[***]
With regard to the manners of the Anglo-Saxons, we can say little,
but that they were in general a rude, uncultivated people, ignorant of
letters, unskilled in the mechanical arts, untamed to submission under
law and government, addicted to intemperance, riot, and disorder. Their
best quality was their military courage, which yet was not supported by
discipline or conduct. Their want of fidelity to the prince, or to any
trust reposed in them, appears strongly in the history of their later
period; and their want of humanity in all their history. Even the Norman
historians, notwithstanding the low state of the arts in their own
country, speak of them as barbarians, when they mention the invasion
made upon them by the duke of Normandy.[****] The conquest put the
people in a situation of receiving slowly, from abroad, the rudiments
of science and cultivation, and of correcting their rough and licentious
manners.
[* LL. AElf. sect. 37, apud Wilkins, p. 43.]
[** Wilkins, p. 83.]
[*** Wilkins, p. 96, 97. Spel. Concil. p. 473.]
[**** Gul, Pict. p. 202.]
CHAPTER IV.
[Illustration: 068.jpg WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR.
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