11E11E1 - WEATHER'S LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF THE OLDEN TIME. * Tins volume
has the fault of an untrained or an ill-trained author —a little too much of writing, a little too finely done ; and on. some points the matter, if sufficient for the object, is drawn from sources that argue second-hand rather than original inquiry. The book, however, is pleasantly written ; and it brings together a good deal of curious matter regarding the learning, the manners, the opinions, and the practices of the dark or middle ages. It will fulfil its purpose of furnishing readers of a liberal curiosity, but who have little time to spare, with an idea of the social state and condition of our ancestors, that they may learn to appreciate the comforts of the present by gaining a notion of the discomforts of the past.
The book consists of eighteen chapters or essays, on topics exhibitive of English life from the time of the Saxons to that of the Plantagenets, though the author may occasionally diverge to a foreign country or come down to a later date. Some of the papers refer directly to literature or science,—as the persecutions of the few early philosophers on the charge of magic ; the rewards, by church preferment or direct patronage, which learning received in the dark ages ; illustrations of the literary life and character, and the writings for the people in the form of ballads. Others relate to religion or superstition,—as "the (limners and triumphs" of the Bible "in an age of gloom "; " a chapter on the history of relics "; the perils of heresy and unbelief ; witchcraft and magic; miracles and mesmerism ; with the history of leechcraft. Several of the essays describe manners and customs: "hearths and homes, or household comforts of old England " ; mirth and jocularity by pro' fessional jesters in the court and the convent; marriage ceremonies, or rather the modes and law of marriage under the Anglo-Saxons. The subjects of the remaining essays are economical, historical, or miscellaneous. They relate to the influence of monastic communities on society and civilization; the state of the roads and the means of locomotion in the olden time ; slavery in 'England, especially under the Saxons; the position and persecutions of the Jews; the corrupt character of lawyers, and the administration of law in Saxon and Norman courts ; with the dawn of a new sera, when the minds of the people gradually awoke to the corruptions of the Church and the oppressions of the State.
A want of completeness in the treatment of many of the subjects is almost inseparable from the object of the writer, and the limited space to which his single volume confines him. With due allowance for this general fault, the papers have an interest pretty much proportioned to what might be expected from their titles. Slavery in England under the Saxons offers a more terrible moral picture than anything the Abolitionists could produce of West Indian slavery, and throws the strongest light possible on the barbarous feeling of the age ; for the distmotion of colour or even of race was in this case wanting. The essay on the condition of the Sews in Norman -England may add little to the general impression of their treatment, but it brings the part • Glimmerings in the Dark ; or Lights and Shadows of the Olden Time. By F. Somner Merryweather, Author of "BMliomania in the Middle Ages," gm, gm. Bub lished by Simpkin and Marshall. milers together; furnishing examples of fierce oppression, alternating with spoliation and cajolery, which leaves it very doubtful whether the Christian, in the long run and the large way of business, was not suite a match for the Jew in the arts of extortion. Henry the Third, lough not ranking as a very able monarch, was quite able to spoil the Israelites, and in a way which reminds one of the frogs in the fable—sport to him. He elated the Jews by summoning an assembly, which has been called a Parliament.
"But if the Jews were desponding over the loss of their synagogue, [which had been seized and turned into a church,] they were elated in 1241 by a circumstance unparalleled in the whole history of our nation. In the twenty-fifth year of the reign of Henry III, a Parliamentum Judaicum' was summoned at Worcester; the King issued writs, commanding the sheriffs to return from their towns the richest Jews as members. The day appointed by the Christian King was Quinquagesima Sunday : the Jews met to violate a Christian Sabbath by discussing pecuniary matters. When the King appeared before the Parliament, the feelings of exultation which the Jews had encouraged were speedily dissipated ; it was the old story over again : the King wanted money ; he had called them together merely to demand of them a trifle of 20,000 marks : half of this sum they were to pay into his exchequer by Midsummer, the remainder was required at Michaelmas. Although some delay occurred in gathering together this large sum, the King had faith in the resources of the Jews; the next year, wishing to repress the open discontent of the Welsh, he levied another tax of 8000 marks. In this instance no Parliament of Jews was convened ; they were simply ordered to find the money, or submit to transportation to Ireland, in which case all their goods were to be confiscated to the King. During the next three years of Henry's reign these arbitrary measures were constantly resorted to by the King and his Parliament; it was astonishing that they were able to meet such continual calls. Sixty thousand marks were paid by the Jews during that time."
