system, (which, so far as pure vassalage is concerned, it very soon did,)* it was inconsistent with the principles of that system to admit within the limits of the gemot any member save the King's vassals; for feodality would itself furnish the nation with a species of representation comprehending, gradatim, all persons within its circle.

The King himself in his origin being appointed to preside cum vitæ necisque potestate over the councils of the people assembled in expeditione, was little else than the warrior;† and being such, it is impossible to separate his comites from him; for we know from Tacitus that it was their number and importance which recommended the election of a military leader.

When, therefore, the official dignity of their lord was prolonged to the term of his life, their own relation towards him and its attendant duties were prolonged also; and the royal vassals, thus permanently participating in the councils of the nation, established in their own person a new order of nobility.

We have in this a further form of aristocracy springing up amongst the aristocrats themselves. For, after the subjugation of Britain, the Government of the country still remained on the war footing; and, as the conduct of an expedition was in the hands of the dux and his comites, so the control over the affairs of the nation during the period of peace was retained by the same persons. The constitution of the witenagemot therefore, from its commencement, admitted feodality as an element into its composition. Though free Germans may have attended its session, it was still an assembly of a Lord and his men,-of the King and his vassals; and the latter were permanent attendants at it, while the others first compromised by disuse, and then wholly lost, a right which, for causes I am about to mention, had become distasteful to them.

The causes which led to this consummation may, without much stretch of theorizing, be thus described :-The German, after the Conquest, was converted into an allodiary, a possessor of an extensive and private estate. This afforded an occupation to his mind and feelings to which they were before unaccustomed, for the allodia in the German father-land may be safely stated to have been restricted to the meanest proportions, and the bulk of the territory was the land of the tribe, subjected to the temporary holding of the occupant under a fiscal or national grant. With such a fleeting property, which could only supply the barest necessaries, improvement of the soil and accumulation of its profits were impracticable. The indifference which it engendered allowed to all men full leisure for an active interference in the national transactions. But the state of things was entirely changed when the broad acres and fertile meadows of Britain, cultivated under the discipline which Cato and Columella had taught, yielded their wealthy products to satiate the wants and gratify the growing luxury of the new masters of the land. An order of interests, till then unknown, claimed a share in the thoughts of the conquerors, and obtained it.

The geban for the meeting of the witan might now go forth; but the thegns whom it summoned, engrossed by their own more intimate and

* Vide a paper inserted in the Gentleman's Magazine, (vol. xxii., p. 361,) headed, "On the Feodality of the Anglo-Saxons."

+ Cæsar de Bello Gallico, c. 23.

Tacit. de M. G., c. 13. Et ipsa plerumque famâ (i. e. si numero et virtute comitatus emineat) bella profligant.

dearer concerns, neglected the political franchise, and were absent from the mal. This would occasion no obstacle to the completion of public affairs: the King, who was there, was not alone. His own vassals had answered the call, and assembled around their Lord. The absence of the others was not missed; for that portion of the nation which was present performed the functions of all.

Such facts continued to occur until the constant and habitual disuse of their right by the allodiaries resulted in the surrender of all political control into the hands of the King and his comites, and the exclusion of the ordinary thegn was legalized and established.*

When once the King and his thegns were in the exclusive possession of the political government of the country, in whatever manner they may have obtained it, no efforts short of rebellion could reinstate the unprivileged thegns. The futility of such an attempt, added to the force of the reasoning which originally influenced their ancestors or themselves, would reconcile them to the loss of their civic privileges. Nothing is more evident in the history of semi-barbarian or semi-civilized nations, than the impracticability of recovering a lost right by any other course than that of tumult or bloodshed. But no such course was chosen by the English thegns. The witenagemot, therefore, became feodal in its integrity, not by an intentional change of its constitution, but because the thegns, who were not under the commendation of the King, declined to attend it.

