Page:Comic History of England.djvu/86

82 pioneer times the "small and early" had not yet been introduced, but "the drunk and disorderly" was regarded with much favor.



Free coinage was now discussed, and mints established. Wool was the principal export, and fine cloths were taken in exchange from the Continent. Women spun for their own households, and the term spinster was introduced.

The monasteries carefully concealed everything in the way of education, and even the nobility could not have stood a civil service examination.

The clergy were skilled in music, painting, and sculpture, and loved to paint on china, or do sign-work and carriage painting for the nobility. St. Dunstan was quite an artist, and painted portraits which even now remind one strangely of human beings.

Edgar Atheling, the legal successor of Harold, saw at a glance that William the Conqueror had