our work properly.'[3] Ermentrude, however, has to
hurry away after her gossip, and so must we. She goes back to her own
farm and sets to work in the little vineyard; then after an hour or two
goes back to get the children's meal and to spend the rest of the day in
weaving warm woollen clothes for them. All her friends are either
working in the fields on their husbands' farms or else looking after the
poultry, or the vegetables, or sewing at home; for the women have to
work just as hard as the men on a country farm. In Charlemagne's time
(for instance) they did nearly all the sheep shearing. Then at last Bodo
comes back for his supper, and as soon as the sun goes down they go to
bed; for their hand-made candle gives only a flicker of light, and they
both have to be up early in the morning. De Quincey once pointed out,
in his inimitable manner, how the ancients everywhere went to bed, 'like
good boys, from seven to nine o'clock'. 'Man went to bed early in those
ages simply because his worthy mother earth could not afford him
candles. She, good old lady ... would certainly have shuddered to hear
of any of her nations asking for candles. "Candles indeed!" she would
have said; "who ever heard of such a thing? and with so much excellent
daylight running to waste, as I have provided _gratis_! What will the
wretches want next?"'[4] Something of the same situation prevailed even
in Bodo's time.

This, then, is how Bodo and Ermentrude usually passed their working day.
But, it may be complained, this is all very well. We know about the
estates on which these peasants lived and about the rents which they had
to pay, and the services which they had to do. But how did they feel and
think and amuse themselves when they were not working? Rents and
services are only outside things; an estate book only describes routine.
It would be idle to try to picture the life of a university from a study
of its lecture list, and it is equally idle to try and describe the life
of Bodo from the estate book of his masters. It is no good taking your
meals in the kitchen if you never talk to the servants. This is true,
and to arrive at Bodo's thoughts and feelings and holiday amusements we
must bid goodbye to Abbot Irminon's estate book, and peer into some very
dark corners indeed; for though by the aid of Chaucer and Langland and a
few Court Rolls it is possible to know a great deal about the feelings
of a peasant six centuries later, material is scarce