A bishop's house
contained some clerks, priests, monks, and nun and was a retreat
for the weary missionary and a school for the young. The bishop
had a deacon who acted as a secretary and companion in travel, and
sometimes as an interpreter. Ink was made from the outer husks of
walnuts steeped in vinegar.
The learned ecclesiastical life flourished in monastic
communities, in which both monks and nuns lived. Hilda, a noble's
daughter, became the first nun in Northumbria and abbess of one of
its monasteries. There she taught justice, piety, chastity, peace,
and charity. Several monks taught there later became bishops.
Kings and princes often asked her advice. Many abbesses came to
run monastic communities; they were from royal families. Women,
especially from royal families, fled to monasteries to obtain
shelter from unwanted marriage or to avoid their husbands. Kings
and eorldormen retired to them.
Danish Vikings made several invasions in the 800s for which a
danegeld tax on land was assessed on everyone every ten to twenty
years. The amount was determined by the witan and was typically
2s. per hide of land. (A hide was probably the amount of land
which could support a family or household for a year or as much
land as could be tilled annually by a single plow.) It was stored
in a strong box under the King's bed. King Alfred the Great, who
had lived for awhile in Rome, unified the country to defeat the
invaders.
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