The particulars about the Saxon laws of marriage are curious, and further illustrate the rudeness of that people.
"By the Anglo-Saxon laws, every woman was under the care of some man, who was termed her mundbora, or guardian ; and no one could marry her without having first paid a sum of money as a compensation to her mundbora. The father of course was the guardian of his unmarried daughters; the brother if the father died ; and next to him the nearest male reinfive; if, however, the female was friendless and alone, she found in the king her legal guardian. There were no runaway matches, no clandestine and romantic nuptials, among the Saxon people ; they did everything, even to their very love affairs, in a plain matter-of-fact way ; they estimated the value of the maid according to her rank in life, and the law fixed the sum which should be regarded as a legal tender to satisfy the avarice of her guardians. The first step in courtship, therefore, was to buy the consent of the mundbora; the lover was then admitted into the society of his mistress, and allowed to claim her in due course as his wife ; if however, her personal charms or her disposition proved on better acquaintance unsatisfactory to her suitor, and he failed to complete the bargain, (we are using, fair readers, the terms'employed by the Saxon witan,) he became immediately amenable to the law. For this breach of a promise of marriage, he had to pay not only the usual mund or consideration-fee to her guardian, but an additional compensation, besides a sum of money to those who had become sureties for the fulfilment of the agreement on his part. If a man ventured to marry without first having bought and paid for his wife, he was guilty of the crime of mund-breach; the consequences of which were both disastrous and vexatious. The husband in such a ease possessed no legal authority over his spouse ; he was a husband, in fact, without a wife : he had no right to her property ; he could recover no compensation for any insult which another man should dare to offer her : she had not been paid for, the guardian had received no consideration ; and all damages or fines inflicted for such an insult were payable to the woman's mundbora. If a man wished to take his wife into a foreign part, or into another thane's land, he had to enter into a compact with her guardian that no wrong should be done to her, but that she should receive every mark of attention and kindness. If a man bought a maid and paid for her, no other could negotiate for her purchase ; but if any fraud had been committed on her part, or on the part of her friends, she was returned home, and the man demanded back his money. By the Saxon law a maiden and a widow were of separate value; the latter could be purchased for one half the sum which the guardian of a maid was entitled to demand ; the man, therefore, who could not afford to purchase a maid might perhaps be able to purchase a widow. The laws relating to the marriage of widows are curious, and seem to discountenance second nuptials. The widow was compelled by a law of Canute's to continue husbandless for twelve months at least ; if she married within that time, she forfeited all her marriage-gifts, and all the property which she acquired by her first marriage was claimed by her nearest kinsman: Henry the First confirmed this decorous law."
