BOOK II. Their Food. HEIR food was that mixture of animal a vegetable diet which always attends the pr grefs of civilization. corn in inclosed and They reared various forts cultivated lands, and they f domefticated cattle for the uses of their table. For their animal food they had oxen, sheep, a great abundance of fwine; they ufed, likewife, fow deers, goats, and hares; but though the horn cattle are not unfrequently mentioned in the grants and wills, and were often the fubjects of e change, yet the animals moft numerously ftated a the fwine, The country in all parts abounded wi wood, and woods are not often particularized wit out fome notice of the fwine which they containe They alfo frequently appear in wills. Thus Alfre a nobleman, gives to his relations an hide of lan with one hundred fwine; and he directs one hu dred fwine to be given for his foul to one Minft and the fame number to another; and to his tv daughters he gives two thoufand fwine'. So E helm gives land to St. Peter's at Westminster, the express condition that they feed two hundr of these animals for his wife 2. species which THEY eat various kinds of fish; but of this c scription of their animal food the moft profufely noticed is the eel. Will. in App. Sax. Dict. They ufed e 2 Ibid. as abundantly as fwine. Two grants are mentioned, CHA P. each yielding one thousand eels3, and by another two thousand were received as an annual rent. Four thousand eels were a yearly prefent from the monks of Ramfey to those of Peterborough. We read of two places, purchased for twenty-one pounds, wherein fixteen thousand of thefe fish were caught every year; and in one charta, twenty fishermen are ftated, who furnished, during the fame period, fixty thousand eels to the monastery. Eel dikes are often mentioned in the boundaries of their lands. 5 IN the dialogues compofed by Elfric to inftruct the Anglo-Saxon youths in the Latin language, which are yet preferved to us, we have fome curious information concerning the manners and trades of our ancestors. In one colloquy the fisherman is asked, What gettest thou by thine art?" " Big "loaves, cloathing, and money." 'How do you take them?" I afcend my fhip, and caft my net "into the river; I alfo throw in a hook, a bait, "and a rod." C Suppose the fishes are unclean?' "I throw the unclean out, and take the clean for "food." • Where do you fell fish?' “ In . "the city." Who buys them?" "The citizens; "I cannot take fo many as I can fell." your · What fishes do you take? "Eels, haddocks, and eelpouts, fkaite, and lampreys, and whatever swims "in the river." Why do you not fish in the fea?' 3 3 Gale, 477. Dugdale Mon. p. 244. 4 Ibid. 456, 6 Ibid. 235. 7 In the Cotton library MS. Tib. A. 3. & The Saxon names for thefe are, ælas, hacodas, mynas, &æleputan, fceotan, & lampredan. MS. ib. BOOK "Sometimes I do; but rarely, becaufe a great fhip is II. neceffary there." What do you take in the fea? Herrings and falmons, dolphins, porpoises, oysters "and crabs, mufcles, flounders, plaice, lobsters " and fuch like." Can you take a whale?" "No "it is dangerous to take a whale; it is fafer for "me to go to the river with my fhip than to g "with many fhips to hunt whales." "Why "Because it is more pleasant to me to take fif " which I can kill with one blow; yet many tak "whales without danger, and then they get "great price, but I dare not from the fearfulness o 66 my mind." THIS extract fhews the uniformity of human taste on the main articles of food. Fifh was fuch favourite diet that the fupply never equalled th demand, and the fame fishes were then in requel which we felect, though our tafte has declined fo the dolphins and the porpoifes. The dolphin i mentioned in a convention between an archbisho and the clergy at Bath, which enumerates fix o them under the name of mere-fwine, or the fea fwine, and thirty thousand herrings 10. In the earlier periods of the Anglo-Saxon coloni zation their use of fish was more limited; for w read in Bede, that Wilfrid refcued the people o Suffex from famine in the eighth century by teach ing them to catch fish: "For though the fea an their rivers abounded with fish, they had no mor 9 Herincgas & leaxas, merefwyn & ftirian, oftrean crabban, muflan, wine winclan, fæ coccas, fage floc, lopyftran MS. Tib. A. 3. 10 MS. CCC apud Cantab. Miscell. G. p. 73. III. fkill in the art than to take eels. The fervants of CHA P. "Wilfrid threw into the fea nets made out of those "by which they had obtained eels, and thus di"rected them to a new fource of plenty "." It may account for Wilfrid's fuperior knowledge to remark, that he had travelled over the continent to Rome. Ir is an article in the Penitentiale of Egbert, that fifh might be bought though dead 2. The fame treatise allows herrings to be eaten, and states, that when boiled they are falutary in fever and diarrhoea, and that their gall mixed with pepper is good for a fore mouth 13! HORSE-FLESH, which our delicacy rejects with averfion, appears to have been used, though it became unfashionable as their civilization advanced. The Penitentiale fays, "Horse-flesh is not prohi"bited, though many families will not buy it 14" But in the council held in 785, in Northumbria, before Alfwold, and in Mercia, before Offa, it was discountenanced. "Many among you eat horses, "which is not done by any Christians in the east. "Avoid this 15." BUT though animal food was in much use among our ancestors, it was as it is with us, and perhaps will be in every country in which agriculture has become habitual, and population much increased, rather the food of the wealthier part of the community than of the lower orders. THAT it could not be afforded by all is clear, from the incident of a king and queen vifiting a Bede, lib. iv. c. 13. #3 Ibid. 12 1 Wilkins Conc. p. 123. 15. Ibid. p. 151. II. BOOK monaftery, and inquiring, when they faw the boys eating only bread, if they were allowed nothing elfe. The answer returned was, that the fcanty means of the fociety could afford no better. The queen then petitioned the king to enable them to provide additional food 1. THEY had wheat and barley in general use, but their prices were different; wheat, like meat, was a dearer article, and therefore lefs univerfal. It is faid of the abbey of St. Edmund, that the young monks eat barley bread because the income of the establishment would not admit of their feeding twice or thrice a-day on wheaten bread". Their corn was thrashed with a flail like our own, and ground by the fimple mechanifm of mills, of which great numbers are particularized in the doomfday furvey. In their most ancient law we read of a king's grinding fervant 18; but both water-mills and windmills occur very frequently in their conveyances after that time. THEY ufed warm bread". The life of St. Neot ftates, that the peasant's wife placed on her oven "the loaves which fome call loudas 20." In the agreement of one of their focial gilds, a broad loaf well befewon and well gefy fled is noticed ". In one grant of land we find fix hundred loaves reserved as a rent 22, and oftentimes cheeses. They were allowed to use milk, cheese, and eggs, on |