Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/83

 and Sentiments. 63 CHAPTER IV. OUT OF DOOR AMUSEMENTS OF THE ANGLO-SAXONS. HUNTING AND HAWKING. HORSES AND CARRIAGES. TRAVELLING. MONEY- DEALINGS. THE progrefs of fociety from its firft formation to the full develop- ment of civilization, has been compared not inaptly to the life of man. In the childhood and youth of Ibciety, when the population was not numerous, and a fervile clafs performed the chief part of the labour neceffary for adminillering to the wants or luxuries of life, people had a far greater proportion of time on their hands to fill up with amufements than at a later period, and many that are now confidered frivolous, or are only indulged in at rare intervals of relaxation, then formed the principal occupations of men's lives. We have glanced at the in-door amufements of the Anglo-Saxons in a previous chapter; but their out-door recreations, although we have little information refpefting them, were certainly much more numerous. The multitude of followers who, in Saxon times, attended on each lord or rich man as their military chief, or as their domeftic fupporter, had generally no ferious occupation during the greater part of the day ; and this abundance of unemployed time was not con- fined to one clafs of fociety, for the artifan had to work lefs to gain his fubfiftence, and both citizen and peafant were excufed from work alto- gether during the numerous holidays of the year. That the Anglo-Saxons were univerfally fond of play {plega) is proved by the frequent ufe of the word in a metaphorical fenfe. They even applied it to fighting and battle, which, in the language of the poets, were plega-gares (play of darts), cefc-plega (play of Ihields), and hand- plega