him not to work at all; and that the good old Saxon laws and customs did not leave the eyes, limbs, life, and conscience of the serfs in the hands of their lords and masters, nor allow Christian bondmen to be treated as though they were beasts of the field; in which fashion the Normans were now treating them. Quoth a grey-beard in the crowd, “There is some truth in what the young man saith. That was not a bad law which said, ‘Let the churl keep the fasts of the church as well as the Lord, and let the master that feeds his serfs on fast-days with meat, denying them bread, be put in the pillory.’” “Aye,” said another elder, smothing his beard, “but that was a still better law which said, ‘Let not the serf be made to work on the feast-days of the church, nor to do any manner of work on the Sabbath: Let all have rest on the seventh day, which is the day of the Lord God!’” Here one who had been a mass-priest in the upland country, but who had fled from the intolerable persecutions of the Normans and was now armed against that people, spoke as one that had tasted books, and said, “Many were our good old Saxon laws for keeping holy the Sabbath-day, and making the seventh day a day of rest for all that live in the land, whether rich or poor, master or slave. The fourth commandment, which the Normans set at nought in as far as the poor English serf is concerned in it, was a most binding law with all good Saxons, and was enforced by many royal laws and civil enactments, and with the imposing of penalties upon all such as broke the commandment. The laws and ordinances of King Edward the Elder said—‘If any one engage in Sunday marketing, let him forfeit the goods and pay a fine of thirty shillings. If a freeman work, let him forfeit his freedom, or redeem it by paying wite[184]; if a Lord oblige his churl to work, let him pay wite.’ And, after this, King Athelstane said in his dooms ‘that there should be no marketing and no labour on Sundays, and that if any one did market on Sundays he should forfeit the goods and pay thirty shillings.’ And, after this, King Ethelred said in his dooms, ‘Let Sunday’s festival be rightly kept by _all_, as is becoming, and let marketings and folkmotes be carefully abstained from on that holy day; let huntings and worldly works be strictly abstained from on that day.’ And by the laws of King Edgar no man was to work from noontide of the Saturday till the dawn of Monday; and soulscot[185] was to be paid for every Christian man to the priest, in order that the priest might pray for him and instruct him. And the canons[186] of Ælfric, inhibiting the breach of the sanctity of the Lord’s day, say, ‘The mass-priests shall on Sundays explain to the people the sense of the Gospels in English, and explain to them in English the pater-noster and the creed, to the end that all the people may know the faith and cultivate their Christianity.’ And in this very canon the pious Ælfric saith, ‘Let the