Chapter III: Part 3

But outside there is a great noise of shouting and the trampling of horses and of men. Hrafn Ketilsson has arrived with his men, and welcome is being given him by Jarl Ulf and his wife, Helga Eiriksson. It is not yet time for the meal now being prepared, and Hrafn declares that he is not hungry one little bit; so sports are hastily arranged on the green in front of the hall. There shall be a great horse-fight; for two of Ulf’s karls have horses which have been thoroughly trained to fight, and neither of which has yet been beaten.

The horse-fight takes place accordingly. Each karl makes his horse rise on its hind legs and attack the other, biting it wherever it can. As the contest goes on, the horses get enraged and their masters incite them by blows on their hind quarters. Finally one of the horses gives in and runs away, leaving the other the victor.

Then there is a running contest. Hrafn the Viking has among his troop a man from Ireland, named Gilli, whom he wagers to beat any horse in speed. A dozen horses are immediately offered, and the best of them, a horse belonging to a karl named Hrolf, is chosen. Gilli will race Hrolf’s horse; and if the horse wins, its owner shall have a gold ring given him by Hrafn. For half a mile they race along, Gilli being all the while at the horse’s shoulder, and the result being therefore a dead heat.

‘But,’ says Hrolf, ‘you had hold of the strap of my saddle-girth, and my horse pulled you along.’ ‘Then,’ replies Gilli, ‘we will have it over again.’

This time Gilli starts a yard in front of the horse, and at the end of the half-mile he is still the same distance in front. ‘Did I this time take hold of your saddle-girth?’ asks Gilli. ‘No,’ is Hrolf’s answer, ‘but my horse had no chance. You were just in front of him all the way, and I was afraid of riding you down.’

‘Very well,’ says Gilli, ‘we will have the race over again.’

So for the third time they race, and this time the horse is given twenty yards start. But Gilli catches Hrolf up, passes him, stands still till the horse is again in front, then starts again, and finishes ten yards in front. There is tremendous cheering, and Jarl Ulf gives Gilli a gold ring of weight equal to that offered by his brother to the horse’s owner.

Next a game of ball. Sides are chosen, and a hard wooden ball and two wooden bats are brought forth. The bats are given to one man on each side. The ball is thrown up into the air, and one of the batsmen hits it with all his force in the direction of the other. The second batsman tries to hit it back and not let it pass him, but before he can hit it he is pulled down by the men of the other side. So the game goes on. It is by no means a gentle game, for the occasion is a special one and all the players are on their mettle. When ‘time’ is called and bruises and wounds are reckoned up, it is found that the players have sustained three broken arms, a broken thigh-bone, and the loss of one eye. Lesser injuries go uncounted.

* * * * *

By this time the feast is ready, and so are the men. If good appetites are any indication of good health, the uninjured men are all in a state of very vigorous health. Jarl Ulf Ketilsson leads the way to his high seat, and Hrafn the Viking is shown to the high seat opposite. Swords, shields, and axes are hung on nails driven into the walls above the side benches. By the side of Ulf sits his wife Helga. The scene is one of varied colour, the blue, red, green, scarlet, and purple kirtles of the freemen contrasting strongly with the white garments of the thralls who serve the food.

Huge joints of beef and pork are brought in from the kitchens, and there are numerous calls for the former; for there has been little or no fresh meat since the beginning of last November, and men’s stomachs have a way of getting tired of salted pig, when they have fed on it for five months without a break. Plates are of wood, fingers serve for forks, and each man cuts off with his knife-dagger the amount of meat and of bread that he feels himself capable of eating. Ale is served to the jarl and his family in bullock’s horns adorned with gold and silver bands, to the others in wooden drinking-cups. Half-way through the feast Helga leaves her seat, fills a horn with wine, and offers it to Hrafn. As the Viking drains it at a draught there is a great cheer, which takes a long time to die down.

So the meal goes on. There is little variety in the food, but there is plenty of it, and that is the important thing where hungry men are concerned. As they eat, all are talking. This karl is describing to another how he has just been ‘had’ by a fellow at Weighton, who sold him a thrall guaranteed sound in wind and limb. But the thrall cannot run twice round Jarl Ulf’s hall without getting the stitch. His new master is vehemently explaining that he intends to get his money back.

Another is telling how he has seen a karl’s wife and her bondwoman take the ordeal at Hundmansbyr. The bondwoman had accused her mistress of wrong-doing, and the mistress had challenged her bondwoman to go to the ordeal.

So the priests had got ready a bucket of boiling water, at the bottom of which were placed two sacred stones. In sight of all, the mistress had plunged in her hand and brought up one of the stones. And her arm showed no signs of a hurt. Then the bondwoman had attempted the same. But her arm had been frightfully scalded. Thus the innocent had been distinguished from the guilty, and the bondwoman had been taken to the nearest ditch and drowned.

Meanwhile Hrafn the Viking’s karls have been pouring into eager ears tales of their adventures among the snow and ice of the seas far away to the north. One has a walrus tooth to show, and others have the claws of a huge white beast that can walk on its hind legs and can squeeze a man’s body in its arms till every bone is broken. They have the skin of one of these fearsome creatures on board down at the river-shore, intended by their Viking chief as a present to his brother’s wife. A fine bed it will make, but it cost the lives of three men to obtain. Would their listeners hear wonders? There are plenty to tell. In the seas from which they have returned they sailed for four days without a night, while the sun went round and round in a great fiery ring.

