[Sidenote: Englishmen withdraw them to the woods as out
lawes.] Others vtterlie refusing to susteine such an intolerable yoke
of thraldome as was dailie laid vpon them by the Normans, chose rather
to leaue all both goods & lands, & after the maner of outlawes got
them to the woods, with their wiues, children, and seruants, meaning
from thencefoorth wholie to liue vpon the spoile of the countries
adioining, and to take whatsoeuer came next to hand: wherevpon it came
to passe within a while that noe man might trauell in safetie from his
owne house or towne to his next neighbors, and euery quiet and honest
mans house became as it were an hold and fortresse furnished for
defense with bowes and arrowes, bills, polaxes, swords, clubs, and
staues, and other weapons, the doores kept locked and stronglie
boulted in the night season, for feare to be surprised as it had beene
in time of open warr and amongst publike enimies. Praiers were said
also by the maister of the house, as though they had beene in the
middest of the seas in some stormie tempest, and when the windowes or
doores should be shut in and closed, they vsed to saie _Benedicite_,
and others to answer, _Dominus_, in like sort as the preest and his
penitent were woont to doo at confession in the church.
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