Now the Normans, to speak of them also, were at that time and still are in dress bravely apparelled and in their food delicate but not excessive; a people accustomed to warfare, and without it scarce able to live. They are fierce in attacking the enemy, and where strength fails, they achieve their end no less by craft and bribery. As I have said, at home they live moderately in large dwellings, they envy their equals, they would surpass their superiors, and while they plunder their subjects, they protect them from others; faithful to their lords, they lightly break faith for a slight offence. They weigh treachery with its prospect of success, and change their policy for a bribe. They are, however, the kindliest of all nations and honour strangers equally with themselves; they also marry with their subject peoples. At their coming they raised the standard of religion, everywhere lifeless in England; on all sides you might see churches rising in the villages, and monasteries in the towns and cities, built in a new style; you might see renewed services enrich the whole country, so that every man of means counted that day lost which was not marked by some great and glorious act. THE HARRYING OF THE NORTH (1069). =Source.=--Simeon of Durham, _Historia Regum_, ed. Arnold, vol. ii., p. 186. (Rolls Series.) In the year 1069, the third year of his reign, king William sent earl Robert Cumin against the Northumbrians in the country north of the Tyne. But they had all united in one determination not to submit to the lordship of an alien, and resolved either to slay him or to fall, all of them together, by the edge of the sword. On his approach, Aegelwin, bishop of Durham, met and forewarned him to be on his guard against ambushes; but he, thinking that none would be so bold, despised the warning. Entering Durham with a large force of knights, he allowed his men to act with hostility in all quarters, and some peasants belonging to the church were killed. He was received, however, by the bishop with all courtesy and honour. But the Northumbrians, hastening all night to Durham, at daybreak broke through the gates with great violence, and on all sides surprised and slew the earl’s followers. The struggle was fiercely waged; the knights were struck down in houses and streets, and the combatants attacked the bishop’s house in which the earl had been received, and since they could not endure the darts of the defenders, burned down the house with all who were therein. So great was the multitude of the slain, that almost every part of the city was filled with blood; for out of seven hundred men only one escaped. This slaughter took place on the 28th of February, the fourth day of the week.