While this talk is going on, a shame-faced fellow is trying to slink in unobserved at the men’s door. But he is greeted with cries of ‘Nithing!’[17] and receives a volley of beef bones that first bowls him over and then makes him depart more hurriedly than he had come in. Some of Hrafn’s men follow him, for he has been guilty of stealing from a comrade on one of the ships. His head will be shaven to-morrow, then dipped in tar and covered with eider down, so that he may remember for the future that honourable karls do not steal the belongings of their comrades.

Footnote 17:

This is the old Norse word for our ‘Villain!’

Tables are eventually cleared much more quickly than they were filled. Places are now changed. The jarl and his brother play chess, others play at dice. A wrestling-match is soon fixed up, in which the combatants are strapped together at the waist and each will try to throw the other.

Following this there is a tug-of-war across the fire. An ox-hide is brought in and an end seized by each of two men standing on opposite sides of the hearth stones. Each tries to pull the other into the fire. But they are fairly equally matched, and for some time neither succeeds. Then tempers rise. The shouts of the supporters of each urge them on, and one succeeds in pulling the other on to the fire. As he has drunk deeply of strong ale, he is not content with his victory, but throws the ox-hide over his fallen opponent and then jumps upon him to mark his defeat. When the defeated karl’s friends succeed in pulling him out of the fire, he is, naturally, somewhat scorched.

Now comes in a juggler. He can perform many tricks, and among them is that of keeping three daggers in motion, so that one is always in his hand and the two others in the air. Further, he offers to show his skill on the following day by stepping from oar to oar on the outside of a ship while it is being rowed. He will step thus from stem to stern and back again, and moreover will keep his three daggers moving all the time. The challenge is accepted and he shall have his choice of presents from Hrafn if he can succeed in doing what he says he will.

Challenges are in the air, it seems. Here is Bersi, one of Hrafn’s karls, challenging Egil, a karl of Ulf, because he finds that while he has been away from home Egil has married the maiden to whom he was betrothed. And Bersi is not at all pleased with the course of events, so he has challenged the other karl for his wife. To-morrow they will go to the _holmgang_,[18] and fight it out; and if Egil is not the victor, he will lose his wife and Bersi will gain one.

Footnote 18:

The _holmgang_ was a duel fought according to fixed rules on a piece
of ground specially marked out for the purpose. In earlier times it
was fought on a _holm_, or island, whence the name.

The excitement caused by Bersi’s challenge is dying down when further excitement arises from the entrance of a karl with news of a strange sight to be seen in the sky. It had been a dark, cloudy night, but suddenly the clouds broke up and there between two clouds appeared a star with a long light streaming from it like a tail of fire. It is there for all to see if they don’t believe him.

So a rush is made for the men’s door and the hall is left deserted. Outside there are groups of wondering men looking upwards at a bright ‘hairy star,’ and asking one another with bated breath what evil fortune to their land this marvellous sight portends.

X.
TWO FAMOUS BATTLES OF LONG AGO.

In 901 died Alfred, King of the West Saxons, and Edward, his son, succeeded him, to be succeeded in turn by his son Aethelstan in the year 925. King Alfred had, it will be remembered, agreed with Guthrum the Dane to divide England into two parts, one of which each of them should rule.

But Alfred’s son Edward enlarged his power so greatly that he was in 924 ‘chosen to father and lord by the Scots King and all the Scots people, by all the men of Northumbria—both English and Danes and Northmen—and by the King of the Strathclyde Welsh.’ To Aethelstan was accorded still greater honour, for it fell to his lot to be the first king crowned as ‘King of England.’

Now in the reign of Aethelstan there took place the greatest battle that had yet been fought between the English and the Northmen. The compact of Edward’s reign was short-lived; for in 937 the Danes of Northumbria entered into a league with Constantine, King of the Scots, and Owen, King of the Strathclyde Britons, against the King of England. Their league was joined also by two Norse Kings from Ireland, named Anlaf, one of whom had married the daughter of Constantine. To meet these disturbers of the peace Aethelstan marched north, and at a place known as BRUNANBURH the famous battle between them was fought.

So great was the victory here won by King Aethelstan that the chronicler who records it bursts into song when he tells how

Aethelstan the King, the lord of Earls,
The bestower of gifts, and his brother also,
Edmund the Prince, life-long honour
Won in combat, with the edges of swords,
At Brunanburh.

All day, from the rising of ‘God’s candle’ until its setting, went
on the fight; so that the battlefield streamed with blood, and many
a Northman lay on the ground struck down with spears. Weary and
sated with the fight fled the Scots, pursued by the West Saxons with
swords new-sharpened on the grindstone. To none of those who, doomed
to death, accompanied Anlaf over the sea did the Mercians refuse the
hard hand-play. On the battlefield there lay five young kings put to
sleep by the sword, with seven of Anlaf’s jarls and an uncounted
host of shipmen and of Scots. Then fled the Northmen to the shore of
the yellow flood; and so also fled Constantine, who had left behind
his son, borne down with many wounds.

