England's population numbered just over a million people in the year 1000. At the bottom of the Julius Work Calendar is a beautiful, detailed drawing of a bearded ploughman with, apparently, two helpers. A team of four oxen are pulling his plough, the huge-bladed wheeled implement which, while not a new invention, was adopted eagerly by the Anglo-Saxons in England before that time.
It did a magnificent job of turning the earth, but the ploughman himself must have been incredibly strong to have handled such a massive affair. Hence the arthritis we spoke about in the last article.
Everything was heavy then, compared to now. Plastic wasn't to appear for another 900-odd years, so everything was iron, steel or wood.
Clothing was very simple. Sack-like tunics and leggings were the norm., but could be brightly coloured in reds, greens and yellows with vegetable dyes. There weren't any buttons in those days, so clasps and leather thongs were used.
As may be imagined, very few people were able to read then. Indeed, about the only exceptions would have been the monks and clerics.
People lived side by side with good and evil. If someone was said to have the devil in him or her, this was taken quite literally.
Jack Frost, for instance, was a kinsman of the devil, a pestilential little beast, nipping at noses and fingers and making the ground too hard to work.
Actually, there were legions of 'little people;' elves, trolls and fairies gripped everyone's imagination, filling people's lives with fear or fun, depending on who these spirits were.
I think it's assumed by many that it was during the 1960's that women first came into their own. Only then did they insist upon equality and to a large extent, achieve it. What had happened, in fact, was that at some point, they'd taken a very large step backwards.
In Celtic times, for instance, a woman was equal to a man in everything. If she found he was playing around with the little blonde down at number 23, all she had to do was to gather his possessions and quite lawfully place them all on the doorstep. Provided she had good reason, her divorce would be upheld in just the same way as his would be if she'd two-timed him. There was no difference.
Similarly, we find a Will made by a lady named Aelfflaed, who lived in East Anglia and left huge estates both there and in Essx.
I'm reading from the translated version, my knowledge of Old English being far too scant to be able to understand the original, but this lady was obviously someone of great authority, had no problem giving orders to men, and her estates thrived.
There's a man named Wulfgeat of Donnington in Shropshire, a landowner on a more modest scale than Aelfflaed, but he left all his lands and property to his wife and daughter. Obviously, he saw nothing wrong in their running his estates
Mike Bond, explaining how elves and little people governed people's lives and how women were men's equals. Mike's new Website, http://www.thedestrier.com, will make you so well informed and give your imagination wings. Sign up for the Savings Alert Newsletter here
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