The lukewarmness of the Germans on the subject of another important civil right is traceable even with historical àccuracy and exactitude, and affords the strongest presumption in favour of the view which has been advanced. Not many generations had passed, both in France and England, before the Germanic aristocrats found their judicial attendance at the county court onerous and distasteful, although its object was the discussion and deliberation of matters which concerned the general interests of their class. In the German fatherland all freemen had assisted at the trials, and participated in the adjudication of the affairs of the gau. The thegns of the shire left the judicial business to the scabini, or elected Judges, whose number was defined and circumscribed.t

We have here a parallel circumstance, which illustrates what reason shows must have occurred in reference to the witenagemot; and the analogy between the two facts cannot be mistaken. The cause of each change is the same, as the animus which prompted one dereliction excited the other also.

That this is a true representation of the case, and that the right to vote in the witenagemot was not an appurtenance to the dignity of every thegn

* The Ealdormen assisted at the gemot, for they were King's thegns. (C. S. A.D. 897.) The Bishops also were present thereat after the conversion of the nation. But they in like manner received their nomination from the crown, and on that ground they attended, although there were other and higher reasons for such attendance. (Tacit. de Morib. Germ. c. xi.) Silentium per sacerdotes, quibus tum et coercendi jus, est imperatur. (Hallam's "View of the State of Europe in the Middle Ages," vol. ii., p. 137.) The earliest and, at the same time, a contemporary authority on the subject of the witenagemot is contained in a passage of the laws of Ethelbert of Kent :-Gif se cyning his leode to him gehateth, &c. The King's leode or "men," his leudes or antrustiones, are alone mentioned, and the construction of the text cannot go beyond them.

+ The reluctance is illustrated in Athelstan's Laws, C, "Be thon the gemot forsitte." See also Savigny's Geschichte, vol. i., c. 4, s. 72, and Michelet's Histoire de la France, liv. ii., c. 2.

in the historic times, may be further demonstrated by facts derived from the Anglo-Saxon laws and annals.

The medeme thegn was tried by his fellow-thegns, the scabini of the county. The King's thegn was amenable only to the judgment of the witenagemot, and the ordinary tribunal of the shire was forbidden to decide on any interest which concerned the King's thegn.* The reason is clear: the Judges of the county court were his inferiors; they were medeme thegns. On the other side, the members of the witenagemot were his peers, they were King's thegns. The trials of Harold and Godwin by witenagemots of Edward the Confessor illustrate the principle, and are familiar to every reader.

The existence of feodality being confessed, such a monstrous contradiction to its principles cannot for a moment be conceived as that the thegns of either of those corls-ministers sworn to aid and relieve their Chief through every emergency-could, in conjunction with the body of royal vassals, convent their liege, at the instance of the King, for whom in their commendation to their own Lord they had reserved no fealty. A vassal was powerless to defend an injured relation against the onslaught of his Lord; and the ties of kindred were weak before the obligation of vassalage. He could stand in no other relation towards his Lord than that of an attached dependant or minister.

Again nothing strikes us more than the diversity of places at which the gemots are held, now at Gloucester, and shortly after at London.† Can we suppose that the general body of freeholders went trooping after the King, neglecting their own private affairs, which were most at their heart, to try a turbulent Eorl, of whose following they were not, or a French Bishop, whose name they could not echo with accuracy? It seems impossible that such should have been the case. With regard to his own men, the King possessed an authority which they could not withstand, and they attended his summons as the witan of the nation.

But, on other grounds, no true generality could belong to the witenagemot. It was wholly inconsistent with the principles of the age, which turned upon the representation which feodality gave, where the highest was presumed to be an exponent of the interests of the lowest. That such a quality as generality was predicted of that Council, was owing only to a reminiscence of a Germanic custom, and to that habit of the mind by which an attribute will remain associated with the name of an object long after the integrity of the idea which subserved it has been separated or lost. In France the same circumstance is equally observable; and, as the historians of that country have not been blinded by the illusion which has prevailed in England, that there never has been a defeasance of popular liberty in that country, they as frankly admit as they have been logically convinced that the general assemblies of the Gallo-Frankish nation were not general.