Thus departed in their nailed ships those of the Northmen whom the
spears had left alive, and the King and his brother sought again the
West Saxon land, exulting in victory. Behind them they left the
dusky-coated kite, the swart, horny-beaked raven, the white-tailed
eagle, and the grey wolf—all eager to feast upon the corpses of the
slain.

Such is the picture of the battlefield painted in words by the Saxon chronicler. And when we read it we wonder to ourselves: ‘Where was Brunanburh, at which this great battle was fought?’ But the question is one to which no certain answer can be given. The name ‘Brunanburh’ is lost, and the nearest approach to it among the village names of to-day is Bromborough, on the Cheshire shore of the Mersey.

This may possibly be the site of the battle; but it is curious that two writers of old chronicles, both living within two hundred years of the actual date of the battle, agree in saying that the Norse fleet invaded England by the Humber. So also said the Bridlington monk, Peter of Langtoft, who certainly ought to know; and a Lincolnshire hermit, who translated Peter’s Norman-French into English, is very definite about it:—

At Brunesburgh on Humber thei gan tham assaile,
Fro morn unto even lasted that bataile.

If Brunanburh did lie ‘on Humber,’ on which side of the river was it? Some claim that the battle took place at Kirkburn near Driffield, and others put it at Little Weighton, nearer the river.

But one thing is certain. King Aethelstan and his men must have marched north by either the Watling Street or the Ermin Street. If the Norse fleet did come into the Humber, he must have come north by the Ermin Street, and his army could hardly have crossed the river under the circumstances. However much, therefore, we should like to assert that the greatest battle of olden times was fought in the East Riding of Yorkshire, it would be wiser not to do so, but to let our somewhat despised sister-county of Lincolnshire have the benefit of the doubt.

A glance at the map given at the end of this book will show about four miles from the Humber, on the road from Barton to Caistor, a village named Burnham. At this village there are still to be seen the remains of an ancient entrenchment enclosing a space of about 64 acres. One of the half-dozen ancient spellings of the name of the manor of Burnham is _Brunan_, and the suffix _burh_ means ‘a fortified place.’

Further, men’s bones, Saxon coins, and a Saxon sword have been ploughed up on the adjoining fields; while just south of Burnham there was in the eighteenth century a road known as ‘Bloody Gate’ and just north of it there is still a ‘Dead Man Dale.’ So we shall have to concede that the southern bank of the ‘yellow flood’ has some considerable claims to the possession of the site of the famous battle of Brunanburh.

* * * * *

Let us pass on to the middle of the next century. For twenty-eight years England had been ruled by Danish Kings, when, in 1042, the Saxons came into their own again and the third Saxon Edward began to rule in London.

But Danish jarls still ruled at JORVIK[19] and Jarl Siward, the eighth of these, was the greatest of them all. In 1054 he took a large army and a fleet into Scotland, where he fought against the Scots in Aberdeenshire, and slew their king Macbeth. Siward’s son Osbern was also slain in the battle, and when news of his son’s death was brought to the old jarl, he rejoiced that his son had died a worthy death. In Shakespeare’s play _Macbeth_ it is put thus. Ross, a Scots nobleman, has just broken to Siward the news that his son ‘has paid a soldier’s debt’:—

_Siward._ Had he his hurts before?

_Ross._ Ay, on the front.

_Siward._ Why then, God’s soldier be he!
Had I as many sons as I have hairs,
I would not wish them to a fairer death.

Footnote 19:

Pronounced _Yór-wik_.

One year later Siward’s own death took place, and these were his words when he felt that he was fated to die not on the battlefield but in his bed:—

‘I feel shame not to have fallen in one of the many battles that I
have fought, and to have been preserved to die like a cow. Close me
in my mail of proof, gird my sword on me, fit the helmet on my head,
and put a shield in my left hand and a gilded axe in my right, that
I may die like a soldier.’

So died the lord of the manors of Barmston and Holmpton, and the greatest of the Anglo-Danes of Northumbria. After his death his earldom was given by King Edward to Tostig, the son of Earl Godwin the West Saxon; and if one-half of the stories told about him by the old chroniclers are true, the Northumbrians must have felt the change acutely.

One of Tostig’s little jokes was played at his half-brother Harold’s hall at Hereford. The two had quarrelled at Windsor in the presence of King Edward, and Tostig, expelled from the Court in disgrace, had ridden to Hereford, where he found his brother’s servants busily making ready for a visit from the King. To vent his anger on his brother he killed the servants—so the story goes—chopped up their bodies, threw the legs, arms and trunks into hogsheads of wine and barrels of cider, and gaily sent word to the King that ‘he had provided against his coming plenty of salt meat.’

Small wonder that the proud Anglo-Danes of the north refused to submit for long to such a one of the despised West Saxons. In 1064 they rebelled against their unpopular jarl, outlawed him, slew his servants, both English and Danes, seized all his weapons and his gold and silver in Jorvik, and sent for Morcar, the son of Jarl Aelfgar, to be their jarl. Tostig fled to Baldwin, Count of Flanders, vowing vengeance on his half-brother Harold, who had advised the King to fall in with the wishes of the Northumbrians.

