, Spain, Italy, and
even Africa. When this was the case, they were always accompanied by
large numbers of female slaves from these countries. Then, too, the
greater part of the British women were reduced to slavery by the
new masters of the country, and none of these were treated with the
consideration for their sex that was accorded the German women. The
repute of the women of the Anglo-Saxons remained unimpaired, excepting
as to particular classes and particular times; the women not of
Anglo-Saxon origin were, perforce, the chief offenders against
morality.

The era of the Danish invasion was a time of almost unbridled license.
Female character could not withstand the tide of immorality that came
in with the new wave of heathen invaders. The women whom the Vikings
brought with them were captives of the lowest grade, ravished from
their homes for the pleasure of their captors on their long sea
voyage. On their arrival they were made slaves of the camp, following
the army wearily in its marches from place to place. This miserable
degradation was forced upon many pure English women by the brutal
lords of the sea. When the invaders settled down to live at peace
with the English, and, by amalgamation, to be absorbed into the larger
race, it was centuries before the country recovered from the blight
of immorality that had fallen upon it; but, with its rare powers of
recuperation, Anglo-Saxon virtue reasserted its principles and caused
its conquerors to subscribe to them.

Before considering the dress, the amusements, and the employments
of the women, a description of the Anglo-Saxon house will serve to
illustrate much of the common life of the women. This was not evolved
from that of the Briton; it marks a departure in the architecture of
the country. Neither the rude houses of the poorer of the Britons nor
the villa of the Roman provincial appealed to the forest nomads, who
were accustomed to light, tentlike structures that could be readily
taken down and erected elsewhere as their changing habitat directed.

The Anglo-Saxon town of the earliest period was only a cluster of
wooden houses--a family centre constantly added to by the increase and
dividing of the household, until the settlement assumed something of
the proportions of a town. Stone was not in favor with the Teutons for
their dwellings. They saw in it the relic of the demigods of a remote
past; stone masonry seemed supernatural, and they called it "the
giant