Having given these few examples of the general forms of the implements in use among the Saxons before their conversion to Christianity, as much to illustrate their manners as described by Beowulf, as to show what classes of types were originally Saxon, we will proceed to treat of their domestic manners as we learn them from the more numerous and more definite documents of a later period. We shall find it convenient to consider the subject separately as it regards in-door life and out-door life, and it will be proper first that we should form some definite notion of an Anglo-Saxon house. [Illustration: _No. 11. Germano-Saxon Knife._] We can already form some notion of the primeval Saxon mansion from our brief review of the poem of Beowulf; and we shall find that it continued nearly the same down to a late period. The most important part of the building was the hall, on which was bestowed all the ornamentation of which the builders and decorators of that early period were capable. Halls built of stone are alluded to in a religious poem at the beginning of the Exeter book; yet, in the earlier period at least, there can be little doubt that the materials of building were chiefly wood. Around, or near this hall, stood, in separate buildings, the bed-chambers, or bowers (_búr_), of which the latter name is only now preserved as applied to a summer-house in a garden; but the reader of old English poetry will remember well the common phrase of a _bird in bure_, a lady in her bower or chamber. These buildings, and the household offices, were all grouped within an inclosure, or outward wall, which, I imagine, was generally of earth, for the Anglo-Saxon word, _weall_, was applied to an earthen rampart, as well as to masonry. What is termed in the poem of Judith, _wealles geát_, the gate of the wall, was the entrance through this inclosure or rampart. I am convinced that many of the earth-works, which are often looked upon as ancient camps, are nothing more than the remains of the inclosures of Anglo-Saxon residences. In Beowulf, the sleeping-rooms of Hrothgar and his court seem to have been so completely detached from the hall, that their inmates did not hear the combat that was going on in the latter building at night. In smaller houses the sleeping-rooms were fewer, or none, until we arrive at the simple room in which the inmates had board and lodging together, with a mere hedge for its inclosure, the prototype of our ordinary cottage and garden. The wall served for a defence against robbers and enemies, while, in times of peace and tranquillity, it was a protection from indiscreet intruders, for the doors of the hall and chambers seem to have been generally left open. Beggars assembled round the door of the wall--the _ostium domûs_--to wait for alms.