Old England: A Pictorial Museum (page 1/53)

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70.—Celt.

“The weapons of the ancient Britons show their acquaintance with the casting of metals. Their axe-heads, called Celts, are composed of ten parts of copper and one of tin (Figs. 70 and 71); their spear-heads, of six parts of copper and one of tin. Moulds for spear-heads have been frequently found [...] [more...] [$]

1141.—Bed.

“Of the domestic furniture of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the beds of the nobility (Figs. 1141, 1142) were most lavishly adorned. The simple form was that of a railed box, or crib; the “brases,” or rails, of costly material: the draperies at the head magnificent in substance and in armorial blazonry. In the wills of our old nobility, one bed is mentioned “powdered with blue eagles,” one of red velvet, with ostrich feathers of silver, and heads of leopards of gold; ohers of black velvet, black satin, blue, red, and white [...]fur of ermines, are also specified; and sheets of fair white silk, and pillows from the East.” (p. 329) [more...] [$]

1734.—Man and Woman in Stocks.

“A stockes to staye sure and safely detayne
Lazy, lewd leu[?]terers that lawes do offend.”(Harman’s ‘Caveat,’ &c.)

“The stocks are still, we believe, occasionally used [1845], though the sooner they too become obsolete the better.” (Vol II p. 119)

Stocks are a device to secure a person at the ankles, so that their feet stick through the holes and connot be removed until the stocks are unfastened. People would be fastened in the stocks for hours or days at a time, and held up to public ridicule. It was not uncommon for bystanders to throw things at the people in the stocks, and if the things they threw [more...] [$]

286.—Costume of a Saxon Woman.

[...] the ladies wore a long and ample garment with loose sleeves (the gunna, whence our gown), over a closer-fitting one, which had tight sleeves reaching to the wrist; over these a mantle was worn by the superior classes, and a sort of hood or veil upon the head (Figs. 286, 287). Those who desire further information upon the subject of the Anglo-Saxon [...] [more...] [$]

32.—Silbury Hill, in Wiltshire

An engraving of Silbury Hill, near Avebury; a man leads a team of horses pulling a hay wain, on top of which sits a boy. A man and woman walk alongside. In the background lies the great hill, and in the foreground a tree.

“Silbury Hill (Fig. 32) is the largest artificial mound in Europe. It is not so large as the mound of Alyattes in Asia Minor, which Herodotus has described and a modern traveller has ridden round. It is of greater dimensions than the second pyramid of Egypt. Stukeley is too ardent in the contemplation of this wonder of his own land when he says, “I have no scruple to affirm it is the most magnificent mausoleum in the world, without excepting the Egyptian pyramids.” But an artificial hill which covers five acres and thirty-four perches; which at the circumference of the base measures two thousand and twenty-seven feet; whose diameter at top is one hundred and twenty feet, its sloping height three hundred and sixteen feet, and its perpendicular height one hundred and seven feet, is indeed a stupendous monument of human labour, of which the world can show very few such examples. There can be no doubt whatever that the hill is entirely artificial. The great earth works of a modern railway are the results of labour, assisted by science and stimulated by capital, employing itself for profit: but Silbury Hill in all likelihood was a gigantic effort of what has been called hero-worship, a labour for no direct or immediate utility, but to preserve the memory of some ruler, or lawgiver, or warrior, or priest. Multitudes lent their aid in the formation; and shouted or wept around it, when it had settled down into solidity under the dews and winds, and its slopes were covered with ever-springing grass. If it were a component part of the temple at Abury, it is still to be regarded, even more than the gathering together of the stone circles and avenues of that temple, as the work of great masses of the people labouring for some elevating and heart-stirring purpose. Their worship might be blind, cruel, guided by crafty men who governed them by terror or by delusion. But these enduring monuments show the existence of some great and powerful impulses which led the people to achieve mighty things. There was a higher principle at work amongst them, however [more...] [$]