The History of the Anglo-Saxons (3); Comprising the History of England From the Earliest Period to the Norman Conquest

Volume: 3 General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1823 Original Publisher: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown Subjects: Great Britain Anglo-Saxons English literature Civilization, Anglo-Saxon History / Europe / Great Britain History / Medieval Literary Criticism / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAP. III. Their Food. food was that mixture of animal and Chap. vegetable diet which always attends the pro- gress of civilisation. They reared various sorts of corn in inclosed and cultivated lands, and they fed domesticated cattle for the uses of their table. For their animal food they had oxen, sheep, and great abundance of swine; they used likewise, fowls, deer, goats, and hares; but though the horned cattle are not unfrequently mentioned in their grants and wills, and were often the subjects of exchange, yet the animals most numerously stated are the swine. The country in all parts abounded with wood; and woods are not often particularized without some notice of the swine which they contained, or were capable of maintaining. They also frequently appear in wills. Thus Alfred, a nobleman, gives to his relations an hide of land with one hundred swine ; and he directs one hundred swine to be given for his soul to one minister, and the same number to another ; and to his two daughters he gives two thousand swine.' So Elfhelm gives land to St. Peter's at Westminster, on the express condition that they feed two hundred of these animals for his wife.2 They ate various kinds of fish ; but, of this description of their animal food, the species which is most profusely noticed is the eel. They used eels as abundantly as swine. Two grants...