A queen's want of such female ornaments and utensils shows that the arts were at this time little cultivated amongst the Saxons.

These are the sort of presents commonly sent to a barbarous people.
Thus ignorant in sciences and arts, and unpractised in trade or manufacture, military exercises, war, and the preparation for war, was their employment, hunting their pleasure.

They dwelt in cottages of wicker-work plastered with clay and thatched with rushes, where they sat with their families, their officers and domestics, round a fire made in the middle of the house.

In this manner their greatest princes lived amidst the ruins of Roman magnificence.

But the introduction of Christianity, which, under whatever form, always confers such inestimable benefits on mankind, soon made a sensible change in these rude and fierce manners.
It is by no means impossible, that, for an end so worthy, Providence on some occasions might directly have interposed.