BOOK 66 Alfred's exordium to his laws is as dignified as Ina's: I, Ælfred, cyning, gathered together and have commanded "to be written, many of those things that our forefathers “held which pleased me; and many of those things that liked "me not, I have thrown aside, with the advice of my witan, "and other things have commanded to be holden." 10 The subsequent kings, in the same manner, promulged the laws in their own name, with the advice of their witan. The prerogatives and influence in society of the cyning were great. He was to be prayed for, and voluntarily honoured;" his word was to be taken without an oath ; " he had the high prerogative of pardoning in certain cases; " his mund-byrd and his Were were larger than those of any other class in society;" his safety was protected by high penalties for offences committed in his presence or habitation, or against his family;" he had the lordship of the free;" he had the option to sell over sea, to kill, or to take the were of a freeman thief; also to sell a theow over sea, or take a penalty;" he could mitigate penalties; 18 and could remit them; he had a sele, or tribunal, before whom thieves were brought; he had a tribunal in London; his tribunal was the last court of appeal;" he was the executive superintendant of the general laws, and usually received the fines attached to crimes." The Jews were his property;" the high executive officers, the ealdormen, the gerefas, the thegns, and others, were liable to be displaced by him." He convoked the councils of the witan," and summoned the people to the ́ army, which he commanded. 20 21 His property, on the dissolution of the octarchy, was very extensive in every part of England: Just before Alfred acceded to the crown, there were four kings reigning over the Anglo-Saxons-the kings of Wessex, Mercia, East Anglia, CHA P. and Northumbria. These four sovereignties had absorbed the other four. But when the sword of the Northmen had destroyed the dynasties of Mercia, East Anglia, and Northumbria, and when the invaders had themselves bent to the power of Alfred, then the Anglo Saxon cyning rose into great power and property, because the royal power and property of the subdued kingdoms became the right of the ruling king. Alfred united in himself all the regal possessions in England, except those which he allowed the Danish princes to retain in Northumbria and East Anglia. The Northmen were completely subdued by Athelstan; and when this event took place, the cyning of England became the possessor of all the prerogatives and property which the eight kings of the octarchy had enjoyed. It was this concentration of wealth and privileges, and its consequences, which exalted the cyning to that majesty and power which, in the later periods of the Anglo-Saxon dynasty, became attached to the throne. The royal property consisted of lands in demesne in every part of England; and though in the lapse of time he had given large possessions to his friends and followers, yet from many he reserved rents and services which were a great source of wealth and power. The places which occur with the denomination of royal towns, or royal villas, are very numerous, and among these we may notice the name of Windeshore (Windsor), which is still a regal residence. His revenues were the rents and produce of his lands in demesne; customs in the sea-ports; tolls in the markets, and in the cities on sales; duties and services to be paid to him in the burghs, or to be commuted for money; wites, or penalties and forfeitures, which the law attached to certain crimes and offences; heriots from his thanes, and various payments and benefits arising to him on the circumstances. stated in the laws. His dignity and influence were displayed and upheld by FF BOOK his liberality, of which specimens will be given in another X. place. But all the prerogatives and rights of the Anglo-Saxon cyning were definite and ascertained. They were such as had become established by law or custom, and could be as little exceeded by the sovereign, as withheld by his people. They were not arbitrary privileges of an unknown extent. Even William the Conqueror found it necessary to have an official survey of the royal rights taken in every part of the kingdom; and we find the hundred, or similar bodies, in every county making the inquisition to the king's commissioners, who returned to the sovereign that minute record of his claims upon his subjects, which constitutes the Domesday-book. The royal claims in Domesday-book were, therefore, not the arbitrary impositions of the throne, but were those which the people themselves testified to their king to have been his legal rights. Perhaps no country in Europe can exhibit such an ancient record of the freedom of its people, and the limited prerogatives of its ruler. The military force was under the command of the king, while it was assembled. It was rather a militia than a regular army. We have already given some notices of its nature; from a certain quantity of land, a fixed number of soldiers were sent, when the king summoned his people to an expedition, who were bound to serve under him for a certain time, apparently two months. Thus, in Berkshire, "when the king "sent any where his army, one soldier went from every five "hides, and for his victuals or his pay every hide gave him "four shillings for two months. This money was not trans"mitted to the king, but to the soldiers. If any one, after "he was summoned to the expedition, did not go, he for"feited to the king all his land. If any who had the right of staying at home promised to send a substitute, and the "substitute did not go, the penalty was fifty shillings." In Wiltshire, "When the king went on an expedition by land 66 or sea, he had from Wilton burgh either twenty shillings to "feed his buzecarlos, or led one man with him for the honour "of five hides." A curious instance of tenure on military service occurs in Heming's Chartularium. The prior of a monastery gave a villa to a miles for life, on condition of his serving for the monastery for it, in the expeditions by sea and land, which then frequently took place. By the laws, persons were forbidden to join the fyrd, or expedition, without the king's leave. To depart from it without permission, when the king commanded, was still more severely punished. The loss of life, and the forfeiture of all the offender's property, was the consequence. The scip fyrd, or naval expedition, was ordered to be always so accelerated as to be ready every year soon after Easter. It was enacted, that whoever destroyed or injured the people's fyrd scip should carefully compensate it, and to the king the mund.” So early as in the time of Ina, it was provided that if a sith-cund man, having land, neglected the fyrd, he should pay one hundred and twenty shillings, and forfeit his land. If he had no land, he was to pay sixty shillings. A ceorl paid thirty shillings as a fyrd-wite." СНАР. BOOK X. CHAP. IV. The Witena-Gemot. THE gemot of the witan was the great council of the Anglo-Saxon nation; their legislative and supreme judicial assembly. As the highest judicial court of the kingdom, they resembled our present House of Lords. And in those periods, when the peers of the realm represented territorial property rather than hereditary dignities, the comparison between the Saxon witena-gemot and the upper house of our modern parliament might have been more correctly made in their legislative capacity. The German states are recorded by Tacitus to have had national councils,' and the continental Saxons are also stated to have possessed them.* When the cyning was only the temporary commander of the nation, for the purposes of war, whose function ceased when peace returned, the witena-gemot must have been the supreme authority of the nation. But when the cyning. became an established and permanent dignity, whose privileges and power were perpetually increasing till he attained the majestic prerogatives and widely-diffused property which Athelstan and Edgar enjoyed, the witena-gemot then assumed a secondary rank in the state. We will endeavour to delineate its nature and powers with fidelity, adopting no theory, but carefully following the lights which the Saxon documents afford to us. 2 The topics of our inquiry will be these: What its members were styled. Of whom it was composed. By whom convened. The times of its meetings. 2 Tacitus de Murib. Germ. Fabricius Hist. Sax. 64. 69. Chronographus Saxo. p. 115. |