Two years passed away. Edward had died and Harold, Tostig’s half-brother, had been chosen by the Witena-gemōt to be King of England. Now was the time for Tostig to have his revenge. So he enlisted the aid of another Harold—Harold Hardrada, King of Norway, a warrior huge of stature and dauntless in courage, who had, when an exile from Norway, won fame in Sicily, Greece and Africa, and who had formed at Constantinople a bodyguard to the Emperor, consisting of five hundred Northmen. Together they would conquer England, and Harold of Norway should be its king, as Cnut, King of Denmark, had been before him.

With a fleet of 240 warships Harold of Norway set out for the conquest of England, his royal banner, the ‘Land-Waster’ proudly flying aloft. But omens of misfortune to come were not wanting; for he and his men had bad dreams at night—dreams of the English host marching down to the sea-shore led by a wolf on whose back was seated a ‘witch-wife.’ Moreover, the witch-wife fed the wolf with the corpses of Northmen; and as fast as one was eaten, another was ready.

To a superstitious people, such as the Northmen were, these omens must have seemed to bode terrible ill-luck. But Harold had never yet turned back from an expedition, and he did not mean to start turning back now. So over the sea to the Shetlands and the Orkneys his fleet sailed, then down the eastern coast of the mainland till they reached the mouth of the Tyne. Here they were joined by Tostig, and soon afterwards the ‘Land-Waster’ was unfurled in the North Riding of Yorkshire.

So far Harold of Norway had met with no resistance. But the fisherfolk of Scarborough did withstand the attack made upon their little town; whereupon, so the old Norse account of Harold’s invasion tells us—

He went up on a high rock near the town, and set fire to a large
pile which he made. They took large poles and lifted it up and threw
it down into the town; soon one house after the other began to burn,
and the whole town was destroyed. The Northmen slew many people, and
took all the property they could get.

Then southward along the coast the fleet sailed, until they reached a place called by the Northmen _Hellornes_, which was probably our Hornsea. Here a pitched battle was fought; but the men of the East Riding were no match for the invaders, and Harold and his Northmen got the victory.

Next the mouth of the Humber was reached. Sailing up this and up the Ouse they cast anchor at Riccall. Here one-third of the Norwegian host was left to guard the ships while the remainder set out on a march to Jorvik.

BATTLE OF STAMFORD BRIDGE
SEPᵀ. 25ᵀᴴ 1066.
]

But at Fulford, two miles from the city, they were met by the forces of Morcar and his brother, Edwin of Mercia. The ensuing battle was fought on a strip of land lying between the river Ouse and a ditch which was ‘deep, broad, and full of water.’ As at _Hellornes_, victory lay with the North men; and so great was the slaughter of the Northumbrian and the Mercians that the Northmen walked across the ditch ‘with dry feet on human bodies.’ Four days later—September 24th—Jorvik surrendered, and the Northmen moved their forces along the Roman road leading to the Derwent, and took up their quarters at STANFORDBRYCG.

Meanwhile news of the invasion had reached Harold of England. Gathering together what forces he could muster, Harold hurried north. Up the Ermin Street, and round by Doncaster, Castleford and Tadcaster, he marched. On the day on which York surrendered he was at Tadcaster; the next day he had passed through York and had surprised the Northmen at Stamford Bridge.

* * * * *

The battle that took place between the two Harolds was preceded by negotiations. To his half-brother, Tostig, Harold of England sent envoys offering peace:—

‘Harold thy brother sends thee greeting, and the message that thou
shalt have peace and get Northumberland; and rather than that thou
shouldst not join him he will give thee one-third of all his realm.’

‘Then something else is offered than the enmity and disgrace of last
winter,’ answered Tostig. ‘If this had been offered then, many who
are now dead would be alive, and the realm of the King of England
would stand more firm. Now if I accept these terms, what will my
brother Harold offer to the King of Norway for his trouble?’

‘He has said what he will grant King Harold of Norway. It is a space
of seven feet, and it is so long because he is taller than most
other men.’

Tostig’s reply to his half-brother’s terms was a noble one:

‘Go and tell my brother, King Harold, to prepare for battle. It
shall not be said among Northmen that Jarl Tostig left Harold, King
of Norway, and went into the host of his foes when he made warfare
in England. Rather will we all resolve to die with honour, or win
England with a victory.’

After the failure of these negotiations, both sides made ready for battle. And then happened another omen boding ill-luck for the Northmen; for their King, who was riding a black horse with a white mark on its forehead, was thrown to the ground by the stumbling of his horse.

In Roman times the passage across the Derwent at the spot where the battle took place had been made by a stone-paved ford; but this had, in later times, been replaced by a wooden bridge, whence the name it then bore—‘Stone-ford-bridge.’

At the outbreak of hostilities some of the Northmen were on the right bank of the river, and were gradually forced back over the bridge by Harold of England’s men. The last of them to cross was a second Horatius, for he kept the bridge against the whole English army. Wielding his huge battle-axe, he had slain no fewer than forty of his enemies before he was himself slain by a soldier in Harold’s army, who floated down the river in a tub and stabbed him with his spear through one of the spaces between the wooden planks of the bridge.

The old Norse account of the battle reads very much like the accounts of the battle of Hastings, which was so shortly to follow. Harold of Norway ordered his men to take up their positions with shield against shield on all sides. The outer rank were to press the spikes of their spears into the ground and to point the heads against the breasts of the attacking horsemen; the next rank were to point their spear heads against the breasts of the horses. If all of them stood firm and took care not to break away, Harold of England’s onset might be completely checked.

