son of the poor man could rise above the condition of his father, and emerge from the degradation to which feudalism had consigned the class to which he belonged, it was through the agency of the Church. The history of the Middle Ages shows how frequently the highest dignities which the State had to offer have been attained by ecclesiastics of the humblest parentage. If we have examples of kings, like Offa and Ceadwalla, Ceolwulf and Ini, who became monks, we have instances of monks, like Dunstan and Anselm, who became archbishops, and as such governed kingdoms and kings. Nicholas Breakspear, from a poor serving-lad at St. Albans, became pope of Rome. If the Church of the poor man opened up to him and his the road to fame and honor, we cannot wonder that it had his respect and his affection in return, and, as a thank-offering, the best that he had to give.

Again, the clergy of the Middle Ages secured no small accession of strength in public estimation from the struggle which they carried on against slavery. Here they fought the battle of the weak against the powerful, and in the end they were victorious through the force of public opinion. The circumstances of the times afforded ample scope for the exercise of this active benevolence. According to the spirit in which war was then conducted, the goods, the person, and the life of the vanquished were at the disposal of the victor. If he sacrificed his defeated enemy to the war-god of his nation, it was justice; if he sold him into captivity, or made him labor in his own service, it was clemency. Further, men might become slaves as a punishment for certain crimes, or they might be born in a state of slavery. Against this system. in all its forms the clergy protested upon principles of pure and genuine philanthropy. They opposed it because they regarded it, as all good men will ever regard it, as affecting the dignity, the happiness, and the welfare, temporal and spiritual, of all who fall under its power; and the Church, by its laws and its example, its wealth and its influence, succeeded

first in mitigating, and then in suppressing, the crime of slavery, which for centuries polluted every nation of Europe.

Intimately connected with this subject, and with the whole condition of society in those early times, is the care with which the clergy watched over the poor, the widow, and the orphan. These they regarded as their especial inheritance, and upon them they spent willingly and liberally the funds which had been placed at their disposal.

But, more lasting still, as outliving all change of society, was the care taken by the clergy for the education of the people. For a long time they were the only teachers of the entire population of England. Instruction was nowhere to be had but from them. They collected, preserved, and transmitted the scattered fragments of learning which had descended to their own time. The monastery was the only school, the monk or the cleric the only teacher. The education which they could give was no trifling boon; and the laity could not fail to notice that it led to the substantial prizes of wealth, honor, and influence. With no better advantages than those which the school of the monastery at Wearmouth afforded, Beda achieved a reputation which carried his name over Europe. Alcuin, educated within the monastery of York, was competent to teach the teachers of Charlemagne, and he obtained from that monarch the proud title of the restorer of letters in France. The bishop in his palace, the monk in his monastery, and the parish priest in his parsonage, each contributed to the great work of education. Ecclesiastical laws were enacted to secure for the people the advantages which it was believed would result from a system so comprehensive. Nor were these schools instituted for professional purposes only. The benefits they conferred were not limited to those persons who were intended to recruit the ranks of the priesthood; for, although these schools were founded by the clergy, supported by the clergy, and conducted by the clergy, yet free access was afforded to all

who chose to profit by the advantages which they offered. Persons of different ranks of life were thus instructed in secular and religious learning, who might afterward marry and enter the world as laymen.

From these considerations it appears that during the early period there existed a remarkable unity of sentiment and interest between the clergy and the people. We have seen that the bishop and the parish priest cared as well for the temporal happiness as the spiritual progress of all sorts and conditions of men. They could help the Saxon serf and the Norman villein and his family in various ways, and they did not hesitate to lend a helping hand. By their influence the chain of the bondman's slavery was made less galling; his children were educated and advanced in life. They stood between him and the oppression of his feudal superior; and, if this were not enough, through them his wrongs found a way to the ear of the sovereign. They were his advocates in the courts of law, in prison they visited and comforted him. If he had been plundered, they (if any one could) obtained for him the restitution of his property. In sickness they were the physician of the body as well as of the soul, for the little skill in the art of healing which then existed was in the hands of the clergy. If the disease was of long continuance, the monastery was at once dispensary and hospital. The various offices of charity, kindness, usefulness, and brotherly love which were discharged by Churchmen alone for centuries, are now parceled out among a variety of religious and benevolent societies, each of which stands high in public estimation. They did the work of Scripture readers at home and of missionaries abroad. Their system, so long as it existed, rendered it unnecessary to tax the country for the support of the poor. For a long period, the monastery was the only inn; there the traveler was welcomed, housed, and fed; if overtaken by sickness he was tended there with unpaid skill and watchfulness until he could proceed upon his journey.

