ABSTRACT
The more fortunate townsman-freeman or burgess-held his own; with every century the range of his activities was widened. Except in London and in half a dozen cities like Norwich and Bristol he was always near the fields; most towns were not larger than a populous village at the present day. Thus he and his children gained the advantages of both types of culture-an advantage which Englishmen from that day to this have always sought to secure, both for their own delight and for their children's upbringing. We saw in Chapter III that the village evolved from the need of rural craftsmen; and the English townsman never lost the rural habit of his race. Hence, if he can forget the serf and the slums, we can see how the children of townsfolk and villages enjoyed a combination of experience which every step in economic progress enhanced. They belonged to a community with lively interests and ambitions; violent no doubt and as ready with weapons as with the tongue, but the strife was waged on fair terms. These young people were the backbone of a young England, for during the six centuries which had passed since Saxon and Dane fought for supremacy a nation had come into being of which every citizen was proud.
