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VIII.

After his death, one of the abbots spread his linen garments on the ground. The brethren laid his body on it, washed it with their hands, and put on his ecclesiastical dress. Afterwards they wrapped it in linen, and, singing hymns, they conducted it in a carriage to the monastery. All the monks came out to meet it; none abstained from tears and weeping. They received it with hymns and chantings, and deposited it in the church which he had built."

One of the nobles who attended the king at his Easter court having died, it is mentioned that his body was carried to Glastonbury; and the king ordered some of the bishops, earls, and barons, to attend the bier thither with honour."

When the body of an alderman was taken to the monastery at Ramsay to be buried, a numerous assemblage from the neighbourhood met to accompany his exequies."

The saul-sceat, or the payment of the clergy on death, became a very general practice. No respectable person died or was buried without a handsome present to some branch or other of the ecclesiastical establishment.

Nothing can more strongly express the importance and necessity of this custom, than that several of their gilds seem to have been formed chiefly with a view to provide a fund for this purpose.

It appears in all the wills. Thus Wynflæd, for her saulsceat, gave to every one of the religious, at the places she mentions, a mancus of gold; and to another place, half a pound's worth, for saul-sceat. She adds a direction to her children, that they will illuminate for her soul,

Byrhtric, for his soul and his ancestors, gave two sulings of land by his will, and a similar present, with thirty gold mancys, for his wife's soul and her ancestors." Wulfaru bequeaths to Saint Peter's minster, for his "miserable soul," and for his.

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ancestors, a bracelet, a patera, two golden crosses, with gar- CHAP. ments and bed-clothes.

16

A dux who flourished in the days of Edgar and Æthelred, not only gave an abbot some valuable lands, in return for his liberal hospitality, but also several others, with thirty marks of gold, and twenty pounds of silver, two golden crosses, two pieces of his cloak, set with gold and gems in valuable workmanship, and other things, that, if he fell in battle, his body might be buried with them.'

17

A dux in Alfred's days directed 100 swine to be given to a church in Canterbury, for him and for his soul; and the same to Chertsey abbey. The same dux directed 200 peninga to be paid annually from some land to Chertsey abbey, for the soul of Alfred."

So Æthelstan the atheling gave to St. Peter's church, at Westminster, land which he had bought of his father for 200 mancusan of gold, by weight five pounds of silver, and other land, which he had purchased for 250 gold mancus by weight; and the land which his father released to him for both their souls: he makes other bequests to other religious places."

16 Hickes, Diss. p. 54.
17 3 Gale Script. 494.

18 Test. Elf. App. Sax. Dict.
32 App. Sax. Dict.

XV.

THIE

HISTORY

OF THE

ANGLO-SAXON S.

ΤΗ

BOOK IX.

Their Landed Property.

CHAP. I.

Their Husbandry.

I.

HE agricultural state may have been coeval with the CHAP. pastoral, in the climates of the East, where nature is so profuse of her rural gifts, that cultivation is scarcely requisite; but in the more ungenial regions of the north of Europe, where the food of man is not to be obtained from the earth, without the union of skill and labour, the pastoral state seems to have been the earliest occupation of uncivilized man. While this taste prevailed, agricultural attentions were disreputable and despised, as among the ancient Germans. But when population became more numerous and less migratory, husbandry rose in human estimation and use, until at length it became indispensable to the subsistence of the nation who pursued it.

The Anglo-Saxons cultivated the art of husbandry with some attention. The articles which they raised from the

4

IX.

BOOK earth, and the animals which they fed, have been mentioned in the chapter on their food. A few particulars of their practical husbandry need only be mentioned here.

They used hedges and ditches to separate their fields and lands;' and these were made necessary by law; for if a freeman broke through a hedge, he had to pay six shillings.* A ceorl was ordered to keep his farm inclosed both winter and summer; and if damage arose to any one who suffered his gate to be open, and his hedge to be broken down, he was subjected to legal consequences.'

They had common of pasture attached to the different portions of land which they possessed; and they had other extensive districts laid out in meadow. Every estate had also an appropriated quantity of wood. In Domesday-book, the ploughed land, the meadow, the pasture, and the wood, are separately mentioned, and their different quantities estimated.

They sowed their wheat in spring. It was a law, that he who had twenty hides of land should take care that there should be twelve hides of it sown when he was to leave it.' They had ploughs, rakes, sickles, scythes, forks, and flails, very like those that have been commonly used in this country. They had also carts or waggons. Their wind-mills and water-mills are frequently mentioned, in every period of their history.

Their woods were an object of their legislative attention. If any one burnt or cut down another's wood without permission, he was to pay five shillings for every great tree, and five pennies for every other, and thirty shillings besides, as a penalty. By another law, this offence was more severely punished.

8

They were careful of the sheep. It was ordered by an

These appear in most of the bounda-
ries described in the Saxon grants. Hedges
are mentioned in Domesday. A nemus ad
sepes faciendum occurs in Middlesex, fo. 127.
Wilk. Leg. 4.
3 Ibid. p. 21.
♦ Bede, p. 244, 3 Wilk. Leg. p. 25.

6

Their drawings in their MSS, shew a great resemblance between the Saxon instruments and those still used in the northern counties of England.

Wiik. p. 37. • Ibid. p. 21.

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