose of flushing the drains and sewers. Nor were they ignorant of the invention of a force-pump, as the accompanying illustration on the next page shows.
The amphitheatre stands outside the gate, whither the citizens flocked to see gladiatorial displays or contests between wild beasts. With the exception of one at Dorchester, it is the largest in Britain. It is made of lofty banks of earth, which surround the arena, and must have been an imposing structure in the days of its glory, with its tiers of seats rising above the level arena. It is difficult to imagine this grass-covered slope occupied by a gay crowd of Romans and wondering Britons, all eagerly witnessing some fierce fight of man with man, or beast with beast, and enthusiastically revelling in the sanguinary sport.
Silchester was a very busy place. There were dye works there, as the excavations show; hence there must have been some weaving, and therefore a large resident population. Throngs of travellers used to pass through it, and carts and baggage animals bore through its streets the merchandise from London, which passed to the cities and villas so plentifully scattered in western Britain. By far the most important of the discoveries made in Roman Britain is the little church which stood just outside the forum.
It is very similar in form to the early churches in Italy and other parts of the Roman Empire, and is of the basilican type. The orientation is different from that used after the reign of Constantine, the altar being at the west end.
The churches of S. Peter and S. Paul at Rome had the same arrangement; and the priest evidently stood behind the altar facing the congregation and looking towards the east at the time of the celebration of the Holy Communion. There is an apse at the west end, and the building is divided by two rows of columns into a nave and two aisles. The nave had probably an ambon, or reading-desk, and was mainly used by the clergy, the aisles being for the use of the men and women separately.
A vestry stood at the western end of the north aisle. Across the eastern end was the narthex, or porch, where the catechumens stood and watched the service through the three open doors. Outside the narthex was the atrium, an open court, having in the centre the remains of the labrum, or laver, where the people washed their hands and faces before entering the church.
We are reminded of a sermon by S. Chrysostom, who upbraided his congregation, asking them what was the use of their washing their hands if they did not at the same time cleanse their hearts by repentance. But not only at Silchester and at other places, once the great centres of the Roman population, do we find Roman remains.
In addition to the stations, camps, and towns, there were the villas of the rich Roman citizens or Gaulish merchants on the sunny slopes of many a hillside.
Although hundreds of the remains of these noble houses have been discovered, there are still many to be explored. The villa consisted of the house of the proprietor, which occupied the centre of the little colony, together with the smaller houses of the servants and slaves, stables, cowsheds, mills, and granaries, and all the other usual outbuildings connected with a large estate. The main house was built around a central court, like an Oxford college; and resembled in architectural style the buildings which the excavations at Pompeii have disclosed.
A corridor ran round the court supported by pillars, from which the rooms opened. In a well-defended town like Silchester the houses were usually built on three sides of the court; but the country villas, which had occasionally to be fortified against the attacks of wandering bands of outlaws and wild Britons, and the inroads of savage beasts, were usually built on all the four sides of the square court. They were usually of one story, although the existence of a force-pump in Silchester shows that water was laid on upstairs in one house at least.
As the wells were less than thirty feet deep, a force-pump would not be needed to lift the water to the earth-level. Hence in some houses there must have been some upper chambers, a conclusion that is supported by the thickness of the foundations, which are far more substantial than would be required for houses of one story.
The rooms were very numerous, often as many as sixty or seventy, and very bright they must have looked decorated with beautiful marbles and stuccoes of gorgeous hues, and magnificent pavements, statues and shrines, baths and fountains, and the many other objects of Roman luxury and comfort.
The floors were made of opus signinum , such as the Italians use at the present day, a material composed of cement in which are embedded fragments of stone or brick, the whole being rubbed down to a smooth surface, or paved with mosaic composed of tesserae.
In whatever land the Roman dwelt, there he made his beautiful tesselated pavement, rich with graceful designs and ever-enduring colours, representing the stories of the gods, the poetry of nature, and the legends of the heroes of his beloved native land.
Satyrs and fauns, flowers, Graces and wood-nymphs, horns of plenty, gladiators fighting, one with a trident, the other with a net—all these and countless other fanciful representations look at us from these old Roman pavements. The Roman villa at Brading is an excellent type of such a dwelling, with its magnificent suites of rooms, colonnades, halls, and splendid mosaic pavements.
