necessary in so disjointed a state of society, if the king was to govern
at all. Only by moving about and seeing with his own eyes could he gain
any information in a country where organisation was feeble and writing
practically unknown: only by consuming what was grown for him on the
spot where it was grown could he and his suite obtain provisions in the
rude state of Anglo-Saxon communications. But such government as existed
was mainly that of the local ealdormen and the village gentry.

Marriages were practically conducted by purchase, the wife being bought
by the husband from her father's family. A relic of this custom perhaps
still survives in the modern ceremony, when the father gives the bride
in marriage to the bridegroom. Polygamy was not unknown; and it was
usual for men to marry their father's widows. The wives, being part of
the father's property, naturally became part of the son's heritage.
Fathers probably possessed the right of selling their children into
slavery; and we know that English slaves were sold at Rome, being
conveyed thither by Frisian merchants.

The artizan class, such as it was, must have been attached to the houses
of the chieftains, probably in a servile position. Pottery was
manufactured of excellent but simple patterns. Metal work was, of
course, thoroughly understood, and the Anglo-Saxon swords and knives
discovered in barrows are of good construction. Every chief had also his
minstrel, who sang the short and jerky Anglo-Saxon songs to the
accompaniment of a harp. The dead were burnt and their ashes placed in
tumuli in the north: the southern tribes buried their warriors in full
military dress, and from their tombs much of the little knowledge which
we possess as to their habits is derived. Thence have been taken their
swords, a yard long, with ornamental hilt and double-cutting edge, often
covered by runic inscriptions; their small girdle knives; their long