The brilliant and comprehensive M. Michelet says, "The general assembly of the nation met regularly twice a year to deliberate, the Ecclesiastics on one side, the laymen on the other, on matters proposed to them by the King.. Nevertheless, it was evident that the general assemblies were not general. We cannot suppose that the missi, the Counts and the

*Ethelred's Laws.

And nan man nage nane socne ofercynges thegen buton cyng sylf. This is evidently not an enactment of the time, but the declaration of an existing law. Continental usage also shows it to have been of earlier date. See the quotations from the Saxon Chronicle in the subsequent notes. Histoire de la France, liv. ii., c. 2.

Bishops, ran twice a year after the Emperor (Charlemagne) in the distant expeditions whence he dates his capitularies, and that these legislators took horse and gallopped about all their lives from the Ebro to the Elbe, now crossing the Alps and now the Pyrenees. Still less can we ́suppose that the people did so. In the swamps of Saxony, and in the marshes of Spain, Italy, and Bavaria, there were none but vanquished or hostile populations. If the word 'people' be not here a fallacy, it signifies the army, or else some persons of note who followed the Grandees, Bishops, &c., and represented the great nation of the Franks, as the thirty Lictors in Rome represented the thirty curia in the comitia curiata.”*

The example of the scyrgemot has been invoked to show that the medeme thegn, as he exercised judicial rights, must have possessed those of the legislator also. There is, however, no analogy between the two assemblies, and the right to assist at the one cannot presume, for it certainly did not confer, the privilege of a membership in the other. A consideration of the real nature of the scyrgemot will afford the best confutation of the assertion I have referred to.

In the Mores Germanorum Tacitus makes no discrimination between the various concilia of the Germans, but describes them under one head, which is comprehensive enough to take in the ordinary meeting of the single hundred and pagus, or the extraordinary assembly of all the pagi of a nation convened for warlike purposes.†

Both these assemblies were incorporated into the Anglo-Saxon constitution. We find there the gemot of all the witan, or what is more commonly understood by the expression "witenagemot: " and we also find the gemot of the scyrwitan, or county court. The former gemot is presided over by the King, the permanent dux, and the communis magistratus, while the other remains under the authority of its ancient officer, the Ealdorman. Between these two assemblies there exists an irreconcilable discrepancy, which prevents our drawing any deduction from the one which can be applicable to the other. The discrepancy is the presence of feodality in the witenagemot, and its absence in the scyrgemot.

In regard to the subjects upon which the witenagemot deliberated, it may be mentioned, that the transactions of these councilst had reference to

*The witan who sanctioned the treaty between Alfred and Guthrun were the army (C. S. A. D. 878, and Asser); for the transaction must have been completed on the spot, and immediately after the baptism of the royal Dane. If this be a right view, the witenagemot on its constitution was anything but general; for, in addition to the "little troop" (the few soldiers and vassals of Asser) with whom the King had lurked, the fyrd of Somersetshire, Wiltshire, and part of Hampshire only was present, and six counties of Wessex would remain unrepresented. (Rim. Dun., p. 48.)

+ De Morib. Germ. c. 11. Coeunt, nisi quod fortuitum et subitum inciderit, certis diebus cum aut inchoatur luna aut impletur; nam agendis rebus hoc auspicatissimum initium credunt, &c.

In the preamble to the laws of Wihtred, King of Kent, it is stated, Tha eadigan fundon mid ealra gemedum thas domas, &c. Alfred selected the best of the laws of Offa of Mercia, and Ethelbyrht, of Kent, and presented the code to all his witan, who approved of it. (Ic tha Elfred Westseaxna cyning eallum minum witum thas geowde and hy tha cwathon that him that licode eallum wel to healdenne.) The three great councils of Athelstan are all legislative. Edgar and his witan consult upon the subject of a pestilence (feor cwealm) which had devastated the country, and provide a legislatorial remedy for the evil of a most singular character, namely, a provision for racking rents. This is evidently the same pestilence which the Chronicle alludes to under the year 976 (her was se micla hungor on Angelcynn). The

legislation, the international concerns of war and peace,* the levy of tributes, the preparations of war,† the trial and outlawry of feodal Lords,‡ their reconciliation with royalty, and the legal reinstatement of themselves and followers.§

There is, however, an important exception to the order by which the witenagemots were regulated, which must not be passed over.|| The exception to which I allude is a relaxation of the close nature of the constitution of the gemot, and upon a subject not included in the general summary which I have given.