But what the English would be unable to do in the battle to come, the Northmen were unable to do at Stamford Bridge. They broke their lines in pursuit of the English, and the battle was lost. Harold Hardrada rushed hither and thither dealing such blows with his battle-axe that ‘neither helmet nor coat of mail could withstand him; he went through the ranks of his foes as if he were walking through air, for all who came near him fell back.’ But to no purpose, and an arrow which struck him in the throat brought him his death-wound. Soon afterwards fell Jarl Tostig, and though the Northmen who had been left in charge of the fleet at Riccall hurried to the battle, they were not able to prevent the ‘Land-Waster’ from falling into the hands of Harold of England.

When darkness had set in, the victorious army was on its way back to York. Thither came Olaf, the son of Harold Hardrada, and the Jarls of Orkney to swear peace and give hostages. And thither also came at full speed a messenger who brought news that William of Normandy had landed with his army on the southern coast of Harold’s kingdom.

XI.
HOW THE NORMANS CAME TO
YORKSHIRE.

The tale of the Northmen’s invasions of England could be matched by the tale of their invasions of the northern coasts of France. Early in the tenth century a Viking known among his people as Rolf the Ganger[20] made a descent upon Rouen and entered into a treaty with Charles the Simple, King of Paris, by which a large tract of land around Rouen was ceded to him and his followers, in return for their aid against Charles’ enemies.

Footnote 20:

To ‘gang’ meant to walk, and Rolf the Ganger was given this nickname
because, being extra tall, he found it more comfortable to walk when
on land than to ride one of the small ponies of his native country.

Such was the beginning of the province of Northern France known in later history as Normandy. After forty years of sea-roving Rolf settled down to rule his new and fertile dukedom; and as with the Northmen in England, so with him and his men in France. The Northmen married wives of their new country, and their children grew up to speak the mother’s tongue rather than the father’s. Thus the descendants of heathen Northmen became Christian Frenchmen.

To Rolf the Ganger’s dukedom there succeeded in turn William Longsword, Richard the Fearless, Richard the Good, Robert the Devil, and William, whom his enemies called William the Bastard—‘the Tanner’s Grandson’—but who was destined to become famous as William the Conqueror of England.

How Harold of England, after hearing of William’s landing on the coast of Sussex, marched southward to his death at Hastings, and how William of Normandy was crowned King in his stead at Westminster on Christmas Day in the same year, does not concern us here. But what we are concerned with is the course of events that led to William’s coming north to the city of York.

* * * * *

The events of the last three months of the fateful year 1066 by no means proved that England was a conquered country. True, the Witena-gemōt had accepted William as their king; but that was only because there was no one else fit to lead the Saxon forces, and because Anglo-Danes and Saxons mistrusted each other. Edwin of Mercia and his brother Morcar submitted to William and were allowed to retain their earldoms. Oswulf, who now ruled Northumbria, did not submit, so William appointed a certain Copsige[21] to supplant him. Copsige came north to dispossess Oswulf, and was immediately slain.

Footnote 21:

Pronounced _Kóp-si-ga_.

In 1067, during William’s absence in Normandy, rebellions broke out in the south and west of England; and when the King returned, he began the conquest of the western portions of the country. Exeter submitted after a siege lasting eighteen days, but no sooner had the western rebellion been subdued than Mercia and Northumbria were in revolt.

Next year the King marched north and reached York, the inhabitants of which rather unexpectedly surrendered their city; and on William’s departure he left William de Malet, one of his Norman knights, in charge of it. But after a few months the men of York again rose in revolt and Malet was hard pressed, although he succeeded in holding out till relieved by the King.

All over England these rebellions were going on. But none was more than partly successful; and for the reason that ‘Englishmen could not agree to act together. One district rose at one time and one at another. Some were for Sweyn, some for Edgar, some for the sons of Harold; Edwin and Morcar were for themselves. So there was no common action against William, and the land was lost bit by bit.’

In the autumn of 1069 it seemed as if there really was to be made in the North of England a united effort to throw off the yoke of the Frenchmen. Sweyn Ulfsson, King of Denmark, sent a large fleet of ships into the Humber under the command of Jarl Asbiorn, his brother. Outside the walls of York the Danish shipmen were joined by Edgar the Aetheling, by Gospatric, the dispossessed successor of Oswulf, and by Jarl Waltheof, Siward’s son.

Then began a second siege of York. The French garrison, under William de Malet and Gilbert of Gaunt, retreated to the two wooden castles which William had caused to be erected, and set fire to the portions of the city surrounding these in order to give themselves greater security. For two days the flames raged, destroying many houses and the Minster of St. Peter. Meanwhile the allies entered the city. Then the Normans attempted a sally from their castles, but unsuccessfully. Their forces were cut to pieces, and William de Malet and Gilbert of Gaunt were taken prisoners.

So far all had gone well with the armies of Jarl Asbiorn and Jarl Waltheof, and had they only held the city when taken and awaited the arrival of King William, they would have had every chance of repeating their success. But a fatal dissension once more broke out, and Asbiorn’s men went back to their ships and sailed first to North Lincolnshire and then to Holderness, while Waltheof withdrew his men to the marshes between the Trent and the Ouse.

