. England, from earliest times to the Great Charter . uch practisedin the monasteries. There the monks learnt to apply gold toparchment and knew how to burnish. They were also mastersof the art of embossed gold-work, in which the gilded parts aremade to stand up from the paper. Here again their art washardly refined; ^ it was the art of an unpolished people wholiked plenty of sparkle and violent contrasts. On the otherhand, it was at least worthy of the age in which it wasproduced. Music, of course, was also rudimentary. The harp existedin Saxon as in British and pre-Celtic Albion. One of theC
. England, from earliest times to the Great Charter . uch practisedin the monasteries. There the monks learnt to apply gold toparchment and knew how to burnish. They were also mastersof the art of embossed gold-work, in which the gilded parts aremade to stand up from the paper. Here again their art washardly refined; ^ it was the art of an unpolished people wholiked plenty of sparkle and violent contrasts. On the otherhand, it was at least worthy of the age in which it wasproduced. Music, of course, was also rudimentary. The harp existedin Saxon as in British and pre-Celtic Albion. One of theCottonian MSS. shows us David playing on the harp, andAlfred is known to have performed on that instrument. Wehave also seen how the youthful Bede helped CeoUrith to singthe antiphons in Jarrow Monastery, and we know that theredid exist a simple form of organ in England both in Romano- ^ There were doubtless exceptions. The drawing of the Christ now inthe Manuscript Department of the British Museum is both fine in line andrestrained in treatment. i68. XXIII. Angi,o-Saxon Crafts : Bronze Bowi,, Gi,ass-ware, AND SHVER ChAI,ICE 172 SAXON ENGLAND British and in early Saxon times. For the rest, the Saxonspossessed a form of lyre and flute and a simple vioUn, alsotrumpets of various sorts. Of the quality of the musicproduced we know nothing. Laws If the Anglo-Saxon period produced comparatively littlevernacular literature and little art, it has at least given us along series of lawgivers and a bulky compilation of first the doom-givers are widely separated in point of date,Ethelbert of Kent, the first Christian king of a part of Englandand the first English lawgiver, promulgated his findings atthe beginning of the seventh century; lyothaire and Edriccome next, nearly a hundred years later. But when once theend of the ninth century is reached the stream is a continuousone. Alfred, Edward the Elder, Athelstan, Edmtmd, Edgar,Etheked follow one another closely; each publis
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