[Gutenberg 44894] • Social Life in England Through the Centuries

In the course of the last ten or twelve years there has been a very marked development of interest in local history, and with it a desire not merely to "know more about the past" but a desire to appreciate intelligently the real value of those things, still to be seen, which speak of the gradual building up of the social life of the Nation, which rightly handled will play an important part in the work of reconstruction pressing upon us now, with its enormous difficulties and anxieties.

Much has been done in schools of all grades to utilize the material at hand—the things which can be seen in the locality—as an educational medium, opening out great possibilities for the development of curiosity, interest, personality, and power of initiative on the part of the children which, though it may not seem to yield any immediate results which can be appraised by examination methods on the lines of any "Syllabus", are "neither barren nor unfruitful".

Just now there are a number of schemes in the air for the institution of "Regional Survey" in schools, and a tendency amongst enthusiasts to get it put into school time-tables as a Syllabus Subject. However admirable the intention may be, and is, it is not as a Subject, but rather as a method in education, that its real value lies. "Regional Study" embraces so many subjects and they cannot be enterprised all at once, either by children or by anybody else.

This little book is intended to be suggestive, to stimulate interest and an intelligent curiosity, but it may serve as a foundation for conversational or more formal lessons and investigations under the teacher's direction, as his personal predilection, opportunities, taste, and judgment shall determine.

In the work of "Regional Study", where carried on with discrimination and with a commonsense apprehension of "relative values" it may be truly said:—

"Nothing useless is, or low; Each thing in its place is best;

And what seems but idle show, Strengthens and supports the rest". H. R. W. H.

CONTENTS

Introduction

Men who lived in Caves and Pits

The Pit-dwellers

Earthworks, Mounds, Barrows, &c.

In Roman Times

Early Saxon Times

Early Saxon Villages

Anglo-Saxon Tuns and Vills

Tythings and Hundreds—Shires

The Early English Town

In Early Christian Times

Monasteries

Towns and Villages in the Time of Cnut the Dane

Churches and Monasteries in Danish and Later Saxon Times

Later Saxon Times

In Norman Times

In Norman Times (continued)

In Norman Times: The Churches

Castles

Castles and Towns

In Norman Times: The Monasteries

Early Houses

Early Houses (continued)

Early Town Houses

Life in the Towns of the Middle Ages

The Growing Power of the Towns

The Villages, Manors, Parishes, and Parks

Traces of Early Times in the Churches

Traces of Early Times in the Churches (continued)

Clerks

Fairs

Markets

Schools

Universities

Changes brought about by the Black Death

Wool

The Poor

Changes in Houses and House-building

The Ruins of the Monasteries and the New Buildings

The New House of the Time of Queen Elizabeth

Larger Elizabethan and Jacobean Houses

Churches after the Reformation

Building after the Restoration: Houses

Building after the Restoration: Churches

Schools after the Reformation

Apprentices

Play

Roads

Roads—Railways

Government

Some Changes

Introduction

A little boy, who had been born in a log-cabin in the backwoods o