For the third time King William marched north to York; and this time he determined on vengeance. ‘Par splendeur Dex,’ he swore that he would utterly root out the Northumbrian people; and in fulfilment of his oath he carried out that ‘Wasting of the North’ which changed the fertile Plain of York into a desolate waste. For sixty miles north of York every town and village was sacked and burnt, every inhabitant slain or driven out, all farming-stock and farming-implements destroyed, and nothing spared save only what belonged to St. John of Beverley. Then, having wreaked his revenge, William caused himself to be re-crowned at York, and there he kept his Christmas feast.

* * * * *

The system followed out by William the Conqueror after his subjugation of a district was everywhere the same. Lands were taken from their English owners and given to the King’s Norman followers, while strong castles were built to afford protection to the Norman lords.

Thus Drogo de Bevrere, a Flemish knight who had married the King’s niece, was rewarded for his services with the _Isle of Holderness_, and built himself a castle at Skipsea, where the earthworks of a long-dead chieftain were still standing. No remains of Drogo’s castle now exist, nor have we in the East Riding the remains of any Norman castle such as those existing at Knaresborough, Helmsley, Pontefract, Scarborough, York, and elsewhere in the other Ridings of Yorkshire.

With this parcelling out of the land among William’s Norman followers there became fixed two principles on which the whole ‘Feudal System’ was based:—

(1) All land belonged to the King by virtue of his conquest of the
country;

(2) All land was held in return for services rendered.

Under the Feudal System the King would make a large grant of land to one of his followers, who thus became a _tenant-in-chief_ of the King. This tenant-in-chief would sub-divide his land among his particular followers, each of whom might sub-divide his portion. Thus Drogo de Bevrere was a tenant-in-chief, and one of his tenants was a certain Lanbert, who held lands at Sutton ‘two miles long and a half a mile broad.’ Drogo, Earl of Holderness, was a vassal of the King; Lanbert, a vassal of Drogo.

For these lands no regular rent was paid. Instead, there was the obligation of military service, each holder of land being bound to serve the King in war for forty days every year as his services were required. This service had to be performed at the vassal’s own cost, and with proper equipment. By this means the King could always be assured of an army equipped at short notice, and at no cost to himself.

In addition to this military service there were money payments to be made at certain irregular intervals. An _aid_ was due from a vassal to his overlord on each of three occasions:—

(1) The knighting of the lord’s eldest son; (2) The marrying of
his eldest daughter; (3) The ransoming of his own person.

Of these occasions the first and second would, as a rule, occur only once in a vassal’s life-time, while the third might not occur at all. For all tenants-in-chief it did occur when King Richard I. had to be ransomed from his enemy, the Emperor Henry VI., into whose hands he had happened to fall. The monks of the Abbey of Meaux, being tenants-in-chief, then found themselves called upon to pay, as their share of the total ransom of 150,000 marks, the sum of 300 marks; to raise which they were compelled to sell their stock of wool and their church plate.

On the death of a vassal and the succession of his heir, another money payment became due to the vassal’s overlord. This was known as a _relief_. Again, if on a vassal’s death his heir or heiress had not yet come of age, his estate passed for the time being into the hands of the overlord, who managed it and took the profits. This right was known as _wardship_, and it might be rather dangerous for the ward.

Thus, in the early years of the thirteenth century, Thomas, the parson of Routh, held certain lands under William de Stuteville, the lord of the manor. Thomas died, and the lord of the manor claimed wardship over his young daughter Agnes. But before Agnes had come of age, William de Stuteville died also, and the wardship passed into the hands of his widow Cecilia. Unfortunately for Agnes her new guardian was not overburdened with principles of honour; for, having two daughters of her own—who were, we may suppose, not sufficiently good-looking to find husbands readily—she offered with them as dowry the lands of Agnes. Thus two lucky bridegrooms, Stephen of Pokthorpe and Henry of Hutton, were enriched by Dame Cecilia, each with one-half of the lands of Agnes, the parson’s daughter. And poor Agnes never succeeded in getting her lands back, though she tried her best.

* * * * *

The various money payments due to a vassal’s overlord depended as to their amount on the value of the estate held. Therefore, in order that the King should know exactly what sums were due to him from his tenants-in-chief, he caused a great survey of England to be made. The vastness of the undertaking may be gauged by the fact that each estate in all the counties of England except Northumberland, Cumberland, Westmorland, Durham, and Monmouth—which last was then reckoned as a Welsh county—was to be reported on by the King’s officers, who were instructed to make enquiries as to its value and to record the result of their enquiries.

These officers were to set down the area of each estate, great or small, the area of that part of it which was ploughed land, the area of that part which was grass land, the name of its holder, the name of its holder in the last year of the reign of King Edward the Confessor, the amount of stock and of farming-implements on it, the number and condition of the people living on it, its annual value in the time of King Edward, and its annual value at the time of the investigation—the last two items being the most important of all.

In this manner was constructed what is known as THE DOMESDAY BOOK—the book by which a judgment could be made as to the amount of the money payments due to the King from each of his tenants-in-chief. The work was planned at the Witena-gemōt held at Christmas 1085, and was carried out during the following year.

* * * * *

The Domesday Book is one of the most valuable historical records possessed by the nation, and much information as to the England of 1086 has been gleaned from its parchment leaves. The entries in it are of course in Latin, and the following translation of the portion dealing with the manor of Patrington will serve as an example of the facts recorded in it.

