self and his household. Numerous other
rooms with lean-to roofs were joined on to the hall, and a tower for
purposes of defence in case of an attack. Stables and barns were
scattered about outside the house, and with the cattle and horses lived
the grooms and herdsmen, while villeins and _cottiers_ dwelt in the
humble, low, shedlike buildings, which clustered round the Saxon thane's
dwelling-place. An illustration of such a house appears in an ancient
illumination preserved in the Harleian MSS., No. 603. The lord and lady
of the house are represented as engaged in almsgiving; the lady is thus
earning her true title, that of "loaf-giver," from which her name "lady"
is derived.

[Illustration: HOUSE OF SAXON THANE]

The interior of the hall was the common living-room for both men and
women, who slept on the reed-strewn floor, the ladies' sleeping-place
being separated from the men's by the arras. The walls were hung with
tapestry, woven by the skilled fingers of the ladies of the household. A
peat or log fire burned in the centre of the hall, and the smoke hid the
ceiling and finally found its way out through a hole in the roof. Arms
and armour hung on the walls, and the seats consisted of benches called
"mead-settles," arranged along the sides of the hall, where the Saxon
chiefs sat drinking their favourite beverage, mead, or sweetened beer,
out of the horns presented to them by the waiting damsels. When the hour
for dinner approached, rude tables were laid on trestles, and forthwith
groaned beneath the weight of joints of meat and fat capons which the
Saxon loved dearly. The door of the hall was usually open, and thither
came the bards and gleemen, who used to delight the company with their
songs and stories of the gallant deeds of their ancestors, the weird
legends of their gods Woden and Thor, their Viking lays and Norse sagas,
and the acrobats and dancers astonished them with their strange
postures.

Next to the thane ranked the _geburs_, who held land granted to them by
the thane for their own use, sometimes as much as one hundred and twenty
acres, and were required to work for the lord on the home farm two or
three days a week, or pay rent for their holdings. This payment
consisted of the produce of the land. They were also obliged to provide
one or more oxen for the manorial plough team, which consisted of eight
oxen.

There was also a strong independent body of men called _socmen_, who
were none other than o