Young Folks History of England | Page 4

and that she was to be allowed to bring a priest with her, and have a
church to worship in.
Gregory thought this would make a beginning: so he sent a priest,
whose name was Augustine, with a letter to King Ethelbert and Queen
Bertha, and asked the King to listen to him. Ethelbert met Augustine in
the open air, under a tree at Canterbury, and heard him tell about the
true God, and JESUS CHRIST, whom He sent; and, after some time,
and a great deal of teaching, Ethelbert gave up worshiping Woden and
Thor, and believed in the true God, and was baptized, and many of his
people with him. Then Augustine was made Archbishop of Canterbury;
and, one after another, in the course of the next hundred years, all the
English kingdoms learnt to know God, and broke down their idols, and
became Christian.
Bishops were appointed, and churches were built, and parishes were
marked off--a great many of them the very same that we have now.
Here and there, when men and women wanted to be very good indeed,
and to give their whole lives to doing nothing but serving God, without
any of the fighting and feasting, the buying and selling of the outer
world, they built houses, where they might live apart, and churches,
where there might be services seven times a day. These houses were
named abbeys. Those for men were, sometimes, also called monasteries,
and the men in them were termed monks, while the women were called

nuns, and their homes convents of nunneries. They had plain dark
dresses, and hoods, and the women always had veils. The monks used
to promise that they would work as well as pray, so they used to build
their abbeys by some forest or marsh, and bring it all into order, turning
the wild place into fields, full of wheat. Others used to copy out the
Holy Scriptures and other good books upon parchment-- because there
was no paper in those days, nor any printing--drawing beautiful painted
pictures at the beginning of the chapters, which were called
illuminations. The nun did needlework and embroidery, as hangings for
the altar, and garments for the priests, all bright with beautiful colors,
and stiff with gold. The English nuns' work was the most beautiful to
be seen anywhere.
There were schools in the abbeys, where boys were taught reading,
writing, singing, and Latin, to prepare them for being clergymen; but
not many others thought it needful to have anything to do with books.
Even the great men thought they could farm and feast, advise the king,
and consent to the laws, hunt or fight, quite as well without reading,
and they did not care for much besides; for, though they were
Christians, they were still rude, rough, ignorant men, who liked nothing
so well as a hunt or a feast, and slept away all the evening, especially
when they could get a harper to sing to them.
The English men used to wear a long dress like a carter's frock, and
their legs were wound round with strips of cloth by way of stockings.
Their houses were only one story, and had no chimneys--only a hole at
the top for the smoke to go out at; and no glass in the windows. The
only glass there was at all had been brought from Italy to put into York
Cathedral, and it was thought a great wonder. So the windows had
shutters to keep out the rain and wind, and the fire was in the middle of
the room. At dinner-time, about twelve o'clock, the lord and lady of the
house sat upon cross-legged stools, and their children and servants sat
on benches; and square bits of wood called trenchers, were put before
them for plates, while the servants carried round the meat on spits, and
everybody cut off a piece with his own knife and at it without a fork.
They drank out of cows' horns, if they had not silver cups. But though
they were so rough they were often good, brave people.

CHAPTER IV

.
THE NORTHMEN. A.D. 858--958.
There were many more of the light-haired, blue-eyed people on the
further side of the North Sea who worshiped Thor and Woden still, and
thought that their kindred in England had fallen from the old ways.
Besides, they liked to make their fortunes by getting what they could
from their neighbors. Nobody was thought brave or worthy, in Norway
or Denmark, who had not made some voyages in a "long keel," as a
ship was called, and fought bravely, and brought home gold cups and
chains or jewels to show where he had been. Their captains were called
Sea Kings, and some them went a great way, even