Page:A short history of social life in England.djvu/76

56 turned away. The monks were the only doctors in the land, but unhappily their knowledge was not equal to their enthusiasm. Hitherto the people had trusted to charms and incantations, magic and witchcraft, to cure them of their ills. A strange mingling of monkish knowledge and superstition now took place. Here is an early prescription for the cure of consumption:—"Take thrift-grass, betony, penny-grass, fane, fennel, Christmas wort and borage, and make them into a potion with clear ale. Sing seven Masses over the plants daily, add holy water, and drink the draught out of the church bell, while the priest sings: 'Domini sancti Pater omnipotens.'"

Bleeding was the favourite remedy for most disorders, but generally so clumsily performed as to be more dangerous than the disease itself. Its efficacy was supposed to depend on the day of the month on which it was performed, and was prohibited "when the light of the moon and the tide of the ocean were increasing."

Such very briefly was the state of things in England, when once again—so strangely does history repeat itself—a pagan population of sea-loving men poured themselves over our islands from beyond the wild North Sea From