Page:A short history of social life in England.djvu/67

 CHAPTER IV

Circa 597—1066

OUR GREAT INHERITANCE

"Post Tenebras Lux."

IGHTY and momentous were the changes that now swept over the lives of our forefathers, still torn with those tribal controversies which are inevitable in any great settlement of people in a new-found land. But great as was the revolution which changed the tribal chief into the national king and developed the germ of feudalism by turning the freeman into a serf, yet still greater and more far-reaching was that moral revolution which was effected by the triumph of Christianity over the fierce worshippers of Woden. This is no place to retell the charming story of the little band of Benedictine monks who so successfully organised that Christianity in England which had already taken root among