As at Silchester, we see there fine examples of hypocausts. The floor of the room, called a suspensura , is supported by fifty-four small pillars made of tiles. Another good example of a similar floor exists at Cirencester, and many more at Silchester. In the spring the breath of his violet beds would be as soft and sweet as in Oxfordshire woods to-day; in the summer his quadrangle would be gay with calthae, and his colonnade festooned with roses and helichryse.
If we are to believe in the triclinium aestivum of Hakewill, it says much for the warmth of those far-away summers that he was driven to build a summer dining-room with a north aspect, and without heating flues. And when the long nights fell, and winter cold set in, the slaves heaped higher the charcoal fires in the praefurnium ; the master sat in rooms far better warmed than Oxford country houses now, or sunned himself at midday in the sheltered quadrangle, taking his exercise in the warm side of the colonnade among his gay stuccoes and fluted columns.
Could we for a moment raise the veil, we should probably find that the country life of A. The scene changes. The Roman legions have left our shores, and are trying to prop the tottering state of the falling empire. The groans of the Britons have fallen on listless or distracted ears, and no one has come to their succour.
The coming of the Saxons was a very gradual movement. They did not attack our shores in large armies on one or two occasions; they came in clans or families.
The head of the clan built a ship, and taking with him his family and relations, founded a settlement in wild Britain, or wherever the winds happened to carry them. They were very fierce and relentless in war, and committed terrible ravages on the helpless Britons, sparing neither men, women, nor children, burning buildings, destroying and conquering wherever they went. Public as well as private structures were overturned; the priests were everywhere slain before the altars; the prelates and the people, without any respect of persons, were destroyed with fire and sword; nor was there any to bury those who had been thus cruelly slaughtered.
Some of the miserable remainder, being taken in the mountains, were butchered in heaps. Others, spent with hunger, came forth and submitted themselves to the enemy for food, being destined to undergo perpetual servitude, if they were not killed even upon the spot.
Some, with sorrowful hearts, fled beyond the seas; others, continuing in their own country, led a miserable life among the woods, rocks, and mountains, with scarcely enough food to support life, and expecting every moment to be their last.
Many antiquaries believe that the extirpation of the Britons was not so complete as Bede asserts, and that a large number of them remained in England in a condition of servitude. At any rate, the almost entire extinction of the language, except as regards the names of a few rivers and mountains, and of a few household words, seems to point to a fairly complete expulsion of the Britons rather than to a mingling of them with the conquering race.
What remains have we in our English villages of our Saxon forefathers, the makers of England? In the first place we notice that many of the names of our villages retain the memory of their founders. When the family, or group of families, formed their settlements, they avoided the buildings and walled towns, relics of Roman civilisation, made clearings for themselves in the primeval forests, and established themselves in village communities.
In the names of places the suffix ing , meaning sons of , denotes that the village was first occupied by the clan of some chief, whose name is compounded with this syllable ing. The Billings and Wokings first settled at Billinge and Woking; and then like bees they swarmed, and started another hive of industry at Billingham and Wokingham. These family settlements, revealed to us by the patronymic ing , are very numerous. Many Saxon names of places end in field , which denotes a forest clearing, or feld , made by the axes of the settlers in the primeval woods, where the trees were felled.
These villages were rudely fortified, or inclosed by a hedge, wall, or palisade, denoted by the suffix ton , derived from the Anglo-Saxon tynan , to hedge; and all names ending with this syllable point to the existence of a Saxon settlement hedged in and protected from all intruders.
Thus we have Barton, Preston, Bolton, and many others. The terminations yard , stoke , or stockaded place, as in Basingstoke, worth Anglo-Saxon weorthig , as in Kenilworth, Tamworth, Walworth, have much the same meaning. Perhaps the most common of all the terminations of names denoting the presence of Anglo-Saxon settlers is the suffix ham. When the a is pronounced short the syllable denotes an inclosure, like stoke or ton ; but when the a is long, it means home, and expresses the reverence with which the Anglo-Saxon regarded his own dwelling.
England is the land of homes, and the natural affection with which we Englishmen regard our homes is to a great extent peculiar to our race. The Frenchman, the Spaniard, the Italian, do not have the same respect for home.
Our Saxon forefathers were a very home-loving people, and it is from them doubtless that we inherit our love for our homes. We find, then, the Saxon holding the lands.
