232
THE SAXONS IN ENGLAND.
[book I.
feeling of all those nations,—while it prepared
them to become the founders of Christian states
which should endure, made them the wonder of
the philosophers and theologians of Rome, Greece
and Africa, and an example to be held up to the
degenerate races whom they had subdued 1. The
German house was a holy thing ; the bond of mar-
riage a sacred and symbolic engagement2 ; holy
above man was woman herself. Even in the depths
of their forests the stern warriors had assigned to
her a station which nothing but that deep feeling
could have rendered possible : this was the sacred
sex, believed to be in nearer communion with divi-
nity than men 3. In the superstitious tradition of
their mythology, it was the young and beautiful
Shieldmays, the maiden Wselcyrian, who selected
the champions that had deserved to become the
guests of Woden. The matrons presided over the
rites of religion, conducted divinations4, and en-
couraged the warriors on the field of battle5 ; Ve-
1 What had struck Tacitus with astonishment and admiration in the
first century (Germ, xviii. xix.), seemed equally remarkable to the
thinkers of the Roman world in the fourth and fifth. Innumerable
passages confirmatory of the averments in the text might be cited from
Augustine, Orosius, Salvianus, or even Procopius,—testimonies all the
more valuable because supplied by hostile witnesses, by the conquered
of the conqueror, the orthodox of the Arian.
2 Tac. Germ. xix. 3 Ibid, viii.
4 Caes. Bell. Gall. i. 50.
' Tac. Germ. vii. viii. After the defeat of the Cimbri by Marius,
their women applied to the Consul, to have their chastity respected,
and themselves assigned as serfs to the vestal virgins. On receiving a
refusal they put their children and then themselves to death. The dogs
that had accompanied them, long defended their corpses. See Florus,
iii. 3, and Orosius, v. 16.
CH. IX.]
THE TITHING AND HUNDRED.
233
Iedas and Aurinias, prophetesses in the bloom of
youth and beauty, led the raw levies of the North
to triumph over the veteran legions of Rome.
Neither rank nor wealth could atone for violated
chastity1 ; nor were in general any injuries more
severely punished than those which the main
strength of man enabled him to inflict on woman2.
That woman, nevertheless, in the family, held a
subordinate situation to men, lies in the nature of
the family itself, and in the disposition and quali-
ties which have been implanted in woman, to en-
able her to fulfil her appointed duties in the scheme
of Providence ; qualities not different in degree, but
kind, from those of her helpmate, that they may be
the complement of his, and, united with his, make
up the full and perfect circle of humanity. As
an individual, woman was considered a being of a
higher nature ; as a member of the state, she was
necessarily represented by him upon whom nature
had imposed the joyful burthen of her support, and
the happy duty of her protection,—a principle too
little considered by those who, with a scarcely par-
donable sciolism, have clamoured for what they call
the rights of woman. Woman among the Teutons
was near akin to divinity, but not one among them
ever raved that the femme libre could be woman.
Hence the profound importance attached to cha-
1 Tac. Germ. xix.
2 For this a general reference to the Barbarian laws must suffice.
Alaric even went the length of putting to death a noble Goth,
who, during the sack of the city, had violated the daughter of a Roman
citizen.