worked, as appears from the cinder
heaps found at Maresfield and several places in that county, intermixed
with Roman pottery, coins, and other remains. In a bed of scoriae
several acres in extent, at Old Land Farm in Maresfield, the Rev. Mr.
Turner found the remains of Roman pottery so numerous that scarcely a
barrow-load of cinders was removed that did not contain several
fragments, together with coins of the reigns of Nero, Vespasian, and
Dioclesian.[15] In the turbulent infancy of nations it is to be
expected that we should hear more of the Smith, or worker in iron, in
connexion with war, than with more peaceful pursuits. Although he was
a nail-maker and a horse-shoer--made axes, chisels, saws, and hammers
for the artificer--spades and hoes for the farmer--bolts and fastenings
for the lord's castle-gates, and chains for his draw-bridge--it was
principally because of his skill in armour-work that he was esteemed.
He made and mended the weapons used in the chase and in war--the
gavelocs, bills, and battle-axes; he tipped the bowmen's arrows, and
furnished spear-heads for the men-at-arms; but, above all, he forged
the mail-coats and cuirasses of the chiefs, and welded their swords, on
the temper and quality of which, life, honour, and victory in battle
depended. Hence the great estimation in which the smith was held in
the Anglo-Saxon times. His person was protected by a double penalty.
He was treated as an officer of the highest rank, and awarded the first
place in precedency. After him ranked the maker of mead, and then the
physician. In the royal court of Wales he sat in the great hall with
the king and queen, next to the domestic chaplain; and even at that
early day there seems to have been a hot spark in the smith's throat
which needed much quenching; for he was "entitled to a draught of every
kind of liquor that was brought into the hall."

The smith was thus a mighty man. The Saxon Chronicle describes the
valiant knight himself as a "mighty war-smith." But the smith was
greatest of all in his forging of swords; and the bards were wont to
sing the praises of the knight's "good sword" and of the smith who made
it, as well as of the knight himself who wielded it in battle. The
most extraordinary powers were attributed to the weapon of steel when
first invented. Its sharpness seemed so marvellous when compared with
one of bronze, that with the vulgar nothing but magic could account for
it. Traditions, en