When Henry II, succeeding the Norman king, ascended the throne in 1154, he found his kingdom a prey to horrible anarchy. The royal domains were surrounded on all sides by menacing fortresses garrisoned by resolute soldiers who recognized no authority but that of their chiefs. Within three years, eleven hundred of these castles, the haunts of robbers, were razed to the ground, while the peasants and townspeople applauded the work of destruction. He may be truly said to have initiated 'the rule of law.' Ten years after his accession the principle of pecuniary compensation for crime had, for the most part, been superseded by criminal laws, administered with stern severity. Yet outrage continues to be the constant theme of legislation. In the reign of the first Edward, every man was bound to hold himself in readiness, duly armed, for the king's service or the hue and cry which pursued the felon. An act for the suppression of crimes directs that,—

For the greater security of the people, walled towns shall keep their gates shut from sun-set to sun-rise; and none shall lodge all night in their suburbs, unless his host shall answer for him. All towns shall be kept as in times past, with a watch all night at each gate, with a number of men.'

Another, after reciting the commission of robberies, murders, and riots, in the city of London, enjoins:

'That none be found in the streets, either with spear or buckler, after the curfew-bell rings out, except they be great lords, or other persons of note; also, that no tavern, either for wine or ale, be kept open after that hour on forfeiture of forty pence.'

Once, during this reign, a band of lesser nobles disguise their way into a great merchant fair; fire every booth, rob and slaughter the merchants, and carry the booty off to ships lying in wait. Molten streams of silver and gold, says the tale of horror, flowed down the gutters to the sea. Lawless companies of club-men maintain themselves by general violence, aid the country nobles in their feuds, wrest money and goods from the tradesmen. Under a show of courtesy the bloodthirsty instinct breaks out. Richard of the Lion-heart has a lion's appetite. Under the walls of Acre he wants some pork. There being none to be had, a young Saracen is killed, cooked, salted, and served him. He eats it with a relish, and desires to see the head of the pig. The cook produces it trembling, the king laughs, and says the army, having provisions so convenient, has nothing to fear from famine. The town taken, he has thirty of the most noble prisoners beheaded,

bids his cook boil the heads and serve one to each of the ambassadors who came to sue for their pardon. Thereupon the sixty thousand prisoners are led into the plain for execution.

Theodore, who founded the English Church, denied Christian burial to the kidnapper, and prohibited the sale of children by their parents after the age of seven. The murder of a slave, though no crime in the eye of the State, became a sin for which penance was due to the Church. Manumission became frequent in wills, as a boon to the souls of the dead. Usually the slave was set free before the altar; sometimes at the spot where four roads met, and there bidden go whither he would. In the more solemn form, his master took him by the hand in full shire meeting, showed him the open road and door, and gave him the lance and sword of the freeman. A hundred years after the prohibition, in the ninth century, of the slave-traffic from English ports, men and women are said to have been bought in all parts of England and carried to Ireland for sale. 'You might,' says a chronicler, 'have seen with sorrow long files of young people of both sexes and of the greatest beauty bound with ropes and daily exposed for sale. . . . They sold in this manner as slaves their own children.' Not till the reign of Henry II was it finally suppressed in its last stronghold, the port of Bristol.

A law of 1285, relating to highways, directs:

That those ways shall be enlarged where bushes, woods, or dykes be, where men may lurk, so that there be neither dyke, tree, nor bush within two hundred feet on each side of those roads, great trees excepted.'

A provision which illustrates at once the social and physical condition of the country at the time. The roads are narrow - from four to eight feet-and of difficult passage. A bishop, journeying to London, is obliged to rest his beasts of burden on alternate days of travel. Returning, he accomplishes the first day only five miles. Travellers ride on horseback, and convey their culinary wares or merchandise in pack-saddles. The dead, the invalid, ladies of rank, are carried in a horse-litter, borne by horses and mules, sometimes by men. Carts are the carriages of the nobility, distinguished from the common description by ornament. Even that of King John is springless, the body rests upon the axletree, the wheels are cut from solid pieces of circular wood, covered ornamentally, and bound round with a thick wooden

tire. For obvious reasons, a solitary journey in these early days. will be a matter of grave anxiety. Friends setting out from the same place, or strangers becoming acquainted upon the road, join in parties for mutual protection and cheer through the semidesert.

The houses of the people in the thirteenth century were generally of one story, consisting of a hall and a bed-chamber. The first was kitchen, dining-room, reception-room, as well as sleeping apartment for strangers and visitors indiscriminately; the second was the resort of the female portion of the household. The door opened outward, and was left open,- a sign of hospitality, which even in turbulent times was almost boundless between those who had established friendly relations. The roof, covered with oval tiles, exhibited two ornamental points. Dwellings of the opulent sometimes had upper floors, reached by an external staircase. The upper part was considered the place of greatest security, as it could be entered only by one door, which was approached by a flight of steps, and hence was more readily defended. The hall was generally the whole height of the house. Adjacent to it was the stable, in which the servants, if any, were well content to lodge. Palaces and manor-houses had essentially the same arrangement,- a private room for the lord, and the great hall which was the usual living apartment for the whole family, and in which retainers and guests, often to the number of three or four hundred, were kennelled, the floor being strewn with dry rushes in winter, and with hay or straw in summer.

