e his successor out of the kingly family; its members appeared as
witnesses whenever the king 'booked' land to any one; and it even, on
rare occasions, deposed a king who was unfit for his post. In the
days of a great warrior king like Eadward or Eadmund, members of the
Witenagemot were but instruments in his hands, but if a weak king came
upon the throne, each member usually took his own way and pursued his
own interest rather than that of the king and kingdom.

11. =The Land.=--The cultivated land was surrounded either by wood or
by pasture and open commons. Every cottager kept his hive of bees, to
produce the honey which was then used as we now use sugar, and drove
his swine into the woods to fatten on the acorns and beech nuts which
strewed the ground in the autumn. Sheep and cattle were fed on the
pastures, and horses were so abundant that when the Danish pirates
landed they found it easy to set every man on horseback. Yet neither
the Danes nor the English ever learnt to fight on horseback. They rode
to battle, but as soon as they approached the enemy they dismounted to
fight on foot.

12. =Domestic Life.=--The huts of the villagers clustered round the
house of the lord. His abode was built in a yard surrounded for
protection by a mound and fence, whilst very great men often
established themselves in burhs, surrounded by earthworks, either of
their own raising or the work of earlier times. Its principal feature
was the hall, in which the whole family with the guests and the thegns
of the lord met for their meals. The walls were covered with curtains
worked in patterns of bright colours. The fire was lighted on the
hearth, a broad stone in the middle, over which was a hole in the roof
through which the smoke of the hall escaped. The windows were narrow,
and were either unclosed holes in the wall, or covered with oiled
linen which would admit a certain amount of light.

[Illustration: Glass tumbler. (British Museum.)]

[Illustration: Drinking glass. (British Museum.)]

13. =Food and Drink.=--In a great house at meal-time boards were
brought forward and placed on tressels. Bread was to be had in plenty,
and salt butter. Meat too, in winter, was always salted, as turnips
and other roots upon which cattle are now fed in winter were wholly
unknown, and it was therefore necessary to kill large numbers of sheep
and oxen when the cold weather set in. There were dishes, but neither
plates nor forks. Each man took the me