it is remarked, as a peculiarity of a nun, that she rarely wore linen, but chiefly woollen garments. Silk, from its cost, cannot have been common; but it was often used by the great and wealthy. Ethelbert, king of Kent, gave a silken part of dress, called an armilcasia. Bede mentions two silken pallia of incomparable workmanship. His own remains were enclosed in silk. It often adorned the altars of the church; and we read of a present to a West-Saxon bishop, of a casula, expressed to be not entirely of silk, but mixed with goat's wool. The delineations of the Saxon manuscripts almost universally represent the hair of the men as divided from the crown to the forehead, and combed down the sides of the head in waving ringlets. Their beards were continuations of their whiskers on each side, meeting the hair from the chin, but there dividing, and ending in two forked points. Young men usually, and sometimes servants, are represented without beards. The heads of the soldiers are covered; but workmen, and even nobles, are frequently represented, as in the open air, without any hats or caps.d To have a beard was forbidden to the clergy. But the historian of Malmsbury informs us, that in the time of Harold the Second, the English laity shaved their beards, but allowed the hair of their upper lip a full growth. The tapestry of Bayeux displays this costume: Harold, and most of the figures, have their mustachios, but no beards; King Edward, however, has his full beard. In the drawings of the Evangelists, in the fine Cotton MS., Mark and John have neither beards nor mustachios, but Matthew and Luke have both. They had shoes, or scoh, with thongs. Bede's account of Cuthbert is curious: he says, when the saint had washed the feet of those who came to him, they compelled him to take off his own shoes, that his feet might also be made clean; for so little did he attend to his bodily appearance, that he often kept his shoes, which were of leather, on his feet for several months together, frequently from Easter to Easter, without taking them off. From this anecdote we may infer, that they had not stockings. Sometimes, however, the legs of the men appear in the drawings as covered half way up with a kind of bandage wound round, or else with a tight stocking reaching above the knee.i Bede, lib. iv. c. 19. The interior tunic of St. Neot is described to have been ex panno villoso, in the Irish manner. Dugd. Mon. 368. z Dugd. Mon. 24. 2 Bede, p. 297. A pallia holoserica is mentioned as a b Mag. Bib. xvi. p. 88. d See the plates in Strutt's Hord. Angel. f Malmsb. lib. iii. present, in Mag. Bib. xvi. p. 97. c Ibid. p. 50. • Wilk. Leg. Sax. p. 85. 8 Nero, D. 4. b Bede Vit. Cuthb. p. 243. In the life of St. Neot, he is said to have lost his scoh : he saw a fox having the thwanges of his shoe in his mouth. Vesp. D. xiv. p. 144. i Strutt, Hord. Ang. p. 47. In Saint Benedict's rule, MS. Tib. A. 3, socks (soccas) The Anglo-Saxons, represented in the Bayeux tapestry, are dressed in this manner; both the great and their inferiors have caps or bonnets on their heads, which are kept on even in the presence of the king, sitting with his sceptre on the throne. The steersman of one of the ships has a hat on, with a projecting flap turning upwards. Most of the figures have close coats, with sleeves to the wrists. They are girded round them with a belt, and have loose skirts like kelts, but not reaching quite to the knee. Harold on Horseback, with his falcon, has breeches which do not cover his knee, and a cloak flowing behind him. His knights have breeches covering the knees, and cloaks, which, like Harold's are buttoned on the right shoulder. One of those standing before the king has a cloak, or sagum, which falls down to its full length, and reaches just below the bend of the knee. Harold, when he is about to go into the ship, wears a sort of jacket with small flaps. In the ship he appears with his cloak and the surrounding skirts, which are exhibited with a border; but when he takes the oath to William, he has a cloak or robe reaching nearly to his heels, and buttoned on the breast. They have always belts on. Most of them have shoes, which seem close round the ancle; others, even the great men, sometimes have none.TM In the history of the Lombards, the Anglo-Saxon garments are stated to have been loose and flowing, and chiefly made of linen, adorned with broad borders, woven or embroidered with various colours." In the MSS. of the Saxon Gospels, Nero, D. 4, the four Evangelists are drawn in colours, and