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The board-wages of a child the first year was eight shillings, together with a cow's pasture in summer, and an ox's in winter. William of Malmesbury mentions it as a remarkable high price that Willam Rufus gave fifteen marks for a horse, or about thirty pounds of our present money. Between the years 900 and 1000, Ednoth bought a hide of land for about one hundred and eighteen shillings of present money. This was little more than a shilling an acre, which indeed appears to have been the usual price, as we may learn from other accounts. A palfrey was sold for twelve shillings about the year 966." The value of an ox in king Ethelred's time was between seven and eight shillings; a cow about six shillings. Gervas of Tilbury says, that in Henry the First's time, bread, which would suffice a hundred men for a day, was rated at three shillings, or a shilling of that age; for it is thought, that, soon after the Conquest, a pound sterling was divided into twenty shillings; a sheep was rated at a shilling, and so of other things in proportion. In Athelstan's time, a ram was valued at a shilling, or four-pence Saxon." The tenants of Shireburn were obliged, at their choice, to pay either sixpence, or four hens. About 1232, the abbot of St. Albans, going on a journey, hired seven handsome stout horses; and agreed, if any of them died on the road, to pay the owner thirty shillings a piece of our present money. It is to be remarked, that in all ancient times the raising of corn, especially wheat, being a species of manufactory, that commodity always bore a higher price, compared to cattle, than it does in our times." The Saxon Chronicle tells us, that in the reign of Edward the Confessor, there was the most terrible famine ever known; in so much that a quarter of wheat rose to sixty pennies, or fifteen shillings of our present money. Consequently, it was

a

t Hist. Eliens. p. 473. y Ibid. p. 56.

a Mat. Paris.

c P. 157.

as dear as if it now cost seven pounds ten shillings. This much exceeds the great famine in the end of queen Elizabeth, when a quarter of wheat was sold for four pounds. Money in this last period was nearly of the same value as in our time. These severe famines are a certain proof of bad husbandry.

On the whole, there are three things to be considered wherever a sum of money is mentioned in ancient times. First, the change of denomination, by which a pound has been reduced to the third part of its ancient weight in silver. Secondly, the change in value by the greater plenty of money, which has reduced the same weight of silver to ten times less value, compared to commodities; and consequently a pound sterling to the thirtieth part of the ancient value. Thirdly, the fewer people and less industry, which were then to be found in every European kingdom. This circumstance made even the thirtieth part of the sum more difficult to levy, and caused any sum to have more than thirty times greater weight and influence, both abroad and at home, than in our times; in the same manner that a sum, 100,000l. for instance, is at present more difficult to levy in a small state, such as Bavaria, and can produce greater effects on such a small community, than on England. This last difference is not easy calculated; but allowing that England has now six times more industry, and three times more people, than it had at the Conquest, and for some reigns after that period, we are upon that supposition to conceive, taking all circumstances together, every sum of money mentioned by historians, as if it were multiplied more than a hundred-fold above a sum of the same denomination at present.

In the Saxon times, land was divided equally among all the male children of the deceased, according to the custom of Gavelkind. The practice of entails is to be found in those times.d Land was chiefly of two kinds,

a LL. Ælf. § 37. apud Wilkins, p. 43.

bockland, or land held by book or charter, which was regarded as full property, and descended to the heirs of the possessor; and folkland, or the land held by the ceorles and common people, who were removable at pleasure, and were indeed only tenants during the will of their lords.

e

The first attempt which we find in England to separate the ecclesiastical from the civil jurisdiction, was that law of Edgar, by which all disputes among the clergy were ordered to be carried before the bishop. The penances were then very severe; but as a man could buy them off with money, or might substitute others to perform them, they lay easy upon the rich.f

With regard to the manners of the AngloManners. Saxons we can say little, but that they were in general a rude uncultivated people, ignorant of letters, unskilled in the mechanical arts, untamed to submission under law and government, addicted to intemperance, riot, and disorder. Their best quality was their military courage, which yet was not supported by discipline or conduct. Their want of fidelity to the prince, or to any trust reposed in them, appears strongly in the history of their later period; and their want of humanity in all their history. Even the Norman historians, notwithstanding the low state of the arts in their own country, speak of them as barbarians, when they mention the invasion made upon them by the duke of Normandy. The Conquest put the people in a situation of receiving slowly from abroad the rudiments of science and cultivation, and of correcting their rough and licentious manners.

e Wilkins, p. 83.

f Ibid. p. 96, 97. Spelm. Conc. p. 473. Gul. Pict. p. 202.

CHAP. IV.

WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR.

Consequences of the battle of Hastings-Submission of the English-Settlement of the government-King's return to Normandy -Discontents of the English-Their insurrection's-Rigours of the Norman government-New insurrections-New rigours of the government-Introduction of the feudal law-Innovation in ecclesiastical government-Insurrection of the Norman barons— Dispute about investitures-Revolt of prince Robert-Domesday-book-The new forest-War with France-Death and character of William the Conqueror.

quences of

ings.

Conse- NOTHING could exceed the consternation which the battle seized the English, when they received. intelliof Hast- gence of the unfortunate battle of Hastings, the 1066. death of their king, the slaughter of their principal nobility and of their bravest warriors, and the rout and dispersion of the remainder. But though the loss which they had sustained in that fatal action was considerable, it might have been repaired by a great nation; where the people were generally armed, and where there resided so many powerful noblemen in every province, who could have assembled their retainers, and have obliged the duke of Normandy to divide his army, and probably to waste it in a variety of actions and rencounters. It was thus that the kingdom had formerly resisted, for many years, its invaders, and had been gradually subdued, by the continued efforts of the Romans, Saxons, and Danes; and equal difficulties might have been apprehended by William in this bold and hazardous enterprise. But there were several vices in the AngloSaxon constitution, which rendered it difficult for the English to defend their liberties in so critical an emergency. The people had in a great measure lost all national pride and spirit, by their recent and long subjection to the Danes; and as Canute had, in the course of his administration, much abated the rigours of con

quest, and had governed them equitably by their own laws, they regarded with the less terror the ignominy of a foreign yoke, and deemed the inconveniences of submission less formidable than those of bloodshed, war, and resistance. Their attachment also to the ancient royal family had been much weakened, by their habits of submission to the Danish princes, and by their late election of Harold, or their acquiescence in his usurpation. And as they had long been accustomed to regard Edgar Atheling, the only heir of the Saxon line, as unfit to govern them, even in times of order and tranquillity, they could entertain small hopes of his being able to repair such great losses as they had sustained, or to withstand the victorious arms of the duke of Normandy

That they might not, however, be altogether wanting to themselves in this extreme necessity, the English took some steps towards adjusting their disjointed government, and uniting themselves against the common enemy. The two potent earls, Edwin and Morcar, who had fled to London with the remains of the broken army, took the lead on this occasion; in concert with Stigand, archbishop of Canterbury, a man possessed of great authority and of ample revenues, they proclaimed Edgar, and endeavoured to put the people in a posture of defence, and encourage them to resist the Normans." But the terror of the late defeat, and the near neighbourhood of the invaders, increased the confusion inseparable from great revolutions; and every resolution proposed was hasty, fluctuating, tumultuary; disconcerted by fear or faction, ill planned, and worse executed.

William, that his enemies might have no leisure to recover from their consternation, or unite their counsels, immediately put himself in motion after his victory, and resolved to prosecute an enterprise, which nothing but celerity and vigour could render finally successful. His first attempt was against Romney, whose inhabitants he

h Gul. Pictav. p. 205. Order. Vitalis, p. 502. Hoveden, p. 419. Knyghton, p. 2343.

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