Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/94

 74 Hijiory of Domejiic Manners modern market-carts. The whip ufed by the lady who is driving fo furioully, is of the fame form as that ufed by the horfewoman in our cut No. 46. The artift has not fliown the ivcegne-thixl, or fhaft. A four- wheeled carriage, of rather a fingular conftrudion, is found often repeated, with fome variations, in the illuminations of the raanufcript of Alfric's tranllation of the Pentateuch. One of them is given in our cut No. 50. Jt is quite evident that a good deal of the minor detail of conftru6tion has been omitted by the draughts- man. Anglo-Saxon glolfes give the word rad to reprefent the Latin quadriga. From the fame fource we learn that the compound word wcen-fcer, waggon-going, was ufed to exprefs journeying in chariots. Riding in chariots muft have been rare among the Anglo-Saxons. Horfes were only ufed by the better claffes of fociety ; and we learn from Bede and other writers that pious ecclefiaftics, fuch as billiops Aidan, Ceadda, and Cuthbert, thought it more confiftent with the humility of their facred charafter to journey on foot. The pedeftrian carried either a fpear or a ftaffj the rider had almoft always a fpear. It is noted of Cuthbert, in Bede's life of that flint, that one day when he came to Mailros (Melrofe), and would enter the church to pray, having leaped from his horfe, he " gave the latter and his travelling fpear to the care of a fervant, for he had not yet refigned the drefs and habits of a layman." The weapon was, no doubt, neceffary for perfonal fafety. There is a very curious claufe in the Anglo-Saxon laws of king Alfred, relating to an accident arifmg from the carrying the fpear, which we can hardly underftand, although to require a fpecial law it muft have been of frequent occurrence 5 this law provides that " if a man have a fpear over his flioulder, and any man /lake hivifelf upon it,'' the carrier of the fpear incurred fevere punilli- ment, "if the point be three fingers higher than the hindmoft part of the No. 50. An Anglo-Saxon Carriage