the garments in which they are represented may be considered as specimens of tho Anglo-Saxon dress. Matthew has a purple under-gown, or vest, rather close, coming down to the wrists, with a yellow border at the neck, wrists, and and stockings (hosan) are mentioned; also two other coverings for the legs and feet, called meon and fiand reaf fota, and the earm slife for the upper part of the body. i Strutt has given a complete drawing of a Saxon close coat, in Tab. 15. It ap pears to have been put over the head like a shirt. * For a description of this clasp or button, see Strutt, p. 46. It was probably of cloaks like these, that Charlemagne exclaimed, “ Of what use are these little cloaks? We cannot be covered by them in bed. When I am on horseback they cannot defend me from the wind and rain; and when we retire for other occasions, I am starved with cold in my legs." St. Gall. ap. Bouquet Recueil, tom. vii. Strutt remarks, from the drawings, that the kings and nobles, when in their state dress, were habited in a loose coat, which reached down to the ancles, and had over that a long robe, fastened, over both shoulders, on the middle of the breast, with a clasp or buckle. He adds, that the edges and bottoms of their coats, as well as of their robes, were often trimmed with a broad gold edging, or else flowered with different colours. The soldiers and common people wore close coats, reaching only to the knee, and a short cloak over their left shoulder, which buckled on the right. The kings and nobles were habited in common in a dress similar to this, but richer and more elegant. Strutt, Hord. Ang. i. p. 46. " See before. the bottom. His upper robe is green, with red stripes, much looser than the other. His feet have no shoes, but a lacing, as for sandals. There is a brown curtain, with rings, and a yellow bottom. His stool has a brown cushion, but no back. He writes on his knee. Mark wears a purple robe, striped with blue, buttoned at the neck, where it opens, and shows an under garment of light blue, striped with red. His cushion is blue: he has a footstool and a small round table. Luke's under-dress is a sort of lilac, with light green stripes; over this is a purple robe with red stripes. The arm is of the colour of the vest, and comes through the robe. His wrist and neck have a border. upper John's under-garment is a pea-green with red stripes; his robe is purple with blue stripes; this is very loose, and, opening at the breast, shows the dress beneath. These pictures show, what many passages also imply, that our ancestors were fond of many colours. The council in 785 ordered the clergy not to wear the tinctured colours of India, nor precious garments. The clergy, whose garments were thus compulsorily simplified, endeavoured to extend their fashion to those of the laity. Boniface, the Anglo-Saxon missionary, in his letter to the archbishop of Canterbury, inveighs against the luxuries of dress, and declares, that those garments which are adorned with very broad studs, and images of worms, announce the coming of Anti-Christ. In the same spirit, at the council of Cloveshoe, the nuns were exhorted to pass their time rather in reading books and singing hymns, than in weaving and working garments of empty pride in diversified colours. That they lined their garments with furs made from sables, beavers, and foxes, or, when they wished to be least expensive, with the skins of lambs or cats, we learn from the life of Wulstan. • Bede mentions, that in Saint Cuthbert's monastery they used clothing of the natural wool, and not of varied or precious colours, p. 242. Two cloaks are mentioned among the letters of Boniface, one of which is said to be of very artful workmanship, the other of a tinctured colour. P Spel. Concil. p. 294. Anglia Sacra, vol. ii. p. 259. ancestors are well worth reading, tory, vol. iv. p. 289. a Ibid. p. 241. * Ibid. 256. Our Henry, whose remarks on the dress of our has given a translation of the passage in his His CHAPTER VI. Their Houses, Furniture, and Luxuries. In their ecclesiastical buildings the Anglo-Saxons were expensive and magnificent; their dwelling-houses seem to have been small and inconvenient. Domestic architecture is one of the things that most conspicuously displays and attends the progress of national wealth and taste. The more we recede into the antiquities of every state, we invariably find the habitations of the people ruder and less commodious. Their furniture we can only know as it happens to be mentioned, and sometimes