community, weavers and dyers, bowyers and tapisers, embroiderers and milaners, goldsmiths and enluminours, practised their several arts beneath the fostering patronage of the monastery and the other ecclesiastical establishments of the town. In fact, the prosperity of Wilton if it had not reached its culminating point, had certainly approached it closely at the period of the Norman Conquest.

when we learn that “the possessions of this monastery were rated at five knight's fees, and the abbess was consequently obliged to find five knights with their attendant squires and ten harnessed horses, and maintain them for forty days on every occasion of war, besides paying aids, scutages, &c. for each fee as often as the Crown could devise a plea for demanding them.”

Upon the laity, the Conqueror's hand fell no less heavily, and the vicinity of Wilton to the strong hill fort of Sarum, where the three lion banner had supplanted the white horse, must have rendered resistance to the plunder and violence of the Normans, perfectly hopeless. The chequered page of English history presents few narratives more saddening than that which chronicles the rapine and brutality, the bloodshed and licence of those who now claimed a property in the lands and fortunes, wives and daughters, of the conquered people. Ordericus Vitalis and William of Malmesbury dwell with a simple pathos and a patriotic execration upon the servitude and deprivations imposed upon the men, and the insults and cruel outrages offered to even the noblest women of the land, by the dissolute soldiers and ruffianly camp followers of the Norman army. Often, says Roger de Hoveden, for the remains of the repast of a groom in the Norman army, the Saxon, once illustrious among

his countrymen, in order to sustain his miserable life, came to sell himself and his whole family to perpetual slavery. The act of sale, adds Thierry, was registered upon the blank page of some missal, where still may be found, half effaced, and serving as a theme for the sagacity of the antiquaries, these monuments of the wretchedness of a bygone period.

Saxon outlaws filled the woods and wilds, and every man's house was literally “his castle.” Men went to rest with fear, and rose—if undisturbed by any night attack-in thankfulness. As night closed in, prayers, such as those the mariner puts up in perilous storms upon the sea, were solemnly recited ; and to the Benedicite with which the closing of the doors and shutters was accompanied, a Dominus was the invariable and reverent response.

The reigns of William the First, of Rufus, and of Henry Beauclerc were signalised by the oppression and gradual degradation of the Saxon race, and by the elevation, aggrandizement and increase of the intruding Normans. Upon the death of the latter monarch, the disputed succession to the throne super-added a civil war to the other afflictions of the kingdom, and Wilton sustained severe calamities in consequence.

From the shifting scenes with which the eyes of the burghers of Wilton were familiar in the reign of Stephen, we will select but two, in illustration of the startling and sudden vicissitudes which befel the fortunes of this ancient town.

It is the high festival of Easter, and Wilton swarms with the faithful children of the church. Here, the Empress Maud, "snatching a fearful joy” during an interval of calm, sojourns in regal state, and hither Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury has arrived, to offer her the fealty and allegiance of a subject. The Office of the Sepulchre is to be performed within the monastery church in presence of the Empress and her retinue, who occupy the Galilee, which glitters with their rich attire. The nave and choir are strewn with ivy leaves; tapestry ornaments the stalls; the imagery of the rood-loft has been painted and blazoned afresh; precious reliquaries adorn the Perticæ around the altar, and the sunbeams, as they struggle through the clouds of incense, which float about the church, shine on the richest vestments which the sumptuary regulations of the Benedictine order will allow.

The wailing music of the organ slowly palpitates upon the air, and three Deacons habited in dalmatics and amices, with womanly gear about their heads, and vases in their hands, advance along the choir, and, pausing before the Sepulchre, exclaim “Who will remove this stone for us?” A boy, robed like an angel, in snow-white albs, and holding a wheat-ear in his hand, enquires; “Whom seek ye in the Sepulchre ?" The representatives of the three Maries respond “Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified.” Whereto the angel makes reply “He is not here, he hath arisen;" and with his finger points upward to the roof, and glides away. Two priests, in tunics, sitting without the sepulchre, ask “Why do ye mourn, oh, women ? and for whom do ye make search?” The Maries, kissing the Sepulchre, retire in mournful silence; and presently a priest robed in an alb and stole, bearing a cross, and representing Christ, advances from the altar, and in a voice which sends a thrill through every awe-struck listener, exclaims reproachfully “ Mary!” And then Mary of Naim falling at his feet, utters a cry of anguish, and the figure, representing Christ, recedes behind the Dorsal altarveil, with a parting exhortation to the Maries “not to fear.” They turn towards the choir with faces that glow with exultation, the organ peals forth its jubilant thunders, and every voice joins in the stirring strain, “Alleluia, the Lord is Risen.” This is the signal for the grand thanksgiving hymn, and at the