In England, as in most other countries of western Europe, at the period of the middle ages when we first become intimately acquainted with them, the manners and customs of their inhabitants were a mixture of those of the barbarian settlers themselves, and of those which they found among the conquered Romans; the latter prevailing to a greater or less extent, according to the peculiar circumstances of the country. This was certainly the case in England among our Saxon forefathers; and it becomes a matter of interest to ascertain what were really the types which belonged to the Saxon race, and to distinguish them from those which they derived from the Roman inhabitants of our island.
We have only one record of the manners of the Saxons before they settled in Britain, and that is neither perfect, nor altogether unaltered--it is the romance of Beowulf, a poem in pure Anglo-Saxon, which contains internal marks of having been composed before the people who spoke that language had quitted their settlements on the Continent. Yet we can hardly peruse it without suspecting that some of its portraitures are descriptive rather of what was seen in England than of what existed in the north of Germany. Thus we might almost imagine that the “street variegated with stones” (_stræt wœs stân-fáh_), along which the hero Beowulf and his followers proceeded from the shore to the royal residence of Hrothgar, was a picture of a Roman road as found in Britain.
It came into the mind of Hrothgar, we are told, that he would cause to be built a house, “a great mead-hall,” which was to be his chief palace, or metropolis. The hall-gate, we are informed, rose aloft, “high and curved with pinnacles” (_heáh and horn-geáp_). It is elsewhere described as a “lofty house;” the hall was high; it was “fast within and without, with iron bonds, forged cunningly;” it appears that there were steps to it, and the roof is described as being variegated with gold; the walls were covered with tapestry (_web æfter wagum_), which also was “variegated with gold,” and presented to the view “many a wondrous sight to every one that looketh upon such.” The walls appear to have been of wood; we are repeatedly told that the roof was carved and lofty; the floor is described as being variegated (probably a tesselated pavement); and the seats were benches arranged round it, with the exception of Hrothgars chair or throne. In the vicinity of the hall stood the chambers or bowers, in which there were beds (_bed æfter búrum_).