Already the Jew was a capitalist,-the only one in Europe. He had followed William from Normandy. Without citizenship, absolutely at the king's mercy, he was the engine of finance; and, as such, compelled the kingly regard. Castle and cathedral alike owed their existence to his loans. His wealth— wrung from him by torture when mild entreaty failed-filled the royal exchequer at the outbreak of war or revolt. The 'Jews' Houses' were almost the first of stone, which superseded the mere hovels of the English burghers. John, having wrested from them a sum equal to a year's revenue, might suffer none to plunder them save himself. Hated by the people, persecuted at last by the law, forbidden to appear in the street without the colored tablet which distinguished the race, their long agony

ended in their expulsion from the realm by Edward. Of the sixteen thousand who preferred exile to apostasy, many were wrecked, others robbed and flung overboard. From that time till their restoration by Cromwell, no Jew touched English soil. Under the worst of rulers it is Merry England.' Of indoor amusements, the most attractive to high and low is gambling. So universal was the passion in the twelfth century, that in the Crusades the kings of France and England made the most stringent regulations to restrict it. No man in the army was to play for money, except the knights and the clergy; nor were the latter to lose more than twenty shillings in one day. The lower orders who should be found playing without the permission and supervision of their masters, were to be whipped; and, if mariners, were to be plunged into the sea on three successive mornings. Love of hardy sports, so characteristic of the English, is not of modern growth. It was one of the most important parts of popular education seven centuries ago. Wrestling was the national pastime. The sturdy yeoman wrestled for prizes, a ram or a bull, a ring or a pipe of wine. Foot-ball was the favorite game. In the Easter holidays they had river tournaments. In the summer, the youths exercised themselves in leaping, archery, stone-throwing, slinging javelins, and fighting with bucklers. The sword-dance of the Saxons, descending to their successors, held an honored place among popular sports. The acrobat went about to market and fair, circling knives and balls adroitly through his hands, and the 'musical girls' danced before knight and peasant as the daughter of Herodias before Herod. A very ancient and popular game was that of throwing a peculiar stick at cocks. It was practised especially by schoolboys. Three origins of it have been given: first, that in the Danish wars, the Saxons failed to surprise a certain city in consequence of the crowing of cocks, and had therefore a great hatred of that bird; second, that the cocks were special representatives of Frenchmen, with whom the English were constantly at war; third, that they were connected with Peter's denial of Christ. Two diversions of the Middle Ages, however, were a pride and ornament, the theme of song, the object of law, and the business of life,-hunting and hawking. A knight seldom

stirred from his house without a falcon' on his wrist or a greyhound at his feet. Into these pastimes the clergy rushed with an irrepressible eagerness. To the country revel came the taborer, the bagpiper, and the minstrela privileged wanderer. Music, with its immemorial talismanic power to charm, seems always to have ranked as a favorite accomplishment. The complaint of a Scotch abbot in 1160 suggests rather amusingly the innovations it was making in the devotional customs of the Church:

Since all types and figures are now ceased, why so many organs and cymbals in our churches? Why, I say, that terrible blowing of bellows which rather imitates noise of thunder than the sweet harmony of voice?'

Again:

'One restrains his breath, another breaks his breath, and a third unaccountably dilates his voice. Sometimes (I blush to say it) they fall and quiver like the neighing of horses; at other times they look like persons in the agonies of death; their eyes roll; their shoulders are moved upwards and downwards; and their fingers dance to every note.'

Intellectually, the real character of these times is to be judged by their multitude of superstitions. On the Continent, in particular, credulity was habitual and universal. The west of Britain was believed to be inhabited by the souls of the dead. In a lake in Munster, Ireland, there were two islands. Into the first, death could never enter; but age, disease, and weariness wrought upon the inhabitants till they grew tired of their immortality, and learned to look upon the second as a haven of repose; they launched their barks upon its dark waters, touched its shore, and were at rest. The three companions of St. Colman were a cock, which announced the hour of devotion; a mouse, which bit the ear of the drowsy saint till he rose; and a fly, which, if in the course of his studies his thoughts wandered, or he was called away, alighted on the line where he had left off, and kept the place. In the Church of St. Sabina at Rome was long shown a ponderous stone which the devil had flung at St. Dominic, vainly hoping to crush a head that was shielded by the guardian angel. The Gospel of St. John suspended around the neck, a rosary, a relic of Christ or of a saint,-any of the thousand talismans distributed among the faithful, would baffle the utmost efforts of diabolical malice. The more terrible phenomena of nature, unmoved by exorcisms and sprinklings, were invariably

1 A bird of great destructive power, trained to the pursuit of other birds.