l6 HISTORY OF THE SHORT-HORNS. 



ravaged people. Plundered in their homes, despoiled of their lands 

 and chattels, subjected to ignominious servitude, and oftentimes 

 struggling for life itself, the Northumbrian serfs, even when peace- 

 fully submissive to the iron rule of their new masters, could make 

 but little progress in their rude agriculture, or rise to an improved 

 condition of life, labor, or production. 



To this subjection of the people and their lands to their new law- 

 givers, followed in succession through a long course of years, the 

 foreign wars of the kings and rulers, heavy taxation, military con- 

 scriptions, the petty rivalries of the nobles among themselves, the 

 rebellion of the barons against the despotism of their monarchs, 

 civil wars, religious convulsions, and the almost numberless turmoils 

 incident to a proud, brave, enterprising, warlike, yet ignorant people 

 of divers races, such as England, by the intermarriages and social 

 amalgamation of the higher classes of the Saxon and Norman blood, 

 had now become. For several centuries the common people were 

 little more than barbarians, and their rulers no better than despots. 

 Agricultural progress either languished or barely held its own. The 

 clothing of the peasantry and laborers was partially of the skins of 

 sheep and goats, frequently undressed, or sometimes by a luxurious 

 indulgence, of the coarsest cloth. Their habitations were covered 

 with thatch, without chimneys, or floors, other than of earth or tile. 

 Their beds were of straw or grass; their food of the coarsest of 

 grains, and meat seldom. Their farm stock had little or no shelter 

 beyond what the woods and frequent glens afforded, and of course 

 were subjected to the inclement vicissitudes of the climate. Yet 

 the barons, having monopolized the land, lived in state, indulging in 

 sumptuous feasts and entertainments, although of necessity coarse in 

 their kind, while the clergy and monks, appropriating to themselves 

 the chief learning of the times, nestled in the choicest nooks of the 

 territory, levied their exactions upon the surrounding people, and 

 reared their vast Cathedrals, and spacious, comfortable Monasteries, 

 while consoling them with their religious services and ceremonies. 

 The royal courts, too, were more luxurious than either the barons or 

 clergy, and although great in administration and powerful in arms, 

 were more or less degraded in life and morals. Yet among all these 

 adverse influences, great and bright men in court, and state, and 

 church, arose through the degradation and ignorance around them, and 

 gradually worked the people into better conditions of employment, 

 progress and civilization. 



