the
colonists. In the midst of the insecurity, however, engendered by
civil war and social changes, the pursuits of industry must necessarily
have been considerably interfered with, and the art of iron-forging
became neglected. No notice of iron being made in Sussex occurs in
Domesday Book, from which it would appear that the manufacture had in a
great measure ceased in that county at the time of the Conquest, though
it was continued in the iron-producing districts bordering on Wales.
In many of the Anglo-Saxon graves which have been opened, long iron
swords have been found, showing that weapons of that metal were in
common use. But it is probable that iron was still scarce, as ploughs
and other agricultural implements continued to be made of wood,--one of
the Anglo-Saxon laws enacting that no man should undertake to guide a
plough who could not make one; and that the cords with which it was
bound should be of twisted willows. The metal was held in esteem
principally as the material of war. All male adults were required to
be provided with weapons, and honour was awarded to such artificers as
excelled in the fabrication of swords, arms, and defensive armour.[1]

Camden incidentally states that the manufacture of iron was continued
in the western counties during the Saxon era, more particularly in the
Forest of Dean, and that in the time of Edward the Confessor the
tribute paid by the city of Gloucester consisted almost entirely of
iron rods wrought to a size fit for making nails for the king's ships.
An old religious writer speaks of the ironworkers of that day as
heathenish in their manners, puffed up with pride, and inflated with
worldly prosperity. On the occasion of St. Egwin's visit to the
smiths of Alcester, as we are told in the legend, he found then given
up to every kind of luxury; and when he proceeded to preach unto them,
they beat upon their anvils in contempt of his doctrine so as
completely to deafen him; upon which he addressed his prayers to
heaven, and the town was immediately destroyed.[2]

But the first reception given to John Wesley by the miners of the
Forest of Dean, more than a thousand years later, was perhaps scarcely
more gratifying than that given to St. Egwin.

That working in iron was regarded as an honourable and useful calling
in the Middle Ages, is apparent from the extent to which it was
followed by the monks, some of whom were excellent craftsmen. Thus St.
Dunstan, who gove