[41] Several examples are given in the article in Nares’ _Glossary_, edited by the distinguished antiquaries J. O. Halliwell-Phillips, Esq., and the late Mr. Thomas Wright. [42] Shakespeare, _Othello_, act ii. scene 3. [43] See Cotton MSS., _Tib._, b. i. and _Tib._, b. iv. Allen, _Hist. of Lambeth Chronicle of Florence of Worcester_. [44] Another interpretation is given in _Book of Days_, sub., Dec. 13. See engraving in _Gentleman’s Magazine_, vol. lx. 1790, pt. 3, p. 217. [45] _Abuses Stript and Whipt_, 1618. [46] _Anglo-Saxons_, lib. vii. ch. x. [47] Palgrave: _Hist. of Anglo-Saxons_, ch. xiv. [48] Fuller: _Church Hist. of Britain_, lib. iii. § 1. The indictment is endorsed by Mr. Freeman upon the authority of William of Malmesbury: ‘The English spent the night in drinking and singing, the Normans in prayer and confession of their sins’--_Norman Conquest of England_, iii. 241. CHAPTER V. NORMAN PERIOD. We have now arrived at a period which introduces a new element in the formation of our national social life. Information respecting the habits of the Normans is derivable not only from the chroniclers and historians of the period, but from illuminated manuscripts, Anglo-Norman fabliaux, the Bayeux tapestry, wood and other carvings in sacred edifices, and even from chessmen.[49] The Norman historians insist that their countrymen introduced greater sobriety, and are ever contrasting their own morality with that of the Saxons to the disparagement of the latter. William of Malmesbury speaks of the Saxon nobility as given up to luxury and wantonness: ‘Drinking in parties was a universal practice, in which occupation they passed entire nights as well as days. The vices attendant on drunkenness, which enervate the human mind, followed; hence it arose that when they engaged William, more with rashness and precipitate fury than military skill, they doomed themselves and their country to slavery, by one, and that an easy, victory.’[50] Some of our later writers, making little allowance for the national bias of Norman historians, have even intensified this contrast. Thus, a modern gleaner of English literature ventures to assert that the brutal intemperance to which the Saxon was so prone, the Norman was free from. But scenes and incidents which are ready to hand from Norman history must lead us to modify such an opinion, or at any rate compel the acknowledgment that the Normans very soon accommodated themselves to the luxurious habits of the English.[51] Among the many conspiracies formed in the reign of the first William, one at least was organised and developed amidst the surroundings of excess, which cost one of its noble projectors his life. The king had refused to give his consent to the alliance by marriage of the noble houses of Norfolk and Hereford. Opportunity was taken of the king’s absence from the country to cement the union. A splendid banquet marked the event. Among the many distinguished guests was Earl Waltheof.