In each the priests proclaimed silence, the ealdormen of higher blood spoke, groups of freemen from each township stood round, shaking their spears in assent, clashing shields in applause, settling matters in the end by loud shouts of "Aye" or "Nay." [Sidenote: Social Life] Of the social or the industrial life of our fathers in this older England we know less than of their political life.

But there is no ground for believing them to have been very different in these respects from the other German peoples who were soon to overwhelm the Roman world.

Though their border nowhere touched the border of the Empire they were far from being utterly strange to its civilization.

Roman commerce indeed reached the shores of the Baltic, and we have abundant evidence that the arts and refinement of Rome were brought into contact with these earlier Englishmen.

Brooches, sword-belts, and shield-bosses which have been found in Sleswick, and which can be dated not later than the close of the third century, are clearly either of Roman make or closely modelled on Roman metal-work.