Читать книгу The Child's Pictorial History of England. From the Earliest Period to the Present Time онлайн

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5. The missionaries were all priests or monks; and some of them lived together in great houses called monasteries, which they built upon lands given them by the kings and nobles, on which they also raised corn, and fed sheep and cattle.

6. They had brought from Rome the knowledge of many useful arts, which they taught to the people, who thus learned to be smiths and carpenters, and to make a variety of things out of metal, wood and leather, which the Saxons did not know how to make before.

7. Then the priests could read and write, which was more than the nobles, or even the kings could do; and they used to write books, and ornament the pages with beautiful borders, and miniature paintings; and the books, thus adorned, are called illuminated manuscripts.

8. Still the Saxons, or English, as I shall henceforth call them, were very rough and ignorant as compared with the Romans.

9. Their churches and houses, and even the palaces of the kings, were rude wooden buildings, and the cottages of the poor people were no better than the huts of the ancient Britons.