The social and economical influence of monastic communities has been treated too often by writers of considerable ability to leave much for Mr. Merry-weather to do in the space to which he is restricted, though we believe the subject to be worthy of a more elaborate and particular exposition than it has yet received. The dangers and difficulties of locomotion of yore furnish a very curious paper, full of curious facts. "The expense of conveying goods in those days was enormous ; and the waggons and carts employed for this purpose were so clumsy and ponderous that they frequently in wet seasons sank deep into the road, and were immoveable until hot suns imparted a degree of firmness to the swampy thoroughfare: inland trade suffered severely from these evils. Coals were dug at Newcastle as early as the year 1234; but the expense of transmission was so great that the Londoners were obliged to use wood and turf as fuel : about the same time the hire of a cart and three horses was fixed by law at fourteen pence a day, the wages of a dozen labourers; the cost of conveyance was enormously increased by the continual demands which met the traveller in the shape of tolls. The thoroughfares which intersected the lands of the barons or those of the monks could only be used by the payment of a toll,—a system of taxation grievously out of proportion with the comforts of the road, but which forn.ed sometimes a most important branch of revenue to both seculars and clergy : indeed, in the fourteenth century an exemption from pontage, a tribute demanded for crossing a bridge—from pavage, a toll imposed for repairing reads—and from murage, a duty levied for upholding walls—were sometimes granted as inducements to attract foreign merchants into this country, or to encourage some particular branch of internal commerce. The expense was augmented by the time consumed in a journey. In a fortnight, the team of the Norwich carrier might hope to reach the metropolis; yet perhaps the team numbered half a score of sturdy cattle. It cost more to convey the produce of the North to the South of E.ngland than it did to export it into foreign parts. Pack-horses were the means of conveyance used by the more expeditious trader ; and so great was their advantage over the clumsy and springless vehicles of the day, that not only the produce of the weavers but even the pottery of Staffordshire and the coal of
Newcastle was conveyed by them. In imitation of the caravans of the East, merchants frequently travelled together from town to town, and fair to fair; they did so both for company and mutual protection : pilgrims followed the example, which materially relieved the severity of their pious penance. • • * • "The wet seasons were peculiarly unpropitious to travellers; they were sometimes delayed for a week by a fall of rain. Two Franciscan friars in the thirteenth century, within a mile or two of Oxford, to which place they were travelling, were unable to proceed because the floods were out and they ran many risks of perishing from the dangers of the road."
The state of the metropolitan streets, both in France and England, would have terrified a sanatory commissioner.
"The public thoroughfares of the metropolis were unpaved, and were little better than the country lanes ; the inhabitants, and even the butchers, threw the offal into the streets, and swine revelled unmolested in the gutters. In Paris, a French prince of the royal blood was killed by a fall from his horse in consequence of a sow running between the animal's legs. An order was issued to prohibit them from wallowing in the muddy streets : but the order, it is said, excited the anger of the monks of the Abbey of St. Anthony, who from time immemorial had enjoyed the privilege of turning their swine into the public thoroughfares ; the monks urged their plea with such pertinacity, that it was found necessary to grant them an exclusive right of sending their pigs about town without molestation, only requiring that the holy fathers should turn them out with bells hung round their necks. The swinish multitude grew fat upon the filth, and formed, with the kites, crows, and other ravenous birds, the only scavengers of the busy streets of Paris and London. There was a total absence of all sanatory regulations ; indeed, the public thoroughfares became, in the absence of water-closets and drains, the common sewerage of the city. In France, the people were allowed to throw out of their windows into the streets filth of the most offensive nature, on calling out three times, Gare r eau!' The principal streets of Paris were nob paved until the latter part of the twelfth century, and those of London not until a much later period : the traffic was comparatively so slight that the mud which collected in the uneven road proved no inconvenience to the shopkeepers; a pack-horse might now and then pass by, a gay and chivalrous knight might call the attention of the honest burgher, but vehicles were rarely used and the bugle of the mail never enlivened the thoroughfares of the city. Holborn, the great artery of Modern Babylon through which pour in quick succession one loud, busy, rattling stream of life and commerce, was not paved till the commencement of the fifteenth century. Sonic of the minor streets were scarcely passable. Narrow lanes with hedges, broken only here and there by a straggling house, were the primitive Wood Streets, Gray's Inn Lanes, and Aldgate Streets, of modern times : some would venture to traffic them in the day, but few would risk such perilous thoroughfares at night. Some of the streets were so bad in the prosperous days of King Henry the Eighth, that they are described as very foul, and full of pita and sloughs; very perilous as well for all the King's subjects on horseback as on foot.' Along such dangerous paths the traveller at night had to grope his way about town in total darkness, except he was near enough to be guided by the lanterns on the steeple of Bow Church, which served as the only landmark to the bewildered stranger."
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