The clan formed settlements; sections of each clan formed branch settlements; and several members of each section cut their way through the thick forests, felled the trees, built homesteads, where they tilled the land and reared their cattle.
In early Saxon times the settlement consisted of a number of families holding a district, and the land was regularly divided into three portions. There was the village itself, in which the people lived in houses built of wood or rude stonework. Around the village were a few small inclosures, or grass yards, for rearing calves and baiting farm stock; this was the common farmstead.
Around this was the arable land, where the villagers grew their corn and other vegetables; and around this lay the common meadows, or pasture land, held by the whole community, so that each family could turn their cattle into it, subject to the regulations of an officer elected by the people, whose duty it was to see that no one trespassed on the rights of his neighbour, or turned too many cattle into the common pasture. Around the whole colony lay the woods and uncultivated land, which was left in its natural wild state, where the people cut their timber and fuel, and pastured their pigs in the glades of the forest.
The cultivated land was divided into three large fields, in which the rotation of crops was strictly enforced, each field lying fallow once in three years. To each freeman was assigned his own family lot, which was cultivated by the members of his household. But he was obliged to sow the same crop as his neighbour, and compelled by law to allow his lot to lie fallow with the rest every third year. How long the Saxon villages remained free democratic institutions, we do not know.
Gradually a change came over them, and we find the manorial system in vogue. The existence of a manor implies a lord of the manor, who exercised authority over all the villagers, owned the home farm, and had certain rights over the rest of the land. How all this came about, we scarcely know.
Owing to the Danish invasions, when the rude barbarous warriors carried fire and sword into many a peaceful town and village, the villagers found themselves at the mercy of these savage hordes.
Probably they sought the protection of some thane, or eorl , with his band of warriors, who could save their lands from pillage. In return for their services they acknowledged him as the lord of their village, and gave him rent, which was paid either in the produce of these fields or by the work of their hands.
Thus the lords of the manor became the masters of the villagers, although they too were governed by law, and were obliged to respect the rights of their tenants and servants. Saxon society was divided into two main divisions, the eorl and the ceorl , the men of noble birth, and those of ignoble origin.
The chief man in the village was the manorial lord, a thane , who had his demesne land, and his gafol land, or geneat land, which was land held in villeinage, and cultivated by geneats , or persons holding by service.
These villein tenants were in two classes, the geburs , or villeins proper, who held the yardlands, and the cottiers , who had smaller holdings. Beneath these two classes there were the theows , or slaves, made up partly of the conquered Britons, partly of captives taken in war, and partly of freemen who had been condemned to this penalty for their crimes, or had incurred it by poverty.
There were degrees of rank among Saxon gentlemen, as among those of to-day. The thanes were divided into three classes: i. We can picture to ourselves the ordinary village life which existed in Saxon times. It was commonly built of wood, which the neighbouring forests supplied in plenty, and had stone or mud foundations.
The house consisted of an irregular group of low buildings, almost all of one story. In the centre of the group was the hall, with doors opening into the court. On one side stood the kitchen; on the other the chapel when the thane became a Christian and required the services of the Church for himself and his household.
Numerous other rooms with lean-to roofs were joined on to the hall, and a tower for purposes of defence in case of an attack.
An illustration of such a house appears in an ancient illumination preserved in the Harleian MSS. The walls were hung with tapestry, woven by the skilled fingers of the ladies of the household. A peat or log fire burned in the centre of the hall, and the smoke hid the ceiling and finally found its way out through a hole in the roof. When the hour for dinner approached, rude tables were laid on trestles, and forthwith groaned beneath the weight of joints of meat and fat capons which the Saxon loved dearly.
The door of the hall was usually open, and thither came the bards and gleemen, who used to delight the company with their songs and stories of the gallant deeds of their ancestors, the weird legends of their gods Woden and Thor, their Viking lays and Norse sagas, and the acrobats and dancers astonished them with their strange postures. Next to the thane ranked the geburs , who held land granted to them by the thane for their own use, sometimes as much as one hundred and twenty acres, and were required to work for the lord on the home farm two or three days a week, or pay rent for their holdings.
This payment consisted of the produce of the land. They were also obliged to provide one or more oxen for the manorial plough team, which consisted of eight oxen. There was also a strong independent body of men called socmen , who were none other than our English yeomen. Broadmeadows Vic. Brooklyn Vic. Buckland Vic. Bungaree Vic.
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