imperfectly described, in some of their writings. They may have had many things which we have, but we must conceive of all we find enumerated, that it was heavy, rude, and unworkmanlike. It is in a polished age, and among industrious and wealthy nations, that the mechanical arts attain excellence; and that every convenience of domestic life combines always finished neatness, and frequently elegance and taste, with economy of materials, and utility. The Anglo-Saxons had many conveniences and luxuries, which men so recently emerging from the barbarian state could not have derived from their own invention. They were indebted for these to their conversion to Christianity. When the Gothic nations exchanged their idolatry for the Christian faith, hierarchies arose in every converted state, which maintained a close and perpetual intercourse with Rome and with each other. From the letters of Pope Gregory, of our Boniface, and many others, we perceive that an intercourse of personal civilities, visits, messages, and presents, was perpetually taking place. Whatever was rare, curious, or valuable, which one person possessed, he communicated, and not unfrequently gave to his acquaintance. This is very remarkable in the letters of Boniface and his friends, of whom some were in England, some in France, some in Germany, and elsewhere. The most cordial phrases of urbanity and affection are usually followed by a present of apparel, the aromatic productions of the East, little articles of furniture and domestic com a Strutt has copied a Saxon house from the MS. Cleop. C. 8, in his fig. 3, of plate I. The building of the tower of Babel, in his sixth plate, from MS. Claud. B. 4, may be considered as another specimen of their domestic architecture. b These are in the sixteenth volume of the Magna Bibliotheca Patrum. fort, books, and whatever else promised to be acceptable to the person addressed. This reciprocity of liberality, and the perpetual visits which all ranks of the state were in the habit of making to Rome, the seat and centre of all the arts, science, wealth, and industry of the day, occasioned a general diffusion and use of the known conveniences and approved inventions which had then appeared. Among the furniture of their rooms, we find hangings, to be suspended on the walls, most of them silken, some with the figures of golden birds in needle-work, some woven, and some plain. At another time, a veil or piece of hanging is mentioned, on which was sewed the destruction of Troy. These were royal presents. We also read of the curtain of a lady, on which was woven the actions of her husband, in memory of his probity. These articles of manufacture for domestic use are obviously alluded to by Aldhelm in his simile, in which he mentions the texture of hangings or curtains, their being stained with purple and different varieties of colours, and their images, embroidery, and weaving. Their love of gaudy colouring was as apparent in these as in their dress; for he says, "If finished of one colour, uniform, they would not seem beautiful to the eye." Curtains and hangings are very often mentioned; sometimes in Latin phrases, pallia or cortinas; sometimes in the Saxon term wahrift. Thus Wynfleda bequeaths a long heall wahrift and a short one, and Wulfur bequeaths a heall wahrifta; the same testator also leaves a heall reafes. Whether this is another expression for a hanging to the hall, or whether it alludes to any thing like a carpet, the expression itself will not decide. The probability is, that it expresses a part of the hangings. We can perceive the reasons why hangings were used in such early times: their carpenters were not exact and perfect joiners; their buildings were full of crevices, and hangings were therefore rather a necessity than a luxury, as they kept out the wind from the inhabitants. Nothing can more strongly prove their necessity, than that Alfred, to preserve his lights from the wind, even in the royal palaces, was obliged to have recourse to lanthorns. Their hangings, we find, were not cheap enough to be used perpetually; and therefore when the king gave them to the monastery, he adds the injunction to the one gift, that it should be suspended on his anniversary, and to another, that it should be used on festivals.j Benches and seats, and their coverings, are also mentioned. c Ingulf, p. 53. 3 Gale Script. 495. Dugd. 130. 3 Gale, 418, and 495. h Hickes Præf. and Diss. Ep. 54. i Ingulf, 53. d Ibid. p. 9. f Aldhelm de Laud. Virg. 283. i See vol. i. of this work. |