LANDS IN HOLDERNESS.

LAND OF THE ARCHBISHOP OF YORK.

In _Patrictone_ with the four berewicks _Wistede_, _Halsam_, _Torp_,
_Toruelestorp_, there are thirty-five carucates and a half, and two
oxgangs and two parts of an oxgang to be taxed. There is land to
thirty-five ploughs.

This manor was, and is, belonging to the Archbishop of York.

There are now in the demesne two ploughs and eight villeins and
sixty-three bordars, having thirteen ploughs. There are six sokemen
with two villeins and twenty bordars, having five ploughs and a
half. There are thirty-two acres of meadow there. Two knights have
six carucates of the land of this manor; and two clerks two
carucates and three oxgangs, and the third part of an oxgang. They
have there four sokemen and five villeins, and three bordars with
five ploughs.

In the time of King Edward the value was thirty pounds, at present
ten pounds and five shillings.

Arable land three miles long and one mile and a half broad.

All this reads very strangely to us living in the twentieth century. Put into present-day language it would read something like the following:—

The manor of Patrington, with the neighbouring hamlets of Winestead, Halsham, [Welwick] Thorp, and Tharlesthorp,[22] measures 4300 acres,[23] and its thorough cultivation would provide work for thirty-five teams of oxen, reckoning eight oxen to each team.

Footnote 22:

Tharlesthorp is one of the ‘lost towns of the Humber.’ Its probable
site is marked on the map on the opposite page.

Footnote 23:

A ‘carucate’ was the amount of land that a team of eight oxen could
plough each year. It varied in size according to the nature of the
soil, but may be roughly taken as being equal to 120 acres. An oxgang
was one-eighth of this.

It belonged to the Archbishop of York in the reign of King Edward the Confessor, and is still held by him.

Attached to the lands of the manor-house there are eight serfs who have among them sixteen oxen, and sixty-three cottagers, who own 104 oxen. There are also six small farmers who have under them two serfs and twenty cottagers, and work forty-four oxen. Parts of the manor lands are held by two knights and two parsons. The former are tenants of 720 acres, the latter of 290 acres. On their lands there are four small farmers, three cottagers and five serfs, possessing among them forty oxen.

HOLDERNESS IN THE DOMESDAY BOOK
]

The land on which wheat, barley and oats are grown measures three miles by one and a half miles, and there are thirty-two acres of meadow land.

In King Edward’s time the annual value of the manor was £600, but is now only £205.[24]

Footnote 24:

The value of money was in 1086 approximately twenty times its value at
the present day. The Domesday ‘pound’ meant, not a coin, but a pound
weight of silver.

The value of the manor of Patrington was, in 1086, only just over one-third of its value twenty-five years earlier. This is one example of the results of the ‘Wasting of the North.’ Others are to be found in the records given of the manors of Burstwick and Kilnsea, each of which had been worth fifty-six pounds, but was then worth only ten pounds. The manors of Withernsea and Hornsea had similarly decreased in value from fifty-six pounds to six pounds. All these belonged in 1086 to Drogo de Bevrere, Lord of Holderness. The manor of Beeford had experienced a still greater decrease in value; for it had sunk from twenty pounds to ten shillings. Others again, such as estates at Barmston, Drypool, Routh, and Sigglesthorne are recorded by the ominous word ‘waste.’ Such entries tell a very sure tale of the effects of King William’s vengeance.

On the map on page 93 are shown most of the manors and a few of the hamlets recorded in that part of the Domesday Book which deals with the Holderness division of Yorkshire. In many cases the spelling is very quaint; but most of the names are recognisable if we remember that U and V are different forms of the same letter, and that our letter W was then what, according to its name, it ought still to be. We must remember also that the men who took down the records were Frenchmen, who found it difficult in many cases to pronounce the names they heard the English witnesses use, and who had to spell these names as best they could according to their sound.

* * * * *

For more than nine hundred years the Domesday Survey remained the only survey made of English lands as a whole, and not till 1910 was an attempt made to compile the second Domesday Book. In that year commissioners started on the same task as was performed by the King’s officers in the year 1086; and the task has been undertaken for the same purpose—to enable the King’s taxes to be gathered in correctly.

XII.
HOW OUR ANCIENT PARISH CHURCHES
WERE BUILT.

In these days of bicycles most of us have experienced the pleasure of seeing, over the tree-tops in the distance, the spire or the square-capped tower of one of our village churches. For us on that occasion, perhaps, it marked the goal of a long journey, and we therefore hailed it gladly. Then probably we thought no more about it.

Yet that village church was worth a few minutes of our thoughts. To one who knows how to see it was worth walking round, and worth also looking into. For it had a tale to tell—a tale that stretches back into the centuries long past, a tale of the joys and sorrows of the people whose places we now fill, a tale which ought to make us realise that we of the twentieth century are not the only clever people who have lived in the East Riding of Yorkshire.

_Photo by_] [_C.W. Mason_

A Norman Font in Kirkburn Church.

]

Let us learn how to read the tale aright. In the first place we must know the names of the different parts of a church. If it is small, it will be simply a rectangular building, running east and west, and divided by an open arch or by a woodwork screen into two parts, a _nave_ and a _chancel_. The former is, on service days, occupied by the congregation of worshippers, the latter by the clergy and the choir. At the east end of the chancel is the _altar_ or _communion-table_, at the east end of the nave are the _lectern_ and _pulpit_, at the west end of the nave is the _font_.

