chap, l.] ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM. 17

which instance of Canute is, I believe, the earliestknown of hired soldiery in England. Sometimes alance signified six men, sometimes three; so it ishard to specify their numbers. Lances were longand heavy; horses big, and of a cart-like breed.Banner, coat of arms, and war-cry were commonto all knights; in some of which particulars, if itbe rather too soon to ascribe them to Canute, thisis above controversy, that it is an error to imaginethat coats of arms were not in use before the firstcrusade.

Inside the towns, though civilisation might haveexisted in some degree, yet we owe agricultureentirely to the monks; with the exception of theirsecluded spots, which they had received a wilder-ness, and reclaimed, all the rest of the land lay,from the fifth to the eleventh century, in barbarousdisorder. Small or no encouragement, wholedomains waste, until some monastery got a grantof them, the only chance after the ravage of amarauder; for thus they got under the protectionof the Church, not always, but generally valid.Doomsday Book is more than a proof of what hadpreceded it, and in what lamentable plight it foundthe shires.

Still, how easily the lower classes are contented,is conspicuous from their often calling for the laws

VOL. i.

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