Their ready benevolence and untiring zeal originated and carried on the machinery which in our day requires the support of thousands of voluntary subscribers, and millions of involuntary taxpayers.

IX.

BATTLE OF SENLAC OR HASTINGS.-FREEMAN.

[The two sons of Cnut, Harold and Harthacnut, died childless, after brief and disgraceful reigns, and the nation restored the old line of kings in the person of Eadward, called the Confessor, son of Ethelred the Unready and a Norman princess. He had spent most of his youth at the Norman court. Weak, pious, well-intentioned, he was better fitted for a Norman monastery than for the English throne. His court became a gathering-place for Norman courtiers and ecclesiastics, whose influence, however, was largely counteracted by Earl Godwine, who had risen to power in the days of Cnut, and who had the chief management of affairs under Eadward, with one brief interval, until his death, in 1053. He was succeeded by his son, Earl Harold, who had married the king's sister. On the death of Eadward, without issue, early in 1066, Harold was elected to the vacant throne. His right was at once disputed by William, Duke of the Normans, on the ground that Eadward had promised him the crown, and that Harold had sworn to maintain William's claim. Though William's title had no legal basis, he determined to enforce it with the sword, and the two rivals met on the field of Hastings.]

MEANWHILE King Harold marshaled his army on the hill, to defend their strong post against the attack of the Normans. All were on foot; those who had horses made use of them only to carry them to the field, and got down when the time came for actual fighting. The army was made up of soldiers of two very different kinds. There was the king's personal following, his housecarls, his own thanes, and the picked troops generally, among them the men of London, who claimed to be the king's special guards, and the men of Kent, who claimed to strike the first blow in the battle. They

had armor much the same as that of the Normans, with javelins to hurl first of all, and for the close fight either the sword, the older English weapon, or more commonly the great Danish ax, which had been brought in by Cnut. This was wielded with both hands, and was the most fearful of all weapons if the blow reached its mark, but it left its bearer specially exposed while dealing the blow The men were ranged as closely together as the space needed for wielding their arms would let them; and, besides the palisade, the front ranks made a kind of inner defense with their shields, called the shield-wall. The Norman writers were specially struck with the close array of the English, and they speak of them as standing like trees in a wood. Besides these choice troops there were also the general levies of the neighboring lands, who came armed anyhow, with such weapons as they could get, the bow being the rarest of all. These inferior troops were placed to the right, on the least exposed part of the hill, while the king, with his choice troops, stood ready to meet Duke William himself. The king stood between his two ensigns, the national badge, the dragon of Wessex, and his own standard, a great flag with the figure of a fighting man wrought on it in gold. Close by the king stood his brothers, Gyrth and Leofwine, and his other kinsfolk.

By nine in the morning the Normans had reached the hill of Senlac, and the fight began. But before the real attack was made a juggler, or minstrel, in the Norman army, known as Taillefer, that is, the Cleaver of Iron, asked the duke's leave to strike the first blow. So he rode out, singing songs of Charlemagne, as the French call the Emperor Charles the Great, and of Roland, his paladin. Then he threw his sword up in the air and caught it again; he cut down two Englishmen, and then was cut down himself. After this mere bravado came the real work. First came a flight of arrows from each division of the Norman army. Then the heavyarmed foot pressed on, to make their way up the hill and to