If the church boasts a _tower_, this will be at the west end, where also will probably be the main entrance door. This may, however, be on the south of the nave near the west end. On the south of the chancel may be another smaller door, once the _priests’ door_; and by it in the wall may be the _sedilia_, or priests’ seats, three in number. Close to these may be the _piscina_, or drain, at which the holy vessels were once washed; and in the wall on the opposite side may be the _aumbry_, or cupboard, in which the holy vessels once stood.

But such small churches are not common. Generally the nave has along each side what is called an _aisle_, in which case its central roof is supported on a double row of pillars. Possibly the chancel also has aisles. The walls above the lines of pillars may be pierced with windows, which thus look out above the roofs of the aisles. These windows are known as _clerestory_ windows.

_Photo by_] [_C. W. Mason_

A Piscina in Patrington Church

]

In cathedrals and very large churches there is a story which runs along each side of the nave and chancel, between the capitals of the pillars and the clerestory. This is called the _triforium_. Beverley Minster has a triforium, but there is no passage round it, and it is really a blind story. A portion of it can be seen in the photograph of the Percy Tomb on page 230. Bridlington Priory Church has a triforium on the north side only.

In churches of large size the building is not simply a rectangular one with or without aisles, but is formed of two rectangular buildings crossing each other at right angles. The nave and chancel have added to them a _north transept_ and a _south transept_, and above the crossing-place rises a _central tower_ on four huge _piers_.

These transepts, as well as the nave and chancel, may have aisles. But this is customary only in cathedrals. Holy Trinity Church, Hull, the third largest church in Britain,[25] has aisles only to the nave and chancel; Patrington Church—the ‘Queen of Holderness’—has aisles to the nave and to each transept; and Hedon Church—the ‘King of Holderness’—now has aisles only to its nave, though its transepts formerly had an aisle on the east.

Footnote 25:

The following are the _internal areas_ of the three largest churches
in Britain:—

St. Nicholas’, Great Yarmouth 25,023 sq. ft.
St. Michael’s, Coventry 24,015 "
Holy Trinity, Hull 21,756 "

* * * * *

Many were the difficulties that the builders of our ancient churches had to overcome. In the East Riding one difficulty was the obtaining of suitable building-material. Stone blocks were costly, for these had to be brought by water from the quarries of the West Riding. So usually the builders had to make the best use they could of the materials they obtained locally—boulders from the cliffs of the sea-shore, blocks of chalk from the Wolds, or clay bricks from the low-lying bank of the Humber.[26]

Footnote 26:

The brickwork of the chancel and transepts of Holy Trinity, Hull, is
probably the ‘earliest existing example of mediæval brickwork in
England.’ These portions of the church were built during the first
quarter of the fourteenth century.

Another difficulty was sometimes encountered in obtaining suitable foundations. The clay soil on which the church of Holy Trinity, Hull, is built was not of sufficient depth to afford foundations for the heavy central tower which it was intended to build.

Twentieth-century builders would drive piles down into the clay to make a firm foundation; the fourteenth-century builders solved the problem by constructing four huge rafts of trimmed oak trunks, each consisting of two rows of trunks crossing at right angles. On these rafts they raised the piers for their tower; and when, in 1906, it became necessary to take out the tree-trunks and replace them with steel girders and cement, many of the trunks were found to be as sound as on the day that they were placed in position six hundred years ago.

* * * * *

_Photo by_] [_J. Ball_

Part of the Foundations of the Tower of Holy Trinity Church, Hull.

]

The greatest charm of our ancient churches lies in the fact that, except in a very few instances, a church is not built in the same style throughout. It is quite evident, if we have a seeing eye, that additions and alterations have been made at different times. The nave and the chancel were plainly not designed by the same architect; the north side of the church differs from the south; here has been added a new door, there a new window; the roof has been taken off, the worn ends of the rafters sawn away, and the rafters used again, so that the roof has to be of less slope than it was before.

All these are the signs of life and growth. If we wish, we can read by them how our forefathers prospered in their worldly business, and how they gave thanks to God for their prosperity; or how the coming of the Plague brought them poverty and distress, and perhaps put a stop to their building operations, which were not completed till many years afterwards, and then in a style quite different from that in which they had been begun.

Often these alterations and rebuildings were put on record, and some of the records remain to our day. Thus John Skinner, of Westgate, Hedon, by his will made in 1428, left the sum of forty shillings towards the building of the new tower of St. Augustine’s Church. On the south face of the tower of Aughton Church is an inscription which is now illegible, but which once told in the Anglo-French language that Christopher Aske, the second son of Sir Robert Aske, rebuilt the tower in 1536.

_Photo by_] [_C.W. Mason_

The ‘Beverley Imp’—St. Mary’s Church, Beverley.

]

Cut into the stone of the same tower is in two places the likeness of an _aske_ or newt, a punning allusion to the name of the builder. In the same way, the tower of Hemingbrough Church is ornamented with a row of ‘dolly-tubs’ or ‘weshing-tuns’—an allusion to the name of Prior Wessington, in whose period of rule the tower was rebuilt.