Heptarchy, enforced on hardy warriors the safety of temperance; but
the example of the Danes had been fatal.  Those giants of the sea,
like all who pass from great vicissitudes of toil and repose, from the
tempest to the haven, snatched with full hands every pleasure in their
reach.  With much that tended permanently to elevate the character of
the Saxon, they imparted much for a time to degrade it.  The Anglian
learned to feast to repletion, and drink to delirium.  But such were
not the vices of the court of the Confessor.  Brought up from his
youth in the cloister-camp of the Normans, what he loved in their
manners was the abstemious sobriety, and the ceremonial religion,
which distinguished those sons of the Scandinavian from all other
kindred tribes. 

The Norman position in France, indeed, in much resembled that of the
Spartan in Greece.  He had forced a settlement with scanty numbers in
the midst of a subjugated and sullen population, surrounded by jealous
and formidable foes.  Hence sobriety was a condition of his being, and
the policy of the chief lent a willing ear to the lessons of the
preacher.  Like the Spartan, every Norman of pure race was free and
noble; and this consciousness inspired not only that remarkable