CHARACTERISTICS OF THE ENGLISH BEFORE THE CONQUEST. =Source.=—William of Malmesbury (died about 1142), _Gesta Regum_, book iii. Translated by J. A. Giles. Bohn’s Library. England had long since adopted the manners of the Angles which had been very various according to the times: for in the first years of their arrival, they were barbarians in their look and manners, warlike in their usages, heathens in their rites; but after embracing the faith of Christ, by degrees and in process of time, from the peace they enjoyed, regarding arms only in a secondary light, they gave their whole attention to religion. I say nothing of the poor, the meanness of whose fortune often restrains them from overstepping the bounds of justice: I omit men of ecclesiastical rank, whom sometimes respect to their profession, and sometimes the fear of shame, suffer not to deviate from the truth: I speak of princes, who from the greatness of their power might have full liberty to indulge in pleasure; some of whom in their own country, and others at Rome, changing their habit, obtained a heavenly kingdom and a saintly intercourse. Many during their whole lives in outward appearance only embraced the present world, in order that they might exhaust their treasures on the poor or divide them amongst monasteries. What shall I say of the multitudes of bishops, hermits, and abbots? Does not the whole island blaze with such numerous relics of its natives that you can scarcely pass a village of any consequence but you hear the name of some new saint, besides the numbers of whom all notices have perished through the want of records? Nevertheless, in process of time, the desire after literature and religion had decayed for several years before the arrival of the Normans. The clergy, contented with a very slight degree of learning, could scarcely stammer out the words of the Sacraments; and a person who understood grammar was an object of wonder and astonishment. The monks mocked the rule of their order by fine clothing, and the use of every kind of food. The nobility, given up to luxury and wantonness, went not to church in the morning after the manner of Christians, but merely in a careless manner heard mattins and masses from a hurrying priest in their chambers.... The commonalty, left unprotected, became a prey to the most powerful, who amassed fortunes by either seizing on their property or by selling their persons into foreign countries; although it be an innate quality of this people to be more inclined to revelling than to the accumulation of wealth.... Drinking in particular was a universal practice, in which occupation they passed entire nights as well as days. They consumed their whole substance in mean and despicable houses, unlike the Normans and French, who in noble and splendid mansions lived in frugality. The vices attendant on drunkenness, which enervate the human mind, followed; hence it arose that, engaging William more with