When an interreign had succeeded the death of a King,―for in the early periods the politic maxim, Le mort saisit le vif, was unknown,-the witan who met to elect¶ a new King were the whole Anglo-Saxon nation, and

same Chronicle, however, fixes Edgar's death in A. D. 975. of any other national disaster of such a nature, we shall be famine of the Chronicle and the pestilence of the gewrit of last year of that Monarch's reign.

As there is no mention right in identifying the Edgar as an event in the

*The terms of the treaty of Alfred and Guthrun were ratified by the witan (ealles angelcymes witan). See Fœdus.

+ S. C. A. D. 992. The King and "ealle his witan" determine on the measures necessary for the shipfyrd; ibid., A. D. 994; in 1002 on the payment of gafol to the Danes, and in A. D. 1052 on a shipfyrd.

Ibid., A. D. 1048. Tha sende se cyng after eallon his witan and bead heom cuman to Gleaweceastre neh after Se'a Maria massan, &c., (for the impeachment of Godwin). In the same year, Tha gerædde se cyning and his witan that man sceolde othre sythan habban ealra gewitena gemot on Lundene to hær festes emnihte, &c., (for the outlawry of Swegen, Godwin, and Harold). A. D. 1055, at a witenagemot holden a week before Midlent, Elfgar eorl was convicted of treason, and outlawed. This was as old as the days of Tacitus, (De M. G., c. 12,) Licet apud concilium accusare quoque et discrimen capitis intendere.

§ S. C. A. D. 1052. Tha cwmth man micel gemot withutan Lundene, and calle tha eorlas and tha betstan men the waron on thison lande, waron on them gemote. Thær bær Godwineeorl up his mal and betealde him ther mid Eadward cyng his hlaford and mid ealle landleodan that he was unscyldig thas the him geled was, and on Harold his sunn and ealle his bearn, &c. Godwin and Harold, with their followers, and also the Queen, were reinstated by the King. At the same gemot Archbishop Robert, and "all the Frenchmen," were outlawed.

There is also a fundamental difference between the occasional meeting of witan to authorize or confirm a fiscal grant, or to assist at the hearing of appeals, and the stated gemot of all the witan assembling at the two determinate periods of the year. The former in some sort resembles the Privy Councils of later times. The doctrine of a committee was, however, well known to the ancient Germans. De minoribus rebus principes consultant, de majoribus omnes. (Tacit. de M. G. c. 11.) In Kemble's Diplomata, vol. i., A. D. 675, a charter of Oswine of Kent, purports to be executed in præsentiâ principum meorum qui ad præsens habere possunt. There is no geban here.

TC. S., A. D. 1015. And tha after his (Ethelred's) ende ealle tha witan the on Lundene waron, and se burhwaru gecuron Eadmund to cyninge. Ibid., A. D. 1036. And sona after his (Cnut's) forsithe was ealra witena gemot on Oxnaforda and Leofric eorl and mæst ealle tha thegenas benorthan Temese and tha lithsmen on Lundene gecuron Harold to healdes ealles Englelandes him. Ibid., A. D. 1041. And ar than he (Harthacnut) bebyrged wære, call folc geceas Eadward to cynge on Lundene. I should observe, that expressions like the foregoing do not occur in the older and more truly Anglo-Saxonic period, but the simple words feng to, or succeeded," are found in their stead. (See C. S., A. D. 901, 941, 946, 978.) These tumultuary elections, if they may be considered as confined to the later and troublous ages of the Anglo-Saxon dynasty, would indicate a return to lawlessness rather than an exertion, however rare or extraordinary, of constitutional power. In ancient Germany the Princes of the land were undoubtedly elected by the general voice of the freemen. Eliguntur in eisdem conciliis et principes, qui jura per pagos vicosque eddant.